The crest of House Draconis of Adrastapol
Danial Tan Draconis is both the current leader of House Draconis and the high king of the Knight World of Adrastapol, an elected position which carries with it dominion over the entire Majestis System.
Gaining the title of high king under the difficult circumstances of the Donatos War, where his father, the previous high king, was cut down by those he once called friends, the young Danial Tan Draconis quickly grew into a seasoned leader and a fine tactician. He saved the campaign from ultimate disaster and reclaimed the Industrial World of Donatos Primus in the name of the God-Emperor.
Whereas most rulers of a Knight World are fierce traditionalists, High King Danial can be considered exceptionally progressive for a man of his culture and upbringing.
On Adrastapol, he is the instigator of several profound changes in Adrastapolian society, such as rapid industrialization of the economy and the creation of a true Planetary Defence Force, better housing and living conditions for the serf classes and the institution of true political and social equality between male and female Knights.
While many of these measures proved unpopular with the conservative traditionalists of House Minotos, others, like the Nobles of House Pegasson, approved of it.
In hindsight, it is clear that without the reform measures enacted by High King Danial Tan Draconis, Adrastapol would have fallen to the savage Orks of WAAAGH! Killfist, which very nearly conquered Adrastapol during its Second Ork War.
History[]
Donatos War[]
The Donatos War holds a special place within the chronicles of House Draconis both for the heavy toll it took upon the Adrastapolian Knights and for the glory they gained in bringing this rebellious world back to loyalty to the Emperor. Through the laxity of its rulers, Chaos Cults had taken power on the Industrial World of Donatos Primus, overthrowing the Imperial planetary government in place and killing the local planetary governor with the help of Chaos' most dangerous warriors: a warband of Chaos Space Marines.
Seeking to further his own goals, the enemy leader -- the Word Bearers Dark Apostle Varakh'Lorr -- led his Word Bearers to fight the remaining Loyalist regiments of the Donatosian Planetary Defence Forces and the incorruptible Adeptus Arbites. While vastly outnumbered, the Loyalists were able to hold some cities and to issue a general call for aid before astrotelepathic communication broke off.
The Imperium acted with uncustomary swiftness, despatching a sizeable army of Astra Militarum regiments under the general command of High King Tolwyn Tan Draconis of Adrastapol. Hailing from such different worlds as Cadia, Mubraxis and Tanhollis, these regiments of the Imperial Guard would support the gathered might of no less than six houses of Imperial Knights: the high king's own household, House Draconis, and its allies from Houses Minotos, Chimaeros, Pegasson, Wyvorn and Manticos.
After initial success that left the Imperial forces ready to strike at the very heart of the enemy's strength, the Imperial reconquest of Donatos Primus was put in jeopardy when fully half the contingent of Imperial Knights turned Renegade and followed Viscount Gerraint Tan Chimaeros into secession.
Visibly in league with the Word Bearers, the Renegade Knights of Houses Chimaeros, Wyvorn and Manticos turned their guns upon their former allies who only escaped total destruction by the heroic sacrifice and tactical accumen of High King Tolwyn.
To oppose Gerraint's claim to the throne, the Loyalist survivors chose Tolwyn's son and designated heir, Danial Tan Draconis, as their new king. Danial was a young Knight many saw as unfit for the task ahead. With barely 50 Knights remaining out of several hundred, the remaining Imperial Knights could not assault their enemies head-on but needed to tread carefully.
A limited counterattack turned into another disaster as House Chimaeros succeeded through duplicity and Chaos sorcery in leading the remaining survivors into another ambush that proved equally murderous. Left with little more than two dozen Knights, High King Danial finally assumed the true mantle of the high king of Adrastapol and led his Knights in a desperate but ultimately successful second assault on the Valle Electrum which eliminated all the enemy commanders and paved the way for ultimate Imperial victory.
Second Ork War[]
Barely five standard years after the successful conclusion of the Donatos War, Adrastapol was invaded by the hordes of WAAAGH! Killfist, unleashing what became known as the Second Ork War. The Ork Warlord Gorgrok Killfist of the Deathskulls klan was a far cry from the savage Skarjaw responsible for the First Ork War. Great Ork combat walkers, from Gorkanauts and Morkanauts to Stompaz and even Gargants, marched behind hordes of Orks in blue warpaint; whole squadrons of captured Imperial tanks kicked up dust alongside the Orks' own ramshackle creations.
Where before the Knights of Adrastapol had stood united, they were now divided, for the wounds of Donatos had been left to fester and while the relations between House Draconis and House Pegasson remained cordial, House Minotos had become increasingly reclusive and only reluctantly accepted the high king's progressive ideas in which new technology and ways of life had been introduced to Adrastapol during his reign.
While High King Danial Tan Draconis' attempt to modernise the planetary defences and infrastructure of Adrastapol during his short reign had considerably bolstered his world's defences, the reluctance of House Minotos to comply with these initiatives left the Knight World vulnerable. With the Minotane portion of the new planetary defence network far from complete, the Orks of WAAAGH! Killfist had easily gained a foothold on Adrastapol. Given fair warning of the Orks' arrival by the unexpected appearance of Inquisitor Tane Massata of the Ordo Malleus, the defenders mustered themselves for war and evacuated the countryside. While their actions inflicted significant casualties on the Orks, the Knight houses of Adrastapol soon found themselves cut off from each other and beleaguered in their primary fortresses.
Swarmed by the Greenskins' sheer numbers and defeated on the field of battle, House Minotos was forced to fall back to its mightiest strongholds and fortresses, abandoning the countryside to the xenos. Further to the north, House Draconis had initial success at countering the Orks' orbital landings. Draconis forces succeeded in destroying several Rokz in surgical strikes and annihilated several smaller warbands before they could coalesce into the unstoppable green tide of a characteristic Ork assault. But soon even House Draconis was forced to retreat in face of the enemy's numerical superiority.
As the Greenskins landed in ever greater numbers, the Knights' secondary fortresses either had to be evacuated or were overrun. First House Minotos, then House Draconis were forced to fall back to the safety of their ancestral keeps, the Iron Maze and the Draconspire, respectively, both of which quickly came under siege. Defending the highlands and the mountainous plateaus of the Adraspotine Mountains, House Pegasson fared little better.
Those townships that had not heeded the high king's order for evacuation were invariably razed to the ground and their population slaughtered by the bloodthirsty Orks -- and several fortresses suffered the same fate. With House Draconis and House Minotos pinned inside their ancestral keeps and the Orks closing on the territories of House Pegasson, a lone Imperial vessel braved the guns of the Ork armada to deposit a small relief force of Imperial Knights on Adrastapol, a band of Freeblades calling themselves "the Exiles." Their leader was none other than Luk Tan Chimaeros, the famed Knight of Ashes. Making planetfall on the edge of the Pegassine lands, the Exiles were able to establish a short-lived communication with besieged High King Danial Tan Draconis who tasked them to gather what forces they could and hurry to the relief of House Minotos. Together they might stand a chance of breaking the siege of the Draconspire which had entered its third solar day.
The communication was abruptly cut short on the high king's end, leaving the Exiles to fear for the worst. As they would later determine, Warlord Gogrok Killfist's personal Gargant had unleashed some kind of weapon upon the Draconspire which caused all electric devices to stop functioning, leaving the defenders to fight the Orks with blades, autoguns and antique crossbows. Tasked with lifting the siege of the Draconspire, the Knight of Ashes and his small army of Exiles travelled to the seat of House Pegasson, the Eyrie, where they were received by Marchioness Lauret Tan Pegasson.
Quelling the dissension within her own Exalted Court, the marchioness agreed to personally accompany the Knight of Ashes and pledged the support of her 50 Imperial Knights and the entire Pegasson Air Force, reputedly the finest pilots on Adrastapol. Filled with a great sense of urgency, the Exiles first rallied the Eyrie -- the principal fortress of House Pegasson -- where their small band was strengthened by several lances of Pegassine Knights. Thanks to the impressive numbers of the Pegassine air force the small army was transported by macro-landers to the plains of Minosaal. There the Imperial reinforcements reached House Minotos principal fortress, the Iron Maze, just as the Orks penetrated its outer defences. Disembarking on Heroes' Ridge, a tall hill overlooking the Ironfields, Marchioness Lauret led her Knights in a daring shock-assault, trapping the Orks between her force and the walls of the Iron Maze whilst her household air force made sure the Orks could not escape this hammer and anvil tactic. Despite heavy casualties, by the end of the afternoon the siege of the Iron Maze was lifted and the victorious Knights of House Minotos, humbled by the support of House Pegasson and the determination of the Knight of Ashes, joined the counterattack.
Joined by the surviving Knights of House Minotos, the army quickly redeployed with the aid of the Pegassine air force and pressed north to break the siege of the Draconspire which was entering its last desperate stage, as the survivors of House Draconis had been pressed back to a handful of key locations. The Exiles, Minotane and Pegassine forces attacked Killfist's great horde as it lay siege to the Draconspire where Imperial resistance was on the verge of collapse. Just as the Knight of Ashes and the Adrastapolian Knights launched their attacks, Killfist's personal retinue of Meganobz broke through the final ring of fortifications.
As High King Danial Tan Draconis duelled Warlord Killfist in the ruins of his throne room, the relief force launched their attack on the unsuspecting Orks, the din of their battle-horns momentarily outmatching the clamor of combat. While Danial ultimately killed the Ork warlord, this was only possible because the Knight of Ashes had broken through and routed the Orks in the throne room. Facing a fresh army and destabilised by the news of their warlord's demise, the Ork resistance began to crumble.
Seeking to rout the enemy, High King Danial -- still bleeding from the wounds suffered in the battle with Killfist -- led a mounted sortie of House Draconis Knights from the Draconspire, for in the shadow of Killfist's towering Gargant the Orks were beginning to rally. Worse, the Gargant's energy-stealing weapon was being readied to fire again.
With pinpoint accuracy, the Marchioness Lauret Tan Pegasson coordinated her house's firepower on the Gargant's weapon arm, annihilating it. With their mightiest weapon destroyed, the Orks finally fled the battlefield, pursued by the vengeful Knights of the gathered Knight houses of Adrastapol. Though the fighting would continue for many solar months to come, the Orks' hold on Adrastapol had been broken, and a new unity of purpose was forged between the three victorious Knight houses.
For her part, Adrastapol's other great hero of the Donatos War, First Knight Jennika Tan Draconis, played little part in the fighting but proved to be no less a saviour of her world than her brother the high king and the Knight of Ashes. When the Orks of WAAAGH! Killfist had fallen upon her homeworld, Jennika Tan Draconis reluctantly decided not to fight the invaders, instead attaching herself to Inquisitor Tane Massata who had arrived on the eve of this Second Ork War.
This decision ultimately saved Adrastapol from destruction, for her exemplary conduct during the Inquisitor's mission made him reconsider his judgement of Adrastapol as a world hopelessly corrupted by Chaos and abort the Exterminatus action he had already ordered unleashed upon the Knight World.
Wargear[]
- Oath of Flame (Knight Errant) - One of the eldest suits of Knight armour still in service within House Draconis, Oath of Flame was built from original STC data during Adrastapol's colonisation by Mankind in the Age of Technology. Oath of Flame is a venerable Knight Errant that was presented to Danial Tan Draconis on the day of his elevation to Knighthood. Originally equipped with a Reaper Chainsword and a Thermal Cannon, a configuration it featured throughout the entire Donatos War, it is believed that as the personal armour of the ruling High King of Adrastapol, Oath of Flame now might bear the ancestral Tempest Blade of the high king's office in lieu of its Reaper Chainsword, the very same blade that was retrieved from the fallen Knight of the usurper, Gerraint Kar Adrastapol on Donatos Primus. Gerraint himself had stolen it from the mangled remains of Fyreheart, High King Tolwyn Tan Draconis' Knight. To better protect their liege, the Sacristans of House Draconis fitted Oath of Flame with an enhanced Ion Shield generator which is vastly more powerful than that of a standard Knight.
See Also[]
Sources[]
- Kingsblade (Novel) by Andy Clark
- Knightsblade (Novel) by Andy Clark