Gazetteer VI

Gazetteer VI – Polarnus Rising

Polarnus Station
Prospertas Sector

“By the power invested in me by the High Lords…”

Enveloped in furs and gold robes and bionics, the Ambassador of the Adeptus Terra was barely visible, a small round bald head nestled in a mane of bionics and furs, almost comically tiny in the mechanised frame that moved his frail body. His body dwarfed his assistant - a member of the Navis Nobilite though her diadem hid her third eye well. Yet, the size of his head betrayed that he could be not taller than the young woman.

Sarina Khan’s eyes glanced towards the younger woman - her robes were lined in silver and marked with the iconography of House Ailil. Terran Navis house, then.

She was not fond of ceremony - she had always stood against the weight of tradition wrapped around Battlefleet Prosperitas; the old entrenched hierarchies had always been her opposition. Yet, the Terrans brought with them millennia of entrenched traditions that had to be observed, and she did allow herself a moment of arrogant pride that they were going through it for her.

Barely sixty Terran cycles old, she was young by the standards of Officers of her position. That had often counted against her in the eyes of her Peers, but nothing had caused her so much opposition within the Navy than her own blood.

She was not of the High Guard - the Void Aristocracy. She wasn’t even considered ‘Imperial’ by birth. Her bloodline was Ruwwad, her family of native blood to the Sector. That had forced her to face years of distrust and suspicion from others, and having to hide her ability to communicate in her native dialect of Niquash, as well as playing down her parentage. That had been particularly insulting, for no one had more reason to hate the Archenemy than the Ruwwad, who had lost so much to them.

Her Great Grandfather had commanded a Refugee ship that had fled before the Storm, when the Lash had come to take her peoples’ land, ripping reality asunder – she had been born in the void to the hereditary line of Captains of that same ship. Her eldest Sister had been in line for the Captaincy, while she pursued a position in the Navy. While she had not been the first, her Mother had attempted to dissuade her from doing so; the Navy was unforgiving, her Mother had said -they will look at your birth-record and hold it against you.

Her Mother had not been wrong, but Sarina had been patient.

She was gifted, she knew that much - though she tried not to listen to her own legend too often. So, she had clawed herself up the ranks because the Navy valued one thing above blood: results.

She glanced to her side: Commodore Kiril lurked just in the corner of her vision. The Void Wolf had cleaned up especially at her personal request. Haridax had been a pirate - that meant that the Navy hated him more than her, but she’d bribed him to betray his kind, pardoned him, brought his knowledge of the void that they lacked. She was under no impression that hiring his kind of scum had not cost her politically, but decisions outside the normal entrenched views of the Navy had given her the ability to fight a much more energetic campaign.

And it had paved her way to power.

She glanced around the assembled Officers of the Crusade: she had ordered the raising of seven new regiments explicitly for this ceremony; it was all part of the political game - one hundred regiments of Imperial Guard, to honour the Old Hundred of Terra, the foundations of Imperial Army that had built the Imperium. It was a political statement to her commanders, to the Sector Governor, to her allies on Terra -that the Prosperitas Crusade would wrestle the sector from the edge of chaos.

Most of the Officers were young: the loss of so much of Crusade High Command left her in a privileged position to replace most of it. And, while she had no choice on her most senior Commanders, she had been able to stack the odds against her more hide-bound competitors.

Such as Lord-General Militant Janus. She had to keep him bedecked in medals to keep him from growing too poisonous about being outmaneuvered – he was old. Therefore, it was irrelevant if he was outstripped in the field by officers he’d once trained. Still, soon enough, she would post him as Commandant of the Military Academy on Polarnus - where he could happily live out the rest of the days as a withered old fossil, inflicting outdated strategic theory on the minds of Officer cadets.

Admiral Holtz had been a surprising ally - she had expected the ruthless Fleet Intelligence Admiral to make a play to stab her in the back, but Holtz had instead chosen to openly approach her to support her bid for power. She didn’t trust the woman one bit, but she could definitely see what she was angling for: Holtz liked her freedom and seat of power behind the throne. In order to keep the devious and ruthless viper on board Khan was more than willing to give her that flexibility.

The Ambassador, in the meantime, droned on - apparently, half-way through the incredibly long proclamation script. Inwardly, she sighed, fixing her face in a stern expression, and studiously pretending not to notice that the Terran’s long-winded speech was starting to take a toll on the arms and knees of the one hundred banner bearers of the Crusade Regiments who kneelt along the passage he had proceeded down.

She lifted her chin and turned her gaze up to the stars and the swirling gas of the Polarnus nebula above the Crusade Chapel, and settled in for the long haul.

---

“Docking clamps releasing,”

“Core Reactor spinning up to optimal void-transit levels.”

“Shield test, cycle complete, shields operating within acceptable levels.”

“Primary weapons bays prepped for engagement.”

In the hubbub of the bridges pre-launch prep, Captain Italo Raleigh lost themselves in the noise and chaos into the MIU-meld with their ship, the venerable hull of the Astral Lancer surrounded them in its presence. The ship bore the scars of being rebuilt after the Battle of Polarnus - it still remembered Raleigh but it had been wounded deeply, and those scars would take time to heal. It had taken a full team of Datasmiths to calm the Machine Spirit back to tolerable safe operation levels. There were dangers in continuing operating a MIU core after it had suffered such trauma as the Lancer, but they refused to give up on her. The ship had been with them through thick and thin, and they’d not allow the Cogsmiths lobotomise her to her production-line defaults.

They felt the stutter in the core - they blink-clicked a flash-message to the Enginseer to see to it, and then settled back into its embrace. The telltale tug of local comms directed at them flashed across their mind, and they opened the connection, “I hate to see you leave so soon, Captain Raleigh.”

A smile split Raleigh’s otherwise serene face as they stood on the bridge-pulpit, eyes closed, lips moving in silent conversation, a quirk that they’d never been quite able to stop themselves from doing, even though communication through the manifold required no words to leave their lips at all.

“Commander Henlore… Sorry I didn’t catch you before I left quarters this morning. Admiral’s orders - she feels the Lancer has been languishing in drydock long enough, and every ship is needed if we’re going to see off these invaders.”

“Not that you’d need much persuading, Captain Raleigh…” her nearness was soothing even though she was miles away from them right now - through rock and metal, high in the C&C Decks of the station. But there was a pang of concern in her voice that caused their brow to furrow.

“It’ll be alright, Nayah, it’s just a shakedown patrol. At worst, we’ll see are pirates, and if we do meet our end in the Black, we’ll have died doing what we loved. Polarnus Stands - so, be strong and wish for my return, but don’t mourn me if I don’t make anchor again… I’ll try to send word by Astropath, but you know how HighComm feels about using Astropathic channels for personal matters. I’ll need to squeeze it in alongside our usual check-in packets.”

High above, watching the Lancer advance out of dock on Pict-Feeds , Nayah swallowed an annoyed response at her lover’s blasé attitude towards their potential death in service, and nodded “You’re cleared to accelerate to match your assigned formation, Captain Raleigh. Happy hunting. Polarnus Stands…” She thought about the next few words, “...so you might have a home to return to.”

---

“I don’t know what you’re worrying about, after all. Polarnus Stan…”

“Don’t you start with that Navy nonsense, our Shan, you’re about as close to the Noble Captains of the Fleet as that fried vent-rat.. .ya rayyal – next thing we know, you’ll be off to join their war.”

“Bi sharafak, Mul. It’s our war too, you know, the God-Emperor is for Caudicans as well.”

Mul regarded his young protégé with a resigned and weary expression. True, Shan was too young to remember the Exterminatus in any detail, but she was Caudican, skin marked by the designs of his Mining Clan. The Crusade had taken from their people too much for Mul to ever consider them friends to their people.

Yet, despite the suffering of the Caudican Diaspora, the young were sucked into the good morale of the Crusade forces - the Caudican 22nd Raiders had shipped in a few weeks ago, and the youths of the Diaspora on the station had flocked to them when the recruitment call went out. Mul gritted his teeth: the Clans were diminished enough as they were, and after weathering the invasion of the station, he did not wish to lose a generation to the Imperium’s wars.

Which is why he’d accepted a work order that took him and his protégé deep into the station, away from the Regiment and its ‘noble heroes’. Deep into the bowels of the station, away from the pomp and ceremony - it would be good for the girl to get away from the enclave and the recruiters.

He spotted something in the dark, and held up his hand to get Shan to stop. She did so, balancing near-perfectly on the stitch work of beams that held up the superstructure of the section they were traversing, despite the floors having given out in the invasion.

There was a rot in the air, an unnatural stench, Mul wrinkled his nose – any jobbing vent-runner knew that scent from the briefs - and knew to report it to the up and ups who’d send flamer teams to burn it out. He listened, then glowered at Shan, “Bi shafrak, Shan, stop chewing so loudly…” she sheepishly wrapped the roasted vermin back in its greasecloth. He scowled and listened again to the dark.

“Gadz shedz humag. Quet wafflo ashek?” the voice was pained, complaining into the darkness in a tongue that Mul had only heard during the invasion - the Archenemy barbarians had been defeated, but there were still pockets of them on the station. And by the looks of it, they had had the misfortune to find one of them.

“Shh, drod zefram stumbak hadz duwu.” Or two, apparently. He gritted his teeth, and glanced to Shan who had picked up on the voices, too. They gently and gingerly inched across the beam - in the dark beneath them, a small cooking-fire flickered, lit with stolen promethium and fuelled by Emperor-knew-what. At least seven figures hunched around it in piecemeal forged armour and furs, cruel blades and brutal-looking slugweaponry hung about their persons.

Mul heard a noise, and saw the source of the stench as it stalked across the beams, eyes glittering in the firelight from below, “Asrolnat omdzor pukul siwaio aka, chumu pukul mothpraio aka.” It chittered from a rat-like mouth, though the mutant was far beyond the shape of a rat, and when met by blank terrified stares it repeated, in Low Gothic, “Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of overcoming it.”

“Run!” Mul hissed at Shan. He didn’t need to ask twice, as they sprinted across the beams away from the many-limbed rat-beast as it scuttled after them. They made it into a more intact corridor - and white-haired death rose out of the dark before them.

She was close to Shan’s age, her dark-sighted eyes glimmered in the dark. Not human - around her neck what seemed miner’s goggles. She hissed at them, “Duck!” and hurled a wicked-looking curved knives over their heads, producing a squeal from the mutant. In the same motion, she pushed them both to the sides of the corridor and sprinted past them, ducking beneath a sweep of a tentacle-laden paw and skidding between the beast’s legs. Even without stopping, she hacked into the back of the knee with another blade, before twisting about and stamping her foot in a rough kick to the side of the wounded knee. There was a sickening tearing noise of flesh.

Faster than Mul could really understand it, the white-haired girl was back up on her feet and ripping the blade she’d thrown out of the creature’s shoulder; the twin blades flickered in the air, and scissored through its neck. With a pained squeal, its head flopped to the floor, and the girl danced to one side to avoid being caught by the gushes of diseased blood,

She glanced to the Caudicans and cocked her head to one side, “They’re pack creatures, you know. You should return to nicer sections of the station, and leave the dark to us Raivans.”

Mul was staring at the abhuman, and Shan found her voice before he did, “We have a work order, brown sector, vent blockage.”

The abhuman scowled, and then gestured, “Come; the rest of my family are this way. You can use the service lift in this sector.”

The abhuman led them past other Raivans who emerged out of the dark, their blades marked with diseased blood. Mul had heard of them - a whole clan of them had arrived on the station after the siege had been lifted; mercenaries, he’d heard, but with intent to bring vengeance to the forces of the Archenemy. A family vendetta, it was rumoured. That he definitely understood as a Caudican.

“What is your name, ghyr albasharia? Why is someone as young as you here?” the abhuman glanced over her shoulder at him.

“You shouldn’t use that tongue. They do not like it. I am Shirah… and my brother died on this station, it is why we are here. Blood is answered with blood.” she clutched the second of her blades as she walked them to the gravlift, and nodded to them both. “Keep safe, do not dally too long,” she nodded to the both of them, “Polarnus Stands.”

Mul glanced back at her as he stepped into the lift and nodded back, despite himself he answered as he hit the activation button, “Polarnus Stands…” he scowled at Shan to stop smirking.

---

It did not traverse any longer, for its ocular sensors were legion, and not contained to the helmeted shell of its head. It was not ridden any longer, for while Archelaus’ mind returned to its embrace on occasion, it embraced hundreds of minds daily as the officers of its upper…decks -it had decks now -connected to it with MIUs. The Tech Priests did not bother it often, they respected the sacred machine that had been plugged into the station’s core, even if it was an unsanctioned use of non-standard parts, they had not touched it.

They dared not touch it - in its before-life it had been Şahamaran, but that shell had been rent asunder by Greenskin blades and its spirit ripped from the ruin of its chassis. It had been sold to the Serpent-Tribe that had turned their backs upon its former Rider’s Liege-House in the forgotten histories.

Where once it had been ridden only by Archelaus, many millions of human lives swarmed within it now – it was to protect them, as Archelaus had tasked it. It was to look to their lives, to cleanse its new shell of those who opposed the King-of-Kings on Terra, and to stand strong.

Where once it had been Şahamaran, now it was Polarnus Station, and it echoed the sentiment of those who spoke within its halls.

Where Şahamaran had walked noble and true, it looped the thought.

Polarnus Stands

And none would break it again.

---

They came for her, leering shapes in the dark, barbaric things, mutants…and worse…

The Inquisitorial agent had warned her that such reactions would be normal in response to the sights she had seen during the siege, but Medicae-Commander Querida Darling hadn’t been able to sleep without chem assistance in nearly two years. It was her scar to bear, and she kept it from others. It didn’t affect her performance as Station CMO, but she lived in fear that if she admitted she had those scars, the Inquisition might return to mind-wipe her, and this time there wouldn’t be a polite psyker offering her the choice not to accept it.

Rubbing sleep from her eyes, she sat up in her cot, fully dressed, and removed the auto-injector cuff from around her wrist, to counteract the sedatives in her system with stimulants to waken her. She ignored the aching sensations of the stimms dashing through her veins - a small dose deliberately, nothing she could grow dependent on.

She tied her hair back and struggled into her medicae scrubs, staring at herself in the mirror, touching her clan-markings. Maybe she should head down to the Enclave after she went off duty, have some cooking from home. She wouldn’t - there would always be the anxiety-inducing glares of those Caudicans who hated her for wearing her uniform, who resented their place in the world after the Exterminatus.

The med-ward was all but empty save a few maintenance injuries - Khan and Chandier had been pushing the docks to maximum capacity: injuries and fatalities were commonplace amongst the dockworkers in wartime - it was something you had to simply accept. Most of them were routed to the low-sec ward hospitals, but she took on what overspill she could without upsetting the vice-admiral for making less beds available for Guardsfolk or Naval personnel being offloaded off medical transports.

She checked the schedules - she wasn’t due one of those for another week or so. The Emperor’s Respite - a Hospital-ship - coming off the front at Kelper Prime. She scanned the lists of casualties, most of them, she’d be sending personnel over to assist with, or Chandier would be sending flamer-teams to give them Emperor’s mercy. They’d learned the hard way about the sickness and disease that followed in the wake of the Eye Barbarians during the siege. She wasn’t about to take chances inviting that kind of intelligent warp-born sickness onto the station again.

She flicked her fingers over the report, and flagged it to the station’s resident Inquisitor, and hoped the soulless cold man would not feel the need to rise from wherever his grim Order had made their offices in the depths of the station to ask her any questions about the list.

Then she made herself a cup of tanna and stepped into the gravlift up to the bridge.

It was, as usual, the kind of organised chaos that Chandier revelled in. The Admiral and Commandant of the Station stood above the scurrying officers in the bridge pits, as she approached carefully, balancing the two brews of expensive Valhallan leaf in her steady surgeons hands. The Admiral turned, and smiled, taking her cup and glancing back to the pict-feed of the ceremony, as Darling took in the view around the bridge.

Ceremony or not, Khan had been explicit in her orders, and there was no time taken here to indulge in the celebrations: things had to be done, and Polarnus did not stop for anyone; not even the Ambassador of the High Lords of Terra commanded enough respect to divert them from the routine of wartime.

Darling didn’t think there would ever be a time of peace on Polarnus Station in her lifetime. The station was the Imperial militaries bastion on this far frontier of the Galaxy; the politics of the Sector had ensured it had become the spiritual home of the Prosperitas Crusade - its reconquest had solidified that bond. More so than before the siege - the people who lived here, even civilians, existed to service the needs of the Crusade.

She breathed a sigh into her tea, and then smiled and straightened up, as she watched the ships moving into formation around the station.

Nightmares or not, Polarnus Stands, and long might it.

---

“By full proclamation of the High Lords of Terra, you are charged with the prosecution of The Holy Seat of the Golden Throne’s Interests in the Prosperitas Sector, and are created Warmaster of the Prosperitas Crusade, by the agreement of the God-Emperor’s most holy emissaries to walk on Sacred Terra.”

Finally. Sarina inwardly sighed, more so because even she was starting to buckle in her ceremonial dress uniform; the legal confirmation was nice, but what she really needed was to be out of the sweat heavy uniform and, quite vitally, go take a piss.

Now, the work could begin - but it wouldn’t be easy. The enemy was at the gates, and she’d have to watch her back. She had earned herself a powerful enemy in Hermione Durovera by accepting the position, and the Rogue Trader’s wrath couldn’t be underestimated.

She looked to the delegation from House Durovera standing close to the dais. They were armoured beneath their robes, as good as a declaration of the Rogue Trader’s feelings on this matter. The House had always considered the Crusade it’s project, and, despite her predecessor’s successes, these recent events and the near-total loss of order in Subsector Secundus had shown the fragility of the ‘Peace Doctrine’.

But it would be a mistake to think that Hermione was anything like her brother. While Sarina had been able to swing the High Lord’s decision on the success of her military ventures and shown she could be their blade out here on the Imperial frontier, Hermione Durovera was no velvet glove - she embodied the adamantium fist that stood out on the banners raised above the House delegation.

The Rogue Trader might be sending congratulations now, but that was simply the acknowledgement of her victory in this game of Regicide. Ambition is what had led her to snatch her Warrant of Trade from her House’s vaults, and forge into the unknown. Ambition is what had led her to come back to the Sector after her brother had turned about her House’s fortunes.

Holtz had categorised Hermione Durovera as possessed of the typical egotism born of the Nobility bordering on full-blown narcissism. She was hard-pressed to disagree. Unlike her brother’s competent governance, Lady-Captain Durovera’s ‘rule’ of the Sector had been punctuated by power-grabs and civil conflict with her noble rivals, a far cry from her brothers talk of putting aside his House’s differences with their rivals. Hermíone had spilled their blood where she could.

Sarina glanced to the delegation from House Vilas-Lobo beneath their banner of a monstrous maw; not that House Durovera’s rivals were any less contributing to this current crisis, drenched in the blood of House Majid, while courting the ignoble Rat House of Ruttyer for power.

She would be walking a dangerous line when it came to the Houses of the Prosperitas Sector. As Warmaster she might have the de facto powers to seize their worlds, their assets, and to arrest them for impeding the Crusade. But she was not so stupid as to believe her powers, though Holy in her investment as a hand of the God Emperor, could be exercised against the Houses without severe consequences.

She had neither the time nor forces to be fighting a civil war alongside a real one, and she had enough daggers at her back already, without adding the House’s assassins to those.

As she stepped into her chambers, she threw her cloak to the bed, and undid her dress uniform, hurling it in a heap for her batfolk to labour on straightening again. Walking to the view of the nebula and the war that lay beyond it, she sighed.

Before her, the fleet - her fleet - moved into formations: battlegroups going to warp on orders she’d signed hours ago under her title that could now legally be actioned.

Warmaster Sarina Khan stared out at the void, and closed her eyes, as she linked into the station’s manifold from her MIU dock, and opened comms to the vessels around Polarnus.

“Champions of the Prosperitas Crusade, this is Warmaster Sarina Khan. Today, Polarnus Stands, but it is more than that. Today, as our fleets return to the void, our ships bearing the scars of the siege of this very station; some re-forged from noble hulks of that battle. And all carry a message to the Archenemy that has sought to humble us, to take from us the iron bastion of the Prosperitas Crusade – as our forces bring ruin upon them, we let them know that today…”

She smiled to herself and set her face in a grim expression,

“Today, Polarnus Rises.”

---

Polarnus Stands.

A simple phrase that has spread far. It has many meanings. It can be simply recalling the Imperial victory in liberating Polarnus Station from the invasion by the Weeping Eye, but it can also be a byword of Imperial military defiance in the face of the Sector’s troubles, for, while Nobles bicker, locals rebel, and the Archenemy advances…

As long as Polarnus Stands, the Crusade will never fall.

A NEW WARMASTER

Despite the Rogue Trader Hermione Durovera’s best efforts to convince the High Lords to recognise her for the post through birth alone, it appears Terra has not been so disconnected from recent events in the Sector as people feared.

Despite repeated considerations to disband the Crusade, the threat to the Cadian Corridor, which allows quick reinforcements to the endless warfront of Cadia, from a resurgent Archenemy threat in the sector simply cannot be ignored by the High Lords.

Though young by Crusade standards and of native Ruwwad ethnicity, Grand Admiral Sarina Khan has been elevated to Warmaster Khan I, the first native of the Sector to hold the title.

Her position is precarious, though, much like the Inquisition in the Prosperitas Sector: she has few trustworthy and loyal allies, many of those are of political convenience, and she has her enemies in the form of Traditionalist factions of Crusade High Command, and many of the former Salient commanders who were once her peers.

Worse still, although it is not publicly acknowledged, the Nobility resent having someone in a position of supreme military power who is not one of them. Though they will court the new Warmaster they will have their knives out for her. None more so than House Durovera, who have taken Terra’s decision as an affront to their honour.

Without aid or allies, Khan could fall to treachery faster than the Archenemy can reach her.

The Ordos Prosperitas, the sector Inquisitorial Conclave’s new chosen title for themselves, has chosen to back Khan privately, and has instructed all Agents to cooperate with the Warmaster’s office to the best of their abilities.

Inquisitor Corvinus, current Inquisitor-Militant and the Ordos Prosperitas’ highest liaison to the Crusade, has moved his offices to Polarnus Station where quiet reconstruction has begun on the Inquisitorial Blacksite located there. Agents wanting to present themselves to the Crusade are requested to liaise with his office before approaching High Command.

Polarnus Station

In the aftermath of the siege, and the actions of the characters who liberated the station, events have firmly swung Polarnus into the hands of the Crusade - while it was already the centre of Crusade Operations before the siege, it is now the heart and soul of the Crusade. The native Polarnans alongside immigrant populations like the Caudicans have almost entirely found their businesses focused on servicing the Crusade’s needs. With the Blue Fin Syndicate largely decimated in the siege, new Guilds have risen to meet the needs of the Crusade - though many older Caudicans, who bear the bitter scars of the Exterminatus of their world, resent this invasive military presence, there are still younger generations eager to exploit opportunities for wealth or in service to the Crusade.

The scars and holdouts of the siege are far from over - over a year since the end of the siege, there are still holdouts of mutants and archenemy forces scattered through the station, though they are scattered splinters at this stage, Crusade forces are still methodically purging the station of the Archenemy’s detritus.

With this ongoing campaign, new arrivals come in the form of a family-tribe of the abhuman Raivans, who lost a brother and son to the siege, and who have pledged their services to hunting down what remains of the Archenemy on the station.

No longer ruled by a triumvirate, the station’s rule comes under Station Commandant Admiral Chandier who has done her best to balance the concerns of the civilian population with the needs of the Crusade.

EMISSARIES OF TERRA

Emmissarius-Palantine Sylas Derrig Soren van Boren de Toombes, Envoy First Class, Servant of the Master of the Adeptus Administratum, Scion of House Boren de Toombes, Bearer of the Voice of the Throne – has arrived in the Prosperitas Sector. Though his initial duties were to invest Warmaster Khan in her position, he has yet to return to Terra - instead travelling from Polarnus Station to Duroverum where he has taken residence in the Governor's Palace, establishing an ‘embassy’ of Terra on the Capitol World of the Sector.

Perhaps a bit more perplexing to those Inquisitorial agents who were aboard the St Sanguinius, is his companion and aide - a Navigator who may be familiar to some: Lady Anwyeth Ailil of House Ailil of the Navis Nobilite, one of the Terran Houses closest to the Paternova of the Navis Nobilite – and chosen hand of that High Lord. Lady Anwyeth’s true nature appears to come as a surprise to most of the Ordos Prosperitas, who were unaware that Terra had sent agents ahead of the arrival of Lord-Inquisitor Aetos and the Emmissarius-Palantine.

With the chaos and degradation of the Navigator bloodlines of the Prosperitas Sector, it appears that the Paternova wishes the establishment of new blood on the frontier, and it is House Allil’s duty to guide the foundation of new Navigator bloodlines, an essential thing for the survival of the Sector.

MAJOR UPDATE – CRUSADE FORCES AND NEW SALIENTS

The Loyal One Hundred

Only a few of the worlds in the Prosperitas Sector have suitable population densities to pay Crusade tithes in any reasonable fashion - most provide a slow trickle of recruits to existing regiments and new Foundings have been slow to be risen to replace the regiments destroyed over the course of the Crusade. Most worlds of the sector simply cannot sustain the population loss associated with a founding, and remain productive.

As part of her investment in the post of Warmaster, Khan has reinforced the Crusade with seven new regiments - bringing the total number of regiments fighting for the Crusade to one hundred. Such a founding is unprecedented, and that it has been accomplished is no mean feat of the Departmento Munitorum to undertake in the months they have had to enact such an order. These ‘shinies’ are a combination of void-born detritus, a hodge-podge assembled from multiple near-destroyed regiments pulled from distant frontiers, and four fresh Foundings from the core worlds of the Prosperitas Sector.

In truth, there are now arguably over one hundred regiments in the Sector, but the auxillia regiments of Abhumans are not traditionally counted as ‘Imperial Guard’ for the purposes of accounting.

Other Forces

With the ongoing Ecclesiarchy civil conflict regarding the apostate Cardinal Grulge, the Battle Sisters of the Order of His Sanguine Tears find themselves hard-pressed to meaningfully contribute to the Prosperitas Crusade in any more than small numbers. Forced to pursue their primary duties as defenders of the Faith, their forces are tied up protecting priests from renegade members of the Fidelis Templar, and otherwise prosecuting that internal ecclesiarchy conflict to unseat the renegade Cardinal.

The Astartes of the Void Hounds and Sable Knives are more reliable allies, though the latter seems to studiously avoid warfronts where the savage Hounds deploy their forces. Either through rivalry or some unknown history it seems the Sable Knives are in no rush to meet their fellow Astartes on the battlefield, or otherwise. Neither Chapter seems to be present in significant enough numbers to deploy an awe-inspiring battle company, but even a squad of such warriors serves as a vital asset in these dark times.

The Taghmata Omnissiah the fighting forces of the Adeptus Mechanicus, seem oddly focused upon the planet of Henlock where most of their forces are currently focused against the Sovereign Order and its Dark Mechanicus supporters, and nothing seems to be able to draw them away.

New Salients

With the disbandment of multiple battlegroups and the end of certain campaigns, Warmaster Khan has re-organised her battlegroups into three simplified salient commands; Cerastes, Hydros and Jaculus.

Though they have their own commanders, the twin commands of Cerastes and Hydros Salients fall under the oversight of the Head of Crusade Intelligence, Admiral, Ridea Holtz, who has overall of what is now the heavily splintered Subsector Secundus front. Both Salients in this region are aided by the mysterious Astartes of the Sable Knives who roam between the two Salients striking where their forces matter most.

The wider Secundus front is threatened by insurgent warfare, but most importantly, the Sovereign Order (see: new threats) the resurgent Regency remnant that has risen to face the Imperium.

Cerastes Salient

Cerastes is the central Salient of the Crusade, pushing out into the space around Helaerus III, following the fall and corruption of the tropical world of Olethros Secunda by the forces of the Sovereign Order. The Machine War of Henlock falls under this theatre, but, following the pull-back of Imperial forces from the planet in the aftermath of the arrival of Sovereign Order fleets from the Rimward marches, has left that a conflict largely prosecuted by the more-than-capable Taghmata Omnissiah of the Three Forges.

Command of the Salient falls to General Adora Astara, who earned her position by her swift actions negotiating Mechanicum aid for the retaking of Henlock. Though she has pulled from that theatre, she retains the respect of the Adeptus Mechanicus, which has enabled her to better mobilise their technological age elsewhere in the Salient. Inspiring, young and full of ideas, her good assets are tempered a little by a reputation for being hot-headed and a bit of a technophile - her forces are well-equipped, but some of that technology is untested and dangerous.

General Astara’s command is anchored at Helaerus III despite the ongoing battles above the planet with the Sovereign Order, though the Salient’s reserve forces keep a careful eye on the Strayvian Gateway, where Archenemy forces have previously translated from the Warp to prosecute raids on worlds including the Shrine-World of Nivalis.

Speaking of the Shrine-World, Salient command has studiously kept out of the affairs of the Ecclesiarchy as to the ongoing conflict regarding the apostate Cardinal-Emissarius Grulge. Though the Fidelis Templar fanatics who eagerly flood in front of the Salient forces are little more than a well-armed mob in comparison to the disciplined forces of the Crusade, their value as disposable and often effective troops has ensured that the Crusade has taken no strong opinion as to the future of the Cardinal-Emissiarus’ rule.

Despite her favouring of technological superiority, the planets of Shadowglow and Caracas provide General Astara with a steady flow of abhumans and primitive humans. The human Carachian tribals are not naturally given to technological advancement nor are the abhuman Ekara avian beastmen, who share their world, although the Ekara have been deployed effectively as scouts by Salient forces. The human tribals have been formed into the so-called ‘Reforged’ regiments - where the brutally strong warriors are psycho-indoctrinated and physically-enhanced into heavily muscled brutes under the watchful eye of the Magos Biologis, part of the partnership General Astara enjoys. These shock-troops have proved effective alongside the irregular Fidelis Templar for line-breaking attacks. The Raivans of Shadowglow, on the other hand, have a storied history as commandos and stealth troops, and the contingent that answers to General Astara are potent warriors.

With ongoing Archenemy assaults on Helaerus, most of the fighting on this salient is centred around Helaerus IV, as well as fleet skirmishes around Caracas and Macharion, and deeper into the subsector.

Hydros Salient

On the spinward side of the front in Subsector Secundus, the Hydro Salient has yet to really taste the full brunt of the Archenemy forces deployed by the Sovereign Order, thanks to the mysterious intervention of unknown forces at Lerwick. Its commanders do their best to prepare for the inevitable assault, with warp-routes to the vital agri-world of Midsummer, and the recovering agri-world of Persephon IV, it is imperative that they do not falter.

Command of the Salient falls to Vice-Admiral Rycus Frolan, a Naval officer of classic breeding, who straddles the line between the Traditionalist factions of the Crusade, and the newer philosophies of officers like Warmaster Khan. Frolan fancies himself a warrior philosopher, and has dedicated his life to revisiting the great works of the Imperial military. Of all the Salient commanders, he is the most ambitious, and would dearly love to be warmaster one day. By reputation, Frolan favours more traditional troops formations, and his command contains a higher-than-average number of Line Infantry regiments, alongside supporting carrier vessels to give him air superiority above a planet. Because of the higher-than-average occurrence of rebellion in the theatre, and the Rising Flame activity in the region however, Frolan has been forced to adopt counter-insurgency forces, and often liaises with the Battle Sisters of the Order of his Sanguine Tears for support on this end, given his theatre’s removal from the current Ecclesiarchy conflict.

Hydros’s command is anchored around Persephon IV, slowly stripping Crusade forces off the world as cleanup of the Greenskin invasion rolls to a slow close. The majority of these forces are bound for the fighting at Lerwick, where Rising Flame rebellion and Archenemy forces split the planet - some are sent as expeditionary forces to investigate the space around the frontier worlds of Macharion XIV and Mawson’s Wake, hunting for pirate fleets that periodically raid other worlds in this sector.

The majority of fighting in this theatre is centered around the ongoing conflict on Lerwick, but its forces still see activity fighting off pirates of human, Ork and other xenos nature, and Persephon IV serves as a perfect testing ground for regiments in supporting the ongoing cleanup of the remnants of the Ork invasion there.

Jaculus Salient

Far to the Trailing side of the Sector in Subsector Tertius, the Jaculus Salient is an independent command, far removed from the front in Subsector Secundus. Here, Imperial forces seek to stem the tide of Warp Barbarian Raiders pouring through the breach created by the fall of Kelper Prime to Archenemy assault. The combined might of the Weeping Eye and Creeping Death - both devoted to the Plague God - and their subject tribes may not be as disciplined as the Sovereign Order, but they are savage and just as devoted to their dark gods, even if their motivations are to raid Imperial worlds for the resources their planets lack.

Command of this Salient falls to Commodore Haridax Kirill, the Void Wolf - a former pirate brought under the wing of Warmaster Khan many years ago. Kirill has a dread reputation among Naval Commanders: he is seen as the enforcer of the Warmaster and few dare speak against him, despite his chequered past. Kirill is seen as the long arm of the Warmaster, directing the fighting in the Salient, he favours, as she does, the same unorthodox tactics that saw her rise so meteorically in the ranks of the Crusade. Many irregular and unusual formations operate under his Salient command, and he has no lack of compulsion of recruiting regiments of newly-freed penal-labourers from Lubyanka to do his dirty work for him. These are not the only non-traditional units, as the Void Wolf has notably bargained several strong regiments of Beastman Auxilla off the flesh-wrights of House Vilas-Lobo.

Kirill keeps his command nomadic, occasionally anchoring at Polarnus Station, where the defenses on the warp lanes into Archenemy-held Kelper Prime are solid enough to deter another assault. Because of the vital nature of Kelper Prime, the Salients forces are concentrated around Bachian IV, Agrial III and Amenophis IV, where they seek to cordon off the moments of raider vessels leaving Kelper Prime. It is the Void Wolf’s gift that he knows much of the hidden pirate havens of the region, and many an unusual truce has been bartered here to give his raider-hunting fleets the full run of Pirate regions where the Imperial Navy would otherwise be unwelcome.

The majority of fighting in this region is void-based with the Weeping Eye and Creeping Death having yet to make a significant push following their capture of Kelper Prime. To this end, Imperial strategists are anticipating they are building forces to launch a major offensive and push their realspace territory wider. Commodore Kirill prepares for the inevitable demands from the Warmaster to push back and retake Kelper Prime from the Archenemy.

MAJOR UPDATE - NEW THREATS

The Regency once ruled the Prosperitas Sector - the exact length of this rule is unknown but it could have begun as early as M.31 when contact with the Sector was lost by the Imperium. The exact structure of the Regency is a matter for study by the Ordo Hereticus, but was ruled by a group of ‘Priest-Kings’ roughly analogous to Planetary Governors of the Imperium, led, in turn,by a High Primate of the Way – but the Regency ended after the coming of Jacinta Durovera in early M.41, and the Prosperitas Crusades’ crushing victories against it. Its splintered remains were snuffed out over a hundred years ago.

Or so the Imperium believed - the crushing Imperial defeat at Henlock in 583.M41 was blamed upon a renegade chaos warband, but it was the spearhead of something vaster, something that had been licking its wounds in the wild space rim ward of the Prosperitas Sector for hundreds of years. The Sovereign Military Order of the Eight Points - also known in shorthand as the Sovereign Order - considers itself to be the living beating heart of the ‘Regency’, and refers to itself as such often. It represents an fanatically devout religious order within the Regency Miitary and the Priesthood of the Eight Sects that appears to have grown from a rotten seed of survivors of the Regency into a monstrous force. A Dark Echo of the Imperial Military and Ecclesiarchy, the Sovereign Order is a single unified threat: disciplined armies under one heretical banner determined to retake the Prosperitas Sector.

The Sovereign Order uses archaic technologies not seen in the Imperium in centuries - its technology is outdated by the Imperial standards, but it makes up for its technological weakness for its utter embrace of the warp: it goes to war supported by unnatural things, from Witches to a foul Priesthood whose prayers are answered by nightmares. The Sovereign Order is unified by one motto that expresses its drive to achieve its goals by any means, by any price; “By Strength, By Guile, By Words, By Deeds, By Bullet, By Blade, By Sorcery, By Will – though it may cost my Soul, the Way of Truth shall be restored.”

The Old Religion

The Prosperitas Sector is stained by a legacy written by tainted cults. Before the coming of the Imperium, for millennia, the worlds of the Sector were the domain of the Regency, a heretical hegemony that laboured in the belief that the Horus Heresy had actually been won by the Arch-Traitor, Horus. When the Regency collapsed before the Prosperitas Crusade, the various Priests scattered with their forbidden texts, but many ancient corrupted shrines and texts remained within the Prosperitas Sector to be uncovered, and many of the lay-preachers escaped the pyres of the Inquisition to spread their heresies and establish tainted legacies. Many Annwfyn and Ruwwad natives bitterly refer to this as the Old Religion - its legacy for their people a history of slavery to foul Priest-Kings. The name has been adopted by the Inquisition for ease of differentiating the dark faith from other Archenemy cults. For, while other cults are just dangerous, the Old Religion is formalized and, thus, even more dangerously, united by shared practices. To its followers, the collected texts and rituals of the Old Faith are simply known as the Way, a shorthand for the Way of Truth.

The Old Religion is formalised around the Eight Mystery Cults known as 'Sects': each with their own formalised rituals to gain acceptance as an 'Initiate' to, and to follow that Sect’s 'Path' to 'Truth'. Where it is more common in the wider galaxy for the Archenemy to be referred to four gods, these Sects form the priesthood of a pantheon of eight entities known as the Divine Octad - each one representing a point of the foul Eight Point Star, a foul geometry that is the most common icon of the united Archenemy across the Galaxy. Beneath these Initiates, come cultists dedicated to service to the Sect, in the hopes of induction into the Mysteries, and the truth and freedom that induction falsely promises. For hundreds of years since the Regency was shattered, the Old Religion was a recurring infection born from a religion preserved by families that concealed their ancestral ties to the Regency, tainted shrines that festered in the dark places, and forbidden texts that inspired others to pursue the Mysteries of the Way. But now, the Sovereign Order has reemerged from the rimward wild space, and many turn to the Old Religion in hope of mercy, and cult uprisings erupt to welcome the old masters of the sector home.

Warp Cults

Warp Cults are an insidious and constant threat to the Imperium. Many are insane heretics who give worship to false “gods” they claim to have seen in dreams and visions sent from realms beyond reality. These false religions bring with them unspeakable horrors, said to foster bonds with Witches and Mutants to undermine the moral security of Imperial citizens. Though rebels – and xenocults, when they occur – are no less a threat, it is the warp cults that the Imperium most swiftly brings judgement upon. No single cult is the same: some are obvious in their foulness, bringing bloodshed and plague, whereas others are more subtle corruptors and manipulators - but all serve the same horrific ends.

Helot Cults are so called because they rise amongst the Imperial populace. They are probably the most common manifestations of these, as they rely on the same falsehood to motivate Imperial citizens to follow them: ‘freedom’. As any Imperial knows, freedom is a frivolous fiction in a universe of horror; unity can only be achieved by strict control, as brutal as that may be to accept – but that still does not stop heretics promising foolish individuals’ freedom, if only they turn their backs on the God-Emperor. No one Helot cult is the same - for they are the chaotic miss-matched hordes that the name Chaos embodies. Usually, they fester for years - if not lanced by the divine light of the Ecclesiarchy or the Inquisition - growing cancerous, before declaring themselves openly. Most do not survive the retribution that follows, and are crushed by Arbites’ counter-attacks or the Inquisition’s chamber militant, for they are small and pathetic in the grand scheme of things. However, others grow so large as to overthrow entire regions, and some still survive the retribution long enough to slink into the shadows and rebuild.

The Cults of the Old Religion follow the Old Religion, also known as the Way, as noted above. The Eight Sects of this heretical faith have their own character, with each cult encountered by the Imperium largely following the same practices of that sect, no matter if they are encountered on Korimesta or Gaudium. Of all the Sects, the Inquisition is most familiar with two:

The Serpent Sect or Serpent Cult worships a collective Deity of six ‘senses’ Théama (Sight), Akróasi (Sound), Osfrisi (Smell), Géfsi (Taste), Angigma (Touch) and the sixth sense, Yperfysikós, which represents witchsight the psychic have – collectively known as the Coiling Ones. The symbology of the cult focuses around the Serpent, the concept of following a twisting ever-shifting path and deceptive dance. They worship the concept of seduction and manipulation, encouraging greed and desire to guide others to their way of thinking. They are the well-spoken corruptors; within the crowd of the faithful, the demagogues are worshipped by their followers as celebrities.

The Taloned Sect or Talons of Change were, until recently, the most significant of the Sects encountered by the Imperium. The followers of the Taloned One, a multicolored Avian entity, are infiltrators by nature, playing long games of three-dimensional Regicide. Their number prize themselves on being unknown; finding an initiate of the Sect is, in itself, part of the Mysteries of induction, as they prefer to rule from behind the throne. Though a warband bearing the Sect’s name conquered Henlock in Date, the Inquisition does not believe this was the true face of the Sect. Subsequently, this has been proven correct, as several initiates of the Talon have revealed themselves in positions of sector hierarchy, to strike suddenly or sabotage the Imperium. Locating more such Initiates is a priority to the Imperium, as they are a threat it cannot ignore - not with the recent emergence of the Sovereign Order making their acts even deadlier.

But the Old Religion is not the only foul faith that has emerged across the sector:

The Red Hand is a foul butcher-cult that worships an entity they call the Red Saint - born from the refuse of the Prosperitas Crusade, the Red Hand found purchase in the souls of those soldiers left behind by the Crusade: disbanded units never given their prize, deserters, war wounded who turned to what the cult calls the Red Lodges, to create their own support networks in the absence of Imperial ones. Here, their rage was twisted through what began as fight clubs to vent anger and turned into bloodletting and destruction - before descending into cannibalism and horror. The Red Hand is a terrorist group by its nature, but since the emergence of the Red Saint, it had targeted the Ashen Cults heedless of collateral damage. To make matters worse, through exposure to tainted blood, the Red Hand have been seen to 'baptise' innocents with foul marks that drive them into insane frothing blood-hungry monsters that are unleashed before the brutally disciplined warriors of the Cult.