Varangantua

Varangantua is a huge hive city on the planet Alecto in Segmentum Tempestus. It is the setting for the Warhammer Crime stories published by Black Library.

Alecto itself was colonized back in the Dark Age of Technology. It is apparently far from any meaningful front lines - most of its people don't even think Xenos actually exist or know much about anything going on in the greater Imperium, despite implications that the stories set there occur during / after the Great Rift. The Mechanicus maintain numerous enclaves in the city, serving the "nearby" forgeworld of Zhao-Arkkad. It pays part of its Imperial Tithe in manpower, mustering a regiment of Imperial Guard trained to fight in urban environments.

Its upper class is full of scheming bastards, and everyone else is downtrodden and desperate. The local enforcers, the Sanctioners, have their work cut out trying to keep everything going. There are organ legging gangs, cannibal cults, revolutionaries, and all sorts of nastiness everywhere.

So basically like most other Hive Worlds.

Nothing to see here...move along..

Okay, it does have a few interesting things, including...

• Being a lucrative source of ingredients for Juvenat Drugs acquired via "cell draining" - literally kidnapping youths and draining them of the necessary fluids and tissues over years, sometimes without any sedation to cut back on costs.
• An schism among the Adeptus Mechanicus between the followers of Belisarius Cawl and more traditionalist forces.
• Being a high end producer of Servitors, the bodies are acquired from various "sources" and have a potential chance to relapse due to shenanigans at the local Martian enclaves.
• Having a colossal night-club/pleasure palace built into a grounded battleship.
• Possibly the oldest living baseline human calls Varangantua home. She was the captain of the colony ship that landed their back in the Dark Age of Technology making her easily between 10,000 to 20,000 years old.
• An ancient religion with an awful lot of snake iconography (which is partly carried over into secular life on the planet) which is kept very secret from the regular Imperial Creed, despite its clergy claiming its just another interpretation of the Emperor…
• Another ancient cult based around cannibalism that dates back to the first colonists who had to eat eachother when supplies got low. Said cultists are split between rich assholes who want kooky cannibal sex parties and rich assholes who like murdering and eating other people for the sake of it. And the latter faction are almost definitely a Khornate cult in the making.