Screaming Vortex - Berin and Asphodel: The worlds of Berin and Asphodel orbit the poisonous star Velaj on the very fringes of the ninth fluvial interstitial of the Screaming Vortex. Both are comparatively new additions to the Screaming Vortex, having been drawn inside it only a few Terran centuries ago. Both worlds were ravaged utterly in the process of their consumption and their xenos populations have long since reverted to wild barbarism of the worst kind.Where these worlds were plucked from is impossible to say. They may have once lain at the fringes of the Screaming Vortex and were absorbed in a slow expansion of its extent, or they may have been drawn into a vagrant Warp funnel from just about anywhere in the galaxy.The current inhabitants of Berin and Asphodel certainly keep no records of the times before their arrival in the Screaming Vortex. Two xenos species have risen to complete dominance on the planets; innumerable tribes of Feral Orks infest Berin and countless Kroot septs have overrun Asphodel. Primitive warfare is endemic to both planets and the inhabitants' energies are normally fully absorbed in fighting other klans or septs in vicious battles for survival.Most of Asphodel is a dim, swampy morass completely overgrown by scum-sucking Nendya trees trailing long beards of burn-moss. Throughout this noisome, twilit environment lithe Kroot warriors stalk their foes, laying traps and setting ambushes. The tribes live a nomadic existence, weaving temporary villages in the treetops as they move from place to place. Horrid cannibalistic feasts take place before leaping fires and the night air is always alive with the angry grumble of distant drums.The Kroot on Asphodel seem to have retained only the barest vestiges of advanced technology in any form. The most complex devices they can make are primitive flintlock Kroot rifles. The swamps of Asphodel are rife with Krootox, Kroot Hounds, and other, much stranger divergent branches of the Kroot's highly malleable evolution.It seems likely that the surviving Kroot are gradually devolving into a completely animalistic state, and in the long term, the last vestiges of their limited civilisation could disappear from Asphodel completely. Only in the mountains of Lun do the Kroot Master Shapers still retain the full memories of their craft. These strange beings spend their lives shaping even stranger progeny -- great moon moths and sinuous aether wurms of great size. They wait and watch the skies for the return of Berin, the fiery heaven of their myths.The Orks of Berin dwell on a planet dominated by parched deserts and pitiless dust storms. Water and metal ores are rare commodities on Berin, to the point where even the Feral Ork tribes are hampered by the lack of resources. The Orks themselves are gnarled and tough, their green hides burned almost black by the intense radiation of the poisonous star Vejin and scoured by the relentless winds.Each tribe guards its own watering hole ferociously and makes constant attempts to seize others so that it can expand its numbers. With typical Ork ingenuity, all manner of vehicles are used to cross the waterless deserts and come to blows with one another -- everything from stitched-hide airships to rocket sleds.Many of the tribes are notably proficient at mining the sands for chemicals to make crude explosives and exhibit a Greenskin love of rockets that far exceeds all reason. Others tribes produce large numbers of the wild psykers known as Weirdboyz who are capable of unleashing unpredictable but deadly powers in battle.When one tribe does succeed in conquering another and taking a second watering hole, the victorious warboss can rarely keep both places under control thanks to the overweening ambitions of his underlings. The limitations imposed by Berin's harsh geography and climate make building a great Ork empire impossible.At their worst, the deadly dust storms circling the planet can rage for solar weeks at a time and reach strengths that strip an Ork to the bone in solar minutes. Even tribal strongholds can be obliterated by the largest storms, like the great permanent tempests the Orks call Ulg, Bur, and Zzuk. These thousand kilometre-wide circular storms sweep randomly across the surface of Berin, sometimes clashing and destroying all in their path. The Orks believe Daemons stalk the hearts of these great maelstroms, tearing Orks to shreds and etching their bones with curious, spiralling script.On both Berin and Asphodel, only one event takes precedence over the eternal cycles of blood-debt and vendetta -- the time when their sister-planet looms large in the sky. Then every Shaper or warboss turns their thoughts to migrating to a new world. The erratic orbits of Berin and Asphodel bring them within just a few million kilometres of one another. From Asphodel, countless Kroot-shaped moon moths and aether wurms take flight, migrating across the void to the orange ball of Berin.Heavily adapted Kroot cling to their backs for the crossing, surviving the passage by burrowing into their flesh to suckle like giant ticks. From Berin, swarms of Ork rockets blast skyward towards the grey circle of Asphodel in reply, and huge rocks tear free from the desert sands -- propelled aloft by the psychic force of gangs of chanting Weirdboyz to carry mobs of ecstatic Feral Ork warriors to battle. The two streams of invaders meet and intermingle, the ferocity of both sides often driving them to do battle in the empty fastness between their worlds. Such battles usually mean death for victor and vanquished alike, with any survivors doomed to be taken by the ever-hungry void. War erupts across the face of both worlds when the skies fill with enemies from the other world.Only a handful survive the crossing and the subsequent (often disastrous) landfalls, but they are enough to make great gains at first. The bravest and strongest fighters from both worlds are so busy trying to invade the other that they leave their home defences woefully weak.However, to date no force of invaders seems to have survived long enough to be found alive in a subsequent alignment. As their sister-planet wanes in the sky all of the tribes left behind invariably turn against any aliens to be found on their own world. In a quite exemplary display of unity, they prosecute a genocidal campaign against the interlopers, only returning to the normal business of killing their own kind when every invading Ork or Kroot on the planet has been destroyed.Pirates find Berin and Asphodel to be excellent recruiting grounds for bands of ferocious savages to fill out their companies. The cult of travelling to the stars is so firmly embedded in both the Kroot and the Orks that they willingly serve anyone with a starship, crowning the captain of any passing tramp vessel as king, emperor, or god as takes their fancy. The buccaneer Clavis Moreff is said have employed entire squadrons of Kroot riding aether wurms in his attack on the living gardens of Endhriesh and much woe came upon the Arch-horticultralist thereby.The sixth Shadow-Margrave of Sacgrave had a company of Orks recruited from Berin much feared for their cannibalistic proclivities. Most pirate captains limit themselves to a few bravoes recruited from either Berin or Asphodel (the two species fight incessantly if placed in the same crew). They make excellent first mates and boarding party leaders, with exceptional hand-to-hand combat skills and senses honed to perfection by life on their deadly homeworlds.However, dealing with the natives is not entirely without its risks. A few pirate voidships have found themselves overrun by overenthusiastic Orks from Berin and promptly crashed into the surface of their world with disastrous results. The Kroot of Asphodel can be apt to assail passing vessels and try to force their way aboard to demand passage from their unwilling hosts.