Spectoris

“Man only spoke of it once. He say bein’ psyker not so unlike us spine-divers. Spend all your time with your parts in sea-dark, awaitin’ the day when d’ fang-fish bite.”
— Spectoris Agri-hand, Dermay
A waterworld with a thriving Imperial habitat, constructed on top of a submarine peak. With two million population this is the sector’s largest exporter of fish and fish-meal product. The “Complete Ocean” of Spectoris is the subject of many legends, with some saying that there are sentient xeno forms of vast size inhabiting the unexplored depths of the world. Others claim that the world-ocean itself is sentient. The world has only one habitat below the water, made safe from the native fish by way of coral paste, called Enkaidan.
The trade of fish is important to the people of Spectoris, to the point where their currency is often nicknamed Scales or Fins. A particular career known as a "Spine-Diver" spends most of their time in the water, where it is likely that they may be bitten by a species of fish known as a fang-fish. There exists a species of titanic fish known as the Lantern Jaw, which can crush submersible vehicles in one bite.
== The Umbrian Heresy ==
Deep in the Drusus Marches lies the world of Spectoris. An ocean planet, its surface almost completely covered by waves, its
inhabitants farm the sea and export their bounty to surrounding planets and systems. Years ago it is recorded that a cult rose on
the world of Spectoris, which worshipped the Emperor in His aspect as a mighty sea god, dwelling deep beneath the waters. The
cult would sail out to places where the ocean grew deep and throw sacrifices into the sea. As the cult grew in power so too did its
practices darken and whispers of human sacrifice and other blood rituals abounded.
Eventually the Ecclesiarchy intervened, and though they lost several agents in their investigations, the cult was unmasked. It was revealed that they worshipped a xenos being known as the Umbrian, which lived in the deepest of the world’s ocean trenches. After a violent conflict, both above and beneath the waves, the creature, its children and many of its human followers were destroyed. As a precautionary measure, all marine life not essential to food production was purged. Rumors still persist, however, that all of the Umbrian’s children were not found and some of the creatures live still in the deep waters of Spectoris, waiting and watching for the time when they shall rise again.
==The Fall of House Ios==
The House of Ios was an honored line of chartist captains,
its origins pre-dating the founding of the Calixis Sector a
thousand years ago. The line’s holdings were spread across
five sectors, but the vast majority of the family lived on the
ocean world of Spectoris. One day in 797.M41, a scion of
the House of Ios returned from an out-sector Cold Trade run
with a priceless gift for his daughter Antigone—a glittering
gem said to have been born in the fiery heart of the very
oldest of stars. The girl had the fantastic stone mounted in a
filigreed headpiece, and wore it upon her brow so that all in
the palace and the surrounding islands might see her status,
and bow down before her.
Over the following decades, Antigone rose to become the
head of her line, and her father’s island palace expand to
become a marvelous city amidst the islands. In short order,
she assumed total power over the House of Ios, and her line’s
coffers swelled. Then, something entirely unexpected occurred.
Spectoris was ordered by the Munitorum sector command
to raise a regiment for the Imperial Guard. A recruitment
mission was dispatched to the islands over which the Queen
of the House of Ios ruled to ascertain the fitness of its militia.
However, upon Munitorum inspection, the population of
the island chain was discovered to be entirely unsuitable for
induction into the Imperial Guard. The men were listless and
effete and the women indolent and soft. All bore expressions
of vacant distraction, and appeared disinterested in their
surroundings and unresponsive to questions.
The recruiting officers escalated their investigation to
include the nobles of the House of Ios, and soon, disaster
befell them. Upon demanding entry into the palace itself, the
officers were unexpectedly attacked by the household guards
claiming that they had to protect their mistress at all costs. A
slaughter ensued, but before the last of the Munitorum staff
was cut down, he managed to transmit a pict-log to the troop
transport waiting in orbit.
The transmission was intercepted by agents of the
Inquisition, and retribution came three months later. An
Ordo Malleus strike force led by Inquisitor Lord Dhar of
the Scholariate at Arms descended upon the palace of the
House of Ios. Nine Inquisitors, three dozen Acolytes, and a
hundred storm troopers were inserted directly into the heart
of the palace grounds by Valkyrie airborne assault carriers,
supported by a wing of Vulture gunships. The corrupted
servants of Antigone were ready for the assault and had
fortified the palace, mounting air defenses upon its delicate
minarets, and daubing the entire structure with blasphemous
runes. In the months since the household guards had
slaughtered the Munitorum staff, they had become mutated,
as if the warping power of Chaos had suffused them with
dark splendor. The warriors’ hands had twisted into meter-long
claws, and razor-sharp horns sprouted from their heads.
They had preternatural speed and agility, and they shrieked a
song of cacophonous discordance that brought men to their
knees as their brains bled out from their ears. Dozens of storm
troopers and Acolytes were slain in the first minutes of the
assault, but Lord Dhar and his companions steeled their souls
and fought through to Antigone’s throne room, and there saw
just how close Spectoris was to doom.
Queen Antigone sat upon her throne, the gleaming gem
mounted at her brow. From the gem shone the raw energy
of the Warp, and three of Dhar’s brother-Inquisitors were
struck down by ravening beams of light before they could
take another step. Dhar himself fought through the Warp-energy
and approached the throne, pronouncing his verdict
upon the Queen of the House of Ios: she had opened her
soul to the Daemon Prince of Chaos, and would die by the
Inquisitor’s hand.
But before Dhar could carry out his judgment, the gem
doubled its infernal luminescence and the air rippled with
impossible energies. Its light expanded to fill the entire dais,
consuming the body of the Queen. The gem had become
a gateway into the very depths of the Warp, and through
it came the Daemonic servants of Slaanesh---dozens upon
dozens of lithe, deadly Daemonettes.
The battle that ensued raged through the night, and by
its end Dhar was the only Inquisitor left standing amidst the
shattered bodies of hundreds of Daemonettes. At the very
last, a Greater Daemon of Slaanesh---a Keeper of Secrets---emerged from the portal, the glittering gemstone set upon its
brow. Dhar would have been outmatched and slain, were it
not for intervention from an unexpected quarter. A troupe of
Eldar Harlequins emerged from a rippling tear in the fabric
of reality, and fell upon the daemon, moving too fast for the
Inquisitor Lord to follow. The blurred forms of the Harlequins
darted in and out, delivering a thousand blows, each of which
was too weak to slay the daemon alone, but combined slowly
robbed it of its strength and speed. At last, the leader of the
troupe delivered the killing blow, skewering the daemon’s
gemstone with a lightning fast lunge of his power sword.
The Keeper of Secrets was transfixed upon the Harlequin’s
blade. Before the Inquisitor Lord’s eyes, its form collapsed in
upon itself, until the body of Antigone of Ios lay upon the
wrecked dais. Their work done, the Harlequins departed, and
Lord Dhar stood alone in the corpse-strewn throne room.
Judgment had been delivered upon the House of Ios.
In the months that followed, Lord Dhar led a campaign
of retribution against the remaining holdings of the chartist
captain line. None escaped his attentions, and even those who
fled beyond the borders of Calixis were purged by his far-ranging
operatives.
The name of the House of Ios was stricken from all official
records, and its name never spoken again.
==Unique Equipment==
Spectorin Coral Paste
“Three years spent orbiting such a rich abundance of sea life as to beggar belief. Three years of constant experimentation, straining the patience of my lords and patrons. Three years of knowing that millions suffer throughout this sector for want of food. Three years of failure. Our latest submersible was destroyed today, a thousand men lost in an instant to the titanic mouth of a Lantern Jaw. This world may not hate us, but it surely hates our works. It matters not. I will find a way. If it takes a millennia, I will find a way.”
— From the early personal data-files of Magos Genetus
Halix Redole
When the Lord Militant Angevin’s world surveyors first
discovered the water world Spectoris, they were delighted by
the vast quantities of fish that the planet seemed to promise
and readily noted it as a potential agri-world for future use. As
the population of the Calixis Sector grew, so to did its need for
food. In 312.M41, the Sector Governor declared that the time
had come to begin harvesting the piscine crop of Spectoris, a
task that was to prove far easier to order than to achieve. The
Imperium swiftly found that the denizens of Spectoris routinely
destroyed all foreign objects that were placed within the world-ocean,
effectively halting any large-scale collection efforts. For
decades the legendary “complete ocean” held the Imperium at
bay, leading many to believe that the world-ocean itself was
sentient in some inexplicable manner.
At last, frustrated by their inability to progress, the
Adeptus Mechanicus turned to one of their more eclectic-minded
members, the somewhat infamous, Genetor Halix Redole. Genetor Redole was known to be associated with a
faction within the Mechanicus known as the Organicists, a
group of tech-priests who esteemed biological enhancement
as being equal in value with the cybernetic, a somewhat
radical if not heretical position from the tech-adepts point
of view. Redole applied his keen intellect to the “Spectoris
problem” for five years before hitting on a solution. The
Genetor discovered that a form of sea life roughly analogous
to terrestrial coral was attracted to certain chemicals. By
blending the chemicals with a bonding agent derived from
a Spectorin fish, Redole created the compound known as
coral paste.
The paste draws Spectorin coral to whatever
it is applied to, soon creating a “natural” layer of sea life
that causes the creatures of the world-ocean to regard the
encrusted vessel as native. The Genetor’s success opened
the way to large scale Imperial harvesting, and coral paste
is now regularly applied to all Spectorin ships, no matter
their size, as well as being repeatedly caked across the entire
hull of the planet’s sole underwater habitat, Enkaidan. Coral
paste has proven to be useful to the colonists of Spectoris as
a makeshift hull repair agent on a number of occasions. Its
utility is marred by the fact it must be reapplied frequently,
else the coral covering can deteriorate with lethal results.
Coral paste is a highly regulated substance due to the
extreme value of a great many Spectorin species of fish,
which inevitably brings poachers.
Cost 225 (Free on Spectoris to agri-workers), WT 1kg, Abundant (Spectoris), Very Rare (Elsewhere)
Gill Filter
Magi of the Mechanicus Biologis working on the water world
of Spectoris developed these breathing masks for work in its
subsurface processing facilities. They allow the user to filter
oxygen from the water, using a synthetic gill system. These
filters are somewhat delicate, and require constant immersion
lest they dry out and degenerate.
Cost 100, WT 0.5kg, Scarce
Category:Calixis Sector
Category:Planets
Category:Drusus Marches
Category:Agri-Worlds