Night Lords - Legion Command Hierarchy: Konrad Curze was the Dark King of his Legion, a figure of fear for his sons as much as on object of loyalty. That many were genuinely loyal to him cannot be doubted, but as many seem to have been bound to him by fear rather than adoration, and some hated their gene-sire. Curze appeared not to have cared so long as when he commanded, all obeyed. Around him the Dark King maintained a court of his most useful sons. The members of this group, the Kyroptera, were drawn from senior officers across the VIIIth Legion and transcended rank. All had a quality that Curze found valuable, though in some cases that quality seems to have been little more than distilled bitterness and cruelty. Membership in the Kryoptera gave no absolute rank, but the fact remained that they were the ruling elite of the Night Lords, and so few others would openly disobey a command from one of them. Alongside these served the Atramaentar. A company-strength formation equipped with Terminator Armour and armed with the finest weapons, they were the personal command of the First Captain of the Night Lords and enforcers of order. Renowned for their cold brutality in battle and their unswerving loyalty to their commander and their Primarch, they seem to have acted as a check on the many fractious elements within the VIIIth Legion, and though this cannot now be confirmed, it is widely thought that they served as Curze's executioners when the need arose.Beneath the Kyroptera were the many Captains of the companies. The few of these that had been graced with leading several companies under the banner of a battalion or Chapter went by a variety of inconsistent ranks including Commander, Master and Regent, amongst others. While these exalted leaders had clear command over the units placed under them, their authority in the VIIIth Legion as a whole seems to have been more malleable. A Regent might have a handful of Captains under his command, but be subject to the commands of a different Captain if that Captain were of the Kryoptera, or exalted in some other way. Just as squads and companies bore names to set them apart from each other, so too did the commanders of the Legion adorn their names with secondary monikers and titles. Many of these titles had echoes in the cursed nobility and gangs of Nostramo: "Talonmaster", the" Bloodless" or the "Sightless Revenant". A few were no doubt calculated insults that either stuck or were adopted by their bearers out of perversity.At the time of the Drop Site Massacre in 005.M31, the Night Lords had been teetering on the edge of Renegade status for several years. Apparently fighting their own wars with little or no regard or contact with the rest of the Great Crusade's chain of command, it had been some time since an accurate survey of their strength had been made. Estimates of the strength of the Legion therefore vary wildly. Some put their numbers at a little over 90,000 Astartes, others at 120,000. The Legion was known to have been recruiting from subjugated worlds throughout the latter part of the Great Crusade, in some cases stealing away the youth of entire star systems as the base from which to winnow suitable Aspirants. The use of rapid psycho-conditioning and accelerated gene-seed implantation was also known to be widely practiced by the Night Lords, further supporting suggestions that their numbers were at least on par with many of the more numerous Space Marine Legions. It is also likely that a number of Night Lords elements were not at the Isstvan System, but were engaged in other self-selected actions in the unconquered corners of the galaxy at that time.