Askellon Sector - Time of Ending Approaches: In the ten standard millennia that have passed since the founding of Askellon, the sector's fortunes have waxed and waned many times. It has risen to the heights of power and prestige, only to be hurled into the depths of the abyss by the secret hubris of its leaders. Juno, the sector's pre-eminent world and the seat of its ruling sector praefect, has been overrun by alien invasion, torn apart by bloodthirsty rebels, and crushed by wars with neighbouring powers. Askellon's peoples have been enslaved, butchered, and bombarded from orbit. Each time the sector has rebuilt itself atop the ruins, though never so high nor so proud as before. In current eras, many look back at past ages as golden periods and can only see darker times ahead.Xenos threats are certainly on the rise, from raiders attacking vessels across the sector to entire armies seeking to conquer Imperial worlds. The sector contains the remains of many long-dead alien civilisations, and even their ossified artefacts can cause irreparable harm in the wrong hands. There are tales of cults that dare worship the inhuman, befouling Human souls with the taint of the alien. Worse still, there are rumours of the resurrection of species thought dead and forgotten, though only the gullible or fanatical give these credence.The Pandaemonium has only added to the sense of doom. For several millennia, Navigators and Chartist Captains have considered the region, ever traitorous and poorly-charted, as ill-aspected and in some manner cursed. Instances of vessels cast violently off-course, barely surviving passage or vanishing entirely, are growing. Already, numerous charts state simply "Access Denied," where before they listed the details of the cursed sector, a warning that some who enter it might never return.Though the Warp storm is currently in a period of seeming calm, it grows in rage and hunger, but for what none dare say. Its power is limited not only to Warp travel; entire planets have been engulfed or lost behind its storm front, becoming isolated for generations. Doomsayers cry that the storm is drawn towards those worlds with the greatest populations of psykers, or worse might be itself causing the increasing number of these and other mutants.Heretical texts claim it is a manifestation of ancient sins revisited on the living, or the spirit of betrayed souls screaming for vengeance, and is so deeply entrenched within the stones of the sector's fortresses and the souls of its people that it may never be excised. Though none would openly countenance such beliefs, few Askellians disagree that it holds the sector in a vice that is ever-closing.The pervasive sense of coming doom has led many to turn away from their Emperor to other gods, and heresies grow across the sector. Wherever there is darkness they fester, from within the shadows of tall, gleaming spires or the foetid black of buried ruins, though many operate openly behind façades of the respectable or sanctioned. No world or star system is safe from the touch of Chaos, and no soul proof against its many temptations. Only through faith in the Emperor, and the actions of His servants, can the sector survive these apocalyptic times.