House Cratax is a now almost-forgotten house of Imperial Knights that once ruled upon the Knight World of Valnum and which was destroyed by the forces of the Thousand Sons Legion during the Great Crusade for its crimes.
Whereas most Knight Worlds that had survived the countless dangers of the Age of Strife and maintained the technological levels to retain the use of their Knight-armours grew to be shining beacons of Humanity, on Valnum this long period of isolation had the opposite effect.
Instead of its great protectors, House Cratax had become the tyrants of their people, ruling them from their dark keeps built upon the bones of the fallen and whose dark dungeons echoed with the screams of the tortured.
Lacking the understanding of the Archenemy that that the Imperium would later possess, the chronicles of the Great Crusade attributed Valnum's fall to "the darkness that lurks in men's hearts", which might constitute a hint that House Cratax had in truth succumbed to the insidious taint of Chaos.
This supposition may be confirmed by the fate suffered by the first Imperial emissaries to reach Valnum: all were strapped to the muzzles of House Cratax's Knights and annihilated by the exiting rounds or cooked alive on the overheating barrels. All died this way save one, who was flayed alive, his skin later used as parchment for the head of House Cratax to write the missive in which he refused to accept Imperial Compliance.
House History[]
Virtually nothing is known of House Cratax' history apart from their encounter with and subsequent purge by the Thousand Sons Legion.
Notable Campaigns[]
- The Levelling of 72-9 (Unknown Date.M30) - With the grim prospect of fighting an entire household of Imperial Knights, few military commanders -- even among the lauded Legiones Astartes -- dared to take up the gauntlet. Not so the Thousand Sons. The task-force assembled under Captain Ohrmuzd was tantalizingly small, a mere 60 warriors, but each one was a powerful psyker. The Thousand Sons assembled in full view of House Cratax's main fortress, which probably considered the small party another group of Imperial emissaries they could easily slaughter. Sending out a single Knight to meet them, the lord of House Cratax soon realized his error. As soon as the Knight came into range he opened fire with his Thermal Cannon, but none of the Thousand Sons fell. The Knight's fury simply evaporated before it could touch the Astartes. In response, a powerful arc of lightning sprang up from the gathered Legionaries and crawled across the Knight, burrowing into its armored plates and melting power conduits. Even before the now inactive suit of Knight-armour could hit the ground, a powerful telekinetic force ripped its head off and provocatively threw it at the gates of House Cratax's fortress. Infuriated, the full strength of House Cratax came rushing out of the gate, guns blazing. But protected by telekinetic shields, the Thousand Sons weathered the attack impassively. Two of the Astartes fell to their knees, blood oozing from the joints of their Power Armour and freezing or boiling in contact with air, but the other warriors did not so much as twitch even as the Knights charged them. It was only at the last moment before contact that Captain Ohrmuzd raised his hand and closed his fingers, his psychic powers boiling the lead Knight's pilot to ashes. One among the Thousand Sons lifted the now limp Knight with the power of his mind and telekinetically cast it into the onrushing Knights behind him, toppling several. As the Thousand Sons unleashed the full might of their psychic powers, House Cratax was annihilated. By the end of the battle -- which lasted less than 500 seconds -- the Thousand Sons had lost only three warriors and House Cratax had ceased to exist. In the wake of this victory, Mechanicum Explorator units descended upon Valnum, stripping it of its technologies and retrieving the fallen Knights. The Knight World ceased to exist. It was stripped of its name, branded with the designator "72-9" and marked for eventual Imperial colonisation, all traces of its former rulers wiped away.
Sources[]
- The Horus Heresy - Book Seven: Inferno (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pg. 157