Crimson Slaughter - Warband Homeworld: The Brakatoa System was first colonised in the early stages of Mankind's Dark Age of Technology. Though distant from Terra, a "drift channel" in the Warp allowed for easy travel to the region. The star system was ideal, for it grouped a dozen inhabitable planets within a compact orbit. During the ever-growing Warp Storms that ushered in the Age of Strife in the 25th Millennium, all contact was lost with the Brakatoa System. It was not until thousands of standard years later, late in the Age of Forging, that the storms cleared sufficiently so that Explorator Fleets could once more push into that region, now defined as the galactic south of Segmentum Tempestus. What the Imperium found was that a few of the planets still had human populations: the outermost planet Rhoghon with its twin moons, as well as Raamdhon, Drogsh and Rynn's End. Yet as close as these planets were to each other they had lost touch with all outside worlds. During the long millennia Terra, the birthplace of Humanity, had become but rumour and legend. All three planets had regressed and were ruled by feudal warlords -– brutal, but fair men, who fought bravely to fight off Orks and other xenos raiders. Anxious to reclaim the mineral-rich Brakatoa System, the Imperium sent out vast colonisation expeditions. The outermost planet, Rhoghon, was a Shield World –- so called because its orbit protected the rest of the inhabitable worlds. It was on Rhoghon that the newly founded Crimson Sabres built their stronghold –- the fortress-monastery of cerusion iron known as Decavitum, or "ten victories" in the native language. Built into the side of a mountain, its ten towers soared even higher than the snow-capped peak. Upon Rhoghon's moons the Crimson Sabres established a pair of naval bases, including the orbital docks required for their sizeable fleet.During the Age of Redemption, a time marked by many Imperial Crusades, the Imperium launched countless campaigns in an effort to purge away the sins of the previous Age of Apostasy. Many long-lost worlds and new star systems were added to the Imperium's control during the Redemption Crusades. It was while the majority of the Crimson Sabres were on campaign near the Veiled Region that word reached them that the Brakatoa System had fallen into near-collapse. It is believed by the Ordo Malleus that the Brakatoa eruption began with the emergence of the supercluster Space Hulk codenamed The Misery. Its long-awaited appearance in realspace was the sign for Chaos Cultists to rise up across the system. Dating back to when the Explorator Fleets first rediscovered the star system, the region was rife with cults. Although the Ecclesiarchy had done their best –- erecting several great cathedrals dedicated to the Emperor –- they had never fully succeeded in wiping out such organisations as the Cult of the Carmine Truth or the Mist-druids.Upon Rhoghon, many of the feudal keeps from which the Crimson Sabres drew recruits housed secret factions. These rose up, seizing control of many of the great strongholds. Through their sudden wars and foul rituals, portals to the Warp were opened and daemons poured forth across all of Brakatoa. With their fleet many sectors distant, there was little the Crimson Sabres could do to halt The Misery. Soon the massive Space Hulk was orbiting Rhoghon, the Warp-pilgrims ferrying to the planet to bolster the rising cult armies. An army of half-trained Scouts, Veterans recovering from wounds and Dreadnoughts too slow to awaken when the Crimson Sabres left en masse were all that was left to confront the cultist hordes. Were it not for the Daemons, the makeshift Space Marine forces might have held out long enough. As it was, the end was cruel for those Crimson Sabres that were caught. With their requests for aid denied, the Master of the 10th Company succeeded in detonating the ancient reactors leading to a cataclysmic rad-explosion that scoured the world. All records of the Crimson Sabres' past and the truth of their origins were lost, buried beneath their ruined stronghold.The Crimson Sabres re-established itself upon the neighboring Brakatoa world of Drogsh to re-build its numbers. For the next millennium the Crimson Sabres continued to do their duty. Following their fateful campaign on Umidia, where the ensorcelled Crimson Sabres massacred the entire population for perceiving them as a world rife with Chaos corruption, they attempted to cover up their atrocities and flee before the Inquisition arrived to investigate. Soon the entire Chapter was plagued with voices in their heads accusing them of atrocities that plagued them with visions of the massacre they committed against the people of Umidia. Chapter Master Kranon halted their Warp travel and ordered the Chapter fleet to set a course instead for Umidia's sister planet -- Demetra. Attempting to exorcise the mental malady that plagued them, the Crimson Sabres slaughtered the entire population of Demetra as well, temporarily finding respite from the voices that constantly plagued their waking thoughts. Shortly after the massacre upon Demetra, Librarians brought Chapter Master Sevastus Kranon messages intercepted from the High Lords of Terra that the Crimson Sabres have been declared Excommunicate Traitoris.Kranon knew that his fleet would never bring warning to Drogsh before the Imperial forces reached it. Kranon debated not sending a warning to his Chapter's doomed homeworld, for he knew the Imperium would reach it before he could, and the inevitable ruthless extermination campaign that would surely follow. Kranon ordered his Librarians to send an Astropathic message warning his fellow brethren to flee before the wrath of the Imperium, for the Crimson Sabres would now be hunted without mercy. Whether they escaped or some other fate befell them, Kranon never knew. The Crimson Sabres' homeworld of Drogsh was seized and everyone connected to the Chapter slain by the Inquisition. Only a handful of Scouts, under the Master of the 10th Company, Murdok, escaped. Following their excommunication after the genocide committed on Demetra, Chapter Master Kranon ordered his Chapter to set course for the Eye of Terror in a suicidal campaign to seek glorious martyrdom. When Kranon changed his mind years later and abandoned their cause, Captain Dzarton, master of the 4th Company departed, taking with him many of the men of his former company and the warship Pride of Rhogon. He swore that if they ever meet again they will be foes. Captain Dzarton and his fifty-nine followers of the 4th Company re-established a secret base upon their old homeworld of Rhoghon. It was still rad-contaminated, but it was Dzarton's hope to restore the old Crimson Sabres upon it.While within the Eye of Terror, the newly-renamed Crimson Slaughter warband discovered a massive floating Space Hulk, designated the Lost Hope by the Imperium, and they turned the drifting colossus into a new base of operations. With help from Fabius Bile, great laboratories have been set up aboard the Lost Hope. Row after row of chem-vats grow the organs that would be transplanted into Aspirants to transform them into Initiates. Following multiple raids into the realms of the Imperium and their confrontation with the hated Dark Angels Space Marine Chapter, the Crimson Slaughter returned to their base and found that the Space Hulk had further transformed. It was now the size of a large moon and more nightmarish than ever, an amalgamation of contorted shipwrecks and twisted spires. Sane attackers would quail before the Lost Hope, for it was bedecked with gun towers and protruding spikes, thorny clusters on which Boarding Torpedoes would skewer themselves. Protruding from the structure were tendrils, although whether the grasping tentacles were mechanical or belonged to daemonic or mutant beasts attached to the hull was unknown. None of the Crimson Slaughter wished to drift close enough to find out.The bulk of the Crimson Slaughter had been gone for less than a Terran year, but decades had passed within the Eye of Terror. The Techmarines had left behind the limiting technology of the Omnissiah and embraced the blending of machine with the energies of the Immaterium. They were Warpsmiths now, and they had laboured long on the Lost Hope. Some, like Brother Grankus, were more metal than flesh; their bodies covered with fused mechanoid elements that had minds of their own. A few, like Brother Sartok, gave themselves wholly to the Lost Hope, becoming living flesh engines bound into the conglomerate hulk. Worse things still haunted the lower decks, for they had become the hunting grounds for strange mutated beasts and Warp-born monsters. These creatures served their purpose, however; only those recruits that survived against such terrors would be allowed to continue their initiation.