The C’tan are the Star Gods of Warhammer 40k: vast, ancient entities of pure energy that feed on stars and once enslaved the Necrons. They’re the reason the Necrons traded their flesh for living metal, and the shattered remnants of them are still fielded as weapons of war.
What the C’tan actually are
The C’tan aren’t daemons and they aren’t gods in the usual 40k sense. They’re beings of pure energy said to be a fundamental constant of the universe, and possibly the first self-aware things to exist. They were born from the primordial forces that shaped reality, long before the first planets cooled.
In their earliest form they were basically star parasites, drifting between suns and draining millennia off their lives. Solid matter didn’t interest them at all. A newborn planet’s heat and magnetism barely registered against that kind of hunger.
The Aeldari call them the Yngir. The Necrontyr called them Star Gods, which turned out to be a catastrophic mistake.
How the Necrons got involved
The Necrontyr were a short-lived, bitter species who’d lost a war against the Old Ones and wanted payback and a cure for their mortality. While studying dying stars, they found something older than any physical lifeform: sentient energy feeding on red giants.
They read these entities as the children of their death-god and welcomed them as weapons. The C’tan got bodies of living metal (necrodermis) and, in return, the Necrontyr got the Biotransference: their flesh swapped for metal shells, their souls eaten in the process. Szarekh, the Silent King, has been cursing himself for it ever since.
The War in Heaven and the shattering
With C’tan backing them, the Necrons smashed the Old Ones. The C’tan grew fat on the war, and their appetite for souls became a problem for everyone, including their own followers.
Szarekh eventually turned on them. The Necrons broke most of the C’tan into shards, which they now lock away or deploy as battlefield weapons. It’s one of the great ironies of the setting: the gods the Necrons made are now their ammunition.
- The C’tan are tied to the material universe, not the Warp, so they don’t behave like Chaos gods.
- Known C’tan include Aza’gorod the Nightbringer, Mephet’ran the Deceiver, and Iash’uddra the Endless Swarm.
- The Void Dragon is the big one, and it’s heavily linked to Mars and the Adeptus Mechanicus.
Shards, powers, and the Warp
A C’tan shard is a fragment of a shattered god, still enormously dangerous but a shadow of the original. Some sources mention Transcendent C’tan, shards that have grown or broken free of their bindings, which is roughly the worst thing a Necron tomb world can wake up to.
They’re reality-benders rather than psychics. The C’tan manipulate the physical universe directly, which is why they’re a hard counter to Warp-based powers. Against daemons and psykers, that’s a very bad matchup for the other side.
Key facts
- The C’tan are beings of pure energy, said to be among the first self-aware entities in the universe.
- They fed on stars before the Necrontyr gave them bodies of living metal.
- The Necrontyr’s deal with the C’tan caused the Biotransference, turning them into the Necrons.
- Szarekh, the Silent King, led the revolt that shattered most C’tan into shards.
- C’tan shards are now deployed by the Necrons as weapons of war.
- The Aeldari name for them is the Yngir.
FAQ
Are the C’tan gods?
Not in the divine sense. They’re ancient energy beings the Necrontyr mistakenly worshipped as Star Gods. They’re powerful enough that the label stuck, but they’re a physical phenomenon, not a spiritual one.
Why did the Necrons betray the C’tan?
The C’tan were devouring the Necrons’ souls and had become a threat to their own followers. Szarekh, the Silent King, led the revolt and shattered most of them into shards.
Can a C’tan be killed?
Fully destroying one seems to be beyond the Necrons, which is why they settled for shattering them. Shards can be destroyed or contained, but the original entity is a different problem.