The Tragedy of Kadmos the Heretek

The story of Kadmos, formerly known as Explorator Actaeon of the Priesthood of Mars, is a complex narrative, beginning not with the Tech-Priest himself, but with the legacy of the Hemlock Rogue Trader Dynasty. Operating out on the Western Fringe for generations, the Hemlock Rogue Trader Company focused on commodities, moving large amounts of raw materials between worlds in the Sectorum Ludus Bellorum to maintain steady profits over the generations. The end of this centuries-long tradition came when the latest Hemlock found himself on a Shield World that had just come under attack. The Shield Worlds are a series of planets, linked through the Immaterium, that push the light of the Emperor deeper into the Galaxy using relics of his time among mankind. On one sparsely inhabited Shield World, the arcane machinery was overseen by a handful of Tech-Priests, including an uninspiring specimen known as Actaeon. 

Actaeon was emaciated and skeletal, even for a member of the Priesthood of Mars, often found in soiled robes, muttering to himself in Binary Cant, but his retention of the sequences needed to maintain the machinery of the Shield World made him somewhat indispensable. The odd waking reverie in which Actaeon lived came to a crashing halt one day when he found himself face-to-face with Trazyn the Infinite, a legendary Necron Lord with a penchant for collecting historically significant relics, including the one powering the Shield that Actaeon was tasked with monitoring. Should Actaeon had proved himself an obstacle to Trazyn, he would have no doubt died, but the Tech-Priest instead fainted dead away, enabling the Necron Lord to steal the relic and vanish. As the Shield dissipated, the foul, warp-born forces of Chaos began to appear to claim the defenseless world. It is likely that Actaeon would have died there, were it not for Dauntless, Arch-Militant of the Hemlock Rogue Trader Company happening by the frail Tech-Priest and saving him from the rampaging Daemons. 

Alisander and a Team of Merchant Marines

Slipping away before Ordo Malleus forces could seal off the planet, Trader Hemlock was dubious about the frail and emaciated form laid before him, but after suffering some losses, the ship was in dire need of a Mechanicus Priest and he had little choice. For a time, Actaeon formed part of the crew, along with Captain Hemlock, Dauntless, Jace the Navigator and Senechal Alisander, exploring the Sectorum and carving a small economic empire in the name of the Hemlock dynasty. A chance encounter at an abandoned Imperial Fortress from the era of the Great Crusade allowed Actaeon to discover that he had been fitted with a memory-blocking datachip at some point. Commonly known as a "lobo-chip", such implants are typically found in Imperial Guardsmen who have suffered head wounds, their function being to block off access to traumatic memories and to reduce emotional output, making the person to which it is fitted to easier to handle by their commanders. Just why Actaeon had been issued with such a chip was unknown, until the moment he had it removed. 

Before being assigned to monitoring the Shield World machinery, Actaeon worked as an archivist for a high-ranking member of the Logi, cataloging ancient documents from the Dark Age of Technology and attempting to make sense of the labyrinthine history of the Mechanicum. During his research, Actaeon came across some forbidden documents which eroded his sanity in minutes and left the Tech-Priest ranting uncontrollably about some doom that would one day befall the Imperium and how the Priesthood of Mars would be to blame. Rather than lose a valuable worker, the Logi decided to install Actaeon with a Lobo-Chip and assign him to a backwater Shield World where he could do no harm. The Magister of the Sectorum's Prime Forge World was tasked with keeping a whether eye on Actaeon, though had far more important duties to addend to, even if he did say so himself. Due to this hierarchical hiccup, it was assumed for many months that Actaeon, and his head full of locked-off secrets, was dead and no longer of concern. 

The Hemlock Trading Company Mining Team is also good in a scrap.

Actaeon's mental state was rapidly decaying during his adventures, often going on rants about his bizarre beliefs, getting into fights with much more dangerous opponents (including bears and Space Marines) and somehow winning and sowing open rebellion against the Priesthood of Mars. It must be understood at this point that other members of the "command crew" of the Hemlock Rogue Trader Company had began to flirt with heresy and Actaeon was only the worst of a bad lot, not being able to keep his collecting of Xenos technology and hatred of Mars hidden like Jace's burgeoning Chaos worship or Hemlock's lax attitude towards trading with Eldar. Just when Actaeon began to experiment with Xenos technology isn't known, but it is suspected that it was around the time the current Hemlock died, because, from then, the Hemlock Rogue Trader Company turned from a typical mercantile concern to full-blown secessionist army in a few months. 

The whole truth may never be known, but when the Hemlock crew were next sighted, Dauntless' soul had been transferred into an Eldar machine known as a "Wraithguard", Jace was steadily mutating and Actaeon was gone, replaced by Kadmos, the Heretek. The frail, emaciated Tech-priest in tattered robes was gone, replaced by a hovering figure in living metal and black leather, with a cold, robotic voice issuing from behind a bone mask. Wielding a Necron weapon and espousing an apocalyptic creed, it is perhaps thanks only to Kadmos's vast wealth and strange charisma that he is able to cultivate a following at all, yet alone one of the size he has mustered. Beginning with mercenaries, Kadmos has "improved" many with bionics and archeotech weapons and has developed his own Heretek versions of several known Necron forms. Ordo Xenos Inquisition speculate that Kadmos has a Necron "patron" providing him with material, but it seems unlikely that too many humans would follow such a leader, especially Jace, being a known worshiper of the Ruinous Powers. 

Dauntless, Jace, Kadmos and Alisander.

The level of threat which Kadmos poses is great, but just how many resources should be devoted to his death is a point of contention between the Adeptus Mechanicus, Ordo Xenos and Deathwatch, which each party having a vested interest in a resolution to the "issue". As much as the Imperium would clearly benefit from Kadmos' death, there are those who want to see him captured and forced to reveal the dire secrets that he knows. Hence, it is in the vested interest of each party to keep him out of the reach of the others; the famous internal conflicts of the Imperium coming to the fore once again. Until such time as someone is able to apprehend or kill Kadmos and end his operation, he will pursue his strange agenda, whatever it may be, and may the Emperor preserve whoever gets in his way. 

 Kadmos leads his horrid creations into battle.