Imperial Knights - Age of Strife: Tragically, the Age of Technology was doomed to fall and devolve into a shadow of its former glory. Around the time of the 22nd Millennium AD, Mankind's vast galactic empire began to suffer a pandemic of terrible wars and massive invasions, caused, at least in part, by the emergence of the first Human psykers and the widespread use of sentient machines remembered in Human myth as the Men of Iron.By the 25th Millennium, ferocious Warp Storms had largely isolated the widespread Human colonies, and the era that came to be known as the Age of Strife had well and truly begun.During this lamentable era of Human history, also sometimes referred to as "Old Night," especially on Terra, interstellar travel to many of these Human-settled worlds was made impossible due to the massive Warp Storms caused by the slow gestation of the foul Chaos God Slaanesh in the days before the Fall of the Aeldari.Although vast swathes of the Knight Worlds fell to the storm of death and destruction that defined the Age of Strife, some survived, aided considerably by the innate conservatism and resistance to change of the knightly houses.Where other planets welcomed psykers into their midst, and revelled in the luxurious lifestyle that advanced thinking machines could provide, the knightly houses had largely shunned both, preferring to stick with the traditions and technology of the past.Thus, when the violence that presaged the Age of Strife struck, hundreds of Knight Worlds were sidelined or ignored, and took little direct part in the terrible conflicts that tore the rest of Humanity apart.Cut off and alone, the knightly houses were quickly forgotten by the other Human colonies. Left to their own devices, the warrior aristocracy cemented their control and -- encouraged by the psychological manipulations caused by the process of imprinting their suits of Knight armour -- almost all of them enforced neo-feudal systems on their homeworlds.During the latter years of this tumultuous age, the ancient Mechanicum of Mars began sending out many starships that made use of sublight drives to explore the galaxy in search of Standard Template Construct (STC) technologies on lost Human colony worlds.In the course of their travels, these slow-moving exploratory expeditions discovered large clusters of Human-settled star systems that had once belonged to the ancient interstellar Human civilisation that had existed during the Age of Technology.But these worlds had regressed during the Age of Strife to become Feudal Worlds possessed of a pre-industrial, feudal culture dominated by castes of warrior aristocrats.The societies that evolved were built upon concepts of fealty, honour and duty; three things that all Knights hold in the greatest regard. All of the Nobles -- or Scions as they were sometimes known -- on a Knight World owed their allegiance to a knightly house, whose ruler could call upon them at any time to carry out his commands.Each house could also field large numbers of men-at-arms, either mounted or on foot. The houses also had groups of artificers and technicians who maintained the suits of Knight armour as best they could, and over time, became an integral part of society on all of the Knight Worlds.Sometimes the ruler of a knightly house would come from the same family for generation after generation, but more often than not, the death of an incumbent ruler would lead to a period of political manoeuvring or even outright warfare until a new monarch was selected.Competition between different knightly houses on a planet was just as intense, and although full-scale battles were rare, all strove to outdo their rivals in any way they could, be it in the field of politics, ancient traditions, or contests of their skill at arms.On the Knight World of Higroxias, for example, once every ten Terran years, the three major houses compete against each other in a series of trials known as the "Honour Games," the winner of which rules the Governing Council for the next solar decade.As the Age of Strife stretched from standard centuries into millennia, the Knight Worlds became increasingly insular and inward-looking.Each developed its own titles and terms, so that on one Knight World the ruler of a knightly house would be known as a "lord," while on another they might be called a "ritter" or "patriarch," and a Noble's stronghold could be known as their castle, fastness or mansion.Without any outside contact, ritual and etiquette started to dominate daily life within the knightly houses, and the only escape from stultifying tradition lay in donning a suit of Knight armour and taking to the field of battle.