Talledus War - Seeds of Corruption: The ruling Ecclesiarchy priesthood of the Veritus Sub-sector may have believed that their domain was an incorruptible bastion of the Imperial Creed, but in truth the seeds of heresy had lurked unnoticed within its borders for many Terran years.It was the infamous Dark Apostle Kor Phaeron, Keeper of the Faith and confidant of the Daemon Primarch Lorgar, who plotted the ruin of the Talledus System. None bore more hatred and contempt for the mortal servants of the God-Emperor than Phaeron, who had played a pivotal role in the galaxy-shattering events of the Horus Heresy.Veritus was the symbol of everything he despised: ignorance, weakness and petty mortal greed. Moreover, he believed that if the great Shrine World of Benediction were to fall to Chaos, it would spread pure terror across the Segmentum Solar, a fear that could be exploited and harnessed to further empower the Dark Gods. One world would fall, then another and another.Even before the nightmare of the Great Rift, Heretic cults had emerged across the Talledus, Leonus and Keyfire Systems of the Veritus Sub-sector, seeded by the Dark Apostles of the Word Bearers. These prophets and demagogues did not yet encourage open worship of Chaos, for they knew that such overt displays of heresy would draw the full ire of the Ecclesiarchy and the Holy Ordos of the Inquisition down upon them.Instead, they cultivated certain sub-cults and splinter sects of the Imperial faith that had been barely tolerated, or in some cases actively persecuted, by the orthodox Adeptus Ministorum, such as the Witnessers of Boras Minor, who believed that only by enduring appalling grief and loss could one become close to the God-Emperor.Other targeted cults included the ascetics of the Pherene Brotherhood, who saw divinity in humbleness and vows of silence, and the Cult of the Cleansing Comet, who dwelt within the deadly asteroid field on the edge of the Talledus known as the Tears of the Emperor, seeking to commune with their beloved deity.All of these sects had suffered greatly at the hands of Cardinal Morst Bolifax, regent of the Veritus Sub-sector and a staunch traditionalist. Suspicious of the deviations of the Imperial faith that had developed in his domain, Bolifax initiated a series of purges to remove subversive figures who dared to deviate from the unequivocal truth of the Imperial Creed.He sent his most fervent missionaries forth to cleanse these impurities. Shrines and shantytowns were burned, deviant tomes and scriptures seized, and more than ten thousand apostates were crucified or stoned to death for their heathenpractices.A dozen sub-cults of the Imperial Creed were condemned as heretical by the cardinal's decree. Anyone found practising their proscribed beliefs or rituals was to be subject to immediate torture and execution.What remained of these sects were then infiltrated by charismatic orators and zealous iconoclasts in thrall to the Dark Gods, and directed by the masters of the Word Bearers. At first these figureheads preached the supremacy of the God-Emperor. They railed against the tyrannical rule of the Ministorum Priests and the purges and executions they had inflicted upon innocent souls, for a simple divergence of belief.Stirring up anger and a simmering resentment against the cruel Cardinal Bolifax, they compared his excesses to those of the infamous Goge Vandire during the Reign of Blood.The brutality of Bolifax's crackdown was the perfect gift for the cultist demagogues of Veritus. By playing upon the climate of fear and hatred, it was almost too easy for them to indoctrinate new followers in the worship of the Chaos pantheon, and an ever-growing number of disenchanted pilgrims were driven into their clutches. Patiently, they sowed the seeds of true heresy, hiding the nature of their foul beliefs behind metaphor and rhetoric.Soul by soul they cultivated flocks of the damned and established cells upon distant worlds, even the gleaming capital of Benediction itself. The Dark Apostles of the Word Bearers continued to direct this shadow war from afar, all the while preparing for their eventual assault upon the Talledus System.Kor Phaeron, the Dark Cardinal, assembled a conglomeration of allies from across several Traitor Legions and Renegade Space Marine Chapters. The piratical Night Lords warmonger Yharas Kine was swayed with promises of pious souls to torment and the finest pickings of a resource-rich system. The Iron Warriors assented to join the destruction, though they had little interest in the great war of faith espoused by Kor Phaeron, and sought only a testing ground for their latest daemonic war-engines.The Infernal houses of Vrachul and Khomentis pledged their Chaos Knights to the unholy cause, and millions of Chaos Cultists and traitorous Astra Militarum regiments were readied, ritually scarred, and branded with sigils of conviction.The grand work gathered pace as the galaxy grew darker. Ruinous hexagrammatic patterns were laid down, monuments of fell power erected, and mass sacrifices prepared. Industrial cults upon the Talledan Mining World of Coras Veltis used immense excavation lasers to burn eight-pointed Chaos stars into the bedrock of the planet.The Witnessers of Boras Minor, now calling themselves the "Cult of Loss," slipped into the spacelanes of Satropol, infiltrating its tightly packed docking arms and smuggling in weapons and improvised explosives as they awaited the moment of their uprising. Chaos Cults grew in strength, their numbers swelling daily.And then, with a birth scream that dragged untold billions of malformed horrors into reality, the Great Rift broke open across the galaxy. Proud Cadia fell to the 13th Black Crusade, and with it the last barrier between the Eye of Terror and the Segmentum Solar. Daemonic entities manifested upon Holy Terra, and the Blood God Khorne closed his fist around the heart of Humanity during the Battle of Lion's Gate.To Kor Phaeron's fury, there were whispers that the Primarch Roboute Guilliman had returned, he who had once driven a Power Claw into the heart of the Dark Cardinal during the Horus Heresy. Only after receiving a Warp-granted vision of the resurrected Primarch departing from Terra, at the head of an enormous crusade, did Kor Phaeron unleash the hounds of war.No less than thirteen massive Chaos battleships carved into the Talledus System, each blood red and daubed with the iconography of the corrupted XVII Legion. Eight of these planet-killing behemoths made a course for Benediction, while the remainder set out for the system's other prominent worlds.Accompanying this invasion force was an armada of lesser vessels, night-black reaver ships, rusted hulks and cargo cutters. As the Word Bearers' invasion fleet smashed into the outnumbered and outgunned Battlefleet Sentanis, responsible for the defence of Benediction, it also vomited forth a hail of razor-spiked Dreadclaw Drop Pods. The inhabitants of the glorious Shrine World looked to the skies and saw a rain of fire.As the Word Bearers commenced their assault, the Chaos Cults they had so patiently seeded across the system rose up in armed rebellion, and the astropathic relays of Boras Minor and Ghreddask fell silent. Talledus was alone in the void, and the enemy was at its threshold.