Feirefitz

Dwelling in the dark gulfs between the living suns are the nomadic Hordes of Feirefitz. Their vessels are legion, scattered across the firmament ever since, as legends say, their world was stolen from another time, unimaginably far in the distant past. From an age when humanity was young and had not yet ventured far among the stars, their world was displaced and delivered into the 41st Millennium, through the Thetys Rift of Gondwana.

But where any civilization would be thought to perish, the people of Feirefitz flourished and prospered, and in time, word of their survival was spread throughout this region of the Imperium, testament to humanity's unbreakable will to survive.

**Associated Pages:**

* Feirefitz Fleets
* Feirefitz Voidsmen

## The Great Hordes

Bound through common ancestry, the proud people of Feirefitz live in vast fleets wandering between the stars. Each such Horde is in itself a nation of many thousand isles and continents, made from rock and steel and suspended in the void through the unknowable power of arcane machinery.

The greatest of the hordes encompass entire asteroid fields and habitats yielding more crops and livestock than entire agri-worlds, and their void-borne hives harbor the living souls of many billions. Entire cathedral ships and temple vessels, great manufactorum fortresses and warp tankers are kept in service by the mighty chieftains of Feirefitz. In their own way, they command entire empires of their own, unbound from the cruel gravity of stars and free to roam the galaxy, never to set foot on a planet again.

### Stellar Nomads

Far from the light of suns, the Hordes scour the void for rogue bodies and planetoids, devouring resources and energy, hollowing out what rocks they find and adding them to their ever growing number. Life in the Void is no longer a cruel fate to them, but the true destiny of humanity in their eyes.

They see the mandate of mankind laying claim on all worlds of the galaxy and in some way remember deeply their own past as pioneers in the earliest expansion age. But they share the desire for worlds no longer. In the void, they found austerity and through it, salvation from the cruel fate which had befallen them.

### Watchers of the Past

Through telescopes gathering visible light, the people of Feirefitz looked into the distant past. In the light which traveled for many ten-thousand years from Sol, they saw Holy Terra as it was long ago, as it was during the time they knew. And through the eyes of Navigators, they see now the Astronomicon, the Light of the Emperor overwhelming these visions of the past. This light is their beacon, and they will never exchange it for a blue sky overhead.

### Chieftains

As their world was delivered through millennia, the old civilization of Feirefitz faltered and was lost entirely. It broke apart into dynasties and clans, of which few remained when the world re-emerged on the other end and was found by the Mechanicum.

When shards of their world were uplifted to the stars, each Horde emerging from the remnants of Feirefitz came to be ruled by a chieftain and their dynasty. Yet power over the Hordes would never be wielded by the right of birth alone. Too strong was the free will ingrained into these people, to close the memory of another age before the Emperor took His throne. The scepters of Feirefitz and its hordes would only ever fall to those who earned the favor of the masses in their realm. Otherwise, their horde would split and form anew, for the subjects of the chieftains were never to be forced under the rule of tyrants – too strong is their will to be free, to mighty their spirit of young humanity.

## Traders and Artisans

In the new age of the Imperium, where they were stranded after subjective decades of degenerative agony, the people of Feirefitz formed themselves anew as traders and artisans. They had no chance as warriors in a galaxy torn by many ten-thousand years of endless war, more than they ever knew. Thus, they adapted in the ways of older humanity, making allies among the Imperial worlds and submitting to the Imperial Creed. Wealth through commerce was still in their blood, and so they created the foundations of a trader and artisan empire, a Hansa within the Imperium, stretching all of Sector Gondwana.

From the shores of the Glacial Nebula, where their void-borne hives and manufactorum vessels make their everlasting journey, the Great Hordes sent out countless trading vessels and mercenary flotillas, envoys and accomplished artisans to make trade with other worlds of the Imperium and establish themselves as a known power, one whose favor may very well change the tides of war and the fate of entire dynasties.

Goods and rare luxuries traded from the Feirefitz Voidfarers are renown beyond the boundaries of Sector Gondwana for their excellence and sought after by the rich and mighty. In some regions, where the grip of the Imperium is felt weakly otherwise, emissaries sent from the Hordes become even masters of imperial law and proclaim themselves governors of their own making over the worlds they keep in the Imperial fold.

## Cult of the Engine

Among the most remarkable lineages to arise from the ruins of Feirefitz' lost world is the Cult of the Engine, the Horde's very own branch of the Mechanicum. Founded by the priests and engineseers most devoted to the plan to let the hives and manufactorii of Feirefitz ascend, this chapter of the Mechanicum has grown to completely embrace the voidfarer's nomadic ways and acts independently of the Forge World Cambria. Headed not by the Archmagos but the High Smith of the Eternal Engine, the Cult of the Engine seeks first and foremost to maintain the myriad vessels of the Hordes and to keep the multitude of machines operational, which facilitate the continued existence of these worlds in deep space.

### Engine Smiths

Far from the mighty forges of Cambria and those of other major worlds, the Engine Smiths of Feirefitz are often the most prolific servants of the Omnissiah in the lesser known regions of Sector Gondwana. On backwater worlds and in forgotten systems, they replace and repair the machines and armaments of lonely stations and garrison fleets, bringing the technological blessings of the Machine God to the all but forgotten children of the Emperor.

## Astrography

The true origin of the Feirefitz Hordes has long been lost to the depths of time. Legends tell, it was swallowed by the Thetys Rift outright and its star has long since gone out. Others presume the old world to be one of the scorched planets in the Feirefitz Constellation, despite it being given its name much later in Imperial History after the Hordes had long ascended and roamed the stars. Finally, some say the old World of Feirefitz had been right at the heart of Gondwana, in the barren void which is now nothing but galactic medium between the Subsector of its extent.

Since the dawn history as written by Imperial Scribes of Sector Gondwana, the Hordes of Feirefitz Roamed the empty regions of the Glacial Nebula and ventured from there into the galactic north beyond the confines of Subsector Cambria even. The gathering grounds of their mining fleets extend further still to the south into Pahmn's Strait and to the Feirefitz Constellations, where they make their most prominent trade with the mining worlds of the Cult Mechanicus Cambria.

## History

### Forgotten Age

The old world of Feirefitz belonged to an entirely forgotten age, erased completely from written word and memory. It predated the height of mankind and the Dark Age of Technology. It was a world of the earliest expansion when mankind had first reached the starfaring era.

Nothing survived of these early days when among the people of Feirefitz no gothic was spoken when they lived still in blissful ignorance of the immaterium and had no concept of chaos in their minds. One memory alone survived in this world. The fear, when the skies opened into the abysses of hell when a tearing in the warp rippled from a far and distant future back in time, and the old world Feirefitz was swallowed in a cataclysmic maelstrom of damnation.

### Transported through uncounted Millennia

Only the deepest, darkest shrines at the heart of the great hordes still hold chronicles of the transition. There is no living soul left to ever seek them. The journey many ten-thousands of years into the future felt like mere decades to the inhabitants of this world and somehow, the demons of chaos could not quite ravage a world of such a distant past. Nonetheless, they tried, and their visages were to be seen great in the sky and drove the people of Feirefitz into madness, panic, and despair.

In such a state was all the world to them, when the ripples of the warp delivered them onto the shores of a new age, into the heart of a Warp-Storm enveloping all of Sector Gondwana. This was the arrival of Feirefitz in the forty-first Millennium. And the appearance of a new world did not go unnoticed by the Imperium.

### Exodus

To save the ancient relic world from certain damnation at the whim of the Ruinous Powers, the Adeptus Mechanicus lifted the Hives of Feirefitz into the heavens. The techpriests of Forge World Cambria anchored the rescued remnants onto broken celestial bodies, bestowing upon them great fusion torches to lead them forth from the Thetys Rift splitting Sector Gondwana.

By the grace of the Omnissiah alone did the people of Feirefitz continue to exist and their souls were liberated from the madness which had befallen them. Few retained any memory at all, and fewer still, to the great chagrin of the Mechanicum, brought anything of note in machines technology. What humanity had managed to build in the time from which Feirefitz stemmed, was primitive to the Mechanicum. And although revered for their age, the old pieces of Feirefitz were of no greater use to the Forge World Cambria.

### Adaption

Once in the void, the architecture and inhabitants of Feirefitz were changed, adapted to life between the worlds. The people were taught what they had forgotten, and some measure of civilization returned to the barbaric clans which had grown out of the isolated pockets of humanity on the world displaced in space and time.

The Cult of the Engine established manufactorum temples, Navigators sent their kin to join the emerging Hordes. And eventually, the Chieftains consolidated their power and begun drafting plans to begin the civilization of Feirefitz anew. Before long, the Horde of Feirefitz was no mere exodus anymore. Granted ascension through the machine, they embraced the new life given to them.

## Forces of the Feirefitz Hordes

### Mercenaries

The most common men at arms among the Hordes of Feirefitz are Mercenaries of varying classes. Still traders at heart, these are the people of Feirefitz who trade in their own lives and victories. They range from those who have nothing else to trade to heroic champions embracing the endless war of the forty-first Millennium and fighting fervently for the Imperium of Mankind. Whilst many are mere soldiers of fortune and war-bands, there exist venerable armies and entire fleets among the Hordes, whose services are lent to anyone willing and able to pay.

### Hordes of War

Should the people of Feirefitz be ever threatened themselves, no mercenaries exist any longer under their banner. When the people of Feirefitz go to war, they do completely so and convert every last piece of their world, every ship and rock and last stone in their arsenal to the sole purpose of defeating their foe.

Thus, Hordes of War are unrivaled battlefleets, most numerous and versatile of all in Sector Gondwana. Whilst not wholly devoted to battle, their absolutely self-sustained nature and the adaptability of every machine within, makes them most effective war machines who will push an unending advance against enemy worlds. With no regard for planetary life, they will not refrain from horrid bombardment and have been known to even resort to throwing asteroids of several kilometers size against planetary targets in their way.