Confederate System of Fodlan

The Confederate System of Fodlan
Other names: The Triple Alliance, The Last Holdout, The Bio-Kingdom
Capital: Faerghus
Ruler: A Triumvirate composed of the rulers of each world in the solar system
Size: 3 planets
Population: 580 Billion
Tech Level: 11
Military: 50 Billion PDF, 10 Billion Guard, 3 regiments of power armored elites.
Estimated Fleet Turn: estimated 900 escorts and 24 light cruisers and one grand cruiser
Distance to Imperial Trust: 1000 Light years to Midgard (West)

## Information

The Fodlan solar system was a former part of the Nabatea sector during the age of the old Imperium, its origins find themselves within the exile of a very rude and obnoxious Magos Biologis. Magos Hector spoke of the flesh being a machine in of itself just as worthy of the same study, praise and worship as those composed of micro transistors and adamantium. His peers firmly disagreed with this doctrine but bit their tongues for Hector was a myrmidon and they had no desire to introduce themselves to his war axe.

Unfortunately for Magos Hector in time the hatred his attitude kindled would eventually supplant the fear his opposition felt, and the previously academic nature of his theological conflicts would soon devolve into the physical kind of conflict. Or it would have had Magos Hector not agreed to exile himself and his followers to a distant unexplored solar system with the understanding that he was never to come back.

After reaching the solar system and landing upon one of the three worlds in it the Magos and his followers established the forgeworld, in name only, of Adrestia. After the first steps of colonization had been completed the transhuman theocrats of the newly settled world set their augmented vision upon the rest of the solar system they now inhabited, which was named Fodlan after the founding Magos’ first born, and saw two more worlds capable of supporting life.

The first of them was a frozen tundra where winter reigned and the sun’s warmth was banished that had massive veins of promethium and valuable metals that the nascent forgeworld desperately needed, while the other was a verdant paradise full of docile creatures, fertile soil, and a temperate climate that made it the perfect place to be the system’s breadbasket.
After the initial survey was complete millions of slaves and colonists were imported into the system from within the greater Imperium and made to work as menials in the eternally burning factories of Adrestia, as miners in the tundra world or farmers on the paradise world.
For a thousand years this condition of the other two worlds being Adrestia’s vassals continued unchanged and unchallenged, until five hundred years before the Emperor’s death.
The first challenge to Adrestia’s supremacy came from its mining colony who after a thousand years had grown large enough to become a small hive world that contained the majority of the solar system’s population, and said population was not idle and for the decades before that millennium had past they were organizing and forming their own independent government in secret beneath the uncaring gazes of their mechanicus masters.

When the time was right and all the preparations had been made the people of Faerghus, Faerghus being the name chosen by the people of the mining colony to christen their world with, the new government revealed itself and demanded a meeting with the priesthood of Adrestia to speak and negotiate the dynamics of their new relationship. Incensed at this rebellion against their authority Adrestia firmly refused and ordered their local forces to begin crushing all dissent with blasts of supersonic plasma and the nuclear poison of rad weapons.

Screams of agony from once cheering Faerghusians as they were reduced to ash was the bell toll that announced the Fodlan civil war had begun.

Faerghus’ was not idle even as they were murdered by the thousands with the concentrated heat of stars, and the decay of radiation. Their rough rider regiments on their steeds of white fur, obsidian claws and silver armor sallied forth to hunt down and trample over millions of Skitarii warriors sieging the Hives’ walls while hundreds of millions of troops in Faerghus’ newly formed PDF waged war against Adrestia’s Bio-Skitarii in brutal close quarters combat that saw the post-humans bleed tens of thousands of men for every hab block they took.

War is always a horrible and bloody affair, but the carnage created those years was sheer unrestrained brutality as the Adrestians and Faerghusians were both ruthless in their pursuit of victory. Info warriors shut off the generators that powered the heating systems of thousands of hab-blocks causing millions of inhabitants inside to freeze to death in the darkness, the Faerghus PDF leveraged their numbers in a way that even Imperial Guard would balk at as they fanatically threw themselves at the enemy with the ferocity of a cornered wolf, it was not uncommon to hear of full battalions of men equipping themselves with suicide vests and throwing themselves at the enemy to break their siege lines and formations.

The scorching heat of the fires of war would’ve burned Faerghus to cinders had the conflict not been ended by a foe even more destructive than even a chapter of Astartes, logistics.
Adrestia for all their technological might, industry, and professionally armed and trained forces could not continue the war, for without Faerghus providing them the metals and promethium their great forges ran on, they could in turn not supply their own forces. Faerghus simply had more men than they had bullets.

On the fifth year of the War for Liberation as Faerghus refers to it, or the Faerghus Mutiny as Adrestia calls it, the commander of all Legiones Skitarii on Faerghus raised the white flag of surrender and asked the leadership of the world to meet to parlay. Shortly afterwards a tentative peace was established as the leadership of both worlds met in the void at exactly the midpoint between them both and formalized both an armistice and a trade deal that would solidify the relationship between them not as vassal and master, but as equals.
In the centuries that followed Faerghus continued to provide Adrestia with the resources its ever costly expansion into a proper forgeworld demanded just like before, with the difference being that conditions were much more improved for Faerghus’ miners and workers while billions of tons of consumer goods that were scarce before due to Adrestia’s selfishness suddenly became much more widely available to the hivers.

Yet this was not a happy arrangement for either group.

For while things had improved on the tundra world most of the billions of its people still continued to live short and brutal lives in squalor while the theocratic engineers of Adrestia lived like kings with their bio-augmented bodies providing them with youth eternal and transhuman capabilities while also reaping the luxury and wealth that their control of the system’s technology gave them.
The Adrestians on the other side loathed Faerghus for reminding them of how weak they were, Faerghus’ rebellion against them was one that any semi-decent forgeworld could’ve put down yet they ran into a logistical choking point just five years into it. To make matters worse they could not ask for any outside help to correct things into the proper order for their brothers and sisters in the local mechanicus had cut ties with them and the sector governor, a hiveworlder that disliked the Mechanicus’ insular ways and who’s family Adrestia’s founder had gravely humiliated by beating in an axe duel, would side with the hiveworld immediately against them.

Faerghus not knowing any of these wider political details did not contact the sector governor to destroy Adrestia, instead both worlds settled themselves in a cold war where espionage, assassination and sabotage were just plays in a game built upon spite and barely contained hatred. Faerghus versus Adrestia became the story of the system until the agriworld became involved in their games.

The agriworld known to the locals as Leicester, after its capital city, announced its part in the game between the system’s two powers not with gunshots but the scratching of quill on paper. For the local nobles had hatched a scheme that would use both nation’s rivalry to make their own needs made known to the two larger worlds. Two delegations were sent, one to Faerghus and one to Adrestia, these delegations had one job: they were to tell both worlds that Leicester was going to have to increase demands for materials and technology from them in order to keep feeding their growing populations, this was partially true as in the future this would be an issue but at the time this lie was told they had a very large surplus.

Then these delegates were to tell each world that the real reason behind this meeting is that their rival was starting to demand more food from Leicester lest they cut off whatever they supplied the agriworld with, this was a lie and ingenious one at that as the rivals would never dare talk to one another on these matters for such was their mutual hatred, the delegates would then tell their hosts that they could only refuse the economic blackmail if they received enough from their remaining trade partner to make up for the deficit. The lies and half-truths were both drunk as if fine wine by both Faerghus and Adrestia as their paranoia and fears about their rivals preparing for sieges and invasions made them immediately agree to provide the agriworld with whatever they needed to keep the food coming.

After their success the delegates then would leave the planet looking somber and grateful, then once they were in the privacy of their voidcraft they shed these masks of false solemnity and laughed long and hard at the deception they had masterfully weaved. The leaders of the two larger worlds had always looked at the good people of Leicester with undisguised contempt and thought them simple minded idiots. No way would they ever think that the backward hicks that grew their food would be capable of tricking them, yet here they were believing Leicester’s tall tales and not even bothering to check if they were true, just like the nobles knew they wouldn’t.
For the next hundred years Faerghus and Adrestia remained unaware they had been played, both because neither planet spoke of their dealings with Leicester, if they ever spoke at all, and because they were absolutely certain the agriworld bumpkins of Leicester didn’t even know what a lie was.
The truth was eventually revealed when during an average void exchange an Adrestian merchant marine heard two drunken Leicester noblemen laughing at how their grandparents had played the two great worlds. Adrestia’s theocrats once made aware of this truth were absolutely livid and assembled an army post haste to punish Leicester for their lies, only to see that a Faerghusian fleet had assembled in orbit ready to defend it.

Unaware to the Adrestians was that the revelation had been done intentionally, Leicester’s leadership knew that one lie no matter how perfectly told could not be kept forever and decided that a new play was required on their part. So it was that while the Adrestians were discovering the truth, a Leicester delegation similar to the one that had gone a century back traveled to Faerghus and told them the truth of how they were deceived and then demanded protection from retribution by Adrestia.

When Faerghus’ sitting council demanded to know why they shouldn’t let them get what they deserved, they were bluntly told that if they thought that once Adrestia lands on Leicester that they’ll leave then they were fools. Adrestia’s retribution forces would become an occupation force and then they would have direct control of the system’s main source of food. The council went pale at this truth and then sent every man, woman and vessel they could spare to defend Leicester from an Adrestian invasion.

Once the threat of Adrestia retreated upon seeing the defense force orbiting their target, Leicester offered Faerghus a deal where they would receive food at discounted rates while they would raise the price towards in Adrestia in exchange for a stationed defense fleet.
When asked why they couldn’t just take whatever they wanted from their world the people of Leicester made it clear they were ready to salt and ruin every inch of fertile soil they could reach if so much as a single uninvited guardsman set foot upon their world.
Faerghus took the deal.

This story would repeat later but from the opposing side as Faerghus wanted to change the terms of the deal to ones that were not to Leicester’s liking. The nobility in response did as they had done before and made a diplomatic play, they went to Adrestia. There the nobles offered them the same deal they made with Faerghus, and after decades of having to pay out the nose thanks to the increased prices the magos gladly accepted.
Faerghus’ fleet was soon quietly made to leave the orbit of Leicester as Adrestia took over their former vigil.

For the next four hundred years Leicester played the part of a noble courtesan, wooing and bewitching patrons with her honeyed words and sensuous promises that made the men of the court fight for her attentions. A dynamic was established where no matter who was in bed with Leicester at the time, whether it be Faerghus or Adrestia, they knew that the bedroom window was always open for their rival to come in drag them out from underneath the covers.
After these first fifteen hundred years of history and the establishment of a relatively “happy” status quo Fodlan was thrown into upheaval yet again, but not because of any internal conflict or dissent of any sort apart from the usual chaos cults that pop up on every imperial world. No for what shook Fodlan was the same thing that quaked and sundered the rest of the Imperium, the Emperor’s Death.
The second age of strife had begun.

The first few years were terror incarnate as chaos cults appeared, sometimes literally, from the ether and wreaked havoc on all three worlds as despair gripped the hearts and minds of nearly every single citizen. Thankfully the nobility of Leicester, the councilors of Faerghus and the theocrats of Adrestia held firm as their stations demanded of them and waged war against the forces of disorder.

Armies were mobilized, curfews enforced, and intelligence services allowed off their leashes to hunt down every traitor and cultist they could find. To Fodlan this period of settling down and making peace with the death of their beloved God is known as the Decade of Mourning.
Vigils in all black, mass prayer and contemplation became facets of life during these trying times and a new religious revival took place in Fodlan because of it. A philosophy of stoicism began to emerge amongst the population, one that expressed itself in a serene acceptance as the people realized that all things must end, but that these ends lead to new beginnings.

The leader of this movement was known as the Enlightened One, a man with blue hair like that of Fodlan’s founder that preached that the Emperor held a vigil over his children for ten thousand years without respite or rest, and as his children mankind should seek to emulate their father and hold in the dark times that are to come.

The Enlightened One began his teachings in the now holy Adrestian city of Seiros. Soon the philosophy of Seiros spread far and wide as the philosopher traveled through the three worlds on foot with his acolytes and followers to reassure the people and guide them on how to emulate the emperor’s endurance in these trying times. Block by block, city by city, planet by planet the holy man traveled and revitalized the spirit of his flock and inciting the fury of the emerging cultists.

Yet the latter did not matter for regardless of how many assassins and death squads the servants of the ruinous powers sent after him, the Enlightened One and his students killed them all for they knew that to fail in their holy mission was to fail the memory of the Emperor.

When at last he had finished his pilgrimage the enlightened one formed his students and followers into an order of anti-chaos forces and that titled themselves the Shepherds. For the next decade the Shepherds alongside the combined armed forces of Fodlan waged war upon the cults of the Abomination and the Ruinous Four cleansing the three worlds of their influence. Unfortunately, during this purge of the vermin of Chaos Fodlan’s holy man perished as a powerful chaos psyker banished him to the warp, the psyker did not survive the retribution that shortly followed.

After the purge and the reconstruction that followed, the Shepherds disbanded and took up positions as teachers across the three worlds. The legend of their deeds and personality are still carried to this day and the birthdays of each hero are holidays in their hometowns.

The words and deeds of the Enlightened One and his Shepherds inspired the leadership of all three worlds to put aside their differences and began talking to each other once more. Rivalries that had inspired billions of deaths were if not being fully put to rest, tempered and the energies that wasted in them being redirected in the forming of burgeoning network of mutual aid as the three worlds began to cooperate.

Faerghus offered its promethium and metals, Adrestia its industrial genius, and Leicester its harvests. For the next century the Fodlan system underwent a small golden age as peace and cooperation brought prosperity to the system. Leicester happily feed the entire system and kept a nice surplus for storage as chemical and mechanical tools provided them with much greater harvests than they ever could with just manual labor. Faerghus’ Sitting Council with the threat of Adrestia no longer looming over them so strongly decided to eradicate the underhives forming underneath the main cities. Mutants, cultists and all other sorts of abominations were exterminated and then the democratic syndicates that form the civilian side of Faerghus’ government then moved in and reconstructed and expanded the lower hives.
Adrestia restructured and reconstructed itself to make the life of their menials more bearable and survivable as they could not simply import more labor like they could before to make up for the menials’ atrocious death rates.

But like the people of Fodlan say, all things must come to an end including peace. For visitors from the Agathean subsector had come at last to see them and engraved upon the hulls of their ships, armor and even skin was the eight-pointed star of Chaos.

The leader of the fleet, a sultry saucy woman dressed in revealing furs called Cornelia, demanded the people of Fodlan bow their heads and accept the worship of the True Pantheon and to leave behind the worship of the deceased emperor just like she had done.
The reply she received was an atomic missile barrage aimed directly at her flag ship's bridge.

Arch Heretic Cornelia was a cunning charismatic woman and a practiced political agent, but she was in no way shape or form a trained admiral, which is why despite having a larger more well-equipped fleet the first Agathean Invasion ended in a humiliating rout for her forces.

For the next four thousand years the Agatheans would try again and again after Cornelia’s failed conversion to try and take Fodlan. The word try itself barely being applicable as the sheer incompetence and infighting that was rampant in the Agathean subsector before they embraced the ruinous powers continued to plague them as their leadership was split between Slaaneshi pleasure cultists and Tzeentchian acolytes.

Invasions would be sabotaged by the political rivals of whoever was leading them, business rivals would sabotage the factories of a competing company that was supplying a fleet leaving them desperately under equipped and in one some cases casual insults to honor and pride were paid back a thousand fold with nuclear bombs on a flagship’s bridge. An example of this happened to Admiral Phogor as punishment for having said a century prior to his assignment that Cornelia’s dress made her buttocks appear like two humongous conjoined moons. (Later interviews would find that the Admiral meant this as a compliment.)

Apart from the Agathean’s ineffectual flailing about Fodlan also had to deal with the A’fa legion. Do not confuse these clowns and fools for the dreaded Alpha Legion for they are most certainly not. A’fa legion are a WAAAAAGH of extremely idiotic orks that all dress the same and scream “THEY IS A’FA!” even at the most inappropriate times such as while they’re eating.

The A’fa Legion’s stupidity is spectacular even by Ork standards and is why every other Ork in the region refuses to even be near them for fear of it spreading to the rest of them.

An infamous showing of this paragon like stupidity was presented to the defenders of Fodlan when they first entered the system. When the WAAAGH fleet was drifting towards the three worlds in a barely coherent mass after emerging from the warp an A’fa legionnaire opened an airlock and convinced the entire crew to jump out with him into the void of space. After the rest of the fleet was pushed back one of the floating orks was captured and brought in for questioning. When asked why they dumped themselves out of the airlock the Boy explained that since ships were used in the ocean, and they were inside a spaceship therefore space is like an ocean and they can swim in it and thinks to being painted red and having big muscles they could swim faster than the spaceship moved! The Ork was promptly liquidated by a Faerghus intelligence officer that was crying tears of joy.

For four thousand years the people of Fodlan have faced not just these foes but the occasional renegade astartes fire team hired by the Agatheans. Every time these damnable transhuman mercenaries have been hired they have wrought havoc, killing millions of people by attacking and destroying key infrastructure in lighting raids made with demigod like tactics and precision or brought about the deaths of entire commanding staff with swift and brutal decapitation strikes. The most recent assault by a fire team of renegades resulted in the deaths of all previous Triumvirate. These traitors to mankind were then dueled and defeated by the successors of their victims: Great Marshal Danill Alexandrov Bashkirov, Archmagos ED31-64l2D or Edie, and King Elect Clovis Du Leicester.

These three skilled inexperienced warriors are the leaders and champions of Fodlan and while they are more than ready to take up the task of leading their four thousand year old polity together, only time will tell if they succeed in surviving and making contact with the forces of sanity and then ushering in a new era, or being destroyed by the myriad of monsters with strength beyond strength that plague the second age of strife.