The Necrons
"A terrible darkness is descending upon the galaxy, and we shall not see it end in our lifetime."
The Necrons are a mysterious xenos species of humanoid, robotic skeletal warriors who have slumbered in their stasis tombs for more than 60 million Terran years, though they have begun to awaken. They are the soulless creations and former servants of the ancient C'tan, the terrible star gods of the Aeldari mythos. The Necrons are unimaginably ancient, even predating the birth of the Aeldari. They are beginning to awaken from their tomb worlds, however, as the galaxy is ripe for the conquest and restoration of the Necron empire since the vanishing of the Ancient Ones more than 60 million standard years ago.
However, out of a desire for vengeance against the happier, longer-lived, ancient xenos called the Elders, and the cunning of the god-like intelligences known as the C'tan, the Necrons have shed their original organic forms and lost all forms of compassion . Instead, they have become ruthless, immortal killing machines determined to reassert their dominion over the galaxy.
All Necrons, from the lowest warriors to the most regal lords, are driven by one ultimate goal: to restore their ancient ruling dynasties to glory and restore their dominion to the galaxy as it was in the olden days. That was the edict encoded in the minds of the Necrons long ago, and it is a command so fundamental to their being that it cannot be denied. It is no easy task, however, as the Necrons awaken from their tomb worlds to find the galaxy of the 41st Millennium, as recorded by the Imperial calendar, greatly altered. Many tomb worlds no longer exist, destroyed by cosmic catastrophes or alien invasion. Others are damaged, their buried legions plagued by slow madness or ground to dust by the irresistible onset of entropy.
Degenerate alien species crouch among the ruins of what remains of the Necron Tomb Worlds, unaware of the size they besmirch with their upstart presence. But there is no salvation to be found in such ignorance. The immortals have come to take back their lands, and the living are being swept away.
Over time, severed limbs are reattached, armor plates reknit, and shattered mechanical organs rebuilt. The only way to ensure a Necron's destruction is to overwhelm its self-repair ability and deal damage so massive that its ancient regeneration systems can't keep up.
Even when irreparable damage occurs, the Necron will often simply "run out" - an automated Viridian teleportation beam transporting it to the safety of the Stasis Crypts, where it will remain stored until repairs can be made. The sciences used to accomplish such feats remain a mystery to outsiders, for the Necrons do not share their secrets with lesser species and have set contingencies to prevent their superior technologies from falling into the wrong hands. Should a fallen Necron Warrior fail to expire, it will self-destruct and be consumed by emerald light.
Outwardly, this looks little different from the glow of teleportation, leaving the enemy wondering if the Necron was finally destroyed or just retired to its grave. Defeating the Necrons is therefore always a weak thing, and a hard-fought triumph offers little certainty of ultimate victory. To the Necrons, defeats are minor inconveniences—harbingers of future triumphs, nothing more. Immortality has brought patience; The dangers that the Necrons survived in ancient times hold the lesson that their people can overcome any resistance if they have the will to try. And if the Necrons possess only one quality, it is a will as indomitable as adamantium.
Necrons in the 41st Millennium
The Necrons are still more of a shadowy presence than a full-fledged force in the contemporary galaxy. They strike out of nowhere without warning, wreaking havoc and disappearing before larger reinforcements can arrive. They seem to attack out of nowhere and often just spawn in almost any location in the galaxy, no matter how well defended. Once in the recent past, they landed on Mars, simply slipped unnoticed by the Imperial Navy fleets protecting the solar system, and eventually cast doubt on the impregnable status of Terra itself.
The Necrons reached the surface of the Red Planet and explored its subterranean Noctis Labyrinthus, perhaps in search of one of their C'tan masters believed to be the entity known in the legends of the Adeptus Mechanicus as the dragon of the Mars is known before they were destroyed by the Agents of the Empire. However, this incident is a closely guarded secret within the Empire of Mankind, which greatly fears that the Necrons could awaken the entity that could be the C'tan called the Void Dragon inhabiting a stasis tomb beneath the sands of Mars.
At the same time, the Empire was unable to capture a Necron to learn their secrets; Entire Necron forces simply vanish into thin air with their phase technology - and they always take their "dead" with them. Any Necrons that fell in battle can be repaired and revived there, so their casualties have been minimal so far. Should a Necron be utterly annihilated in battle, they are truly beyond spawn or repair, but often so little survives that scientists of living races have nothing to study.
The Necrons may have infiltrated the Empire to some degree. Their elite anti-psyker squad, the Pariahs, are an unholy hybrid of human mutant and Necron technology. Some Adeptus Mechanicus scholars believe that the Necrons manipulated the Pariah gene into the human gene pool over 60 million Terran years ago. This gene has since manifested itself in the agents of the Culexus Temple, the Officio Assassinorum's specialized anti-psionic assassins. Recently, however, there has been a dramatic decline in the use of Necron pariahs in Necron armies, and the Ordo Xenos believe these troops may not have proved as effective as Necron commanders once hoped, and out of the Necron dynasties expire. order of battle.