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1 / 4 · Click to enlargeLore & origins
Wraithknights are giant Ghost Warriors built from wraithbone. They are many times larger than a Wraithlord, but nimble enough to run through a ruined city, leaping from pillar to spar. Like lesser wraith constructs, a Wraithknight is animated by the soul of a dead Asuryani held in a spirit stone. What sets it apart is that a living pilot rides inside its chest as well, and that pilot must have been born a twin.
Aeldari twins share an exceptional psychic bond. While both live, each can sense where the other is, what mood they are in and even what they are thinking. When one twin dies, the survivor often fades away in sympathy. Sometimes, though, the survivor gives what is left of their life to the craftworld. The dead twin's essence is moved out of the infinity circuit into the great spirit stone in the Wraithknight's chest, and the living twin enters a near-permanent battle trance in the cavity behind the breastplate. The living mind supplies speed and clarity. The bond with the dead sibling lets the pilot reach not only their twin but also the spirits of earlier pilots who once moved the same long-limbed body. This combined mind gives the pilot control of the machine's psychically powered weapons and an acrobatic grace that seems impossible for its size.
For the Asuryani, the Wraithknight is a living image of the cycle of life and death, a piece of death within life and a piece of life within death. It also has a grim practical job. Wraithknights lead the hunt for new spirit stones. They pass through forbidden webway portals onto the Crone Worlds, where realspace and the warp grind together and reality bleeds, so that drops of psychic energy crystallise into new waystones. Only a Wraithknight can survive those warp-touched worlds and their daemons and still bring its harvest home.
Appearance & wargear
A Wraithknight is a towering, long-limbed giant with a contoured wraithbone shell and a large spirit stone set in its chest, behind which the living pilot lies. Its heraldry varies a great deal: intricate runes on its plates can show its craftworld, its noble house or its own spirit rune. Its weapons come in a few standard fits. Paired heavy wraithcannons can tear targets straight into the warp. A suncannon fires roiling plasma able to wipe out a platoon of human soldiers in one blast. A ghostglaive and scattershield let it duel even daemon lords hand to hand.
Weapons & Vehicles
The reality-tearing distort weapons of Craftworld Wraithguard and Wraithknights, opening miniature Warp-rifts inside a target to banish…
The graceful wraithbone gravitic-accelerator firearm of the Craftworld Aeldari, slicing targets to ribbons with silent, monomolecular s…
A master-crafted blade sheathed in a crackling molecular disruption field that parts ceramite, bone and steel with effortless lethality…
A towering nine-metre bipedal war engine piloted by a single noble scion through the Throne Mechanicum, protected by shimmering ion shi…
Explore all 48 entries in the Weapons & Vehicles armoury.
Battlefield role & tactics
On the battlefield the Wraithknight is the craftworld's monster-hunter and line-breaker. It is fast enough to strike where it is needed and big enough to take on tanks, monsters and greater daemons. The living pilot's clarity lets it work as a link between the living and the dead, and on Iyanden in particular Wraithknights serve as secondary command nodes, translating the dreamlike urges of the dead into orders the living can follow. They also escort the dangerous spirit-stone harvests on the Crone Worlds.
Notable battles & users
- The Twelve Outcasts of Alaitoc: a band of Wraithknights named in the 6th edition codex's account of the Asuryani spirit-stone harvest.
- The Soulseeker: a named Wraithknight recorded during the Fracture of Biel-Tan.
- Uskariel-Iskarion: a Wraithknight that appears in the novel Valedor.
- Iyanden: the dead-heavy craftworld fields Wraithknights as emissaries of its dead, alongside the Ghost Warriors of noble houses such as the House of Ulthanash.
Related
Characters (1)
Eldrad Ulthran · High Farseer of Ulthwé
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