Muspelheim

Muspelheim is one of the founding members of the Imperial Trust, and is still one of the most powerful members. Muspelheim is the most technologically advanced and best educated world in the entire Imperial Trust, and is also one of the most fortified. This is despite the world itself being a magma covered hellhole, with the entire population living onboard massive flying Nomad Cities. Muspelheim is currently led by Champion Surt.

## Environment

Muspelheim lies directly between the two stars of a binary system, where the strong gravitational forces of the two stars are constantly heating the planet and causing a great deal of seismic activity. When this is combined with the enormous amount of radiation that bombards the planet from the two nearby stars, Muspelheim is one of the hottest and most unstable planets you have ever heard of, with the entire surface of the planet being covered with oceans of magma. Occasionally massive plums of magma spout from the surface of the ocean, a terrifying threat that only a Nomad City can survive a hit from, and even then not without damage.

The high seismic activity does keep the various metals and precious elements within the planet moving however, and the people of Muspelheim are skilled at locating valuable currents and harvesting them. In the Age of the Imperium that was all the world was known for.

## People

The people of Muspelheim are culturally distinct from the rest of the Imperial Trust in a wide range of ways, in large part because they were never culturally part of the Imperium. The first and most simple is that worship of the Emperor was never a major part of their lives, with a good portion of the population being atheists, in practice if not in name. Next is the lack of influence of the Tech-Priests, with Muspelheim traditionally having only a small number of Tech-Priests, all of whom were raised on the planet and are far more loyal to the planet then the Cult Mechanicus. In current times it is widely acknowledged within the senior levels of the Imperial Trust that Muspelheim has its own technological experts who are on par with if not superior to the Tech-Priests, and who maintain and produce all of its advanced technology. Thankfully the Adeptus Mechanicus has not pushed them so far.

Most of the remaining differences come from the extensive educational system of Muspelheim and their widespread use of Juve-Nat. On Muspelheim the age of majority is twenty-four years old and the average life expectancy is two hundred.

### Education

The educational system of Muspelheim is considered the best in the Imperial Trust, with citizens being expected to spend eighteen years in basic education before reaching adulthood. On adulthood they will then move on to either more specialised education or a career. They will often be giving vocational training using a Knowledge Implantation Chair in this time, giving them a solid grounding in the skills needed for their career or speciality. Muspelheimers who continue on to University are looking at at least another decades education before they graduate, more if they are going for high level qualifications.

The education of Muspelheim includes a wide range of subjects, including a surprisingly though grounding in the Warp, philosophy, and the most extensive historical education you have ever heard of. This is in large part because Muspelheim's historical archives survived the First Age of Strife intact, giving them a historical database that goes back to the first human civilisations.

### Thanes

Within the cities of Muspelheim are enclaves in which the Thanes live and work. This mysterious but highly respected order are officially responsible for maintaining the Nomad Cities, leading the forces of Muspelheim to war, and ensuring that the worlds archives are kept in good shape. In practice they are the equivalent of the senior members of the Cult Mechanicus, and are quite likely the direct heirs of the local Dark Age polity, with all the knowledge that that implies.

While some Thanes are born into the lifestyle, others are gifted children who are given up by their families at the age of five for special training. Within the Thanes there are several different departments, each of which has their own skill sets and responsibilities. Known departments are the Huscals, whose members are elite soldiers and officers, the Maintenance Department, whose members are highly trained technicians, and the Archivists, who are responsible for maintaining Muspelheim's historical archives.

## Nomad Cities

The people of Muspelheim live in massive flying cities, the Nomad Cities. These cities are effectively flying fortresses on the scale of a Ramilies Starfort, with formidable firepower, massive armour, and flawless point defence. Deep within them are the residential areas, in which the better part of a billion citizens of Muspelheim live. On the base of a Nomad City are a range of scoops and funnels which can be used to collect magma from the oceans of Muspelheim and extract the valuable metals within. To safely accomplish this the people of Muspelheim have developed thermal shielding technology to an incredible extent, and integrated it into pretty much everything they build. This allows a unique defensive trick for the Nomad Cities where they vent plasma around them and keep it trapped within thermal shields, stopping enemies from boarding the city. While it has not yet been demonstrated it is also believed that the Nomad Cities are able to hide themselves within the magma seas for a period, though not without suffering significant damage.

Since the Death of the Emperor the Nomad Cities have been equipped with Warp Drives, Gellar Fields and Tau Ether Drives allowing them to travel interstellar distances if needed, allowing them evacuate from both the planet and the Imperial Trust if needed.

## Leadership

Leadership on Muspelheim is divided between the Council of Captains and the Champion of Muspelheim. The Champion of Muspelheim is the leader of the Thanes and as well as being tasked to overseer the Thanes has responsibility for the defence of Muspelheim and non-commercial relations with other worlds. In the Age of the Imperium the Champions were the Planetary Governors and pretended to be entirely devoted to war, incapable of acting outside of that. In recent centuries this act has been dropped and the Champions have revealed themselves to be chosen from among the best of the Thanes, and therefore highly educated in a wide range of subjects, which simply includes warfare, but is not limited to it.

The Council of Captains is a council consisting of the Mayor-Captain of each of the Nomad Cities of Muspelheim. It is responsible for foreign trade, maintaining relations between Nomad Cities, and the governance of Muspelheim as a whole.

Each Mayor-Captain is the ultimate but restricted power within their Nomad City, and is responsible for governing the Nomad City and its assets. Mayor-Captains are elected by a complex weighted voting system including separate votes for the merchants, academia, engineers, military, and general population.

### Champion Eldr

Champion Eldr of Muspelhem has succeeded Champion Surt upon his retirement. Where Surt was skilled in a wide range of fields, Eldr is more specialised, being an admiral first and foremost. He seems to devolve most of the responsibilities that Surt took up and instead devote more focus to building and commanding the stealth fleets of Muspelheim. Politically he seems to have similar views as Surt, though he is more willing to push them.

## Military

The military of Muspelheim is one of the best equipped and trained forces in the Imperial Trust, but is also the smallest. Each soldier will have decades of training in battle and engineering, making the entire army able to act as Combat Engineers when necessary. The forces of Muspelheim specialise in boarding actions and city fighting, and are equipped with that in mind. They make extensive use of short ranged thermal weaponry such as meltas and flamers as well as armour incredibly resistant to thermal attacks, with power armour being standard issue for all guard formations. It is not unknown for Muspelheim heavy infantry units to have their own positions firebombed in order to clear out Orks, confident that their armour will protect them from the vast majority of the damage.

Muspelheim has a relatively small amount of conventional armour, since it performs poorly in their preferred theatres of combat, but has a powerful force of air-superiority fighters which can be used to contest landings or cut off supplies.

The elites of Muspelheim are the Fire Giants, regiments clad in ancient armours built out of reactor maintenance suits, much like Terminator Armour. As well as being incredibly tough, these suits of armour are also near immune to thermal energy, being able to bathe in magma untouched, and even withstand plasma for a time. In times of peace the Fire Giants perform external and emergency repairs to the Nomad Cities of Muspelheim, acting in temperatures where even conventional power armoured engineers would perish. In war the Fire Giants field an incredible number of thermal weapons, heating the air around them to the point where most forces start suffering due to the sheer environmental heat.

Muspelheim's small but elite navy is built around the use of stealth ships to launch devastating alpha strikes before retreating.

## Mysteries

Muspelheim and its incredibly capable leader are considered to the one of the three great mysteries of the Imperial Trust, along with Niflheim and Avernus. Many still wonder exactly what secrets they still hold, with theories about hidden Men of Stone and Dark Age Scientists being common. It is suspected that their cities may be dependent upon Men of Stone, and that discovering or revealing this secret would cause them to flee the Imperial Trust to escape persecution for the crime of harbouring the dreaded "Abominable Intelligence".