Azure Nebula

Within the deep gloom of the Azure Nebula, there lie a few worlds of tranquil peace amid the perils of all the galaxy. Precious for their calm existence despite all the world's decay, they are well-guarded treasures at the eastern fringe, shielded from the woes of history. To remain pristine for eons to come, they are carefully watched over by the powers that be, as monuments to worlds as they were once envisioned when humanity first set out toward the stars in search of such paradises.

## Astrography

The Azure Nebula lies east of the Gulf of Cambria, just north of the Elder Frontier and the great emptiness of the spiral abyss. No routes lead here, neither from within Sector Gondwana nor from the distant inner Imperium. From its astrographical isolation, the region derives much of its protection from the tides of war, as it holds little value to those seeking to profit or conquer.

## The deep gloom

All worlds of the Azure Nebula are enthralled in the deep gloom, the vivid light emanating from all particles of the nebula itself. It's all-encompassing, perpetual omnipresence has been likened by some to the eternal gaze of the Emperor. Some believe indeed that a single thought of the undying leader of humanity rests upon these worlds and keeps them free of harm. And for this reason, countless pilgrims visit the temples of the nebula every day, bathing in its gloomy light and feeling themselves renewed.

But the conviction and faith of those believers are based on far more than spiritual symbolism of the Emperor's light. They find the blessings of the Golden Throne in two qualities unique to this region of Gondwana:

### Dreams of Tranquility

The peace upon all worlds engulfed in the deep gloom of the Azure Nebula has been lasting for longer than imperial chronicles recount. It goes beyond protection by the vast armies of the Triumvirate Gondwana, beyond the luxury of a favorable position among the stars. Something else has blessed these ancient worlds and kept the peace there even through the Weltenbrand.

It is said when the explorators of the Imperium came, those living within the Deep Gloom were among the first to be encountered. Despite the swelling and stirring of the warp, they had maintained simple lives for centuries alone, seemingly peaceful and content where so many other worlds had fallen to barbaric tribes. What kept the people of the Deep Gloom content, nobody knew, and it was not questioned for they rejoined with the whole of humanity gladly, even though they kept mostly to themselves.

By many, they were regarded at first as a simple, even cowardly people, until those few among their ranks who stepped forth to join the war, proved themselves as formidable heroes in times of war, and rose to some of the most prominent figures of the late Gondwana Crusade.

### Longevity and Conscious Tombs.

Aside from the gift of calm disposition and mind, the Deep Gloom grants those living upon its worlds a strange prolonging of their natural life. This longevity, however, is entirely different from rejuvenation, for it does not make the body young again, but merely preserves it and its soul and mind. Those growing old upon these worlds, age until they are little more but skin and bone, wasting away in a nigh vegetative state, with their mind still intact and ever growing. What may appear to some as a gruesome fate, devoid of any luck or honor, is regarded by others as the greatest gift.

Many nobles, but also high artisans and wise, come into the Deep Gloom of the Azure Nebula, to spend centuries entombed, busying themselves only with matters of the mind and dictating their works on endless scrolls for the archivists and chroniclers to decipher. And while some may devolve into the ramblings of a senile soul, others reach unknowable hights of knowledge, understanding and aesthetic beauty, while lying still in the dark, of the tomb colonies within the Deep Gloom.

## Notable Systems

Few systems are strewn about the tendrils of the Azure Nebula, born from its dust without consuming it whole. The stars here are ancient, yet still burning bright in their old age. The worlds revolving around them are often empty and barren, stripped of all features by the passage of time. Only those blossoming with forests seeded by old humanity, are in themselves renewed many times again and still grow in subtle, silent beauty.

### Sylvan World Cornubit

Most renown among these is Cornubit, the Sylvan world, a cryptic garden of ancient trees, interwoven and encompassing all the planet's land. Like most worlds of its kind, it is populated by a small, devout population following their own version of the Imperial Cult, endowed with naturalist beliefs in nymphs and entish omens, in voices of the leaves whispering of imperial saints.

Yet the mundane simplicity of these worlds covers up much older, more exquisite secrets. For no other reason could the Adeptus Mechanicus have such interest in protecting, even guarding such a remote and non-industrial world.

### Nameless Tomb Colonies

On the winding tendrils of deep, azure gloom sit worlds like pearls on a chain tightly strung. Upon these worlds lie colonies of living tombs, necropolises of the all but dead, those whose bodies fade away, but whose souls are kept alive by the strange longevity of the deep gloom.

In these world's vast crypts and catacombs, they are preserved, but not rejuvinated. Anointed with precious oil and incents, they lead a half-life for centuries, confined solely to the constraints of the waking mind.

The tomb colonists of the Deep Gloom are the sector's living memory, chroniclers of lives spanning many thousand years and wardens of old and dangerous secrets. As such their value cannot be overstated, and has been assessed as such by the Cult Mechanicus Cambria. For this reasons, the many worlds of living tombs are constantly and jealously guarded by detachments of the Mechanicus Navy, scouring for knowledge in the minds of the barely living.

## History

To the chronicles of the Imperium, the worlds within the Azure Gloom never were young. Even the oldest descriptions of contact with their reclusive people, speak of an ancient culture, untouched by the perils of the Age of Strife, witout any meaningful technology, but equally without barbaric tendencies. Unremarkable as they were to the early Imperium and its conquest of all known stars, these peaceful worlds grew in importance as millennia after millennia of endless war drew on. Like many places throughout the imperium, where the war could be avoided, they would have been chosen by the Adeptus Ministorum as holy worlds, to erect temples and monuments of pilgrimage. But the great dominance of the Mechanicus spared these worlds the fate of becoming overrun with those seeking solace and salvation. Instead, the half-dead of the living tombs were left to ponder the universe alone.