Nivalis
| Name | Nivalis |
|---|---|
| |
| Sub-Sector | Primus |
| Type | Shrine World |
| Population | 3.5 billion |
| Climate | Subarctic |
| Status | Non-Compliant, Temple of the Saviour Emperor Control |
“We arrived deep in local winter and stayed for nearly a week. C complained, of course – unpredictable ground, foul weather, all the usual Voidborn grumbles. Secretly I think he was as impressed as I was by the capital. The holy statues are too vast to comprehend, even for someone used to Navy ships. More like mountains than artefacts. Went hunting in hill forests – unsuccessful but hugely enjoyable; hired snow gear from native guide, wasted a lot of ammunition. Local wildlife faster than expected!” – Travel Diary of Lucius di Firro, 575.M41
About Nivalis
Nivalis is an inhospitable but beautiful planet just far enough inside its sun’s orbit to avoid the designation of Ice World. The habitable zone on the planet is restricted to a mountainous strip a few hundred kilometres wide at the Equator, with the rest of the planet locked in permanent glacial cold. Settlement on Nivalis was well-established prior to the arrival of the Imperium - the mountainous regions were home to a hardy, hospitable breed of Ruwwad who greatly prize physical courage and cunning. Their favoured hobby is hunting, and anyone of birth or breeding on the planet is expected to prove their worth by tracking and killing one of the many dangerous mountain beasts. Native Nivalian Mountain Folk view the wearing of furs, or jewellery made from the teeth or claws of one’s kills, as a status symbol, and tend to look down on those who do not wear them.
But alongside this hunting culture the Nivalian Mountain Folk or Qawm’Aljibal also were a deeply spiritual culture even before the arrival of the Imperial Cult to their world. For millennia the Qawm’Aljibal maintained what some Ecclesiarchy scholars have suggested is some protoform of the Imperial Cult defending mountaintop shrines from Regency attempts to stamp out their beliefs. The Qawm’Aljibal religion venerates the healing of the body as an important part of their practices and as such many of the Temples in the mountains have maintained datastacks filled with millennia of accumulated Ruwwadi medicae lore. The Bayt Alshifa' (Houses of Healing) in the planets Western Hemisphere appear to be the center of this pre-Imperial Cult where the mountain meltwater filters though salt veins within a set of natural cave systems to form saltwater pools considered to useful for hydrotherapy on patients recovering from injuries.
When the Imperium arrived on Nivalis on the 300’s.M41 the Qawm’Aljibal were at first eager to accommodate the new arrivals. Initial integration of their Priesthood into the Ecclesiarchy by the Missionarius Galactica was not hard, like most of the Ruwwadi the Qawm’Aljibal religion claims to have been influenced by a non-binary Philosopher-Healer figure, carvings in some of the more venerated mountain shrines talk of lessons taught by this figure of a distant godlike beacon of hope and life on the birthworld of humanity, and that worship was easy enough to coopt towards Ecclesiastic integration.
Initial Imperial settlement of the world began in earnest towards the 350’s.M41 - the Qawm’Aljibal had for millennia relied on the integration of small mountainside, cave and cliffside townships to exist as settlement within the mountains as the lowland plains before the icy tundra had made those few who had attempted to establish settlements there vulnerable to Regency raids. With the drawing of the Imperial era for Nivalis, Imperial colonists began to establish settlements in these unsettled lowlands which rapidly, with the aid of Imperial industry, grew into sprawling settlements and the first cities on Nivalis in its history sprung up under Imperial rule.
As the Imperial presence on Nivalis became more prevalent, so too did its shrines attract more and more attention from pilgrims and the Ecclesiarchy. The influence of the more traditional Ecclesiarchy priesthood began to swell on the world during the century between 400-500.M41. Travellers and pilgrims said that every valley and secluded peak boasts its own shrine to the God-Emperor and His saints, and so the Ecclesiarchy began to make it so co-opting Qawm’Aljibal shrines to house sacred relics, recarving statues and in a few particular instances laser-carving entire peaks into likenesses of the God-Emperor and Heroes of the Imperium.
The constant presence of pilgrims travelling to and from the planet led to extensive development in the urban centres. The planetary capital and many secondary cities boast all the facilities that the discerning and pious citizen might need, and there is an extensive transport network connecting the most popular pilgrimage sites. In happier times, it was said that one could walk into a cathedral in the capital and find worshippers from every world in the Sector at prayer together. Though it is easy to categorise the riots of 584.M41 as the events that changed the world, tensions on Nivalis had been growing for centuries before that, Qawm’Aljibal found themselves increasingly marginalised by intrusive pilgrims and off-world Priests who sought to alter their sacred places. The Ruwwadi are not known for being resistant to change, but what they objected to was the intrusive and disrespectful nature of this development, many of it designed to entice pilgrims to shrines that had stood for centuries without need of alteration. They viewed the practice as grubby, and based on economical and not spiritual concerns by the Priesthood in the lowlands. Pilgrims were often rude, and outright hostile towards the Qawm’Aljibal, and the balance of respect the Qawm’Aljibal held with the initial colonists began to slip towards tension - riots and violence had begun to pick up long before the events that would happen later. Life on Nivalis prior to Ecclesiarchy, and later Temple of the Saviour Emperor, takeover was one of three lifestyles;
The Qawm’Aljibal living in the mountains were, where the Imperium did not intrude into their spaces, relatively content maintaining a culture described in detail above that had lasted millennia, hunting and trapping and existing between limited mountain settlement and some nomadic lifestyle following the movement of native fauna. But they experienced extreme inequality, the Imperium did little to enhance their lives, and where Qawm’Aljibal were enticed to move towards the lowland cities to look for work they found themselves treated as second class citizens and very little space for their culture alongside that of Imperial Colonists.
The majority of permanent Imperial Colonists on the other hand were relatively wealthy, their reliance on a pilgrim-driven economy and their success in encouraging Ecclesiarchy investment in their world drove a massive influx of wealth to the cities. Many Houses and Guilds of Nivalis were amongst the wealthiest minor nobles in the Sector, lifestyle in the Colonial districts was above-average for the Prosperitas Sector with even the most lowborn colonists enjoying a good standard of living and a relatively safe and stable environment. Historical cultural intermingling long with the Qawm’Aljibal meant that furs were prominent parts of Nivalian Colonial fashion and served often as a point of strong contact between those mindful of the mountain folk’s situation prior to the collapse of order on the world. Nivalian Colonists do have a reputation for hardiness against the icy temperatures of their home and a similar spirituality and tendency towards medicae arts due to initial relationships with the Qawm’Aljibal resulting in the sharing of medicare data, and indeed up until its destruction in the rioting of 584.M41 the Nivalian capitol held a very respected Medicae Schola. Perhaps most importantly they were graced with the formal planetary estate of House De Sousa and a fairly substantial Navigator Enclave existed here.
Pilgrims on the other hand were a much more problematic influence for both societies that already existed on Nivalis, bringing with them their outside problems, prejudices, demands, and a willingness for violent confrontation with those who did not, in their eyes, hold their beliefs. For the Colonists these problems were contained to the Pilgrims Quarters of the city where most were lodged before they set out to the shrines of the mountains after spending their coin on the Colonial businesses created to enable their journeys. But the Qawm’Aljibal found them to be intrusive, the paths up to the Bayt Alshifa’ had long begun to suffer from erosion from heavy pilgrim traffic and tensions had already developed between the Priesthood there and their Ecclesiarchy superiors over accommodating guests not in need of medical care who simply wished to ‘experience’ the halls of their Temple.
The Planetary Riots – 584.M41
All sense of balance on Nivalis’ came to an abrupt end in 584.M41 though, as noted above, tensions with the Qawm’Aljibal had been growing for some time. Inquisitorial records confirm that House De Sousa had long housed members of the Navigator Diaspora amongst their guests on Nivalis and through inaction and innocence had given a festering Navigator Warp Cult sanctuary. During the traditional annual Candlemass celebrations this cult interrupted festivities, murdering the Arch-Confessor of Nivalis, Danic Vitalus, the Cultists attempted to bring about some form of warp disturbance, they were stopped at cost by the Inquisition. It is now believed by the Inquisition that a heretical cabal was responsible for encouraging this situation to spiral out of control in order to lay the grounds for the arrival of the Temple of the Saviour Emperor as a result of the chaos that followed.
In the wake of Arch-Confessor Vitalus' murder and the warp disturbance on the planetary surface a wave of psychic disruption washed out into the sleeping minds of the planet setting many humours unbalanced. Exacerbated by the unsanctioned broadcast of violent scenes from the epicenter of the chaos, riots spread in an uncontrolled wave across the planet, taking the meagre Planetary Defence Force by surprise and shattering the once-peaceful planet into civil conflict. Prejudices magnified by psychic unease Pilgrims marched on the Navigator Quarter in the planetary capitol and raised it to the ground, before focusing their attention on the Qawm’Aljibal as the next sources of their paranoid fears. This was the final straw for many Qawm’Aljibal many of who outright declared secession from the Imperium in reaction to these unprovoked assaults.
Fearing the loss of such an important religious site and source of wealth and income in the frontier sector, the Ecclesiarchy formally requested the aid of the Adepta Sororitas to suppress and control the unrest, with the Convent Primary on Ophelia IV sending a detachment of Sorors from the Order of our Martyred Lady to engage in counterinsurgency operations.
While engaged in counterinsurgency and stabilisation, the Sisters reported a miracle whose echoes are still felt in the religious and political hierarchies of the Sector. Every statue of the God-Emperor on the planet, from tiny household icons to the kilometre-high colossus at the heart of the planetary capital, was witnessed to weep tears of blood. In the wake of this miracle, the Sisters engaged in offensive operations to return Nivalis to order with a bloodthirsty piety unlike anything seen before on the planet - this act would lead to their establishment of a permanent Covent-Garrison on Nivalis and the formation of the Minor Order of His Sanguine Tears to maintain the peace on the world.
But with this brutal suppression of the riots on Nivalis, came the final step in securing Ecclesiarchy influence over the planet transforming it into a Shrine World fully under the heel of Ecclesiarchy rule represented by the arrival of then Cardinal-Emissarius Grulge who anchored the sector Priesthood on Nivalis and transformed its Capitol into what is now called the 'Temple City' as much of his rebuilding efforts transformed the central districts of the Capitol into an immense Temple to the God-Emperor and his seat of power.
Grulge's rule was not only disturbing for the Qawm’Aljibal, who found practices tolerated previously now considered to be on the borders of heretical by the conservative Priesthood and Sorors that surrounded Grulge and formed his hand in planetary affairs - but for many of the well-established Imperial Colonists who found their relatively benign Planetary Government replaced by hardline religious rule.
Though ongoing civil conflict was suppressed – often brutally – a planetary insurgency comprised of both Qawm’Aljibal Separatists, who want to be free of Imperial rule, and groups of Nivalian Colonists who remain loyal to the Imperium but represent those who oppose the Ecclesiarchy deposing the Planetary Government of Nivalis in favour of Theocratic rule by Grulge. Though these insurgencies were kept, for a long number of years, to a quiet simmer by the security presence of the Sorors, they never truely went away and many of the mountain shrines of Nivalis are riddled by the blast-marks of bolter shells and other munitions from battles between insurgents and the Sorors.
There were those Imperial Colonists on Nivalis who were quick to demonstrate their long-standing loyalties to the Ecclesiarchy, such as House Rauchstadt, that were able to maintain their wealth and status under the rule of Cardinal Grulge, but in many places the Priesthood supplanted the traditional Noble rule of the Imperium those estates not deemed 'pious' enough were awarded to ranking priests of the Ecclesiarchy or given over to expanded pilgrims quarters as the Ecclesiarchy sought to increase the income from pilgrim visits despite the increased danger of insurgents along the pilgrim routes making some traditional sites impossible to safely reach. The region around the Bayt Alshifa’ is considered so hostile, despite repeated Soror pushes in the area, that no Imperial Pilgrim has visited the Temple there since the riots of 584.M41.
Despite the ongoing insurgency the lowlands remained firmly under Ecclesiarchy rule, and as the power of Cardinal Grulge grew, many Pilgrims became permanent additions to the forces there inducted into the apostical Fidelis Militia in defiance of the teachings of Sebastian Thor.
The Arrival of Durovera's Pain – 592.M41
In 592.M41 the Space Hulk Durovera’s Pain appeared from the warp above Nivalis apparently ushered there by the bidding of the Archenemy Forces of the Creeping Death and falling in to a stable orbit above the world. A seed of blight and a herald of chaos, the Hulk's looming presence over the already ravaged world was considered one in a long line of ill omens by many of the worlds inhabitants even while Ecclesiastic preachers declared the official word of Cardinal Grulge that the people of Nivalis' faith was being tested in an effort to unite them all. The Insurgent groups however, many of which had long been at odds as much with each other as they were with the Imperium, foresaw what was coming from the long-kept records of the Qawm’Aljibal of the Regencies invasions and raids on their world - thus a ceasefire was agreed between the groups in preperation of invasion and they withdrew from lines where their conflict with the Imperium was strongest even as Imperial forces struggled to understand the magnitude of the threat heralded by the arrival of the Hulk.
It was only when the Sorors of the Order of His Sanguine Tears emerged from their Convent-Garrison in the Mountains in full retreat that the Ecclesiarchy's Priests awakened to the true scale of the threat. The Archenemy dropped from orbit, hordes of barbarians drawn from the Creeping Death smashed against the defenders of the Shrine World driving them back behind the walls of the cities while they ravaged the lowlands. In the mountains the Archenemy had less success, their raiders unused to the terrain, insurgents and scattered bands of Sorors unable to reach Imperial lines were able to pick them apart with ease.
But it is believed that the assault by the Weeping Eye was simply a cover, enemy dropships from vessels bearing markings not recognised by the Imperium made landings out in the icy wastes of the polar tundras of the world. For what purpose is not known as soon Sororitas forces decided to retreat from the world in order to regroup and a different civil war to the one that had blighted the world for nearly a decade would soon make it impossible for loyal Imperial forces to operate on the world.
Recent History - Reign of the Heresiarch and the Temple
Since 593, Nivalis has been devastated by nearly a decade of constant conflict, it’s once-pristine shrines wrecked, its lowlands torn up by the recent fighting with the Archenemy. With the withdrawal of the Adepta Sororitas, Cardinal-Emissarius Grulge was quick to declare them cowards, but he has gained a significant foothold on the world since counter-attacking in 583.M41 with additional forces of his apostical Fidelis Militia. Though the majority of Archenemy forces have largely been routed their purpose largely served and their ships withdrawn from orbit, but Eye-Barbarian remnants still plague the lowlands and ice of the Taundra. To make matters worse, Durovera's Pain remains in orbit above the conflict-torn world a constant ill omen to its people - rumours of heavily armoured horrors in the ice are a near-constant plague to the local forces to contain.
Since the unmasking of Ignatius Grulge as a heretic and member of the proscribed Temple of the Saviour Emperor, war-torn Nivalis as served as a center for Temple rule. Fully unmasked the once 'Fidelis Militia' now calling themselves the 'Fidelis Templar' serve as a brutal reminder of the Temples fanatic adherence to the belief that it is the 'true' faith of the God Emperor.
Grulge's new era of rule, is marked by the granting of the derogatory title of Heresiarch to the apostate priest. Grulge, who styles himself with the title of Archimandrite, has only become more tyrannical as the Temple of the Saviour Emperor has moved to openly rule the Shrine World. The Heresiarch brooks no opposition to his rule and those priests who have not fallen in line with the Temple have been purged, in 594.m41 this led the martyring of a delegation of Gearwrights at the gates of the Cathedral City of Nivalis by Templar forces.
This has created an additional insurgent faction in the form of those pilgrims and Imperials trapped on the world who have refused to comply with the Temple's theocratic dictatorship, heavily embodied in the form of the Gearwrights who have served as a center to those faithful unwilling to renounce the Ecclesiarchy in favour of the Temple. Brutal purges are commonplace with entire squads of flamer-armed Templars setting flame to areas of the Pilgrim camps where they find heresy willing to kill a few faithful in the belief that the God-Emperor will know his own.
Life on modern Nivalis is hard, the devastation of conflict has robbed many of the good living conditions they were once used to, even the estates of those willing to betray the Imperium and swear to the heretical Temple under Grulge have been utterly devastated. Much of the wealth of Nivalis was taken off-world by Nobles retreating alongside the Sorors of His Sanguine Tears which has only exacerbated the suffering of those who remain. The paranoid and cruel rule of the Temple see's basic amenities such as food and water withheld from those unwilling to renounce the Ecclesiarchy and Saint Thor's reformations in particular as the Heresiarch seeks to cement his control of the world by striking out against those Insurgent forces that still remain in the mountains of Nivalis.
Despite its fel nature, the presence of Durovera's Pain appears to have given a boon to the Temple, it was upon returning from a raid by Templar Forces on the Space Hulk that Grulge demonstrated the 'blessings' he claims to draw from the God-Emperor that have kept the Prosperitas Crusade's forces from outright siding against him knowing the value his Templar armies have provided against the Archenemy. Still the rumours of a continued Archenemy presence worry the Inquisition deeply, as it suggests there is more at work on Nivalis then the petty conflicts of theocratic tyrants.
Despite their anti-Imperial separatist nature and refusal of Ecclesiarchy rule, the Inquisition considers the Qawm’Aljibal to represent the best possible planetary allies for liberating it from the Temple as well as the smaller insurgent groups of the Gearwrights and Nivalian Nationalists and Adepta Sororitas who have operated in the Mountains since the retreat of their Convent.