Event · M30

Discovery of Konrad Curze

The Discovery of Konrad Curze denotes the finding, upon Nostramo, of the primarch subsequently known by that name, and the events that followed as the Emperor came to claim him for the Great Crusade. Like his nineteen brothers, Curze had been scattered across the galaxy as an infant by forces that remained unexplained, his gestation capsule plunging through the crust of Nostramo, a sunless world sustained by adamantium mining and given over to poverty and criminality, whose wreck came to rest on the inner edge of the Ghoul Stars. He raised himself in and around the city of Nostramo Quintus, surviving by hunting feral animals and beset from childhood by visions of death and ruin that he could not escape. Driven by these visions, Curze became a vigilante, and criminals and corrupt officials began to vanish from the city or were later found mutilated. Within a year crime had fallen to almost nothing, a self-imposed curfew emptied the streets at dusk, and parents warned their children that the Night Haunter would come for them if they misbehaved. He then presented himself before the city’s surviving nobles and was acclaimed its first monarch, ruling Nostramo Quintus with a mixture of temperate judgement and sudden personal vengeance before extending his rule to the world’s four other cities. In time he warned his governors that a fleet belonging to his father was approaching, a warning borne out by Nostraman tradition, which had long foretold that the Emperor’s arrival would herald the world’s downfall. The Emperor came to Nostramo Quintus at the head of a delegation that travelled on foot through the city; accounts differ as to its composition, with the primarchs Rogal Dorn, Lorgar, Ferrus Manus and Fulgrim named in attendance, and one account adding a contingent of Ultramarines. As the procession advanced, the perpetual rain over the city ceased, and the population wept at the sight of their ruler’s father; those who looked directly upon the Emperor were blinded. At the end of the road leading to his palace, Curze collapsed beneath the weight of a vision so terrible that he attempted to claw out his own eyes, and it is said that in that moment he foresaw both the fates awaiting his brothers and the manner of his own death. The Emperor halted him and bade him be at peace, telling him that he had come to take him home; Curze answered only that his name was Night Haunter, and that he already knew what was intended for him. Following this meeting, Curze studied the doctrines of the Adeptus Astartes under the tutelage of Fulgrim before assuming command of the VIII Legion, which he renamed the Night Lords. Nostramo furnished the Legion with recruits drawn from among its population, including Jago Sevatarion, who would rise to prominence within its ranks. With Curze’s departure and the imposition of Administratum governance, the crime that he had suppressed returned to the world, and Nostramo was later destroyed by Curze himself.

See where Discovery of Konrad Curze occurred on the galactic map during the Horus Heresy.

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