House Herpetrax

House Herpetrax fell not to the blandishments of daemons but to a colder, emptier creed. Its scions came to believe that all thrones are lies and all gods are tyrants, and that the only honest act left to a Knight is destruction. They keep the outward forms of the old chivalry, the challenges, the duels, the household hierarchy, but hollowed of meaning and twisted into a mockery of the honour they once held.

Where an Infernal house seeks the favour of the Ruinous Powers, Herpetrax spurns it. Its warriors take no daemonic passengers into their war-suits and swear no pacts, trusting instead in their own wrath and the ancient machines beneath them. This nihilism makes them unpredictable and terrible, for they will as readily fall upon a Chaos warband as upon an Imperial regiment, recognising no allies and sparing no foe.

The god-machines of Herpetrax are stripped of ornament and painted in funereal black, their hulls bearing only the crude sigil of a broken crown. When they march they leave nothing standing, no idol, no banner, no throne. To the Fallen Nobility of Herpetrax, the galaxy itself is a thing to be unmade, and they pursue that unmaking with the patient devotion others reserve for their gods.