Urien Rakarth

Urien Rakarth is a Haemonculus Ancient of the Prophets of Flesh, a Drukhari cabal of Commorragh renowned for its mastery of flesh-craft. Among the oldest of his order, he is recorded as having died and been resurrected many times over, a span some traditions extend back to before the Fall of the Aeldari. Rumour, though never confirmed, credits him as the first practitioner of the Haemonculus craft, the dark art from which the Prophets of Flesh and their kindred cabals descend.

Rakarth treats resurrection as a controlled procedure rather than a crisis. Each new body is grown from a hidden bone kept in reserve, and each incarnation carries forward some remnant of the one it replaces. Over so many cycles these accumulated remnants have begun to produce irregularities of temperament and memory, so that the Rakarth encountered in one era is not reliably the same in intent as the one before it. He has largely withdrawn from the political contests of Commorragh’s court, leaving that arena to Archons and rival Haemonculi, and instead pursues pain itself as a field of continuing experiment.

His workshops are best known for producing Wracks, the augmented thralls who serve as bodyguards and assistants to Haemonculi, and Grotesques of unusual size and durability. Archon Vect, ruler of Commorragh, continues to make use of him whenever a pocket dimension is required to hold a reserve of captured slaves, a service that indicates Rakarth’s continuing practical value to the city’s rulers despite his instability. This arrangement places him in the orbit of Commorragh’s highest power without binding him to it, a position few Haemonculi manage to sustain across so many incarnations.

In the present era Rakarth is reported to be seeking Primaris Space Marine subjects for study and the whereabouts of Yvraine, the Emissary of the Ynnari. Accounts differ on his purpose: it may be research into the resilience of Adeptus Astartes physiology, a service rendered to Vect, or a private scheme bound up with his fascination with godhood. Because each incarnation of Rakarth may carry a different configuration of memory and ambition, no single account of his aims can be treated as settled, and his story remains attached to Commorragh and the Prophets of Flesh as much as to any one of his bodies.