Vitria
Vitria was a world of the Imperium that was once called Silica VII. It would later be Nommed by the Tyranids during the events leading up to the Devastation of Baal.
History[edit]
As aforementioned, the world once called Silica VII was a Deathworld of howling sandstorms and desolate oases. The indigenous tusk-felids that roamed the dunes were so memetically lethal, that the Adeptus Terra declared the planet unfit for habitation. Which one must wonder how dangerous that place is, if Catachan of all planets is still inhabited by humans, that means this planet must have made Catachan look like a pushover. Fortunately for the Imperium, in the latter years of 165.M40, a solar flare reached out from Vitria’s sun and turned the planet’s sandy wilderness into hard black glass, killing all the tusk-felids for the humans to finally settle in. So dramatic was the transformation that the world was not only renamed, but also reclassified as habitable. Before the planet had even fully cooled, the Imperium had deleted Silica VII from its records and replaced it with Vitria, a civilised world of igneous rock and glasscre.
Though at first glance Vitria’s buildings look no different from those clustered throughout the rest of the Imperium, they conceal a lethal secret. The ruins, tumbled statues and splintered buildings that stud its cityscapes all have jagged edges as sharp as shattered glass. Because of this, Vitrian citizens are easily distinguished by their networks of scar tissue that rivals that of the goddamned Brontian Longknives and wearing of distinctive glass robes.
At some point Vitria became home to a Genestealer Cult but was subsequently eliminated by the Tempestus Scions. Soon after the Scions mission report from Vitria reaches the Commissariat, the Cryptus System is reinforced by Cadians, Sisters of Battle, and the Militarum Tempestus. The area known as the Shield of Baal — that cordon of space that protects the home world of the Blood Angels — is placed on a war footing not a moment too soon. The warnings found on Vitria prove prescient – tendrils of Hive Fleet Leviathan reach out to consume every living thing in the overpopulated Cryptus System. As soon as the Leviathan splinter fleet’s bio-ships pass through the icy shield of the Aegis Diamando, the corruption upon the capital world of Asphodex is revealed. The ruling family of Asphodex’s principal metropolis has long been corrupted by the towering Genestealer known as the Spawn of Cryptus, and its aristocracy work to undo everything the Imperial Guard has achieved. When a Blood Angels fleet from the neighboring Baal System arrives to bolster the increasingly desperate defenders, Captain Karlaen of the Archangels leads his brothers under the city in a series of escalating battles that eventually sees the Spawn of Cryptus slain and its vile brood scattered to the stars.
However in 996.M41, the world was subjected to a Tyranid invasion and annihilated. Makes you wish the tusk-felids were still around eh? It was the prelude for the Cryptus Campaign.