Nemesor Zahndrekh

Nemesor Zahndrekh is a Necron noble of the Sautekh Dynasty who commands its armies while believing the ancient Wars of Secession are still being fought. The rank of nemesor denotes a senior military commander within the Necron nobility, and Zahndrekh is recorded as one of the dynasty’s field leaders during its reawakening in the forty-first millennium. He is distinguished from other Necron commanders by a persistent fault in his reasoning, which leaves him treating the conflicts of the Necrontyr age as an ongoing present rather than a distant past.

The fault is generally attributed to damage sustained during the long sleep of the tomb worlds, and accounts differ on how much of his earlier career survives intact. In consequence he regards the forces he meets as rebellious dynasties of the old civil wars rather than as humans, Orks or other species, and he is recorded as favouring formal terms, honourable engagement and the acceptance of surrender where other Necron commanders pursue annihilation. His constant companion is Vargard Obyron, a warrior of his household, who is said to understand his lord’s condition, to shield him from contrary evidence and to manage the practical direction of his campaigns. Zahndrekh serves within the Sautekh command structure led by Imotekh the Stormlord, whose resurgent dynasty provides the wider setting for his operations.

On the Orrery, Zahndrekh is anchored to Gidrim, the world from which he is associated with the dynasty’s present-era campaigning. His significance lies less in any single victory than in what he illustrates about the Necrons: a species whose long dormancy has left even its commanders altered, and whose more rational leaders, such as Imotekh and, in a different manner, Trazyn the Infinite, are contemporaries pursuing very different courses. No fixed date of his awakening or exhaustive list of his engagements is established here, and the page records only what is consistently attested.