Mag'ladroth
- The Void Dragon's Hidden Identity
"Now this is the plan: GET YOUR ASS TO MARS!"
- – Emps telling himself to go deal with the Void Dragon, 084.M3
"I think, and my thoughts cross the barrier into the synapses of the machine—just as the good doctor intended. But what I cannot shake, and what hints at things to come, is that thoughts cross back. In my dreams the sensibility of the machine invades the periphery of my consciousness. Dark. Rigid. Cold. Alien. Evolution is at work here, but just what is evolving remains to be seen."
Introduction[edit]
Mag'ladroth, more commonly called The Void Dragon (or possibly the Omnissiah??) is one of the main C'tan along with the Deceiver and the Nightbringer. He is the most powerful C'tan, and is most likely one of the only C'tan to have evaded capture by the Necrons has been sharded and enslaved like the rest of his fellow-C'tan [a full, unsharded Void Dragon would in all likelihood make the Ruinous Powers shit themselves, which should put his power level into perspective]. The Void Dragon's "divine" portfolio includes destruction, mastery over machines, and technology. During the War in Heaven his warriors were by far the strongest and they could electrocute fools like the other Emperor from Star Wars. He made several gadgets to help shut down assholes who made use of the Warp. The pylons formerly keeping the Eye of Terror in check are the most notable and also the shootiest.
It's hard to overstate how insanely powerful Mag'ladroth is. He survived a brawl with multiple Blackstone Fortresses, of all things. Y'know, the ones who can cause suns to explode. A weak, small shard of the Dragon kicked the absolute shit out of several Necron worlds when they tried to snatch it up. To put how terrifying this bastard is into perspective: the Deceiver, who was unafraid of talking to psychos like the Nightbringer and the Outsider and convincing them that cannibalism was a spiffy idea, actively avoid this ballin' Dragon. Fortunately he is not all-powerful. The Void Dragon, like all C'tan, is (more) vulnerable to the power of the warp, which is perhaps why the Empra was able to kick his ass. With the Master of Mankind confined to the Golden Throne as he constantly battles the gods of Chaos though, the Void Dragon is probably the most powerful being in the setting. This guy is not to be fucked with.
He's also confirmed to be the new focal C'tan in the 9th edition, having had a preview of a C'tan model with wings and a tail....which isn't at all dragony, of course. (He is!) This might be bad news for the Imperium given the implication he is connected to/is the Omnissiah.
Either the Void Dragon sides with humanity due to our technological prowess and valiant war against Chaos convincing it that we’re it’s best bet for power and victory, or we’ll have to fight a war to determine who the true Omnissiah is and probably end up with the Eldar being “slightly” shocked we’ve had a pet C’tan this whole time.
Knowing 40k, the event will end with the Astronomican literally eating the Void Dragon and being absorbed by the Emperor. One of its shard on Maiden World Silentia was unleashed by the Necron Arotepk Dynasty in M41, it proceed to lay waste to them and dozen worlds. The Crypteks managed to seal it up again.
Identity[edit]
The Void Dragon, Omnissiah, and Dragon of Mars are most likely all the same creature. It helps to compare what we know for sure - The Void Dragon has some kind of supernatural(?) power over machines, and his location is unknown. The Dragon of Mars was roughed up by the Emperor before the Age of Strife and sealed inside Mars. The Omnissiah is worshipped by the Adeptus Mechanicus as the god of machines. Worship creates gods, yet somehow the widely venerated machine god does not seem to exist in the warp. C'tan think the warp is just the worst thing ever.
So, common traits - Most importantly, Voidy and the Omnissiah are both ancient demigods who control machines. Voidy and the Dragon of Mars are both extremely dangerous "dragons". Dragon of Mars and Omnissiah are both on/in/of Mars.
And what other people think - Some of the Mechanicus believe that their cult actually worships the Void Dragon, and treat the Necrons as heralds. The Necrons think something very, very important is inside of Mars, as they suicidally charged straight into Mars. Some CSMs think something deadly and destructive is inside of Mars. You think that all three entities are the same. Also, the mentioned entity could be a Warp-based reflection set in motion by the Emperor, the C'Tan are unable to exist in the Warp, but the myth of Omnissiah and the subtle manipulation of machines by the Void Dragon have created a Warp-God of sorts, kept alive by all the rituals and faith of the Adeptus Mechanicus and many other people who believe in Machine Spirits and such.
If we were to Venn diagram all these facts together, we wouldn't have much in the center for all three entities, but enough exist in the other intersections that any other explanation seems unlikely. With all of these hints piled up, it has become pretty clear that "those guys" are actually just one guy.
The Man of Iron from the Blackstone Fortress adventures claims to have met the Omnissiah, that the Emperor is not the Omnissiah, and that the true Omnissiah would be disgusted by the Mechanicus. The Necron Lord in the Mechanicus game was disgusted by the fusion of machine and flesh that the Tech-Priests are. Perhaps this implies a connection and that the Void Dragon might not approve of their form of worship.
However, it should be acknowledged as well that any sort of confirmation of the Void Dragon actually being the Omnissiah is far from certain. Seemingly in a spirited attempt to confuse matters further, newer fluff from the latter Horus Heresy novels prior to the Siege of Terra, as well as others set in the more current era of the Dark Imperium have delved into this somewhat. In particular, Titandeath depicts the death of a loyalist Titan principe in the moment that her soul is passing into the ether. Just when it looks as though she will be overwhelmed by Warp Predators or claimed by Chaos, she is saved by the appearance of the the Omnissiah, who just so happens to be radiating a glowing golden aura. Again, this is in the Warp, and the golden aura welcomes the soul of one who died in his service, into his domain. Who does that sound like? And not to belabor the point, but to be frank, for all intents and purposes, gold + warp = Big-E. It's also made clear both in a few of the Siege of Terra novels but many more set following the return of Guilliman that the vast majority of the Mechanicus at large truly regard the Emperor as the Omnissiah, not the least of whom being none other than Belisarius Cawl himself, and while there are as ever eccentric outliers, they are very much in the minority. While not definitive proof of course, it's worth noting all the same.
That's Awkward[edit]
This has profound and also profoundly weird implications that get weirder the longer you examine them. The first is that the Adeptus Mechanicus are heretics of the highest level, (which they already basically are since they actively try to be as far from their own sacred humanity as possible, at least chaos represents normal human traits only taken to dark extremes, and xenos aren't human in the first place so according to the Imperium are already inherently bad) who worship an actual xenos demigod. The second and perhaps even worse possibility is that Machine Spirits are the working of the Dragon, suggesting that he is a big part of what even allows Imperium technology to work. Or, perhaps if he's having a bad day, to not work.
Of course the implications are even worse for the Dark Mechanicus, since being a Chaos-worshipping cult who just found out that your god hates Chaos would generate quite the Cogitator Dissonance.
So if the Dragon woke up and decided to lay the crackdown on the Imperium, the best case is that the Imperium would lose a bunch of the guys who make and repair their tech along with control of Mars. The worst case scenario is that all of their complicated machinery would start attacking them Men of Iron 2: Electric Boogaloo.
Strangely, this means that the most powerful user of physical forces and the most powerful user of psychic forces are imprisoned almost right next to each other. This also means that the Corpse Emperor's fancy life-support machine is a stone's throw away from a being who could probably turn it off with a thought, except that presumably the Emperor is psychically protecting it. This might not be as Grimdark as it first appears - while the Dragon might just be super pissed and waiting for an opportunity to press the eject button on the golden throne, in the long run the Dragon has more to gain from protecting the Emperor. As we know, the Emperor is holding back the forces of Chaos, and the C'tan despise Chaos above all else. So grab some popcorn and sneak into the Imperial Palace to see if some seriously weird cooperation takes place.
It is also likely that the only reason Big-E's golden toilet continues to function is because good old VD has realised the fact that Emps currently functions as a cork for an infant eye of terror and as such has deemed it a bad idea to try offing him because the consequences of such an action would most likely result in him getting buttfucked by the forces of Chaos. Or it is legitimately supporting mankind, because Emps made a deal with it to give its followers immunity to inquisition.
But the sad truth is that the VD is making sure the Golden Throne flushes only to prevent Sigmar shit from overflowing into 40k...
Speaking of Sigmar this relationship seems an awful lot like a Grimdark one of Sigmar and his dragon friend. Perhaps it wasn’t the Mechanicum the Emperor went to Mars to recruit...and he did visit the Void Dragon while there. The Emperor knows how to use belief and ritual to create Warp entities and could probably tie that to the Void Dragon, protecting it and giving it access to the Warp in exchange for fealty.
And all of this only works if the Void Dragon is still relatively self-aware. As we've seen from other shards, that's not guaranteed- it might not even be aware of its current condition.
Babysitter[edit]
On a more derpy note, for some reason it can talk to human children, like Gamera, and sometimes involuntarily gives them power to heal and manipulate machinery. Soooo... the Void Dragon might secretly be in fact be the guardian of children all along? Just picture a cosmic being from beyond conventional science having a soft spot for kids would generate much lulz and pedophile jokes on /tg/. Or maybe, just maybe, humanity earned his favor with the Dark Age of Technology and the Machine Cult. Considering his powers. Which would be wonderfully hilarious. Even the Laughing God would be amazed at such a cosmic joke.
- 01010111 01100101 00100000 01110000 01101100 01100001 01111001 00100000 01100111 01100001 01101101 01100101 01110011 00100000 01100101 01110110 01100101 01110010 01111001 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110111 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01101110 00101110 00100000 00100000 01001001 01100110 00100000 01101000 01100101 00100111 01100100 00100000 01101010 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01101111 01100110 01100110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01101101 01100101
00100000 01110011 01101111 01101101 01100101 00100000 01100010 01110010 01100101 01100001 01101011 01100110 01100001 01110011 01110100 00100000 00101000 01001110 01101111 01110100 00100000 01110011 01101111 01110101 01101100 01110011 00100000 01110011 01110100 01100001 01110010 00100000 01100100 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100110 01101001 01101110 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01101110 01101011 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01110110 01100101 01110010 01111001 00100000 01101101 01110101 01100011 01101000 00101001 00100000 01001001 00100111 01100100 00100000 01100110 01101001 01111000 00100000 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101100 01101001 01110100 01110100 01101100 01100101 00100000 01100111 01101111 01101100 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101111 01101100 01101001 01100101 01110100(We play games every now and then. If he'd just offer me some breakfast (Not souls star dust is fine thank you very much) I'd fix his little gold toliet)
- 01000001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110111 01101000 01111001 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110011 01110101 01110010 01110000 01110010 01101001 01110011 01101001 01101110 01100111 00111111(And why is that surprising?)
- 01010100 01101000 01100101 01111001 00100000 01100100 01101001 01100100 00101110(They did.)
- 01000111 01101111 01110010 01101011 00100000 00100111 01100101 01110010 01100101 00100001 00100000 01010111 01101111 01110100 00100111 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100001 01100010 01101111 01110101 01110100 00100000 01101101 01100001 01100011 01101000 01100101 01100101 01101110 01111010 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110000 01101111 01110100 01110100 01101001 01100101 01110011 00111111(Gork 'ere! Wot's this about macheenz and potties?)
- 01010011 01101001 01101100 01100101 01101110 01100011 01100101 00100000 01100111 01110010 01100101 01100101 01101110 01110011 01101011 01101001 01101110 00101100 00100000 01001001 00100000 01000011 01100001 01110100 01101111 00100000 01010011 01101001 01100011 01100001 01110010 01101001 01110101 01110011 00100000 01110011 01101000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101110 01100101 01110110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01101100 01100101 01110100 00100000 01100011 01100001 01101100 01100001 01101101 01101001 01110100 01111001 00100000 01100010 01100101 01100110 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100111 01101100 01101111 01110010 01101001 01110101 01110011 00100000 01100111 01101111 01100100 00101101 01100101 01101101 01110000 01100101 01110010 01101111 01110010(Silence greenskin, I Cato Sicarius shall never let calamity befall our glorius god-emperor)
- 01000111 01101111 01110010 01101011 00100000 00100111 01100101 01110010 01100101 00100001 00100000 01010111 01101111 01110100 00100111 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100001 01100010 01101111 01110101 01110100 00100000 01101101 01100001 01100011 01101000 01100101 01100101 01101110 01111010 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110000 01101111 01110100 01110100 01101001 01100101 01110011 00111111(Gork 'ere! Wot's this about macheenz and potties?)
- 01010100 01101000 01100101 01111001 00100000 01100100 01101001 01100100 00101110(They did.)
- 01000001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110111 01101000 01111001 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110011 01110101 01110010 01110000 01110010 01101001 01110011 01101001 01101110 01100111 00111111(And why is that surprising?)
Do YOU get it?
Of course you don't, you're not a Tech-Priest. Fucking fleshbag.
On the Tabletop[edit]
Before Games Workshop started making a model for him, the popular idea was to simply buy a Balrog or a Morghast or a Daemon Prince (make sure to give the latter wings), paint it suitably black, silver and green, and use it as a Transcendent C'tan (or use the official model). Have fun. Also, since you're controlling the pseudo-god of controlling machines, that also gives you the right to install a trojan on your opponent's phone so you can send exciting photos to his mom during the game.
Custom Rules (8th Ed)[edit]
This unit contains 1 C'tan Shard of the Void Dragon (Power Rating 13). Only one of this model may be included in your army.
| Name | M | WS | BS | S | T | W | A | Ld | Sv | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C'tan Shard of the Void Dragon | 8" | 2+ | 2+ | 8 | 8 | 9 | 5 | 10 | 4+ | 260 |
Wargear:
- Claws of the Dragon:
Weapon Range Type S AP D Abilities Claws of the Dragon Melee Melee User -4 D6 Invulnerable saves may not be taken against wounds inflicted by this weapon.
Special Rules:
- Enslaved Star God
- Machine God: Roll a dice for any enemy vehicle between 18" of this model; on a 4-5, until the beginning of your next turn, that model may not move/advance/charge and only hits on an unmodified roll of 6. On a 6, until the beginning of your next turn, consider that model as it was part of your army.
- Necrodermis
- Powers of the C'tan: This model knows three powers from the Powers of the C'tan. It can use two of its powers at the end of each of its Movement phases.
- Reality Unravels
Keywords:
- Faction:C'tan Shards, Necrons
- Elites, Monster, C'tan Shard of the Void Dragon, Character, Fly
Rules (9th Ed)[edit]
That's right, the Void Dragon's playable now with official rules and a model from GW! And while the Nightbringer's the heavy-hitter and infantry slayer, the Void Dragon's a damage soaker, even by Necron standards, and the bane of vehicles (Dreadnoughts will HATE him). Much like the other two bigwigs, the Void Dragon has a unique C'tan Power called Voltaic Storm which deals D3 Mortal Wounds to a unit at range on a 2+; with it changing to a D6 on a vehicle to further emphasize his "fuck vehicles" niche.
| Name | M | WS | BS | S | T | W | A | Ld | Sv | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C'tan Shard of the Void Dragon | 8" | 2+ | 2+ | 6 | 7 | 9 | 5 | 10 | 3+ | 260 |
Wargear:
- Spear of the Void Dragon:
Weapon Range Type S AP D Abilities Spear of the Void Dragon (shooting) 12" Heavy (1) 9 -4 D6 Each time an attack is made with this weapon, if a hit is scored, draw a straight line between the closest point of this model's base (or hull) and that of the closest model in the target unit. Make one wound roll against the target unit, and each other unit this line passes over. Each time an attack made with this weapon is allocated to a VEHICLE model, that attack has a Damage characteristic of D3+3. Weapon Range Type S AP D Abilities Spear of the Void Dragon Melee Melee +3 -4 D6 Each time an attack made with this weapon is allocated to a VEHICLE model, that attack has a Damage characteristic of D3+3.
- Canoptek tail blades:
Weapon Range Type S AP D Abilities Canoptek tail blades Melee Melee User -2 1 Each time the bearer fights, it makes D6 additional attacks with this weapon
Special Rules:
- Necrodermis: The model has a 4+ Invulnerable save. In addition, this model cannot lose more than 3 wounds per phase. Any wounds that would be lost after this point are not lost.
- Matter Absorption: At the end of each phase, roll one D6 for each enemy vehicle destroyed as a result of an attack made by this model or a C'tan power used by this model in that phase: for each 2+ the model regains 1 lost wound (to a maximum of 3 regained wounds per phase).
Keywords: Monster, Character, Fly, C'tan Shard, C'tan Shard of the Void Dragon