Grace

"Hunger unwound what little hope was left and moved us to what humanity would not once have contemplated."
–Comdeus Canto, survivor of the expedition from the Inferno’s Child
Storm-ridden Grace is circled and shrouded by swirling clouds
and hurricanes. Continual gales carry the spores of its simple
fungal life far and wide amidst lightning and frozen hail.
Beneath the storms, the peaks and valleys of Grace’s jagged
surface form a stark, beautiful landscape that was once dotted
with the proud structures of a colony founded under the
authority of Rogue Trader Aspyce Chorda. From behind void
shields and armored crystal viewports the colonists, drawn
from the wealthiest exiles of Imperial nobility and the most
successful of criminals (a distinction between the two being
not always easy to draw) gazed out on the beauty of the world
that was their sanctuary from blood wars, vengeful rivals, and
the iron fist of Imperial justice. The world of Grace is still just
as beautiful, but the colony palaces lie in ruin and its pale-eyed
people scuttle in the shadows, harboring a terrible secret.
==A Colony of Arrogance==
Grace was a colony world founded not for the expansion
of the domain of the God Emperor, but to serve the greed
and arrogance of Rogue Trader Aspyce Chorda. The colonial
palaces built on Grace were palatial fortresses for Imperial exiles
of wealth and means---those worthies secretively brought to
the edge of the Imperium by the Cold Guild, stored in frozen
vaults for their journey and returned to life in the depths of
Port Wander. Rogue Trader Aspyce Chorda swelled her coffers
accepting fugitives into the world she had claimed and giving
them leave to build their armored palaces on Grace. At further
ruinous cost, she provided the exiles with illegal slaves from
Footfall, provided them with the finest foods using the
lesser ships of her fleet, and allowed their spies and
agents to pass to and from Imperial space in the
holds of her ships. It was, for a time, a paradise
of the wicked, but it did not last.
==The Eaters of the Dead==
It is said by the pious that in time no sin goes unknown or
unpunished in the God-Emperor’s sight, and the punishment
for Grace was terrible indeed. Vessels of Aspyce Chorda
carrying supplies to Grace were destroyed by a warp storm
that rose up, swallowing them whole and sealing passage to
Grace. The world itself was a pleasurable and beautiful refuge
and had no capacity to produce its own food. For a time
the exiles and criminals contented themselves with the false
hope that supplies would come, and then when they did not,
they turned on one another, sending their vassals to loot and
burn other palaces and strip them of supplies and food. In
time only a few of the many colony palaces were left, and
these had become ugly fortresses against the predatory raids
of the few others that persisted. When even raiding could not
feed those who remained, they turned to eating their dead---first those who had been slain, and then those who still lived. So it is that the few debased colony palaces harbor those
who eat human flesh, and they are always hungry. Some have
beacons that broadcast distress calls out into the void, seeking
sustenance from unwary travelers.
Category:Planets
Category:Koronus Expanse
Category:Unclassified Worlds
Category:Foundling Worlds