Towards the end of the Age of Strife, the Emperor crafted 20 magical clone babies that he called Primarchs. The forces of Chaos didn’t like the Emperor very much, so they kidnapped his magical clone babies and threw them randomly all over the galaxy, and the Emperor had all kinds of adventures finding them again. This thread is about the 16th magical clone baby the Emperor recovered – Konrad Curze, Primarch of the 8th Legion.

Konrad landed on the planet Nostramo, a planet with great abundance of rare metals. Nostramo was tidally locked with its moon, and both were tidally locked with the sun, putting Nostramo in a permanent solar eclipse. But that’s okay, all the smoke and toxic run-off from the vast and countless refineries blanketed the planet in thick smog that kept people from seeing the eclipsed sun anyway. Nostramo was a lot like pre-Batman Gotham City, on a planetary scale; a wealthy elite controlled all power and kept it that way through the brutality of hired goons.

That is, until li’l Konrad landed. That year, in one of the cities of Nostramo, corrupt bureaucrats and oppressive nobles and so many hired goons started turning up savagely dismembered. Through the entire long, hot summer this would continue until the “Night Haunter”, as the press had dubbed the killer, was the de facto king of the city. Only a few nobles survived to act as the Night Haunter’s mouthpiece, but on the bright side, the Night Haunter’s city was a paragon of order and fairness. People no longer lived in fear of random violence as the only violence was Night Haunter’s horrible murders of anyone who broke the law.

It would not be long before the Night Haunter ruled the entire planet, as the nobles of the other cities quickly got their act together to avoid being brutally and savagely beaten to death by Night Haunter. Konrad, who suffered from nightmarish prophetic visions at all hours, warned his subjects that the true ruler of humanity was coming; and it came to pass that the Emperor did land on Nostramo. The Emperor’s holy light blinded those citizens who looked upon him directly, and lit up the rain-soaked streets in a way that they hadn’t seen in thousands of years.

The Emperor gazed upon his son and said, “Konrad Curze, be at peace, for I have arrived and intend to take you home.” Night Haunter was then overwhelmed by intense and horrifying visions of the Horus Heresy and the fate of the galaxy, and collapsed in convulsions. When he regained himself, he met his father’s eyes, and dropped this baller line, “That is not my name, Father. I am Night Haunter, and I know full well what you intend for me.“

Night Haunter quickly adapted to Imperial doctrine and his legion became known for their brutal efficiency in conquering worlds. Because the Emperor’s boys were just as dysfunctional as the Emperor himself, Night Haunter’s brothers would either scold him for being so ridiculously violent, or taunt him for the soul-shattering nightmare visions that Konrad endured at all hours. After Konrad had left Nostramo, the nobility of the great cities almost immediately reverted to their old ways, and instead of sending their best and brightest to reinforce the Legion, they sent criminals and murderers and non-Night Haunter terrorists. When Night Haunter realized this had happened, he came to hate his Legion, and in a cold rage, had the planet Nostramo destroyed in a massive planetary bombardment.

When Horus started his rebellion, Night Haunter and his Night Lords legion technically joined up with Horus, but really it was more like they were let off the chain and began a spree of terror and murder across the galaxy. While his Legion was rampaging, Night Haunter himself had developed a weird obsession with his brother Lion El’Johnson. They would play a deadly game of cat and mouse throughout the war.

After many gruesome adventures, Night Haunter was, eventually, brought down by the Imperial assassin, M’shen. Precognitive Night Haunter had known, his entire life, the very hour and minute of his death at M’shen’s hands, and Night Haunter’s last words are still hotly debated amongst Imperial scholars: “Your presence does not surprise me, Assassin. I have known of you ever since your craft entered the Eastern Fringes. Why did I not have you killed? Because your mission and the act you are about to commit proves the truth of all I have ever said or done. I merely punished those who had wronged, just as your false Emperor now seeks to punish me. Death is nothing compared to vindication.“

A little therapy, a little understanding, and a little patience might have seen Konrad’s life turn out very differently. Folks, lets take his cautionary tale to heart and have a thread with understanding and patience and a minimum of gruesome vengeance.