vizn3r/warhammer40k-lore huggingface dataset:
Calixis Sector - Notable Locations: Hive Sibellus' most extraordinary single landmark is the Lucid Palace, which houses the magnificent court of Sector Governor Marius Hax, the Lord Sector Calixis. The Lucid Palace, and the vast column rising from the waves on which it sits, is thought to be much older than Hive Sibellus or indeed, anything on Scintilla. The palace resembles a vast flower of stone, its granite petals overlapping to form its huge dome and the many archways used as entrances. The palace is draped with hundreds of banners representing the institutions of Scintilla and its noble houses, and having a banner fluttering from the palace dome is an honour that some will murder for.Another spectacular landmark is the Bastion Porphyr. This slender tower of purple-black stone is the tallest point in Hive Sibellus and the headquarters for Scintilla's astropaths. Scintilla's Astropathic Choir consists of about half a dozen astropaths, the largest concentration of these powerful psykers in the Calixis Sector, led by Senior Astropath Xiao. These astropaths are the only means for contacting other sectors and without them the Calixis Sector would be cut off from the rest of the Imperium.Anyone who wishes to use them to send an interstellar message must personally climb the apparently endless spiral staircase up the tower and make their request personally to Senior Astropath Xiao. Each astropath has a different method of visualising and sending astrotelepathic messages, and they spend their lives amid the draughty belfries of the Bastion Porphyr performing intensive mental exercises and studying the tomes of symbolic code. Aside from a few servitors to assist them, no one lives in the Bastion Porphyr other than the astropaths.
Calixis Sector - Inquisitional Holdings: The other most notable landmark in the hive is the Tricorn Palace, the headquarters of the Inquisition on Scintilla. A dark and austere trio of linked towers at the northern end of the hive sprawl, the palace is the headquarters of the High Council of the Calixian Conclave, which is to say that it is the administrative seat of the Inquisition in the Calixis Sector.Since earliest times, the Inquisition has often convened and empowered a conclave of its members for each sector of the Imperium. Each sector conclave is ruled by a Lord Inquisitor of unimpeachable merit, selected and appointed by the High Lords of the Senatorum Imperialis on Terra. For the past two hundred standard years, the Lord Inquisitor of the Calixian Conclave has been Aegult Caidin. Though respectful of the Lord Sector, Caidin answers to no one except the distant High Lords of Terra. From the Tricorn Palace, he supervises and directs the general policies and activities of the Inquisitors under his command, as well as individual specialist cabals of Inquisitors sent upon "special circumstance" missions. The Lord Inquisitor is seldom seen in public. It is said that he keeps his true likeness secret behind a mask, even from close aides and allies, so as to be free to operate unmolested and unrecognised. His true age is not known.Lord Inquisitor Caidin chairs the High Council of the Calixian Conclave, a ruling body of seventy senior Inquisitors drawn from all three Ordos Majoris of the Inquisition, which orchestrates and monitors the Inquisition's work throughout the sector's territories. Estimates suggest that over eight thousand Inquisitorial personnel toil in the officio of the Tricorn Palace, from lowly scribes to archivists, from schlars to specialist Tech-adepts. A small but potent army of Inquisitorial troops is garrisoned at the Tricorn Palace and dedicated voidships of the Inquisition are permanently stationed at high anchor above Scintilla for rapid response deployment. It is also suggested, but unconfirmed, that the Tricorn possesses its own astrotelepathic choir. In times of great crisis, the Officio of the High Council of the Calixian Conclave can call upon the help of any Imperial adepta it requires.The general multitudes shun the Tricorn Palace, regarding it as a place of fear, peril and downright evil, though largely this is because the average citizen has no real grasp of the work and duties of the conclave. Nevertheless, to be seized by the Inquisition and carried to the Tricorn for questioning is a grim fate that few ever return from.
Calixis Sector - Hive Tarsus: Hive Tarsus is Scintilla's second largest population centre and is the seat of the planet's trade and commerce. It maintains an aggressive independence from Hive Sibellus, though it relies on the export produce of Sibellus' manufactoria. Hive Tarsus is in the centre of Scintilla's least hospitable desert, baking in the relentless sun and battered by sandstorms. The hive city's construction is based around a foundation of immense vertical bars, between which stretch the great conglomerations of buildings that make up the body of the hive. As a result, Hive Tarsus is more vertical than horizontal, with more middle hivers climbing to work than walking.
Calixis Sector - Tarsian Society: Hive Tarsus' unusual structure and hostile location mean that darkness and cold are valued commodities and, as such, very unusually for a hive city, the richest areas are those on the bottom of the hive instead of at the top. Hive Tarsus' nobility enjoy the shade afforded by having a whole city strung in a dizzying web above them, while they are far enough from the merciless sun to live in cool comfort.The very wealthiest live in pitch-black subterranean mansions where inhabitants and visitors carry dim lanterns to see by, while the air is cooled to sub-zero temperatures that require everyone to wear lavish furs. The nobility here demonstrate their superiority by controlling their environment at immense cost, even to the extent of making their handsome estates as dangerous to the ill-prepared as the worst summer droughts. Hive scum that stray too close to the base of the city are often found frozen to death, caught out by the dramatic drops in temperature the closer they get to the wealthiest districts.The closer to the surface of Hive Tarsus, the poorer and more dangerous the hive city becomes. Middle hivers labour in sweltering workshops bathed in the heat filtering down from the sun, plagued by sunbeams that sweep through the hive during the day and burn exposed skin. The outermost layers (known as the "Hiveskin") are hellish; it is almost too hot to breathe and hivers are bathed in sunlight so potent it can make those caught in it blacken and shrivel up in a few solar minutes.Layers of hovels cling to the top and sides of the hive, too flimsy to completely block out the deadly sun or the frequent lethal sandstorms. Worst of all, the heat is relentless, easily hot enough to kill those not adapted to it. The Hiveskinners scrabble like scarabs across the outermost layers to avoid the worst of the sun as it moves overhead during the day. They are a sunburned, sand-scarred lot who survive by hunting the hardy fauna that dwells here including dangerous scaldbats and mildly poisonous fingerburner beetles. Many wear improvised, iridescent armour suits to reflect the sun, so that they themselves resemble Human-sized beetles.
Calixis Sector - Scintillan Protectorate Barracks: Hive Tarsus' proximity to the orbital docks means that it is also the home of the planet's military units. Scintilla's Planetary Defence Force, the Army of the Scintillan Protectorate, is based at Hive Tarsus. It draws its troops from across the planet and there is considerable rivalry between regiments. The regiments raised from Gunmetal City's ruffians consider themselves to be superior and they are mostly justified in this, with the Gunmetal regiments being the equal of the Astra Militarum in training. The Gunmetallicus 41st Regiment, in particular, is a prestigious elite formation whose troops are used to escort VIPs and perform dangerous missions in the wastelands between the hives.When the Imperium needs new Astra Militarum regiments raised for conflicts close to the Calixis Sector, Scintilla's tithe is often raised to include a new draft of manpower for the Astra Militarum. This draft is mostly taken from the Army of the Scintillan Protectorate, with some guardsmen also being raised from the ultra-violent gangers of Gunmetal City's notorious Infernis. Since the Scintillan troops often cut their teeth battling the Infernis gangs, care must be taken to keep the resulting Astra Militarum regiments apart.The Army of the Scintillan Protectorate, while answering to Marius Hax in his role as planetary governor, is effectively sponsored by the Scintillan noble families who contribute their household troops to tours in the planetary army, and most of its officer class is drawn from the younger sons and daughters of noble houses. Warrior brotherhoods, secret societies often born of loyalties to a particular noble house, are common in the army, with the most prestigious having fraternal meeting houses in the spire of Hive Tarsus.
Calixis Sector - Ambulon: Ambulon is a bizarre sight indeed, claimed by many to be a hive city in its own right. The entire city is mounted on the back of a machine that slowly walks across the unstable rocky regions in the centre of Scintilla's main continent. The machine is extremely old, and was almost certainly already on Scintilla when the Imperium conquered the Calixis Sector.It is probably a pre-Imperial artefact, constructed by a civilisation that fell before the foundation of the Imperium, though some claim it is a relic of pre-Horus Heresy Imperial terraforming technologies. Certainly the skeletal ruins of moving constructs similar to Ambulon dot the central steppes. Ambulon's unusual form affects every aspect of life in the mobile city, from the industries that employ its middle-class citizens to the city's customs and folklore.
Calixis Sector - Control of Ambulon: Ambulon is navigated via a huge and very complicated control centre, powered by arcane engines of incredibly occult design, in the area corresponding to its head. The Guild Peripatetica, highly superstitious engineers who keep the secrets of how to control the citadel-mechanicus, are constantly scrambling about the intricate controls making tiny adjustments to keep the edifice moving. Many tales of hive folklore dwell on the terrible consequences should Ambulon ever stop, varying from the city simply collapsing, to the machines becoming self-aware and devouring the Humans clinging to its back.The noble houses quarrel constantly over what orders to give to the guild, but they are also well-aware that they should not bully or otherwise cross the Guild Peripatetica lest the engineers point them towards a crevasse or other dangerous obstacle and hold the citadel to ransom. The path that the machine takes is crucial to harvesting the deposits of promethium, natural gas and precious stones that form Ambulon's contribution to Scintilla's Imperial tithe, and everyone has an opinion about where it should go next.Ambulon stalks the wastelands of Scintilla, mining and harvesting the planet's natural resources, supplying the manufactoria of Hive Sibellus and the foundries of Gunmetal City. Neither could function without Ambulon's natural resources. Ambulon tours the steppe wastes once every twenty-eight solar months, slowing to minute speeds in order to dock with Sibellus and Gunmetal City for a few solar days to offload ore and mineral resources. Between these celebrated ceremonial times of docking, Ambulon supplies Sibellus and Gunmetal City by way of regular land trains: ore-cargo crawler pods many kilometres long.
Calixis Sector - Gunmetal City: Gunmetal City is a huge industrial mass, built into the crater of an immense volcano, Mount Thollos, that rises from the smouldering lava fields of the northern coast. A mere megapolis compared to the planet's two great hive cities, Gunmetal City's spires tower high above the volcano's peak, while its lowest districts delve right down into Scintilla's crust.
Calixis Sector - Metallican Society: Gunmetal City is a place of soaring steel, with towers like great, tarnished silver needles piercing the sky. The volcano's crater limits the size of the city's foundation, so nobles have built upwards, the most prestigious locations being perched precariously on slender columns of steel hundreds of metres high.The city is frequently bathed in smoke from the foundries of the middle city below and the noble houses employ small armies of menials whose job is to scour the surfaces of the skybound mansions until they gleam. Clean air is a valued commodity, with every mansion having powerful air filtration systems to cut out the smoke, while the most ostentatious hosts pipe air imported from cleaner worlds into their magnificent homes.The middle level of the city is dominated by immense foundries powered by the geothermal heat from the heart of Mount Thollos. Almost all of Gunmetal City's middle classers work in these foundries over cauldrons of molten metal or blazing furnaces the size of tenement blocks. Gunmetal City's main export is munitions, and endless crates of weapons emerge from its foundries, forming an important part of Scintilla's tithe to the Imperium as well as arming many of the Calixis Sector's own Planetary Defence Force troops.The foundries are sweltering, filthy places where accidents are common and even a fortunate worker's life is shortened by solar decades thanks to the choking air and cruel environment. The middle classers' homes are clustered around the foundries and often fashioned from cargo containers. People are an afterthought in Gunmetal City. The foundries and the weapons they produce form the real purpose behind the place.The Infernis is a region formed by the lowest levels of manufactoria that have collapsed or become uninhabitable. This far down, the city is unbearably hot and prone to floods of lava or toxic gas from Mount Thollos' occasional lurches out of dormancy. The gangs of the Infernis are the toughest and best-armed on Scintilla and almost no one else lives there save hard-bitten killers toting weapons extorted from the middle hivers. There is nothing to live for in the Infernis save superiority over enemy gangs, and so gang warfare is literally a way of life.
Calixis Sector - The Lawless City: In truth, Gunmetal City is an upstart. Younger and far, far smaller than the dominant hive cities on Scintilla, Gunmetal is a feral community that thrives simply because of what it produces. Hives Sibellus and Tarsus tolerate it because of its export materials. It is a jumped-up, uncivilised boomtown in the Wilderness region of the planet, a city that got too big for itself. One day, in a thousand years' time, it might become powerful enough to challenge for the dominance of Scintilla. For now, it is a four-billion-strong foundry station where law is slack and noble houses fight, literally, for ownership of lucrative mercantile output. Of all the main population centres on Scintilla, Gunmetal City is the most dangerous and lawless.The gun is everywhere in Gunmetal City, from the weapons churned out by its foundries, to the symbols of the city's noble houses and the guns carried by almost every citizen. Gunfighting is a leisure activity, with designated areas throughout the city set aside for shoot-outs. Duels in Gunmetal are fought with Autopistols, and a great many people, especially from the middle hives where life is quite short anyway, seek out brief but glorious careers as gunfighters.Shots ring around the foundries of the middle city incessantly and the nobles often hire prestigious gunslingers to battle in elaborate arenas while the audience watches from behind bulletproof screens. Some of the best gunslingers come from Infernis, and it is little wonder that the gangers adore their guns so much when expertise in their use brings such wealth and status.
Calixis Sector - Guns of Gunmetal City: A few of the guns produced by Gunmetal City are famous, either through their iconic nature or exceptional performance. These guns are status symbols, especially for the Infernis gangers, and are carried by officers of the Scintillan army as side arms. The Thollos Service Autopistol, or the "Tholl," is an Autopistol that sacrifices ammunition capacity for stopping power and is much coveted by Magistratum officers in particular.The Scalptaker on the other hand, is a very solidly built and extremely uncomplicated ballistic slug pistol designed for use by just about anyone. It is such a common weapon that any self-respecting ganger will try to upgrade his Scalptaker, even though it is a very easily maintained weapon designed to survive the rigours of the Infernis.The Fykos Forge Nomad Hunting Instrument is one of the most precise and well-calibrated weapons produced in Gunmetal City, and is the rifle of choice for hunters who stalk big game in Scintilla's wastelands. Procuring a "Nomad" costs an enormous amount of money and involves a five-year waiting list.Finally, the Blackhammer Defence Shotgun is a brutal, massive-bore shotgun that can blast holes in doors and shred opponents. Its limited range and single-shot capacity do little to diminish its value as a weapon of intimidation in the hands of hardened criminals and Enforcers.
Calixis Sector - The Wilderness and Hive Tenebra: The hive cities' inhabitants refer to the areas outside the great hives as "the Wilderness." This is something of a misnomer, as there are a great many settlements outside the hives, but certainly none of them can compare to the importance of the great hive cities themselves. Scintilla's natural resources have either been drained long ago or are monopolised by the great hives and Ambulon, so many people exist as nomads. Those permanent settlements that do exist are often founded by mercenaries, who lived by selling their services to the land trains that crisscross the planet.The mercenaries, easily recognisable by the white bands painted or tattooed across their faces, are essential to providing security against the more predatory nomad tribes. Land trains consist of dozens of huge tracked vehicles that crawl in from hive to hive transporting goods and passengers. Some land trains even cross Scintilla's oceans, loading their vehicles onto great barges for risky journeys across polluted waters with their fair share of predators and pirates.With resources in short supply away from the hives, settlements can grow up and die out rapidly. Few survive for more than a generation and the Wilderness is studded with ghost towns. In some places, on the very fringes of Scintilla's habitable lands, small communities continue to exist as they have done for Terran centuries far from the shadow of the great hives. These people have often been in the same place for centuries. Isolated and ignored by Scintilla's authorities, they live in ignorance that the hives exist at all, much less that they live in a galactic empire ruled from distant Terra. Scholars of the Magnopticon sometimes send expeditions out to search for such benighted peoples, in the hope that studying them will reveal some secrets about the pre-Imperial history of Scintilla.The most extraordinary feature of the Wilderness is the ruin of Hive Tenebra. This necropolis was once the world's third hive city, the heart of Scintilla's high culture and arts, built around a circle of stepped pyramids rising like enormous altars from the steaming jungles of Scintilla's equator. The hive city is now a titanic mass of wreckage gradually being reclaimed by the voracious jungle. The disaster that claimed Hive Tenebra along with millions of lives happened over eight standard centuries ago, and is thought by most to have been caused by a collapse of the geothermal heatsinks that provided it with power.There is no shortage of conspiracy theories about what "really" happened to the hive city, however, ranging from ill-advised summonings of Warp creatures to a deliberate act of sabotage by agents of the Imperium. Tales about its destruction are outnumbered only by stories about what might lurk in the ruins now: ravenous monsters, renegade nobles and hordes of hideous mutants ruled by a mighty deformed overlord. No one ventures close to Hive Tenebra with any regularity, and when they do they rarely penetrate into the collapsed interior of the hive where the foulest horrors are said to lurk.
Calixis Sector - Port Suffering: Port Suffering, the largest permanent settlement on Iocanthos, is a sturdy fortified town that serves as the base for Imperial operations on Iocanthos. The town's largest and most important feature is its spaceport, an expanse of rockcrete broken by docking clamps and refuelling ports that can accommodate the landing craft that deliver supplies and pick up Ghostfire shipments. Equally important for the people living in Port Suffering are the huge freshwater tanks beneath the town. Freshwater is very valuable on Iocanthos, and Port Suffering not only has its own supply brought down on Imperial ships, but can trade its surplus water to the warlords (mainly for guarantees that the warlords will not attack the town).Port Suffering's architecture is based around a standard hab-block pattern since most of its buildings, from the chapel to the accommodation blocks, were dropped from voidships directly to the surface when the town was first founded as an Imperial trading post. Its dry, dusty streets and prefabricated rust-red buildings are home to a community mostly geared towards maintaining the spaceport and ensuring that the port remains self-sufficient.The town's population is broadly Emperor-fearing and law-abiding, and they attend the town's chapel and send their children to the seminary school run by Preacher Goudt. The largest building in Port Suffering is the Administratum counting-house where the town's small body of adepts calculates the projected Ghostfire crop and receives envoys from the various warlords. The under-consul in charge of the counting-house, Adept Sabetha Kosloff, serves as the de facto mayor of Port Suffering, sometimes against her will as she is not very good at dealing with townsfolk and would rather stick to ensuring that the Emperor's forms are correctly filed.Other important citizens include the sharp-tongued but compassionate Sister Xanthe, the Sister Hospitaller who runs Port Suffering's hospital along with a small staff of inexperienced laymen. Unkind rumours suggest that Sister Xanthe was given her thankless post as a punishment by her canoness at the Abbey of the Dawn.Port Suffering's walls are always manned by the citizens who serve in the Port Militia. The town's greatest protection, however, is the fact that it is considered neutral by most of Iocanthos' warlords. If Port Suffering was to be attacked, the more powerful warlords would lose their supply of weapons, freshwater and fuel from the Imperium and what little structure that exists on Iocanthos would fall apart.Some lesser warlords eye the support received by the more powerful with jealousy, however, and endlessly plan to launch devastating raids on Port Suffering. Should this ever happen, the stoutness of the town's defences and the dedication of its well-armed but inexperienced militia will be sorely tested.
Calixis Sector - Levies of King Skull the Magnificient: King Skull, as the current vervai and planetary governor, is the most powerful man on Iocanthos and styles himself on the legendary warrior-kings from the planet's history. In truth, the great ages of martial kingship are long past, with the old traditions bastardised into the modern, ruthless business of controlling the Ghostfire flower commerce.Nevertheless, King Skull's army is many millions strong and dominates huge swathes of Iocanthos' main continent at any one time. Skull himself is a tall, saturnine man clad in elaborate black steel armour, wielding a huge spear with a head cut from the flint of Iocanthos' highest peak. "Skull" is clearly a deliberately assumed name -- the vervai's tribal banner is a bleached Human skull -- though there is little clue as to his real name, as his origins are very obscure and are the subject of considerable speculation. Some say he is a deposed Imperial noble who fled to Iocanthos to avoid some scandal or tragedy, others that he is a dangerous fugitive criminal who found his true calling among the warlords and madmen.Most rumours centre around his supposed capabilities in battle. Skull is undoubtedly a tenacious warrior, but tales whispered in Iocanthos' frontier towns hint at far more, such as allegations that he drinks blood to gain strength from his enemies, or is a powerful witch who can summon mighty storms of black lightning down on his foes. Skull's rule is based on the immense loyalty the core of his army feels towards him. Warriors must first prove themselves in battle before they are ever armed with the weapons and equipment that Skull acquires from the Imperium in return for the Ghostfire harvest. As they demonstrate prowess in battle, they are further armed and drawn towards the core of battle-hardened, well-equipped veterans of the Harrowguard who surround Skull himself. Skull leads these warriors into battle personally, and the sight of his black-armoured form is enough to demoralise those unfortunate enough to meet the Harrowguard in battle.
Calixis Sector - Life in the Horde: King Skull's army welcomes all as long as they are willing to fight their first battles armed with little more than sticks and stones. Skull deploys huge numbers of new, expendable troops to swamp the enemy while the elite Harrowguard function as shock troops. Skull's army in battle is a terrible thing to witness, with swarms of madmen hurling themselves upon the enemy while the better-armed sections of the army fire volleys of Lasgun shots into the shocked enemy or charge alongside the vervai himself.Skull's army travels on a number of huge, smoke-belching vehicles. The Throne is Skull's personal transport, which was once a huge-tracked mining vehicle, refitted to function as a mobile throne room and prison for captured enemies. This sootstained monstrosity is festooned with captured banners and other trophies, and Skull himself sits on a throne platform suspended over hundreds of cages where his prisoners languish. Skull sells these prisoners back to their families or comrades in exchange for Ghostfire pollen or offers them a place in the ill-armed hordes of his army. Those who are good for neither Ghostfire nor fighting are left to rot, their sobs and screams accompanying the vervai everywhere he goes.Another mobile landmark is the Sanctum, a tower supported by a raft of lashed-together Chimera vehicles. It is home to Gurgerin, the advisor to the vervai and, it is widely assumed, a sorcerer whose divinations are essential to Skull's plans. The Sanctum is a stone tower pulled from some long-forgotten mountain ruin, said to be full of bewildering and grotesque experiments (or captive aliens, shambling Warp monstrosities or a cabal of the Calixis Sector's rich and powerful, depending on which stories you believe). Gurgerin, a man of extremely advanced age with tiny glinting eyes like specks of flint, can sometimes be seen on the Sanctum's uppermost battlements watching the vast throng of the army marching beneath him.Several other massive vehicles, used either to house the Harrowguard or to transport the precious Ghostfire crop, travel alongside the army, often hung with trophies or the weathered corpses of particularly hated enemies.
Calixis Sector - Seth the Voice: One of the largest and newest armies of Iocanthos is that led by Seth the Voice, self-styled Prophet of the Emperor and figurehead of an apocalyptic splinter cult of the Imperial Creed. Vai ("Prince") Seth is almost certainly an ex-adept, probably from Port Suffering's Administratum contingent, who became convinced that the God-Emperor was granting him visions that demanded he immediately take over Iocanthos. Since then, through force of personality and by tapping into Iocanthos' need for religion and redemption, Seth has forged a ragtag but huge army with which he is challenging the most powerful rival warlords, especially that of the great vervai.Vai Seth himself is a slight, balding, bespectacled figure in white robes. He travels in a battered old scout vehicle converted into a mobile pulpit from which he can preach. And preach he does, almost constantly, his voice transmitted by bulky vox-units carried by his devout followers. The passion with which Seth exhorts the people of Iocanthos to claim the planet for their Emperor is genuine and convincing.Everywhere he goes he gathers more souls for his army, be they drifters looking for a purpose or hard-bitten mercenaries searching for a way to redeem themselves of their many sins. Seth is not a soldier, but he has a gift for getting others to fight for him that is so profound that it might as well have been granted by the Emperor Himself.
Calixis Sector - Army of the Voice: Vai Seth's army is ill-equipped, undertrained and frequently starving. It is, however, uniquely motivated, for all its members believe that fighting for Seth will grant them a far better afterlife than is awaiting all the galaxy's other sinners. The Army of the Voice, uniquely, has no problem getting new members to replace its frequent losses, as even defeated enemies are sometimes swayed to join by Seth's impassioned preaching. The army travels on many hundreds of vehicles, most of them looted from enemies or donated by recruits, and as a result it is constantly in the throes of a critical fuel shortage. Capturing more fuel is essential to the army's continued existence.The men and women of the Army of the Voice are as varied as the sins they are trying to cleanse, but they all wear white robes, or at least they did when they joined up, for the constant travel and fighting means that most of them are actually dressed in dirty greys. Some are armed with Lasguns and other reliable weapons, but most have the hunting rifles or Stub Pistols they were armed with when recruited. The most experienced fighters, normally ex-mercenaries or recruits from other warlords' armies, are referred to as Seth's "Saints" and are the focal points of the army, instructing the enthusiastic, but often clueless, faithful in the best ways to avoid dying too quickly.In spite of the army's inexperience it is a formidable military force. As well as having the numbers and the determination, the effect of Seth's own presence seems to demoralise enemy troops and even cause them to flee or mutiny. Mercenaries in particular are a superstitious lot, and even an experienced killer can baulk at the idea of killing a man who so convincingly claims to be a holy man ordained by the Emperor's will.
Calixis Sector - Abbey of the Dawn: The Abbey of the Dawn is the Adepta Sororitas' main training facility in the Calixis Sector. A spectacular fortress of pale yellow ouslite built into the knife-like slopes of a dark flint mountain, the abbey is the most secure place on Iocanthos. Its location means that, while it is close to the astrocartographic heartland of the Calixis Sector, its immediate surroundings are bleak and rugged, and the abbey's sisters are cut off from the corruptive influences of the outside world.The abbey's purpose is to train initiates into fully-fledged sisters, who then go on to perform devotional works across the Calixis Sector and beyond. The abbey is run by Canoness Goneril, who leads the Lesser Order Famulous of the Opening Eye. The Opening Eye's purpose is to offer counsel to the Calixis Sector's powerful noble families. Most novices at the abbey are trainees of the Opening Eye and are schooled in a variety of subjects from Imperial history to theology and sector economics. Most importantly they are trained in the strength of mind to resist the secular temptations that are a constant threat to the Sisters Famulous.A Sister Famulous must be disciplined and incorruptible as she is sent out to fend mostly for herself, and is surrounded by the sometimes morally questionable nobles to whose house she is attached. Canoness Goneril has her novices undergo a strict regime of fasting, prayer, lectures and theological study. She stops short of outright cruelty, but life is far from easy for a novice of the Opening Eye. Goneril's Mistress of Novices, the formidable Sister Gert, is a physically intimidating reminder of a sister's duty to obey her order at all times.The Abbey of the Dawn is also home to a mission of Sisters of Battle from the Order of the Ebon Chalice, who are led by Palatine Rhiannon. The Ebon Chalice is based on Terra, and the battle-sisters at the abbey, even if they have only glimpsed the spires of the Imperium's holiest world, are regarded with something like religious awe by the novices. Their duties include maintaining the Sororitas honour guard at the Cathedral of Illumination on Scintilla and guarding important Ecclesiarchy adepts who visit the Calixis Sector.Both Canoness Goneril and Palatine Rhiannon are adherents to the long-standing agreement between the Adepta Sororitas and the Ordo Hereticus, and would willingly lend the battle-sisters' martial prowess to an Inquisitorial operation should it be needed. Lord Inquisitor Anton Zerbe of the Calixian Conclave does not take this agreement lightly and will not permit the Sisters of the Ebon Chalice to be sent to battle by an Inquisitor unless it is absolutely necessary. Though they number only around fifty, Rhiannon's Sisters of the Ebon Chalice are the most elite and dedicated mortal troops in the Calixis Sector.
Calixis Sector - Badlands: This is the rugged interior of Iocanthos, bounded to the south by dense forests and the sea, and to the north by the jagged flint mountains. The Badlands are an endless sweep of plains, scrub and steppe where most of the Ghostfire crops can be found and where the warlords clash. It is dotted with battlefields, some of them no more than a tangle of recently slain bodies and others titanic fields of bones and burned-out wrecks.A fortunate and hardy individual can make a good living scavenging these battlefields to find valuables and weapons to sell. Iocanthos' folklore is full of the tales of the sticky ends experienced by such scavengers, from dread curses to old-fashioned walking dead, and most normal folk stay away from these battlefields.
Calixis Sector - Sepheris Secundus: Sepheris Secundus is a Mining World located in the Golgenna Reach sub-sector of the Calixis Sector. Sepheris Secundus is a world of immense mineral wealth, city-sized mines, billions-strong hordes of serfs and the sharpest divide between the elites and the masses in the Calixis Sector. It is a grim place of snow and twilight, feral mutants and lives spent in back-breaking labour deep beneath the ground. The Imperium's eagerness to exploit Sepheris Secundus' vast resources is such that the planet is at the same time the richest and poorest world in the sector.Sepheris Secundus' climate is cold and stormy, its surface obscured by a mantle of cloud. It has no oceans save for the small polar seas, so the moisture in its atmosphere comes from below the crust, spewed out from failed mine workings or natural geysers that pockmark the planet like pustules. Its surface is split between the vast open mines like deep scars in the crust and the dense, snow-laden forests broken only by the ruins of failed kingdoms that tried to claim Sepheris Secundus in the past. With its endless blizzards, widespread ignorance and antiquated methods for doing everything, Sepheris Secundus would be a meaningless backwater were it not for the enormous mineral wealth beneath its surface.
Calixis Sector - Icenholm: Sepheris Secundus' capital is Icenholm, a wondrous city built into the mountain crags that loom over the vast smoking pit of the Gorgonid Mine. Icenholm’s glass spires encrust the mountain peak like a crown, bathed in an otherworldly light. This light is actually concentrated on Icenholm by a series of enormous reflecting mirrors positioned around the peaks overlooking the Gorgonid Mine, an expensive and complicated process that makes it look as if the light of some distant heaven is shining directly onto the capital.The main body of the city is suspended between three vast peaks on thousands of thick cables and chains, like a glittering jewel upon a complex necklace. The origins of this unusual structure are not recorded anywhere, but a common theory is that it was built around the core of an enormous warship that docked there during the Angevin Crusade and never left, the hive city growing up around it like a pearl around a speck of grit. Many buildings dangle from the city’s mass, reaching down hundreds of metres towards the floor of the valley below the city like strands of hanging moss.Icenholm is constructed of stained glass that shines in a dazzling array of colours in the sunlight. Its spires house some of the most senior barons along with members of the Sepheran royal family. The majority of Icenholm’s population is made up of hereditary servants, pledged to either the queen or one of her barons. They form small armies of clerks who ensure that the planet’s barons are offering up the correct tithes to their queen, and attend to other matters of governance such as the regulation of heraldry. These servants have their own hierarchies, with the queen’s own servants very much in charge. They wear the liveries of their masters, which in the case of the queen’s servants is red (red is a colour reserved for royal use on Sepheris Secundus -- anyone else wearing it is likely to be arrested by baronial troops). Icenholm’s gates do not open to just anyone, so while Imperial Adepts and barons will be received into Icenholm, anyone else will have to sweet-talk the hereditary family of gate servants who are difficult to impress.The peak of Icenholm is taken up by the palace, which consists of the various chambers of state along with Queen Lachryma’s own quarters. The throne room is spectacular indeed, set beneath a soaring spire of stained glass depicting the glories of Sepheris Secundus’ past monarchs. The throne itself is of ice kept permanently frozen, and the voluminous royal robes which the queen wears are partly to keep her from being frozen herself. The queen’s chambers are lavishly appointed, with three separate bedrooms alone: one for sleeping, one for promulgating the royal line (not used since the Prince Consort passed away twenty years ago) and one for receiving morning visitors.
Calixis Sector - Cults and Malcontents: The Gorgonid’s large, oppressed population has led to the formation of groups of criminals and other malcontents. The baronial troops eagerly hunt down criminals and execute them on the street corners of the Commons. Other groups are cults and secret societies lurking in the Gorgonid’s dark places. The Loathers, for example, is a group that has forsaken all happiness and hope, and sells its services as assassins and destroyers of lives to spread the misery that has afflicted them. Some whisper that cutting off a finger and nailing it to a signpost in the Commons will bring the Loathers to your doorstep when you least expect it, and that you can then bargain with them to destroy someone you despise.The Orphans’ Crusade, on the other hand, searches discreetly for those with unusual abilities, reading minds or precognition for example, and spirits them away before they are handed over to the baronial troops by fearful relatives. No one knows what the Crusade needs these gifted individuals for, but the fate that awaits them can surely be no more sinister than being dragged away by the baronial troops, never to be seen again. The greyhooded agents of the Orphan’s Crusade can sometimes be glimpsed at the bloodsport pits popular in the Commons or at the witherhouses where victims of diseases and accidents languish, always looking for something. Perhaps most terrifying of all the Gorgonid’s hidden cults, though, is the Granite Crown. This group’s sinister symbol of a blinded eye is carved on many entrances to the Shatters and many an old serf miner tells tales of how the Granite Crown rules over even the mightiest of mutant shatterchiefs, who pay fealty to the Granite Crown’s lords. These “lords” are said to dwell in the most ancient of places beneath the ground. No one knows where these stories originated, let alone whether they hold any truth, but similar tales are told by firelight all across Sepheris Secundus.
Calixis Sector - Fathomsound Mine: The Fathomsound is the most unusual of Sepheris Secundus’ mines. Within its enormous basin is an underground lake upon which float thousands of rafts, barges and lashed-together wooden structures that form the home of Fathomsound’s serfs. The frequent blizzards that rip across Sepheris Secundus churn up the waters of the Fathomsound, and many serfs are lost to the freezing waters with every storm. The Flotsam, as this floating city is known, is one of the most poverty-stricken and desperate places on Sepheris Secundus, with its inhabitants literally clinging to life, permanently ill thanks to the fouled water, and condemned to lives spent in the deadly underwater mines.The barons of the Fathomsound are obliged by planetary law to live within the mine whose serfs they own, but none would willingly dwell on the dangerous Flotsam. Instead, they live in mansions suspended from the edge of the mine pit, hanging from mighty chains and served by precarious elevators and cable cars. The barons typically enjoy taking caffeine on the balconies along the lower surface of these extraordinary homes, from where the Fathomsound is a spectacular sight and its poverty and dangers are not obvious. The mansions swing alarmingly when the wind is up and it is not unknown for them to break free and plunge into the lake. Inside, the furniture and ornamentation is bolted down and visitors to the Fathomsound’s barons have to find their sea legs quickly.
Calixis Sector - Sepheran Traditions of Serfdom: Sepheris Secundus' centuries of harsh serfdom have created many cultural traditions that confirm the relationship between baron and serf, some of which seem very strange to outsiders. The details of these traditions differ across the planet but their spirit is preserved everywhere. They include:Marriage - A marriage between serfs must be sanctioned by both serfs’ barons. The prospective husband and wife each cut off a little finger and send it to their baron, which symbolises the serfs handing over of their rights of any children born out of wedlock.Death - To demonstrate the fact that no serf ever fully pays off his debt to his baron, his body becomes his baron’s property upon his death. Most barons dispose of these bounties by burying them under heaps of mine spoil, but some more ostentatious barons make a point of feeding dead serfs to their hounds.Mandatory Celebrations - On an occasion important to the baron, such as the birth of a child, the baron’s serfs are required to celebrate by breaking into dance upon hearing the news and whenever the baron approaches. Many barons take this very seriously and will flog nearby serfs until they begin to dance, regardless of whether they have heard the baron’s good news or not.Faceday- A serf celebrates the day when he becomes old enough to stake his own claim on the Face (normally in early adolescence). The first Faceday is marked with three days of ceaseless toil, to demonstrate that the young serf indeed deserves the bounty of the Face. Anniversaries of this Faceday are marked with ceremonies that vary wildly but are always painful or humiliating, varying from simple beatings to being painted with offensive slogans and forced to run naked through the Commons.Day of Thanks - An annual holiday observed across Sepheris Secundus, the Day of Thanks is a chance for the serfs to remember and mourn their dead (a practice otherwise frowned upon or even prohibited). Since mourning is considered a selfish act, participants ritually disguise their identities by wearing masks, painting their faces or attending gatherings in pitch darkness.
Calixis Sector - Misericord: The Misericord is an example of the many Chartist mercantile spacecraft that ply the trade routes between Scintilla, Iocanthus and Sepheris Secundus and the other inhabited worlds of the Calixis Sector, carrying vital cargo and passengers across the sector. It is an ugly and enormous starship, looking like a barnacle- encrusted, spacefaring whale, from which jut haphazard clusters of engines and towers, and it trails a long tail of debris like a comet.The Misericord carries huge quantities of trade goods between the client worlds, along with many passengers. Buying passage on a ship like the Misericord is the most common method of travelling between planets. Its round trip -- Scintilla/Iocanthus/Sepheris Secundus -- a route laid down on the charter carried by its captains, takes well over a standard year. Ships like the Misericord are very common in the Calixis Sector and throughout the Imperium, plying a slow, thankless route across the stars. Without the Chartist voidships, large swathes of the Imperium would be completely cut off and sector economies would fail. In spite of this, few have much regard for the Chartist ships, and their crews are stereotyped as rough, untrustworthy Voidborn with few scruples and even fewer refinements. Each Chartist voidcraft needs an Imperial charter that sets out its permitted trade routes and activities, and the Misericord’s charter was signed by one of the earliest generation of Calixian Sector Governors.The Misericord is considered an ill-omen at any place it docks. There are many Chartist craft in the Calixis Sector but for some reason the Misericord has an especially evil reputation. It is considered very bad luck to marry, give birth or embark on a major venture while the Misericord is docked in system, and during the ship’s many centuries of operation, tales have grown up about the dark things that occur while it is in port, such as plagues, tech-failures and the random disappearance of children. In addition, the crew are mostly Voidborn, people who were born in space and rarely set foot on a planet, and the Voidborn, as everyone knows, just aren’t right in the head.Inside, the Misericord resembles a huge, complex and grotesquely ornate castle. Many different ships make up the Misericord and they each have their own style, which in turn has been embellished and replaced over the centuries. In places where the component ships connect, corridors can become precipitous shafts, rooms can be upside-down and moving from place to place can be very complex, although the Voidborn crew are adept at clambering up makeshift ladders or even leaping pits in the floor. The Misericord’s interior is archaic, with feasting halls, dungeons, cobwebbed processional galleries and many other places that seem to have little connection to the business of the ship or the needs of the crew.