Suzerain de Dagon

From the edge of the galactic rim, the first tendrils of Hive Fleet Dagon have coiled around the edge of the Jericho Reach, choking the life from worlds and feeding on the Imperium itself. Among this new hive fleet, ancient and now all too familiar horrors have arisen, creatures spawned and unleashed in dozens of other sectors and across countless other battlefields. Alongside the familiar, however, come new and disturbing Tyranid variations, proving once again that as soon as the Imperium believes it understands the Tyranid, the Tyranid changes and adapts once more. For the Jericho Reach, the force of the Tyranid assault was like a mighty hammer blow, catching the Achilus Crusade off balance and forcing Imperial Commanders to scramble to face this new and encroaching threat before too much ground was lost and too many worlds had fallen. Meeting the swarms head-on, millions died in those first desperate years of Dagon’s arrival, and many planets could not be saved, disappearing forever under a tide of chitin and claws. It was also during this dark time that Hive Fleet Dagon took on its own identity among the dozens of other major hive fleet incursions from the Eastern Fringe. Commanders and soldiers alike came to know the signs and character of the swarm, the nature of its beasts and the unique hunger it seemed to possess for the Jericho Reach, as if it had a taste for that sector specifically and the worlds that lay within it. They also noted how it adapted and changed with each world it consumed, each battle it won (or lost) and with each light year it came closer to the Iron Collar and the Warp Gate. This kind of rapid adaption had been observed in other fleets of course, however in Hive Fleet Dagon it seemed to take on an even more sinister slant, as if the fleet were aware of the pain and suffering it was inflicting and the terror in the hearts of the soldiers trying to stop it. In the space of a few short years, this evolution and mutation within Dagon led to a number of unique bio-constructs and weapons never seen before by Imperial scholars; the most terrible of them all being the Overlord. The rise of the Dagon Overlord, or simply the Overlord as it became known, seemed to occur in conjunction with those first victories scored by the hive fleet, as if the Hive Mind had taken the measure of the foes it has faced and chose to evolve a specific tool for their eradication. Other theories speculate that the Overlord was a genus specific to the hive fleet that existed long before its arrival in the Imperium, and that it was simply a superior warrior construct, brought out of storage to face a more stubborn than excepted adversary. Whatever the case, the Overlord first appeared during the opening days of the battle for Castobel, leading a mighty swarm against the amethyst spires of the Trimalov Hive, rending through its walls and dispatching its defenders in a month-long orgy of carnage and slaughter. Those fortunate enough to escape the fall of the hive city with their lives took with them tales of terror and the memory of a beast which stood apart from even the worst horrors the swarm has to offer. The Dagon Overlord is in appearance similar to a Hive Tyrant, a creature of terrible and horrific majesty all on its own, but is different enough to stand apart from its lesser brethren and be remembered by those that see it looming across the battlefield. Covered in slimy plates of chitin which constantly drip and leak fluid, the Overlord projects an aura of horror and menace like nothing else within the swarm. Its importance and power are also readily apparent when it strides alongside other Tyranid creatures, its powerful presence emboldening and maddening the lesser creatures more so than would be expected by any link to the Hive Mind. It is almost as if the Overlord is the embodiment of Hive Fleet Dagon’s ire toward the Jericho Reach and its alien hatred infects creatures with a personal desire to murder, maim, and kill all those in their path. It has been suggested that this notion of the beast’s personal vendetta is just the fanciful imagining of terrified Imperial Guardsmen, though only by those who have not seen the Overlord beast in the flesh themselves. Since its first appearance, the Dagon Overlord has been sighted in almost all of the major combat zones of the Orpheus Salient, leading swarm after swarm into the ranks of Imperial defenders. This has led many to believe that the Overlord is just one of many, and not a unique creature at all. However such notions of individuality are hard to determine when dealing with the Hive Mind, as it is constantly recycling its troops and adding to them by consuming worlds. This means the Overlord may well be a veteran of many wars, and may have even fallen countless times to the foe, only to be re-spawned by the Hive Mind with a fresh body and a will for vengeance. Both the Ordo Xenos and the Deathwatch have made attempts to find the truth behind the Overlord, if for no other reason than to catalogue a new and deadly variation of the Tyranid race. Neither has met with much success, and both agents and Battle-Brothers have been lost during the process. Even when the Dagon Overlord seems defeated, it invariably rises again in another place or another time.

Genetic Ancestor(s)

• Tyranides