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At a glance
The seas of Fenris are among the most dangerous waters in the Imperium. Storms rage across them for weeks on end, waves rise taller than hab-blocks, and the coming of the Long Summer can boil whole stretches of ocean as volcanoes erupt from the depths. In those seas live creatures that the Fenrisian tribes call by many names. The greatest and most feared of them are the kraken: vast, many-armed predators that rise from the deep to drag ships, men and beasts into the black water.
Imperial records on the Fenrisian kraken are thin. Most of what is known comes from the sagas of the Fenrisian tribes and the tales told around the fires of the Fang. The Space Wolves do not catalogue the beasts of their homeworld in the manner of the Magi Biologis. They tell stories about them. As a result, much of what follows is told the way a skald would tell it: the sagas say, the old men remember, the warriors swear.
This creature should not be confused with Hive Fleet Kraken, the Tyranid invasion named by Inquisitor Kryptman. The Space Wolves have fought both, and the irony of the name is not lost on them.
Nature of the beast
What the sagas say
The sagas describe the kraken as a creature of enormous size, with a body like an upturned hull and a crown of long, thick arms covered in hooks and suckers. Some tales give it a great beak at the centre of those arms, sharp enough to bite a longship in half. Others speak of eyes as large as shields, pale and glowing in the dark water. Its skin is said to be slick and grey, and it can change colour to hide among the rocks and weed of the sea floor.
Where it hunts
The kraken is said to live in the deepest parts of the ocean, rising to the surface to hunt. It is especially feared during storms, when the waves hide its approach. Some sagas claim it follows the migrations of the great fish and sea mammals of Fenris, and that tribes who follow the same routes must make offerings or fight. Others say it lairs in sea caves beneath the drowned islands, emerging when the tides turn.
How it kills
A kraken attacks from beneath. A longship crew may feel the hull shudder and see the water darken before the first arm rises out of the sea. The arms wrap around the hull, the mast, the rowers. Men are plucked from the deck and pulled screaming into the depths. If the beast is hungry enough, it drags the entire ship down, crushing it like kindling.
Life on a world of monsters
Fenris is a death world in every sense. Its people live on scattered islands that rise and fall with the seasons, and they spend much of their lives at sea in wooden longships. They fight one another for scraps of land, and they fight the beasts of the land and sea. Among those beasts are the kraken, but also sea serpents, giant fish, firewyrms and wolves.
This environment shapes the tribes, and through them the Space Wolves. The Chapter recruits from the strongest warriors of Fenris, and many aspirants have survived encounters with sea monsters long before they ever see the Fang. A warrior who has fought a kraken and lived carries a story worth hearing in the mead halls.
The Long Winter and Long Summer
Fenris's eccentric orbit brings a Long Winter of ice and darkness, followed by a Long Summer when the world approaches its sun and the seas churn and boil. The sagas say the kraken are most active at the turning of the seasons, when the ice breaks and the oceans become restless. Tribes that sail in those times know they may not return.
The kraken and the Space Wolves
The Space Wolves do not often return to the oceans of Fenris, but their sagas are full of the sea. Many of their warriors were born on longships, and they carry those memories with them. The tales of the Chapter include young warriors who fought kraken before their ascension, and veterans who went back to the seas to test themselves against the beasts.
Space Wolves are famous for wearing trophies of the beasts they have slain, and the sagas say that teeth, hooks and beaks taken from sea monsters are among the charms carried by warriors who came from the sea. The Space Wolves are fond of the symbolism of predators, and the kraken, the wolf of the sea, is one of the greatest.
Wolf and kraken
The sagas sometimes set the kraken against the wolf as two kinds of predator: the wolf that hunts in packs across the land and ice, and the kraken that hunts alone in the cold depths. The Space Wolves see themselves in the wolf, but they respect the kraken. Both are survivors, and both are deadly.
Why the Imperium knows so little
Fenris is a closed world in many ways. The Space Wolves guard it jealously, and outsiders are rarely welcome. The Magi Biologis have never been given free rein to study its oceans, and the Chapter has little interest in classifying the beasts its aspirants grow up fighting. As a result, the Fenrisian kraken remains a creature of legend in Imperial archives, recorded mostly as a line in a saga or a name carved on a trophy. That suits the Space Wolves. On Fenris, a story told well is worth more than any data-slate.
Tales of the kraken
- The black longship: a saga tells of a longship that sailed into a storm and came back with half its crew. The survivors said the sea itself had reached up and taken the others. The ship's hull was scored with marks like the hooks of giant arms.
- The island that moved: some tribes tell of warriors who landed on a small island to rest, only for the island to sink beneath them. The sagas say it was a kraken, sleeping at the surface.
- The warrior who swam: in one tale, a young warrior was dragged overboard by a kraken. He drew his knife and stabbed at the arm that held him until it released him, then swam to the surface with the creature's blood clouding the water around him. He later became a Space Wolf.
These tales may be exaggerated, but they reflect the very real danger of Fenris's seas.
Trivia
- Most knowledge of the Fenrisian kraken comes from sagas rather than Imperial study.
- The kraken is said to be most active during the turning of Fenris's seasons.
- Its hooks, beaks and teeth are prized as trophies.
- The name should not be confused with Hive Fleet Kraken.
- Fenris's seas also hold sea serpents and other monstrous beasts.
