Konrad Curze, the Night Haunter, Primarch of the Night Lords, grew up on a world of endless night and became a vigilante who ruled through terror. Tormented by visions of his own death, he turned traitor in the Horus Heresy and was finally killed by an Imperial assassin, exactly as he had foreseen.
Konrad Curze at a glance
| Primarch of | the VIII Legion |
| Legion | VIII: Night Lords |
| Homeworld | Nostramo, a world without sunlight |
| Flagship | The Nightfall |
| Wargear | The lightning claws Mercy and Forgiveness |
| Allegiance | Traitor (no Chaos god) |
| Fate | Killed by the Callidus assassin M'Shen on Tsagualsa |
Who was Konrad Curze?
Curze is the darkest of the twenty Primarchs. He believed in justice, but only the kind enforced by fear. He saw the future in constant, horrible visions, and he believed none of it could be changed. He never worshipped Chaos. He fought for himself and for his own grim idea of order, and he walked to his death knowing exactly when and how it would come.
Origins on Nostramo
Curze landed on Nostramo, a world locked so that its sun never rose over the inhabited side. Its great hive city was ruled by crime lords, corrupt nobles and gangs. The child Primarch survived alone in the dark streets, and already suffered from visions of death and suffering.
As he grew, he started to hunt the city's criminals. He killed them in terrible ways and left their bodies where everyone would see. People called him the Night Haunter. Crime fell. Under the threat of his punishment, Nostramo became a place of fearful peace. For Curze, that was proof that terror works.
Discovery by the Emperor
When the Emperor came to Nostramo, Curze greeted him with words that would haunt their relationship: he said he knew what his father had planned for him. Curze had already seen visions of his future. He accepted command of his Legion, but the shadow of those visions never left.
The Night Lords
The VIII Legion became the Night Lords. Its warriors wore midnight blue armour painted with lightning bolts and bat wings. Curze recruited them from Nostramo, and many of those recruits were the very criminals he had once hunted. The Legion used terror tactics: flaying enemies, broadcasting screams, wiping out cities to make whole sectors surrender. Its most famous officer was Jago Sevatarion, called Sevatar, First Captain and the Prince of Crows.
The fall of Nostramo
While Curze was away on the Great Crusade, Nostramo slipped back into crime. The Primarch saw this as proof that his world was rotten to the core. He turned the guns of his fleet on his own homeworld and destroyed it completely. With Nostramo gone, the Night Lords lost their only source of new recruits from home, and their discipline slowly started to crack.
The curse of foresight
Curze never chose his visions. They came without warning, filled with fire, blood and the end of everything he knew. He saw the Heresy before it happened, the Imperium rotting in the centuries after it, and his own death again and again. He came to believe that nothing he did mattered, because the future was already written. That belief explains much of his cruelty: if fate is fixed, there is no reason to hold back.
The Great Crusade and Dorn
Other Primarchs grew uneasy with the Night Lords' methods. When Rogal Dorn openly condemned Curze in front of their brothers, Curze attacked him and nearly killed him. The Emperor had already called Curze back to answer for his Legion's crimes. With no way to avoid judgement, Curze threw his lot in with Horus.
The Horus Heresy
At the Drop Site Massacre on Isstvan V, the Night Lords were one of the four Legions that turned their guns on the loyalists. They later spent much of the Heresy in the Thramas Crusade, a long, bitter war against Lion El'Jonson and the Dark Angels. Curze and the Lion fought each other at least twice, and Curze came close to death more than once.
He also brought his terror to the brothers who had founded Imperium Secundus. He haunted the halls of Macragge, attacking Sanguinius and his allies. Curze was more interested in spreading fear than in conquering ground. His warriors left messages written in blood and broadcast screams over the vox, turning the war into a nightmare for everyone who faced them.
Death on Tsagualsa
After the Heresy, the Night Lords made their base on the world of Tsagualsa. Curze foresaw that the Emperor's assassins would come for him. He let the news spread, did nothing to stop it, and waited. The Callidus assassin M'Shen reached him. Curze spoke to her calmly, said his death would prove him right about the hypocrisy of the Imperium, and let her kill him. It was a death he had seen coming his whole life.
The Night Lords today
Without their Primarch, the Night Lords broke into raiding warbands. They still refuse to bow to any Chaos god, and still use terror as their main weapon. The most famous of their later stories follows Talos Valcoran, a prophet who inherited something of Curze's gift for visions. To the Imperium, a Night Lords raid is one of the most frightening things that can happen to a world.
Personality and brothers
Curze was brilliant and broken. His visions left him paranoid and full of self-hatred, and he often had violent fits. He despised hypocrisy, mocked the Imperium's claims to be good, and believed he was simply honest about what the Imperium was. He hated Dorn, fought the Lion, and kept a strange respect for the brothers willing to admit their own darkness.
Konrad Curze FAQ
How did Konrad Curze die?
The Callidus assassin M'Shen killed him on Tsagualsa. He saw it coming and let it happen.
Did Konrad Curze worship Chaos?
No. He served no Chaos god, and neither do most Night Lords.
Why did Curze destroy Nostramo?
His homeworld fell back into crime while he was away, and he decided it had to be wiped out.
Who is Sevatar?
Curze's First Captain, the Prince of Crows, one of the most famous Night Lords.
Why is he called the Night Haunter?
On Nostramo he hunted criminals in the dark and terrified the city into obedience.
Books to read
- Prince of Crows (Aaron Dembski-Bowden)
- Konrad Curze: The Night Haunter (Guy Haley)
- Soul Hunter (Aaron Dembski-Bowden)
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