Volkite weapons are an ancient and half-lost class of thermal ray weapon dating from humanity's earliest golden age of technology, prized for their ability to burn through targets and set them alight from within. A volkite discharge superheats its victim so violently that stricken bodies can burst into flame or deflagrate entirely, and the beam's fury only grows against packed ranks, making these weapons appallingly effective against massed infantry.
Once fielded in vast numbers during the earliest crusades of Imperial history, volkite technology has since become extraordinarily rare. The knowledge and forges needed to produce them have largely been lost, and surviving examples are treated as irreplaceable relics. The Adeptus Mechanicus hoard what patterns and manufacturing secrets remain, and only a favoured few forge worlds can still produce them at all.
Volkite arms span a full family of weapons, from handheld chargers and calivers to heavy culverins and vehicle-mounted batteries. Where they still appear, they are borne by elite formations and honoured warriors, including certain Space Marine forces and the war machines of the Mechanicus. Their distinctive searing beams and the grisly manner in which they consume the foe make volkite weapons a chilling echo of a lost age when mankind commanded technologies it can now barely comprehend.