The Nightbringer

The Nightbringer is among the most feared of the C'tan, the Star-God of death, endings, and the primal terror of oblivion. In the youth of the galaxy this being fed upon the deaths of countless creatures, and it took upon itself an aspect so dreadful that its very image was seared into the racial memory of every mortal species. It is said that the universal figure of Death, the hooded reaper bearing a great scythe, is no mere symbol, but a true memory of the Nightbringer's passage.

So thorough was its harvest that the Nightbringer deliberately cultivated the fear of death in every nascent race, that their terror might season the feast to come. Like all the Star-Gods it was betrayed and broken by the Necrons, who shattered its essence into shards after the War in Heaven and bound the fragments to serve their dynasties as living weapons of unimaginable power.

Even diminished and enslaved, a shard of the Nightbringer remains a horror beyond mortal reckoning, its scythe reaping souls as easily as a farmer reaps wheat. Where it walks, warriors feel the cold certainty of their own ending settle upon their hearts, and even the ancient Aeldari recall the dread this creature once inspired. The Nightbringer is death given form and hunger: the shadow that has haunted every living thing since the first creature drew breath and knew, at last, that it must someday die.