Crikon Hanfer

> "*Your kind will be rounded up, shot and incinerated. The ashes will be mixed with psyk-nulling acid and fired into the nearest star. Do not waste my time, or your rapidly shortening life, with threats. I have been threatened by far more dangerous creatures than you and none of them have yet outlived me.*"
> ― Lord Commander Crikon Hanfer - addressing a cabal of enemy Psykers
>
>

    Of all the warriors of the Star Guardians, few are as reknowned or as utterly devoted to Shaaa Hydrades as Crikon Hanfer, the long serving Lord Commander of the IVth Legion. Few officers in any of the legions could boast his reams of victories and successful actions, and none, save the late Harnt Redal or some of Shaaa's own brothers ever held the trust of the Breacher Lord to such an extent. Though he is not the equal with the blade to Sirvan Golz, and lacking the logistians flare that Shaaa himself demonstrates time and time again, Crikon was still regarded by all as the greatest warrior within the IVth Legion, even by his detractors.

He was Shaaa's mailed fist, entrusted with the most brutal and unforgiving assaults or the seemingly hopeless defences the IVth often found themselves in, for when Shaaa had finished his extensive planning that proceeded every IVth Legion campaign and assigned the resources needed to bring about victory, there was always a need for a commander to carry those forces to such a result, one who focused solely on the task as presented, leaving the greater war to other, more suited men, and one for whom victory wasn't simply undesirable, it was not an option.

For such tasks, only Crikon was so trusted, so lauded, and had such a record of success, earning his name time and time again as the "Unforgiving Storm", never giving up, never relenting, and never showing the alien concept of mercy as he ground xenos and human empires to bloody pulp beneath the mighty tread of his Saturnine Terminator Armour.

## History

Of all the warriors of the Star Guardians, few are as reknowned or as utterly devoted to their Primarch as Crikon Hanfer, the long serving Lord Commander of the IVth Legion, and in time, one of the most powerful and influential Astartes in history, one who bound two imperial organisations together with ties that no man could ever hope to break again. He is the Unforgiving Storm, the Lord of the Saturnalians, and since the death of Harnt Redal, Shaaa’s chosen son.

When Shaaa was still merely a warlord on the Ring, fighting for Asher, Crikon was but a young child, part of the last holdouts against the Hydrades Empire. He was also the first to watch as the still living Shaaa fought and killed Asher’s men in the void after his father had tried to kill him, bringing aid to the stricken Primarch, and speaking on what he had seen, about the betrayal that Shaaa had also suffered, just like they all had. When Shaaa had recovered enough to lead, gathering a mighty host to his side, Crikon stood alongside him, proving himself worthy of standing alongside the Primarch, part of his Ten Thousand.

From the Ring, to the caverns of the Squat Empire, to the corridors of the Colossalstructure and to Ullanor, Crikon led with unrelenting fury, conducting merciless assaults from the head of the Saturnalian elite, enemy fire pinging from his armour like rain from a battle tank. Nothing could stop him, nothing slowing the Lord Commander’s ponderous and unstoppable advance. Nothing, until the First Solar War.

Given command of the Outer defences, Crikon oversaw the defence of the systems edge and Pluto itself for weeks, directing his forces with preternatural ease that only a son of Shaaa could manage, but even he was not the equal of the Warmaster, forced to slowly but surely give ground, retreating back towards the inner system, until finally he stood beside Shaaa once more in defence of Luna. Here he would have fought to the last, as would all of the Star Guardians, Shaaa giving the order that there would be no further retreat, that they would hold until they could hold no more, the Dragon Lords entrusted to hold Terra after they were gone. Even this would not come to pass however, Abner breaking away from the traitor forces to burn sunward.

It was here that Crikon would meet his match, overseeing the strike on *Monad's* enginer rooms, succeeding in deactivating them before he and his warriors were cut off. He would have died here, had the ship not been breached before the Light Bringers had a chance to finish their task, propelling the wounded Lord Commander into space, only his trans-human anatomy and Star Guardian-wrought genetic quirks allowing him to survive, in a coma like his lord and so many within the legion.

Crikon would not awake during the flight from Terra, command of the IVth falling to Commander Sirvan Golz instead, and when he did wake, it was to a body of crude augmetics, barely enough to keep him operating. In such a form, Crikon did take command once more, struggling to find a way to rebuild the shattered IVth, his own crippled condition all but forgotten in those days. Finally, when all other options were exhausted, Crikon did what none before him would have dared, approaching the newly reformed Mechanicus, and striking a deal. The IVth would become bound to the red priesthood, they would become their warriors, and in return, the Mechanicus would save the IVth Legion. None complained at the actions taken, or if they did, they were quickly shouted down, sidelined or silenced forever. The Imperium needed the IVth, and the IVth needed to tread this path if it were to survive, Crikon once more leading his legion without hesitation into the unknown.

Soon, Crikon’s own body was remade by his new masters, creating a warrior far stronger than the one who had once fought at the head of the IVth Legion. With a mace of black iron and dark reputation in his hand, Crikon Hanfer once more became a bane to the traitor forces, the wall upon which many attacks would break, once more proving he was more than deserving of the title of the Unforgiving Storm.

## Standard Wargear

### Great Crusade

* **Saturnine Terminator Armour**
* **Mauler-pattern Bolt Cannon -** More often seen on Mechanicum robots such as the *Castellax*-class, this bulky weapon was akin to a heavy bolter commonly seen on Saturnine Terminator Armour, only chambered for a far greater calibre of round. These substantially larger bolts mean the weapon has a proportionally larger and more robust frame to handle the increase in recoil, and is capable of engaging far more heavily armour targets as a result. Like Shaaa's own Darkfire Cannon, no one knows how the Lord Commander secured permission to carry a weapon that is otherwise so closely guarded by the Mechanicum.
* **Watcher-pattern** **Stormshield** -  Alongside the Imperial Justicars Legion, who possessed their own prototype which relied upon superior construction materials, the Star Guardians Legion was the first to utilise one of the enhanced storm shield designs during the Great Crusade and Almire Apostasy eras. The Watcher-pattern featured a uniquely potent field generator far exceeding that found elsewhere, though at the expense of being prohivitibly heavy, only Terminators normally able to lift their bulk. The shield that Crikon wields is believed to be the very first shield created of the pattern to pass the prototype stage, based upon Shaaa's own stormshield.
* **Power Claw w. Built in bolter** - Losing his hand in the Squat Wars, Crikon repalces the lost limb with a mighty power claw, forged to his exacting specifications and mounting a stripped down bolter upon its back. The claws powerfield is deadly, able to cut through flesh and metal with equal, contemptuous ease.

### Post Terra

* **Artificer Armour *The Plate of Mars*** - With a name akin to the promise of one day returning to reclaim sacred Mars, the artificer armour that Crikon wore during the Frontier Wars was forged personally by the new Fabricator General in Exile of the Adeptus Mechanicus to the highest standards, ensuring that Crikon's rebuilt form would be protected as utterly as possible, so that he may one day lead the Star Guardians to the surface of the Red Planet, and reclaim it for the faithful.
* **The Dark Mace** - As long as an Astartes warrior is tall, the *Dark Mac*e had long hung in Shaaa’s inner sanctum, since the years before the Apostasy engulfed the galaxy. Forged by Shaaa’s own hand far before that, the weapon had once belonged to another, but few remember its previous wielder, either by choice or by threat of censor, and fewer still knew that Shaaa had used his not inconsiderable influence to ensure it was returned to its creator. In the wake of First Solar War, Crikon took up the mighty weapon, bringing new life to an otherwise dark reputation, none remembering or caring where such a weapon had been seen before.
* ***The Ringed Vengeance*** - When Crikon stode to battle, the mighty form of the *Dark Mace* required both of his hands to wield, even with his gene-forged and cybernetically enhanced strength. The *Ringed Vengeance* allows him to fight in this manner, while still bearing a ranged weapon, a pair of ancient Stub-Pistols that were reportedly given to Crikon by Shaaa himself when they both fought upon the Ring. Fitted to a servo-harness upon his back, the twin large bore-pistols seemed to move with a mind of their own, able to target enemy combatants from afar, even as Crikon engaged another foe in close combat.
* **Displacer Matrix** - These relics of xenos technology are one of a number of arcane "displacer" devices known to exist, the one Crikon bears taking the form of a glassy black stone set into his artificer armour. Said to have pre-dated even the ancient Eldar, the device was found during the Great Crusade, but initially shunned by the Mechanicum for being flawed and dangerous to their users. In such times however, this risk is well worth taking. Incorporating an incredibly potent shield generator system within its slight form, the matrix also uses a teleportation effect to protect the bearer from harm, displacing the energy of any impact into the void beyond. If anything gets through howeverm this field is turned inwards, shunting the bearer out of the path of the attack, reappearing nearby mere moments later.