Midsummer
| Name | Midsummer |
|---|---|
| |
| Sub-Sector | Primus |
| Type | Agri-World |
| Population | |
| Climate | |
| Status | Imperial |
The breadbasket of the Sector, Midsummer is a phenomanlly fertile planet. It is codified as a Feudal Agriworld, indicating the majority of the populace live beneath the standard of technology available to the Imperium as bonded serfs of the ruling nobility of the planet. The planet outputs massive amounts of agricultural product without the level of farming needed by other planets in the sector, thanks to how uniquely fast and well crops can be grown on the world. Crops that take seasons to mature on other worlds, can take a month or less to grow on Midsummer.
History
200 years ago, an Imperial colony vessel tied to the auspices of House Majid found the planet that would become known as Midsummer. Their supplies exhausted and the forbidding unmapped reaches of the Nemean Gulf awaiting them if they continued further, the ship decided to plant the Imperial flag on Midsummer. Raised to the ranks of the nobility, the family of the vessel’s commanding officer Captain Volkov were formally adopted as a cadet house of House Majid. House Volkov-Majid were granted rulership of the world they had claimed; and they rule it to this day.
It is of note that these colonists were not the first arrivals to Midsummer, the native population, a Annwfyn subculture known as the Drughu, who call the world Anadûnê - unlike on other worlds where attempts were made to socialise and assimilate local populations the Drughu were actively hostile to the Imperial colonists and over the past two hundred years have been aggressively pushed out of the more fertile lands of the planet and into hilly regions where they mostly survive through hunter-gather lifestyle and raiding Imperial settlements.
Geography
The majority of the world is comprised of vast tracts of open farmland and plains upon which a variety of crops grow with relative ease and mega-herds of food-beasts can be allowed to roam. The crops are harvested and used to feed the ever-hungry Imperium. Unlike other agri-worlds, though, the fertility of the soil and the superstitions of the local Harvest Cult have largely protected the original woodland of the world from land clearance.
There are three major cities on the planet: Middencrown, Westfall and Drunmar. The spiritual home of the planet and the seat of House Volkov is at Firstlanding, a small village at the site where the first colony vessel landed upon the planet.
The rural nature of the planet plus a underdeveloped communications infrastructure means that the majority of media intake of the populace is audio-only, with portable vox-casters being popular items in most households, allowing them to listen to planetary radio broadcasts; many farmers have them in the fields for general moral purposes.
House Volkov
The hereditary rulers of the planet, House Volkov maintain their seat on Midsummer. Ulike many Imperial Nobles, the Volkov-Majid largely forgo the use of rejuvenat treatments and the number of generations produced have ensured that the branches of this cadet-house have not had reason to war over the rights of succession. The current Regent is the grandchild of the first Regent, and the line has been unbroken thus far. Despite being from a ‘backwards’ planet and having no sector influence like their parent family House Majid, the Volkov-Majids are very wealthy - agricultural production on Midsummer leads to a surplus of supplies even after Imperial tithes are given. A portion of this is used to feed the people and keep them happy and healthy, but a not inconsiderable amount is traded via to other worlds. This has made the Volkovs incredibly ric.
Beneath the Regent and their family, the heads of the family's branches (generally siblings or siblings of the parent of the current Regent) provide the regional feudal governors of the planet, and are known on Midsummer as the Boyars. These individuals are responsible for the defence and productivity of those serfs living on the land granted to them by their title - something that gives them fair access to the not inconsiderable wealth of the family.
The Harvest Cult
The local form of the Imperial Cult is the Harvest Cult, worshipping the God-Emperor as a deity of fruitfulness and fertility. The canon of the Harvest Cult says that it was amongst the first colonists that the first visitations of the God-Emperor came; in their dreams he instructed them that they must give their lives to end the hardship. The dreamers claimed they were led to sites sacred to the God-Emperor, and there they took their own lives for the planet’s good – for their pious sacrifice, the Emperor-in-Terra (a local name) took their souls and lifted them up, and the land was blessed with fertility,the trees flourished and the crops grew.
The Harvest Cult is an example of an approved Death Cult, worshipping the Emperor through ritual willling human sacrifice. Periodically investigated by the Ministorum to ensure that it is remaining orthodox, it has so far passed all scrutiny of the Ecclesiarchy, and - despite its unusual beliefs - no trace of heresy has been found. The Inquisitorial report on the Cult calls its beliefs ‘a collective illusion to legitimise self-regulated population control’ and concluded that there was no Warp taint or risk of sorcerous influence in their rituals; the Ecclesiarchy report disapprovingly made some notes about the use of local flora as narcotics, but determined that the deviance was within tolerable norms, and the wealth of agricultural output from the world outweighed any need to upset the social order, so the Cult was given official sanctioning and freed to continue its practices with the blessing of the Ecclesiarchy.
Recent History
In late 593.M41, the peaceful existence of Midsummer was shattered by the Night of the Red Star, a Warp Storm of unexpected violence which bathed the planet in uncanny red light and unnatural warp winds. Overnight, frenzied citizens rioted, and mob violence killed thousands in the major cities and rural villages in a single bloody night. Then – just as suddenly, and little more than twelve hours after it began, the building crescendo of violence faltered and faded. Rioting citizens faltered and broke before enforcement effects; the people of Midsummer woke, covered in blood amid the wreckage of their homes, and found no answers for why.
Barely a month later, devastation came to the orbit of Midsummer as it had come to its surface. An internal dispute within House Majid saw a deadly techno-weapon unleashed; Governor Emrys Volkov, the Regent of Midsummer, agreed to risk the entire planet's orbital shuttle assets in order to effect repairs on Lady-Captain Khadija Majid's flagship, the Torchbearer, and enable her to pursue her renegade Scion, Erydia. In exchange, the Volkovs were emancipated from their vassalage and left with the remnants of House Majid's fleet and personnel; lacking a choice, the marooned nobles swore fealty to the planet’s leaders, becoming the vassal House Majid-Volkov.
This newfound autonomy and wealth is still settling on Midsummer. For most of the farmers and labourers of the sleepy planet, life goes on as it always have. They barely know that their Governor is the owner of a half-crippled fleet of the finest Rogue Trader vessels, or that their lives were a bare hairsbreadth away from being swallowed into a devastating Warp Storm; they have busily rebuilt their sheds, re-harnessed their grox and returned to plowing their fields, confident that the Emperor-in-Terra watches over them.