It is said that the birth of the star vampires took place during the creation of the universe itself, formed of the insensate energies unleashed in that churning mass of unimaginable force. In this anarchic interweaving, the sea of stars began to swirl and eddy into existence, and for an age the universe was nothing more than hot gas and dust ruled over by the incomprehensible forces of billions of young suns. Long before planets had formed and cooled, the first self-aware entities emerged from the seas of plasma and the mountainous flares of the suns themselves. In later eras these creatures would become known as the C'tan, but at this stage in their semblance to the terrifying entities they would later become. They suckled as monstrous parasites upon the uncaring parents that bore them, shortening the lives of the suns by uncounted millennia. In time, these star vampires learned to fly on diaphanous wings of magnetic flux, leaving their birthplaces to new feeding grounds and begin the cycle anew. They paid no heed to the hunks of solid matter which they passed in the void, the internal fires and pulsing electromagnetism of these new-born planets insufficient to even register on their monstrous hunger.

The Rise of the Old Ones.

Just as the stars gave birth to creatures fitting their ilk, so the planets eventually gave rise to life that began the long slow climb to sentience. First to cross the sea of stars was a race of beings called the Old Ones. They possessed a slow, cold-blooded wisdom, studying the stars and raising astrology and astronomy to an arcane science. Their understanding of the slow dance of the universe allowed them to manipulate alternate dimensions, and they undertook great works of psychic engineering. Their science allowed them to cross the vast gulfs of space with a step and they spread their spawn to many places. The Old Ones understood that all life is useful, and where they passed they kindled new species and impregnated thousands upon thousands of worlds to make them their own.

The Necrontyr.

As the Old Ones spread across the galaxy, younger, fiercer races struggled in their wake. The Necrontyr were such a race, born under a fearsome, scourging star, which uncaringly drove their evolution forth with atomic winds and plasma storms. What little information is known of the Necrontyr tells that their lives were short and uncertain, their bodies blighted and consumed by the searing caress of their cruel star. They were a mercurial, morbid folk, their precarious life spans riven from cradle to grave with constant loss.

The Necrontyr sought control of their destiny through science, but learned that they could not conquer the curse that had been encoded into their bodies. They persevered, yet still their accomplishments gained them naught. Their star still reigned over them as life giver and death god combined. Their cities were built in anticipation of their demise, the living becoming temporary residents hurrying through the sepulchres and vast tombs of their ancestors.

Unable to find peace on their own world, the Necrontyr blindly groped outward to other stars. Using stasis crypts and slow burning torch ships, clad in living metal to resist the age long journeys through the void, they began to colonize distant planets. Sometime into their slow expansion, the Necrontyr encountered the Old Ones. The colonization of these ultra-intelligent mystics had been immeasurably swifter than that of the Necrontyr. That and their immense longevity (nigh immortality) kindled a burning hatred in the Necrontyr, which ate at them spiritually as much as their hideous cancers consumed them physically. Why should one race be granted long lives while their own were cut so cruelly short? Jealousy begats hatred and the Necrontyr turned their entire civilization towards destroying the old ones and their spawn.