Editing Nobledark Imperium Primarchs (section)

== Konrad Curze ==

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%"> '''''The Unforgivable:'''''

Konrad Curze was a man that could politely be described as driven — and accurately be described as ''a frothing at the mouth lunatic.'' Of all the Primarchs, none of the appointments were more questioned than his.

Curze had grown up in the final days of the Age of Strife in the rambling under-city of Tordashimya in the Pan-Pacific Empire, along with all of the horrors and excesses that this entailed. To say that this had an effect on the deepest levels of his mind would be a woeful understatement, and he saw the fledgling Imperium as only existing as a means of imposing some sort of order and some basic justice on a world that was in dire need of both. And he saw it as his duty to make it happen. Sadly, his means of doing so were as crude and brutal as those who he sought to bring to justice; after all, the quickest way to gain obedience is through fear, and the easiest way to rebuild a society is to behead it and tear apart the body.

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Despite — or, some whisper in hushed tones, ''because of'' — the Steward's insistence that he change his tact, Curze became stubborn and resentful; his predations becoming ever more brutal. Realising the futility of the attempts to bring the man to heel, the Steward instead directed him instead to the worlds of no hope — worlds so broken that they could never be brought into the Imperium. Worlds he couldn't make worse. It was on one of these worlds, Nostramo, that the Night Haunter found some strange joy. If he could bring a world such as this — so broken, so unspeakably wretched as this — to the light of civility, then he would be vindicated before the whole galaxy. If a world so cursed by both gods and men could be rebuilt, there was nothing that could not be. 

The subjugation of that world was the harrowing stuff of nightmares. The Dark Eldar could barely have done better to make every day-cycle a new nightmare; indeed, some claim that they were there to simply soak up the suffering as a welcome break to their long campaigns of torture and enslavement. But in time Curze, now infamous as the Night Lord of Nostramo, was vindicated. His people took control of every position of authority, while the malcontents were quickly ''disappeared'', often winding up dead and mutilated along with their families and friends, whether man, woman, elder or child. Reprehensible though it was, order was brought to a chaotic world — and order began to spread, as for each world his legion inflicted such unspeakable horrors on, ten more surrendered without raising arms. Hideous, brutal examples were made of the worst, but through them the more virtuous were saved.




Soon enough, the dark whispers of Chaos began to tempt his mind, the fallen Eldar of the Crone Worlds assailing his dreams with tantalising offers of untold riches and endless power. Yet every offer was found wanting; every envoy cut down, every promise met with scorn. They had made the mistake of assuming that one such as Curze had become would revel in their depraved debaucheries, without considering that he would find them every bit as repulsive as other, better, people found him. He was a monster, this was true, but he was a monster who ripped and tore and tortured in the name of order; by the Emperor he was the ''Imperium's'' monster and nobody else's.

Some, of course, fell. Younger soldiers who had maybe joined the cause for glory, for strength, or even for mere self-gratification. But the vast majority of them were, like their Primarch, disgusted by the offerings of Chaos — horrified by the fall of their battle-brothers, and insulted at the implication that they and the forces of Chaos served the same ends. For the entirety of the War of the Beast, the Lords of the Night could be found sowing discord and misery amongst the fleets and the armies of Damnation. For every horror the invaders committed more was inflicted upon them, and for every innocent killed by the Ruinous Powers the Night Lords would swear vengeance on a dozen daemons.

Few of that despised Legion ever fought on the soil of Old Earth, and never were they allowed to forget this. But because of their actions the forces of damnation were weakened and poorly focused, with one eye always over their shoulder. Even if their military successes had counted for naught; even if they had not managed to save a single soul, '''they had made Chaos fear ''them'''''. And that was an achievement beyond all others.




In the aftermath of that war, many small provincial worlds and systems tried to strike out on their own, away from the light of the Throne, often being brought back by force. None of Curze's worlds, however, had ever tried to secede — after all, they knew both sides of the Imperium's protection, and had seen first hand the wrath that the Night Lords could unleash. If that was what they would to in ''defence'' of the Imperium, what they would do to willing turncoats did not bear thinking about.

In his later years, Curze was well aware that he had become everything he had despised in his youth, and he sometimes derived a black humour from this; that he had finally rediscovered across the galaxy what he had first learned in his youth on a small Terran kingdom: that the ends do not, and cannot, justify the means. In the year 243.M32 he had himself tried and executed for war crimes as the ultimate testament that none were beyond judgement. He had deemed himself to have outlived his usefulness, and to some extent he was right; although the Imperium could tolerate a useful monster, it should have no love for one.

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