Nobledark Imperium Notable Planets
There are many worlds across the galaxy, but not all of them reach the same level of fame.
Notable Planets
Old Earth
Necromunda
Necromunda is not a jewel in the crown of the Imperium and suffers huge pandemics due to the planetary government being unable to set up an effective garbage disposal system. Mines all over the planet are getting dangerously low but the scrap metal wouldn't cover the entire planet just most of it. Local efforts by the hive-cities have been made to try to clean up the toxic sludge in the water and poisonous gas in the atmosphere.
The planet is infamous across the sector for the Hive gangs. The Underhives of the planet are some of the worst places to live in the Imperium. Although not as lethal compared to a Death world, the standard of living is so degraded most would question the point of life after growing up in them. The most common life of Necromundans is to die in the mines, slave away in manufactorums, collect metal junk, or become criminals. Those that wish to break away from mundane life or get rich quick become criminals. Shadow Traders sell illegal goods like hallucinogens, las-weapons, and Xenos lifeforms. The Hive gangs threaten the Shadow Traders for protection money as these gangs can outnumber and outgun whatever bodyguards the trader can hire. The gangs work to make the traders under them be the most profitable so they can squeeze more money out of their traders. This also means a gang will attack other gangs' territory to vesselize more traders or prevent rivals from gaining power
When one of many on-going gang wars starts the scale of killing is comparable to a poor Imperial world with a small rebellion. In all likely hood, hundreds of thousands of people will die including civilians as the hive gangs fight like small scale wars. Autoguns, autocannons, and las-weapons are used to perform raids, assassinations or urban assaults But the world is not quite as horrible as it could be in large part thanks to the efforts of the Adeptus Biologicus. In an attempt to lower the amount of food that needed importing some long forgotten governor commissioned a brotherhood to scour the Imperium for shit that would grow in the toxic ash and sludge that they had for soil.
Many such plants were found and other single celled extremophiles of all manner of categorization were discovered on far off worlds. Some of them even with genetic markers that showed that they might have had ancestor stock on old Earth and come to the stars in the Golden Age in the early colonies of man.
The planet’s surface became covered in life. A thriving bustling chimera of an ecosystem constructed from species of a double dozen worlds, usually the sort of life generally found near volcanoes or on the "cold Venus" type of worlds. Sadly they couldn't find anything people could eat which was kind of the point that they were hired for.
It was nearly 200 years of tampering and splicing and selectively breeding before the first fruits of their labours were tasted. And it was another three seconds before those fruits were spat back out. Although they had created a Terran/Xeno splice apple that could survive and even thrive in the temperate latitudes in the smog and the toxic muck it was not something that anyone with any choice would willingly eat.
The governor, grandson of the one who commissioned the endeavour, did not care. They could be boiled down into a nutritious slurry with almost all the taste removed. The Adepts were kept on to continue their works.
After a few thousand years there are great swathes of farmed land where none should be with harvests of things that by nature should not exist. They still haven't created anything that tastes lake actual food.
Molech
Molech was just originally just a planet really rich in biodiversity that the precursor orders of the AdBio had sizable detachments studying because holy shit so many new things. Also the locals were friendly and had been waiting for Earth to come and bring them back to the stars. The planet was “discovered” and brought back into the fold by Horus who already knew where it was because the Void Born who traveled that patch of space let him have a copy of their maps.
All was well until The Beast and Molech gets brought to ruin. The glorious biodiversity was mostly lost and the friendly locals almost exterminated bar about 1,000 maybe 1,500
Not long after the WotB the AdMech goes through reforms. During that time the Dark Mechanicus came out of the woodwork and there was at least a little fighting on every forgeworld, even Mars nearly fell. And whats worse the Dragon nearly got out of it's box. Reforms were put in place to make another mass rebellion in the future far more unlikely to succeed.
It is decided, by mutual consent, that the splice-hippies, genesmiths, bloodcutters and the gene-wrights (among others) will be folded into the Reformed Mechanicum. They are all integrated into cohesive and more importantly accountable orders. In return the biological tinkerers get decent funding, better equipment and lab space.
Once they are folded into the Mechanicus is when the problems start to arise. On theological and cultural levels there is a much bigger gap between the Adeptus Biologicus brotherhoods and the AdMech brotherhoods than there are between the different AdMech Brotherhoods. And that's saying something considering how bad tempered and fractious AdMech factions can be.
It is quickly decided that it's time for the AdBio to get a HQ of their own. Preferably not in Sol.
Molech was just a few short light years from Old Earth, close enough that the AdBio could rapidly get to the Imperial Palace if the Steward needed them but far enough away that they weren't in Sol.
AdBio return to Molech and begin the work of rebuilding it as their home.
By 999M41 Molech has the largest number of "indigenous" Earth/Xeno, Xeno/Totally unrelated Xeno and generally fucked up batshit genetic chimera hybrid organisms found anywhere in the galaxy. It is the AdBio showcase. It's main exports are drugs (medicinal and recreational), vaccines, bio-weapons, tailored organisms and strange genetically and surgically modified adepts of various biological disciplines.
The AdBio do worship the Omnissiah, in their way. Although with them he is less likely to be depicted as something mechanical and more as the Tree of Knowledge with a small god-fruit on every branch and humanity sheltered under the branches.
They are as active and busy as their Mars siblings, despite the Mars adepts calling them a bunch of hippies that need to get a real job and stop being dirty heretics.
At some unrecorded point in history they adopted green robes to differentiate themselves from the Martian Priesthoods.
Molech after the WotB is a miracle of bio-engineering. The ecosystem of the planet is completely artificial, though you wouldn't know it at first glance. Many of the old beasties that inhabited Molech were restored through cloning and/or careful breeding programs (a point of pride for the AdBio), though the native wildlife is restricted to a much smaller area to make room for the AdMech's new pets.
Ganymede
According to the Adeptus Administratum, this moon of Jupiter is quarantined due to a warp contamination accident that occurred early in the Great Crusade. This is, in fact, a lie. In reality, Ganymede is a big containment and storage facility for all the weird stuff the Inquisition recovers and cannot destroy for various reasons or items that would otherwise destabilize the Imperium. Technically it's overseen by the Administratum, but in practice it's joint run with the Inquisition because someone has to give the drones training.
Among the weird stuff housed in Ganymede is
- The only surviving copy of Lorgar's "Black Manuscript" (probably, if it's just not plain lost) - Blade of the Laer (Lucius' long-term goal is taking the sword) - The only Daemon Prince of Malal. - A dimension distorting container obtained by an unnamed Inquisitior of the Ordo Chronus. - A sealed room with the mark of the Terminus on it - The "key" to the Gates of Vaul - A human preserved in amber estimated to be several million years old - A set of lock picks that can open anything. Anything.
Prospero
Prospero was first settled by mankind in M23, shortly before the Age of Strife. Its original colonists were primarily composed of psyker refugees, fleeing from the persecution and witch-hunts of psykers that had gripped the rest of the galaxy. Prospero was chosen because of its isolated location. Although it was relatively close to Old Earth in terms of realspace, Prospero was an arid planet with little water or arable land that was relatively off the beaten path in terms of warp currents, making it ideal for people that did not wish to be noticed. The psykers of Prospero pooled together what little knowledge they had and were soon progressing in psychic technology by leaps and bounds, inventing such things as psychic-assisted medicine and crystals that dampened psychic powers allowing psyker children to learn how to control their abilities without the threat of daemonic possession. For a scant few centuries, Prospero was a paradise for psykers.
Unfortunately, along with the Age of Strife came Warp Storms and psychic predators. Prospero became host to one particularly nasty form of psychic predator called the Psychneuein, who were attracted to the planet by its large population of psykers. The Psychneuein were an insectoid species which reproduced by laying their eggs inside a psyker’s brain, which would later burst out of the psyker’s head to produce more Psychneuein. On a planet full of psykers, one Psychneuein could rapidly turn into a plague, and many times the inhabitants of Prospero were nearly wiped out. Only the fortress-city of Tizca, situated on a central plateau between the three highest mountains on the planet, was naturally well-defended enough to reliably fend off attacks from the Psychneuein. Over time, the depredations of the Psychneuein would wax and wane and the people of Prospero would try to recolonize the wastes once more, but were always beaten back to the walls of Tizca by the Psychneuein.
To the inhabitants of Prospero, the appearance of the nascent Imperium in their skies in 935.M30 must have seemed like a godsend. At this point in time the inhabitants of Prospero had once more been forced back to the safety of the walls of Tizca by the Psychneuein, and this time its inhabitants were not sure the walls would hold. Although the Imperium was unable to completely destroy the Psychneuein, as seen by their presence on planets like Mara later in Imperial history, they were able to eradicate the threat of the Psychneuein to the people of Prospero.
The discovery of Prospero was a boon for the Imperium as well. Here was a society possessing all sorts of psychic technology and knowledge the Imperium desperately needed, either saved from what little was known of psykers during the Dark Age of Technology or created de novo on Prospero itself. What's more, this knowledge was specifically tailored to human psykers, as opposed to the advice the Imperium had previously only recieved from the Eldar who had to figure out what aspects of Eldar psychic abilities did or did not apply to human psykers. Prospero was of special interest to the Thousand Sons, who as a legion of psykers were interested in any way to better hone and control their gifts. In particular Ahzek Ahriman, although Terran-born on Achaemenidia, rapidly rose to prominence in Prosperan society as a teacher and eventually came to consider the planet a second home.
With the help of the Imperium, Prospero was rebuilt as never before. With the destruction of the Psychneuein, cities once again spread across the planet’s surface, reflective plated obelisks and hive-pyramids gleaming in the sunlight. Tizca itself particularly prospered, with the greater reaches of the city expanding off the plateau of the city center all the way to the sea. The sheer size of the city and extent of gleaming hive-pyramids on Tizca eventually led to the city being referred to as the City of Life. Psychic research also continued on Prospero, its inhabitants always interested in ways to refine their powers, only this time with the resources of the Imperium at its back. The Great Library of Lexandra was said to be the greatest repository of psychic knowledge in the entire Materium, second only to the Eldar Black Library hidden in the Webway. At its peak, Prospero was the prime center for the psychic arts and biggest exporter of psykers in the galaxy, eclipsing even Old Earth. The planet had gone from pariah to one of the crown jewels of the Imperium.
Unfortunately, this wealth of psychic knowledge made Prospero an ideal target for the Fourth Black Crusade (late M33). If the Black Crusade could reach Prospero, it would cripple the Imperium's ability to train new psykers, possibly even interfering with the maintenance of the Astronomican itself. The people of Prospero and the Imperium fought valiantly, but the forces of Chaos steadily gained ground, until eventually the two factions were fighting in orbit around Prospero itself, nuclear weapons bombarding the planet’s surface.
It was at this point, in an act of desperation, that a small cabal of sorcerers led by Ahzek Ahriman cast what would later be known as the Rubric of Ahriman. Ahriman’s intention was to seal the populace of Prospero away in a pocket dimension, keeping them safe until such time as the Black Crusade could be beaten back. Although the forces of Chaos might be able to claim the soil of Prospero, they would be unable to harm its people. However, something went horribly wrong. Instead of neatly transporting Prospero and its inhabitants into a pocket dimension, the planet’s inhabitants were violently torn between dimensions, disappearing in a torrent of ash and smoke.
Worse yet, the counterspell to the ritual did not seem to work. Although Ahriman and his cabal had created the ritual, they only had a limited idea of how it actually worked, having created it in haste from incomplete, limited sorcerous knowledge in the Great Library due to the impending threat of the Black Crusade. Like much of the rest of the Imperium, Prosperans looked down on sorcery as extremely dangerous (doubly so since the planet was full of psykers), and it was only desperation that led Ahriman to resort to using it in the first place. Ahriman was devastated by the loss of his adopted home, and vowed to undo the effects of the Rubric, even if it cost him his own life. Those few who survived the burning of Prospero, mostly aboard refugee ships, primarily emigrated to Old Earth. Old Earth was the biggest cultivator of the psychic arts in the Imperium now that Prospero was gone, and the remaining Prosperans wanted to be amongst their own kind.
Today, Prospero is a quiet world, the only movement on its surface being the fall of crumbling masonry, its only sound being that of the wind blowing through the canyons. However, Prospero might not be as dead as people think. Some visitors to Prospero claim they can sometimes still see the city of Tizca, the glory of the City of Light glowing on the horizon like a mirage. Many in the Imperium say that the blasted surface of Prospero is cursed, that the ghosts of the dead still haunt the half-destroyed ruins. However, others point out that these rumors are almost always started by looters and grave robbers, and that many have visited Prospero to pay their respects and have returned unmolested.
The people of Prospero may be gone, but their ghosts might not rest easy.
Additional Note: Legion of the Damned in this timeline are supposed to be quantum space ghosts of the Space Marines and Imperial Guardsmen on Prospero during the Rubric, who have become trapped between the Materium and Immaterium.
Vostroya
In days of the War of the Beast they refused to honour their oaths to the Empty Throne of Earth and instead focused on the defense of their own world under the delusion that they would have had any chance of ever holding out on their lonesome if The Beast ever turned his attention upon them.
Afterwards when they saw what horrors Primarch Curze was inflicting when given the order to fetch back the worlds whose loyalty was found wanting they couldn't surrender fast enough.
Being an industrial world that the Imperium needed to help with it's recovery the task of bringing the errant world back into the fold was given to Zso Sahaal.
This was during the days when Curze was planning his own trial and execution and was grooming his successor. More importantly he was grooming him to be an acceptable monster rather than just a useful one like he had been.
Curze spent the entire negotiations drugged into almost unconsciousness at First Captain Sahaal's orders and placed in a welded shut crate as a safety precaution.
Eventually a deal was reached between Vostroya and the Imperium, through it's Night Lords intermediaries. Those nobles responsible for the decision of not coming to the Imperium's aid would be executed cleanly and quickly, Vostroya would be put under Administratum rule for the next 30 years whilst a new batch of aristocrats came to the surface, one of the new fangled Adeptus Arbiters stations would be built in the capital and so long as the Imperium lasts the tithe would be the industrial produce of the world plus the first born son of any family with more than one son.
This was a steep price but gratefully accepted even by those who were going to be executed when First Captain Sahaal offered to stop drugging the Primarch and turn negotiations over to him.
Zso Sahaal's name is spoken with both hate and love on Vostroya.
Rumour has it that Underhive gangs have proven fruitful recruitment grounds for the Night Lords and splinter groups in the millenniums since, but with all things concerning those sanctioned monsters nothing is easy to pin down with certainty.
Krieg
Krieg, of the Segmentum Tempestum, Uhulis Sector, at the start of 433.M40 was an entirely different world than what we know in the modern day. Back then, it was a hiveworld with a middling population of 97 billion souls, and a restless aristocracy. A manufacture and trade hub with a surprising knack for technology outside of the Adeptus Mechanicus, interstellar market trends and the subtle shifts of the warp's currents had, over the millenia reduced its prestige and market value- and the attack of Hive Fleet Leviathan led the Administratum to introduce a price ceiling on the products of Krieg to help the war effort. The ruling councils of Autokrats, already impoverished by misfortune (And, truth be told, some serious missteps of their own) were outraged. For them, bound as they were to Krieg itself, the threat of alien invasion was distant, and they saw themselves made slaves to the whole of the sector for the sake of lazy foreigners that couldn't even pay a fair price for their orbital defenses. For that was the specialty of Krieg, big guns. Guns that could be mounted on the planet, and give orbital invaders a beating, and hopefully ward them off. This also made the planet Krieg extraordinarily dangerous to attack. Any attack from above would be costly indeed.
So, when a grand conclave of Autokrats were called, the attendees freely ruminated and conspired against the Imperium, secure in the shadows of their defenses. The Autokrats agreed that a formal complaint should be lodged to the Imperium. And that if they weren't met properly, that the councils would meet again, and elect a High Autokrat, an office only called for in times of crisis, when the whole of the planet had to act together. On paper at least, the Autokrats were united in their cause; respect, or war.
However, the Autokrats were a minority in the grand scheme of things. For the vast majority of the planet that labored, lived, and died in the hives, "For Throne and Man," was their byword, and even as the Autokrats fumed in their spires, the factory workers set their shoulders, shook their heads, and redoubled their labors. It was possible that this upset would have remained just that- a grumbling, that would be addressed when the Administratum representatives arrived to hear complaints. An agreement might have been reached, or a display of force on the truculent Autokrats, and Krieg would have returned to normalcy, minus a few belligerent aristocrats.
However, the representatives of the Administratum never arrived, and Krieg suffered a further two separate blows.
The fate of the Administratum mission has yet to be revealed. The only clue recovered was a letter from Administrative Senioris Sandos to his wife, noting with pleasure that he might return in time for Sanguinalia celebrations, that he'd secured passage through the webway "With a trustworthy sort." All Eldar guides within the sector capable of granting access to the webway deny ever offering that to a human, much less a lowly bureaucrat. There is a sizable reward still on offer for the missing Administrative, and the Administratum further cautions all citizens that the webway is restricted to a select few- anyone offering them a 'shortcut' should be considered a criminal, and treated as such.
As the year passed on, and the Administratum's delegation failed to appear, the Autokrats convinced themselves that this was a calculated slight from the Administratum. For the Autokrats of Krieg, it was obvious that the Imperium had no care for them, and didn't even care to tell them to their face. Krieg is a relatively ancient world, and has had a fiercely xenophobic streak in their culture- and for those Kriegers that believed in the Imperium, and the vision of the Throne, the silence shook them.
The issue was further deepened due to the astropathic messaging system- due to Krieg's growing insignificance, they had few astropaths, and those few were held privately by Autokrats. They may well have kept the news of the disappeared delegation quiet. Or assumed that, like any other words from beyond Krieg, any assurances that the delegation had been lost could only be treated as lies.
Then there was the Segmentum Tempestum Famine. The Ulthran Cartel had elected to invest in agri-futures- and with that investment came a stampede of Rogue Traders, Demiurge Trade Clans, and savvy planetary governors following the trend. Most notably was the influence of at least one Necron lord. Though indirectly involved in the market, for reasons unknown, a spate of necron attacks were aimed solely at agriworlds in the segmentum for a period of seven years, further aggravating food supplies. The market dried up, and shiftless and dishonest grain haulers meant for hive and forge worlds dependent on their products skimmed from the top to sell to this feeding frenzy. In the chaos of the Hive Fleet Leviathan's invasion, and the subsequent shadow cast by the hive mind blocking out psker communications, the administratum failed to notice until it was too late for the Uhulis Sector. Worlds starved.
Krieg was not among them. They wouldn't have the chance.
The precise Autokrats immediately detected they were being short changed on loads from their grain haulers. Outraged, they turned their guns on the hauler, and demanded the full load. The grain hauler in question (Records indicate a shiftless layabout "Regnal Ersten" with a forged Writ of Trade as the unfortunate) made excuses. The Kriegers fired a volley upon the orbiting vessel to make clear their dissatisfaction. The Rogue Trader, apparently, then babbled out a series of excuses, culminating in the claim that the Segmentum Command had seized most of the food intended for Krieg.
The Autokrats were satisfied with their suspicions confirmed. After finishing off the grain hauler with another volley (Surprisingly, Regnal survived this, and would meet his own gruesome fate far later- but that's another story) the Autokrats met once more, and elected a High Autokrat among their number- as far as they were concerned, they were in a state of war.
We have no record of the identity of the High Autokrat. Their position, history, statements, gender, and fate are unknown. The Death Korps of Krieg were thorough in erasing this hated figure from memory. All we know was that there was a High Autokrat, and that this figure would openly declare secession from the Imperium of Man.
At this time, seven Astra Militarum regiments of Kriegers had been raised, and were posted on the world. They had been staying garrisoned in case of tyranid attack, and awaiting orders that would have presumably accompanied the Administratum delegation.
As part of their duties, they were to gather supplies. This included food for campaign, begrudgingly supplied by the planet.
The hivers of Krieg had never been strangers to hunger. It is the same on all hives- due to corruption, inadequate transport capacity, or the simple structure of billions contained in such a small space, malnutrition is rampant. There are always too many mouths, and never enough meals.
The hivers of Krieg had known the shock of having the Imperium fail them, and now faced famine. The Death Korps of Krieg stated simply that the population rose in rebellion against the Imperium, and by extension those Imperial Regiments as well, but I feel that this misses a step. To editorialize, I imagine that the High Autokrat (Being a cunning sort) let this stew a few days. Let the rations dwindle, let the people wonder what's going on- perhaps even attempted to rather publicly deny the Imperial Regiments their supplies, and suffered equally public rebuke.
The people would hunger, see what happened, and wonder. Wonder why their children cried from hunger, as the soldiers marched and drilled and menaced with bayonet, taking scraps meant for them. The High Autokrat would let that stew, then speak.
I know not the High Autokrat's charisma, but I can't imagine the starving need much convincing to seize food.
Or perhaps it's just as the Death Korps describe it. The population en masse blindly rejected Imperial Law in madness, and set upon the regiments like savage dogs.
There were seven Imperial Regiments arranged at that time, and seven hive cities. There's a fascinating account of the fall of six of these hive cities embedded in the training manuals of the Kriegers. Each city lost held a lesson to them, and each pre-Death Korps regiment that fought and fell had a deadly sin associated with them as reason to how they fell. From each fall, they took a lesson, until one hive remained, Hive Ferrograd, under the command of one Colonel Jurten. If the Kriegers can recognize a hero, they might think of Jurten as one.
Ferrograd was the center for manufacture of ammunition- which kept the final of the loyalist Kriegers well surprised. There was an offer of surrender, but the war was bitterly fought already. The only thing you would earn in surrender was a quick death. Colonel Jurten knew that the Imperium was still months out. His forces would starve before the Imperium could arrive. Following that, the Imperium invasion would be costly, if it succeeded- if, and at this, Colonel Jurten feared the most, if the Imperium would even bother coming.
By this time, what was once a strangely anthropomorphized civic philosophy had become almost a religious mania. He believed in the Throne, even as the rebels around him ranted and raved about making a new Throne, a proper one on Krieg. Jurten knew that was heresy. And he knew the origin of it. The hubris of thinking the Throne would care. The present armageddon and sorrows sown by all of this was a consequence of that central arrogance- that the Kriegers would get something for loving the Throne. The Throne was to be served. The Throne was not there to serve them.
And if Krieg would not serve the Throne, Krieg did not deserve to be.
Krieg is a world that has its fair share of technological wonders and secrets. Among the ammunition that Hive Ferrograd produced for the orbital guns were atomics. A terrible amount of them. On the day of the Feast of the Emperor's Ascension, Colonel Jurgen gave the people of Krieg a feast that would never be forgotten. For sixteen hours straight, his collection of guns roared, blanketing the whole of Krieg in nuclear fire. Estimates lodge the amount of nuclear weapons launched in the thousands. An event in the future known as "The Purging." A kill count was kept. As point of pride, the warriors of Krieg estimated that brave Colonel Jurten with sixteen hours, reduced the population from 97 billion down to little more than 780 mlilion.
The world had never been a garden world, but I found a portrait of old Krieg once. Sold for a pretty penny. Though dated to the right era, I am not unconvinced it's a forgery, but perhaps that is due to my own horror at the sight of it. It was a poorly painted water color, perhaps by a student, showing the feet of a titanic steel hive towering into the clouds, standing atop harsh and jagged moss stained stone, wind and rain lashing the cliff side, and in the grey and dim light that peeked through the clouds, an animal soaring through the air. At least, I think it is. Might be a smudge on the canvas.
Krieg has no towering hives now, just ruins and subterranean warrens. The once proud stones have been reduced to rubble and sand. There is no water on Krieg, save for what's found in canteens and barrack reserves. The clouds are far lower to the ground now, laden with poison and chemical. The only life upon Krieg now are Kriegers. Kriegers, and the horses they grow in vats beneath the surface to ride into battle.
Though the Purging was the single greatest use of nuclear weapons in a short span of time upon the surface of Krieg, nuclear weapons would continue to be used. Both sides entrenched, and fought to the bitter, genocidal end in a war that would continue on for a further 500 years. The rebel survivors had gained a psychopathic hatred for the madmen that had reduced their world to ashes, and the loyalists grimly fought in the name of the Throne, knowing that no quarter would be given. They both practiced total war. They innovated, adapted, took on the gas mask, supplemented their meager diets with corpse starch (It's exactly as it sounds), introduced large scale usage of the mysterious "Vitae Womb" technology, and reduced all their beliefs to a fanatic, fatalistic, all encompassing devotion to the Imperium. The only thing for a Krieger is the fight. The duty. The war. Nothing else. For five hundred years, all other Krieger culture was erased. Art, music, literature, all the trappings of a civilian life was crushed by the demand for total war.
As Colonel Jurten had feared, the Imperium had more important matters to deal with than just another hive world descending into madness and blood shed. Two expeditions were undertaken to Krieg during this time. The first, a curious rogue trader, was fired upon by automated orbital guns and they beat a hasty retreat. The second, a mechanicus survey fleet, came within range, and did not report being fired upon, but instead reported what seemed to be a complete, genocidal civil war being fought by a population of perhaps a few million, upon a worthless death world. They moved on.
In 949.M40, Krieg sent a missive to the Imperium at large stating that the rebellion had quashed, and the Death Korps of Krieg were waiting for orders.
Krieg has no governor. Krieg has a Grand Marshal, in charge of recruitment and training of Kriegers. All Kriegers are considered qualifying soldiers. Logic would lead one to expect there has to be some administrative center upon Krieg aside from this Grand Marshal, but the Death Korps of Krieg seem content to hand off most logistics responsibilities to the Departmento Munitorium.
Departmento Munitorium officers assigned to coordinate and keep Kriegers in armor and weapons upon Krieg have a very high turnover rate. Few deaths, but from my understanding, psychological burn out is the primary cause.
Kriegers are immune to boredom. There are no diversions. There is only labor, training, war, and waiting. Any diversion from these four activities is looked upon with contempt, if not hostility. Kriegers are also remarkably xenophobic. And I mean that in the broadest term possible- fellow guardsmen often find Kriegers uncommunicative, and at times laden with barely disguised disgust. It seems any with a survival instinct are considered lesser men.
For aliens, it is worse. Philosophically, the Kriegers came from a point with extreme deprivation. To them, every breath an alien draws is theft. Every acre of space they occupy is one less acre for proper humans to utilize. Every mouthful of food, another mouthful denied to those that better deserve it. In their eyes, the proper place of an alien is at the end of a bayonet. The fact that the Imperium tolerates these is a matter barely tolerated.
Yet, for all their lack of social graces, the Departmento Munitorium has embraced the Kriegers. They win wars. Any order given is fulfilled without hesitation, doubt, or regret, even in the face of death. And there are a great deal of them.
The Departmento Munitorium has long had a debate between two, rough, major schools of military study- the Reformers and the Macharians. It is no secret that, as the years have gone on, more and more regiments are drilled and equipped in the Cadian style. In the eyes of the Reformer generals, the advantages are obvious- Cadian soldiers are considered the standard by which all others of the Imperium are measured, and standardization and centralization of equipment would only help with logistics in the Astra Militarum. Something as simple as ordering a replacement lasrifle powerpack can lead to tragedy due to different manufacturing standards and usage across the endless worlds. Let there be one set of kit, training, and organization instead of the confusing hodge podge that blunders on through luck and sheer bloody mindedness.
The Macharians take their name from Lord Solar Macharius, who famously forged an army from a mass of diverse elements and worlds, making a flexible legion ready for every element. In their minds, trying to force guardsmen to march and act the same is an act of folly, that denies useful specialization and experience. Any attempted reform would take hundreds of years, untold fortunes, and would cause the war machine to grind to a halt even as they are besieged on all sides. Catachans are expert jungle fighters, Valhallans ice worlders, Chem Dogs tunnel fighters, and so on and so forth. Why break what isn't broken?
But now, there is a third regiment that is gaining acclaim, one that even the Reformers balk at modeling after. The Death Korps of Krieg.
Those that favor the Kriegers, see a model of the future. A guardsman that doesn't hesitate. Doesn't doubt. Doesn't question. Fears nothing, and fulfills every order to the letter. And better yet, there is no end to them. Generals at the strategic level find the Death Korps of Krieg refreshing. Far too often, regiments have generals that don't understand their place, and seek to ask questions or meddle in affairs above them. Refusing orders, 'misinterpreting' commands, engaging in cowardly routs: such are the sins of the common general. Oh yes, on occasion there's one that rises above, heroes that make for stirring propaganda- but let's be honest. Heroes are not what victory is made of. Victory is made of attrition, of materiel, of being willing to fight longer than the other guy. Victory is the stuff Kriegers are made of. They don't need commissars. Their loyalty is beyond question. And they seemingly spring out of the dirt with their wondrous Vitae Wombs. They're practically a new breed of human, and should be welcomed.
Though the other factions are uneasy at this new model of guardsman, those in the Departmento Munitorium see the future in the Death Korps. Limitless guardsmen that will not break, grinding down all that oppose the Imperium. The anvil, to the maneuverable hammer of the Astartes. One day, these generals dream, all the guard will be like the Death Korps. Fearless. Unquestioning. Replaceable.
The Death Korps of Krieg for their part do not care. They can be found on every front, on every battlefield, wherever a soldier is called to die, a Krieger will march there to take his place. They do not question. They serve.
Valhalla
Solemnace
Along the borders of the Necron Empire and the Imperium is the rather backwater Tomb World of Solemnace. Solemnace is a rather dreary if temperate world with abundant cloud cover and precipitation and high rates of tectonic uplift causing the land surface to be covered in a number of steep cliffs and craggy peaks. Solemnace is rather odd for a tomb world, if for nothing else than its large population of living subjects, with the Necrons making up a sizeable minority (40%) of the population as a military and aristocratic class. Part of this is due to the fact that Solemnace is one of the oldest awoken Tomb Worlds known to the Imperium. The Imperium first discovered Solemnace early in the Great Crusade, before the Eldar had truly become part of the Imperium. At first, it was thought that Solemnace represented the homeworld of yet another xenos race that were not fond of humanity, yet not a true threat to the Imperium. As such, the planet was noted and the Imperium as a whole moved on. By the time the Eldar had realized what Solemnace was and had brought their warning to the wider attention of the Imperium, it was too late. The Necrons of Solemnace had regained their senses, and Phaeron Trazyn the Infinite resumed the throne once more. However, the Necrons of Solemnace seemed content to remain isolationists on their own little world, and even in their diminished state the technology of the Necrons would have made the costs of conquering Solemnace too great to justify for a single planet. The Imperium breathed a sigh of relief, believing the Necrons of Solemnace to be the last remnants of an otherwise long-extinct race. The existence of Solemnace in the first place, as well as the devastating attack of the World Engine from the other side of the Eastern Fringe in M34, should have been enough to suggest otherwise.
Over the years, generations of refugees have fled to Solemnace, either from planets destroyed by war or by people dissatisfied with the policies of the Imperium, and those people and their descendants have formed a generalized underclass beneath the necrocracy. Trazyn keeps his subjects cared for, but helpless, such that none may challenge the authority of the ruler of Solemnace. Notably absent among the underclass are Eldar, who would never allow themselves to live under Necron rule and instead tend to flee to craftworlds if they become refugees. Life on Solemnace isn’t that bad, except occasionally one of the “pets” from Trazyn’s menagerie gets out and ends up rampaging around killing the peasants until the Necron military step in and put it down.
Although the policies of Solemnace are highly isolationist, its ruler is decidedly not. Indeed, Phaeron Trazyn the Infinite can almost be described as a xenophile of sorts. Trazyn the Infinite is a collector of all things strange in the universe, from a variety of races. Indeed, Solemnace is less a kingdom and more Trazyn’s private collection gallery and playground, with the presence of an actual government being a byproduct. When he is not ruling directly, Trazyn travels the galaxy from the shadows, looking for exotic novelties to add to his collection. “Acquiring” these novelties often requires discrete acts which many Imperial worlds would describe as “illegal” or “immoral”, but never audacious or impudent enough that the Imperium could justify declaring war against Solemnace. Indeed, if anything, Trazyn’s acts have increased in brazenness since the Necrons have begun waking en masse, now that the Imperium knows that Solemnace is not just some isolated backwater world they could crush and no one would notice.
Why has the Imperium basically grumbled and (officially) done nothing while Trazyn pilfers their territory for collectables? It basically comes down to politics. Solemnace is also notable among Tomb Worlds for its independence. When the Emperor offered the more independent and “eccentric” Necron Lords sanctuary within the Imperium, Trazyn turned him down. And at the same time, Solemnace does not obey the Silent King. Trazyn the Infinite bows his head to no one. As much as the Imperium would like to be able to turn Solemnace into a pile of space rubble, it is still one of the most powerful Tomb Worlds not under the command of the Silent King. Additionally, unlike most Necron Phaerons, Trazyn actually understands how his technology works, though he is not as brilliant as the most accomplished Crypteks, which would give the Imperium valuable insight into Necron technology. As a result, Solemnace would be a powerful asset, and the Imperium believes that given his habits if Trazyn was forced to choose between Imperium and the Necron Empire Trazyn would probably side with the Imperium (they’d probably be right). The issue is that Trazyn has never been put in a situation where he would be forced to show his hand.
Medusa
Medusa is a world wrapped in a mystery wrapped in an enigma. During the Dark Age of Technology, the planet was a beacon of mining and industry, the source of raw material for so many technological wonders and a key manufacturing world for the Men of Iron. As a result, Medusa became one of the most famous worlds in the Golden Age human empire. During the Age of Strife, even as the knowledge of other planets faded in the minds of man, the memory of Medusa persisted, especially among the Mechanicum of Mars.
When the Steward announced the beginnings of the Great Crusade and sent the remaining legions forth from Sol, the planet of Medusa was high on the priority list of primarch Ferrus Manus. Indeed, it would fair to say he almost beelined for it. However, when Iron Hands had arrived at Medusa, they were thoroughly disappointed by what they had found. The legendary Telstarax that had been built around Medusa during the Dark Age of Technology to bring its mineral riches to the stars was still there, but the planet itself was almost unrecognizable, its surface primarily having the appearance of cracked pavement and colored a dull, ashen grey.
Perhaps the most salient feature of Medusa are the miles-high, hive-sized machines that dot its surface. These machines stand on a multitude of legs several thousand feet above the ground, looking like thunderclouds in the distance when viewed at ground level. These machines are best described as terraformers, though they are to modern terraforming methods what a stick of dynamite is to a cyclonic torpedo. The Imperium is capable of terraforming a planet, but this usually involves methods that are subtle and slow. The introduction of pioneer species by the Biologicus, the tweaking of the atmosphere by the Mechanicus, perhaps the diversion of the orbit of a comet by a farseer at the most spectacular. These machines, on the other hand, are something else entirely. Entire mountain ranges are thrust up or ground to dust seemingly at random, seas drained and refilled. In their wake the terraforming machines leave fast-growing grasses or alga, the source of the atmosphere on Medusa as well as its inhabitants primary source of food. And then, once the landscape is completely sculpted, the walking mountains turn around and do it again, as if unsatisfied with their previous work.
For obvious reasons, the Mechanicus has become obsessed with understanding the secrets of these great machines. Although there little remains permanent on the surface of Medusa, the great machines certainly are, and the Mechanicus has repeatedly funded expeditions to explore the interiors of these machines for ancient technology. These expeditions have met with mixed success. Although a few have escaped with amazing technological discoveries, more have unleashed technological monstrosities upon the surface of Medusa, or, more often, simply not come out at all. The machines seem to be violently opposed to anyone trying to interfere with their singular task, regardless of the intent. All attempts at communicating with these machines have failed. There is no intellect there, either human or Iron Mind. These machines are no more intelligent than the dimmest of servitors, running on the simplest of code to continually reshape the world at the whims of a master at least ten thousand years dead.
Because of the presence of these great terraformers, sedentary life in most parts of Medusa is hazardous as best. What may be a mountain range one year can be at the bottom of the ocean the next, and vice versa. As a result, most of the population of Medusa live a nomadic lifestyle aboard giant land-crawlers in the trackless wastes, constantly following in the wake of the great machines like pilot fish following a shark. And yet, there are some parts of Medusa that remain untouched, despite 25,000 years of terraforming. It is unknown why these locations in particular are avoided by the terraformers. Some have suggested that these places were intentionally set aside by the programmers of the machines, to serve as the later sites of cities, but no completely satisfying answer has been found. Some of these locations, upon further inspection, have turned out to be underground facilities dating to the Dark Age of technology, whereas others appear to simply be empty space. Chief among these are the Seven Cities of Sanctuary, the only place in which civilized life as traditionally envisioned is possible on Medusa. These places are centers of trade and commerce, where nomads exchange mineral deposits and ancient pieces of technology tilled up by the terraformers with offworlders.
If there is any positive aspect about Medusa it is that the planet does not take well to invaders. In the past, when the planet was invaded and the great machines came under attack by the forces of Chaos, the behavior of the terraformers suddenly changed, devoting their internal manufactorums to producing technological horrors that were unleashed screaming upon the invaders, volkite beams firing into the sky. However, the Medusans are not under the delusion that these machines are there to protect them. Although the machines ignore the native Medusans, if one so much as touches one of these drones the machines turn on them, ancient defensive programming classifying attempts at tactile communication as a threat. However, machines that fall in the defense of Medusa are highly valuable, as the giant terraformers seem to ignore their dead creations where they fall and these machines are often manufactured with lost Dark Age technology. Dark Age technology, whether from the surface or from the Telstarax, is the primary export of Medusa, and the currency to which it pays its tithe to the Imperium.
Fenris
Contrary to popular belief, Fenris isn’t populated by barbarians. The people of Fenris may be grizzled, bad tempered tribals, but they aren’t savages.
According to the Adeptus Administratum, Fenris is officially classified as an Agri/Death World with a single fortified hive city. The Fang (or Aett in native Fenrisian) is, or really was, the name of the mountain that the fortress was originally built on because Leman Russ had a limited imagination. Fang Mountain no longer really exists in a conventional sense as it has been built on, under and hollowed out to the point that it can no longer be considered a natural formation so much as a fortified Hive that kind of looks like a mountain. It was not, despite many claims to the contrary, one of Perturabo's designs although it may have been influenced in the later stages of its formation.
The Fang is sparsely populated for a hive as its main job is to serve the Chapter as a storage house, habitation between missions, training ground, hospital and general headquarters. In times when Fenris itself comes under direct assault the empty space can be used to house most if not all of the native population.
The population of Fenris is primarily one of farmer-soldiers. Only married full citizen men are allowed to own land and you aren't allowed citizenship or the right to marriage until you do a tour in the Imperial Army or do at least ten years serving the Chapter or the PDF. Women are given full citizen status on either ten years’ service to the Chapter or upon marriage, which ever happens first. That's how it was supposed to happen according to the laws laid down by Russ. But Russ has been gone a long time and out in the further reaches it gets a bit lax.
The land of Fenris is pretty inhospitable and dangerous by any civilized standards. The only part of Fenris that is geologically stable is the relatively small continent of Asaheim, most of which is a cold icy wasteland with a mile thick ice sheet covering it all year round. Further from the pole there is a belt of tundra that is slightly less useless, but not massively so, and beyond that there is enough direct sunlight for conifer and fir trees to grow. This is the land of snow trolls, giant bears, and mastodons, not to mention the descendants of Leman Russ’ failed experiments back when Fenris was a top-secret black site. The Vlka Fenryka don’t mind it too much as it gives them a ready-made training ground right next to the Fang, though the land is still too dangerous for someone to try to live on. Further still is a thin layer of slightly more arable land around the coast that it is possible to grow more than enough for mere survival on. The surplus is taken by the Fang for the War Effort.
Far from Asaheim are the island nations where the climate is nicer, ranging to tropical at the equator, but the tectonic activity is more active. Some of the island arcs can last for generations, but most have a lifespan of less than two years. Life is less terrible than on Asaheim, right up till the island volcanically explodes or sinks. Such is life on Fenris. These islands with the fertile volcanic soil do provide substantially more food but are less reliable and there is always the problem of transporting it. The inhabitants of the islands are always ready to pick up and go at a moment’s notice, and island cities on Fenris look more like a flotilla of moored boats than an actual city.
The seas of Fenris are where the real good food is found. The underwater tectonic activity keeps churning up nutrients that keep the food chain going in the long elliptical orbit winters, and causes an explosion of life during the brief growing seasons. If you don't like seafood, you will either be profoundly unhappy or you can starve. Kraken is the largest thing in the oceans and is edible. It tastes oddly avian.
Wolves of Fenris
Leman Russ’ initial experiments with the Canis Helix on Fenris were, to put it bluntly, a complete disaster. Although the idea behind the Canis Helix was to augment the abilities of human soldiers with genes from other animals on Old Earth, the first trials went way too far and ended up producing creatures more beast than man. Russ was horrified by these first experiments, and tried to put the aspirants out of their misery. However, some of these experiments managed to escape and life in general has a funny way of surviving in places it’s not supposed to. Within a few generations, the harsh native ecosystem of Fenris was being dominated by a new, invasive predator. The people of Fenris may not be splice descendants, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any around.
Most people who know the origin of the Wolves of Fenris often expect them to look like merely hairy humans, or at least something that can reasonably be described as humanoid. This is not the case. Your average Fenris Wolf weighs somewhere between 500 and 600 kilograms (over 1000 pounds), and has a skull nearly a meter in length. Fenris wolves will actually grow in size throughout their entire lives, which is thought to be an indicator of their super-soldier ancestry, artificial genes used to promote muscle and bone development being re-purposed for continuous growth. Their canine teeth have distinct knife-like edges, resembling a monkey more than a wolf, and their front limbs are disturbingly human-like with dexterous opposable thumbs despite primarily walking on all fours. The overall body shape of a Fenrisian wolf is more like a cross between a wolf, bear, and a lion rather than a straight wolf, allowing them to grapple with enemies or climb low branches in search of prey. There are some human traits remaining, such as their eerily human eyes with white sclera, but one would be hard-pressed to see them.
It’s not clear how intelligent the Fenrisian wolves really are. It is clear they are clever, moreso than any non-human organism on Old Earth, but the question is are they only intelligent as, say, Primeval Beastmen or are they really more intelligent than they appear and merely limited by their lack of ability to communicate. At the very least, the fact that Fenrisian Wolves are easily tamed and are capable of performing complex behaviors that an animal like a dog isn’t capable of suggests there is something going on in their brains. The Adeptus Biologicus would love to try to uplift the Fenris wolves back to sapience like the Beastmen and the Ogryn, but they’re worried any attempt to do so would blow back on the people of Fenris because of how genetically close the two are.
The people of Fenris venerate the Fenrisian wolf above all other creatures because out of all the animals on Fenris it alone represents all the virtues of man. Like humans, the Fenris wolf is clever, strong, brave, loyal, and stubborn, all at the same time. The fact that they behave this way because they are actually abhumans rather than actual animals is something that is either not well known among the people of Fenris or glossed over, especially since Leman Russ made sure that wasn’t common knowledge in the first place.
Fenrisian Colonies
Following the War of the Beast, the primarch Leman Russ ran into a problem. Although he had managed to stabilize the Canis Helix augmentation into a viable form for military use, he had only managed to do so for people with specific genetic markers from the planet of Fenris. Fenris was an ideal place to conduct secret black site military experiments, but it was a terrible place to try to build a civilization. There was very little arable land on the planet, meaning that most of the food on the planet had to come from the rather dangerous sea. What's more, the only place that infrastructure could be reliably built on the geologically unstably Fenris was on the relatively small continent of Asaheim, which housed both the Vlka Fenryka's main base of operations as well as the majority of the population of Fenris. As a result, if any enemy were to attack Fenris, they could easily cripple the Vlka Fenryka's ability to fight and recruit new troops in a single swoop.
If the fate of the Vlka Fenryka was to be tied to the people of Fenris, the solution, therefore, was make more Fenrises. If the galaxy could not come to Fenris, Russ would bring Fenris to the galaxy. Leman Russ broached this idea of creating Fenrisian colonies to the Steward, who despite his reluctance nevertheless agreed to the idea. The people of Fenris, for their part, were more than enthusiastic about spreading to new locales, if for no other reason than to get away from their Death World of a home. Initially there were but eight Fenris colonies, though that number has since grown to over twenty-three. For the most part, the Fenrisians chose cold, polar worlds, reminiscent of their former home. Most human and Eldar colonists had steered clear of these worlds due to their short growing season and unforgiving climate, but to the Fenrisians they were a veritable paradise. The growing season may have been short, but at least it was possible to grow food on these worlds, rather than relying on the unpredictable sea like on Fenris.
The population of the Fenrisian Colonies has since outstripped that of its parent world by several orders of magnitude, in part because none of the colony worlds are as hostile to human life as Fenris itself. Overall, New World Fenrisians are less wild and more ordered than Old World Fenrisians, though in a one-on-one fight a New Worlder will still lose to an Old Worlder nine times out of ten. Nevertheless, the people of the Fenrisian colonies still hold Fenris in high regard, both as a matter of cultural pride and to show how far they have come. Although the Fenrisian Colonies will bicker like brothers, all still follow the Old Ways, and although they may not listen to the King of Fenris they will listen to High Priest Ulfrik the Slayer, who in turn listens to the King of Fenris.
Colchis
See Colchis
Armageddon
Armageddon is a world of steel and fire.
First, the steel. The Orks, when they took back the planet Ullanor and transformed the world into their Attack Planet, coated it entirely in armor plate and gun batteries, every former geological feature paved over, even the oceans drained for reactor coolant or simply built over with vast platforms. Ullanor gained a second crust of iron over its previous one of stone. Exactly where the Orks got all this metal is unknown, the current best guess is they used teleporters to extract it directly from the world's core or from the cores of nearby planets and asteroids.
Then, the fire. When Ollanius Pius slammed his ship at a third lightspeed into the Attack Planet and knocked it off its collision course with Old Earth, the force of impact broke the stone crust like a dropped vase. Immense volcanic fissures opened up swallowing vast sections of the gun-continents, mountains that should have taken millennia to form were thrust up in a day, the oceans rushed back to their former positions, everything not covered in lava was covered in ash.
Enough of the teleporter system survived for just long enough for the Mekboyz to hit the big red button and teleport the Attack Planet one last time.
When the Imperium re-encountered the world which had once been Ullanor, it was shattered almost beyond recognition. Vast plumes of ash carpeted the continents. The rust oceans were filled with toxic metals from flooded war machines and boiled from undersea volcanoes. The continents were speckled with standing seas of molten metal where volcanic heat met mind-boggling amounts of steel. The air consisted mainly of volcanic gasses, with occasional pockets of breathable air scattered throughout the mangled planet-spanning superstructure.
There were still Orks all over the place, of course. Fighting among each other and trying to repair machines they no longer had the WAAAAAGH-power to comprehend.
Its conquest by the Imperium was swift and thorough. The Steward, still angry and grieving over all the Beast had taken from him, lead the conquest personally, clearing the world in less than a month. He renamed it Armageddon, for what it had so nearly wrought.
Then, after the conquest came the industry. Great siphons were erected to sup metal from the molten lakes. Then factories. Mines. Hives. Mechanicus and Biologis terraformers to make the air something other than ash and acid.
Now, Armageddon is a wasteland of industry. River-deltas of liquid iron carry metal from the natural volcanic smelters to the millions of factories. Excavation machines the size of Titans carry megatons of scrap metal to the volcano-forges. Despite the best efforts of the Biologis, hardy engineered grasses spreading out over endless ash plains, gas masks and heavy protective clothing is still required outside the hives. Even the ash is made useful, mixed into concrete and exported by the millions of tons to enrich the soil of thousands of agri-worlds.
Even after ten thousand years of this there is still so much material left. Endless armor plate. Forests of macrocannon pointing into the empty sky. Hangars filled with rusted war machines stretching out to the horizon. And still so many Orks. It is traditional for the regiments of the Steel Legion to cut their teeth suppressing feral Ork populations before deploying to the wider Imperium.
Even after ten thousand years of human control, Armageddon is still in many ways an Ork world. Seen from orbit, even through the glowing scars and ash, the original shape of its structures is still dimly visible; a grinning, tusked skull.
The Craftworlds
Alaitoc
A Craftworld of contradictions, Alaitoc is both highly-regimented and highly liberated-. The reason for this is that while the majority of the Craftworld's population are highly dedicated to Eldar ideals, a sizeable minority seek freedom from their home's stifling environment. As such, its relations with the greater Imperium are also as contradictory.
Officially, Alaitoc is only marginally allied with the Imperium. While they do send small tithes of soldiers as needed, the still-proud Eldar of Alaitoc refuse to have any more dealings with mon-keigh than is strictly necessary. Their troops, even those of the lowest ranks, are notorious often treat non-Eldar of any rank with breathtaking disdain fit to rival any three hive princes one could name. An exasperated Saint Macharius was once heard to remark "Better a thousand armies of the Beast's cultists at my rear than a single Alaitoc Farseer at my side!"
The same cannot be said however, for the Rangers that Alaitoc regularly sends out, albeit unintentionally. Freed of their stifling homes, many eventually find solace in the familiar, though not as restricted, environments of other Craftworlds. More notorious however are those Rangers who find Imperial life to their liking, and in a strange, yet peculiarly Eldar way, often find themselves as obsessed with non-Eldar life as an Exarch on their path, sometimes even combining two or more cultures in their quest for freedom and reinvention. Even the most seasoned galactic traveller must take pause when they find themselves meeting "Fio'La Bork'an Rialieath, Magos Prime of Forge Alpha."
Altansar
The cursed Craftworld. The doomed Craftworld.
Altansar had the misfortune of being just far enough from the Eldar Crone Worlds to escape being instantly destroyed by the birth of Slaanesh yet not far enough away to avoid being sucked into the newly formed Eye of Terror. In those days there were no Phoenix Lords, no great armies or warriors that could protect the Craftworld from harm. The Craftworld was almost immediately besieged by the followers of Chaos following the birth of Slaanesh. Despite fighting valiantly, the walls failed, and the siege was broken. Nearly every living soul there and half of the souls in the Infinity Circuit were sacrificed to the Dark Gods, chief among them She Who Thirsts.
A couple thousand Eldar managed to escape the destruction of Altansar, including the future Phoenix Lord Maugan Ra, but by and large the Craftworld was lost.
A few years after the fall of Altansar a number of Eldar appeared on the doorstep of several Craftworlds, claiming to be refugees from the lost Altansar. The Craftworlders for their part were suspicious, but eventually decided to let the refugees in. Kin were kin, after all, and allies were few and far between in the Old Night. It proved to be a disastrous mistake. The purported refugees were really Crone Worlders, who corrupted the Craftworlds from within and made them vulnerable to attack from daemons and Chaos Eldar. The Craftworlders struck back, and although they were able to keep the corrupted Craftworlds from becoming as twisted as Altansar, they were still far too corrupted to be salvaged. In the end, the Craftworlds had to be destroyed by flying them into the nearest stars.
Today Altansar is the Craftworld of the Crone Eldar. It is a breeding ground for them. The shard of Khaine now channels Khorne through thrice-cursed blasphemous rituals and the Infinity Circuit is little more than a playground for Daemons. To this day, to even mention the name of that accursed place is said to bring bad luck.
Bel-Shammon
See Colchis
Biel-Tan
As one of the Imperium's most militiarized Craftworlds, Biel-Tan Aspect Warriors are the ones most often seen on both the battlefield and in Imperial media, with the gruff, battle-hardened Biel-Tan warrior being a staple of Imperial entertainment. Of the major Craftworlds aligned to the Imperium, the Biel-Tan are perhaps one of the most fanatical in expanding Imperial borders, seeing in the Imperium a chance to recreate the Eldar Empire of old. This has sometimes caused friction even within the Imperial military, as Biel-Tan officers regularly advise all-out offensives regardless of the state of the greater army.
One notable aspect of Biel-tan's society is the surprising amount of regard they hold for the inhabitants of Tallarn, a desert world. During the War of the Beast, a large cultist army sought ancient relics long-buried beneath Tallarn's surface. With Imperial forces being in disarray at the time, many Imperial authorities wrote offf Tallarn as lost, and prepared for an assault from that side, Cursing their new allies and their own kin for their cowardice, the Eldar of Biel-Tan rushed to Tallarn, determined to sell their lives as dearly as possible.
However, upon arrival they found the devastated Tallarni not waging a desperate war, but holding onto a bloody stalemate despite being outnumbered and outgunned. When the ferocious Eldar fell upon the cultist forces, the Tallarni were quick to take the advantage. Though their once prisitine farmworld had been turned into a vast desert, they had managed to win the respect of the Eldar. Though today the Craftworld maintains a careful distance, both socially and physically, from their adopted planet, they do make short visits in small numbers to carefully shepard the desert warriors. Most adult Tallarni know that the 'djinns' of their childhood stories are really the Imperium's major alien ally, but even their oldest generals often show more than the usual respect humans give one of the elder race.
Dorhai
Dorhai. The self-proclaimed last “pure” craftworld.
They believe that humanity is a blight on the galaxy made in sick parody of the perfect eldar form and that the other craftworlders were sick fucking degenerates for, as they see it, debasing themselves to co-found an empire with them. In their mind they are the last real people in the galaxy and everything else that claims to be a person is a wretched mockery. The Imperium tried to negotiate with Dorhai several times via both human and Eldar representatives. They stopped after Dorhai started trying to shoot their ambassadors out of the sky. The Dorhai Eldar kill “mon'keigh” elder and human alike on sight believing themselves to be the last pure elder left.
For the most part the Imperium and the rest of the Eldar were quite happy to let them sit on their craftworld and be stupid. The good thing about being retardedly isolationist is that it tends not to spread. In fact, Dorhai has actually attracted a lot of the hard-core Eldar supremacists away from other Craftworlds, to the point that Dorhai itself is no longer considered a minor Craftworld.
Then they got it into their stupid heads that Jubblowski had stolen a blessing that should have gone to an Eldar, preferably one of theirs. Stealing the favour of the gods is an insult that must be punished by death.
The assassination attempt failed, their involvement was discovered and now Dorhai is on the Imperium's shit list. There have even been rumors the Harlequins have stopped visiting them. Unfortunately, actual retaliation was deferred due to a tyranid hive fleet tearing into Ultramar.
Biel-Tan are really pushing for full on invasion and conquest of Dorhai. As far as Biel-Tan is concerned there is no Imperium, just a continuation of the Old Eldar Empire that now has a lot of humans living in it. To them the attempted murder of one of their living religious icons is more than enough to call a Holy War.
Sister-Superior Miriana Cain, daughter of Jubblowski and leader of ~150 Word Bearers, is demanding to be in the vanguard and whipping everyone into a warpath frenzy. This annoys her ambassador father who is trying to calm Biel-Tan down. Even though Dorhai may be a thorn in the Imperium’s side, it is still a Craftworld, which are known to be ridiculously hard to take down without major losses.
Il-Kaith
Craftworld Il-Kaithe has had a somewhat tumultuous relationship with the Imperium and indeed it's other craftworld kin. They are politically well in the Eldar Supremacy camp although not quite to the same degree as Dorhai. They were one of the last Craftworlds to join the Imperium, maintaining independence well into M33 and keeping humanity at arms length even after joining.
Their reasons for joining was not out of any sense of spiritual kinship, promise of trade, need of protection or the asking of the everliving and Serene Empress Isha. They joined because enough lesser craftworlds had done so that they could work through them as intermediaries so as not to have to deal with the lesser races directly.
Up until this time Il-Kaithe had been quite close with Dorhai and the two of them had been in the preliminary stages of starting some grand alliance of Pure Eldar by roping some of the Exodite worlds and lesser Craftworlds into their folly. Il-Kaithe siding with the Imperium essentially removed a great keystone from the fledgling alliance and earned Il-Kaithe an eternal blood feud with Dorhai that exists in perpetuity.
Il-Kaithe itself is located at the galactic south-west border of the Eye of Terror and has weathered storm after storm of the Great Adversary. Although they have not come under fire to the same degree as the Cadian Gate they also don't have the same defenses or resources of the Gate Worlds and so their wars have been no less desperate.
One of their points of contention with the Imperium at large was their attitudes to the Dark Eldar. They still saw them as kin. Reprehensible kin but kin nevertheless. They would send missionaries to the dark cities and trade goods and services of all kinds with many of its Kabals and Noble Houses in times of peace and try and avoid fighting them directly in times of war. This won them no friends with any in the Imperium, Eldar and human alike bar the most radical.
This has changed with the unholy marriage of Lord Vect and Queen Malys. Now, so far as they care, there are no Dark Eldar. There are only Chaos Eldar in Commorragh, the Dark City has fallen to the enemy and it's people are now not only damned but also forsaken.
The missionaries have been recalled, the trade has stopped, war is declared on what were once kin.
Although relatively few in numbers compered to the larger and more prestigious Craftworlds they are formidable. they have sat on the edge of the Eye for ten thousand years and have been far too proud to call for help. Il-Kaithe itself is an ugly mass of turrets, void shied generators, military ship yards, training grounds and other such fortifications.
Iyanden
In official records and Imperial propaganda, Iyanden is one of the most successful examples of Imperial-Eldar relations in history, a friendship won in blood and iron. And while this may be believed by the rank and file of both peoples, the truth is a little more complex than that.
Even after the marriage between the Steward (as he was still known at the time) and Isha, the Craftworld of Iyandem refused to be part of the alliance. They saw the evil that lurked in the hearts of men, and lambasted the idea of chaining their entire race to the barely-tamed, barely-evolved pseudo primates that had the gall to call itself a sentient species. Even so, they knew that angering said wild beast would only prove detrimental, so they made a deal- they would of course honour any request the Imperium would make of them, on the condition the Imperium never made any such request. Though the High Lords took great offence at this snub, they also knew that antagonizing Iyanden would risk the rest of the alliance, and so quietly backed down.
And so matters were left, Iyanden being an island of isolation in the middle of the Realm of Ultramar. Though they opened their docks for limited trade in late M36, they only did so for the handful of Rogue Traders who managed to find their home. Even then, it was only for what few luxuries the Craftworld could not provide, and would be safe for those on the Path to consume.
Then the Hive Fleets came.
Isolated as they were, Iyanden was almost engulfed by the Shadow in the Warp when they managed to send their distress signal. Even so, it said that only by miraculous guidance from the Eternal Emperor and Empress did Prince-Admiral (later Saint) Yriel manage to find the beleagured Craftworld (indeed, it is officially recorded as the Saint's first miracle). Though the rescue effort was a success, the Craftworld was left devastated, with many of its population reduced to soulstones. Even worse, the Imperial fleet that had saved them could barely spend enough time for rest and repairs, as the chitinous tide threatened to drown Ultima Segmentum. No ship could be spared to defend Iyanden, not even the most grievously wounded ones guaranteed to die pauper's deaths in the void.And so it was that Iyanden found itself making another unfair deal. They offered to make themselves a mobile dock for the Imperial Navy, on the condition that there would always be ships provided for their protection.
Today, Iyanden is so integrated into the Navy organization of Ultima Segmentum that it is officially designated a void station colony instead of a Craftworld. Sailors from a hundred member races, from a thousand times more worlds, mingle every day in bustling streets where once Eldar took quiet walks. So many ships orbit the Craftworld that at times they block the stars. And while many of the younger races and Eldar youth see this as a great thing (some even proclaim Iyanden's colours of blue and gold, the same as the Imperial Navy's, to be a sign of divine intervention), older Eldar simply sigh, and mourn the lost purity of their home as yet another casualty of the Tyranids, and they fear what the outsiders might bring in.
Malan'tai
Mymeara
- Started out as one of the largest craftworlds because being so far from the decadent homeworlds people were more willing to listen and weren't too deep in the cocaine orgy heap. - Upon the Fall and being so remote they for some time believed they were alone and the only elder survivors. - Orks attacked them mercilessly. Phoenix Lord Irillyth of the Shadow Spectres arises and manage to hold off the orks. Irillyth leads a team to try and find more eldar survivors and gets rekt by orks soon after. - Some time later the expeditionary forces of the Great Crusade catch up with them. Quite late on in the Great Crusade as this is the Eastern Fringe. - Craftworlders scream at the humans to fuck off, they are the last bastion of civilization, the last of the Eldar. - Imperials leave as requested. Some months later a joint detachment of Saim-Hann and Biel-Tan make contact properly on behalf of the young Imperium. They had tears of joy, they were not alone in the night. - Next time the orks came calling they had friends. - Currently set up shop in the middle of Tau space. They like the Tau. They feel vibrant and make the Mymearans feel young again.
Saim-Hann
The Craftworld of Saim-Hann are an anomaly in the Imperium's dealings with the Eldar. In the early days of alliance negotiations, the Eldar Seers negotiating with the High Lords insisted almost every Craftworld be given proper due and respect, even prideful ones like Biel-Tan and Iyanden. Almost every Craftworld- save for Saim-Hann. When Imperial authorities tried to find out the reason for this surprising reticence, they found out just why the Seers let them carry out the fact-finding mission in the first place.
The Saim-Hann were wild, more wild than even the humans were used to. In many of their dealings, the Eldar displayed a surprising lack of respect for Isha, calling her 'soft-bodied' and throwing the word 'gentle' like an insult. Negotiations quickly degraded, and would have broken down had not the Saim-Hann Farseer in charge of his side's negotiations noticed one of the humans taking a swig of the drinks the Eldar gave them ("You think us barbarians, mon-keigh?" one of them is reputed to have asked. "Perhaps you are right- but we are not savages."). Unlike the other Imperials present, who only took polite sips with grimaces on their faces, this giant Imperial seemed to actually enjoy his drinks. Seeing the chance for a bit of fun, the Farseer said that he would sign whatever deal the Imperials wanted, if that one man could outdrink the Farseer amd his council.
"Wasn't like I could say no, right?" Leman Russ later remarked. "I managed to outdrink the Steward while he still walked among us, I could outdrink a bunch of prissy Eldar," he would add, endearing him and his Wolves even further to Saim-Hann.
His terms were surprisingly lenient, though it did include a proviso that the Eldar stop by the Fang for a drink once in a while. Even long after Russ's disappearance, Saim-Hann warbands often stop by Fenris, and the halls of the Fang echo with tales of ribaldry and derring-do, all equal in their magnificence and unbelievability.
The Iron Storm
Eldar are typically regarded as snooty, straight-laced, and prim sorts. The archetypal interaction between eldar and human (At least in the minds of humans that have never met Eldar) is the idea of the naive if psychically potent craftworlder meeting the rough and tumble world wise human. Hijinks ensue, misunderstandings are overcome, and the human learns to appreciate the finer things, and the eldar learns to relax and stop being so stuck up.
Any particularly enamored of this popular myth are due for a terrible shock if they ever meet the Eldar of Saim-Hann. Wild, aggressive, and barely civilized, the only commonality with the popular conception of eldar is arrogance, but it is not the quiet kind of arrogance that looks down its nose at you for choosing the wrong fork at a dinner table. It's the arrogance typical of the elite that have earned their position by risking death and coming away (Mostly) unscathed. Saim-Hann seem to have a contempt for death that unsettles their peers among the craftworld eldar. Every generation since the rescue of Isha burns with jealousy at their honored forebears that had the chance to raid Nurgle's Garden, and wish for a chance to prove their worth with glorious deeds.
Saim-Hann eldar don't particularly respect humans- then again, they don't particularly respect anyone. In a way that is almost egalitarian, they do their best to insult everyone- if you can withstand the constant barrage of verbal abuse, you will find that they are, mostly, well meaning if the situation calls for it. Getting mocked mercilessly as you bleed out by the Saim-Hann warrior attempting to rescue you is an experience that few forget. And they don't spare their own kind. A Saim-Hann warrior that wrecks his jetbike from a dangerous turn can look forward to years, perhaps decades of torment from his fellows.
Perhaps this, more than the sense of adventure, explains why there are so many Saim-Hann that forsake their craftworld to join the ranks of the Path of the Outcast.
But, for those respected by the Saim-Hann, there are few better friends. Though most famously expressed by their aggressive kinship with Leman Russ's get, there are many such examples of Saim-Hann friendships forged in the heat of battle or competition. That is one of the few begrudging virtues craftworld eldar can grant the Saim-Hann, they are not sore losers. As long as the competition is fair (Or rarely, if the cheating was particularly novel or brazen) Saim-Hann shall celebrate winners.
Which explains their love of racing. Though other craftworlds lost their traditions of racing from the Fall of the Eldar in light of the scourge of Slaanesh, Saim-Hann in their typical contempt of death embraced it and kept the traditions alive. From foot races through the deserted and dangerous lost webway cities to roaring races on jetbikes across the whole of the craftworld with no concessions for traffic, even to their own star vessels between battles seeking to round a system on a single solar wind, the Saim-Hann have made an art of the race. The only thing better for Saim-Hann warriors than victory in the race is victory in battle, and they are short of neither.
And yet, there is one competition that young Saim-Hann might dream of more than battle. The infrequent Saim-Hann tradition of "the Iron Storm." An inadequate and literal translation from the Eldar language into primitive Gothic. The Administratum, forced to keep track of it to properly record the damages and fatalities, have classified it under the relatively benign name of "The Saim-Hann Transgalactic Webway Race." Survivors call it "the Suicide Ride". Saim-Hann call it a good time.
The details are sketchy- the last time an "Iron Storm" race was invoked was three hundred years ago, and each race is far from uniform, however there is a rough idea of how it is supposed to go. Rumor has it, when the auspices are right and a hero must be chosen (Or, the more cynical theorize, when Saim-Hann scrapes together enough bribes to make the famously fickle and jaded followers of the Laughing God cooperate) the Harlequins shall send invitations to the most worthy and most daring to engage in a race. All participants must provide their own vehicle, but the definition of "Vehicle" is open for the individual participant's determination. At one point, history recorded, a particularly flamboyant eldar corsair brought a voidstalker battleship to the race- he fared poorly at the terrestrial checkpoints, but he got points for style. More than that though, this race is open to everyone. This includes other craftworlds, humans, space marines, tau, ork speed freeks, dark eldar kabalites, even rarely those tainted by chaos, and at one point there was confusion if the genestealer cult that had taken over an Imperial light cruiser that drifted into the starting line counted as a participant but the situation resolved itself tidily with them self destructing.
Saim Hann runs the race with the assistance of the Harlequins, having it start at their personal webway portal "The Serpent's Mouth." Tragedy once marred their competition as an attack from Crone World eldar once took advantage of their relaxed state at the start of the race and caused horrid damage. Saim-Hann did not stop their practice, but now they arrange a formidable security net before gathering. Any that try to take advantage of the festivities to attack the Saim-Hann earn themselves a terrible enemy for the rest of their short lives.
A season long celebration opens the festivities as racers of appropriate caliber are gathered. Unlike other races held by Saim-Hann where invitations are hard to gain, this race is quite open. Half of the participants are chosen by Saim-Hann, and the other half are chosen by the Harlequins who make the entire thing possible. The only qualification is that the racers are skilled. This can lead to quite a collection of species. Orkish Speed Freeks, Dark Eldar Kabalites, Kroot maniacs, Demiurge engineers, increasingly uncomfortable humans, and rumor has it other, darker sorts can be found in the collection. For the time being, the racers find themselves in the middle of a celebration solely for their sake, rubbing shoulders and avoiding sabotage.
As this occurs, troupes of harlequins roam the webway placing observers and checkpoints inside the webway and outside. They pray to Cegorach, invoke the Cosmic Serpent, and on occasion duck bullets as inevitably the guidance of the gods lead them to set the route through some of the most dangerous places in the galaxy. Warzones, the event horizons of black holes, through a tyranid swarm fleet, scraping along the Eye of Terror. It is designed to be a remarkably lethal affair. Oftentimes through the history of Saim-Hann, there are no winners, as every competitor has lost their life.
For some, the race is a chance at prestige, the ultimate test to have one's name in a select list of immortal names that shall ring through history. However, most that accept the invitation do so with the promise of the prize- almost always unique, and priceless beyond mortal comprehension. The previous race was rumored to have as a prize a day within the famed and mysterious Black Library of the Eldar, claimed by Ahriman of the Thousand Sons- though he has not yet reemerged into the public eye, people are confident he's still alive. A day is a matter of debate when it comes to the webway and warp.
Ulthwe
One of the last Craftworlds attempting to escape the Eye of Terror, Ulthwe was instead doomed to forever orbit the afterbirth of Slaanesh, pulled dangerously close to the Eye by gravitational fields. Ever since then, the Eldar of Ulthwe have fought against Chaos, though it is not a fight they face alone. The stalwart warriors of Cadia can often be found back-to-back with Ulthwe Eldar, and their Kasrkin train alongside Aspect Warriors and Exarchs.
Like Biel-Tan, Ulthwe has found itself admiring the humans with whom they shed blood together, even moreso since they've been doing so since the Eye of Terror was formed, before even the alliance. These ties have only grown stronger since; it is said that the average Cadian will know how to strip his gun before they are 10 and learn to swear in Eldar by 15. Despite the facetiousness of that claim, it is true that Cadians are generally adept in both Eldar customs and language at amazingly young ages, with only the highest reaches of both being beyond human grasp as they require subtle psychic signals only Eldar are capable of. Many Ulthwe Eldar even prefer the harsh utilitarianism of Imperial equipment as opposed to the grace of Eldar technology, and it is not uncommon to see Ulthwe Guardians wearing adapted flak armour and fatigues on campaign. In exceptional circumstances, Ulthwe Eldar have even served directly in the Cadian Guard, often to great acclaim- the career of Farseer-Colonel Taldeer of the Cadian 412th (later the 1st Kronus Liberators) is the most well-known example, one that is often compared to the career of Commissar-Colonel Gaunt.
Incidentally, the most Eldar-human couplings on record are those between Ulthwe Eldar and Cadian humans, and while no children have been recorded as resulting from these unions, many such married couples assure those who ask delicately that it is not due to lack of trying.