vizn3r/warhammer40k-lore huggingface dataset:
Vigilus - Storvahl: Situated near the equator, Storvhal generated an incredible amount of energy from its volcano chains and geothermal chasms. It was home to countless worshippers of the Machine God, but still darker cults operated in the shadows.The volcanic land of Storvhal was relatively small, but of exceptional value to the planet's infrastructure. Deliberately sited on a convergence of fault lines, it was originally founded as an annex by the Adeptus Mechanicus after the Pact of Fire and Steel was signed.It produced the planet's main source of power, its volcanic farms and geothermal generator arrays harnessing the energy created by the continent's frequently erupting volcanoes.Fabricator Vosch claimed to have adapted, overseen and optimised the technology used in the farms himself -- basing his works upon the holy foundation of a Standard Template Construct database, of course.
Vigilus - Volcanoes: Rather than suffering from the seismic upheaval caused by the drilling in Megaborealis to the north, Storvhal reaped the benefits of each tectonic shift and volcanic eruption in great measure.Though hundreds of its workers, magma-Servitors and Skitarii patrolmen died with each geo-spasm, its energy yield spiked massively as the volcanoes from the Phaestos Mound in the south to the Omnissiah's Tread in the north erupted. Fabricator Vosch considered the exchange more than worth it.
Vigilus - Storvahl Hives: If the storage levels of Vulcanid Geohive, Hive Magmathermid and Phaestos Mound filled their enormous capacitorsand generatorum caches to excess, the overflow of energy was sent along the Voschian Canals, and from there into a subterranean network of cables and macrofibres to Megaborealis.If that continent's needs were already met, the excess power instead went to the hivesprawls that bid the highest to receive it.
Vigilus - Pyroclast Dictricts: Being a place of fire and fury, Storvhal inspired a lot of religious subcultures. Some of the cults burgeoning in the Pyroclast Districts believed the volcanic eruptions of their homeland to be the Emperor's work, and that their sacrifice was necessary to appease the volcanoes. Others saw the abuse of their Adeptus Mechanicus overlords for what it was, and sought recompense.The resultant unrest and civil ire was capitalised on by rogue elements working against the Imperium. Because of theinhuman toll on life, the agents that worked in secret in Storvhal found it easy to seed fire-cults, rebel sectsand pyromaniacs throughout the slave populace.Some preached the notion that the fires of the volcanoes could be altered to transform the faithful into divine beings, a phoenix-like apotheosis from ashes to glory. Worse still, the underground demagogue known as Vannadan the Firebrand was able to garner power -- not in the name of emancipation, but Chaos.
Vigilus - Kaelac's Bane: Kaelac's Bane was a frozen southern polar wasteland of permafrost, icebergs and glaciers. It was home only to ice-miners, arctic beasts, and secrets hidden deep in the snow.Kaelac's Bane was of little use as a dwelling place -- the last testimony of the famed Vigilant pioneer Jonst Kaelac is proof enough of that.It was, however, invaluable as a source of the pure water known as aqua glacius, and the continent's glaciers were mined extensively by Adeptus Mechanicus clades optimised to endure sub-zero temperatures.
Vigilus - The Craters: In the vast, continent-spanning mining operations that covered the sunward side of Kaelac's Bane, huge las-cutter engines sliced off perfect cuboids of ice from glacier fronts and the edges of the continent's craters. The Venstran and Heliostrike Impact Craters yielded the most bounty, harbouring the Glacia Betus and Glacia Omicroid macro-quarries, respectively.Each day, mining Servitors, quarrymen and hook-handed ice-crawler drones crossed each glacial face of these enormous impact craters. As they did so, they hammered in pins and prepared las-nets that, although low powered, were able to melt their way through even icy rock in time.Each cyborg worker was noospherically linked to his fellows, and they operated in complete synchronicity, as if in some choreographed dance perfected by endless repetition.From these sites, giant slabs and monoliths of ice were cargo freighted to Mortwald, Hyperia and other areas that could afford them.
Vigilus - Quixotine Loop: It was not only water that was harvested from Kaelac's Bane, for in places the permafrost hid strata of valuable minerals and ores. Here too the Adeptus Mechanicus delved deep. The icy and featureless tracts of land protected by the force field web known as the Quixotine Loop were said to be rich in esoteric stone, and were mined extensively. Over time, the islands devolved to little more than landscapes of deadly ice crevasses.These mining operations were risky indeed. As well as the logistical challenges of the punishing cold, the great white apex predators that prowled the region were as stealthy as they were violent. The truck-sized ice-stalker mantis was particularly fierce, frequently dragging ice-workers away to be devoured in their lairs, and the near-invisible whiteworm was a horrible threat that swarmed toward sources of heat and burrowed into the flesh of those too slow or preoccupied to evade it.Even then there were worse predators snatching people from the snowstorms. Though no official Imperial sources existed to define their nature, rumours abounded, and the fact that so many glacier miners went missing was enough to cause grave productivity concerns in the upper echelons of the mining clades.
Vigilus - Webway Portal: Though only the highest-placed adepts and leaders on Vigilus had an inkling of its existence, there was an ancient Aeldari Webway gate situated in the west of Kaelac's Bane. It had existed there for tens of thousands of Terran years. Shrouded by permanent blizzards that were whipped up by the empyric energies howling from within, it divulged its secrets only to those who could survive the barrier of intense cold that surrounded it like a moat.Leading to the Labyrinth Dimension, it was an ingress point that the Drukhari used to attack Kaelac's Bane, Oteck and Dirkden on swift and deadly raids.When the Deathwatch made a foray across the Dearthland Permafrost, they declared a region of some eighteen hundred square miles Quarantine Cryofernus -- centred on the arcing structures of the xenos portal. No Imperial presence strayed within that cordon, with the exception of the black-armoured Space Marines themselves, and they reported their findings to none save the Chapter Masters of the Vigilus Senate.Even the Deathwatch, however, did not realise that an entirely different breed of enemy would emergefrom that Webway gate within the standard year.
Vigilus - Western Scrap City Cluster: The largest part of the original Ork armada came down in the same region of Vigilus' wastelands, to the north of Oteck Hivesprawl. This area came to be known as the Western Scrap City Cluster. With capital-class spacecraft at the centre of each collection of Ork vehicles, they formed four Scrap Cities, the largest of which was Krooldakka's ownstronghold, Fort Dakka.The other three were the domains of powerful Ork leaders whose mutual rivalry saw their power bases flourish quickly. These became the hub of a primitive yet profitable economy of scrap metal, fuel and engine parts.The westernmost Scrap City was Tanka Spill. Characterised by vast slicks of black petrochemical fluids that spreadout from ruptured fuel-haulers and cargo hulks, this city was the province of the Mekboss known as Big Tanka.To the north was Runthive, a township of Squig-infested wrecks and Grot scrap merchants under the purview of the noted Snakebites Warboss Ogrokk Bitespider.To the south was Drogzot's Crater, where the Deathskulls hoardboss Drogzot and his Bad Moons customers piledsalvage ever higher in an attempt to fill the vast impact crater to the lip with scrap metal.Fort Dakka was the easternmost city, a vast scrap metropolis that bristled with every gun and artillery piece Krooldakka and his Meks could get their oil-stained hands on.
Vigilus - Other Scrap Cities: Out in the Aquaphobian Wastes was the Goffs base of Skumtown, a clattering mass of bone-dry structures that rattled against one another in the hot wasteland winds.To the north of Storvhal was Da Wheel Hub, which famously offered a drive-by upgrade service to those Speed Freeks patient enough to stop there.Nearby was Rakkuk's Mekmaze, into which many an aspiring racer drove his wagon, only to find himself walking back out with little more than a steering column, a small money-bag of teef and a confused expression.To the far south of Oteck Hivesprawl was Mekstop City, the premiere site for vehicle customisation. Its Gargantconstruction fields were home to the legendary Drokk and his Rivet Krew.To the east of Hyperia lay Hurrikane Rekk, an early settlement that was all but abandoned when the storm of the Vhulian Swirl expanded to ravage its rusted buildings and shanties.
Vigilus - The Choralium: Neo-vellum also had a well-maintained astropathic presence for those times when a message was of such high priority that psychic communion had to be attempted. The Lunar Choir, as it was known, was a body of powerful Astropathswith many Terran centuries of experience between them; before the coming of the Great Rift it was said they were able to send visions of startling clarity across the stars.After the Cicatrix Maledictum ripped open, the sending and receiving of psychic missives became more fraught with peril than ever before. The operatives of the Choralium, the torus-shaped building from which the moon's talented psykers sent their telepathic missives into the void, suffered dozens of seizures, fits and episodes of insanity in the solar months following the rift’s appearance.Worse still, the complex was plagued by terrible manifestations of supernatural phenomena. This saw the Choralium all but shut down, and astropathic communiqués attempted only in extremis -- the psykers knew well the dangers of opening their minds to the Warp in such tumultuous times.
Vigilus - The Wastes: The wastes of Vigilus were vast, an endless desert punctuated by the hivesprawls that slowly encroached upon it. They were arid and dusty, broken up by gullies and chasms, and populated only by hardy survivors.The wastes of Vigilus were anathema to life. They were not poisonous, nor acidic -- they were simply empty of allbut the remains of those who foolishly tried to conquer them. The landscape was almost entirely devoid of greenery,for the water table was so low that the ground was infertile and dusty, incapable of producing anything but the hardiest vegetation.There was little liquid to be found, other than the occasional river of lava vomited from some new seismic upheaval, and the odd stagnant mud hole. With nothing to bind the earth together, the landscape was a gigantic dustbowl, its substrate whipped up into the air with each passing landstorm to create great cyclones of grit that raged uncontrollably across the wilderness.Despite the hostility of the region, there were areas where life found a way to eke out an existence. Some of the impact craters that scarred the planet's surface acted as bluffs, gathering a little moisture in their shadowed lees and allowing a rudimentary ecosystem to gain some purchase. In the same way a coral reef gives undersea fauna a chance to cling to an otherwise featureless sea bed, these features allowed the hardiest of species to stubbornly hang on to life.The mounds and chasms around Storvhal became home to a colony of Ambulls; these claw-armed, subterranean giantspreyed on isolated groups of travellers, hunting with their sonic and thermal senses. They learned to avoid thetrundling tracks of Weapon Servitors and the lock-step thump of the metal-legged Skitarii, instead tunnelling up from below to scissor apart fleshier creatures that were usually meatier and less dangerous. Some amongst the Adeptus Mechanicus propagated the belief that the Ambulls were a manifestation of the universe's displeasure at those that relied on flesh rather than metal.The terrestine molerats that infested the northern reaches of the planet could grow to the size of locomotive carriages on a diet of giant sandroaches -- the only other species that could thrive in the irradiated wastes to the west of Dredger's Abyss. Existing in great hives of several hundred individuals, these hideous, hairless moles honeycombed the giant ridged impact sites known as the Kenser Crater Network between Dontoria and Megaborealis.They occasionally ambushed those forced to go on foot across the wastes -- for them, human flesh was a delicacy -- though it is worth noting that they did not trouble any of the convoys that happened to carry individuals bearing the mutated Genestealer DNA of the Pauper Princes.
Vigilus - Vhulian Swirl: The Vhulian Swirl was perhaps the most dangerous of all Vigilus' geographic features. A vast storm of dust and sharp, shredding particles, it birthed cyclones and hurricanes that continually ravaged the wastelands beyond.To the east of Hyperia, there was a dust storm so immense that when seen from space it dominated a full quarter of the planet's surface. Near its centre it was so violent that the tiny stones, dust and sedimentary particulate couldstrip the skin from a man's body. Over time, the storm would abrade layers of subcutaneous fat, muscle, tendon and, eventually, bone. Ultimately, there would be nothing left of the unfortunate victim.The citizens of Vigilus, and their shadowy Genestealer-infected counterparts the Pauper Princes, knew well to fear the Swirl, and so avoided it at all costs, never straying past the Perimeter Extremis as defined millennia ago by the Astra Cartographica that founded the planet.Even the Ork invaders gave it a wide berth, for at times the Swirl raged so hard it could tip over their gunwagons and lift their light buggies clean into the air, only to dash them to pieces on the hard earth when its fury abated once more.Smaller storms emanated from the Vhulian Swirl, cyclones and tornadoes bursting into the wastes along their own seemingly random trajectories. Carried by the hot winds that gusted from fault lines, they were flung eastwards by the pyroclastic blasts of Storvhal. These errant storms primarily scoured the unpopulated side of the planet, and were largely responsible for that part of Vigilus never being settled.Freak weather patterns would cause them to occasionally veer towards the hivesprawls, but the Bastion force fields, while active, dissipated them before they could do serious harm. Travellers who strayed outside the force fields risked having one of these gritty, choking hurricanes bear down on them out of nowhere.Even if it should not strip them bare, such a storm could foul an engine or cause an anti-grav vehicle to crash in amatter of solar minutes.
Vigilus - Dismal Waste: The barren side of Vigilus, known as the Dismal Waste, was commonly thought to include little of worth, and its duststorms were even more deadly than those thrown up over the deserts between the hivesprawls. However, the slow expansion of Megaborealis pushed fingers of industrial sprawl into the Dismal Waste as the Adeptus Mechanicus continued to quest for the bounty beneath the planet's surface.Dontoria likewise expanded, being vastly overpopulated, though those who lived on the barren side were often beset by toxic cyclones.
Vigilus - Fauna: For the most part, Vigilus' environment was so arid and riven by the toxic pollution of its hivesprawls that it had few ecosystems remaining. Lush vegetation could still be found in the Mortwald Hivesprawl, but otherwise the rest of the world was largely barren of flora.Yet Vigilus' difficult environment was still home to a number of species of fauna, some native to the world, others alien imports brought by interstellar trade and commerce.Among these were the colony of Ambulls who had taken up residence around the hivesprawl of Storvahl.Giant eusocial, hairless mammals known as terrestine molerats that grew to the size of the locomotive carriages that carried passengers across the wastes existed in large hives of several hundred animals in the northern reaches of Vigilus in the Kenser Crater Network between the Dontoria and Megaborealis hivesprawls.A common insectoid of Vigilus was the giant sandroach, one of the few species that could survive the high levels of radiation present in the wastes to the west of Dredger's Abyss. They were the favoured prey of the terrestine molerats.Large apex predators were also found on the glaciers of the southern polar region known as Kaelac's Bane. The tundra was home to the truck-sized insectoids known as ice-stalker mantises who were both carnivorous and fierce, responsible for killing many of the human workers who sought to harvest the ice of the region.The whiteworm was a feared parasite of the region whose swarms moved towards sources of heat like sleeping workers to burrow into their flesh.
Vigilus - Dating System: The chronology of Vigilus, as denoted in records of the War of Beasts, uses as its anchor point the opening of the Great Rift above the planet. This was an event of such incredible magnitude it rewired the planet's temporal logic altogether, much as it did a thousand other war zones across the Imperium.The first element of Vigilus' timestamp is the annual designator. It starts with the number of Terran years either before or after the rift opened, and then a number of chronosegments within that year as the second element. Imperial solar days are broken down into chronosegments of eight solar hours. After this is a third element -- either "previo" if the events occurred before the opening of the Great Rift, or "post" if after it. This third element is sometimes denoted as a minus sign or a plus sign.The fourth element of the Vigilus timestamp is the system's designator initials; in essence, the initialsof the star system to which it refers. For Vigilus, this is VCM which stands for "Vigilus Cicatrix Maledictum."For its neighbouring planet, Omis-Prion, the designator initials would be OPCM.By way of a full example, if the time of an event in the Vigilus System was three solar days (nine chronosegments) before the opening of the Great Rift, the timestamp would be "0.9 previo VCM.M41," also expressed simply as "0.9 previo" or "0.9–."This translates as "0 years and 9 chronosegments (three solar days) previous to the Vigilus System's first instance of the Cicatrix Maledictum in the 41st Millennium AD."If it was one Terran year and eight solar hours after, the timestamp would be "1.1 post VCM.M41," also expressed as "1.1 post" or "1.1+."
Vigilus - Creation of the Nachmund Gauntlet: Noctilith stone, also called blackstone, had a peculiar property that, to those who understood the nature of the cosmos, made it more valuable than any other resource in the galaxy.Blackstone was Warp-resonant, and could be charged either to attract or repel empyric power.The spear-like deposits in Vigilus' crust had been polarised to repel Warp energy by some ancient xenos technology. It was these that were holding back the Great Rift around Vigilus -- and indeed, by creating a channel of anti-Chaos force between the Imperium Nihilus and the Imperium Sanctus, forming the Nachmund Gauntlet itself.The planet of Sangua Terra had the exact same spears of blackstone in its crust, held in a strange black suspension that meant they always pointed towards Vigilus.The anti-empyric field that thrummed between these spears kept the Nachmund Gauntlet open.If Abaddon the Despoiler succeeded in destroying that esoteric resource, the Warp Storms around the Nachmund Gauntlet would close in, and the corridor of safe passage would be subsumed completely, leaving the Imperium Nihilus to the mercies of the forces of Chaos.It was for this reason that the Despoiler and his Black Legion were so determined to seize or destroy Vigilus and its counterpart on the other side of the gauntlet during the early years of the Era Indomitus.
Vigilus System - Vigilus System: The Vigilus System is a star system centred on the star Astravigilia that lies in the Nachmund Sub-sector of the Nachmund Sector in the Segmentum Obscurus. It lies on the Imperium Nihilus side of the Nachmund Gauntlet, the only confirmed navigable passage through the Great Rift.Because of its strategic position, the system has come under assault from multiple factions, and its major inhabited planet, the Imperial Sentinel World of Vigilus, became the primary war zone of the great conflict waged during the early Era Indomitus remembered as the War of Beasts.The Great Rift lies directly on the edge of the Vigilus System to coreward, and the highly eccentric orbit of its outer asteroid girdle actually passed through the great Warp rift for some time after its formation.
Vigilus System - Notable Worlds: The following worlds are listed in the order they circle the system's primary star Astravigilia, from nearest to furthest.Geotrope XII (Mining World) - Geotrope XII is the world that circles closest to the Astravigilia star and serves as a Mining World for the system.Falsehood (Death World) - Falsehood has been designated a Death World by the Imperium.Vigilus (Hive World/Sentinel World) - Vigilus is the primary settled world of the system, and was the heart of the conflict that raged for control over it by multiple factions that became known as the War of Beasts.Neo-Vellum (Moon) - Neo-Vellum is the moon of Vigilus. It is entirely controlled by an outpost of the Adeptus Administratum.Omis-Prion - The fourth world of the Vigilus System is considered off-limits by the Imperium due to some form of connection to an unknown xenos species.Nemendghast (Industrial World) - Nemendghast was a former Imperial Industrial World that had lain in the outer reaches of the Vigilus System as part of an asteroid girdle. After the birth of the Great Rift, the world was swallowed by that vast Warp rift during its course along its highly elliptical orbit and was conquered by the forces of the Black Legion. It was swiftly transformed into a Hell-Forge for the forces of Abaddon the Despoiler, who used it to create Daemon Engines to supplement the Despoiler's assault upon the Sentinel World of Vigilus during the War of Beasts.Hearthlack (Moon) - Hearthlack was a small planetoid that orbited around Nemendghast as its only satellite.
Vile Savants - Vile Savants: The Vile Savants are horrific Daemonic manifestations of the diseases that have claimed mortal lives in direct service to the Chaos God Nurgle. They are clad in the putrescent remains of the flesh such victims once wore, and are avatars of plague and destruction. They appear as figures wearing sealed containment suits that are slick with filth and beaded with moisture like sweat on fevered skin. Inside, there is nothing but putrefied liquid flesh and writhing vermin, held together by the sagging structure of the suit and the energy of the Warp.The Daemonic forces that motivate them drive their stumbling, boneless limbs on with macabre and implacable purpose. A palpable aura of utter horror and rotting miasma surrounds them, and to simply be unfortunate enough to witness these awful things is terrifying. Worse still is to hear their buzzing voices inside one's head or become the subjects of their experimentations in the death of flesh.
Vile Savants - History: The Vile Savants are a Warp-spawned disease made flesh, sent to wrack worlds with suffering and drag them into festering ruin. There are no followers to their cause, no fanatics, and no deluded fools worshipping a false god, only the restless dead claimed by their plagues marching to the will of the Daemon. Legend among the worshipers of the Ruinous Powers has it that they were born of an unholy union of contagions unleashed Terran centuries ago in a forgotten war.It said that in the distant past a great Imperial hospital voidship was sent to tend the outbreaks of sickness and plague occurring as a result of the constant wars around the Eye of Terror. However, as well as alms and healers, it secretly carried another deadly cargo, an arsenal of dreadful weapons -- biological agents, necrotic poisons, and alien fevers collected from a hundred worlds.Legend has it that this great ark of salvation, whose name has been lost to myth, suffered a breach in its Geller Field while traversing the Warp close to the Eye of Terror. In the moments that followed, the powers of the Warp shattered the protective stasis of the deathly vault and sank into the viral samples aboard, filling them with unholy life and psychic consciousness. The horrors that were unleashed quickly overwhelmed most onboard and sent a thousand screaming souls into oblivion.The medicae personnel trapped aboard faced a far darker fate indeed, as a Daemon virus possessed them and made them its own flesh. With this, the Vile Savants were born, embodiments of unfeeling, indiscriminate death unleashed by the Warp to wage a silent, implacable war against all life.The Savants themselves are hideous to behold, reeking and defiled bio-containment suits filled with bubbling rot that stumble on, boneless and implacable, silent as death itself. These foul entities are possessed of the skills and knowledge of their long-dead occupants coupled with a malign Warp-intelligence and the occult might of the Daemons of rot and pestilence. They are consumed by hatred for all that live and breathe and have the most horrific means of enacting their war of annihilation.The contagion that animates them is their dark harbinger, spilling out through the Warp and infecting a single individual whose despair and morbidity attracts it from worlds away. From there, it spreads as a plague, the infection running rampant and preparing the way for the Vile Savants to emerge, wreaking their vengeance and showering Mankind with the gifts bestowed on them by Nurgle, the Lord of Decay.
Vile Savants - Daemon Plague: The Vile Savants are Daemonic entities who require no scheming mortal agents. They do not plot or foster nests of Chaos Cultists, nor do they answer a sorcerer's summons when called (unless it suits their purpose). While other cults may spread like a disease, the Vile Savants are literally a Warp-spawned, supernatural contagion. They spread and multiply through the flesh of reality just as mortal viruses spread from organ to organ, choking its host with sickness until it fails and collapses. The Vile Savants have a single and consuming desire: spread their contagion and kill until nothing is left alive. These horrors cannot be bargained with, reasoned with, placated, or diverted from this task.The Ordo Malleus believes that this most unholy contagion is the design and will of the Ruinous Power called the Lord of Decay, known to some as Nurgle, Father of Plagues and Bringer of Despair. As pure Warp entities, the Vile Savants serve to embody several types of Daemonic contagions that are categorised by the Ordo Malleus as the Fydae Strain of the Zombie Plague (named after the area of the Calixis Sector where they were first encountered).The Vile Savants themselves are little more than murderous vessels, avatars of these hell-sent plagues. Each stage of a Fydae outbreak cycle escalates the amount of death and horror until it has reached such a weight of destruction that the barriers between realspace and the Warp can be breached, the dead walk, and the Vile Savants come to claim their master's prize.
Vile Savants - The Restless Dead: Outbreaks of various strains of Zombie Plague or incidents where the dead have been known to rise as a result of a Warp-spawned rift, fell-technology, or necromantic witchery have been known to the Imperium for millennia but are thankfully comparably rare. In recent solar decades, however, the sectors and worlds of the Segmentum Obscurus have seen a marked upturn in such incidents linked to disease cults and the ancient Archenemy.The involvement of the Warp entities known as Vile Savants in the outbreak of these awful plagues is likewise a new development and a dangerous one. They bring a malign intelligence to these events, making them far harder to combat or contain. The Inquisition's Ordos Segmentum Tabernacle believes that the Vile Savants are responsible for various outbreaks of plague and the massacre of settlements, voidships, and cities across the Segmentum Obscurus occurring in the Calixis, Mandragora, Medusan, and Ixaniad Sectors.Of particular concern to the Calixian Conclave of the Inquisition is that in the last 50 standard years there have been five confirmed contacts with what has been named the Fydae Strain (after the Sutter's Rock outbreak) of the Zombie Plague in the Calixis Sector.
Vile Savants - Inquisitorial Threat Briefing: The Vile Savants and the Fydae Strain contagion are a threat not simply because of the destruction that they cause, but because the Inquisition fears it is geared to some greater dark design. It is the considered opinion of the Inquisitorial Calixian Conclave that it is only thanks to the gift of the Emperor's providence and the valiant actions of His servants that there has not already been far greater loss of life at their hands in the sector.All of the Inquisition's ordos must be ever-watchful for the reappearance of this threat and take whatever action is needed to confound and destroy them wherever and whenever they are encountered. It is also the duty, particularly of the Ordo Malleus, to further pursue these terrible creatures and learn of their nature and limitations so that they may be more effectively countered in the future, as the threat posed by the Vile Savants is not only severe but perhaps eternal. They are truly the disease that walks, always searching for a time and place to surface, whose only goal is suffering and death.
Vile Savants - Carrionates and Warp Zombies: Although far from the most common of the Inquisition's foes, the walking dead have long been known as a blasphemous foe of the Imperium, dating back to the Great Crusade. Animated at the behest of fell sorcery or creations of the darkest of the psyker's arts, such creatures can make for powerful and loyal servants. Forbidden science can also bring a twitching carcass to a semblance of hungry life.
Vile Savants - Fydae Strain Zombie Plague: Exposure and Chance of Infection:Skin or tissue contact with the body of the infected: 5%Skin or tissue contact with infected blood or internal body tissue from the infected: 30%Bite or wound from infected individual: 50%Ingestion of heavily contaminated material (i.e. water where plague dead have lain): 50%Deep wounding by an infected individual (i.e. a wound from a bite or mauling): 75%Incubation Time: Varies between 10 solar minutes and five solar days.Effects: If the victim is infected, they are racked by an intense fever and green marks blossom on their flesh, which quickly withers and sloughs away. The victim also begins to vomit foul blood. These symptoms last for approximately a solar hour. After an hour, the victim is gripped by violent spasms and dies in agony, but may later return as a Plague Zombie. During this time, medical intervention cannot save the victim but exorcism might as the pathogen is actually an infiltration of the physical body by Warp energies, though this will likely leave the victim in a precarious state.
Vile Savants - Pathology of Corruption: Like any disease, the contagion of the Vile Savants follows a particular pathology and path of infection.
Vile Savants - First Stage: The Occult Infection of Subject Zero: The cascade of events that culminate in the arrival of the Vile Savants begins with the infection of a single person. How this first infection occurs is not known for certain, as the ways of the Chaos Gods are fickle, but the Ordo Malleus believes it may be some deep and dark lesion within a person's soul that calls out to the contagion and it responds to that call.If true, it would be a dark and macabre despair of such singular depth and malice that it resonates in the Immaterium and calls the living disease like a moth to a flame. While the exact means of infection are confined to theory, the Inquisition has had several confirmed cases from which to establish how the contagion progresses once it has infected its first victim.At first, the only sign is a period of intense fever and terrible nightmarish visions that passes in a matter of solar hours and leaves the host apparently in perfect health. As healthy as the person seems, their soul is now lost and they have become a fever that walks and a vessel for unholy disaster in the shape of the Fydae Strain of the Zombie Plague. Utterly infectious and yet outwardly healthy, the host ignorantly goes about their life, not knowing that the contagion inside them is tainting all they come in contact with.Thus, the carrier spreads the contagion with a thoroughness that could never be achieved by obviously sick individuals. It is with this subtlety that the Plague Lord Nurgle shows his genius and his beneficence. This first subject will never be touched by any disease or sickness ever again, but will infect and doom all they meet and so is destined to stand at the centre of a storm of pestilence and see all they care for dissolve and decay. In the terminology of the Ordo Malleus and its allied Ordo Sepulturum, this blighted individual and most damned of souls is named "Subject Zero."
Vile Savants - Second Stage: The Colonisation and Spread of Contagion: Once Subject Zero has unwittingly begun to spread the contagion, as time progresses, so will the spread of the supernatural plague at an ever-accelerating rate. Unlike mundane diseases, the arcane contagion spread by Subject Zero can take solar weeks or only solar hours to claim its first lives, dependent on its fickle, Daemonic nature.It is as if the disease itself is patient and willing to wait to spread to as much of the populace of a locale as possible before it begins the next fatal stage of its life cycle. However, if tempted by a particularly choice group of victims (such as medicae personnel) or the threat of discovery, it will suddenly erupt with full force. Its hunger to kill may drive it to full outbreak sooner rather than later as the Daemon will not be denied its feast.Once the disease begins to manifest fully, it presents as a wild and vicious mixture of symptoms ranging from bloody flux, vomiting, and murderous fever, blooming strange green marks on the skin and the rapid necrotising of flesh, all finally resulting in a spasm-wracked death usually within solar hours of the disease's first symptoms manifesting.Once the first lives have been claimed, matters accelerate and worsen rapidly. Hundreds, even thousands may die within solar hours, causing mass panic and civil disorder and straining any authority's ability to cope to the breaking point.
Vile Savants - Third Stage: The Walking Dead: In this stage, the disease does not simply attack the bodies of the infected but moves to overwhelm the few threads that keep Humanity together in the plague's aftermath or may contest its decaying dominion. Rising from their graves and animated by the residual Warp energies remaining in their corpses, the plague dead walk in search of the living, the Daemonic plague driving their corpses like the many cells of a single vile organism.The walking dead fall on the living, hunting them down implacably, and each person they kill rises to join them in turn. As the walking dead multiply, wild terror and anarchy is the natural consequence unless the Inquisition, the Imperial military, or some other powerful force can step in. Short of total cleansing with fire and faith, there is now little that can be done to avert the next stage of the cycle, save contain it with brute force and merciless purpose.
Vile Savants - Fourth Stage: Cometh the Vile Savants: Once the dead have risen in great numbers, the hour of their masters' arrival has come. At the centre of the outbreak, in a silent, dark place bathed in death and despair, reality falls apart to the buzzing of flies. The Vile Savants step through from the Realm of Chaos into reality, and in their wake come the Daemons of the Lord of Decay. The number of Vile Savants that appear is dependent on the extent of the contagion's spread.If a great city is consumed by the contagion and the walking dead numbers are legion, dozens of Vile Savants may come, while the death throes of a small settlement may bring a single Savant to perform its final rites. As manifestations of the contagion itself, the Vile Savants can command the throng of walking dead, wield diseased powers of the Warp, and consume life like a hungry cloud of locusts. With a deliberate will at the centre, the walking dead begin to destroy any remaining resistance and a disaster becomes a horrifying war.
Vile Savants - The Fifth Stage: Disintegration and Proliferation: The final stage of the contagion's cycle occurs only if the Vile Savants are victorious and have brought their targets to ruin. With death and decay holding limitless dominion, the walking dead begin to collapse, their flesh putrefies, and the air is filled by the buzzing of bloated corpse flies. In this perfect garden of decay, the Vile Savants move about, harvesting the outpouring of death and decay and sampling the changing contagions born by the outbreak.Not all are killed, however, as a few people are allowed to survive and the Vile Savants do not seek them out -- for Nurgle needs life and flesh upon which to work his wondrous diseases and requires witnesses to bear testament to his all-consuming power. Finally, the Vile Savants step back through the hell that made them and wait until the next outbreak, wherever and whenever it may be.
Vilnus - Vilnus: Vilnus is a watch master of the Deathwatch Chapter who is the watch commander of the watch fortress at Haltmoat in the Segmentum Obscurus.
Vilnus - History: When the watch fortress of Haltmoat began receiving numerous reports of voidships disappearing near the Tiamet System, Watch Commander Vilnus sent a kill-team, led by Watch Sergeant Gjunheim, to investigate the system held by Hive Fleet Tiamet. Though the kill-team was able to infiltrate the system they soon met with disaster and were killed on the Jungle World of Ziaphoria. The kill-team's ship returned to the watch fortress, but it bore a final vox transmission by Gjunheim that warned of a nightmare biomechanical structure built by the Tyranids that they had discovered.The watch sergeant reported that it spanned an entire continent on Ziaphoria and when the Astartes approached it, the structure pulsed and sent out a tsunami of psychic energy. This pulse caused the death of the kill-team's Librarian froma  cerebral hemorhage, which alerted the hive fleet to their presence. The kill-team was subsequently torn apart by the Tyranids.Once Vilnus finished the message, he transmitted it to the Ordo Xenos and it eventually reached the ears of the excommunicated Inquisitor Fidus Kryptman. The former Inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos travelled to Watch Fortress Haltmoat and Vilnus agreed to meet with him. As they talked, Kryptman shared his own grim theories regarding the purpose of the unknown Tyranid structure on Ziaphoria and Hive Fleet Tiamet, and together the two began to formulate a plan to utterly obliterate whatever the Hive Mind was planning.
Vils Andarion - Vils Andarion: Vils Andarion is an Inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos and one of several luminaries drawn to Watch Fortress Erioch in the Jericho Reach since the Jericho-Maw Warp Gate opened. His primary interest is in the gate itself but the dangers in the Well of Night have driven him to Erioch to pursue his investigations.Here he can at least study data gathered about the Warp Gate in its dormant state throughout the Jericho Reach's Age of Shadow. Andarion keeps a substantial retinue of adepts, savants and servitors at the Tower of Brass, the Inquisitorial headquarters of the watch fortress, for this very purpose. They work night and day seeking after some elusive piece of data Andarion apparently needs.Inquisitor Andarion has also expressed a keen interest in xenos legends throughout the Jericho Reach, the older and more obscure the better. He has made several expeditions to Jove's Descent and Karlack following in the footsteps of Inquisitor Zaer Vincent.Andarion's interest in the local myths of a city beneath the sea brought him to Karlack prior to Vincent's disappearance and the two co-operated in the investigation for a time. Andarion has resolved not to let the matter of Inquisitor Vincent's disappearance drop until Vincent, or more likely his slayer, is found.Of note is that Andarion has a theory that the Warp Gate and several of the older xenos sites scattered around the Jericho Reach are somehow interconnected.He needs to take readings and analyze data at points scattered all over the Reach to prove or disprove his theory. If he is right, the opening of the Warp Gate portends some truly dire events at those sites in the future.
Vincent Morrow - Vincent Morrow: Vincent Morrow is a senior Acolyte of the Inquisition and a former sergeant major of the Astra Militarum who served with the Armageddon Steel Legion. Morrow now serves Inquisitor Grendyl of the Ordo Hereticus as the primary trainer of new Acolytes inducted into their warband, colloquially called "Rejects" since so many are now recruited from former Imperial prisoners and other ne'er-do-wells. Morrow and the warband are currently engaged in cleansing Hive Tertium, the capital hive city of the Moebian world of Atoma Prime, of the Nurglish corruption caused by the Admonition Chaos Cult and their allies among the Moebian 6th Regiment, a Traitoris Militarum regiment.Morrow serves as the de facto commander of the former Astra Militarum units and all other infantry forces within the warband of Inquisitor Grendyl. Morrow also handles the introductory training of the recent influx of new Acolytes who are used to replenish the warband's diminishing numbers. As many of these recruits are former Imperial prisoners and other lowborn members of Imperial society such as the criminal classes, Morrow and the other senior Acolytes of Grendyl's warband often refer to them as "Rejects."Morrow and Commodore Alice Hallowette, the purser of the requisitioned Rogue Trader frigate Mourningstar under the command of Shipmistress Emora Brahms, often butt heads over proper procedure. Morrow is keen to maintain the Astra Militarum's core rules and regulations and some semblance of military discipline among the Rejects, many of whom have never before served in an organised military force. Yet, the Mourningstar is Hallowette's home and place of business. She is always keen to remind Morrow of this, whether it be through petty acts of annoyance or casual insubordination. She has made clear on more than one occasion that she is not a member of the Inquisition and the only orders she will obey are those of Shipmistress Brahms.
Vincent Morrow - History: How Vincent Morrow joined Grendyl's retinue of Acolytes is unknown, as well as his how long he has served with the Inquisitor's warband aboard the Mourningstar. Morrow is a grizzled veteran sergeant major of the Astra Militarum with first-hand experiences fighting Heretics on the front lines and within the urban nightmares that are hive cities.However, Morrow was originally a member of the Armageddon Steel Legion and fought at the battle for Hades Hive during the Second War for Armageddon in 941-943.M41. Morrow still wears the iconic uniform of the Armageddon Steel Legion. One explanation as to how Morrow is still alive and vital so long after the Second War for Armageddon ended, is that his Golgotha-class transport ship was stranded in the Warp for some time, where time flows differently than in realspace.One rumour about the sergeant-major that carries an air of credibility is that he was planetside during the Xanatros Purgation. This military action saw three regiments of the Mordian Iron Guard wiped out and an unspecified number of space marine casualties before the world and the Imperial defenders fell to a Genestealer Cult infestation. This is suspected to be after Morrow was recruited as an acolyte to Inquisitor Grendyl.Inquisitor Grendyl recruited additional veterans of that conflict and the Third War for Armageddon from across the Hive World of Armageddon, such as participants in the defence of Hive Helsreach. It is unknown how many veterans of the wars against the Orks on Armageddon make up Grendyl's warband.It is a source of some sport in Grendyl's warband for the Acolytes to tell increasingly tall tales about Morrow's mysterious past. Some of the rumours flying around about the sergeant-major include that he is secretly the keeper of a sacred relic of Macragge given to him by High Chaplain Ortan Cassius of the Ultramarines, that he fought during the Badab War against Huron Blackheart, that he was implanted with mind shackle scarabs by Necrons on Morrigar, and that he was the unnamed soldier who fired the Plasma Pistol shot that killed the unique Carnifex "Old One Eye" on Calth during the First Tyrannic War against Hive Fleet Behemoth in Ultramar.
Vinculus Crusade - Vinculus Crusade: The Vinculus Crusade was a Crusade of the Black Templars Space Marine Chapter declared against the Chaotic assassin cult warriors who had plagued the Peleregon Cluster in 833.M41. Black Templars Astartes under the command of High Marshal Ludoldus consented to fight alongside the warriors of Inquisitor Vinculus of the Ordo Hereticus. The Inquisitor, accompanied by a detachment of Adepta Sororitas from the Order of the Bloody Rose, had traced the origins of a network of Chaos Cult assassins to Peleregon IV, a hellish, mountainous world of shifting tectonic plates marred by constantly-flowing rivers of molten lava. The initial Imperial landings were met with little opposition, and eventually, the Black Templars -- including a young Neophyte named Helbrecht -- and the Adepta Sororitas pushed the cult's warriors back to the seat of a continent-spanning volcano. Ludoldus immediately assaulted the fiery mountain stronghold, his Sword Brethren capturing the main gate and holding it long enough for Imperial forces to breach the cult's defences. As the Black Templars and Adepta Sororitas stormed the huge, pillared interior of the volcano, Inquisitor Vinculus faced the cult's leader and slew him with his daemonblade, though he took a grievous wound in return.This proved to be his undoing as the nascent daemonic presence that had been building within the cult leader was forced to manifest and, in a blaze of dark red light, it possessed the weakened Inquisitor. A massive daemon of Khorne took the Inquisitor's flesh for its own and turned upon his erstwhile allies, slaughtering Imperial warriors by the dozen. High Marshal Ludoldus, the Emperor's Champion Ulricus and Canoness Jasmine faced the daemon in what came to be known within the annals of the Black Templars as the Battle of Fire and Blood. Though sorely pressed, these heroes fought with great strength and indomitable faith, but it seemed as though the daemon would prove the stronger. In desperation, Ludoldus hurled a Holy Orb of Antioch, a bomb infused with volatile holy oils and high explosives, into the central chasm of lava. The resultant explosion tore the chasms apart and a massive earthquake shook the mountain to its core as rocks and pillars crashed down into the fiery pit. The daemon-possessed Inquisitor fell to his doom in the lava and the remaining Imperial warriors sought to escape the collapsing volcano before being buried forever with their foes. Thunderhawk gunships braved the fiery deluge to pick up the surviving Battle-Sisters and Black Templars and though many gunships were subsequently lost in the blinding clouds of ash and superheated rock, the majority were able to escape.
Vinculus Crusade - Outcome: To ensure no trace of the daemon and its cult remained, Ludoldus ordered Peleregon IV bombarded from orbit until the massive forces unleashed tore the planet's crust apart and buried it beneath an ocean of seething magma.