Gendor Skraivok

Gendor Skraivok, known as the Painted Count, was a Night Lords captain who wielded a daemon-blade that ultimately took possession of his body. He relied on the blade’s counsel in the conduct of command and regarded this reliance as ambition.

Skraivok assumed Sevatar’s position as first captain in effect, though without legitimate claim to it. After Sotha he served aboard the Nightfall, where Shang hated him and the remainder of the crew distrusted him, and he used the blade to advance his standing. The assault on Terra tested that standing. He mismanaged the attack on the Lion’s Gate spaceport, where the defending Imperial Fists took no account of Nostraman rank, and the blade’s promises of victory proved of little use. He failed publicly and fell from the spaceport.

The fall showed that the daemon had sought a body rather than merely lending a weapon. Nostramo produced officers who treated fear as an instrument of command, whereas Skraivok delegated the work of command to an entity in the Warp. The individual who survived was no longer the man who had held the rank. The title of Painted Count remains, but Skraivok himself is a passenger in his own body.