Glacial Nebula

The Glacial Nebula is the culmination of drifting cosmic ice, its formations dissipating, drifting throughout all of Subsector Cambria. Traces of the nebulae in white and blue wander through the subsector's heart until they vanish in the depths of Gondwana, far into the spiral gulf.

## Astrography

Originating far to the galactic north, the extent of cosmic ice in that direction has not been measured by any explorator fleets. Ships sent in this direction seldom return, and those few coming back are forever changed in ways unlike anything of this universe, even unlike the known corruptions of the Immaterium.

## Borealis Stars

The ice from far and distant space enthralls the Borealis Stars, those systems in its way, where the dense clouds of azure and white break against their hot heliospheres. Here, sheets of ice on a cosmic scale are broken into ever smaller pieces, clashing against one another and forming the complex sculptures and forms so renown in all of the Sector Gondwana. Plasma from the Borealis stars is thereby stripped away and illuminates the cold blue from within. The energy trapped thus within the ice is an immeasurable reserve, though incomprehensibly difficult to gain.

It is said creatures and intelligence are awoken by the Borealis light, strange energies made manifest in the crystalline structure and thriving during the endless interstellar voyage. Such legends and phantoms of a worse kind haunt the ice in this region.

## Glaciers of Cosmic Ice

The Glaciers themselves melt by the stars and mend together once again, creating new forms and masses on their way through the Cambrian subsector. The ice evaporates not into water, but exotic elements of the most unusual properties. Some seem to channel energies of the Immaterium, not unlike the wraithstone of the Aeldari kin, and some parts are even said to be possessed by eldritch entities.

But there are calmer regions, and inert straits of ice as well, vast collections of a mass of an uncertain kind, dissolving into platinum and gold, and sometimes into nothing in the holds of those brave enough to try and scrape material from the glacier itself.

The ice has a life of its own, the old voidfarers say, and it does not take kindly to being broken by foreign intelligence. It defies the will of man unlike any other element in the galactic region and may send out splinters, geysers and sudden streams of plasma energy to destroy any imperial vessel coming near.

### Celestial Snow

Its strangest form takes the cosmic ice when broken into microscopic pieces by the grinding and breaking against itself. Minuscule flakes, crystalline forms, take shapes of perfect symmetry and begin drifting in the void as though on invisible winds. Carried by streams of mystical force, storms of the cosmic stuff occur often near, but sometimes even far from the streams of the glacial nebulae. These instances often claim many lives from the voidfarers, even those whose vessels make it out alive. Crews grow mute and blind at the sight of the celestial snow, and psychers stop hearing the voices of their kind. Navigators have been rumored to have been turned completely inside out when they made attempts to comprehend the unnatural symmetry of these crystalline forms.

What cannot be known can only be averted and so most vessels shut themselves off and flee at the sight of the snow. They pray for protection through their armor and Gellar fields and both have been known to ward off the worst effects. However, the snow on the outer hull often remains and must be melted away in daring maneuvers close to the hottest possible sun. Only when the last of the celestial snow is molten away, can a ship dare to come near a void-ward haven again.

### Icefarers

Only some individuals seem to possess mastery over the ice of the void. These are the ice farers of the Glacial Nebula, of whom some say they are more often than not psychic individuals of an exotic kind. Be they witches or not, they alone brave the Glacial Nebula regularly and it is rumored that somehow, the Imperial Navy harnasses their powers for purposes of their own.

The icefarers, so they say, are not unaffected by the cosmic snow. And their senses are burnt away like those of the astropaths to allow for their sanity to prevail in the heaviest of storms. But in the darkness, they hear whispers and see sights from beyond. They feel the forms of the ice and snow and make them anew in sculptures of liquid glass. In this way, the icefarers created terrible galleries of deadly and incomprehensible forms. On the pikes and sharp edges of these sculptures, their bodies are mutilated and piece by piece torn away.

It is the utmost task of the commanding officer, to keep the icefarers from killing themselves completely, lest they would be no longer of use when traversing the ice. For as long as they live, however, they are uniquely valuable assets and traded as the highest of treasures in the sector.

### Labyrinth

Energies and gravity reflected a thousandfold among the breaking sheets of cosmic ice create a maze of impossible paths for ships to navigate. Any course wrongly taken will set a voidship adrift on the endless cosmic ice of the never-ending glacier. Upon contact, the ship will be enthralled in the cold, slowly freezing into a sculpture of itself until nothing but pure ice remains. Charts of these corridors stay never accurate for long, as the maze itself is ever changing, ever wandering with the slow but inevitable drift of the cosmic ice.

## Notable Systems

### Castellum Mogontiacum

Within the Glacial Nebula ends most notably the Limes Gondwana, at the first Castellum  Mogontiacum. Not even the forces coming forth from the depths of the Thetys Rift have been known to find an easy passage through the labyrinth of cosmic ice.

This made the Glacial Nebula the perfect position for an imperial staging ground, a bulwark of civilization located in the few stable regions, where passages of the Borealis stars remain long enough to allow limited travel.

Mongontiacum is a mighty and terrible star fort, isolated completely from the rest of Subsector Cambria. The elusive castle among cosmic ice has become the stuff of legends since many millennia and haunts the folklore of many worlds under its protection.

### The Azure Pharos

A Pharos of pure azure is said to exist deep within the Glacial Nebula. There, so legends tell, the icefarers gone mad are sacrificed and produce a psychic light bright enough to penetrate the endless mirror maze. Some say this is how ships of the Imperial Navy find their way to the star forts and entrenchments of Mongontiacum. But the truth of the matter, remains deep in mystery, for few astropaths and navigators ever even dare to gaze into the northern direction, from whence the ice comes amid a terrible, psychic freeze.

### Hidden Places

Throughout the Glacial Nebula, there exist innumerable hidden places, some small caches of a smuggler's den, some vast enough to encompass staging grounds of the Imperial Navy. The cosmic ice creates a microcosm of perpetually shifting borders and secrets, to be ever newly explored by the brave and foolish. Only a few of them rightly believe to have come to understand some of the currents therein, enough so to chart a safe passage to the goal of their choosing.

## History

### The coming of ice

In the furthest memories of the distant past, preserved only in the oldest crypts of Gondwana's chroniclers, there exist legends of time before the ice, and of the great cataclysm, when the ice came. Little is certain about the vague descriptions of the cold fate coming from the galactic rim, only, that it came before the Age of Strife and eluded the knowledge of humanity, seemingly even during the Dark Age of Technology.

### Ancient Engima

Attempts to unveil the nature of the cosmic ice date back beyond imperial memory. Records of experiments and observations are meticulously archived and stored away in the deeper catacombs of Trantor, including even files revealed by the Fiefdom of the Crimson Queen. Similarly far back rach descriptions of the ice farers and early accounts of attempted voyages up the ice's stream. By the end of the 41st Millennium, more than three thousand reported expeditions into the ice have been recorded, of which only one third ever returned. Of these one thousand, less than half brought any data, and less than twelve had survivors aboard.

### Isolation

Safe for the voidsmen and soldiers of the Imperial Navy, the Glacial Nebula is sought out solely by those intending to live in isolation, and those who dare to withstand the constant blue and silver glow, and the snow of cosmic ice, the never-ending winter.