ANRAKYR THE TRAVELER, Necron Philanthropist | Warhammer 40k Lore
Welcome to the TTP Field Manual’s End-of-Year Special!
In these Final Days, join Joshy and Jonny as they delve into the characters of Warhammer 40,000, exploring their stories, motivations, and roles in the grim darkness of the far future. Each episode in this series unpacks the "who, what, where, why, and how" of iconic figures, making it the perfect introduction—or reintroduction—for fans old and new.
In Episode #1, we focus on Anrakyr the Traveler, a Necron Overlord of unyielding determination. Driven by the vision of uniting his fractured race, Anrakyr crushes all who oppose his purpose. We’ll dive into his ambitions and abilities, his conflicts across the Warhammer 40,000 universe, and a discussion of his presence on the tabletop.
–
TTP Field Manual is brought to you by Joshy and Jonny, best friends and gaming enthusiasts from their local group, Trust the Process Hobbies. Die-hard fans of the Warhammer universe, we use this podcast as a platform to share our passionate (and somewhat humorous) ramblings about all things Grimdark.
By day, Joshy is a therapist; by night, he's an RPG aficionado who grew up on (not-so) Final Fantasies and crafting his own Dungeons & Dragons worlds. Jonny, a hospitality manager, spends his downtime conquering more video games than Joshy can keep track of.
-
Notes:
- Anrakyr the Traveler is a Necron overlord known for his philanthropic goals, aiming to unite the Necron dynasties despite their insular nature.
- Anrakyr possesses a unique ability to telepathically control enemy machinery, showcasing his immense mental prowess in battle.
- His campaign against the Eldar Exodites exemplifies his tactical genius, even when outnumbered.
- The War of Broken Faith illustrates Anrakir's destructive power, obliterating an Imperial shrine world with orbital bombardment.
- Anrakyr's model and lore present a unique character that stands out among Necron heroes.
Transcript
This is going to be one of 12 episodes, each talking about a different character that is represented on the tabletop today. It's going to be one of my characters, Johnny. It's going to be Unrakir the Traveler, Lord of the Pyrrhian Eternals.
Speaker B:Let's do this.
Speaker A:I have a quote for you.
Speaker B:Go on.
Speaker A:I am not capricious, nor am I given to cruel acts for their own sakes. It is simply a fact that you and your kind have trespassed and thus invited extermination. Curse you for putting me to this inconvenience.
Anrakir the Traveler to the Tau Ethereal Orn Taneel prior to the harvest of Khmer.
Speaker B:He seems like a lovely person to know.
Speaker A:Do you want the TL Dr. Of the harvest of Khmer?
Speaker B:I mean, sure, let.
Speaker A:The harvest of Khmer is a very brief conflict where Anrakir the Traveler saved a bunch of t'au from Tyranids. They thanked him with their real nice vibes and he found it disgusting and killed every last Tau because they were on a tomb world.
Speaker B:That's just rude.
Speaker A:Anrakir the Traveler, he is an overlord. Overlords are the pinnacle of Necron bio transference.
They often exhibit supreme tactical genius and warrior prowess, and they wield some pretty powerful weapons. Their will commands the Necron legions like a strategy game with overlords themselves ruling over entire systems.
Within a Necron dynasty, the most powerful overlord typically rises through the dynasty to the position of Faeran or Fayrak, which is basically their king, queen or overall ruler.
Now, overlords, like all the Necrons, are kind of going through a bit of a mental degradation or illness because 60 million years ago, when the Necrons were at the apex, they went to sleep. The great slumber, it lasted 60 million years. And Jonny, what can happen in 60 million years in this heckin galaxy?
Speaker B:Literally everything that we know.
Speaker A:Literally everything we know. Cataclysms, meteors, interfering alien species. Some tomb worlds just straight up didn't wake up. They're just. They're just cut off.
Some of these tomb worlds woke up more crazier than others. But Anrakir, oh, he awoke whole minded, free of these limitations, and essentially still in his prime.
Now, Anrakir is, for a Necron, unusually philanthropic.
He has possessed himself with a great purpose to reawaken and unite all the Necron dynasties, which is much to the distaste of some Necron rulers who kind of see him as like a freeloader a bit of a charlatan, a vagrant, you know, a do no gooder. But there are obviously some that, you know, really like what he's doing and try and support him.
Now, Anrakir removed himself from the rule of his tomb world, which is named Pyrrhia, to go about this mission. And he brought with him his entire unique legion of immortal warriors, the Pyreon Eternals, which are supposedly immortals.
A Necron sort of frontline trooper that are somehow more murderously efficient.
It's like his tomb world's whole shtick is to have really good immortals, but he took them on his magic school bus and is now out, you know, amongst the stars. But despite his sort of selflessness, Anrakir is susceptible to an almost unhinged rage at the discovery of a ruined or invaded tomb world.
He commits all resources and strategies to revenge.
And for his efforts, he demands tithes from his awakenings by force or if denied by subterfuge, which, when a tomb world's waking up, is relatively easy to accomplish when you're as cunning and full minded as Anrikir is. Now, Anrakir is easy enough to identify between the various, you know, Necron epic characters.
He is a silvered metal individual and he is adorned with a gold headdress and a bronze. I'm going to say this wrong, but I believe it's pronounced the Shendit, which is an Egyptian skirt.
You sort of see this style on a lot of the Necron characters who have, you know, a little bit of that Egyptian vibe going on.
Instead of the typical green or sometimes orange energy, Unrakir is blue and he is armed with a heavy war scythe which cleaves through just about any material. And Johnny, he also has probably the strongest weapon available to an overlord. Can you, can you guess what the weapon is that he possesses?
Speaker B:Oh, it's probably something like war scythe.
Speaker A:Well, I just mentioned the war scythe, but what I'm, what I'm going for is the tachyon arrow.
Speaker B:Oh, he's one of them.
Speaker A:He has a tachyon arrow. It is a wrist mounted kind of crossbow.
It supercharges a bolt of material which in law essentially pierces through anything with up to infinite range. It will go through mountains, it will blow up Imperial Titans, but they have one shot in the game. Not that strong, but he has one of those.
And he also happens to possess a unique ability amongst the Necron nobility. Can you guess what his Necron unique ability is, John?
Speaker B:Oh, I couldn't tell you to be.
Speaker A:Honest, he can focus his will to telepathically command enemy machinery.
Speaker B:Oh.
Speaker A:He will force weaponry against the persons in charge of it. Like space stations, vehicles. Yeah, that's his shtick.
He's so powerful of mind that he'll see, like, a tank, you know, pinning down some troops, and he'll just look at it, reach out and just turn it off.
Speaker B:His charisma is ridiculous.
Speaker A:His charisma is ridiculous. What do you think about Anrakir's vibe so far? His personality, his purpose? What's your take?
Speaker B:It's strange that the other Necrons are like, yeah, no, don't wake us up. But at the same time, it's. I mean, it's just. It's a weird shtick, but he seems real good at it. It's not so much that they don't.
Speaker A:Want him to do it. It's not so much they don't want him to do it. They just want to be able to thank him without him then taking part of their army.
Speaker B:I mean, if left to their own devices, they might never wake up and then never have an army.
Speaker A:Yeah, but Necrons really are kind of insular. They do like to sort of rebel against one another, dogpile each other, politically speaking. It's not the very cohesive race that people think it is.
It's just that the Necron Tomb worlds are very synergistic within themselves.
Speaker B:The problem is the few egos that they still have are very egotistical.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah. Well, I do have three relatively small bites of lore. He's one of those characters that doesn't have an insane amount of.
Of background or campaigns to really speak of. A lot of the supporting characters in this universe are a bit like that.
You get the Rule of Cool from their model, but not a lot of actual lore to complement it. But I have three campaigns here. Would you like option one, two or three to start with three for a.
Speaker B:Loop and say, option two.
Speaker A:Option two. My favourite of the three, actually.
Speaker B:Go on.
Speaker A:It's called the Karnak Campaign.
Speaker B:Never heard of it.
Speaker A:The Karnak Campaign was when Anrakir attempts to go and awaken the Tomb World. Karnak, however, he found it infested. What do you think he found it infested with?
Speaker B:Orcs?
Speaker A:Meh.
Speaker B:Nah. Try again, Humies.
Speaker A:You're getting closer. I'll let you know. That it was the Exodites.
Speaker B:Ah, okay.
Speaker A:The Wood elves, if you will, of the setting, the Aeldari, that decided to go back to grassroots lore.
Speaker B:The Eldinosaurs, the El Dinosaurs.
Speaker A:Yeah. Overrun this planet was with the Exodites just, just everywhere. And he found himself quite outmatched.
And so he commissioned aid from several other, I will say, named Necron characters. Who do you think he dialled up?
Speaker B:Trazin the Infinite. I feel like I'm just playing a guessing game here.
Speaker A:He did, actually. So he managed to. Well, it's not so much he commissioned Trazen, but he commissioned the tomb world that Trazen is representing.
And so Trazen and his Nihilak dynasty were there, but there was also another dynasty, quite some repute that he managed to contract in.
Speaker B:Is it your boy Stormcaller?
Speaker A:It is, except it's Storm Lord.
Speaker B:Storm Lord Stormcaller. Storm something.
Speaker A:All right, so he got aid from the tomb worlds of Mandragora, which is Imhotech's tomb world, who is the leader of the Saltec dynasty. He also commissioned Ghidrim, which is a vassal kingdom of the Saltec dynasty. And this is Nemesor Xandrex World.
Speaker B:Oh, no. This is like all the big names.
Speaker A:And guess who else happens to be allied with the Saltec dynasty.
Speaker B:You're telling the story here.
Speaker A:Josh Orkanda, Diviner.
Speaker B:Nice.
Speaker A:So everyone's here. Everyone who's anyone is here.
Speaker B:They're just missing their big boy.
Speaker A:Yep. Well, I don't think these guys want that big boy, but yeah, they sure don't. Just missing him.
So it wasn't long before the Craftworld Allah Tok came to reinforce the Eldar Exodites. Craftworld Allah Tok, if you do not know, are a bit more of a scout and ranger esque. Craftworld supplementing with the Wraith constructs.
And so what ended up happening was the Eldar were pushing an insane amount of hit and run tactics with Rangers. They were led by a character known as Illik Nightspear, who used to be in the game. Now I think he's in Legends. We'll see. We'll see next year.
But the Rangers kept managing to get dangerously close to taking Unrakir out. He was saved, however, by Orokanda Diviner glimpsing the future because he's a chronomancer, time is his shtick.
And he managed to ambush the Eldar Rangers with deathmarks.
Speaker B:Oh, that's bad news for Eldar.
Speaker A:But nonetheless, there was quite the stalemate. And so Anrakir broke said stalemate by, you know, scooping up his Pyrian eternals and marching on the world spirit.
Do you know what the world Spirit is for an Exodite homeworld.
Speaker B:Probably a giant dinosaur kind of.
Speaker A:It could be. They don't really, you know, exclude that from possibility.
You know how craft worlds have the Infinity Circuit, where all the sort of souls go on an Exodite world, you have, like, wood elf version, you have a big, like, totem shrine. It could be. I don't know what this one was, but I imagine it was sort of like a stone ish kind of golem.
But from what I gathered, it kind of has these, like, ley lines that run the planet, so all the various Exodites can really synchronize with the spirit of the world. However, in the ensuing fight, the tomb world began to wake up.
Speaker B:Oh, no.
Speaker A:And very quickly did Anrakir manage to wrestle control of the battlefield away from the Eldar as he commanded the relatively sleepy Necrons into victory.
Speaker B:What a chad.
Speaker A:What a chad. And in thanks. What do you think he gifted Treiz in the Infinite with?
Speaker B:I have no idea.
Speaker A:The core of the world spirit.
Speaker B:Oh, that's just rude.
Speaker A:That is a bit rude. He literally scooped up the wood elf psychic hub of souls and just gifted it to Trazen for his museum.
Speaker B:Man, I'd love to go into that museum one day. There's so much stuff in there.
Speaker A:That could be a great episode. What is in the Solumnis Galleries? Well, I have two more campaigns for you.
Speaker B:Go on.
Speaker A:Would you like the. Would you like the Lazar Blockade or the War of Broken Faith?
Speaker B:Oh, let's go. The War of Broken Faith. That sounds like a blast for anyone. Is there?
Speaker A:Yeah. So the War of Broken Faith. Again, not a very extensively written up conflict. A lot of this stuff is little excerpts from various codices.
But the War of Broken Faith was focused on the shrine world of Saint Spire, now Sane Spire, very early on into colonisation, realised they were on something which they would later realise was a tomb world. But they dealt with it. They managed to deactivate it somehow ahead of time, ahead of it becoming a problem.
Now, Anrakir has all of his old star charts. You know, he knows what all the various dynasties are and where they all should be.
And so when he arrives at Saint Spire and sees an imperial shrine world, boy, is he pissed.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker A:When he learns of this, he doesn't go into a particularly lengthy war of attrition. No, he uses his tomb ships, which are the Necron Voidcraft, as a distraction as he then led a boarding patrol Ha.
Into the orbital fortress known as Blade Imperium. What do you think he did inside the orbital fortress?
Speaker B:Blade Imperium Killed everyone.
Speaker A:Uh, in a sense, using his particular gift, he managed to control the entire orbital fortress and turned its guns onto the planet.
He bombarded the planet's surface so violently with this orbital fortress that the crust of the planet cracked apart and even the planet's core was breached, which essentially led Saint Spire into a fiery death. And then the segmentum itself. So the little region of space essentially began to fall apart.
Because for the citizenry, how could the Emperor protect them if he could not protect the shrine world of Saint Spire?
Speaker B:Hence the name Broken Faith.
Speaker A:And this was one Necron Overlord, by the way.
Speaker B:Just a dude.
Speaker A:Just the dude. What do you think of the two campaigns we've had so far?
Speaker B:They really exemplify why this guy is as good as he is at what he does.
Speaker A:Oh, yes. We have one more though.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker A:The Lazar Blockade. So there's an Imperial shipyard somewhere in the galaxy, and they are, you know, in the neighbourhood of a Tomb world, nay, a whole Tomb system.
And Aura Kenda Diviner predicted that the Imperial shipyard would be destroyed by Orcs. Right. And that would be okay to deal with, except for the part where that didn't happen.
The Silver Skulls chapter of Space Marines instead preemptively wiped out the Orks. Oh, Orokin didn't like this much. What do you think he did?
Speaker B:Wiped out the Astartes, sure.
Speaker A:But when do you think he did it?
Speaker B:Before they could manage to stop the Orcs.
Speaker A:Yeah, he time slid before they got into combat range and killed their entire. I think it was like fifth Company, fourth Company. Just wiped them out with his little group just arrived and just changed the course of fate.
Speaker B:That is. That is just rude.
Speaker A:You know what happened as a retaliation to that?
Speaker B:The Astartes sent the Orks at the Necrons.
Speaker A:I would think that'd be quite funny, but no.
What ended up happening was five separate Space Marine chapters essentially retaliated against Orokin's little coup by blowing up the system's main Tomb world. And then, because that Tomb world had its like, little signals begin to occur, secondary Tomb worlds across the system began to activate.
But rather than evacuate, the Silver Skulls and their friends dug in and for two years were in this war of attrition against waking up Necron Tomb worlds. They were that petty for the destruction of their, like, fourth or fifth Company, they and their friends stuck around to just keep fighting them.
But after the two years had passed, our boy Anrakir the traveller came around and he spearheaded an assault on the Silver Skull's battle barge. What do you Think he did on the battle barge.
Speaker B:I mean, he probably did something very petty and rude.
Speaker A:He commanded the ship's systems to open fire on the silver skulls.
Speaker B:Cool, friendly fire.
Speaker A:The space Marines own battle barge slew the chapter master and a large portion of the chapter.
Speaker B:No one expects surprise gunfire on the backline.
Speaker A:They were so embarrassed by this fact, they have then spent the remainder of their existence trying to cover up the truth of what happened.
Speaker B:Yeah. That's why no one's heard of them. Right.
Speaker A:That's about the gist of what I have for Anrakir's narrative for today, though.
Speaker B:So what's his model like then?
Speaker A:So Unrakir has an old resin model that's largely unavailable.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:He's one of the few epic heroes of the Necrons that were consigned to the retirement Esque Legends collections of data sheets. You can play them in casual games, but they're not really getting updated. It's models you probably have, but you can't buy, etc.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Now, Anrakir stat sheet is exactly the same as a typical Overlord, but he does cost 10 points more, I believe.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:He has two abilities that differ from the abilities of the Overlord. He has the leadership ability. The Pyrrhian Eternals, his immortal squad, when led, adds one to their wound rolls.
Speaker B:Oh, so just twice as tough or a third as tough? 50%.
Speaker A:Although, like when they're. When they're attacking. Yeah. On their wound rolls.
Speaker B:Wound rolls, sorry. Yep. Not on wounds.
Speaker A:Not on wounds. But yes. They're more efficient at killing people.
Speaker B:That's what you want to see.
Speaker A:He also has an ability called Mind in the Machine.
Speaker B:This is his possession shtick.
Speaker A:Yeah. On the opponent's shooting phase.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker A:A targeted vehicle has to pass a leadership test. If it passes, you subtract one from hit rolls like that, you know, vehicle. Yep. If it fails, it straight up. Just cannot shoot that shooting phase.
Speaker B:Nice. He just turns them off.
Speaker A:Yep. And that's about all I really have to say of Anrakir the Traveler. What do you think of him?
Speaker B:He seems like a cool dude. I love the idea of the blue energy on a Necron. I think the green is very basic. And any other changes are very nice. His model's kind of.
Speaker A:It makes him very icy, doesn't he? Cold hearted.
Speaker B:Resonates with that like, Necron vibe very well, I think. But he's a. He's a cool dude.
Speaker A:What do you think of his campaigns?
Speaker B:He's kind of just like a petty chad that comes in and then everything changes.
Speaker A:Yeah. He is the point break for the Necrons, it seems.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah. It's like, what do you do when you're struggling? You call Unrikir. And he'll just come fix the problem?
Speaker A:Absolutely. Well, that's Anrakir, the Traveler, Lord of the Pyrrian Eternals. That's. Thank you very much for listening to this Advent calendar episode.
Stay tuned for another.
