Arthas Moloch

Another grey, boring dustball that so happens to be Farsight's origin arc.

Not to be confused with Arthas Menethil, the edgelord Lich King from World of Warcraft

Arthas Moloch is an Artifact World located within the bounds of the Tau Empire. It is a remote, desolate world, filled with mysterious, faceless statues of pre-Imperial provenance.

History

The Alpha Legion started using it as a base after the Horus Heresy, populating the world with human cultists and mutants pledged to the legion's service. In the 39th Millennium the Scythes of the Emperor got wind of the place and purged it. Even two millennia later, the world's ruins still bear the marks of the Scythes' passing, and it is said that the world shines like a gold mine to the eyes of anyone with psychic talent. It is probably most notable as the world where the Tau commander O'Shovah was first set on the path to independence from the Tau Empire.

While cleansing the region of Orks, O'Shovah and his forces made landfall on Arthas Moloch, where they encountered a Warp portal that started barfing Chaos daemons at them. O'Shovah snatched up a strange sword lying on a nearby altar to fight them, and found that it was not only exceptionally effective against the daemons, but seemed to revitalize him with every enemy he killed using it. When he asked his Ethereal commanders what gave with the whole thing, they accidentally revealed that they knew all about Chaos, daemons, and the true nature of the Warp and were choosing to lie about them to the rest of the Tau to keep them from being corrupted. Shenanigans ensued, during which all of the Ethereals in question were killed and O'Shovah decided that they were a bunch of corrupt assholes who couldn't be trusted anyway, leading him to found the Farsight Enclaves and declare independence from the Empire.