Setting:Cloudburst/Cygnmo

System
Galactic Position	Cloudburst Sector, Delving Subsector
System Overlord	None
Worlds in the system	Two, one habitable
World Type, Name	Feral World: Cygnmo
Tropospheric Composition	Nitrogen 78%, Oxygen 20%, Argon 1%, Water 1%, Carbon gasses .01%
Religion	Holy Emperor Star Cult
Government type	Primitive
Planetary Governor	No
Adept Presence	Adeptus Administratum, Adeptus Ministorum, Adeptus Mechanicus, Adeptus Arbites
Climate	Cygnmo has periodic ice storms that follow the planet’s long day cycle, stretching from the equator to the polar circles, but is largely desert or pine forest
Geography	1.9 times the size of Terra, with thin topsoil and rocky formations jutting from the oceans
Gravity	1.11 Terran Gravity
Day Length	26 Terran Hours
Economy	Local scrip
Principal Exports	Timber, Gravel, Textiles, Natural Gas
Principal Imports	Machined Parts, Plastic
Countries and Continents	Eight continents, roughly seven hundred small nations
Military	Celestial Guard barracks, Cygnmo Warbeasts (low quality PDF)
Contact with other Systems	Almost none
Tithe Grade	Aptus Non
Population	11,000,000

Description

As the fleets of Explorators and Rogue Traders aplenty scoured the worlds of the Oldlight Proximate Circuit, patterns emerged at once. Within solar months of the Gold Rush One beginning, these explorers found worlds with clear signs of human occupation in their past, or even some worlds that had whole populations that had since reverted to barbarism. Cygnmo falls into the latter category. Although there are some worlds in the Cloudburst Sector that have allowed their technology levels to rise since contacting the Imperium, Cygnmo has steadfastly refused to allow modernity to pierce their traditionalism. The onset of the Glasians may well bring about a change in this attitude, however.

The Cygnmen are a hardy and self-reliant force. The Technofetishism and bland autocracy of the Imperium do not appeal to them in any way. Although the population of the world has gained more Cloudburst-like traits over time, largely as a result of Celestial Guard barracks troops taking local spouses or going native, the hundreds of feral tribes of the world refuse over and over to be more active in the greater Imperium. It is easy to understand why, looking at the world’s magnificent vistas, endless resources, and strong mystical traditions. Cygnmo has withstood plagues, the passage of millennia, Imperial colonization, and its own downfall, but their bone-deep stubbornness lingers.

For thousands of years, Adeptus Ministorum priests and Missionaries have pressured the world to adapt to the Imperial Cult, and eventually succeeded. The ancient, variable mystical traditions of the people of Cygnmo faded in favor of Emperor-worship. If the Ministorum had hoped that this would yield more Imperium-friendly conduct in the natives, however, they were sorely disappointed when the opposite occurred.

Cygnmen have a long history of valuing pride and military independence over cooperation. Though avoiding inbreeding has necessitated some exchanges of clan grounds and women over the years, the individual clans, and the five or six individual tribes within each clan, would rather kill each other than work together.

Exceptions arise at times. Chieftains of great charisma and willpower may forge multiple clans together into a proper warband. These warbands may be allowed to run riot over the world by the Adeptae, or they may be recruited into serving as the world’s PDF as needed. Ultimately, the very mightiest of these warlords may even establish a kingdom among the clans, though these rarely outlive their first sons.

However, there is substantial evidence among the remains of these failed states that this was not always the case. Imperial archaeologists, working in the zone the greater Imperium has claimed for itself on the surface for the Celestial Guard barracks, found architecture, coinage, art, and technology that the primitive clans of the worlds could not have possibly made for themselves in their current state. Missionaries working with the nomadic tribes have also found evidence of complex religious hierarchies, a few scraps of working STC technology, and even complex sculptures of great formations of organized men in battle.

Any oral histories of what could have happened to break up this past triumph are long dead. Physical evidence, however, suggests that this organization was not the result of purely local development. To the surprise of the Missionaries and archaeologists, the Mechanicus made the fateful discovery. While excavating resource deposits in one of the great, uninhabited, rocky islands of the world’s oceans, the Mechanicus located what could only be a sign of past interplanetary presence. To their shock, the Mechanicus unearthed a fully functioning Maskos mining machine, complete with an STC manufacturing serial number dating to the late Age of Apostasy. All around it, the Mechanicus found more evidence of human work, including pre-fab housing units, laser guns, and mysterious powders in the refuse piles and trash heaps. Spectroscopy revealed that this powder was dust from Maskos’s fine sandy shores.

Eventually, the Imperial colony concluded that the world had once been approached for trading rights by Drolorium, after the Age of Strife ended but before the Imperium re-contacted Drolorium. Preliminary dating work done on the remains of the ancient Cygnmo cultural artifacts suggests the timeline is accurate. Why Drolorium left Cygnmo to its fate, nobody knows, but it clearly happened quickly, if the invaluable Maskos mining machines had to be left behind.

However, the presence of an interplanetary colony site on the planet does not, by itself, explain why the Cygnmen seem to have once had a world-spanning and successful culture of higher standards than it currently enjoys. It would suggest how that culture was initially supported, perhaps, but given that Drolorium seems to have given nothing to Cygnmo in return for its resources, it could not have sustained it indefinitely. Some newer dig sites have revealed that an even more advanced culture, with some parallels to early Imperial culture, may have once existed on the shores of the world’s great oceans, and traded with the ancient Cygnmen clans. This one appears to have been of entirely local origin, and perhaps its own collapse accelerated the decline of the majority of the worlds’ clans, as a symbiotic ecosystem fails with the loss of the largest member.

Regardless of the ancient history of the world, it is clear that the previous efforts to civilize the Cygnmen had no more success than the current Imperial effort. The Imperial Missionary and limited Administratum efforts to bring the Cygnmen into a more modern way of life have convinced only a few dozen clans of the many hundreds that existed on the world. Some clans have even attacked the Imperium for the temerity of suggesting that they may enjoy living in places with clean water and impartial law enforcement. Once the offending clans were exterminated, these raids ceased, but the underlying displeasure with the Imperial lifestyle has never gone away.

Those clans who have elected to become more normal Imperial citizens have enjoyed their decision’s fruits, at least for the most part. A modern Imperial city has sprung up in the shadows of the world’s largest mountain, and its comforts are freely available to all who dwell there. The tall electric fence that rings the city keeps out those who would not work for what they have, while a small Precinct Fortress of Arbites keeps order and trains the friendlier locals in Imperial law. What defenses the world has are generally in the hands of the permanent Celestial Guard barracks on the planet, though it is not uncommon for a tribe of overly hostile Cygnmen to be snatched up in the night and taken as defenders of the world in its notional PDF. There, they can look at great Imperial buildings and bases in astonishment and awe, and perhaps come to a better appreciation of its virtues.

To the interest of the Administratum, some of the more isolated populations of Cygnmo are developing along the same historical tracks as their ancestors. Patrilineal kingdoms of warriors, organized around a small cadre of priests and sages and led by their greatest generals, have started to conquer and absorb their neighbors. So far, no one king has emerged to rule the others, but several have managed to assemble forces of warriors that eclipse all others the Mechanicus and Ecclesiarchy have yet seen alive on Cygnmo. The Adeptus Administratum is preparing to align these uprising kings in the defense of the planet, should the Glasians come.