Vraks Prime - Siege of Vraks: After Cardinal-Astra Borja of the Scarus Sector died in 804.M41 following 400 standard years of life greatly extended by the ministrations of the Adeptus Mechanicus' Magos Biologis, his successor, Cardinal-Astra Scarus Xaphan, took his place as the cardinal of the Scarus Sector.Over the course of 5 Terran years, Xaphan undertook a pilgrimage across the Scarus Sector, his new domain. He wished to see the places he would preside over, and he wished to bring a spiritual revival to the people.Where he and his entourage passed, he amassed ever more followers in a series of religious uprisings. Criminal governments and oppressive tyrannies were shattered with each world he travelled to.Whispering into his ear was the cardinal's favoured advisor, Deacon Mamon, a secret devotee of Chaos, who pushed the cardinal into believing himself to be a sacred champion of the Emperor of Mankind, who would single-handedly reignite the faith of the people of the Imperium and lead them to new heights of righteousness.After years of pilgrimage, during which he was increasingly received as a living saint by the people of his sector, Xaphan went into seclusion on the Imperial Armoury World of Vraks Prime in 809.M41, also the site of a popular Imperial Cult shrine of Saint Leonis the Blind, an Ecclesiarchy missionary who had been martyred in the 38th Millennium after having his eyes removed while spreading the word of the Imperial Creed across the less civilised worlds of the Scarus Sector.A shrine had been built to contain the saint's remains and relics, as well as a palace for the cardinal-astra of the Scarus Sector should he ever choose to make a pilgrimage to the shrine.Here, Xaphan chose his battlefield. As the cardinal had come to believe, through Deacon Mamon's careful encouragement, that corruption was eating away at the Imperium, he now saw himself as a messianic figure destined to ignite a holy war and give the faithful a chance to purge the galaxy of darkness.Believing the cardinal to be amassing far too much popularity and power, an agent of the Officio Assassinorum was sent by the Ordo Hereticus of the Inquisition to assassinate Xaphan during one of his sermons.After the failed attempt on his life by this operative, the Armoury World of Vraks erupted in full-scale rebellion against the Imperium. It wasn't long until the Citadel and the industry of the Armoury World were under Xaphan's full control.By seceding Vraks from the Imperium, Imperial forces in the sector and, in some cases, the entire segmentum, would be left without adequate resupply of arms and armour.By breaking the Imperial supply chain of which Vraks Prime was a part, forces as far removed and important as the Cadian regiments guarding the Eye of Terror would be sparsely armed, allowing a potentially major Chaos incursion or even a Black Crusade to erupt in or around the Cadian Gate.The Administratum deemed that Vraks must be returned to the Imperium's fold. By the time word reached the Imperium of the rebellion on Vraks, it was already too late. Millions of Traitors and Heretics were now dug into meticulously planned, constructed, and reinforced defences, with massive orbital lasers protecting the world's Citadel from orbital bombardment and assault.It fell on the Imperial Guardsmen of the Death Korps of Krieg, united under the umbrella of the Imperium's 88th Siege Army, to dislodge the traitorous forces of Cardinal Xaphan in what would become a grinding war of attrition that would consume millions of lives across 17 standard years of battle remembered as the Siege of Vraks.