Editing Skaði's Thralls (section)

==Feral Cannibles==
Skaði VI is a dangerous place, not only is its climate ill-suited to human life but the evil that wiped out the Chapter of Space Marines who used to call the planet home still lingers on in their Ruined Fortress Monastery, now referred to as "The Angels Graveyard". As the PDF is mainly tied up both fighting and preparing for this evil the Planets Tithe of Guardsmen is instead filled by criminals, individuals who have committed what are viewed as crimes by the planets savage inhabitants, though some of the raised Legionaries are your usual thieves or murderers the vast Majority of Skaði's Thralls are actually cannibals, most of whom are self-confessed. Food is difficult to come by even in the best of times on Skaði VI and in the brutal Winter entire villages have been found dead in summer from insufficient food stores, as such it is extremely common for starving individuals to resort to eating the body of another human who has already died in order to survive, when spring comes these cannibals often feel extreme guilt and wish to redeem themselves in the eyes of the Golden Flame ([[The Emperor]]) and offer themselves up to the justice of their peers, which is almost always service in the Thralls.

The Zealous need for redemption expressed by most of the regiment soon rubs off on guardsmen recruited for other crimes (theft, murder) resulting in a regiment that is all too happy to sacrifice themselves for the Emperor, snipers who are located will often stay put and keep shooting, dropping their Rifles only when the enemy is in effective range of their other weapons, ambushes will often be baited with a sacrificial squad of guardsmen who are all too willing to die in order grant the enemy false confidence and many a Booby Trap has been intentionally triggered by a Thrall in order to kill catch out any pursuing enemies as well. This is so extreme that Lord Commissar -- will command his troops to return from missions with "more heads than they left with" not only does this encourage the Thralls to sacrifice themselves only when absolutely, by making ambushes decapitate dead enemies before taking off or forcing Snipers to close in on their kills for proof (The Commissar will accept bags full of head mush in the case of Headshots) the Thrall's need for Martyrdom is somewhat alleviated. This comes together to make a terrifyingly efficient Hit and Run force, able to drag the enemy across an apparent sea of traps and ambushes all the while whittling them down for sniper perches whilst still willing to stand their ground and get killed in order to hold the enemy in place and allow other parts of the regiment to operate as efficiently as they do however when forced to fight defensively with no ground to rake their foe along they have been noted as performing "admirably but without distinction" as the Thrall's stubbornness crossed with little to no real artillery, armor or siege equipment and few gun emplacements often results in Trenches held solely by the Thralls being difficult to break but easy to take once the admittedly lethal No-mans land has been dealt with whilst Thralls in conjunction with regiments more suited to trench warfare can result in lethal combinations, the Penal Legionaries happy to go on suicidal missions to set up traps in No-Mans land or attempt to range behind enemy lines to disrupt enemy supply lines.

===History and Background===
Skaði VI was an unremarkable Ice Ball with 0 inhabitants when what would become the Skaði System was first brought into the fold during the glory days of the great crusade by the Word Bearers (often known simply as "One of the Emperors Space Marine Legions by other planets in the sector for obvious reasons") however some time afterwards a Chapter of Space Marines now known as the Champions of Skaði eventually came across the Skaði VI and found it covered in Feral Human Tribes, Finding truly Ancient Transport ships on the Planets surface further investigation into the ancient Data logs found that at some point in the very distant past several regiments of Imperial Guard (or Army, details are hazy) were stationed here while the local arm of the Administratum "Figured out what to do with them" what exactly this meany was unspecific. Whatever happened it appears that the Guardsmen were forgotten about completely leaving the troops on their own for thousands of years.
During this investigation the local Tribes were appalled at the "interlopers" for stepping foot on what the Tribesmen revered as "the Mountains of the Flame" and proceeded to wage what was apparently a brutal Guerilla War against the Space Marines killing not one but three Astartes over the course of 5 Terran Years and disabling a Razorback. Finding this effort impressive the Champions Chapter Master declared the Tribesmen to be worthy Recruitment Stock and used the favor granted by recovering the ancient troop transports to claim Skaði VI for his Chapter constructing their Fortress Monastery on the grounds in which the ancient ships once stood (note that exactly when this happened has been lost to the Administratum as has whether the Champions of Skaði named themselves after the system they called home or if the Skaði system was renamed by the Space Marines once they arrived.)

For many years the Champions of Skaði reigned of Skaði VI, and it's thought that this is where many of the planets traditions come from. The practice of giving children extremely basic lasguns so that they could shoot the small songbirds which live in Skaði's forests and are the only reliable source of Omega 3 and Vitamins D and C on the planet was almost certainly started by the Marines to raise the quality of their recruits (where else would the Tribesmen gotten their guns from) and the willingness of Skaði VI's modern day inhabitants to hand over their guilty to the Penal Legion probably comes from how the old Champions of Skaði would take convicted Thieves, Murderers and Cannibals and turn them into Servitors. This however was not to last.

In Mid to Late M39 the Chapter would come into contact with an unknown chaos warband. Over the course of many-many brutal Skirmishes the Chapter of Space Marines would be whittled down to just over half strength until, in early M40 the full force of the warband descended on the System. Split between The Hive World Skaði XVIII and The Domain of the Champions most of the warband, led by a horrifying Daemon Prince assaulted the Marines in their Fortress Monastery. The details are unknown but when the Imperial Counter-Attack finally arrived the Chapter had been wiped out with all hands lost and though many corpses had been left behind the Warband and their Daemon Prince had seemingly vanished into thin air. However, they were not gone. 

Roughly every 70 years or so the Warband, now known as The Tide reappears, spilling out of the Angels Graveyard they ravage the countryside slaying as they go and piling high mountains of skulls before vanishing again as quickly as they came. First surprised by these attacks, the remains of the PDF that had been set up by the Astartes were able to rebuild and prepare for attacks developing many of the tactics used by the Thralls today in direct response to the Warband proficiency in head-on combat, and it was seeing the effects of what the Skaði's named "the Death by Inches" that convinced Imperial Officials that the Servitor Stock that the planet was currently offering up as Tithe would be better served as a Penal Regiment and so, Skaði's Thralls were formed

Skaði's Thralls was originally the name given to the Chapter Serfs who served the now extinct Chapter of Space Marines who used to occupy Skaði VI and for a while after the death of the Astartes the world  would pay its Tithes not with Guardsmen but by offering up their criminals as Servitors parts in much the same way they had offered their criminals up to the Space Marines, however after the 1st Skaði's Thralls proved a decent, if short-lived success it was decided that would be officially labeled a feral-guard world and later have proven so effective that the local arm of the Administratum has granted them many medical necessities such as Calipers, Penicillin and Medicae kits in order to boost Birth Rates as well as Vitamin Supplements to boost the Health and physical abilities of the Planets Population. Crucially, while the increased population has increased the amount of mouths to feed beyond the feral worlders abilities to provide enough sustenance the people of Skaði VI are repeatedly denied Food Aid outside the Vitamin Tablets in a deliberate effort to increase rates of Cannibalism in the populace and thus boost the amount of souls joining the guard even further than the boosted population would suggest. This worked fantastically, especially once hoarding and eating a Years supply of Vitamin Supplements in an attempt to stave of starvation was also made a crime as it "Took advantage of the Emperors Generosity" and now the Planet can reliably provide 2 to 3 and sometimes even 4 large Penal legions, which is more than enough for Guerilla Warfare specialists such as the Thralls.