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Caestus Assault Ram - Horus Heresy Wargear: During the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy the Caestus Assault Rams of the Legiones Astartes featured different weapon loadout options than those still found during the 41st Millennium.A standard Legion Caestus Assault Ram is armed and equipped with:Caestus Ram - The front prow of the Caestus is protected with heavy armour and augmented with field generators, allowing the vessel to purposely smash itself into vehicles, buildings and even starships and survive.Twin-linked Magna-MeltasTwo Havoc Missile LaunchersMachine Spirit (Artificial Intelligence)Extra Armour PlatingArmoured Ceramite PlatingA Legion Caestus Assault Ram may replace its 2 wing-mounted Havoc Missile Launchers with the following weapons:2 Missile LaunchersA Legion Caestus Assault Ram that is armed wit 2 wing-mounted Missile Launchers may be outfitted with the following munitions:Frag MissilesKrak MissilesA Legion Caestus Assault Ram may be outfitted with any of the following vehicle equipment:Frag Assault LaunchersAuxiliary Drive System |
Caestus Assault Ram - Dragonfire Assault Wing: First recorded in the Libris Apollon as being used during the later years of the Great Crusade, the Dragonfire attack pattern of the Caestus Assault Ram relied on the combined use of three Caestus Assault Rams armed with Magna-Melta weapons, and the skill of their crews to fly these craft in a tight formation while firing their weapons with precise timing to create large breaches in enemy hulls and fortifications. Few obstacles can stand before the fury of this attack pattern. |
Caestus Assault Ram - Notable Users of the Caestus Assault Ram: Astral Claws - The Astral Claws Chapter used several Caestus Assault Rams during the Badab War against the Imperium.Exorcists - The Exorcists Chapter used several Caestus Assault Rams during the Badab War against the Secessionist Forces of the Tyrant of Badab.Minotaurs - The Minotaurs Chapter used several Caestus Assault Rams during the Badab War against the Secessionist Forces of the Tyrant of Badab.Salamanders - The Salamanders Chapter used several Caestus Assault Rams during the Badab War against the Secessionist Forces of the Tyrant of Badab, Lufgt Huron.Space Wolves - The Space Wolves Chapter used several Caestus Assault Rams during the Defence of Betalis III against the forces of Craftworld Mymeara.Star Phantoms - The Star Phantoms Chapter used several Caestus Assault Rams during the Badab War against the Secessionist Forces of the Tyrant of Badab.White Scars - The White Scars Chapter have also been known to make use of the Caestus Assault Rams, most notably in conjunction with the Silver Guard and Iron Snakes Chapters during the Battle for Salvation's Reach. |
Caestus Assault Ram - Known Caestus Assault Rams: Amaranth Fang - The Amaranth Fang is a Caestus Assault Ram of the Salamanders Chapter that fought during the Battle of Shaprais.Burning Angel - The Burning Angel is a Caestus Assault Ram of the Exorcists Chapter that is attached to the Battle Barge Redeemer.Gore Dagger - The Gore Dagger was a Caestus Assault Ram of the Space Wolves Chapter that was destroyed during the Battle for the Karina Nebula during the defense of the Imperial Mining World of Betalis III from the forces of the Eldar Craftworld Mymeara.Sapphire Claw - The Sapphire Claw is a Caestus Assault Ram of the Astral Claws Chapter that is attached to the Battle Barge Seraph of Judgement.Secutor Crimson - This Caestus Assault Ram has been in service of the Red Hunters Space Marine Chapter for at least two millennia and possibly for far longer. The Secutor Crimson appears to have served in many Inquisition-led operations, for its hull is etched with countless battle honours. Yet, key honours have been deliberately removed while others are unknown to the Red Hunters Chapter archives. What glories go unrecorded having been expunged from the minds of the Chapter's brethren, as well as redacted from such rolls of honour as adorn the armoured flanks of the Secutor Crimson must remain unknown forever more, for the sake of the Imperium and those who shelter within it.Spectre of Death - The Spectre of Death was a Caestus Assault Ram of the Star Phantoms Space Marine Chapter that was destroyed during the Battle for the Palace of Thorns during the Fall of Badab Primaris. |
Caestus Assault Ram - Adeptus Mechanicus Technical Specifications: Caestus Assault RamVehicle Name:Caestus Assault RamMain Armament:Dual-mounted Haephestus pattern magna-melta thermic cannonForge World of Origin:MarsSecondary Armament:2 x Rocket LaunchersKnown Patterns:I-XITraverse & Elevation:10 five second blastsCrew:Pilot & GunnerMain Ammunition:24 MissilesTransport Capacity:10 Space MarinesSecondary Ammunition:N/AWeight:85 TonnesLength:16.8 metresArmour:Wingspan:12.5 metresHeight:6.5 metresSuperstructure:60 millimetresOperational Ceiling:N/AHull:60 millimetresMax Speed:1,800 kph approxGun Mantlet:N/ARange:22,000 km in atmosphereVehicle Designation:5463-028-7108-AR 016Addendum:Anti-grav repellor requires Doctrina Primaris level propitiationFiring Ports:N/AAccess Points:N/ATurret:N/A |
Caestus Assault Ram - Also See: Imperial Vehicles |
Caestus Assault Ram - Sources: Imperial Armour Index: Forces of the Adeptus Astartes (8th Edition), pg. 37Imperial Armour Volume Two, Second Edition - War Machines of the Adeptus Astartes, pp. 142-142Imperial Armour Volume Ten - The Badab War - Part Two, pp. 26, 27, 28, 82, 131, 137, 143-144, 191, 206Imperial Armour Volume Eleven - The Doom of Mymeara, pg. 125Imperial Armour Aeronautica, pp. 30-31Imperial Armour Apocalypse (2nd Edition), pp. 31, 35The Horus Heresy - Book One: Betrayal (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pp. 14, 28, 223The Horus Heresy - Book Two: Massacre (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pp. 29, 85The Horus Heresy - Book Three: Extermination (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pp. 51, 61, 72-73, 76, 115, 167, 188The Horus Heresy - Book Seven: Inferno (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pp. 13, 96-97The Horus Heresy: Legiones Astartes - Age of Darkness Army List pg. 71Salvation's Reach (Novel) by Dan Abnett, pg. 230 |
Cairn-class Tomb Ship - Cairn-class Tomb Ship: A Cairn-class Tomb Ship is the largest type of Necron starship that the Imperium of Man has encountered to date.Gigantic vessels that stretch more than fifteen kilometres across at the beam, Tomb Ships are heavily-armed with potent Necron ship-based weaponry like the Sepulchre, Lightning Arcs, Star Pulse Generators, and Particle Whips as well as smaller Gauss Weapon defence turrets.Tomb Ships are more than a match for the Imperial Navy's battleships, and often leave nothing but destruction and carnage in their wake.As with all known Necron vessels, Tomb Ships possess an unknown form of drive technology that allows the ship to undertake interstellar travel without the need to enter the Warp. The Tomb Ship's drive technology eliminates the spacecraft's momentum, allowing it to travel at extreme speeds and with extreme acceleration without suffering from relativistic limits, whilst also giving the spacecraft an agility that few other void ships can match.In truth, however, Tomb Ships, like all Necron spacecraft, primarily rely upon the use of Dolmen Gates to serve as portals into the Webway, which allows them to cross the vastness of space without resorting to the use of the Warp since the undying Necrons possess no psykers. |
Cairn-class Tomb Ship - History: Fortunately for the Necrons' enemies, Tomb Ships are very rare, having been encountered only seven times by Imperial forces in the late 41st Millennium since the Necrons' reemergence from hibernation on their Tomb Worlds, according to Imperial records.Each time, the Tomb Ship was part of a large Necron force that included at least three Scythe-class Harvest Ships. All of the Tomb Ships thus far encountered by the Imperium have been of the same design, which is indicative of a starship that was developed to the pinnacle of its design many millions of Terran years ago.There has as yet been no indication of the existence of a type of Tomb Ship other than the Cairn-class save for the single rumour of a Necron starship larger than the average space hulk that is alleged to have engaged an Ork fleet, though this remains unconfirmed Ork hearsay. Imperial agents are eagerly seeking more information about this possible threat. |
Cairn-class Tomb Ship - Notable Encounters: 992.M41 Orphean War – During the Orphean War, two Cairn-class Tomb Ships designated Sun Killer and Dead Hand were part of the Necron invasion fleet that assaulted the planet of Amarah Prime. When Battlefleet Orpheus engaged them and their fleet, the two warships proved to be nigh-unstoppable opponents that annihilated everything in their path. The Dead Hand was under the command of Kutlakh, the Phaeron of the Maynarkh Dynasty, and served as his personal flagship. The Dead Hand was eventually severely damaged and forced to disengage from the attack on Amarah Prime under the combined assault of multiple boarding parties composed of Minotaurs Astartes commanded by their Chapter Master, Asterion Moloc. |
Cairn-class Tomb Ship - Notable Tomb Ships: Dead Hand - The Dead Hand was the flagship of the Necron Maynarkh Dynasty's vast dynastic fleet. The Phaeron Kutlakh led the undying legions of the Maynarkh Dynasty when they first awoke from the Great Sleep, and he was swift to prosecute the sector-wide Orphean War against the Imperial forces encroaching upon his domain beginning in 991.M41. Under his command, the Imperial Orpheus Sector in the Segmentum Tempestus fell swiftly until the only bastion of Imperial defence left was the world of Amarah Prime. Whilst the Maynarkh legions undertook an extermination mission on the planet’s surface, Kutlakh led the dynasty’s fleet from the Dead Hand against the Imperial Navy's Battlefleet Orpheus and the contingent of battle barges and strike cruisers contributed by the Minotaurs Chapter of Space Marines. When the Minotaurs' Chapter Master Asterion Moloc and his elite 1st Company teleported onto the Dead Hand in a last-ditch boarding assault after the fleet engagement, Kutlakh tore through Moloc's Terminator bodyguards and was about to deal the finishing blow to the Contemptor Pattern Dreadnought known as Ancient Geryon when Moloc intercepted and engaged him in personal combat. Though equally matched, the combat ended when the Tomb Ship was hit by a broadside of firepower, causing Moloc to fall out into the void and leaving the Necron fleet to disengage.Sun Killer - The Sun Killer was a Tomb Ship in the fleet of the Necron Maynarkh Dynasty. It participated in the Orphean War and was part of the Maynarkh fleet that assaulted the final Imperial redoubt of Amarah Prime in the Orpheus Sector. Like its counterpart, the Maynarkh flagship Dead Hand, the Sun Killer withdrew from Amarah Prime following the successful assault upon the flagship by the 1st Company of the Minotaurs Chapter of Space Marines.Inevitable Conqueror - The Inevitable Conqueror was the flagship of the phaeron of the Sautekh Dynasty, Imotekh the Stormlord. The vessel was crippled during an assault by the Black Templars Space Marines, whose leader, High Marshal Helbrecht, sought revenge against the powerful Necron Overlord who had bested him in combat once before and had sworn an Oath of Venegeance to find and slay the Stormlord. Helbrecht would get a chance to fulfill his Oath of Vengeance in 985.M41, when his Crusade fleet detected Necron acitvity around the world of Davatas. Moving swiftly to intercept, Helbrecht rejoiced when their quarry was identified as the Inevitable Conqueror, Imotekh's personal Cairn-class Tomb Ship and flagship. Moving in with all haste, the Black Templar battle barge Sigismund managed to land crippling blows on the Inevitable Conqueror 's propulsive array, stranding it in place. Intending to get his revenge on his opponent personally, Helbrecht ordered an immediate teleport and boarding torpedo assault upon the Necron Tombship and within solar minutes, the decks of the Inevitable Conqueror were swarming with vengeful Black Templars Astartes. Alas, Helbrecht would not even get the satisfaction of seeing his opponent: while Imotekh's pride urged him to fight, logic won out, and the Stormlord teleported himself and many of his most valuable assets away from his flagship to his unengaged escort ships. The Necrons immediately accelerated away from the fighting and made good their escape. Fuming with impotent rage, Helbrecht could only gain a meagre measure of satisfaction from ensuring the total destruction of the Inevitable Conqueror by setting it on a collision course with the closest star. The frustrated Helbrecht reaffirmed his Oath of Vengeance, swearing once again that he would see Imotekh definitively dead. Those Black Templars with some familiarity with the undying Necrons fear that their Marshal has bitten off more than he can chew. While Helbrecht is certainly capable of besting the Necron Phaeron in single combat, preventing the undying mechanical fiend from teleporting to safety and destroying Imotekh outright may prove to be an impossible feat for a single Chapter of Space Marines, no matter their zeal. |
Cairn-class Tomb Ship - Armament: Tomb Ships are composed entirely out of necrodermis, a unique living metal which comprises the undying mechanical bodies of every Necron warrior, vehicle and starship.The material's regenerative properties and hardy nature means that Tomb Ships are immune to the detrimental effects posed by celestial phenomena such as solar flares, radiation, gas clouds and nebulae, and are also able to repair their armour at a rapid pace during an engagement.However, standard Necron combat protocol dictates that a clean disengagement is preferable to a fight to the end, and Tomb Ships will do this by "fading out," where the vessel in question dematerialises into an unknown extradimensional space; taking it out of the battle.The standard armament of a Cairn-class Tomb Ship includes:Sepulchre – A Sepulchre is only utilised by the largest Necron vessel in a given fleet. When a Sepulchre is used to attack an enemy ship that has foolishly come within its range, a wave of palpable psychic force is generated and sent outwards in all directions. The enemy’s crew are then paralysed by visions of horror, and if discipline is lost, then the crazed crew are likely to do damage to their own ship as they rampage uncontrollably through its confines.Star Pulse Generator – A Star Pulse Generator sends out a massive pulse of energy when activated. Whilst other Necron ships are shielded from this attack, enemy vessels within the field of force’s radius are usually severely damaged if not destroyed outright by the immense energies released.Lightning Arc Batteries – Lightning Arcs use stored solar energy and, when activated, release it as a forest of living energy tendrils which envelop targets and probe for weaknesses. Lightning Arcs act as the main weapon batteries for Necron ships, but are different from the equivalents used by the other starfaring species of the galaxy in that the arcs they fire are able to split up and guide themselves to their own targets, providing a mass-strike ability like no other known ship-based weapon. A Lightning Arc battery is usually able to cover all angles of approach except for the rear.Particle Whip Batteries – Particle Whips are the preferred ranged weapon of Necron warships, and work by projecting a magnetic field across a short arc. This arc is sufficient to be "cracked" like a whip and the anti-matter particles within the stream detonate upon impact with normal matter. When a target is hit, the beam’s power acts in a similar way to a strike from a Lightning Arc, albeit focussed upon a smaller area like a Lance weapon. A Particle Whip battery is usually able to cover all angles of approach except for the rear.Portal – Portals are vast stone gateways located within a Necron warship that act as extradimensional conduits for boarding enemy vessels. More precise than conventional Imperial Teleporters, they are most commonly used to flood enemy starships with a relentless host of Necron Warriors and swarms of Canoptek Scarabs. |
Cairn-class Tomb Ship - Sources: Battlefleet Gothic Armada, pp. 73-75Dark Creed (Novel) by Anthony Reynolds, pg. 130Battlefleet Gothic Magazine, pg. 6Imperial Armour Volume Twelve – The Fall of Orpheus, pp. 51, 56-57Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2 (PC Game) |
Caladius Grav-Tank - Caladius Grav-Tank: A Caladius Grav-Tank, also known simply as a Caladius, is a heavily armed and armoured anti-gravitic tank utilised exclusively by the Legio Custodes during the time of the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy. This vehicle utilised anti-gravitic plate technology which enabled it to be highly manoeuvrable and to hover effortlessly over the field of battle, giving it a distinct advantage over terrain-bound conventional tanks.Armed with the formidable double-barrelled Iliastus Accelerator Cannon and twin-linked Lastrum Bolt Cannon, the customised mass-reactive heliothermic warheads of Lastrum bolt shells can lay down a withering hail of punishing fire. It is unknown if the Caladius is still in use among the forces of the Adeptus Custodes of the 41st Millennium. |
Caladius Grav-Tank - History: The Caladius Grav-Tank was based upon the technology of the Coronus Grav-Carrier. The smaller Caladius Grav-Tank was designed to utilise the firepower afforded by the heaviest elements of the ancient Legio Custodes arsenal on a highly mobile, protected platform. Given the fusion of advanced systems and weapons, the Caladius is perhaps the most powerful battleline armoured unit of its size in the Imperium's forces, utilising technologies and materials derived not only from the Dark Age of Technology, but from developments made as a result of the Great Crusade's two centuries of warfare.The principal armament of the Caladius is a double-barrelled Iliastus Accelerator Cannon, an advanced weapon which was the precursor of the more commonly-produced Accelerator Autocannon used as the armament of the Legiones Astartes Sicaran Battle Tank, which fulfilled a similar role to the Caladius as a high speed armour-destroyer. |
Caladius Grav-Tank - Wargear: Turret-Mounted, Twin-linked Iliastus Accelerator CannonTwin-linked Lastrum Bolt CannonFlare ShieldMachine Spirit (Artificial Intelligence) |
Caladius Grav-Tank - Optional Wargear: Armoured Ceramite PlatingSearchlightExtra Armour PlatingA Caladius Grav-Tank may exchange its Iliastus Accelerator Cannon for a:Twin-linked Arachnus Blaze Cannon |
Caladius Grav-Tank - Caladius Annihilator: A less common variant, the "Caladius Annihilator" features a turret-mounted, enhanced capacitor-fed Arachnus Blaze Cannon potent enough to pose a threat even to super-heavy armour.When fired, large cooling flasks dissipate the immense energies unleashed whenever this tank attacks. This vehicle is also armed with twin-linked Lastrum Bolt Cannons on the front of the hull for anti-personnel firepower. |
Calamity Engine - Calamity Engine: A Calamity Engine is a type of Daemon Engine created at the Forge of Souls in the Realm of Chaos. |
Calderis - Calderis: Calderis is a Feudal World and Desert World in the Sub-sector Aurelia of the Korianis Sector in the Ultima Segmentum, known for its arid climate and hardy warriors. The Blood Ravens Chapter have recruited from this world's hardy desert-dwelling peoples for many standard millennia.An Imperial planetary governor oversees the planet from a void station in orbit so as not to interfere with the local, pre-industrial population. Calderis is one of the three planets that served as the setting for the PC game Dawn of War II.Following the Exterminatus action on Cyrene, the Blood Ravens were in need of a new world to glean recruits from. Calderis would prove to be the solution. The planet was a great source of hardy warriors, many eager to fight in service to the Emperor. The existence of temples and weapons manufacturers on the planet made it appear all the more obvious that Calderis was suited to be the successor for the old recruiting world. Following the devastating losses sustained during the Kaurava Campaign, this very world's continued existence (as well the rest of the sector's wellbeing) would be the only chance that the Blood Ravens might sustain themselves.During the events of the First Aurelian Crusade, Calderis was ravaged by a plethora of problems. First came an Ork WAAAGH! led by a Goffs Ork warboss named Gutrencha. As this world was crucial to the Blood Ravens, the Orks couldn't be allowed to live. No sooner had the Orks been cleared off that a new, more potent threat arrived- a Tyranid invasion that may have been averted by Aeldari planning had the Blood Ravens ceased interfering. The casualties were considerable and, during the assault, Captain Davian Thule suffered a considerably potent (and poisonous) attack from a Tyranid Warrior. Despite the pain that the Blood Ravens suffered, they were able to save Captain Thule and beat the beasts back. Eventually, the Blood Ravens returned not only to expunge the Tyranid infestation, but also rub out the real warboss of the WAAAGH! that plagued the planet.Alas, this would prove to be only the beginning of the troubles. Some time later, during the Second Aurelian Crusade, all but Captain Apollo Diomedes, the only surviving Blood Raven present on the planet, would fall prey to the tricks and daemons of Chaos. Thankfully, some heroes were able to kill the source of the Chaos corruption that was on the planet -- Apothecary Galan -- but would learn of a far greater source of Chaos infestation. Though it took some convincing on Sergeant Tarkus' part, Captain Diomedes eventually realised that there was indeed Chaos corruption in the Blood Ravens and allowed the heroes to leave.The final -- and most fatal -- of all the problems occurred during the Third Aurelian Crusade. Azariah Kyras, the fallen Chapter Master and Chief Librarian of the Blood Ravens, wished to be hidden from the prying eyes of the Imperium; as such, he convinced Sergeant Lysandros to raze Calderis' Argus Settlement (and any other inhabited areas) to the ground, Blood Ravens bases included. No soul would live to tell the tale, leaving Calderis little more then a barren dustball coated with ruins.Thankfully, Captain Diomedes, working alongside other Loyalist Blood Ravens, prevented the total destruction of Argus Settlement's most important civil locations, though some destruction to the area was inevitable. |
Caliban - Caliban: Caliban was an Imperial Death World and Feudal World located in the Segmentum Obscurus to the galactic north of the Eye of Terror that was once the homeworld of the Dark Angels Legion of Space Marines.Caliban was destroyed during the conflict between Luther, his Chaos-corrupted Fallen Angels and their Primarch Lion El'Jonson and his Loyalist Dark Angels in a great conflagration immediately following the end of the Horus Heresy. What little remained of the planet was the territory surrounding Aldurakh, the fortress-monastery of the Dark Angels.Aldurakh was transformed after Caliban's destruction into a mobile star fortress that serves as the primary fortress-monastery and base of operations of the Chapter at present and is known informally as The Rock. |
Caliban - History: The world of Caliban possessed as cruel and harsh an environment as any in the galaxy. Classified as a Death World by the Imperial astrocartographers, the dark, twisted forests that covered the surface of this lush, green planet were as beautiful as they were deadly.These dangerous woods were infested with creatures known as the "Great Beasts" who had been warped and mutated into fanatical predators by the unnatural forces of Chaos. Imperial scholars believe this was due to the Caliban System's close proximity to the Eye of Terror.Day-to-day survival was a ceaseless struggle due to the ferociousness of the ravening Great Beasts that infested the Calibanite forests. To tread the forest paths was to invite certain death. The Human inhabitants of Caliban were forced to live in huge fortresses and castles located in clearings hacked from the forests of the planet.Cut off from Terra and the rest of Mankind's interstellar community by the Warp Storms that savaged the galaxy during the Age of Strife, Human civilisation on Caliban devolved into a semi-feudal state, with most of the population ruled over by a small warrior elite who were very similar in function and form to the medieval European knights of Old Earth's ancient past.The nobility of Caliban were a brusque and pugnacious class. Raised from childhood to live and die by the sword, they were great warriors known for their courage in facing the Great Beasts and other dangers of the Calibanite forests.They fought in a primitive form of power armour much like that used by the first Space Marines, and like the Astartes their main weapons were the Chainsword and Bolt Pistol, all weapons derived from Humanity's common technological legacy. However, most other forms of advanced technology had been lost to the Calibanite civilisation, and the warrior nobility therefore rode into battle on powerful warhorses known as destriers.The Calibanite nobility's life was one of constant struggle as they fought against the multitude of Great Beasts that threatened to overrun their small settlements.Sometimes a particularly fearsome creature would stay in one area and terrorise it, in which case the ruler of the community would declare a quest against the monster, and knights from all around the world would come to attempt to kill the beast.Slaying a quest-creature could bring honour and fortune for the knight lucky enough to kill it -- yet more often than not it brought only a bloody and horrific death in the teeth and talons of a hell-spawned abomination. |
Caliban - The Order: The brave warrior knights who discovered the young Primarch Lion El'Jonson after his arrival on Caliban through the Warp from Terra belonged to a monastic group known simply as The Order. The Order had a reputation across all of Caliban for the honesty, nobility and fearless skill of its brother-knights in battle.Uniquely amongst the many knightly orders of Caliban, the members, or brothers, of The Order were selected by merit rather than hereditary inheritance. Any Calibanite could join The Order, no matter how low-born they might be. Contingents of brother-knights from the Order travelled across the planet, giving their aid wherever it was needed.It was while on one of their great expeditions that a band from The Order came upon the wild man who lived in the forests. Thinking him a monster, the knights were ready to kill the Primarch when one of their number, sensing that there was something more to the creature than was apparent, halted his fellows.This young knight, Luther, and his fellow warriors then returned to Aldurukh, their fortress-monastery, taking with them the man born of the forest. Because of his appearance and the place of his discovery, The Order gave the wild man the name of Lion El'Jonson, which meant "The Lion, the Son of the Forest" in the Calibanite dialect of Low Gothic. Jonson easily adapted to the ways of Humans, and learned to speak and reason remarkably quickly under the knights' tutelage.But of his time growing up alone in the forest and what had transpired during that time of his life the Lion never spoke. Within Aldurukh El'Jonson was assimilated into the Human society of Caliban. There he and Luther formed a close friendship as Luther became a mentor and foster father for the foundling. The two men forged a tight and affectionate bond based on their complementary personalities.Where Jonson was temperamental and taciturn, Luther was charming and charismatic. Where Luther was rash and emotional, Jonson was a brilliant strategist and implacable once decided upon a course of action. In time, the pair's talents combined to make them an incomparable team. Over the following years Jonson and Luther quickly rose through the ranks of The Order. Their exploits became the stuff of legend on Caliban, and the reputation of The Order rose accordingly.The number of young warriors wishing to join The Order grew and grew, so that in time many new fortress-monasteries had to be built to contain all of The Order's growing complement of knights and Initiates. As the Order grew in size Jonson and Luther argued for a crusade against the Great Beasts that infested the forests, to cleanse the planet once and for all of their foul presence so that Humanity might have a chance to prosper on Caliban as never before.The oratory of Luther convinced the Grand Masters of all the different knightly orders and most of the nobles of the planet to join in the crusade, but it was Jonson's unrivalled talent for planning and organisation which ensured that within the course of a single decade the entire planet of Caliban was cleared of the terrible Chaotic monsters that had once inhabited it. A new golden age dawned for the inhabitants of the once troubled planet.In recognition of his triumph against the Great Beasts, Lion El'Jonson was proclaimed the new Supreme Grand Master of The Order and Caliban as a whole. Although Luther did not openly begrudge Jonson the great honour he had won, he did feel the pangs of jealousy at what honours might have been his had the Lion never come to Caliban to outshine him.Thus was lit the first small spark of grievance that would lead to the schism that would tear the Dark Angels Legion apart. But all this was in the future -- for all too short a time the people of Caliban enjoyed a season of peace and plenty. |
Caliban - The Emperor and The Lion: Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Jonson and the people of Caliban, the Emperor of Mankind was waging his Great Crusade across the galaxy, reuniting Humanity and purging entire star systems of their alien oppressors. As the Imperium's wave of conquest advanced across the galaxy, Imperial Explorators rediscovered the isolated world of Caliban.Forward reconnaissance elements from the Ist Legion of Space Marines arrived at Caliban and identified the Lion as one of the Emperor's genetically-engineered missing sons, the primarchs. Jonson was immediately given command of the Ist Legion when the Emperor realised he had not only found one of his lost sons, but the genetic father of the very Astartes who had landed on Caliban.Luther and the other members of The Order who passed the Legiones Astartes' trials were transformed into Ist Legion warriors, either as fully-fledged Astartes if they were young enough to undergo the implantation of the gene-seed organs, or like Luther, through genetic manipulation to increase their size and physical abilities if they were already too old for the process.After the new Astartes were ready, Jonson publicly re-named the Ist Legion the Dark Angels after an old Calibanite myth of shadow-clad angels who came from the sky to aid the people of Caliban in their time of need. Luther, too old to become a true Astartes, was the first member of The Order to be genetically modified and became Jonson's second-in-command, as he had been during the Calibanite crusade against the Great Beasts.Jonson then left with the Emperor and the newly re-named Dark Angels to take command of his portion of the Great Crusade even as the Imperium began to work extraordinary changes in the culture, technology and lifestyle of the people of Caliban in order to make the world a useful contributor to the needs of the Emperor.Tens of thousands of Calibanites were recruited into newly raised regiments of the Imperial Army, whilst the remainder of the population began work clearing the forests and constructing the great cities needed to house the millions of labourers who would man the manufactoria that would produce materiel for the Great Crusade's forces night and day.Some Calibanites, particularly amongst the nobility, objected to the loss of their old way of life, but such dissent was viewed as treason against the Emperor and was dealt with harshly by the Imperial forces that were now stationed on the former Death World. |
Caliban - Great Schism: The Lion was granted command of the 4th Expeditionary Fleet of the Great Crusade in orbit of the planet Sarosh. The Saroshi -- ruled by a bureaucracy -- had recently expressed their interest in becoming part of the Imperium, and the Imperials were eager to allow them in, believing that these people seemed to express the same secular beliefs as they did in the Imperial Truth.But the Saroshi (without mentioning it to the Imperial expedition) secretly worshipped Chaos entities in the Warp they called the Melachim, and saw the anti-religious stance of the Pre-Heresy Imperium's Imperial Truth as unsuppressed evil.The Lord High Exacter, the leader of the Saroshi bureaucracy, denounced Jonson and the Emperor to the primarch's face aboard the Dark Angels' flagship Invincible Reason, and Lion El'Jonson responded by ramming his Power Sword through the fanatical Saroshi leader's body.Unknown to the Dark Angels, the Saroshi had secreted a nuclear device aboard their shuttle, intending to assassinate the fleet's entire command structure, including Jonson; however, Luther and a junior Librarian named Zahariel managed to eject the shuttle into space, causing only minor damage to the flagship though Zahariel suffered serious burns from the shuttle's engines.After this incident, Luther, Zahariel and 500 other Dark Angels were sent back to Caliban in disgrace for allowing an enemy to get a nuclear device aboard the primarch's flagship and officially to oversee the recruitment of new Space Marines into the I Legion from the Calibanite population.In truth, the Lion also had his suspicions about Luther, who he believed, rightly, had at first thought to allow the Saroshi device to succeed in killing the primarch so that he might at last have the position of true leadership that he had lost ever since discovering the Lion in the forests of Caliban.Decades passed and Luther remained in charge of the Dark Angels' garrison force on Caliban. He and the Astartes under his command were never recalled by his primarch to combat duty in the Great Crusade. As Jonson's fame spread throughout the galaxy and reports of his great deeds and prowess in battle reached the Ist Legion's homeworld, Luther felt robbed of his share of the glory. He wanted the fame and recognition that he felt he deserved as Jonson's equal and mentor.His role as the Planetary Governor of what had become a half-forgotten backwater world seemed more and more to him like an insult. The seed of jealousy and dissension that had been planted within Luther when Jonson was made the Supreme Grand Master of The Order now began to grow and rankle within his heart as the primarch became more and more celebrated across the Imperium. |
Caliban - Destruction of Caliban: After the end of the Horus Heresy during the Siege of Terra, Lion El'Jonson and the Dark Angels fleet finally returned to Caliban, but once the I Legion's vessels made orbit they were immediately fired upon by Caliban's orbital defence system.Puzzled, El'Jonson withdrew his vessels into the outer reaches of the Caliban System. When he learned that Luther had ordered Caliban's defences to fire upon the returning Dark Angels fleet, El'Jonson fell into a terrible rage, believing that Luther and the Dark Angels garrison left on Caliban had fallen to the temptations of Chaos just like the Astartes of the Traitor Legions.The Lion ordered his fleet to launch an orbital bombardment of the planet and destroy the weapons of the orbital defence systems. The Legion's fleet bombarded the planet mercilessly, causing the tectonic plates of the planet to crack and shift. El'Jonson then personally led an Astartes strike force into the Tower of Angels, the I Legion's primary fortress-monastery on Caliban and duelled his former friend and mentor to the death.They were equally matched, but finally, Luther keeled over in exhaustion, leaving him open to a deathblow. Yet for all his wrath, El'Jonson could not bring himself to slay his foster father and so, in that moment, Luther lashed out with a psychic attack using the sorcerous powers that had been granted to him by his willing acceptance of servitude to the Ruinous Powers.Yet as Luther saw his oldest friend dying, his mind finally cleared of its jealousy and hate, as if a veil had been lifted, and he fell to his knees in anguish, sending out a cry for help into the Warp. The Ruinous Powers, angered that they had lost such a valuable pawn in their plans to weaken the Imperium, sent a massive Warp Storm to wrack the surface of the planet.The world of Caliban then broke apart under the strain produced by the Warp Storm and the prior geological stresses unleashed by the Dark Angels' orbital bombardment. The entire world imploded into a field of orbital debris, with the exception of the oldest and mightiest fortress-monastery of The Order, which had been protected by potent defensive gravitic forcefields.Officially called the "Tower of Angels," but better known as The Rock, the Calibanite bedrock upon which the fortress sat was later hollowed out by the Dark Angels, fortified with advanced Imperial weaponry and fitted with a Warp-Drive to transform it into a mobile Star Fortress which would serve as the Dark Angels primary fortress-monastery.Immediately following the destruction of Caliban, when the Dark Angels searched the ruins of the Tower of Angels, they found the Arch-Traitor Luther, babbling incoherently that Lion El'Jonson had been taken by the Watchers in the Dark (supposedly to heal from his psychic attack), but I Legion's primarch was nowhere to be seen, nor could any trace of his body be found where he had duelled Luther.The rest of the Dark Angels Astartes who had been converted by Luther to the worship of Chaos were sucked into the Immaterium by the will of the Chaos Gods and were scattered across time and space. From that time forward they were forever after referred to as the Fallen Angels or simply the Fallen, and are hunted ruthlessly by the Dark Angels and their Successor Chapters, who call themselves the Unforgiven.All bear the haunted legacy of lost Caliban and all have pledged that they shall never rest until every one of the Fallen has repented his sins against the Emperor. |
Caliban - Trivia: Caliban is the name of a character in the Shakespearean play "The Tempest." Caliban is forced into servitude on an island ruled by Prospero the magician. Growing up alone on the deserted island, he is often depicted as a wild man, or a deformed man -- the only human inhabitant of the island that is otherwise "not honour'd with a human shape" (Prospero, I.2.283).Caliban is the son of a luciferous woman (witch) resulting in his feral nature. Upon the magician's arrival to the island, Caliban teaches Prospero how to survive, while he is eventually civilised by the magician and Prospero's daughter Miranda who teach him religion and how to speak. Following Caliban's attempted rape of Miranda, he was compelled by Prospero to serve as the magician's slave.In slavery, Caliban came to view Prospero as an usurper and grew to resent him and his daughter. He sought to rebel against them under a new master, but in the end he remained a faithful servant to his first master, Prospero. This character arc has notable similarities to those of the Dark Angels' Primarch Lion El'Jonson and Luther.Caliban might also be an anagram for "Canibal" or derived from the word Kaliban/Calibaun, the Romany (gypsy) word for the colour "black." Coincidentally, the original colour of the power armour and panoply of the Dark Angels Legion during the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy was black. Caliban is also the name of the second largest of the retrograde irregular moons of Uranus, the seventh planet of the Solar System. |
Calibanite Warblade - Calibanite Warblade: The Calibanite Warblade was a pattern of power sword made in the style of the knightly swords of the lost Legion homeworld of Caliban that was used by many of the Astartes of the Dark Angels Legion during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy. |
Caligari Conclave - Caligari Conclave: The Caligari Conclave is a ruling conclave of the Imperial Inquisition that oversees the Inquisitors and their agents operating in the Caligari Sector of the Segmentum Tempestus.Its current head is Inquisitor Lord Grigori Maldor. |
Caligari Sector - Caligari Sector: The Caligari Sector is a vast, ancient and forgotten region on the fringes of the Segmentum Tempestus, filled with shadows that hide hundreds of tainted worlds.It is a sector plagued by the mysterious "Warp surges," which are smaller, but highly unpredictable manifestations of the dreaded Warp Storms.Far from the guiding light of the Astronomican and torn apart by the foul empyreal tempests that can twist reality and cut off entire star systems for Terran centuries, the Caligari Sector is a haven for the Heretic, the xenos, the outlaw, and the corruptions of Chaos.The Caligari Sector is the setting for the action role-playing video game Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor Martyr. |
Caligari Sector - History: The Caligari Sector is a vast region located in the fringes of the Segmentum Tempestus on the southern rim of the galaxy. Despite its tremendous size and the countless resources the worlds of the sector have to offer, the territory has been largely ignored by the Imperium at large for many Terran millennia, and even experienced Rogue Traders tend to scoff at travellers supposedly hailing from this area.The Caligari Sector is separated by great distances from the Segmentum Solar and, compared to more significant Imperial sectors, it could be justly claimed that it is sporadically populated. It is a shattered territory, where thriving star systems alternate with lost regions, quarantine zones and uncharted areas plagued by strange anomalies. However, over the centuries it has gradually become an extremely important area of operation for the Inquisition.This far from the light of the Astronomican, shadows gather, and dark corners hide ancient secrets and dangerous creatures. In the Caligari Sector, heretical ideas tend to spread freely, not to mention a steady flow of newcomers from the heartlands of the Imperium who bring dubious agendas or questionable dogma with them, hoping to find refuge among the flickering stars of the galactic rim.In other words, the Caligari Sector is an extremely ripe hunting ground for the Inquisition, and the Caligari Conclave of Inquisitors wields far more power -- and employs a significantly greater number of Acolytes and agents -- than might be expected.There are ample reasons why this region is so difficult to reach and control. In addition to the distance from Holy Terra, large sections of the Caligari Sector have been frequently cut off from the Imperium by the region's infamous Warp surges. These have been a clear and present danger since the arrival of the first scouts seeking out new worlds for Mankind. Certain local sects of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and some Navigator families, have dedicated centuries to studying the Caligari Warp surges, but information on them remains scarce and controversial...or simply classified.These Warp surges could be categorised as smaller equivalents of the huge, whirling Warp storms that manifest throughout the galaxy, such as the Maelstrom or the Eye of Terror. Warp surges are relatively small empyric anomalies, but they appear frequently, sometimes without warning, and they can last for an indeterminable amount of time, rising and abating, and blocking established Warp travel routes. Some surges disappear in solar weeks, but others can linger for decades.Warp surges can cut off star systems or, in extreme cases, even large portions of an entire sub-sector. Consequently, there are always a huge number of unreachable systems in the sector, and this is why the Caligari Conclave keeps a close eye on the affected territories.Some systems suffer only minor inconveniences during these periods of undesirable separation, while other systems spend far too long behind the impenetrable wall of storms, and when contact is reestablished, whole worlds have succumbed to heretical ideology, fallen victim to foul xenos raids, or encountered the forces and servants of Chaos. In extreme cases, there are even worlds that have forgotten that they used to be part of the glorious Imperium of Man. On these worlds, Inquisitors find hive cities on the verge of total annihilation, consumed by their own starving population, shrieking to new, alien gods for redemption. On Shrine Worlds, Imperial statues have been knocked down to erect false marble idols in their place. Inquisitors do their best to pacify these reclaimed territories, but their work is difficult and unforgiving.The Warp surges present a clear and present danger in the sector, and Navigators, Imperial fleet commanders and Rogue Traders have learned to cope with these anomalies over the centuries. Recently, however, the Caligari Warp surges have started to exhibit disturbing signs -- mere impediments suddenly turning into full-blown, unholy ruptures in the Immaterium, distorting space and time locally, and spitting out the Daemonic filth of Chaos into realspace. It is almost as if a colossal tide had torn across the galaxy, destabilising the Warp and everything within it... |
Caligari Sector - Sub-sector Agartha: Subsector Agartha is a sub-sector of the Caligari Sector. |
Caligari Sector - Sub-sector Atroxia: Subsector Agartha is a sub-sector of the Caligari Sector. |
Caligari Sector - Sub-sector Sigil: Subsector Agartha is a sub-sector of the Caligari Sector. |
Caligari Sector - Sub-sector Tenebra: The Tenebra Sub-sector includes some of the oldest worlds in the sector. Some of these planets were colonised by Humans as early as the Dark Age of Technology, while others were claimed by the early Imperium during the Great Crusade of the late 30th Millennium.As the region is relatively free from the infamous Caligari Warp surges, the lack of these extremely unpredictable Warp Storms allowed a lengthy period of growth and progress to ensue during which only a dozen systems were lost to the Warp or cut off from the Imperium.For a considerable length of time the core Tenebra worlds have remained relatively peaceful and important, far from the great clashes in the galaxy, but the shift in the power structure in the expanding sector eventually left this sub-sector overlooked and forgotten.The Tenebra sub-sector is rich in ancient technology -- such as unique xenos artefacts, carefully guarded by one of the local sects of the Adeptus Mechanicus.The Tenebra Sub-sector also has its fair share of shadowy corners over which the Inquisition must keep constant vigil. But the Inquisition has only just begun to investigate certain disturbances that could be tied to the sub-sector's uncanny relics. |
Caligari Sector - Sub-sector Triglav: For a long time, the Triglav Sub-sector used to be one of the most important industrial hubs in the Caligari Sector, with entire planets dedicated to the manufacture of industrial products, an impressive list of productive Mining Worlds and several very ancient Hive Worlds founded during the age of the Great Crusade.The abundance of the infamous Caligari Warp surges in this sub-sector, however, always made the transportation of the manufactured goods problematic and costly, and some sector governors in the past decided to increase the industrial output of other sub-sectors, leaving the Triglav systems somewhat neglected.With the recent and inexplicable rise in Warp surge activity, the entire Subsector was cut off entirely from the rest of the Imperium for a very long time, right until now, and the decades of isolation had terrible consequences on the worlds that lost the protection of the God-Emperor. |
Caligari Sector - Notable Star Systems: Aethon System - There is little information in Imperial records regarding this system. Part of the Tenebra Sub-sector. Status: Pacified.Balthar System - There is little information in Imperial records regarding this system. Part of the Tenebra Sub-sector. Status: Threatened.Chernobog System - There is little information in Imperial records regarding this system. Part of the Tenebra Sub-Sector. Status: Pacified.Dagnor System - There is little information in Imperial records regarding this system. Part of the Tenebra Sub-sector. Status: Locked.Lacaon System - There is little information in Imperial records regarding this system. Part of the Tenebra Sub-sector. Status: Unknown.Nereus System - A war-torn system, Nereus was once a thriving hub of agricultural activity, well protected from severe Warp surges. It fed the rest of the sub-sector with crops and the meat of bovine creatures raised from amongst its carefully maintained herds. But the Nereus System is now a troubled area that has fallen prey to periodic raids by marauding corsairs. Part of the Tenebra Sub-Sector. Status: Pacified.Rengris System - The Rengris System was cut off from the rest of the Caligari Sector by a sudden -- and particularly vicious -- Warp surge more than five standard years ago. Before that time, it was a major hub of sub-sector commerce and the local base of operations for one of the sector's most reputable merchant organisations, House Mosinda. |
Caligari Sector - Arthon System: Aethon Prime (Hive World) - This vast mass of hive cities has an almost unparalleled history that goes back several millennia, even including a short period when the world was the seat of power of the sector. As one of the oldest worlds in the sub-sector, its past is hazy, but supposedly the first hive was founded on xenos ruins. Deep under the steel caves there is still rumoured to be a whole xenos city, although spreading such tales is considered heresy.Carnus Maima (Void Station) - A derelict orbital platform turned into a void station providing cheap pleasures for millions of underfed workers, criminals and Astra Militarum soldiers. An army of criminals peddles drugs and recycled food. The station is heavily infiltrated by Heretics and mutants, but Imperial officers still hesitate to shut down the station for its calming effect on the masses.Iona V (Agri-world): An Ocean World covered by a vast archipelago, where large flotillas harvest the local aquatic species of fauna and deliver the catch to the gigantic processing plants scattered all over the islands. Unconfirmed rumours have been spreading of a mysterious xenos race inhabiting the lightless depths for a very long time now, and the Genetors of the Adeptus Mechanicus maintain several research temples on the planet.Tartarus IV (Death World) - A frozen world first inhabited by a colony of penitents living under the surface for centuries. It has grown into a vast network of underground cities, but the original vaults are dying. Prolonged Warp surges created a phenomenon called "creeping ice" on the northern hemisphere, which devours anything that produces heat. The population of the affected areas live inside armoured vaults, eventually to be cracked open by the ice anomaly. |
Caligari Sector - Balthar System: Aphagia Minor (Mining World) - A mining moon mostly covered by a large ocean, where promethium pumps are still toiling mindlessly in the sluggish, contaminated waters, but there is no one to attend the ancient machines. The Imperial mining settlements were destroyed during the long period of isolation for the sector and Chaos Spawn are running amok amidst the ruins.Argon Prime (Hive World) - A semitropical world of overbuilt hive cities and also the founding world of an Astra Militarum regiment. After the first decades of isolation, the General Staff of the regiment declared a state of emergency until events returned to normal. It was some centuries before the isolation was over. During this time, the temporary measure gave way to a full-fledged military dictatorship in the name of the Emperor, which is refusing to acknowledge its heretical ways even now.Penal Colony Merciless Grace (Penal World) - A terraformed prison moon, where the long centuries of isolation first saw the fall of the Imperial wardens and the rise of the rabble, led by unscreened pyskers emerging from the ranks of the prisoners. Now it is a nightmarish hellpit of savages, mutation and heresy, where the former prison complex has been torn into zones of warring tribes fighting for the control of the subterranean vaults and the mines above, all in the name of the mysterious "Withered Child."Eye of Balthar (Void Station) - An Imperial observation platform anchored at a safe distance from the unholy protrusion of the Warp into realspace that is protected by warding runes. It also requires thorough cleansing for the Tech-savants monitoring the anomaly, who hope to find new clues to the mystery of the Caligari Warp surges. Due to the proximity of the Warp rift, the Inquisition insists on regular visits to mind-wipe the personnel.Marax (Death World) - A grim world, where the Terran centuries of isolation only brought destruction and death. No one knows how it all began, but the Warp surges brought heretical wars and Daemonic incursions, and Imperial rule was crushed in the end. Now it's a Chaos-corrupted planet with cities blasted to ruins and pockets of survivors living in the tunnel systems.Viridian III (Archeotech Void Station) - This strange void station is a relic of lost knowledge from the Dark Age of Technology, when heretical science flourished openly. It was discovered by an Explorator fleet of the Adeptus Mechanicus and it was only opened to Imperial citizens after centuries of research and purification. Some mysterious levels still fall under the jurisdiction of the Mechanicus. |
Caligari Sector - Chernobog System: Merciful Agony MCXII (Hospital-Fortress) - This hospital-fortress employs a legion of trained medicae chirurgeons and med-servitors. It is not an ordinary infirmary, but a facility dedicated to the treatment of Inquisitors and also a secret biomedical research station. The fortress is equipped with equipment blessed by the Machine God, and a separate ward deals with Inquisitors who want to undergo some genetic modifications and are willing to pay the price.Charkov (Mining World) - The southern mining cities of this world produce rare minerals. In the north, stalagmite-like monolithic pillars jut out of the crystalline deserts, and it is here that humankind made its home, high up on these crags like birds building haphazard nests. The region had spawned several cults in the past like the Screaming Prophets or the Crawl, so the Caligari Conclave keeps an eye on this planet from the orbital void station, trying to learn what might cause this infrequent plague of heresies from time to time.Sigma Desolation (Fortress-Monastery) - An abandoned fortress-monastery, undeniably Human in design, but everything has been meticulously removed that could have shed some light on the original inhabitants. The maze of fortified vaults operates autonomously, opening up specific chambers at any given time. Inquisitors with psychic abilities describe the fortress as a huge black heart, beating ever so faintly, sending out signals into the aether.Kardian II (Death World) - This world has been under Adeptus Mechanicus quarantine for centuries, due to the discovery of a particularly large number of city-sized machines that once belonged to a now-extinct xenos species. The unfortunate, but unavoidable consequence of this quarantine was the demise of the local Human population, and now only savages roam this graveyard of long-forgotten technologies.Malcorum Prime (Industrial World) - Formerly the Astra Militarum staging world with vast fortresses housing millions of guardsmen, now a war-torn planet that has fallen under the heel of the Archenemy. Imperial forces have been wiped out by the combined onslaught of insurgency and a Chaos invasion fleet that translated into realspace directly over the benighted planet. Without proper Imperial response, Malcorum Prime is bound to turn into a Daemonic cesspit, which may even lead to the demise of the entire Chernobog System.Saint Abelard Relay Station (Void Station) - One of the big commercial hubs of the sub-sector, this heavily fortified void station has a secluded monastery-pylon, which serves as a very important astropath relay station, transmitting messages, encrypted manifestos and highly confidential code-psalms to the various star systems in the sub-sector. |
Caligari Sector - Dagnor System: Dagnor Primaris (Hive World) - An overpopulated Hive World, where vast levels are dedicated to nothing but the dark labyrinths of the Administratum: petitioners sometimes spend solar months on these corridors while waiting for their appointments and submitting hundreds of forms to officials. In the Upper Hive lives the governor of the Tenebra Sub-sector in his colossal palace of Dagnorian living marble. The gargantuan hive cities are powered by ancient geothermic power plants, which connect straight to the planetary core.Mundia Polonius (Shrine World) - Named after a wandering Imperial Saint, this decaying Shrine World is being torn apart by hallucinogen abuse, theological gang wars and cultist infiltration. The corruption is so deep that demotion to Hive World status is just a matter of time. Drug-fuelled dogmatic orgies, pilgrimages for tainted salvation wafers and fake absolution papers are the main sources of its "attraction." Purgation pending.Port Ascalon (Void Station) - This ancient orbital station has plenty of docking facilities, but it has seen better days. The sacred machines keeping the station alive are prone to breakdowns, even under the constant vigil of the Tech-priests, and an entire sub-level was cut off from the main areas, providing shelter for undesirable elements, so it requires a thorough cleansing from time to time.Vismar Minoris (Death World) - Formerly a bustling Hive World, Vismar Minoris is now just a deserted shell after a necroplague killed off almost the entire Human population. It has become a lifeless wasteland, forsaken by the Emperor, visited only by the most daring Rogue Trader dynasties. These foolhardy scavengers gain fat profit on salvaged industrial equipment, unknowingly spreading the now-dormant plague through the system. |
Caligari Sector - Lacaon System: Draquis Alpha (Dead World) - This now-barren world used to be the crown jewel of the separatist Lacaon Empire, noted for filling corpses with strong spirits before burial for conservation: drinking this "corpse liquor" used to be a sign of respect for the dead. The recent heretical upsurges and the consequent Chaos incursion engulfed the entire planet so fast that the Inqusition had no choice but to order an Exterminatus. Whole continents have been burnt to cinders and even if there might be still some remnants of Human civilisation, for the time being the world has been declared dead.Entropy Omega (Star Fort) - This Adeptus Mechanicus void station was found deserted after long isolation and it was only recently repopulated by a contingent of Tech-priests. However, its maze of tunnels hasn't been properly explored, purged and blessed by holy oils and tech-chants yet. The base is under Cult Mechanicus supervision in theory, but after some disturbing accidents the Inquisition considers the place unholy ground, which has led to squabbles between the two Imperial adepta.Lacaon Majoris (Feudal World) - A Chaos invasion fleet has arrived in orbit. Imperial voidships have responded by establishing a strong defensive formation, but not before a large Chaos force succeeded in boarding the key orbital star fort. The first stage of this invasion revolves around the control of this critical asset that is protecting the planet.Lacaon VI (Feudal World) - This unenlightened world surrendered to the Imperial forces when the archaic Lacaon Empire armada was annihilated in the Synon region. After prolonged exposure to the local population, several Astra Militarum regiments sided with the priest-king of the planet, who turned out to be a puppet of the Ruinous Powers taking root in the system. The traitorous act was met with massive orbital bombardment and the conflict shows no signs of abating at present.Lacaon IX (Feral World) - A planet whose mines are already depleted. Local Warp surges created a huge number of psykers during the isolation, making daemonic influence endemic among the barbarians, who have short lifespans. Rebels have attempted to turn the possessed against the Astra Militarum. Some Ordo Malleus factions have blocked the total purge of Lacaon IX for undisclosed reasons.War Zone Synon - This is a debris-filled zone, where a combined armada of chemically powered gun barges and explosive-laden siege boats suffered a crushing defeat against vastly superior Imperial battleships. Now the wreckfield is inhabited by Heretics and void nomads selling salvaged materials to scrap merchants. There are reports of whole colonies of these folk disappearing when Warp surges sweep over the area. |
Caligari Sector - Nereus System: Unholy Cathedral (Death World) - Although all mentions of this nightmarish moon were erased from the Imperial archives, a group of corrupted Ecclesiarchy priests managed to find its celestial location. When they began an excavation to unearth a ruined Imperial cathedral, they awakened a Chaos artefact. The results were catastrophic: the cathedral is a tainted place now, teeming with blasphemous and Daemonic creatures.Citadel Tempestus (Star Fort) - This orbital star fort plays a key role in keeping the occasional intrusion of Chaos into the sub-sector under control. It is a bustling nexus of military activity with a significant presence of all the Inquisitorial ordos.Mining Station 121 (Void Station) - Dragged into the Immaterium by a sudden Warp surge, this mining station has been turned into a Daemon-infested nightmare, acting as an unstable gateway between reality and the Realm of Chaos.Nereus II (Agri-world) - An agricultural planet where strictly enforced bio-quarantine and millions of mind-scrubbed menials limited the spread of heretical filth to the more populated areas, turning the cities into wretched mazes of death. Famous for a local insect which burrows into flesh and a gene-crafted crop with high nutritional value that causes irreversible mental degradation.Nereus III (Feudal World) - Ruled by feudal lords who worship a barbaric aspect of the God-Emperor, this world provided bovine meat and military conscripts for Mankind. Since Imperial reinforcements arrived, the heretical nobility has been forced into hiding. The local Administratum turns a blind eye to illicit trade and criminal activities as long as anyone accused of witchcraft is thrown onto the cleansing pyres. Nereus III is infamous for its slave fighting pits.Nereus IV (Death World) - This planet used to be the largest breeder of livestock in the sub-sector, where the extreme overpopulation of the grazing beasts led to high methane concentrations in the air. When the atmosphere was set alight by a mutant cult, the firestorms devastated the planet. Most of the surviving population dwells underground, selling the bones and ashes from the surface to other planets as fertiliser. Subterranean warfare resulted in heavy Imperial losses. |
Caligari Sector - Rengris System: Rengris VII (Mining World/Industrial World) - Rengris VII was a planet of builders. A heavily industrialised world, trade with the rest of the sector soon burgeoned, which made the planet rich as long as it lasted. It was to this place in the sector's economic balance that Rengris VII's planetary governor sought to return once the Warp surge that isolated the Rengris System five Terran years ago abated. Rengris had the raw materials to produce anything, and the capabilities to do so. The Imperium's automated heavy metal mining platforms had long since eroded the world's hills, emitting poisonous particles into the air, and then scouring the land for the metal after it settled. The planetary nobility and other members of the planetary elite lived in platform cities high in the mountains, or on great, city-like dirigibles suspended in the lower atmosphere, while the masses of the world toiled in hardship on the toxic surface to recover ever more raw materials to feed the Imperial war machine. |
Caligari Sector - Aureus System: Basilica Aureus (Star Fort) - A majestic orbital cathedral, the seat of the Cardinal appointed to the Triglav Sub-sector. This vast and lavishly decorated maze is a city in the sky, teeming with Imperial citizens, with separate levels for cloisters, scriptoriums and archives, not to mention the chambers reserved for the Cardinal himself -- all with a splendid view of the planet below.Taranus Belt - This orbital rust belt, the remnant of an ancient void battle between the Imperial Navy and a Chaos warfleet, is now teeming with void nomads and pirates. The floating, colossal derelicts hide countless heretical covens and they have been marked by the Inguisition as locations with an extremely high potential for Daemonic incursion.Aureus Relay Station (Void Station) - This heavily fortified relay station used to be the main astropathic conduit to the rest of the Caligari Sector, gathering and transmitting the most important messages and encrypted code-psalms from the Triglav Sub-sector to the other sub-sectors.Fort Cael (Star Fort) - An ancient star fort, now abandoned, although the reasons for the sudden closure are still classified. Rogue Traders claim that a long time ago corrupted Ecclesiarchy priests awakened a Chaos artefact stored deep in the bowels of the fort, unleashing a dreadful catastrophe. But that could be just a rumour.Tyres Kappa (Dead World) - A long-vacated, deserted ruin of a Fortress World. The barely operational orbital docks are still manned as bases for the Imperial Navy. The severely polluted surface harbours a high-security prison complex, Astra Militarum barracks and uninhabited Astropathic listening stations. Following some undisclosed experiments, some sections of the planet were sealed off and classified as "Tainted". |
Caligari Sector - Clamoris System: Belgorsk III (Hive World) - As the former bureaucratic hub of the sub-sector, the biggest hive city also contains the archives, whole cities of registries, filing chambers and data vaults -- all sentenced to oblivion when the sub-sector lost its significance thousands of Terran years ago. Servitors and mindless scribe-drones still toil away in the abandoned vaults, but who knows what else might lurk in the depths among the millions of tomes and scrolls.Clamoris Prime (Hive World) - Three sprawling hive cities on three continents with spires that would make even the most magnificent Imperial palaces look shabby. The wealth of the powerful noble houses residing in these spectacular upper echelons comes from the immense stream of merchandise flowing through this world: they control the trading districts where merchants deal in everything imaginable, ranging from the commonplace to the exotic. But the toll of the isolation has been heavy on the houses, and the sparks of dissent among them might just be the beginning of something more serious.Clamoris Tertius (Hive World) - Cut off from the trade routes and thus the necessary resources for generations, the monumental steel hives of this world have already begun their inevitable descent into heresy, barbarism and decadence in the lower sections of the cities. No one can be sure just yet how much the ruling aristocracy has been affected by the unholy temptations and other threats.Just Fortress - This is the Rogue Trader starship of Captain Nathanael Grexus, a former associate of House van Wynter. A daring man of adventure who fell in with the wrong crowd, but his valuable assistance to the Inquisition earned him a pardon from the Holy Ordos. He has a way of obtaining even the most exclusive rarities, but his methods are a closely-guarded secret.Torque Secundus (Hive World) - This once-bustling planet of manufactoria is now a dangerous world under the poisonous sky, where half of the continents are littered with the ruins of colossal factories and the other half is home to overpopulated cities. Since the beginning of the sector's isolation, this world has become a hotbed of rebellious dissent and it is constantly teetering on the brink of a larger conflict, surely orchestrated by the Ruinous Powers. Such aggression could escalate the clashes between its hive cities into a full-scale planetary civil war. |
Caligari Sector - Malcorum System: Bethar Maior (Hive World) - This extremely important world is responsible for the majority of the industrial output in the entire sub-sector. The clanking, soot-stained heart of the region has been active for thousands of Terran years and the Adeptus Mechanicus exerts total de facto political control over the planet. Obviously the Inquisition keeps constant vigil over the billions toiling away at the enormous furnaces or in the cavernous quarries. The local sect of the Adeptus Mechanicus contemplated turning the planet into a true Forge World, but due to the ancient xenos ruins present on the world it was deemed unworthy of such an honour.Taranus Asteroid Belt - An unmapped asteroid belt teeming with miners, void nomads and pirates. This lawless region hides countless mining colonies, abandoned shafts and Adeptus Mechanicus xenotech research stations. The precious ore extracted here is a prime commodity in the system and there are certain Imperial factions waging a covert war to exert control over these resources. In the past Rogue Traders hunting for alien relics here have suffered daemonic intrusions.Tormund's Despair (Void Station) - A strange relic of ages gone by, a void station littered with strange obsidian outcroppings in certain halls, evidently the sites of blasphemous rites from the dawn of time, although the exact nature of these rites is still unclear. The base is now a functioning voidport. The Adeptus Mechanicus initiated research into the station's lower tunnels, but after a still classified disaster they eventually declared the sub-levels unsafe.Egilis (Hive World) - A Departmento Munitorium Hive World, major producer of weaponry and ammunition. A planet-sized abomination of industrial complexes, where hive cities rise above the soot-stained plains of belching, shrieking factories like colossal anthills, swarming with mutants and Heretics.MyrkonRanieli Hold (Star Fort) - The Ranieli Clan is one of the most influential and ancient Navigator houses in the Caligari Sector. Their history goes back to the Great Crusade and their Sacred Archives is a vast collection of tomes on long-forgotten trading routes, sanctioned Warp-Folios and useful knowledge. Their family members are often employed by the Caligari Conclave and due to these powerful connections they are often above the laws of the sector. |
Caligari Sector - Rotwang System: Mundi Polonius (Shrine World) - This peaceful, mostly aquatic world used to be a Shrine World before the isolation of the sector, but during the dark century it succumbed to depravity and questionable morals. The cities of ots vast archipelagos are teeming with refugees from other worlds in the system.Palace of the Eternal Dawn (Void Station) - The Sub-sector Governor's orbital palace, bristling with gargoyles, spires and deadly defensive weapon systems, is the administrative centre in the sub-sector. As an Imperial institution of utmost importance, it will require the undivided attention of the Inquisition in case something unnatural strikes root in the fertile soil of the militant souls.Prison Delta-722 (Penal World) - Penitents used to toil in the quarries in the sick rays of the local star, like worms squirming under the contemptuous visage of the God-Emperor watching them suffer for their sins. The colossal maze of barracks has become cesspits of insanity, heresy and Daemon-worshipping Chaos Cults since the beginning of the sector's isolation.Rotwang (Mundo Colmena) - A Hive World with a strong Astra Militarum presence, who are quelling unrest with brutally enforced martial law. Grinding all organic and industrial waste into a barely edible biomass has solved the food shortages plaguing similar planets, but the resulting mutations are crippling the population. Corrupt generals and officials are extorting a "protection tithe" from the miners on one of the moons to keep the manufactoria running. |
Caligari Sector - Torque System: Agbal Cluster - This drifting cluster of asteroids forms a loose group of mining colonies and Astra Militarum training outposts. The largest asteroid has a network of abandoned underground research stations from the Dark Age of Technology. When Adeptus Mechanicus probes entered the lightless tunnels, they found strange, alien symbols on the walls.Grimnor (Mining World) - Below the surface there are uncountable kilometres of maze-like caverns where vast drills try to reach valuable mineral deposits. On the surface, monstrous refineries belch smoke into the sky and cover the vast cities in perpetual, cold haze. It is an overpopulated but eerily subdued world, where tension and heresy grows silently below the surface.Rusalka III (Agri-world) - Botched terraforming led to some unexpected consequences here, and the perpetual storms, freezing rain and cruel winds turned the whole planet into the most desolate world of the sub-sector. The terrain still produces extremely resilient mushrooms and lichen, providing subsistence to the desperate population of the rain-soaked giant cities where the processing plants work tirelessly.Torque Prime (Hive World) - Once the homeworld of a xenos race annihilated by an Imperial Crusade, now a slowly decaying planet with crime-infested hive cities. The Adeptus Arbites forces are in a constant struggle with the underfed menials revolting against food rationing, driving the desperate masses into the arms of heretical cults and cannibalistic gangs. A militant fleet run by the planetary governor steals resources from miner colonies and rival worlds in the sub-sector. |
Calixian Conclave - Calixian Conclave: The Calixian Conclave, also sometimes colloquially referred to as the Ordos Calixis, is the conclave of the Holy Ordos of the Inquisition that operates in the Calixis Sector of the Segmentum Obscurus. It contains Radicals and Puritans alike and is comprised of Inquisitors, Throne Agents and Acolytes of the Ordo Malleus, Ordo Xenos and Ordo Hereticus. The conclave has many sub-officios and conclavium councils which handle Inquisition business in the sector on a more local level. The conclave has a vast amount of resources at its disposal, but most valuable of all are its field Inquisitors and their various agents.The Calixian Conclave is also comprised of a number of sub-groups dedicated to facing threats specific to the sector, such as the Tyrantine Cabal which seeks to unravel the mystery of the Tyrant Star.The Calixian Conclave is led by Inquisitor Lord Caidin, an eminently mysterious man, who is the chair of the conclave's governing High Council of Inquisitors. Caidin is a shadowy figure who is only ever seen in public wearing a mask that obscures the Inquisitor Lord's features and his true identity.The Tricorn Officio serves as the headquarters of the Calixian Conclave and is located in the Tricorn Palace on the Hive World of Scintilla which serves as the capital world of the sector. However, the conclave maintains many other bases, outposts and fortresses in the sector, with at least one on or near every important or heavily-populated world. The Tyrantine Cabal is based out of the Bastion Serpentis on Scintilla's own moon of Lachesis.The symbol of the Calixian Conclave is a golden chalice. At Inquisitorial gatherings of the conclave, an ornate version of this chalice is often displayed upon a table, plinth or other prominent position. Tradition holds that it should be filled only half-way with clear liquid. The mythology of the conclave holds that this is either a draught from the well of knowledge or the waters of forgetfulness.The original charter in which this detail was recorded has been lost and copies of the tattered manuscripts seem to contradict one another. Darker whispers from the more Radical elements of the conclave whisper that the symbolic cup is in fact the Chalice of Corruption, a warning to those who would taste the forbidden mysteries locked within the Calixis Sector's apocalyptic fate. |
Calixian Conclave - Organisation: The branch of the Inquisition that watches the Calixis Sector is known as the Calixian Conclave. Overseen by Lord Inquisitor Aegult Caidin, its High Council and Officio are based in the Tricorn Palace on Scintilla. It has many sub-officios and a grim fortified outpost can be found on or near most major or highly populated planets.Sub-officio administrators are known by the rank "Planetia Inquisitor" and control local conclavium councils that resemble the High Council in miniature. The Calixian Conclave has troops, spacecraft and Acolytes at its disposal, but its most valuable commodity is its Inquisitors themselves, who possess skills and authority beyond the imaginings of most Imperial citizens. The Calixian Conclave watches over the whole sector and there is no limit to its jurisdiction.It should be noted that, despite the governing hand of Caidin and the High Council, the Inquisitors of the Calixian Conclave are not all of the same mind. They are independent souls, set on individual missions and enterprises. Each one has very strong ideas about the way the Inquisition should conduct itself and the length to which they must go to preserve the Imperium. Some become outright enemies and no two have exactly the same agenda. Should they ever pull together they would form by far the greatest power block in the area, eclipsing even the great noble families of the sector in the resources they can muster.Until that happens, the Inquisitors of the Calixian Conclave are their own worst enemies, scheming against one another or pursuing their goals in secret, using their Acolytes as playing pieces in games of superiority. Some of the Calixian Inquisitors are noble and pious, exemplars of Imperial values, others are more free-thinking or, as a Puritan would put it, corrupt. Anyone of them could be the Calixis Sector's greatest saviour or its most notorious villain. Caidin and the High Council do their best to keep the scattered Inquisitors moving with a unified purpose, but sometimes they have to arbitrate disputes. |
Calixian Conclave - Notable Inquisitors: Anton Zerbe, Lord Inquisitor of the Ordo Hereticus - Anton Zerbe is the commissioned leader of the Tyrantine Cabal, a position he was granted by Lord Inquisitor Caidin himself. He does not take his duties lightly, as he believes the black doctrine of the Tyrant Star to be very real indeed. He rarely leaves the Bastion Serpentis, and chairs the frequent meetings of the cabal's Inquisitors. Zerbe once roamed the Imperium seeking out corruption and incompetence amongst the Adepta but he is now dedicated to his role. Zerbe is never seen without his impassive golden mask and magnificent gilded armour, and he seems perfectly at home on the throne of the Bastion's audience chamber. He is not an easily approachable man and always remains distant from those around him. Zerbe is even-handed to a fault, refusing in all cases to support one Inquisitor over another, no matter how grave an accusation might have been brought. His principal motivation is preventing strife within the Tyrantine Cabal, so that the group can do its holy work. He believes that if any one Inquisitorial faction within the Tyrantine Cabal was to prevail, the sector -- the Imperium itself even -- would be doomed. If the Recongregators got what they wanted, the cabal would devolve into anarchy. If the Xanthites prevailed, Chaos would corrupt the work. Even the Amalathians, if they succeeded in their aims, would drag the cabal into a miserable malaise. Zerbe's objective is to prevent any one of these factions overcoming the others in the Calixis Sector, so that the Hereticus Tenebrae might be averted. Nothing else matters. He will even go as far as to recruit Acolytes of his own to foil one of his Inquisitors' plans. In addition to his political skills, Zerbe is a powerful psyker, although this fact is not generally known within the cabal. Zerbe keeps his psychic talents in reserve should he be forced to vanquish a particularly dangerous foe personally.Herrod, Inquisitor-Legate of the Tyrantine Cabal - Inquisitor Herrod is a cybernetically-resurrected monster who serves as part of the secret inner circle of the Tyrantine Cabal. Herrod was once a handsome, energetic and brilliant Inquisitor who was held in high esteem by his peers. This vibrant and dashing Herrod is long dead, and most within the Holy Ordos think that he perished utterly at the hands of the Vile Savants. In truth, however, Herrod lives: through the patronage of hidden masters within the Adeptus Mechanicus, what little of him that remained was given the blessing of a resurrection to a second life of metal, pistons and gears. A hunched figure swathed in a black cloak and hood, Herrod retains no flesh and only the thinnest semblance of humanity. His face is a death mask of yellow flesh pulled over steel and brass, while his voice is a nightmare patchwork of phonic sounds gathered from recordings of the Inquisitor's voice before he died for the first time.Rykehuss, Witch Finder of the Ordo Hereticus - Rykehuss is the terror of witches, a man for whom everyone is guilty of something and the only punishment is death. To him the Calixis Sector is a cesspit where witches breed like flies and the honest, pious Imperial citizens are besieged by sin on all sides. Rykehuss' bouts of volcanic anger and impassioned sermonising are well known at the Bastion Serpentis, and he constantly exhorts his fellow Inquisitors to descend on all the sinners to purify them with righteous flame or condemn them to damnation. Rykehuss wears ornate, heavily customised armour gifted to him by the Adeptus Mechanicus after he sought out a witch cult on a Forge World in a nearby sector, and he is an expert with a veritable armoury of weapons. The Witch Finder's methods are simple. He descends on a particular city, sees depravity everywhere and immediately sets up a Court of Ordeals where pious citizens bring accused neighbours and family members to be tried. When Rykehuss hears of a particularly foul heresy being perpetrated somewhere nearby, he gathers all the torch-wielding backup he can and marches there, trusting in his martial skill to help him put the sinners to death personally. Some who witness Rykehuss' terrors consider him a hero, others a butcher, and both are right. Many innocents have died at Rykehuss' hands but so have many rogue psykers and cultists. Rykehuss, however, is not as crude a man as his methods would suggest. He knows that he cannot kill all the sinners, but his bombastic and terrifying style ensures that Imperial citizens are constantly reminded that there are threats in their midst and bigger threats waiting to punish them for their weaknesses. Innocent deaths, while regrettable, are a small price to pay for Rykehuss to spread the fear that helps suppress the activities of witches—and in any case, the Emperor sorts them all out in the end. Rykehuss is obsessed with the notion that it is the widespread activity of witches in the sector that is bringing on the doom of the Hereticus Tenebrae.Ahmazzi, Daemonhunter of the Ordo Malleus - Ahmazzi is the Spectarians' sole Ordo Malleus Inquisitor. He is a grizzled and ancient veteran, close on three hundred standard years old, whose career has taken him from Titan to the very edges of the Imperium, hunting down daemons and the corrupt humans who summon them. Now all but decrepit, he has come to the Calixis Sector to, as he puts it, "bask in the radiance of the Tyrant Star and learn its secrets." A long career has left Ahmazzi intensely cynical and pessimistic. He has come to believe that the Emperor is dead, Chaos cannot be stopped and the human race is doomed. The Imperium, Ahmazzi believes, is a grotesque symptom of the fact that the human race is currently living through its inevitable and drawn-out extinction. He has dabbled with Radicalism in his career, even being declared Excommunicate by Puritan colleagues for seeking out daemonic knowledge but no one in the Tyrantine Cabal other than Zerbe knows this. Ahmazzi has no friends and does not particularly care what people think of him, angrily refusing to tell any stories of his astonishing daemonhunting career, although an Acolyte who displays great courage in the face of a daemonic foe might win Ahmazzi's grudging respect. Ahmazzi was a martially-minded Inquisitor in his prime and secretly would love nothing better than to mount up on his mobile war pulpit, don his armour and take up his Daemonhammer to ride into battle once more against a horde of daemonic foes. He believes that the Tyrant Star may be the harbinger of Man's inevitable doom and he wants to be at ground zero to witness the great day when it happens.Astrid Skane, Inquisitor of the Ordo Hereticus - A formidable woman, Inquisitor Astrid Skane exudes the rough authority of a seasoned Arbitrator officer. Tough and resourceful, she is one of the most active of the Tyrantine Cabal's Inquisitors, happy to get her hands dirty rooting out corruption. Skane is a striking woman with a stern, strong face who wears her hair regulation short. She habitually dresses much as she did when she served as an Arbitrator on Scintilla, in a black uniform and body armour, and is rarely seen without her Shock Maul and Shotgun. Skane respects those who respect her, treats her more skilled Acolytes as equals and has little time for pomp and appearances. Skane follows the Recongregators' creed, which states that the Imperium must be reformed radically to reduce the suffering of its people and that the Inquisition is the only body with the authority and skill to reform it. Skane believes that the Imperium's woes are caused by corruption among its ruling classes. She developed a particular hatred for corrupt nobles whilst serving as an Arbitrator and has carried that through to her work as an Inquisitor. Her operations, therefore, target corruption among the Imperial nobility and the Adepta, including the Adeptus Arbites she once served. She dreams of a future where the Imperium is turned upside-down and justice is the rule rather than the exception, but she realises that she will not live to see it. She fights for what justice she can and hopes that others will follow her to carry on the battle. Skane is convinced that the Tyrant Star can only be appearing due to some form of summons. She believes there is a powerful Chaos Cult at work in the sector, employing sorcery to call the Tyrant Star down on Mankind. That is a cult she would very much like to personally root out.Van Vuygens, Inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos - Rarely seen at the Bastion Serpentis, Van Vuygens represents the Ordo Xenos in the Calixian Conclave. He is a quietly spoken man who is more of a scholar than a warrior and, though he can certainly look after himself if required, he sees more value in dissecting and studying xenos than exterminating them. Slender, bespectacled and dressed in an archivist's robes, Van Vuygens does not cut as imposing a figure as some of the Tyrantine Cabal's more dramatic characters, but he has the intellect and strength of will to delve into the mindset of the xenos and still retain his humanity. He leaves the human and daemonic threats to the other Inquisitors, focusing instead on helping provide the Imperium with its chief weapon against the alien: an understanding of what the aliens want and what they will do to get it. Though Van Vuygens seeks knowledge about aliens, he does not trust them and would never fraternise with them. He has not studied a single alien species that does not pose some threat towards the human race. A disciple of the legendary Inquisitor Kryptmann himself, Van Vuygens is in the Calixis Sector to watch for the signs of a Tyranid Hive Fleet invasion from beyond the edge of charted space. Kryptmann has theorised that the earlier Tyranid invasions of Imperial space have been testing the Imperium's defences and that the next invasion will come from an unexpected quarter. Van Vuygens has seen nothing that proves that a Tyranid invasion is impending but there are certainly plenty of other signs of alien influence among the worlds of the Calixis Sector, from ancient cyclopean ruins to disturbing similarities between the mythological cycles of primitive worlds. Van Vuygens is currently piecing together a picture of the alien civilisation that once inhabited the very edge of the Calixis Sector's space and he does not like what he sees. He, naturally, subscribes to the view that the Tyrant Star is a matter of xenos origin and has grave fears that it is linked with the dreaded Tyranids.Globus Vaarak, Inquisitor of the Ordo Hereticus - Severely wounded as an Interrogator while boarding a pirate ship, Globus Vaarak's body is broken, scarred and bloated. Both his legs were amputated and he moves by means of a robust mechanical vehicle with mechanical legs and an in-built life-support system. His face is horribly burned and pockmarked, with tubes running from his nostrils and mouth to help him breathe. One arm was also lost and has been replaced with an obvious bionic limb. Vaarak's clothing is a ribbed black bodyglove that barely holds in his enormous girth and which incorporates cooling and regulating devices to keep him alive. Vaarak is an Amalathian who believes that the Imperium, as grim a place as it is, must survive in its current state if the human race is to continue existing. He therefore seeks out sedition and rebellion in the Calixis Sector, trying to maintain the careful balance of its power groups. Given that he cannot operate in the guise of a normal citizen or Adept, Vaarak must conduct most investigations through his Acolytes, of whom he has several teams. His methods are subtle and moderate compared to some of the Tyrantine Cabal's other Inquisitors, for he would prefer that the Inquisition's hand was not obvious, and encourages his Acolytes to avoid open conflict and violence as much as possible. Vaarak has a bleak and self-deprecating sense of humour and is an excellent judge of character. Many of the Conclave's next generation of Inquisitors will come from among Vaarak's Interrogators if he remains in favour. He has joined the Spectarians because the Tyrant Star represents a truly destabilising threat to Imperial society.Lady Olianthe Rathbone - Lady Olianthe Rathbone claims membership of none of the three great Ordos of the Inquisition. She originated among the Calixis Sector's nobility and still favours magnificent ballgowns and elaborate wigs, which would not look out of place in the ballroom of some Planetary Governor's palace. Beneath the finery, her piercing, ice-cold grey eyes betray a keen and ruthless intelligence. Some say she was originally an Interrogator in the employ of Lord Inquisitor Zerbe but there is never any obvious familiarity shown between them. Lady Olianthe is very difficult to know and impossible to befriend, and manages to suggest that everyone around her is her inferior without actually stating it out loud. Secretly a deep-seated Radical, Lady Olianthe is an Istvaanian and believes that for the Imperium to become stronger, it must be exposed to war and catastrophe. The Calixis Sector, to her way of thinking, is bloated and irredeemable, and desperately needs a major cataclysm to weed out its weak and corrupt citizens. While she is not averse to combatting particularly horrible threats like Chaos Cultists or the mutants she personally despises, Lady Olianthe is also constantly on the lookout for ways to manipulate the power structures of the Calixis Sector towards strife. She intends to do this by subtly coaxing the sector's leading noble houses towards conflict or rebellion. She is willing to pursue this agenda personally, treating her Acolytes as little more than intelligence gatherers who have no idea of her destructive ambitions. The Tyrant Star would be a wonderful tool for her purposes.Soldevan, Inquisitor of the Ordo Hereticus - A handsome man with skin the colour of ebony and a taste in imposing military dress uniforms that only enhance his air of strength and authority. Soldevan was originally an Interrogator in the employ of Witch Finder Rykehuss but never believed in his master's extreme methods, and quickly broke with Rykehuss after attaining the Inquisitorial Seal. Soldevan believes that knowledge, not wanton destruction, is the key to protecting humanity from the threats it faces. Soldevan's beliefs run deeper than he would ever admit. He believes that the Warp is an immense source of power and that an Inquisitor is a man of sufficient intelligence and willpower to harness it. Soldevan wants to open up a pathway to the Warp and seek out the consciousnesses that dwell there hoping to bargain with them for the power he needs to combat the enemies of Mankind. Soldevan has got quite close to his goal and has several forbidden tomes in his possession that, with the right sacrifices and rituals, will summon forth powerful daemons for him to negotiate with. He is always seeking more knowledge or artefacts of the Warp, either captured during the Tyrantine Cabal's operations or purchased at extortionate prices from unscrupulous dealers in forbidden relics. Somewhere during this process Soldevan has lost his sanity and replaced it with absolute conviction that the Warp holds the secrets of humanity's survival. He believes that the Tyrant Star represents a vital conduit to secrets of the Warp.Vownus Kaede, Inquisitor of the Ordo Hereticus - Inquisitor Vownus Kaede is a noted scholar, philosopher and an optimist. He is also a skilled swordsman, irreverent scoundrel and a self-righteous reprobate. Named after the rogue hero of Catuldynus' epic verse allegory The Once-Pure Hive, Kaede has spent most of his life living up to his namesake's legacy. Originating somewhere, "East of Sol and West of Macragge," Kaede signed on with a Free Captain at a young age and has never looked back. The details of his elevation to Inquisitor status are hazy and change every time he tells the story. The only point that remains consistent is that he was once a member of the Ordo Xenos, before finding his true calling as a Witch Hunter. Regardless of his chequered past, Inquisitor Kaede has been a respected member of the Tyrantine Cabal for over a solar decade. Though he is nominally of Puritan leanings, Kaede is a skilled psyker who fanatically believes in the psychic future of the human race and is willing to casually commit almost any atrocity in order to safeguard it. He and the martially-inclined Acolyte bands he employs spend a great deal of time travelling between Calixis' sub-sectors chasing down rumours of hidden witches. Kaede absolutely detests Rykehuss' methods and takes a great deal of pleasure in spiriting promising young psykers out from under the Witch Finder's pogroms. Inquisitor Kaede appears exactly the way Imperium citizens picture a Witch Hunter. From his wide-brimmed hat, to his Inferno Pistol, to the ancient short-bladed Force Sword named Slight Jest that he bears at his side, there is no mistaking his appearance and what it implies, which is exactly what Kaede wishes. To Kaede, the Tyrant Star prophecy is a delicious mystery to be unlocked.Al-Subaai, Inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos - Al-Subaai was recently elevated to Inquisitor status after serving as an Interrogator in the service of Inquisitor Van Vuygens. While Van Vuygens combs the very edge of Imperial space for alien civilisations, Al-Subaai's role is to search for alien influence in the populated worlds of the sector. Probably the youngest Inquisitor in the Tyrantine Cabal, Al-Subaai is deeply pious, and he looks it, usually attending gatherings in a monastic habit worn over sturdy, practical Carapace Armour. Al-Subaai believes that everything in the galaxy is connected and that the various intelligent alien species and their depredations are part of a larger web of hostility generated by the galaxy. The galaxy, Al-Subaai believes, is reacting to human occupation like a body reacting to a disease. To him, aliens (as well as all creatures of the Warp) are symptoms of the galaxy's enmity towards Mankind. Al-Subaai therefore advocates the destruction of all aliens, especially those who influence humans. He considers his remit to cover not only alien-influenced cults and corruption, but also the trafficking in alien creatures and their technology. Anyone dealing with aliens or their artefacts is an enemy of humanity and nothing gives Al-Subaai greater satisfaction than to hunt them down and subject them to whatever punishment the Tyrantine Cabal decrees. To Al-Subaai, the Propheticum Hereticus Tenebrae is the handiwork of alien manipulation. |
Calixis Sector - Calixis Sector: The Calixis Sector is an Imperial sector of the Milky Way Galaxy that serves as the setting for the Warhammer 40,000: Dark Heresy role-playing game, which focuses on the actions of Imperial Inquisitors and their chosen Acolytes and Throne Agents. The Calixis Sector is located in the Segmentum Obscurus on the northern edge of the known galaxy, near the Halo Stars and the Eye of Terror. To the trailing edge of the galaxy, the Calixis Sector is bordered by the hazardous territories of the Fydae Great Cloud and to spinward by the Scarus Sector. Bordering to coreward, its immediate neighbour is the Ixaniad Sector. To rimward lie the contested and unregulated Imperial frontiers of the Halo Stars where Humans and xenos mix in the quest for power and profit in the infamous Koronus Expanse.Conquered by Lord Militant Golgenna Angevin for the Imperium of Man almost two thousand standard years ago in the 39th Millennium during what became known as the Angevin Crusade, the Calixis Sector contains many heavily populated and important worlds, though it lies a great distance from the Imperium's core sectors. The sector's first Imperial Sector Governor was Drusus, one of Angevin's most capable generals, a man now revered as a saint of the Imperial Cult.This territory represents a vulnerable fraction of the Imperium, far from the millions-strong armies and mighty battlefleets that protect its most ancient and important worlds and defend its war-torn frontiers. The fate of the sector is tainted with disturbing prophecies and haunted by an inexplicable evil. Within its ill-portended bounds there are countless threats to keep the adepts of the Imperium stretched beyond capacity. It is up to a few extraordinary individuals to save the sector from being consumed by a dark future of corruption and suffering.The Calixis Sector has many heavily populated and important worlds, but it lies a great distance from the Imperium's heartland and, like so much of the Imperium of Man, it must ultimately fend for itself. Like all Imperial territories, the Calixis Sector is at risk from the chronic dangers facing Humanity: war, mutation, xenos activity, the corruption of Chaos, and so on. However, a singular threat lurks somewhere in the Calixis Sector, a mysterious, prophesied doom that has drawn the particular scrutiny of the Inquisition to this group of worlds. This enigmatic threat, the Hereticus Tenebrae, or the Tyrant Star as it is known, is something the forces of the Inquisition most fervently wish to uncover, to comprehend and to destroy, before it is too late for the people of the Calixis Sector--and perhaps all of Mankind.The Hive World of Scintilla, situated in the Golgenna Reach sub-sector, is the capital of the Calixis Sector. Along with the hellish Mining World of Sepheris Secundus and the war-torn Agri-world of Iocanthos, it forms a triumvirate of worlds essential for the sector's survival. The most powerful man in the Calixis Sector is officially Sector Governor Marius Hax, who rules in the name of the Adeptus Terra from the Lucid Palace on Scintilla. However, the Calixian Conclave, led by Inquisitor Lord Aegult Caidin, is the true ultimate authority in the sector, a clandestine and all-powerful presence behind the visible emblems and figureheads of Imperial power. No one has the power to gainsay the word of the Inquisition.Other important Imperial servants are Lord Inquisitor Anton Zerbe of the Calixian Tyrantine Cabal, Cardinal Ignato of the Adeptus Ministorum, Lord Marshal Luthir Veremonn Goreman of the Adeptus Arbites, Senior Astropath Xiao of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica and Canoness Goneril of the Adepta Sororitas. The power of the Imperial adepta, however, is rivalled by the Great Houses, the noble families and Calixian corporations, which maintain a presence across the sector. Even the minor noble houses, those whose influence is limited to a single world, hold a great deal of power over ordinary citizens. |
Calixis Sector - History: The Calixis Sector is located in the Segmentum Obscurus, on the northern edge of the known galaxy near the Eye of Terror, and represents a portion of the considerable territories conquered by the Imperial Lord Militant Golgenna Angevin almost two thousand Terran years ago in the 39th Millennium during the Angevin Crusade. Its first Sector Governor was Drusus, one of Angevin's most capable generals, a man now revered as a saint of the Imperial Cult.The Imperium is spread impossibly thin across an estimated two-thirds of the entire galaxy. The volume of space claimed in the name of the Emperor contains hundreds of millions of stars, many host to their own planetary systems, and yet there are only an estimated million or so planetary governors occupying the thrones of the Imperium's worlds. While it is true that some governors rule not just a single planet but an entire system, and that other worlds have no governor at all, the fact is that the Imperium is stretched so thinly across the void that an interstellar traveller could make their way from one edge to the other, traversing a hundred thousand light years of space, and not once cross paths with another Human being.Instead of being scattered at random, the worlds of the Imperium are clustered around areas settled during the lost age of Mankind's first great wave of expansion into the galaxy during the Age of Technology. Worlds once colonised because of their location or some desirable natural resource have developed into the cores of sectors, many of which have swollen to include two hundred or more settled star systems. These sectors are connected to one another by relatively stable, if still hazardous, inter-sector Warp routes and the vast, uncharted reaches between each are referred to as Wilderness Space. These unexplored depths harbour all manner of terrors, from ravening pirates to unknown alien empires, as well as untold riches, from long-lost Human colonies to worlds strewn with the wealth of long-extinct xenos species.The Calixis Sector exists on the verges of the Imperium's spinward reaches in the Segmentum Obscurus. The sector is relatively young, having been hewn from the xenos-haunted Calyx Expanse around two thousand standard years ago by the blood and toil of the armies of Lord Militant Golgenna Angevin's Imperial Crusade. The Calixis Sector is at once blessed and cursed by its location. It is fortunate in that it exists far from the Imperium's most bloody war zones, yet other characteristics of the region have brought their own woes.The Calixis Sector might not be cursed by total, all-consuming sector-wide conflict as so many other regions are, but it is nonetheless cursed. Countless heresies and conspiracies afflict the sector's worlds, many of them in some way tied to a darkness that stains the region. Others relate to the mysterious "Tyrant Star," an esoteric stellar phenomenon that appears at random and brings planet-wide insanity with each manifestation. Because of such heresies, the sector is host to a high number of Inquisitors, drawn by the conspiracies and mysteries that afflict it.So many Inquisitors are active in the Calixis Sector that a degree of formalisation has developed over the centuries. The so-called Ordos Calixis are based in the threatening and awe-inspiring Tricorn Palace on the sector's capital world of Scintilla, and they maintain numerous other facilities across the sector and even beyond. The Ordos Calixis come together in the Calixian Conclave, the figurehead of which is the Lord Inquisitor Aegult Caidin, an inveterate master of intrigue whose face is ever obscured behind a mask and who is said to walk amongst the populace at will.Despite the outwardly formal nature of the Calixian Conclave, the Inquisitors of the Calixis Sector are as riven with disagreement and schism as those of any other region. Individuals harbour factional and doctrinal beliefs that cause them to clash bitterly across the floor of the Tricorn Palace's debating chamber, while outside it, they or their proxies engage in deadly wars.Like all Imperial sectors, Calixis has its own central government in the form of the Adeptus Terra's Sector Lord Marius Hax. This patrician veteran of galactic intrigue and conspiracy is concerned only that each world in his realm meets its Imperial tithe, having little or no concern how this is achieved. As with most worlds of the Imperium, the details of planetary governance are left to the Imperial Commanders on the ground. Hax is the head of a mighty infrastructure responsible for raising and coordinating the tithes of hundreds of worlds, a gargantuan task only made possible by the legions of Adeptus Administratum scribes, factors, and assayers that toil ceaselessly beneath him.Possibly the most demanding challenge faced by the Calixian sector authorities is the massive, solar-decades-long Imperial Crusade taking place in the distant region of the Eastern Fringe called the Jericho Reach. Though situated on the opposite side of the galaxy to Calixis, the two are linked by a Warp Gate, through which vessels travel in the blink of an eye a distance that would normally take solar months, if not standard years, of perilous Warp navigation.The so-called Jericho-Maw Warp Gate remains a jealously guarded secret and travel through it is very often one-way. The Jericho Reach is at once a region rich in resources and a potential curse upon the Imperium. With the vast hive fleets of the xenos Tyranids assaulting the galaxy from the region's outer edges, the Warp Gate could, were the Tyranids to capture it, offer them a means of striking into parts of the Emperor's domains rarely subject to such external threats. To capture the vast wealth of the Jericho Reach and to ensure the Warp Gate remains secure, the Imperium has committed vast resources of troops and materiel into the Achilus Crusade.Untold numbers of Imperial troops and limitless resources are being channelled through the Jericho-Maw Warp Gate, drawn from the Calixis Sector and beyond, and countless millions of Astra Militarum troops have already given their lives fighting on the other side of the galaxy to capture a region steeped in blood and darkness. Few, if any, of the sector's masters other than Lord Hax and his inner circle know that the countless thousands of troops raised from the worlds of Calixis are bound not to defend their own worlds from alien invasion or rebel insurrection, but to conquer a benighted region of space tens of thousands of light years distant. |
Calixis Sector - Calixis Sector Timeline: Please note that the record of the events in the Calixis Sector's history outlined here is by no means complete or exhaustive and offers only a snapshot of the unfolding chronicle of the Calixis Sector, as it might be made known to the Acolytes of the Inquisition. Much of the true nature of events, as well as vital occurrences of dire import, remain hidden. A few of the major events in the Imperium of Man's history have also been included to establish a wider context for a consideration of Calixian events.Great Crusade (Late 30th - Early 31st Millennium) - The Emperor of Mankind's Great Crusade seeks to reunite all of the Human-settled colony worlds in the galaxy dating back to the Age of Technology under the rule of the newborn Imperium of Man.Horus Heresy (Early 31st Millennium) - The Warmaster Horus, Primarch of the Sons of Horus Space Marine Legion, is corrupted by Chaos and his own ambition and rebels against his father, the Emperor. He successfully recruits half of the Space Marine Legions, large parts of the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Imperial Army into the service of Chaos and unleashes a 7-year-long galactic civil war that kills billions. Horus is slain by the Emperor at the conclusion of the Battle of Terra. Mortally wounded himself in the confrontation, the Emperor is interred within the Golden Throne. The present Age of the Imperium begins.Age of Apostasy (100-600.M36) - The Imperium is consumed by civil war and apostasy from true faith in the Emperor after the High Lord Goge Vandire seizes control of both the Administratum and the Ecclesiarchy in an attempt to impose his own will upon the Imperium rather than serving the will of the Emperor. He is ultimately brought down by an invasion of Terra known as the Terran Crusade and the Ecclesiarchical Palace led by the Space Marines, the Imperial Guard and his own bodyguards, the Daughters of the Emperor, the predecessors of the Adepta Sororitas. The invasion is spurred on and guided by a militant religious reformer, the priest Sebastian Thor, and his Covenant of Light.War of Assassins (228.M36)Reign of Blood Ends (378.M36) - The Age of Apostasy's Reign of Blood finally ends in the death of Goge Vandire at the hands of the Daughters of the Emperor as Terra comes under invasion from Loyalist forces seeking to restore the rightful rule of the Emperor.Haarlock Charter (395.M36) - The Haarlock Great Charter is granted by the new reforming Ecclesiarch, Sebastian Thor, to the Free Captain Mordercai Haarlock for his service against the Apostate fleets of the Ecclesiarchy's private army and navy, the Frateris Templar.The Great Voyage (723-736.M36) - Solomon Haarlock's fleet undertakes a perilous 13-year-long voyage and charts a volume of space beyond the Imperium's borders he dubbed the "Calyx Expanse." Haarlock discovers several formerly unknown xenos realms, substantial mineral resources, several stable Warp paths and scattered human-settled worlds of unknown provenance. He also notes several worlds that he deems to mark out the territory of an ancient and long-dead alien civilisation, aeons old, and names their former realm a "Chalice of Great and Ancient Wickedness." He notes the area in the Imperial Cartographia Universalis as rich in "souls, plunder, wealth and things best left undisturbed," and a region that could be added to the Imperium only with a "great effusion of blood."World of Sinophia Founded (133.M37) - The world of Sinophia is granted by the High Lords of Terra as the personal fiefdom of the Rogue Trader Teresa Sinos at the end of her voyages as a reward for her service to the Imperium. The planet is situated beyond the edge of the Scarus Sector and rapidly becomes a staging post for expeditions into the frontier of the Calyx Expanse and the Halo Stars beyond.Age of Plunder (Various Dates.M37-M39) - The stories brought back from the Calyx Expanse of wealth, xenos artefacts and resource-rich, life-sustaining worlds draw numerous Imperial Free Captains, Rogue Traders and Renegades to the region from across the already-settled Scarus and Ixaniad Sectors. Darker tales surface as well of inhuman empires, horrific xenos "Mind Eaters," Chaos-worshiping savages who were once men, the dark perils of the limitless "Abyss of Ha'az'Roth" and of a baleful black star that presages disaster. But enough plunder flows into Imperial coffers to keep a steady stream of adventurers, rogues and Explorators entering the Expanse. Many never to return.Altid Crusade (290-299.M38)Meratis Settlement (mid-M38) - Isolationist voider families fleeing persecution in the dynastic wars of the Ixaniad Sector settle the Meratis Cluster in the stellar dead zone between the abyss and their former home. In time their numbers are swollen by human Renegades, outlaws and worse, forming the Meritech Clans.Ymgarl Moons Cleansed of Genestealers (038.M39) - The Salamanders Chapter of Space Marines cleanses the moons of Ymgarl of the strain of Genestealers long found in that region of the galaxy. The purge is not successful and Ymgarl Genestealers will continue to plague the Imperium in the centuries to come.The Angevin Crusade Begins (322.M39) - Praetor Golgenna Angevin, a powerful noble from the Terran Court, is raised to the rank of Lord Militant in the Imperial Guard and granted a writ from the High Lords of Terra to persecute an Imperial Crusade to liberate and dominate the area of space designated as the Calyx Expanse. His Crusade's forces are drawn principally from the Segmentum Solar and number over 17 million levied troops who are divided into 4 battle groups and a strategic reserve, re-enforced by elements of the Titan Legios Venator and Magna, as well as the Black Templars, Tigers Argent, Sons of Medusa and Charnel Guard Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes and a significant naval deployment drawn from the Battlefleets Solar and Obscurus. A score of Rogue Trader and Explorator fleets range ahead of the main Imperial forces, identifying targets and providing active reconnaissance in this dangerous region of space. Swelling the force's already vast ranks are tens of thousands of “pauper warriors” of the Frateris Militia whipped up into a frenzy of holy zeal by the Ecclesiarchy and innumerable petty hangers-on, opportunists and logistical transports, with supply trains leading back whole sectors away from the front. Using the well-established Frontier World of Sinophia as its forward staging post and marker, the Crusade’s main thrust is launched like an armoured fist into the heart of the Calyx Expanse across the Periphery in a two-pronged assault directed towards two prominent star systems where Rogue Traders had long-established pro-Imperial human contact: Malfi and Solomon.Reaping of the Emperor's Wrath (341-545.M39) - Having strongly established and fortified two salients of conquered Imperial territory into the Calyx Expanse, with their domains now anchored on the worlds of Solomon and Malfi, as well as defeated three minor xenos empires and innumerable other non-compliant forces in the prior twenty years of fighting, the Angevin Crusade pauses for fortification and entrenchment of its gains before the next stage of conquests begins. The Crusade is then granted a fresh influx of troops by the High Lords of Terra in recognition of its success (and the wealth already pouring into Imperial coffers from their conquests), in order to press on. Seizing the moment, the Crusade forces carry out the greatest single sweep of conquests in the conflict as the two-pronged assault from the salient's arms sweep together conquering as many worlds in the pace of four years as had been taken in the proceeding two decades. These conquests form the territory later known as the Golgenna Reach sub-sector in a campaign that is called by Imperial chroniclers the “Reaping of the Emperor’s Wrath.” Of the many famous victories of this campaign, one of the most lauded belongs to the young General Drusus, who took the War World of Iocanthos in a single week, overthrowing a great and baleful tyranny there, while perhaps the most infamous is the Exterminatus of the world of Amun’an Morrus, whose once-human population of intelligent machines is judged too tainted by tech-heresy to continue to exist. Such horrors are attested to on this world that after its destruction its former location is stricken from all Imperial records, only to live on as a dark Calixian legend.Golgenna Consolidation (353-558.M39) - With the first and second great phases of its vast operation complete, (and partly owing to battle fatigue after 30 standard years of Crusade), Lord Militant Angevin’s forces consolidated their hold of what was more than 200 captured worlds, and shepherded the arrival of the first wave of Imperial colonisation to the areas they controlled. During this period of relative peace, several notable regiments of the Imperial Guard who had earned great glory in the campaign (such as the Brontine Centurions) were given rights of settlement to their own worlds, while several attached forces (like the elements provided by the various Astartes Chapters) rotated out of the crusade's service.Angevin Crusade Second Front is Opened (359.M39) - The Angevin Crusade’s third great push begins with a freshly raised army group gathered from the core worlds of the Segmentum Obscurus, under the command of the Imperial Navy's High Admiral Vaakkon who opens a second front. The new army group to enter the Crusade assaulted the Calyx Expanse from the Segmentum's coreward regions, with the goal of linking up with Angevin’s own forces who advanced from Golgenna to meet them. This phase of the campaign proves disastrous, as worsening conditions in the Warp and a series of calamities and reversals beset the Imperial forces, and when the fleets finally meet in 363.M39 at the world of Orendal the Imperial losses of the last four years nearly equal that of the first two decades of the Crusade. Angevin commands the world of Orendal be transformed into a shrine to honour the fallen dead and then he orders a retreat. Some say that after this time Angevin is a man broken in will and purpose. The Crusade's forces withdraw to the interior of the Golgenna Reach, and Angevin devolves command of his armies to his senior generals and admirals with mixed success, as with no clear line of authority factionalism and bitter rivalries start to appear in the ranks of the Crusade.The Bleak Years (363-369.M39) - With the Angevin Crusade’s forward impetus stalled, its domains begin to come under repeated and sustained attack from without, weathering the storms of an Ork WAAAGH!, and the privations of xenos corsairs and raiders whose assaults claim the lives of millions. Signs and omens are everywhere; a burning black fire is seen in the skies of the world of Lossal Prime days before all contact with the thriving Imperial colony world is lost, the wreckage of an entire overdue re-enforcement battle group out of Akurion is discovered by piquet ships operating on the fringes of the Ha’az’Roth region and plagues decimate the worlds of the Malfian Holdfast. Rebellions and cult activity rise to threaten what were thought to be stable worlds and assassins claim the life of Arch-Confessor Melcher El, the Crusade’s spiritual leader and Ecclesiarchy adviser. Worsening political rivalries between the Crusade's generals and Imperial Commanders break out into petty conflicts. Betrayals and a wave of outright distrust between the Crusade's leaders allow matters to deteriorate further. For the first time the Crusade’s gains begin to be lost, and the Imperial forces are stretched increasingly thin in their defence of the new realm. Morale problems and discord grow in the ranks. Only the fleets of the Rogue Traders Sibylline Haarlock and Ludd Sabrehagen provide the rapid transport and redeployment needed to support the brilliant and daring counterattacks of General Drusus’ army group against the Warp-worshiping xenos race known as the Yu’vath and their debased human allies which prevent the entire Malfian region from collapsing and leaving the Crusade’s conquests wide open for assault. Drusus is widely acclaimed as a saviour but many powerful figures in the Crusade view him as a dangerous warmonger, rival and would-be usurper.Transfiguration of Drusus (367.M39) - According to some sources, betrayed by agents of his rivals among Lord Militant Angevin’s generals, Drusus is attacked by a deadly assassin whilst rallying his depleted forces on the world of Maccabeus Quintus and is seemingly slain, before rising again -- an event many see as a true miracle and a clear mark of the Emperor’s favour. The Drusine sect of the Imperial Cult begins to flourish in his shadow, already revering him as a living saint, while shadowy agencies, some say belonging to the Ordo Malleus of the Inquisition, also bring new aid to his forces in the persecution of the Yu’vath and their human allies (which include traitors within the Imperial’s own ranks). Almost by sheer force of personality and by independently rallying much of the Crusade’s forces to his own banner with tacit backing from the wider Imperial powers (including the involvement of a sizable force from the Iron Hands Astartes Chapter), Drusus orders the launch of the Angevin Crusade’s third and final phase of conquests. This campaign succeeded in destroying the powers that controlled much of what would later be known as the Drusus Marches sub-sector in General Drusus' honour, laying waste to as many worlds as he dominated.Great Founding (370-610.M39) - Mass colonial expeditions from the overpopulated worlds of the distant Segmentum Solar, and from nearer afield in the troubled Mandragora and Gehenna Sectors arrive within the fledgling Calixis Sector, creating a great influx of human population to the region.Death of Golgenna Angevin (372.M39) - Lord Militant Golgenna Angevin dies at his palace on the world of Quaddis. Though the official cause of death is listed as natural causes, rumours lay his decline in health on advanced old age and a surfeit of fine living. Darker stories persist of the Officio Assassinorum's hand in matters as punishment for his later failings in the prosecution of the Angevin Crusade. Drusus is named Lord Militant by wide acclaim in Angevin's stead (with the political support of both the Departmento Munitorum and the Inquisition) and as soon as a state period of mourning for the late Angevin is over, Drusus immediately sets to re-forging the region's military forces for a final counterattack into the regions of the Adrantis Nebula and the remaining strongholds of the Yu’vath Hell Worlds.Grant of The Lathes (380.M39) - In recognition of their invaluable assistance and heavy losses in the purging of the taint of the Adrantians, as well as their service to the Angevin Crusade in decades past, Drusus grants the Lathe System to be the sole domain of the Adeptus Mechanicus in perpetuity, and ratifies their claims to several other worlds and rights of free and unchecked passage through the stars the Crusade has conquered. By this act, the Lords of Mars were bound in strength both to the fledgling sector and to Drusus' own banner.Angevin Crusade Officially Ends; Birth of the Calixis Sector (384.M39) - With the final defeat of the xenos known as the Yu'vath and the Bale Childer, and the Exterminatus of their homeworlds, the final serious organised resistance to Imperial rule in the Calyx Expanse ends and Drusus declares the Angevin Crusade to be complete. Drusus is installed with full rights and title by the Equerry Primaris of the High Lords of Terra as the first Lord Sector Calixis to much acclaim. Amongst his first acts are the confirming of the world of Scintilla as his sector capital, the ratification of the great trade charters for the new sector's mercantile shipmasters and rising commercial powers that had maintained the crusade. This binds the sector's life blood of trade and creates what would become the great Chartist families and first great Calixian noble houses. His other achievements include the creation of the sector's great legal code, the Corpus Presidium Calixis and the instillation of a Calixian branch of the Holy Synod of the Adeptus Ministorum at the hive city of Tarsus on Scintilla. The full effective pacification of the sector will continue to consume much blood and treasure of the Imperial war machine for a further three Terran centuries to come.Death of Drusus (417.M39) - The first and greatest Lord Sector Calixis dies and is succeeded by Marshal Corin Shultus, his former aide-de-camp and distant kinsmen to the late Golgenna Angevin. The final resting pace of Drusus' mortal remains is kept a secret, although rumours circulate that he was taken back to Maccabeus Quintus to be interred at the site of his first "death." Mass lamentation and political unrest accompany the news of his passing and the entire sector undergoes a seven-standard-year cycle of mourning.Beatification of Saint Drusus (502.M39) - After nearly a standard century of deliberation the Adeptus Ministorum's General Synod of Terra confers sainthood on Drusus, whose cult and dogma had already flourished within the Calixis Sector and become a dominating factor in the local Calixian sect of the Imperial Cult.War of Hubris (550-760.M39) - The independent world of Sinophia fights a covert trade war with the burgeoning commercial powers of the newborn Calixis Sector and is laid low. As a result, in the years that follow, much of its population is repatriated to the sector itself, its hive cities emptying and commerce fleeing. Sinophia now retains but a shadow of its former prominence and grandeur, nominally passing under the writ of the Lord Sector Calixis, and condemned to a long, slow economic starvation.The Donionian Crusade (989.M39)The Threefold Curse (123.M40) - Two heavily defended Battlefleet Calixis watch-stations and a sizable capital ship taskforce, lead by the grand cruiser Fire of Heaven, are destroyed by unknown assailants in the outer reaches of the Hazeroth Abyss, forcing an Imperial retrenchment, effectively shrinking the border of the sector and ending further military expansion in the region. The only clue to the cause is found carved on a bulkhead in the hulk of the watch-station Sentry-17, which reads, "The worms that walk have come for us all."Macharian Crusade (387-401.M40) - The Lord Solar Macharius launches a massive Imperial Crusade into the unexplored regions of the galaxy that marks the largest expansion of Imperial territory since the Great Crusade 9 millennia before.The White Sorrows (552-570.M40) - Drukhari corsairs of the Kabal of the White Sorrow plague the area of space known as the Periphery with a devastating series of raids. The corsairs are shattered and their threat ended at last when confronted and brought to battle by a force consisting of Battlefleet Calixis, Explorator and Rogue Trader forces (aided it is rumoured by unknown xenos forces) under the overall command of the Rogue Trader Kobras Aquairre. The battle turns when Aquairre's flagship, The Son of Seth, successfully rams and boards the corsair flagship Altar of Torment, Kobras himself slaying the enemy's Butcher Archon in single combat.Tanis Incident (709.M40) - The thriving Hive World of Tanis and its surrounding star system, which had been an outer bulwark of the Calixis Sector's power in the Hazeroth sub-sector, is visited by an unexplained stellar phenomena in the shape of a baleful black "Tyrant Star" that presages destruction, madness and death. Within a period of solar weeks, the Tanis System is ravaged, resulting in over two billion dead or missing. Survivors are only found on the Agri-moon of St. Astrid's Fall, which itself is badly ravaged. The "Tanis Incident" is covered up with full Inquisitorial authority and declared a forbidden subject on pain of death. Civil data is adjusted accordingly so that Tanis never existed in the public records of the sector. This event, taken with a long and erratic slew of other dark mysteries and a rising weight of deadly prophesy, leads to the formation of the current incarnation of the Inquisition's Tyrantine Cabal to investigate the matter and take whatever action is necessary to combat what is now classified as the phenomena of the Hereticus Tenebrae.The 26th Space Marine Founding (738.M40)War of Brass (738-741.M40) - The Hive Worlds of the Gelmiro Cluster fall into sedition against the Imperium, following the charismatic leadership of a figure calling himself the "Emperor of Brass," debasing themselves into the worship of the Ruinous Powers. Heavily militarised, the Renegades quickly sponsor and arm rebel groups on nearby worlds and when counter-attacked, reveal the hand of dark forces from the Eye of Terror in their ranks. The so-called "War of Brass" that followed was comparably brief but bloody, involving forces drawn from across the sector, and the involvement of the Adeptus Astartes and the Titans of the Legio Venator, it rendered the once thriving worlds of Gelmiro blasted, rubble-strewn rocks. Classified as War Worlds and the haunt of murderous scav-mutants, Renegades and wreckers ever since, the Gelmiro System is still a shunned no-man's land to this day.The Second Vortigern Crusade (740-745.M40)Mara Colonised (098.M41) - The ancient, frozen world of Mara in the Hazeroth Abyss sub-sector is colonised as Imperial miners explore the world's icy depths for rare and unique trace elements of great strategic and economic value.The Birth of Ateanism (103.M41) - The Arch-Heretic Julius Ateanos “accidentally” creates the Eris Transform, a heresy that will claim thousands of souls and lives in the years that follow.The Dark Heresy (126.M41) - The Propheticum Hereticus Tenebrae, a compilation of many sources, case studies and prognostications is compiled into a single archive of dark lore by the Inquisition's Tyrantine Cabal and housed in the depths of the Bastion Serpentis, (although rumours abound that this is merely a version of some much earlier work of unknown origin). This work's implications trouble the sleep of many great minds.Gothic War (143-160.M41) - The 12th Black Crusade, better known as the Gothic War, consumes the Gothic Sector.Mara Isolated (191.M41) - All contact with the Imperial colony on Mara is lost amid Warp disturbances troubling the area. Later contact finds no trace of the former inhabitants of the Mining World.Meritech Wars (211-226.M41) - The clans of the Merates Cluster located between the Calixis and Ixaniad Sectors secede from the Imperium, rallying many Renegade factions to their cause, raiding deep into the sector and causing widespread disruption and anarchy. The Meritech Wars, at their height, pose the greatest threat to the sector’s stability in generations and even threatens to provoke internecine conflict with the bordering Ixaniad Sector. Thanks to the rise in power of Myram Harvala as Sector Governor, the Meritech Clans are crushed and the worlds of the cluster are scoured clean of life. In the aftermath, the Heretek conspiracy of the Logicians is proved to have been behind the outbreak of the war.The Seventeen Holy Martyrs (385.M41) - A small force of Adeptus Sororitas Battle-Sisters die to a woman defending the agri-colony of Gallowglass in the Malfi System from a Chaos Cult of decay, slaying an incarnate Daemon of great power in the process. A permanent shrine is raised to their honour in remembrance of this great deed.Tyrant Star Appears (389.M41) - The Asteroth Mining Colony in the Drusus Marches sub-sector falls to heretical rebellion and waves of mass suicides following a visitation by the Tyrant Star. The colony is effectively destroyed, survivors flee to the nearby Locura System where they sow discord and unrest before a joint Inquisitorial and Adeptus Arbites purge of the refugees.First Siege of Vaxanide (410-412.M41) - The Vaxanide System is besieged by an Ork raider fleet, and the Ork forces also make planetfall to assault Vaxanide's hive cities but the Greenskins are swiftly repulsed. The Orks are eventually driven off by the ships of Battlefleet Calixis, one sizable splinter force landing on the world of Ganf Magna.Fall of the Tellurian Combine (428-430.M41) - The dominating commercial power of the Tellurian Combine is uncovered as a front for the malefic Chaos Cult called the Brotherhood of the Horned Darkness. Such is the group's widespread power and infiltration, even of the Lucid Court, that rather than risk civil war and an open purge, the Inquisition's local Ordos Calixis declares a shadow war against the Brotherhood, which lasts for three standard years and involves what is believed to be the largest employment of both the Officio Assassinorum and the Grey Knights in the sector’s history before its conclusion. An unforeseen side affect of the widespread secret purges and fearful suspicion they create is a dramatic and long-term weakening of the sector’s central government which has detrimental effects for centuries to come.Reign of Terror on Malfi (428-479.M41) - The ascension of the House of Koba on Malfi results in the most tyrannical and brutal regime in the history of the Calixis Sector, and raises the spectre of succession and sector civil war, threatening the wresting, by covert and bloody means, of the seat of sector government from the then weak Lucid Court on Scintilla. The House of Koba falls at last by its own hand from betrayal within, leaving a power vacuum that leads to a twenty year period of strife, misrule and petty house wars on Malfi, ended only by a greater threat that rises from the tumult.First War for Armageddon (474.M41) - The First War for Armageddon unfolds on that crucial Hive World in the Segmentum Solar.Bloody Solstice on Malfi (499.M41) - The rise of the appallingly powerful Khornate Chaos Cult called the Pilgrims of Hayte forces an end to Malfi's internal political divisions at the cost of the near fall of that mighty world to annihilation. The Pilgrims of Hayte, while defeated, are not destroyed and live on to become a thorn in the side of the Calixis Sector's Imperial authorities until the present day and the source of a great many woeful atrocities.Tyrant Star Appears (503.M41) - Snowden's World suffers a visitation by the Tyrant Star leading to twenty days of riots and a mass famine that decimates the population.Second Siege of Vaxanide (507.M41) - A second Ork invasion force centred around the space hulk designated Pinnacle of Savagery attacks the Vaxanide System. Although this force is considerably larger than the first, it is swiftly met by Battlefleet Calixis and allied forces whose mass bombardment cause the hulk to break up and disintegrate before it can approach the Hive World, although fierce fighting continues as some Greenskin forces make it through to the planet.Devayne Incorporation (560.M41) - The writ of holy orders is removed from the Devayne Fraternity by the Synod Calixis of the Ecclesiarchy, which cites the group’s worldly aspect and growing moral turpitude, forcing its slow rebirth into the entity known as the Devayne Incorporation, one of the most powerful and rigorously organised commercial powers in the sector.Recovery of the Lucid Court (609.M41) - Lord Sector Calixis Larhanus Sult, called by many "The Great Conciliator," is inaugurated and restores much power and prestige to the Lucid Court on Scintilla. He successfully pulls back executive authority to the office of the Lord Sector that had been slowly devolving to the Great Houses over the years, and massively expands the directly controlled military forces of his office and institutes aggressive reforms to the governance of Hive Sibellus.Fall Narrow Incursion (623.M41) - The Fall Narrow mining outpost on 88 Tanstar is revealed to been secretly dominated by the Cryptos xenoform.Corinth Crusade (689.M41)Haarlock Vanishes (703.M41) - Erasmus Haarlock, Rogue Trader, thought to be the last of his famed line, vanishes after completing the extermination of his bloody kin and leaving himself the sole-survivor of his clan.Sutters Rock Outbreak (724.M41) - The mining asteroid colony of Sutters Rock becomes the first confirmed location where what will come to be called the Fydae Strain Virus is encountered. The plague runs rampant and the dead walk, leading to the loss of all 120,000 colonists in a matter of solar hours. The virus is an unnatural Warp-contagion linked to the foul Nurglite Daemon-cult known as the Vile Savants.Ascension of Marius Hax (731.M41) - The iron-handed Marius Hax becomes Lord Sector Calixis, after effectively ruling as the power behind the throne for several prior solar decades for his ailing and aged kinsman, Larhanus Sult. Subtle, clever and above all ruthless, and able to build on the achievements of his predecessor, Hax is arguably the strongest ruler the sector has seen for several centuries.The Manchenko Purge (740.M41) - A sizable portion of the Commercia Great House of the Manchenko Dynasty is found to be corrupt and sanctioned by Inquisitorial purge, leaving it a battered shadow of its former power, further assailed and tormented by its rival houses. The Manchenko endure however and spend the next decades slowly rebuilding their power.Damocles Gulf Crusade (742.M41) - The Damocles Gulf Crusade, also called the Damocles Crusade, was the first military conflict fought between the Imperium of Man and the rapidly expanding T'au Empire in the Lithesh Sector of the Ultima Segmentum in the galaxy's Eastern Fringes during the 41st Millennium. The conflict essentially ended in a stalemate, as the Imperium was forced to conclude its military offensive early to deal with the encroaching Tyranid threat while the T'au sought to begin diplomatic negotiations with the Imperium to show Humanity the benefits to be had by accepting the Greater Good. Members of the T'au Water Caste had established trade agreements with Imperial worlds on the frontier of the T'au Empire, near the Damocles Gulf region of the Ultima Segmentum in the galactic east, and exchanges of goods and technology were common. Alarmed by the threat of alien contamination, the Administratum readied a suitable response and almost a Terran century later, the Damocles Crusade smashed into T'au space, destroying several outlying settlements and pushing deep into the T'au Empire. When the Imperial fleet reached the T'au Sept World of Dal'yth Prime, however, the crusade ground to a bloody stalemate as the formidable numbers and high technology of the T'au and their Kroot allies thwarted every attempt to capture the world or its star system. Many solar months of terrible fighting ensued with nothing gained on either side. By late 742.M41 the crusade's commanders eventually agreed to requests from the T'au Water Caste for peace talks. The negotiations were successful and the Imperial fleet withdrew from T'au space unmolested, primarily due to the impending approach of the Tyranid Hive Fleet Behemoth. Or, depending on the source, the Damocles Gulf Crusade was ended in 988.M41 due to the emergent threat of Hive Fleet Kraken.A Pattern Revealed (742.M41) - The Tyrantine Cabal conclusively identifies the "Calixian Pattern Killings" going back at least eleven hundred Terran years.The Tyrant Star Appears (742.M41) - The Tyrant Star is sighted by Explorator vessels in the area of the Death World of Vigil.Malygrisian Tech-Heresy (742-770.M41) - The militant Explorator Archmagos, Umbra Malygris, goes Renegade after clashing with the High Fabricator of the Lathe Worlds, taking with him hundreds of adepts and followers and threatening a full dogmatic schism within the Machine Cult’s ranks within the sector. Hunted on all sides, Malygris becomes increasingly insane but refuses to flee the sector, hiding instead in its shadows and cultivating a conspiracy of sympathisers and traitors to aid him. The renegade unleashes blasphemous horrors and forbidden weapons seemingly at random in order to further his research or avenge himself on his enemies. His forces also plunder and attack Mechanicus facilities, exploratory bases and even rival tech-heretic forces in order to obtain their secrets. Eventually destroyed at the hands of the Mechanicus Dragon Secutarii. However, Malygrisan lore still exists to plague the Omnissiah’s cult to the present.Ice Station Mara (743.M41) - An Imperial mining penitentiary outpost is re-established on the deserted Ice World of Mara in the Hazeroth Abyss.First Tyrannic War Begins (745.M41) - The Tyranids' Hive Fleet Behemoth assaults the Eastern Fringes of the galaxy and is defeated during the Battle of Macragge only by the heroic sacrifices made by the Ultramarines.The Tyrant Star Appears (748.M41) - Plagues and an epidemic of madness grips the feral World of Endrite.Sabbat Worlds Crusade Begins (756.M41) - The Sabbat Worlds Crusade was an Imperial Crusade fought over the course of more than 23 standard years between 755.M41 and 778.M41 to retake the Sabbat Worlds Sector located at the rimward edge of the Segmentum Pacificus from the heretical forces of Chaos. This Crusade was one of the largest and most significant Imperial military operations undertaken in recent history and ultimately ended in the reconquest of the sector by the armed forces of the Imperium of Man.Mara Abandoned (768.M41) - The Imperial mining colony on Mara is abandoned amid great loss of life and the entire region of space around it is quarantined by Inquisitorial edict.Treachery of Nephthys (777.M41) - Inquisitor Erya Nephthys, once the most promising of her generation, goes Renegade and massacres a number of her peers in the very heart of the Tricorn Palace on Scintilla. The vilest of Traitors, she attacks numerous other Imperial holdings and carves a bloody path cross the sector, prompting a blood hunt by the entire Ordos Calixis of the Inquisition. She dies a third and final time at the hands of Witch Hunter Rykehuss and her ashes are interred in a sealed vault to insure her disposal is a permanent one.Margin Crusade is Launched (784.M41) - Under the holy writ of the Synod Obscurus of the Ecclesiarchy and taking place far to the Calixis Sector's spinward border, an Imperial Crusade is launched into the Margin region beyond the light of the Astronomican to the galactic north. The Calixis Sector is called on to provide troops and materiel to the ongoing Imperial effort and grudgingly complies. Thirty standard years later the Margin Crusade is believed by most in the Imperium to still be grinding on with a great loss of blood and treasure. In truth, the Imperium lost contact with the Margin Crusade as early as 788.M41 and the crusade is believed by the Inquisition to have failed, the forces dedicated to its completion lost in their entirety. However, the Imperium continues to maintain the fiction of the Margin Crusade's existence, using it as an excuse to raise ever larger tithes of troops and war machines which are then diverted to the Achilus Crusade in the Jericho Reach, which has also faced setbacks.Astral Knives Cult declared Heretical (792.M41) - Long tolerated, the centuries old void born death cult of the Astral Knife is found to have become tainted by association with dark forces and declared heretical by the Holy Ordos.Doom of the Ardent Seeker (799.M41) - The Ecclesiarchy Mission Ship, Ardent Seeker, is ravaged by a false prophet of the Pilgrims of Hayte on the way to the Shrine World of Maccabeus Quintus. Seven thousand worthy souls die in ways more hellish than the sane can imagine.Tyrant Star Appears (807.M41) - Zillman’s Domain suffers a visitation from the Tyrant Star.Tranch Insurrection (807.M41) - A mutant uprising in the soot warrens of the minor industrialised Hive World of Tranch rapidly develops into a planet-wide insurrection which topples the ruling class, the brutal Oligarchs of Tranch. The mutants have formed together into a unified faction calling itself the Pale Throng, led by a cabal of terrifyingly powerful witches and mutant-psykers known as the Shroud Council. As rumours of the successful rebellion spread, so do brushfire revolts and uprisings on other worlds in the sector, and the flames of malcontent are fanned. Lord Sector Hax realises the wider threat to Imperial order and declares a mass counter-invasion of the war-torn world to bring the rebellion to heel, calling on the Inquisition to dispose of the Shroud Council, which they do, whilst the Ordo Hereticus launches Operation Bellerophon to decapitate the mutant forces. At huge cost in lives and at the price of laying waste to much of Tranch, the Pale Throng is crushed, but its many factions manage to scatter off-world, while sympathisers still raise revolt against the Imperium in the Pale Throng's name elsewhere. Although the war is officially over, the pacification of Tranch goes on, providing a bloody baptism of fire for many of the sector's soldiers.“Dance of the Dead” on Kalf (808.M41) - Mysterious cult activity on the world of Kalf forces a notorious clash between rival Inquisitorial factions, leading to bloodshed and acrimony within the ranks of the Ordo Calixis in its wake.The Vervilix Disaster (810.M41) - After suffering serious malfunction in transit, the Imperial Guard's mass-troop conveyer Vervilix, far off course, makes a forced landing on the forbidden Ice World of Mara. Heavy casualties ensue and the remaining survivors are taken into Inquisitorial custody.Reef Stars Crusade Begins (811.M41)Red Vaults of Luggnam (811.M41) - A small Adeptus Arbites taskforce, investigating evidence of political corruption, murder and tithe-theft on the Mining World of Luggnam, instead encounters the horrors perpetrated by the wanted Arch-heretic Myrchella Sinderfell. In the aftermath, the Inquisition steps in and instigates a two-standard-year-long planet-wide witch-hunt to weed out recidivist elements.Disappearance of Inquisitor Layran (812.M41) - The Inquisitor Layran and his retinue of Acolytes vanish en masse while investigating rumour of a xenos conspiracy, peripherally connected to the so-called "Beast House" organisation on Fenksworld. Their loss prompts the Ordo Xenos to place the entire, widespread trans-sector group under scrutiny, leading to an ongoing covert investigation of the Beast House and its mysterious master, Solkarn Senk.Opening of the Spinward Front (814.M41) - WAAAGH! Grimtoof, the Ork WAAAGH! under the control of the Ork Warlord Ghenghiz Grimtoof, slams into the Periphery Sub-sector of the Calixis Sector in 814.M41. The massive Ork assault forced the Sub-sector Governor Duke Severus XIII to request aid from the Sector Governor Marius Hax, who mobilised the Calixis Sector's military reserves to meet the Greenskin invasion. Even as the forces of the Imperial Guard poured into what the Departmento Munitorum soon designated as the Spinward Front under the command of Lord General Ghanzorik of the Maccabian Janissaries, Severus XIII used the chaos caused by the invasion to secede from the Imperium, creating the independent pocket empire in the Periphery known as the Severan Dominate. At present, a three-way war is underway in the Spinward Front between the forces of the Imperium, the Severan Dominate and the Ork WAAAGH!The Time of Heroes (815.M41) - This year marked the start of a particularly momentous era in the Calixis Sector's history which would decide the ultimate fate of the sector at the hands of small bands of heroes in service to the Ordos Calixis of the Inquisition. |
Calixis Sector - The Tyrant Star: The Calixis Sector is beset by many threats, but few of them are as obvious as rampaging aliens or widespread rebellion. Perhaps the most troubling is the prophecy of the Tyrant Star, the horrific harbinger of ruin and desolation, the spectral sun which consumes light, hope and sanity. This prophecy is known as the Propheticum Hereticus Tenebrae ("the black doctrine" or "the shadow heresy" in High Gothic) by the Inquisitors of the Calixis Sector. Reports of the conflict, destruction and psychic cataclysm that accompany apparitions of the black sun are often suppressed, in case disorder and fear overtake entire worlds.The Tyrant Star, also known as Komus, is an uncategorised stellar anomaly that appears as a black dwarf star whose arrival in the sky of a world is seen as an imminent herald of catastrophe, while the existence of the Tyrant Star is itself part of a wider prophecy called the Hereticus Tenebrae that is of great interest to the Imperial Inquisition. Unraveling this prophecy and the role of the Tyrant Star may be crucial to preventing a cataclysm that will consume not only the worlds of the Calixis Sector but perhaps the entire Imperium of Man.The baleful Tyrant Star casts an ill light upon the Calixis Sector and nowhere seems immune from its influence. Cults and seditionist groups fester in its underhives and moral corruption gnaws away at the Calixian nobility, which holds much of the power on the sector's scattered worlds. Conflicts brew between the Imperial adepta and the great noble families who trace their lineage to the times before Lord Militant Golgenna Angevin's conquests. Mysteries abound, for the Calixis Sector was quite evidently occupied by more than one long-vanished civilisation in the past. The previous inhabitants of this province of the galaxy have left their indelible traces behind them. Certainly, many Inquisitors of the Calixian Conclave fervently hope that the spectral sun is a legacy of aliens long since gone to dust, for the alternatives have implications that are unspeakable.Komus is described in a doom-laden vision which speaks in apocalyptic terms of a "darkness" that will engulf the worlds of Humanity and ultimately devour Human civilisation. The engulfing darkness will be preceded by signs and portents, so-called "herald events," that will gradually transmute Human minds and make them ready to embrace the darkness. Many believe this to be an obvious allusion to a rising of Chaos and the Warp, though this explanation is far from universally agreed.There are many considerable threats in the galaxy. The prophecy could as much apply to the Tyranids (scholars note a repeated use of the word "devour" in the prophecy text) or the Aeldari as to the Warp. However, given the Warp's manifest ability to uncreate and mutate reality, much weight is given to this idea by the Tyrantine Cabal of the Inquisition in the sector. The actual text of the prophecy is secured in the archives of the Bastion Serpentis on Scintilla's moon of Lachesis, and Inquisitor Lord Anton Zerbe, the leader of the Tyrantine Cabal, only allows a very favoured few to examine the complete transcript.In speaking of the herald events, the Propheticum Hereticus Tenebrae, as the manuscript is called, makes many references to "Komus" or the "Tyrant Star." Komus is said to be the harbinger, a portent of the encroaching darkness. It is said to be a "black sun" or a "halo of black flame." This preternatural harbinger is represented by an unholy rune, best described as a clawed bird's foot. The rune has resisted specific translation and no previous occurrence of it has yet been found.Zerbe believes it can be no coincidence that the Calixis Sector is fraught with a curious, recurring phenomena: that of the "Spectral Sun." From time to time -- no specific interval period has been identified -- a monstrous "black sun" matching the prophetic descriptions has mysteriously appeared in various locations throughout the sector.No two appearances have been quite the same but the pattern of visitation is usually this: with little warning, a ghostly star apparently emitting black flames and esoteric, unknown radiations, spontaneously materialises in a planetary system, shines malevolently for a few solar days, and then, just as mysteriously, vanishes without trace. The visitation is accompanied by psychic disturbances, geological upheaval and sociological problems, including mass rioting and unrest.Most often, the Spectral Sun actually eclipses a system's natural star, as if possessing it, causing consternation and panic on the orbiting worlds as their sun goes black. However, the Spectral Sun has also on occasion appeared less directly -- a strangely bright star at night, a phantom corona around a moon -- before disappearing.No astronomer has successfully explained the eerie phenomenon. It belies Human science and has thus far evaded close investigation. Its visitations cannot be predicted. The Tyrantine Cabal believes that the Spectral Sun phenomenon is the Tyrant Star, Komus, as it so closely matches various descriptions in the prophecy. Some suggest the Tyrant Star is the ghost image of some stellar body in the Immaterium, shining through the worn fabric of space. Others say it is a mirror image, a Warpspace star that is partially translating into realspace, trying to find a way through. Yet others claim that the Tyrant Star is an artificial body, driven by xenos engines and mechanisms Mankind cannot comprehend.Whatever the truth, the phenomenon is a fact. It has manifested eighteen times in the Calixis Sector during the last standard century (8th century of the 41st Millennium). Every single visitation has caused public unrest and geological instability. Where the Tyrant Star appears, earthquakes and volcanic upsurges follow. A world will experience a violent period of upset and revolution prior to its appearance. Many more psykers than usual will be born or become spontaneously active. Mutation will occur. These things will usually take place in the two or three solar months leading up to a manifestation.Signs and portents will be widespread: these generally are a matter of birthmarks, odd runic sigils appearing upon walls without explanation and the rise of fanatical Chaos Cults. Some sources also describe premonitory half-sightings, fleeting glimpses of the black-flamed sun in mirrors, pools, puddles or even on the surface of wine or water in drinking vessels.Mass panic and insanity precede a visitation of the Tyrant Star. No one has been able to explain how it appears and covers a system's natural star with its noxious black smoke. Sometimes, disorder and civil unrest lead to nothing and, for all the portents and cues, the Tyrant Star never actually appears, though this may be because it has manifested in a way that is hard to detect. On at least two recorded occasions, the Tyrant Star has appeared merely as a distant star above a world, no larger than a morning star, instead of eclipsing the local sun.The Tyrantine Cabal believes it is a vital part of its work in the Calixis Sector to trace and investigate these visitations, and to actually be on site to witness a manifestation. Inquisitor Lord Zerbe hopes that important data may be gathered during a genuine sighting. In the sector at large, the visitations are a matter of myth and rumour. The Inquisition has carefully suppressed any official confirmation of the phenomenon. |
Calixis Sector - Scintilla: Scintilla is the capital world of the Calixis Sector of the Segmentum Obscurus, and is a thriving Imperial hub that supports the largest planetary population in the sector. It is dominated (some observers say "shared") by two vast hive cities, Hive Sibellus and Hive Tarsus, into which the vast majority of the planet's groaning population are crammed. Despite the dominance of the two great hives, the "offspring" communities of Ambulon and Gunmetal City contribute significantly to the planet's economic function.Scintilla is a world of splendours where the wealthy and powerful compete with ruthless appetite. Astonishing magnificence abounds, from the wondrous fashions of the hive nobility to the towering spectacle of the hive cities themselves. Landmarks like the Lucid Palace and the Cathedral of Illumination are famous throughout the sector.Scintilla is also a world of corruption. Moral decay eats away at the noble houses, members of which are often deluded by their own wealth and status. In the rarefied culture of the high-born, the corruption of power and privilege runs deep. Noble houses consider themselves (sometimes correctly) as above or outside of Imperial law and can wield immense influence. Their attitude towards those lower-born is callous: it is not unknown for thrill-seeking degenerates from noble houses to prey upon lesser Humans as sport, often feeding secret Chaos Cults devoted to Slaanesh.At the other end of the social spectrum, the underhives are rife with mutants, outlaws and ultra-violent gangs, as well as the psychotic zealots of the Redemption. The middle hivers trapped between the aristo spires and the rancid underhives live out thankless lives of unending toil, where ignorance is a virtue, and death is a reward for a lifetime of loyal, drone servitude, fulfilling the exorbitant tithes levied on Scintilla by the Adeptus Administratum. It has been this way since the days of Golgenna Angevin, and Scintilla's various corruptions are so deeply ingrained that they have become invisible even to those who perpetrate them.Scintilla's most important features are its two hive cities: immense, multi-levelled arcologies that house billions of Imperial citizens. Both hives on Scintilla are largely independent, ruled by councils drawn from the nobles of the spire. The majority of the inhabitants are middle hivers, the labouring classes, without whom the planet's manufactoria and trade houses would cease to function.Almost all middle hivers are owned by, indentured to, or employed by nobles from the powerful, sector-wide Great Houses or from Scintilla's own lesser houses. The poorest and most neglected areas are the underhives: polluted, crime-ridden places where life is cheap and brutal gangs struggle for supremacy before violent death inevitably claims them. As long as the violence does not spill over into the middle hives, the authorities are happy to let the gangs murder each other in the cesspits of the underhive.Scintilla's two great hive cities have always competed with one another for prestige and influence, but no rational observer could fail to acknowledge Hive Sibellus' political and economic dominance. Geographically the larger of the two hives, it is often referred to as "the Capital" or the "ruling hive," and is both the seat of political and administrative power on the world, and the centre of the planet's manufacturing might.Hive Tarsus functions as a dark, shadowy twin, popularly referred to, by Sibellians, as the "Other Place." Hive Tarsus is a mercantile hive city and controls all off-world trade and commerce. Neither hive city could function without the other, a fact celebrated in Scintillan proverbs and myths. However, neither great hive city would openly admit to the importance of the "offspring" communities, Ambulon and Gunmetal City, both of which wield considerable influences of their own. |
Calixis Sector - Civil Order: Law on Scintilla is the province of the Magistratum, the planet's local Enforcers and police force. In the hive spires, the dark green greatcoats of Magistratum officers are a common sight as they patrol the streets and investigate anything from petty theft upwards. In the middle spires, they are concerned mainly with serious or violent crime, unable and unwilling to deal with other common crimes. In the underhives, they are almost completely absent.The quality of the Magistratum's officers and procedures varies enormously through the layers of Scintilla's hive cities, depending on the funding and support they are given by the ruling noble councils, and on the environments they have to work in. Inevitably, it is far easier for a noble victim to get the Magistratum to investigate a crime, and far easier for a middle hiver criminal to be arrested for one.The Adeptus Arbites have a strong presence on Scintilla but they leave everyday policing to the Magistratum, concentrating on sedition, interference with the Imperial tithes, certain Chaos Cult, xenophile cult and psyker activity, and in using their paramilitary strength to help put down major riots or rebellions. Most Scintillan citizens never see an Arbites officer unless it is from the wrong side of a riot shield. The Arbitrators and the Magistratum despise each other and have little interest in working together except under the most dire circumstances.The laws across Scintilla vary from place to place, but two constants are trial by combat and duelling. Both are legal on Scintilla, and trials by combat are especially common when the hive city nobility are involved. Trials by combat, where the accuser and defendant fight to decide who is right, have conditions attached depending on the nature of the crime (murder and severe violent crime is to the death, while some crimes have restrictions on the weapons to be used and sometimes bizarre conditions for victory, from first blood to the removal of limbs).It is permitted for either party to have a champion fight in their place and a skilled combatant can find lucrative, if perilous, employment in the Bloodsquares run by the Magistratum. Needless to say, good champions do not come cheap, and the very best are retained by the noble houses of the aristo spires.Similarly, duelling is permitted on Scintilla and forms a part of the culture in the hive cities and elsewhere. The Magistratum does not interfere with duels and killing an opponent in a duel is not considered legal murder. This means it is entirely possible to eliminate an enemy by manufacturing a matter of honour between them and an opponent who happens to excel at the form of combat used in the duel. |
Calixis Sector - Hive Sibellus: Hive Sibellus is the oldest hive city on Scintilla, almost certainly predating Lord Militant Golgenna Angevin's invasion of the Calyx Expanse. Its immense, eight thousand kilometre-wide bulk dominates the coastal plains and lowlands of the northern temperate landmass. Where its enormous, multi-layered skirts touch the coast itself -- in a five hundred kilometre belt -- they spill out over the black granite cliffs like shelves or glacial ridges. Sibellus has twice the population of its "twin," Hive Tarsus.Like almost all Imperial hive cities, Hive Sibellus is composed of an extraordinary conglomeration of architectural forms. Countless generations have added their own embellishments and every available surface is crammed with Gothic gargoyles, frescoes, columns and mosaics. The hive spire is a jumble of glittering wonders, while the middle hive -- and even the underhive -- is composed of long-fallen statues and temples to wealth and power. The middle hivers live in rickety tenements built inside the shells of great mansions and basilicas, and trudge to work each day through avenues formed by fallen statues. The underhivers live in buried hovels built into the eyes of great stone heads or clustered around the broken columns of fallen temples.The sprawl of the hive city is at its most spectacular along the rugged coastline. The hive looms -- indeed, spills -- over towering black granite cliffs, which are lashed by ferocious seas during the stormy season. The Lucid Palace, a city in its own right, stands on a massive column of rock rising from the sea just off the coast, connected to the rest of the hive city by a single, cyclopean, stone processional bridge, as well as by countless smaller rope bridges and a fleet of ferries which transport strong-stomached passengers across the debris-strewn waters. Hundreds of rickety elevators scale the cliffs and the rock column on which the palace stands, and the hovels of ferrymen and fishermen cling to the rock face like barnacles. The bulk of Hive Sibellus itself rises up many times the height of the cliffs, casting a permanent shadow over the headland and the waters. |
Calixis Sector - Sibellan Society: Hive Sibellus is Scintilla's power centre and every noble house on the planet seeks to have its own estate on the hive spire. These estates form an extraordinary riot of architectural styles, from stern fortresses to gilded pleasure palaces. The spire is constantly growing, the new estates built on the remains of the old, and so a Sibellan noble house must constantly strive to embellish its own estates to keep up.Antiquity is everything in Hive Sibellus. A family draws prestige from the number of ancestral generations it can trace and even the newest estates look like age-weathered bastions of tradition. Hive Sibellus' nobles are intensely competitive and demonstrate their superiority through the magnificence of their estates as well as the antiquities they collect, from artefacts excavated from the deserts and jungles of Scintilla to works of art from across the Imperium. Most estates conceal a high-security gallery or museum, which sometimes holds extremely valuable and illegal items, like xenos artefacts or even dangerous proscribed texts.The streets of the hive spire are constantly busy. Hive Sibellus' noble fashions are spectacular, impractical and perpetually changing, and the nobles travel the streets of the spire accompanied by large retinues of servants whose primary role is to look impressive. The streets in the spire are very safe thanks to the large private armies that guard every estate and the efforts of the Enforcers of the Magistratum to man checkpoints, which regulate the people coming in and out of the hive spire. Violence in the spire, apart from trials by combat and sanctioned duels, is rare -- the crime that most nobles fret about is burglary, since their collections of artworks and relics are so important to them. Tales of impossibly-skilled cat burglars are a staple of Hive Sibellus' folklore and many of those tales are true, since there are a great many things worth stealing in the spire of Hive Sibellus.Hive Sibellus' middle hive is dominated by manufactoria devoted to heavy production and the enormous blocks of cheap, warren-like housing for the manufactoria workers. The traditions of the hive spire filter down to the middle hive, with many hivers collecting curious objects to beautify their meagre homes, aping the extraordinary fashions of the spire nobles or even keeping crudely stuffed dead relatives. The middle hive's manufactoria and tenement blocks are built among layers of compressed mansions and statuary, making it a confusing and dark place of collapsed finery.Somewhere deep amongst the fragments of vast statues and toppled remains of great temple-mansions, the middle hive becomes the underhive. Composed of countless compressed layers of the city above, Hive Sibellus' vast underhive is impossible to navigate and prone to frequent collapse. Underhive settlements huddle in the few stable areas, separated from one another by endless deadly warrens where hive-quakes and cave-ins are a constant threat. Many underhive settlements are completely isolated, their inhabitants hunting underhive vermin to survive and having no idea that there is a hive city above them at all. It is not unknown for nobles of the spire to sponsor heavily-armed expeditions into the underhive to dig up coveted artefacts from Scintilla's past or to explore the tombs of a family's distant ancestors. |
Calixis Sector - Notable Locations: Hive Sibellus' most extraordinary single landmark is the Lucid Palace, which houses the magnificent court of Sector Governor Marius Hax, the Lord Sector Calixis. The Lucid Palace, and the vast column rising from the waves on which it sits, is thought to be much older than Hive Sibellus or indeed, anything on Scintilla. The palace resembles a vast flower of stone, its granite petals overlapping to form its huge dome and the many archways used as entrances. The palace is draped with hundreds of banners representing the institutions of Scintilla and its noble houses, and having a banner fluttering from the palace dome is an honour that some will murder for.Another spectacular landmark is the Bastion Porphyr. This slender tower of purple-black stone is the tallest point in Hive Sibellus and the headquarters for Scintilla's astropaths. Scintilla's Astropathic Choir consists of about half a dozen astropaths, the largest concentration of these powerful psykers in the Calixis Sector, led by Senior Astropath Xiao. These astropaths are the only means for contacting other sectors and without them the Calixis Sector would be cut off from the rest of the Imperium.Anyone who wishes to use them to send an interstellar message must personally climb the apparently endless spiral staircase up the tower and make their request personally to Senior Astropath Xiao. Each astropath has a different method of visualising and sending astrotelepathic messages, and they spend their lives amid the draughty belfries of the Bastion Porphyr performing intensive mental exercises and studying the tomes of symbolic code. Aside from a few servitors to assist them, no one lives in the Bastion Porphyr other than the astropaths. |
Calixis Sector - Inquisitional Holdings: The other most notable landmark in the hive is the Tricorn Palace, the headquarters of the Inquisition on Scintilla. A dark and austere trio of linked towers at the northern end of the hive sprawl, the palace is the headquarters of the High Council of the Calixian Conclave, which is to say that it is the administrative seat of the Inquisition in the Calixis Sector.Since earliest times, the Inquisition has often convened and empowered a conclave of its members for each sector of the Imperium. Each sector conclave is ruled by a Lord Inquisitor of unimpeachable merit, selected and appointed by the High Lords of the Senatorum Imperialis on Terra. For the past two hundred standard years, the Lord Inquisitor of the Calixian Conclave has been Aegult Caidin. Though respectful of the Lord Sector, Caidin answers to no one except the distant High Lords of Terra. From the Tricorn Palace, he supervises and directs the general policies and activities of the Inquisitors under his command, as well as individual specialist cabals of Inquisitors sent upon "special circumstance" missions. The Lord Inquisitor is seldom seen in public. It is said that he keeps his true likeness secret behind a mask, even from close aides and allies, so as to be free to operate unmolested and unrecognised. His true age is not known.Lord Inquisitor Caidin chairs the High Council of the Calixian Conclave, a ruling body of seventy senior Inquisitors drawn from all three Ordos Majoris of the Inquisition, which orchestrates and monitors the Inquisition's work throughout the sector's territories. Estimates suggest that over eight thousand Inquisitorial personnel toil in the officio of the Tricorn Palace, from lowly scribes to archivists, from schlars to specialist Tech-adepts. A small but potent army of Inquisitorial troops is garrisoned at the Tricorn Palace and dedicated voidships of the Inquisition are permanently stationed at high anchor above Scintilla for rapid response deployment. It is also suggested, but unconfirmed, that the Tricorn possesses its own astrotelepathic choir. In times of great crisis, the Officio of the High Council of the Calixian Conclave can call upon the help of any Imperial adepta it requires.The general multitudes shun the Tricorn Palace, regarding it as a place of fear, peril and downright evil, though largely this is because the average citizen has no real grasp of the work and duties of the conclave. Nevertheless, to be seized by the Inquisition and carried to the Tricorn for questioning is a grim fate that few ever return from. |
Calixis Sector - Hive Tarsus: Hive Tarsus is Scintilla's second largest population centre and is the seat of the planet's trade and commerce. It maintains an aggressive independence from Hive Sibellus, though it relies on the export produce of Sibellus' manufactoria. Hive Tarsus is in the centre of Scintilla's least hospitable desert, baking in the relentless sun and battered by sandstorms. The hive city's construction is based around a foundation of immense vertical bars, between which stretch the great conglomerations of buildings that make up the body of the hive. As a result, Hive Tarsus is more vertical than horizontal, with more middle hivers climbing to work than walking. |
Calixis Sector - Tarsian Society: Hive Tarsus' unusual structure and hostile location mean that darkness and cold are valued commodities and, as such, very unusually for a hive city, the richest areas are those on the bottom of the hive instead of at the top. Hive Tarsus' nobility enjoy the shade afforded by having a whole city strung in a dizzying web above them, while they are far enough from the merciless sun to live in cool comfort.The very wealthiest live in pitch-black subterranean mansions where inhabitants and visitors carry dim lanterns to see by, while the air is cooled to sub-zero temperatures that require everyone to wear lavish furs. The nobility here demonstrate their superiority by controlling their environment at immense cost, even to the extent of making their handsome estates as dangerous to the ill-prepared as the worst summer droughts. Hive scum that stray too close to the base of the city are often found frozen to death, caught out by the dramatic drops in temperature the closer they get to the wealthiest districts.The closer to the surface of Hive Tarsus, the poorer and more dangerous the hive city becomes. Middle hivers labour in sweltering workshops bathed in the heat filtering down from the sun, plagued by sunbeams that sweep through the hive during the day and burn exposed skin. The outermost layers (known as the "Hiveskin") are hellish; it is almost too hot to breathe and hivers are bathed in sunlight so potent it can make those caught in it blacken and shrivel up in a few solar minutes.Layers of hovels cling to the top and sides of the hive, too flimsy to completely block out the deadly sun or the frequent lethal sandstorms. Worst of all, the heat is relentless, easily hot enough to kill those not adapted to it. The Hiveskinners scrabble like scarabs across the outermost layers to avoid the worst of the sun as it moves overhead during the day. They are a sunburned, sand-scarred lot who survive by hunting the hardy fauna that dwells here including dangerous scaldbats and mildly poisonous fingerburner beetles. Many wear improvised, iridescent armour suits to reflect the sun, so that they themselves resemble Human-sized beetles. |
Calixis Sector - Trade within Hive Tarsus: Hive Tarsus manufactures very little. Instead, its middle hive is dominated by the Goldenhand, a vast complex of trading halls and auction houses held like a great golden nugget in the heart of Tarsus' city-web. The Goldenhand houses a massive, infinitely complex financial market where commodities are bought and sold at a dizzying rate, and enormous amounts of money and goods change hands hourly. Traders representing both planetary and sector-wide noble and merchant houses buy, sell and try to swindle each other.The Goldenhand never shuts and is constantly thronged with people yelling out offers and curses in a complicated trader's code called "Goldentongue." Most traders are accompanied by armed bodyguards, since the application of violence or even assassination are recognised tactics for gaining the upper hand. Activity in the Goldenhand is extremely intense, with few who work there lasting very long before they are burned out. Many is the trader who has lost a fortune for their noble patrons in the Goldenhand and chosen to walk to certain death into the desert to do penance for their failures.Activity in the Goldenhand is regulated by two bodies. The first is the Goldenhand's own staff of auction masters and functionaries; dressed in browns and brass, their faces painted deep gold, they look appropriately enough like a part of the Goldenhand itself. The second group is the Adeptus Administratum. The adepts of the Administratum's Goldenhand Consular Taskforce (under the leadership of the energetic and surprisingly good-humoured Consul Sevavin) forms the largest concentration of adepts on Scintilla and probably in the whole Calixis Sector. They are a familiar sight in their stark grey uniforms, contrasting with the outlandish fashions of the various noble traders, and are never jostled or threatened as they go about their business.The adepts are considered above the violence that flourishes between the other traders, partly because they represent the interests of the God-Emperor, but mainly because they have the very best protection in the form of veteran soldiers from the Death World of Mortressa. The adepts' purpose in the Goldenhand is to ensure that the tithes handed over to the Administratum from the hive cities of Scintilla do not consist of inferior goods with inflated values, and to maintain awareness of all the major deals going on among the planet's noble houses.Another important player is House Krin, one of the great sector-wide noble houses, which revels in its reputation as "Drusus' bankers" and can arrange banking and massive loans to anyone confident that they can pay up when the time comes. The adepts of the Administratum are based in a building of gold and glass suspended over the Goldenhand's largest trading hall, while House Krin's private household troops protect the family's complex of vaults and safe rooms just beneath the Goldenhand.Hive Tarsus' trade dominance is due to the fact that the planet's orbital docks are geostationary above the hive city. It is said that Tarsus is the "lungs and stomach" of Scintilla. Vast wharfs and warehousing/handling vaults dominate the middle hive, pulsing with the import and export of goods. There are said to be chambers the size of cathedrals in the dense heart of Hive Tarsus, packed with crated goods never claimed or shifted. |
Calixis Sector - Scintillan Protectorate Barracks: Hive Tarsus' proximity to the orbital docks means that it is also the home of the planet's military units. Scintilla's Planetary Defence Force, the Army of the Scintillan Protectorate, is based at Hive Tarsus. It draws its troops from across the planet and there is considerable rivalry between regiments. The regiments raised from Gunmetal City's ruffians consider themselves to be superior and they are mostly justified in this, with the Gunmetal regiments being the equal of the Astra Militarum in training. The Gunmetallicus 41st Regiment, in particular, is a prestigious elite formation whose troops are used to escort VIPs and perform dangerous missions in the wastelands between the hives.When the Imperium needs new Astra Militarum regiments raised for conflicts close to the Calixis Sector, Scintilla's tithe is often raised to include a new draft of manpower for the Astra Militarum. This draft is mostly taken from the Army of the Scintillan Protectorate, with some guardsmen also being raised from the ultra-violent gangers of Gunmetal City's notorious Infernis. Since the Scintillan troops often cut their teeth battling the Infernis gangs, care must be taken to keep the resulting Astra Militarum regiments apart.The Army of the Scintillan Protectorate, while answering to Marius Hax in his role as planetary governor, is effectively sponsored by the Scintillan noble families who contribute their household troops to tours in the planetary army, and most of its officer class is drawn from the younger sons and daughters of noble houses. Warrior brotherhoods, secret societies often born of loyalties to a particular noble house, are common in the army, with the most prestigious having fraternal meeting houses in the spire of Hive Tarsus. |
Calixis Sector - Cathedral of Illumination: Hive Tarsus is also the site of one of Scintilla's sector-famous landmarks. The Cathedral of Illumination is the most important place of worship of the God-Emperor in the whole Calixis Sector. It is the base of operations for Cardinal Ignato, the sector's most senior Adeptus Ministorum clergyman, who leads the Synod Calixis from the cathedral's lavish auditorium. The cathedral is an extraordinary collection of spires surrounding a cavernous central nave, topped with an enormous stained glass dome, through which the scorching light of Scintilla's equatorial sun blazes.The decoration on the cathedral is paid for by nobles and prominent citizens from across the sector, all eager to purchase a piece of the Emperor's grace. The outside of the cathedral is covered in statues, depicting scenes of Imperial history and images of the saints, all gleaming gold in the fierce sunlight. It is said that some of the cathedral's least accessible places conceal bizarre statues, like grotesque monsters or scenes of bizarre occult rituals. The area around the cathedral is a forest of statues of saints and important citizens of Scintilla, the most impressive of these being an enormous statue of Saint Drusus that has pride of place outside the main doors to the nave.Inside, the cathedral is just as magnificent. The cavernous nave's glass dome is supported by columns carved into the likenesses of past cardinals and there are enough pews to sit tens of thousands of worshippers. The nave is dominated by an altar that sits in front of a triple portrait in gold and silver, depicting the Emperor (with His face turned from the congregation) flanked by Saint Drusus and Lord Militant Golgenna Angevin, as well as effigies of several saints.Behind the altar is a choir of two thousand servitors filling the nave with soaring choruses. A pulpit overlooks the nave, and it is from here that Cardinal Ignato and the other Ministorum preachers speak the Word of the Emperor. On days of religious importance, such as the Feast of the Emperor's Ascension (celebrating the Emperor's "ascension" to the Golden Throne at the end of the Siege of Terra), many thousands of nobles and adepts from across Scintilla fill the nave, while lesser citizens crowd outside in the hope of glimpsing some of the splendour within.The cathedral also contains the cardinal's quarters, the Synod Auditorium, where the sector's cardinals meet to discuss spiritual issues, and the Hall of Relics where holy items are kept for safekeeping and study. These include relics of Saint Drusus' life, including bones purported to be from Drusus' own body (enough to reconstruct several skeletons). The Archivum Spiritual, a library of theological works and religious records, also resides below the cathedral, as do the extensive catacombs where members of the sector Ecclesiarchy are buried. The cathedral has a huge staff made up of both lay volunteers (mostly ex-pilgrims) and members of the Ecclesiarchy. Armed laymen of the Frateris Militia protect the cathedral, assisted by a single squad of Sisters of Battle from the Order of the Ebon Chalice.The presence of the cathedral means that the Ecclesiarchy has immense influence in Hive Tarsus, to the extent that Cardinal Ignato has more power here than the hive city's nobles and the Frateris Militia have a stronger presence on the streets than the Enforcers of the Magistratum. All the trade and warehousing halls of the middle hive have lay clergy preaching to the workers about the sacred nature of obedience and the heinous sins of leisure and curiosity.A large proportion of Hive Tarsus' population is made up of pilgrims who are journeying through the city to reach the Cathedral of Illumination. Queues of pilgrims snake from the cathedral throughout the middle hive, sometimes spending standard years waiting for a glimpse of the cathedral while surviving off the efforts of Ecclesiarchy handouts, lay volunteers and unscrupulous traders.The pilgrims are an essential part of Hive Tarsus' economy and most never leave, finding themselves among the labourers of the middle hive or, for a lucky few, working as volunteers among the glittering majesty of the cathedral itself. Hive Sibellus may be the seat of power on Scintilla, but Hive Tarsus is the seat of faith, despite many attempts to shift the Ecclesiarchy's base to the ruling hive city. Almost single-handedly, the cathedral accounts for Hive Tarsus' continued importance and influence in the shadow of its giant rival. |
Calixis Sector - Ambulon: Ambulon is a bizarre sight indeed, claimed by many to be a hive city in its own right. The entire city is mounted on the back of a machine that slowly walks across the unstable rocky regions in the centre of Scintilla's main continent. The machine is extremely old, and was almost certainly already on Scintilla when the Imperium conquered the Calixis Sector.It is probably a pre-Imperial artefact, constructed by a civilisation that fell before the foundation of the Imperium, though some claim it is a relic of pre-Horus Heresy Imperial terraforming technologies. Certainly the skeletal ruins of moving constructs similar to Ambulon dot the central steppes. Ambulon's unusual form affects every aspect of life in the mobile city, from the industries that employ its middle-class citizens to the city's customs and folklore. |
Calixis Sector - Control of Ambulon: Ambulon is navigated via a huge and very complicated control centre, powered by arcane engines of incredibly occult design, in the area corresponding to its head. The Guild Peripatetica, highly superstitious engineers who keep the secrets of how to control the citadel-mechanicus, are constantly scrambling about the intricate controls making tiny adjustments to keep the edifice moving. Many tales of hive folklore dwell on the terrible consequences should Ambulon ever stop, varying from the city simply collapsing, to the machines becoming self-aware and devouring the Humans clinging to its back.The noble houses quarrel constantly over what orders to give to the guild, but they are also well-aware that they should not bully or otherwise cross the Guild Peripatetica lest the engineers point them towards a crevasse or other dangerous obstacle and hold the citadel to ransom. The path that the machine takes is crucial to harvesting the deposits of promethium, natural gas and precious stones that form Ambulon's contribution to Scintilla's Imperial tithe, and everyone has an opinion about where it should go next.Ambulon stalks the wastelands of Scintilla, mining and harvesting the planet's natural resources, supplying the manufactoria of Hive Sibellus and the foundries of Gunmetal City. Neither could function without Ambulon's natural resources. Ambulon tours the steppe wastes once every twenty-eight solar months, slowing to minute speeds in order to dock with Sibellus and Gunmetal City for a few solar days to offload ore and mineral resources. Between these celebrated ceremonial times of docking, Ambulon supplies Sibellus and Gunmetal City by way of regular land trains: ore-cargo crawler pods many kilometres long. |
Calixis Sector - Life in Ambulon: Ambulon's constant movement means that even the most solid buildings are in danger of being shaken off the city's structure. This in turn means that the city's wealthiest and most important districts are located in the places where they are least likely to be destroyed, especially along the city-machine's "Spine." The Spine's buildings are rarely as big as on hive spires, since space is at such a premium on Ambulon's carapace, nor are they as tall, as they have to endure the constant swaying of the city-machine's slow, rolling gait. The style of the Spine sees elegance and even minimalism preferred to the grotesquely grandiose Gothic ornamentation common in the great hive cities. The nobles of Hive Sibellus, in particular, consider Ambulon to be a cultural backwater, whose nobles neglect the proper pursuits of beautifying their city and venerating their dead in the Imperial style.Ambulon's equivalent of the middle hivers are the hundreds of thousands of workers who inhabit tenement blocks piled up on the vast, shield-shaped back of the city-machine. These tenements are plagued by cityquakes caused by the city's movement, and are all shored up and extensively repaired after past collapses. Few streets run between Ambulon's buildings since there is not enough space for them, so the middle classes tramp to work across the roofs of the tenements, or even through each others' homes.Almost all the middle classers are engaged in harvesting or refining the raw materials that Ambulon gathers from the igneous wastes. The "head" of the city is equipped with immense drills that can be lowered into the rock, and when the city strikes crude oil, thousands of flexible pipelines are lowered from the edge of the city to pipe up as much of the substance as possible as the city-machine passes by. Working on these pipelines, which are controlled by webs of chains like the strings of vast puppets, is very dangerous and requires a hardy breed of men and women with no fear of heights.Ambulon's many refineries process this oil into hydrocarbon promethium fuel, some of which is piped back into the city-machine, while most forms the majority of the city's tithe contribution, to be delivered to Hive Sibellus and Gunmetal City. Other citizens sift through the rock thrown up by the drilling to pick out precious stones, which are then worked into industrial components, or cut for jewellery in workshops inhabited by generations of gemcutters (considered a hereditary occupation on Ambulon).Ambulon's lack of space means that every citizen must justify their presence there and unemployment is illegal. Each household in the middle city is tied to a particular refinery, workshop or other city industry, and its members may not work anywhere else. It is vitally important for every middle citizen to be properly recorded in the Rolls of Justification which each place of industry maintains, because if they cannot prove to the authorities of the Spine that they are permitted to fulfil the role in which they work, they are banished to the Underbelly.Ambulon's "underhive" clings precariously to the belly of the city-machine. It is known by a variety of colourful names such as the "Underbelly," the "Guts," "the Vitals" or the "Hivegroin." Clusters of hovels blister down from the city-machine like warts, connected by makeshift catwalks and rope bridges. Many thousands of people live only a footstep away from plummeting to their deaths towards the rocky ground that constantly grinds by hundreds of metres below. Underbelly settlements are often scraped off the city-machine's underside by ridges or peaks that the city-machine walks over, or are simply shaken off by the city's movement. Life is short and very difficult here, and the Gutscum live off the detritus of the carapace above, constructing scoops to catch the effluent and waste thrown off the edge of the city, or they form bandit gangs to prey on the citizens who work near the edge of the city-machine's back.One prominent feature of the Underbelly is the cages hung from the edge of the city above containing prisoners condemned to the much-feared punishment of "dangling." The prisoners are locked in a cage attached to a long chain, which is then flung off the edge of the city-machine and left to dangle, swaying with the city's movement, until the prisoner starves and the cage is hauled back up. Hundreds of dangled prisoners hang from the city at any one time, and the Gutscum sometimes use them as target practice or, on very rare occasions, "rescue" them to induct them into Underbelly gangs, enslave them or pit them against one another in bloody gladiatorial fights.Ambulon folklore maintains that some dangled prisoners have survived for solar months hanging below the city, thanks to divine intervention from the Emperor, and were released when the cage was brought back up again to live saintly lives. In practical terms, however, dangling is a cruel, drawn-out death sentence. |
Calixis Sector - Gunmetal City: Gunmetal City is a huge industrial mass, built into the crater of an immense volcano, Mount Thollos, that rises from the smouldering lava fields of the northern coast. A mere megapolis compared to the planet's two great hive cities, Gunmetal City's spires tower high above the volcano's peak, while its lowest districts delve right down into Scintilla's crust. |
Calixis Sector - Metallican Society: Gunmetal City is a place of soaring steel, with towers like great, tarnished silver needles piercing the sky. The volcano's crater limits the size of the city's foundation, so nobles have built upwards, the most prestigious locations being perched precariously on slender columns of steel hundreds of metres high.The city is frequently bathed in smoke from the foundries of the middle city below and the noble houses employ small armies of menials whose job is to scour the surfaces of the skybound mansions until they gleam. Clean air is a valued commodity, with every mansion having powerful air filtration systems to cut out the smoke, while the most ostentatious hosts pipe air imported from cleaner worlds into their magnificent homes.The middle level of the city is dominated by immense foundries powered by the geothermal heat from the heart of Mount Thollos. Almost all of Gunmetal City's middle classers work in these foundries over cauldrons of molten metal or blazing furnaces the size of tenement blocks. Gunmetal City's main export is munitions, and endless crates of weapons emerge from its foundries, forming an important part of Scintilla's tithe to the Imperium as well as arming many of the Calixis Sector's own Planetary Defence Force troops.The foundries are sweltering, filthy places where accidents are common and even a fortunate worker's life is shortened by solar decades thanks to the choking air and cruel environment. The middle classers' homes are clustered around the foundries and often fashioned from cargo containers. People are an afterthought in Gunmetal City. The foundries and the weapons they produce form the real purpose behind the place.The Infernis is a region formed by the lowest levels of manufactoria that have collapsed or become uninhabitable. This far down, the city is unbearably hot and prone to floods of lava or toxic gas from Mount Thollos' occasional lurches out of dormancy. The gangs of the Infernis are the toughest and best-armed on Scintilla and almost no one else lives there save hard-bitten killers toting weapons extorted from the middle hivers. There is nothing to live for in the Infernis save superiority over enemy gangs, and so gang warfare is literally a way of life. |
Calixis Sector - The Lawless City: In truth, Gunmetal City is an upstart. Younger and far, far smaller than the dominant hive cities on Scintilla, Gunmetal is a feral community that thrives simply because of what it produces. Hives Sibellus and Tarsus tolerate it because of its export materials. It is a jumped-up, uncivilised boomtown in the Wilderness region of the planet, a city that got too big for itself. One day, in a thousand years' time, it might become powerful enough to challenge for the dominance of Scintilla. For now, it is a four-billion-strong foundry station where law is slack and noble houses fight, literally, for ownership of lucrative mercantile output. Of all the main population centres on Scintilla, Gunmetal City is the most dangerous and lawless.The gun is everywhere in Gunmetal City, from the weapons churned out by its foundries, to the symbols of the city's noble houses and the guns carried by almost every citizen. Gunfighting is a leisure activity, with designated areas throughout the city set aside for shoot-outs. Duels in Gunmetal are fought with Autopistols, and a great many people, especially from the middle hives where life is quite short anyway, seek out brief but glorious careers as gunfighters.Shots ring around the foundries of the middle city incessantly and the nobles often hire prestigious gunslingers to battle in elaborate arenas while the audience watches from behind bulletproof screens. Some of the best gunslingers come from Infernis, and it is little wonder that the gangers adore their guns so much when expertise in their use brings such wealth and status. |
Calixis Sector - Guns of Gunmetal City: A few of the guns produced by Gunmetal City are famous, either through their iconic nature or exceptional performance. These guns are status symbols, especially for the Infernis gangers, and are carried by officers of the Scintillan army as side arms. The Thollos Service Autopistol, or the "Tholl," is an Autopistol that sacrifices ammunition capacity for stopping power and is much coveted by Magistratum officers in particular.The Scalptaker on the other hand, is a very solidly built and extremely uncomplicated ballistic slug pistol designed for use by just about anyone. It is such a common weapon that any self-respecting ganger will try to upgrade his Scalptaker, even though it is a very easily maintained weapon designed to survive the rigours of the Infernis.The Fykos Forge Nomad Hunting Instrument is one of the most precise and well-calibrated weapons produced in Gunmetal City, and is the rifle of choice for hunters who stalk big game in Scintilla's wastelands. Procuring a "Nomad" costs an enormous amount of money and involves a five-year waiting list.Finally, the Blackhammer Defence Shotgun is a brutal, massive-bore shotgun that can blast holes in doors and shred opponents. Its limited range and single-shot capacity do little to diminish its value as a weapon of intimidation in the hands of hardened criminals and Enforcers. |
Calixis Sector - The Wilderness and Hive Tenebra: The hive cities' inhabitants refer to the areas outside the great hives as "the Wilderness." This is something of a misnomer, as there are a great many settlements outside the hives, but certainly none of them can compare to the importance of the great hive cities themselves. Scintilla's natural resources have either been drained long ago or are monopolised by the great hives and Ambulon, so many people exist as nomads. Those permanent settlements that do exist are often founded by mercenaries, who lived by selling their services to the land trains that crisscross the planet.The mercenaries, easily recognisable by the white bands painted or tattooed across their faces, are essential to providing security against the more predatory nomad tribes. Land trains consist of dozens of huge tracked vehicles that crawl in from hive to hive transporting goods and passengers. Some land trains even cross Scintilla's oceans, loading their vehicles onto great barges for risky journeys across polluted waters with their fair share of predators and pirates.With resources in short supply away from the hives, settlements can grow up and die out rapidly. Few survive for more than a generation and the Wilderness is studded with ghost towns. In some places, on the very fringes of Scintilla's habitable lands, small communities continue to exist as they have done for Terran centuries far from the shadow of the great hives. These people have often been in the same place for centuries. Isolated and ignored by Scintilla's authorities, they live in ignorance that the hives exist at all, much less that they live in a galactic empire ruled from distant Terra. Scholars of the Magnopticon sometimes send expeditions out to search for such benighted peoples, in the hope that studying them will reveal some secrets about the pre-Imperial history of Scintilla.The most extraordinary feature of the Wilderness is the ruin of Hive Tenebra. This necropolis was once the world's third hive city, the heart of Scintilla's high culture and arts, built around a circle of stepped pyramids rising like enormous altars from the steaming jungles of Scintilla's equator. The hive city is now a titanic mass of wreckage gradually being reclaimed by the voracious jungle. The disaster that claimed Hive Tenebra along with millions of lives happened over eight standard centuries ago, and is thought by most to have been caused by a collapse of the geothermal heatsinks that provided it with power.There is no shortage of conspiracy theories about what "really" happened to the hive city, however, ranging from ill-advised summonings of Warp creatures to a deliberate act of sabotage by agents of the Imperium. Tales about its destruction are outnumbered only by stories about what might lurk in the ruins now: ravenous monsters, renegade nobles and hordes of hideous mutants ruled by a mighty deformed overlord. No one ventures close to Hive Tenebra with any regularity, and when they do they rarely penetrate into the collapsed interior of the hive where the foulest horrors are said to lurk. |
Calixis Sector - Iocanthos: Iocanthos is a lawless Imperial Agri-world in the Calixis Sector's Golgenna Reach sub-sector. Iocanthos is dominated by Human warlords and their huge armies, which clash across its jungles, forests and plains. The planet's importance in the Calixis Sector is defined by the fact that it is one of the few places in the Imperium where the Ghostfire flower can grow. Ghostfire pollen can be refined into the combat drugs used extensively in the Penal Legions of the Astra Militarum.Iocanthos' warlords (usually styling themselves "vai" or tribal prince) battle constantly for control of the Ghostfire harvest. The Ghostfire crop cannot be cultivated normally and so once a patch of it is harvested another one must be found. The warlords' armies are therefore constantly on the move, travelling in enormous hordes across Iocanthos' main continent and clashing violently wherever they meet. Iocanthos' wide plains, dense, dark forests and forbidding mountain passes are studded with old battlefields where burned-out vehicles and age-bleached skeletons abound.Every five standard years, a taskforce of Administratum officials descends onto Iocanthus to gather the planet's Ghostfire tithe. The warlords exchange their harvests of Ghostfire pollen with the Administratum in exchange for weapons, vehicles, fuel, clean water and other essentials. The warlord who hands over the most Ghostfire pollen is considered the planetary governor and claims the lion's share of support from the Imperium and the title vervai (literally "prince of princes" or "king"). The title brings with it immense prestige and confirms the warlord's position as the most dangerous and skilled on Iocanthos.The current vervai is "King" Skull, a terrifying warrior at the head of an enormous and supposedly invincible army of madmen and killers. The warlords of Iocanthus are also required to hand over their psykers as well as the Ghostfire harvest, but these are taken from them not by the Administratum but by nameless grey-uniformed men who herd the psykers onto their sleek Black Ship and take their leave.The Administratum fully accepts the situation on Iocanthos. The Ghostfire pollen is harvested very efficiently because so many warlords' armies battle to find every last blossom. Were the Administratum to take over Iocanthus themselves the planet would first have to be conquered by the Astra Militarum at enormous expense and the Administratum themselves would be hard-pressed to match the vigour with which Iocanthos' warlords hunt down every Ghostfire flower. They therefore leave the warlords to do the hard work, safe in the knowledge that none of them can rebel against Imperial authority lest their supplies of guns and fuel be cut off.Iocanthos was taken by General (Saint) Drusus' 2nd Army Group during the Angevin Crusade that spread throughout the sector. As the planet lacked any significant technology, Drusus' forces defeated the indigenous people, known as the Ashleen, in a single solar week of bloody fighting. Drusus later remarked in his memoirs that the only memorable aspect of the planet was the vast fields of wild flowers which resembled "Shimmering fields of rippling explosions, caught at that fleeting moment between beauty and destruction." As ever, the general was perceptive as the Ghostfire would become central to the world's future.In times past, Iocanthos served as a penal dumping ground for undesirables that the Scintillan authorities for various reasons didn't wish to execute or expatriate further afield. Such exiles were given minimal supplies and allowed to thrive or falter without further interference. The current population is largely a mixture of their descendants and the native Ashleen. |
Calixis Sector - Port Suffering: Port Suffering, the largest permanent settlement on Iocanthos, is a sturdy fortified town that serves as the base for Imperial operations on Iocanthos. The town's largest and most important feature is its spaceport, an expanse of rockcrete broken by docking clamps and refuelling ports that can accommodate the landing craft that deliver supplies and pick up Ghostfire shipments. Equally important for the people living in Port Suffering are the huge freshwater tanks beneath the town. Freshwater is very valuable on Iocanthos, and Port Suffering not only has its own supply brought down on Imperial ships, but can trade its surplus water to the warlords (mainly for guarantees that the warlords will not attack the town).Port Suffering's architecture is based around a standard hab-block pattern since most of its buildings, from the chapel to the accommodation blocks, were dropped from voidships directly to the surface when the town was first founded as an Imperial trading post. Its dry, dusty streets and prefabricated rust-red buildings are home to a community mostly geared towards maintaining the spaceport and ensuring that the port remains self-sufficient.The town's population is broadly Emperor-fearing and law-abiding, and they attend the town's chapel and send their children to the seminary school run by Preacher Goudt. The largest building in Port Suffering is the Administratum counting-house where the town's small body of adepts calculates the projected Ghostfire crop and receives envoys from the various warlords. The under-consul in charge of the counting-house, Adept Sabetha Kosloff, serves as the de facto mayor of Port Suffering, sometimes against her will as she is not very good at dealing with townsfolk and would rather stick to ensuring that the Emperor's forms are correctly filed.Other important citizens include the sharp-tongued but compassionate Sister Xanthe, the Sister Hospitaller who runs Port Suffering's hospital along with a small staff of inexperienced laymen. Unkind rumours suggest that Sister Xanthe was given her thankless post as a punishment by her canoness at the Abbey of the Dawn.Port Suffering's walls are always manned by the citizens who serve in the Port Militia. The town's greatest protection, however, is the fact that it is considered neutral by most of Iocanthos' warlords. If Port Suffering was to be attacked, the more powerful warlords would lose their supply of weapons, freshwater and fuel from the Imperium and what little structure that exists on Iocanthos would fall apart.Some lesser warlords eye the support received by the more powerful with jealousy, however, and endlessly plan to launch devastating raids on Port Suffering. Should this ever happen, the stoutness of the town's defences and the dedication of its well-armed but inexperienced militia will be sorely tested. |
Calixis Sector - Levies of King Skull the Magnificient: King Skull, as the current vervai and planetary governor, is the most powerful man on Iocanthos and styles himself on the legendary warrior-kings from the planet's history. In truth, the great ages of martial kingship are long past, with the old traditions bastardised into the modern, ruthless business of controlling the Ghostfire flower commerce.Nevertheless, King Skull's army is many millions strong and dominates huge swathes of Iocanthos' main continent at any one time. Skull himself is a tall, saturnine man clad in elaborate black steel armour, wielding a huge spear with a head cut from the flint of Iocanthos' highest peak. "Skull" is clearly a deliberately assumed name -- the vervai's tribal banner is a bleached Human skull -- though there is little clue as to his real name, as his origins are very obscure and are the subject of considerable speculation. Some say he is a deposed Imperial noble who fled to Iocanthos to avoid some scandal or tragedy, others that he is a dangerous fugitive criminal who found his true calling among the warlords and madmen.Most rumours centre around his supposed capabilities in battle. Skull is undoubtedly a tenacious warrior, but tales whispered in Iocanthos' frontier towns hint at far more, such as allegations that he drinks blood to gain strength from his enemies, or is a powerful witch who can summon mighty storms of black lightning down on his foes. Skull's rule is based on the immense loyalty the core of his army feels towards him. Warriors must first prove themselves in battle before they are ever armed with the weapons and equipment that Skull acquires from the Imperium in return for the Ghostfire harvest. As they demonstrate prowess in battle, they are further armed and drawn towards the core of battle-hardened, well-equipped veterans of the Harrowguard who surround Skull himself. Skull leads these warriors into battle personally, and the sight of his black-armoured form is enough to demoralise those unfortunate enough to meet the Harrowguard in battle. |
Calixis Sector - Life in the Horde: King Skull's army welcomes all as long as they are willing to fight their first battles armed with little more than sticks and stones. Skull deploys huge numbers of new, expendable troops to swamp the enemy while the elite Harrowguard function as shock troops. Skull's army in battle is a terrible thing to witness, with swarms of madmen hurling themselves upon the enemy while the better-armed sections of the army fire volleys of Lasgun shots into the shocked enemy or charge alongside the vervai himself.Skull's army travels on a number of huge, smoke-belching vehicles. The Throne is Skull's personal transport, which was once a huge-tracked mining vehicle, refitted to function as a mobile throne room and prison for captured enemies. This sootstained monstrosity is festooned with captured banners and other trophies, and Skull himself sits on a throne platform suspended over hundreds of cages where his prisoners languish. Skull sells these prisoners back to their families or comrades in exchange for Ghostfire pollen or offers them a place in the ill-armed hordes of his army. Those who are good for neither Ghostfire nor fighting are left to rot, their sobs and screams accompanying the vervai everywhere he goes.Another mobile landmark is the Sanctum, a tower supported by a raft of lashed-together Chimera vehicles. It is home to Gurgerin, the advisor to the vervai and, it is widely assumed, a sorcerer whose divinations are essential to Skull's plans. The Sanctum is a stone tower pulled from some long-forgotten mountain ruin, said to be full of bewildering and grotesque experiments (or captive aliens, shambling Warp monstrosities or a cabal of the Calixis Sector's rich and powerful, depending on which stories you believe). Gurgerin, a man of extremely advanced age with tiny glinting eyes like specks of flint, can sometimes be seen on the Sanctum's uppermost battlements watching the vast throng of the army marching beneath him.Several other massive vehicles, used either to house the Harrowguard or to transport the precious Ghostfire crop, travel alongside the army, often hung with trophies or the weathered corpses of particularly hated enemies. |
Calixis Sector - Seth the Voice: One of the largest and newest armies of Iocanthos is that led by Seth the Voice, self-styled Prophet of the Emperor and figurehead of an apocalyptic splinter cult of the Imperial Creed. Vai ("Prince") Seth is almost certainly an ex-adept, probably from Port Suffering's Administratum contingent, who became convinced that the God-Emperor was granting him visions that demanded he immediately take over Iocanthos. Since then, through force of personality and by tapping into Iocanthos' need for religion and redemption, Seth has forged a ragtag but huge army with which he is challenging the most powerful rival warlords, especially that of the great vervai.Vai Seth himself is a slight, balding, bespectacled figure in white robes. He travels in a battered old scout vehicle converted into a mobile pulpit from which he can preach. And preach he does, almost constantly, his voice transmitted by bulky vox-units carried by his devout followers. The passion with which Seth exhorts the people of Iocanthos to claim the planet for their Emperor is genuine and convincing.Everywhere he goes he gathers more souls for his army, be they drifters looking for a purpose or hard-bitten mercenaries searching for a way to redeem themselves of their many sins. Seth is not a soldier, but he has a gift for getting others to fight for him that is so profound that it might as well have been granted by the Emperor Himself. |
Calixis Sector - Army of the Voice: Vai Seth's army is ill-equipped, undertrained and frequently starving. It is, however, uniquely motivated, for all its members believe that fighting for Seth will grant them a far better afterlife than is awaiting all the galaxy's other sinners. The Army of the Voice, uniquely, has no problem getting new members to replace its frequent losses, as even defeated enemies are sometimes swayed to join by Seth's impassioned preaching. The army travels on many hundreds of vehicles, most of them looted from enemies or donated by recruits, and as a result it is constantly in the throes of a critical fuel shortage. Capturing more fuel is essential to the army's continued existence.The men and women of the Army of the Voice are as varied as the sins they are trying to cleanse, but they all wear white robes, or at least they did when they joined up, for the constant travel and fighting means that most of them are actually dressed in dirty greys. Some are armed with Lasguns and other reliable weapons, but most have the hunting rifles or Stub Pistols they were armed with when recruited. The most experienced fighters, normally ex-mercenaries or recruits from other warlords' armies, are referred to as Seth's "Saints" and are the focal points of the army, instructing the enthusiastic, but often clueless, faithful in the best ways to avoid dying too quickly.In spite of the army's inexperience it is a formidable military force. As well as having the numbers and the determination, the effect of Seth's own presence seems to demoralise enemy troops and even cause them to flee or mutiny. Mercenaries in particular are a superstitious lot, and even an experienced killer can baulk at the idea of killing a man who so convincingly claims to be a holy man ordained by the Emperor's will. |
Calixis Sector - Abbey of the Dawn: The Abbey of the Dawn is the Adepta Sororitas' main training facility in the Calixis Sector. A spectacular fortress of pale yellow ouslite built into the knife-like slopes of a dark flint mountain, the abbey is the most secure place on Iocanthos. Its location means that, while it is close to the astrocartographic heartland of the Calixis Sector, its immediate surroundings are bleak and rugged, and the abbey's sisters are cut off from the corruptive influences of the outside world.The abbey's purpose is to train initiates into fully-fledged sisters, who then go on to perform devotional works across the Calixis Sector and beyond. The abbey is run by Canoness Goneril, who leads the Lesser Order Famulous of the Opening Eye. The Opening Eye's purpose is to offer counsel to the Calixis Sector's powerful noble families. Most novices at the abbey are trainees of the Opening Eye and are schooled in a variety of subjects from Imperial history to theology and sector economics. Most importantly they are trained in the strength of mind to resist the secular temptations that are a constant threat to the Sisters Famulous.A Sister Famulous must be disciplined and incorruptible as she is sent out to fend mostly for herself, and is surrounded by the sometimes morally questionable nobles to whose house she is attached. Canoness Goneril has her novices undergo a strict regime of fasting, prayer, lectures and theological study. She stops short of outright cruelty, but life is far from easy for a novice of the Opening Eye. Goneril's Mistress of Novices, the formidable Sister Gert, is a physically intimidating reminder of a sister's duty to obey her order at all times.The Abbey of the Dawn is also home to a mission of Sisters of Battle from the Order of the Ebon Chalice, who are led by Palatine Rhiannon. The Ebon Chalice is based on Terra, and the battle-sisters at the abbey, even if they have only glimpsed the spires of the Imperium's holiest world, are regarded with something like religious awe by the novices. Their duties include maintaining the Sororitas honour guard at the Cathedral of Illumination on Scintilla and guarding important Ecclesiarchy adepts who visit the Calixis Sector.Both Canoness Goneril and Palatine Rhiannon are adherents to the long-standing agreement between the Adepta Sororitas and the Ordo Hereticus, and would willingly lend the battle-sisters' martial prowess to an Inquisitorial operation should it be needed. Lord Inquisitor Anton Zerbe of the Calixian Conclave does not take this agreement lightly and will not permit the Sisters of the Ebon Chalice to be sent to battle by an Inquisitor unless it is absolutely necessary. Though they number only around fifty, Rhiannon's Sisters of the Ebon Chalice are the most elite and dedicated mortal troops in the Calixis Sector. |
Calixis Sector - Badlands: This is the rugged interior of Iocanthos, bounded to the south by dense forests and the sea, and to the north by the jagged flint mountains. The Badlands are an endless sweep of plains, scrub and steppe where most of the Ghostfire crops can be found and where the warlords clash. It is dotted with battlefields, some of them no more than a tangle of recently slain bodies and others titanic fields of bones and burned-out wrecks.A fortunate and hardy individual can make a good living scavenging these battlefields to find valuables and weapons to sell. Iocanthos' folklore is full of the tales of the sticky ends experienced by such scavengers, from dread curses to old-fashioned walking dead, and most normal folk stay away from these battlefields. |
Calixis Sector - Sepheris Secundus: Sepheris Secundus is a Mining World located in the Golgenna Reach sub-sector of the Calixis Sector. Sepheris Secundus is a world of immense mineral wealth, city-sized mines, billions-strong hordes of serfs and the sharpest divide between the elites and the masses in the Calixis Sector. It is a grim place of snow and twilight, feral mutants and lives spent in back-breaking labour deep beneath the ground. The Imperium's eagerness to exploit Sepheris Secundus' vast resources is such that the planet is at the same time the richest and poorest world in the sector.Sepheris Secundus' climate is cold and stormy, its surface obscured by a mantle of cloud. It has no oceans save for the small polar seas, so the moisture in its atmosphere comes from below the crust, spewed out from failed mine workings or natural geysers that pockmark the planet like pustules. Its surface is split between the vast open mines like deep scars in the crust and the dense, snow-laden forests broken only by the ruins of failed kingdoms that tried to claim Sepheris Secundus in the past. With its endless blizzards, widespread ignorance and antiquated methods for doing everything, Sepheris Secundus would be a meaningless backwater were it not for the enormous mineral wealth beneath its surface. |
Calixis Sector - Suffering Kingdom: While the whole Imperium is a feudal empire, feudalism is taken to an extreme on Sepheris Secundus. Everyone born on the planet must have a master to whom they pay nine-tenths of their income. The second force beyond poverty that keeps the population of the world repressed is physical violence. One of the reasons that Sepheris Secundus' culture is so primitive by many standards is that weaponry and other technology is monopolised by the Crown. The queen's Royal Scourges are equipped with Lasguns, grenades and chainswords, contrasting with their gaudy, stained-glass-like armour. Though few in number, the technological advantage that these troops possess has been enough to put down a great many uprisings in the mines of Sepheris Secundus, and the planet's history is littered with massacres where thousands of serfs fell to volleys of Lasgun fire.The barons each have their own personal military forces, some of which are permitted to use a few high-tech weapons, although most of them are armed with primitive but well-made weapons and armour with which to enforce the baronial will. Meanwhile, when the serfs rise up, they do so with improvised weapons and mining equipment. The serfs, even when roused to violence in significant numbers, have never held one of Sepheris Secundus' mines for very long because of the massive superiority in equipment and training possessed by the forces of their masters. When the baronial armies fail, the Royal Scourges do not. The Royal Scourges, the world's Planetary Defence Force, answer directly to the queen, which also makes them ideal for keeping the barons themselves in line. Many an overambitious baron has refused to send the queen her rightful tribute, only to find his supposedly elite army cut to pieces by the Royal Scourges.Order upon Sepheris Secundus is enforced by the troops of the various barons. While Sepheris Secundus has some generally observed laws -- a serf who strikes his master will usually be put to death, for example -- each baron enforces his own laws in his own way, and some do not bother at all as long as there is no open rebellion. Other barons, by contrast, have troops patrolling the upper mines ensuring that no one wears the wrong colour on the wrong day, spits in the street or fails to use the traditional forms of address. In Icenholm, the capital city, the Royal Scourges enforce order and are also sent to restore obedience where it has broken down.The Queen of Sepheris Secundus and Planetary Governor, Lachryma III, is an elderly woman who has successfully led Sepheris Secundus through numerous revolts, baronial uprisings and increasingly spectacular tithe demands from the Administratum. Now, however, she is getting old. Though her mind is still sound, her body is infirm and, some of the more ambitious barons say, she is losingthe ruthlessness and willpower that once served her so well. Queen Lachryma’s aged, underweight form is swamped by her royal regalia, with its voluminous gown made from thousands of panes of stained glass and its crown of white gold. Her voice is thin and shaky, and she no longer has the presence that once acted as an anchor for the repressive feudal system of Sepheris Secundus. In her later years, the queen has sunk into the throes of a personal crisis. She wonders why her serfs have to live such grim lives of toil and whether there is another way that Sepheris Secundus could be ruled. She has ordered her barons to investigate what actually goes on in the depths of the planet’s mines, but her barons have resisted this and a few of them have sensed weakness and doubt in their queen. Though she would never admit it to anyone, Queen Lachryma III is afraid of how she will be remembered, and knows that she is running out of time before she can get to the root causes of Sepheris Secundus’ misery. |
Calixis Sector - Icenholm: Sepheris Secundus' capital is Icenholm, a wondrous city built into the mountain crags that loom over the vast smoking pit of the Gorgonid Mine. Icenholm’s glass spires encrust the mountain peak like a crown, bathed in an otherworldly light. This light is actually concentrated on Icenholm by a series of enormous reflecting mirrors positioned around the peaks overlooking the Gorgonid Mine, an expensive and complicated process that makes it look as if the light of some distant heaven is shining directly onto the capital.The main body of the city is suspended between three vast peaks on thousands of thick cables and chains, like a glittering jewel upon a complex necklace. The origins of this unusual structure are not recorded anywhere, but a common theory is that it was built around the core of an enormous warship that docked there during the Angevin Crusade and never left, the hive city growing up around it like a pearl around a speck of grit. Many buildings dangle from the city’s mass, reaching down hundreds of metres towards the floor of the valley below the city like strands of hanging moss.Icenholm is constructed of stained glass that shines in a dazzling array of colours in the sunlight. Its spires house some of the most senior barons along with members of the Sepheran royal family. The majority of Icenholm’s population is made up of hereditary servants, pledged to either the queen or one of her barons. They form small armies of clerks who ensure that the planet’s barons are offering up the correct tithes to their queen, and attend to other matters of governance such as the regulation of heraldry. These servants have their own hierarchies, with the queen’s own servants very much in charge. They wear the liveries of their masters, which in the case of the queen’s servants is red (red is a colour reserved for royal use on Sepheris Secundus -- anyone else wearing it is likely to be arrested by baronial troops). Icenholm’s gates do not open to just anyone, so while Imperial Adepts and barons will be received into Icenholm, anyone else will have to sweet-talk the hereditary family of gate servants who are difficult to impress.The peak of Icenholm is taken up by the palace, which consists of the various chambers of state along with Queen Lachryma’s own quarters. The throne room is spectacular indeed, set beneath a soaring spire of stained glass depicting the glories of Sepheris Secundus’ past monarchs. The throne itself is of ice kept permanently frozen, and the voluminous royal robes which the queen wears are partly to keep her from being frozen herself. The queen’s chambers are lavishly appointed, with three separate bedrooms alone: one for sleeping, one for promulgating the royal line (not used since the Prince Consort passed away twenty years ago) and one for receiving morning visitors. |
Calixis Sector - Gorgonid Mine: The Gorgonid is one of Sepheris Secundus’s largest and most productive mines. Though it is within sight of Icenholm and the royal palace, the structure and society of the mine itself is typical of many across Sepheris Secundus’s surface. The exact population of the Gorgonid is impossible to calculate, but it is vast, consisting of enormous hordes of serfs, most of whom never see the world outside the mine. The Gorgonid is a vast open mine hundreds of metres deep. Rickety scaffolding reaches down into its lower depths, and countless pulleys and cranes lift containers of ore to the edge of the enormous mine pit, where it accumulates in mountainous heaps waiting for cargo ships to transport it off the surface. From the edge of the mine pit can be glimpsed the heaped-up wooden tenements known as the Commons, while cart tracks and well-worn paths lead below the edge of the pit towards the mining areas deep below the ground. Only the central part of the Gorgonid is open to the air. All the mining faces and many homes are below the surface, existing in eternal darkness.Most inhabitants of the Gorgonid live in the Commons. This is the collective term for the areas of built-up wooden housing where the serfs live. In theory, all of this is owned by the Gorgonid’s barons, who allow the serfs to live there in return for nine-tenths of everything the serfs mine. In practice serfs simply live where they can, often cramming large families into a single candle-lit room. The Commons are teeming, but it is not a boisterous, lively place. The serfs go everywhere with their heads bowed, trudging to and from the mine faces, snatching a few moments of rest in the squalor of the Commons. Besides work, sleep and sermons by the lay clergy who represent the Imperial Creed in the Gorgonid, there is very little levity in a serf ’s life.The barons of the Gorgonid live in the Commons, tradition demanding that they live in fastness keeps and small castles. The serfs are expected to show deference to all barons, particularly the one who owns their labour, at all times. A baron travelling through the streets can expect to have serfs present him with small handcrafted trinkets or other gifts. He will then burn these outside the gates of his tower to symbolise the relationship between serf and master. Most barons have large entourages of troops and other servants to ensure that the serfs do not get too close. These include the distinctive Stench Wardens, servants who carry censers of scented water to help fend off the “Commons stink” when a baron must endure walking the poverty-stricken streets.The Face is the term for those areas where there is ore to be mined, and it is here that most of the Gorgonid’s work is done. The Face consists of thousands of kilometres of open rock face stretching deep beneath the ground, from massive cliff faces covered in precarious scaffolding to narrow, stifling tunnels too low for a man to stand upright. Every serf has the right to mine a particular section of open mine, and the Face is covered in markers driven into the rock to state which serf is permitted to work that spot. In times past, the serfs had to chain themselves, or one of their children, to the marker to ensure that the claim was respected. Nowadays, however, a smear of the serf ’s blood is enough to demonstrate that the serf is currently working the spot. Serfs must frequently draw blood to renew this mark, hence the process is known as “staking” a claim. The means by which the serfs mine is very primitive. Most use tools handed down by their forefathers, and fortunate is the serf who earns enough from his minuscule portion of the rock’s bounty to buy a brand new set of tools. Each morning countless thousands of serfs trudge to the Face from the Commons and every evening they trudge back again, pausing only to pay deference to the barons who tour the Face to ensure that the slothful are punished. When the explosives engineers of the Disassemblers’ Guild blast a new area of the Face, a stampede occurs as thousands of serfs rush to stake their new claims. These occasions can be dangerous, as many are trampled or killed in fights over the best claims, but this is accepted as the price for making sure the fittest, most determined serfs mine the most productive seams.The Shatters is the term given to the deepest, darkest, most dangerous parts of the Gorgonid, which even the barons recognise are too dangerous for serfs to work. Caverns filled with deadly gas, flooded, partially collapsed or simply lethally hot or radioactive can be found in the Shatters. No claim may be staked in the Shatters and ore mined there is not owned by anyone. The Shatters are home to the very lowest of the Gorgonid’s low, comprising two main groups. The first consists of the dispossessed: those who have no master, either having been born outside a marriage sanctioned by the barons or condemned to lose even a serf’s meagre rights after being convicted of a crime. These hapless individuals invariably die very quickly in the Shatters. Those who survive to illicitly sell a few handfuls of ore fare well compared to most.The second group consists of mutants. Mutants are common in the Gorgonid, as on the rest of Sepheris Secundus, perhaps due to the massive amounts of dangerous metals and chemicals that find their way into the dubious water supply. In any case, mutants gravitate towards the Shatters, which is the only place where they can survive in any numbers without being hunted down by baronial troops or burned by torch-wielding serfs. Some mutants are well adapted to the hostile conditions, and a few even thrive in the Shatters. Mutants have their own crude society where seniority is based on brute strength and the degree of mutation. The mutant barons and kings, it is said, are inhuman monsters from the depths of a nightmare, hellish abominations that range from enormous tentacled horrors to three-eyed seers who can read thoughts. The more criminally minded serfs buy the ore mined by the outcasts and mutants in exchange for food and other essentials, and a major part of Sepheris Secundus’ economy is made up by the labour of the mutant underclass. It is even possible that more ore comes out of the Shatters than out of the exhausted seams of the Face.The Tumble is the only area outside the Gorgonid that most of its serfs ever see. It is a wasteland on the surface above the mine, dominated by titanic heaps of rock spoil and other trash. In this polluted twilight, thickly carpeted with toxins, shady deals are made that take place outside the mine’s proper feudal economy. These range from serfs selling off their surplus, to organised criminals selling their services as killers or smugglers. The mutants of the Shatters have a tunnel that links to somewhere in the Tumble, and on the darkest nights, shambling, hideous creatures emerge from the poison smog to take their cut. Barons and off-worlders are sometimes known to frequent the Tumble, every one of them eager to hide their identities. |
Calixis Sector - Cults and Malcontents: The Gorgonid’s large, oppressed population has led to the formation of groups of criminals and other malcontents. The baronial troops eagerly hunt down criminals and execute them on the street corners of the Commons. Other groups are cults and secret societies lurking in the Gorgonid’s dark places. The Loathers, for example, is a group that has forsaken all happiness and hope, and sells its services as assassins and destroyers of lives to spread the misery that has afflicted them. Some whisper that cutting off a finger and nailing it to a signpost in the Commons will bring the Loathers to your doorstep when you least expect it, and that you can then bargain with them to destroy someone you despise.The Orphans’ Crusade, on the other hand, searches discreetly for those with unusual abilities, reading minds or precognition for example, and spirits them away before they are handed over to the baronial troops by fearful relatives. No one knows what the Crusade needs these gifted individuals for, but the fate that awaits them can surely be no more sinister than being dragged away by the baronial troops, never to be seen again. The greyhooded agents of the Orphan’s Crusade can sometimes be glimpsed at the bloodsport pits popular in the Commons or at the witherhouses where victims of diseases and accidents languish, always looking for something. Perhaps most terrifying of all the Gorgonid’s hidden cults, though, is the Granite Crown. This group’s sinister symbol of a blinded eye is carved on many entrances to the Shatters and many an old serf miner tells tales of how the Granite Crown rules over even the mightiest of mutant shatterchiefs, who pay fealty to the Granite Crown’s lords. These “lords” are said to dwell in the most ancient of places beneath the ground. No one knows where these stories originated, let alone whether they hold any truth, but similar tales are told by firelight all across Sepheris Secundus. |
Calixis Sector - Fathomsound Mine: The Fathomsound is the most unusual of Sepheris Secundus’ mines. Within its enormous basin is an underground lake upon which float thousands of rafts, barges and lashed-together wooden structures that form the home of Fathomsound’s serfs. The frequent blizzards that rip across Sepheris Secundus churn up the waters of the Fathomsound, and many serfs are lost to the freezing waters with every storm. The Flotsam, as this floating city is known, is one of the most poverty-stricken and desperate places on Sepheris Secundus, with its inhabitants literally clinging to life, permanently ill thanks to the fouled water, and condemned to lives spent in the deadly underwater mines.The barons of the Fathomsound are obliged by planetary law to live within the mine whose serfs they own, but none would willingly dwell on the dangerous Flotsam. Instead, they live in mansions suspended from the edge of the mine pit, hanging from mighty chains and served by precarious elevators and cable cars. The barons typically enjoy taking caffeine on the balconies along the lower surface of these extraordinary homes, from where the Fathomsound is a spectacular sight and its poverty and dangers are not obvious. The mansions swing alarmingly when the wind is up and it is not unknown for them to break free and plunge into the lake. Inside, the furniture and ornamentation is bolted down and visitors to the Fathomsound’s barons have to find their sea legs quickly. |
Calixis Sector - Sepheran Traditions of Serfdom: Sepheris Secundus' centuries of harsh serfdom have created many cultural traditions that confirm the relationship between baron and serf, some of which seem very strange to outsiders. The details of these traditions differ across the planet but their spirit is preserved everywhere. They include:Marriage - A marriage between serfs must be sanctioned by both serfs’ barons. The prospective husband and wife each cut off a little finger and send it to their baron, which symbolises the serfs handing over of their rights of any children born out of wedlock.Death - To demonstrate the fact that no serf ever fully pays off his debt to his baron, his body becomes his baron’s property upon his death. Most barons dispose of these bounties by burying them under heaps of mine spoil, but some more ostentatious barons make a point of feeding dead serfs to their hounds.Mandatory Celebrations - On an occasion important to the baron, such as the birth of a child, the baron’s serfs are required to celebrate by breaking into dance upon hearing the news and whenever the baron approaches. Many barons take this very seriously and will flog nearby serfs until they begin to dance, regardless of whether they have heard the baron’s good news or not.Faceday- A serf celebrates the day when he becomes old enough to stake his own claim on the Face (normally in early adolescence). The first Faceday is marked with three days of ceaseless toil, to demonstrate that the young serf indeed deserves the bounty of the Face. Anniversaries of this Faceday are marked with ceremonies that vary wildly but are always painful or humiliating, varying from simple beatings to being painted with offensive slogans and forced to run naked through the Commons.Day of Thanks - An annual holiday observed across Sepheris Secundus, the Day of Thanks is a chance for the serfs to remember and mourn their dead (a practice otherwise frowned upon or even prohibited). Since mourning is considered a selfish act, participants ritually disguise their identities by wearing masks, painting their faces or attending gatherings in pitch darkness. |
Calixis Sector - Misericord: The Misericord is an example of the many Chartist mercantile spacecraft that ply the trade routes between Scintilla, Iocanthus and Sepheris Secundus and the other inhabited worlds of the Calixis Sector, carrying vital cargo and passengers across the sector. It is an ugly and enormous starship, looking like a barnacle- encrusted, spacefaring whale, from which jut haphazard clusters of engines and towers, and it trails a long tail of debris like a comet.The Misericord carries huge quantities of trade goods between the client worlds, along with many passengers. Buying passage on a ship like the Misericord is the most common method of travelling between planets. Its round trip -- Scintilla/Iocanthus/Sepheris Secundus -- a route laid down on the charter carried by its captains, takes well over a standard year. Ships like the Misericord are very common in the Calixis Sector and throughout the Imperium, plying a slow, thankless route across the stars. Without the Chartist voidships, large swathes of the Imperium would be completely cut off and sector economies would fail. In spite of this, few have much regard for the Chartist ships, and their crews are stereotyped as rough, untrustworthy Voidborn with few scruples and even fewer refinements. Each Chartist voidcraft needs an Imperial charter that sets out its permitted trade routes and activities, and the Misericord’s charter was signed by one of the earliest generation of Calixian Sector Governors.The Misericord is considered an ill-omen at any place it docks. There are many Chartist craft in the Calixis Sector but for some reason the Misericord has an especially evil reputation. It is considered very bad luck to marry, give birth or embark on a major venture while the Misericord is docked in system, and during the ship’s many centuries of operation, tales have grown up about the dark things that occur while it is in port, such as plagues, tech-failures and the random disappearance of children. In addition, the crew are mostly Voidborn, people who were born in space and rarely set foot on a planet, and the Voidborn, as everyone knows, just aren’t right in the head.Inside, the Misericord resembles a huge, complex and grotesquely ornate castle. Many different ships make up the Misericord and they each have their own style, which in turn has been embellished and replaced over the centuries. In places where the component ships connect, corridors can become precipitous shafts, rooms can be upside-down and moving from place to place can be very complex, although the Voidborn crew are adept at clambering up makeshift ladders or even leaping pits in the floor. The Misericord’s interior is archaic, with feasting halls, dungeons, cobwebbed processional galleries and many other places that seem to have little connection to the business of the ship or the needs of the crew. |
Calixis Sector - Ship Society: Life on the Misericord is defined by the castes into which the crew are divided. There are dozens of castes, each one responsible for a particular function aboard ship. Crewmen are either born into these castes or assigned to them on the few occasions they join from outside. These castes range from the Scourhand Brotherhood (who scrub the filth from the floors of the engine decks) to the Company of Imbeciles (the ship’s entertainers, consisting of various clowns, actors and storytellers). The officers of the Misericord form their own caste and wear distinctive and rather sinister masks to mark them out from the rest of the crew. Each caste has its own leadership, which reports to the officer caste, and the officers in turn receive their orders from the twin captains Anapollo and Luneros. The captains believe that the caste system is the reason the Misericord has survived for so long and are quick to bring anyone opposing it to trial. Castes are insular and proud, and sometimes they can come into bitter conflict, such as the regular skirmishes between the Lamplighters’ Guild and the Followers of the Wire over who gets to change the glowbulbs. All have their own baffling traditions, from the large wood and paper animal masks of the Obeyers’ Guild (the ship’s lawyers and executioners) to the ritual removal of an ear from every member of the Enginists (who maintain the ship’s temperamental engines). This latter ritual is said to be born of respect for a mythological Enginist of ages past, the heroic Bessimer “One-lug” Jone, who supposedly saved the Misericord from “dire disassemblage and ventation”.Most crew are true Voidborn and live their whole life on the starship. However, since the castes are not permitted to interbreed, the ship needs new crew members from outside to replenish the gene pool. Some older legends told on the ship remember the terrible “Age of Six Toes” when a mad previous captain refused to allow new blood onto the Misericord. Crew who join from outside -- referred to as “clayfeet” -- are both blessed and cursed. They are valuable to the crew and are given the least dangerous duties, but on the other hand they can never be regarded as true members of the Misericord’s crew, and are treated as outsiders no matter how long they serve on the ship. Only their children will be true Voidborn and thus full members of the crew. |
Calixis Sector - The Misericord’s Castes: The castes into which the Misericord’s crew are organised are insular, specialised and hereditary. It is impossible to change castes and most crew are born into them. Old castes can be dissolved and new ones founded by the order of the captain, but some of the Misericord’s castes are as old as the starship itself. The ship’s castes include the following:The Lords, Siblings and Officers is the full name of the ship's officer caste. Members go everywhere masked, and assist the starship's two captains in making and enforcing decisions.The Merciful form the ship’s security wing, armoured in archaic plate and mail, and carrying ominous shotguns. They can change from impeccable politeness to extreme aggression instantly, even during the course of a mundane conversation.The Suturers' Parliament is the Misericord’s body of medical personnel. The Suturers practise their procedures on the starship’s small complement of live animals, so cats, pygmy Grox and other creatures wander around their sick bays and surgeries.The Immortals recover the bodies of dead crewmen, conduct void burials and investigate suspicious deaths. They enjoy reminding other crewmen of the fact that one day, they too will require the ministrations of the Immortals.The Communion of Ratters is dedicated to tackling the Misericord’s constant vermin problem. There are only a few crewmen among the Ratters, with the rest of the Communion being made up of old, patched-up ratting Servitors.The Renders are the Misericord’s cooks and they are also responsible for the livestock raised on the ship for food. The caste’s members take great pride in their food and are extremely vocal and sometimes violent in proclaiming the superiority of their personal recipes. No one argues like a Render.The Bringers of Silence are the only caste not to have a generally known purpose. They answer to the twin Captains of the vessel and are occasionally seen walking purposefully through the ship in midnight blue uniforms, their faces painted with stars. |
Calixis Sector - Locations of Note: The bridge of the Misericord is located close to the centre of the massive voidship, in one of its very oldest parts, where the walls are covered in layers of faded frescoes depicting scenes from long-forgotten myths and tragedies in the vessel’s history. The captains and the bridge officers command the Misericord from a raised area, known as the captain’s floor, which is flanked by a series of ornate and ancient flags which are changed to match the work shifts. Gilded war banners attend the day shift whilst silvered mercantile pennants are displayed at night. No one can remember the origination of this curiously theatrical practice,though it may be down to the whim of the twin captains. Bridge uniforms and staff are changed from gold (day) to silver (night) as the bridge hands over from one “ban” (ship jargon for a work shift) to another. Subsidiary helms, manned by officers who monitor the ship’s systems, plot courses, man the ship’s Vox-casters and so on, stand to the side of the captain’s floor. By ancient tradition, these lesser officers may not take the floor, unless specifically invited. To do so is to rise above one’s station, an unforgivable and treasonous act against the strict hierarchy of command. Traitorous helmsmen have been thrown into the vastness of space for such a deed.The twins require an audience on the bridge at all times and lots are drawn to determine which crew members must spend a day in an area known as the watch court. From here the watchmen are supposed to observe procedures on the bridge to ensure protocol. In reality, crew members treat their days on the court benches as if it were a theatrical performance. Most spend their time eating, commenting raffishly on various officers or staring in wonder at the captains. It is a point of strict protocol that officers on the bridge studiously ignore any comments, noisy chewing, thrown food or jeering from the court. In reality, crew who behave poorly often find that they suffer the consequences once they return to their normal work.Key ceremonial decisions, like a course change, are considered especially interesting by members of the crew, and those lucky enough to have their number drawn on a day when such an event is to occur will often sell their ticket to the highest bidder. Attending court on a false ticket is technically an offence against regulation, but in practice most officers turn a blind eye to the custom. Visitors to, and passengers aboard, the Misericord are often delighted by the arcane pageantry of bridge activity, which they are free to observe from an outer circle of seating beyond the watch court. This captive, intrigued audience may, of course, be why the captains have allowed this curious behaviour to develop.Passengers on the Misericord stay in the Beyonder’s Hostelry, a sprawl of small but well-appointed rooms kept by the Minions of Stewardship. The Minions have a number of quirks including being forbidden to speak, so they communicate through written notes (illiterate passengers tend to have difficulty on the Misericord) and with rapid sign language among themselves. The Minions decorate the Hostelry with the hundreds of shiny or brightly coloured things they find, many of which are left behind by previous passengers. The Hostelry is cramped and rather dusty, and while they are obliging, the Minions have a habit of getting things slightly wrong -- most notably the food they bring to passengers always tastes bizarre. It is possible that the Minions deliberately misinterpret requests to make sure that passengers understand they are not a proper part of the Misericord’s world.The Gallery of Sin is one of the few places where the crewmen of the various castes mix. The Gallery is a wide, high-ceilinged deck with a small bustling town built inside it. Several of the castes, such as the Guardians Mercantile and the Coinwrackers, sell goods and services to crew and passengers. The Gallery of Sin (the name is of uncertain origin) is the closest thing to a “normal” community on the Misericord, but strange rituals and traditions still abound -- shopkeepers regularly hold mock battles in the streets, engage in elaborate and foul-mouthed haggling rituals with customers, and make sham sacrifices to vegetables. It is in the Gallery of Sin that the Company of Imbeciles performs in small street corner theatres. Some of these entertainers roam around singling out passers-by (preferably bemused passengers) to follow them performing mimes or poetry. The ethos of the Gallery seems to be that because it fulfils a fairly mundane purpose, its normality must be balanced by oddness and symbolism as much as possible. |
Calixis Sector - Other Notable Sector Worlds: There are many worlds within the Calixis Sector. From the stretches of the Golgenna Reach to the dim coldness of the Hazeroth Abyss Sub-sector, there are many types of planet inhabited by Humanity. Some, such as the hive cities of Fenksworld, are well known to the Imperium, whilst others are all but lost, faded from Administratum maps or isolated by Warp storms.All have the potential to harbour miscreants, Heretics and other, darker forces. Unlike many folk in the 41st Millennium, Acolytes of the Inquisition may well find themselves ranging far and wide across the sector in the course of their duties. |
Calixis Sector - 41 Pry: Pry is a gas giant, with a dingy Imperial void station in orbit, designated 41 Pry. The void station is a famous supply point and a seat of illegal activity. Ghostfire pollen is available here, at a price, if you know who to talk to. If you don't, such questions will get you killed rather swiftly. |
Calixis Sector - 88 Tanstar: An Imperial Navy depot on an outlying colony world (population 78 million). |
Calixis Sector - Acreage: Acreage is a Feudal World with sub-Imperial technology-levels, marked out across its continents in feudal demesnes ruled by despot warlords. |
Calixis Sector - Baraspine: Baraspine is a small Imperial Hive World (population two billion) in the Adrantis Nebula Sub-sector. Its primary exports are cogitation cells and pottery. |
Calixis Sector - Cloister: Cloister is an inhospitable world that is the site of a mendicant order of the Ecclesiarchy whose fraters occupy a vast bastion. The bastion is said to have been built by the Black Templars during the Angevin Crusade. Woe betide any inhabitants if the Astartes ever return to claim their property. |
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