vizn3r/warhammer40k-lore huggingface dataset:
Koronus Expanse - Foundling Worlds: The Foundling Worlds lie beyond the Cauldron, a lesser Warp storm whose baleful churning might be seen as a warning against further exploration. By strange accident of fate, the cluster of the Foundling Worlds, although relatively close to the Koronus Passage, was not visited by Imperial voidships until several standard centuries after the opening of the Koronus Expanse to exploration.Amongst voidfarers the Foundling Worlds are described as a cursed place of sudden Warp storms, temporal distortions, and strange stellar phenomena, and it is said that nothing will come to any good that is undertaken within its bounds. That is not to say that none have tried to probe the mysteries of the Foundling Worlds or tame them through colonisation and exploitation -- but even after a route into this storm-wracked region was established, most of its stars and planets remain unexplored. Those few endeavours that have been made to establish settlements or to harvest the wealth of the Foundling Worlds have met with disaster or misfortune.It is extremely difficult to navigate a course into the Foundling Worlds, even if one is following a charted route. The Warp stretches and twists as if trying to throw a ship onto another course, and furious tempests suddenly appear and claw at a ship's Gellar Field. At other times the cluster gives rise to strange pockets of stillness that hold ships becalmed.Even established Warp routes are unreliable, sometimes appearing to vanish altogether or suddenly lead to different locations. Many voidships have been lost trying to make passage into the Foundling Worlds, and with every craft lost, the evil reputation of the Foundling Worlds grows. The strange localised nature of the storms, and anomalies that enfold the Foundling Worlds, have led some amongst the Navigator houses to privately speculate that the region is hidden and protected by something that does not wish its worlds violated by Human presence.The Foundling Worlds are littered with the dead carcasses of hopeful attempts to wring profit out of its stars: derelict space stations not crewed for Terran centuries, shattered outposts inhabited by the burnt and dried corpses of the dead, feral colonies of Humans who have turned from the light of the Emperor.All are a testament to the belief among many who explore the Koronus Expanse that all endeavours in the Foundling Worlds are cursed. With each passing solar decade, a bold new generation scoffs at the tales of older and more wary explorers and set their plans amongst the Foundling Worlds. Some prosper for a time, but fate is inexorable, and the malignancy of the Foundling Worlds is patient; in time, all are undone and their fortunes with them.
Koronus Expanse - Grace: Grace is a storm-ridden world circled and shrouded by swirling clouds and hurricanes. Continual gales carry the spores of its simple fungal life far and wide amidst lightning and frozen hail. Beneath the storms, the peaks and valleys of Grace's jagged surface form a stark, beautiful landscape that was once dotted with the proud structures of an Imperial colony founded under the authority of Rogue Trader Aspyce Chorda.From behind Void Shields and armoured crystal viewports the colonists, drawn from the wealthiest exiles of Imperial nobility and the most successful of criminals (a distinction between the two being not always easy to draw) gazed out on the beauty of the world that was their sanctuary from blood wars, vengeful rivals, and the iron fist of Imperial justice. The world of Grace is still just as beautiful, but the colony palaces lie in ruin and its pale-eyed people scuttle in the shadows, harbouring a terrible secret.Grace was an Imperial colony world founded not for the expansion of the domain of the God-Emperor, but to serve the greed and arrogance of Rogue Trader Aspyce Chorda. The colonial palaces built on Grace were palatial fortresses for Imperial exiles of wealth and means -- those worthies secretively brought to the edge of the Imperium by the Cold Guild, stored in frozen vaults for their journey and returned to life in the depths of Port Wander.Rogue Trader Aspyce Chorda swelled her coffers accepting fugitives into the world she had claimed and giving them leave to build their armoured palaces on Grace. At further ruinous cost, she provided the exiles with illegal slaves from Footfall, provided them with the finest foods using the lesser voidships of her fleet, and allowed their spies and agents to pass to and from Imperial space in the holds of her ships. It was, for a time, a paradise of the wicked, but it did not last.It is said by the pious that in time no sin goes unknown or unpunished in the God-Emperor's sight, and the punishment for Grace was terrible indeed. Vessels of Aspyce Chorda carrying supplies to Grace were destroyed by a Warp storm that rose up, swallowing them whole and sealing passage to Grace. The world itself was a pleasurable and beautiful refuge and had no capacity to produce its own food. For a time the exiles and criminals contented themselves with the false hope that supplies would come, and then when they did not, they turned on one another, sending their vassals to loot and burn other palaces and strip them of supplies and food.In time only a few of the many colony palaces were left, and these had become ugly fortresses against the predatory raids of the few others that persisted. When even raiding could not feed those who remained, they turned to eating their dead -- first those who had been slain, and then those who still lived. So it is that the few debased colony palaces harbour those mutants who eat Human flesh, and they are always hungry. Some have beacons that broadcast distress calls out into the void, seeking sustenance from unwary travellers.
Koronus Expanse - Rain: Rain was a colony world of wet grasslands and high plateaus in the Foundling Worlds, its flora and fauna inedible but otherwise harmless. Small prospecting and bio-augury colonies were established by a number of Rogue Traders in the late 8th century of the 41st Millennium. They found little of interest in the ecology of the planet and even less of value beneath its covering of loamy earth.The last scraps of astropathic reports from the prospecting colony talked of structures they had found in the dense forested areas of the planet but gave no other information except a note that the rain made a strange noise when it fell near them. Nothing more was ever heard from the colonies on Rain apart from a single garbled astropathic broadcast that raved about pale figures in the rain and sleek shapes in the clouds.
Koronus Expanse - Iniquity: Iniquity is a Mining World of huge mountains rising from an acid sea, orbited by a fractured moon. In warrens burrowed into the dark rock of the mountain lurk thousands of Renegades and scum of the worst kind. It is a world that exits to feed its feral packs of Chaos raiders with metal and supplies, who return with captured prisoners to toil in the foundries and poisoned mines as slaves.There is no lore on Iniquity save the lore of might and murder, and its brutal society is split into fraternities bonded by blood and pledges made in unholy tongues. These fraternities control the mining and smelters in the deep reaches beneath the mountains and watch over the toiling armies of slaves whose lives are best only if they are short.Long ago mines were established on Iniquity, burrowing into the mineral-rich rock despite thousands of lives lost to rock falls and poisoned gas pockets. That time was ended when the indentured workforce rose up and slaughtered the mine overseers and daubed the dark walls of the mine workings with their blood. Some attempt may have been made by the backers of the mining operation to regain control of Iniquity, but if there was, it remains unrecorded, and its failure is obvious from the evil tales that seep like a blood stain though rumour and whispers even to Port Wander.To this day none has ever succeeded in cleansing Iniquity -- though many have tried and failed to return.
Koronus Expanse - Charnel Stars: The corpse-embers of the Charnel Stars beckon explorers of the Foundling Worlds, promising dead worlds and unknown treasures. No Rogue Trader is known to have found a route through the twisting, malicious Warp of that region, not yet.The secrets and riches that wait in the baleful light of those evil stars have beckoned to explorers for centuries, but all have failed to penetrate into the Charnel Stars. Many of the boldest have perished in their attempt to approach the seemingly unassailable void.
Koronus Expanse - Ritammeron: Ritammeron is a Feudal World located amidst the Foundling Worlds.
Koronus Expanse - Salvar II: Salvar II is a Cemetery World located amidst the Founding Worlds.
Koronus Expanse - Damaris: Damaris is a Human-settled colony world where the spirit stone of the Farseer Anaris arrived after it was discovered and traded by Human explorers several standard centuries ago. The soul of the last survivor of the corrupted craftworld of Lu'Nasad now waits for another group of explorers with the right skills who can help him in destroying his ancient home before it can unleash a rampage of destruction across the Koronus Expanse and beyond. Long ago, Anaris' precognitive visions showed him that the destruction of his corrupted craftworld would only be successful if the Asuryani were assisted by an unknown group of Humans.
Koronus Expanse - Accursed Demesne: In ages past, Humanity believed that all evil and corruption in the Koronus Expanse emanated from the region known as the Accursed Demesne: ills in the Warp, energies that blasted life from worlds, clusters of stars that seemingly died together in unnatural cataclysms, misfortunes, ghost-vessels, and the ravening Orks. Wise Rogue Traders shun these voids even now, and little is known of the worlds deep within the Accursed Demesne. Common voidfarers live in terror of the Demesne and the ill fortune that flows from it. They whisper tales of xenos tombs upon Lathimon's Death, cursed Dolorium, and the domain of the fearsome Greenskins beyond.The Accursed Demesne is a vast and uncharted region of the Koronus Expanse into which few have voyaged and returned. Few stable Warp routes into the Accursed Demesne exist, and those which are likely to be accurate are jealously guarded by the Navigator houses who first found them.Other fragments of Warp navigational information are highly inaccurate and likely to prove lethal to both Navigator and voidship, should they be followed blindly. Those who decide to voyage into the Accursed Demesne do so in the knowledge that they are stepping into the true unknown where their fate is subject to the wildest chance and where they may find ruin as easily as fortune. To a bold and ambitious soul, however, the Accursed Demesne is simply a place of great possibility poisoned by a dark reputation.
Koronus Expanse - Illisk: Illisk is a Dead World of the Accursed Demesne. The Disciples of Thule possess records that speak of a strange machine world deep in the Koronus Expanse: hidden cogitation arrays are packed beneath every part of its crust in huge vaults descending to the very limits of geoauspex probes.The surface is swept by tumultuous storms and rendered barren by ancient strip-mining. Huge towers vent geothermic heat through vast shafts into the turbulent atmosphere, the heat driving frenzied storm belts of churning clouds.Ten citadels project from the crust, each massive as a hive city, echoing and empty but for the whispering dust of xenos dead. Corridors tens of kilometres long are crowded with niches in which dried xenos corpses remain, their desiccated flesh still punctured by filaments that link into the vast machines.
Koronus Expanse - Lathimon's Death: Lathimon's Death is a Dead World that orbits one of the Cinerus Maleficum; a string of white dwarf and neutron stars surrounded by shells of thinned star-matter cast out from their ancient demise, though the world's system is still technically classed as being located right on the edge of the region of the Koronus Expanse known as the Accursed Demesne. This chill world, upon which the Rogue Trader Faith Lathimon and a hundred others died in ways that were never recorded, bears great cyclopean structures, columns, and avenues spread across its darkened surface, so worn and covered by the dusts of time that they appear to be hills and valleys.Only a few other Rogue Traders are said to have visited this dread world, and all came to a bad end, their names including Balastus Irem, slain by the Inquisition, and Rafe Longinus and Eduard Majessus, who vanished without a trace into the dark regions of the Koronus Expanse.
Koronus Expanse - Processional of the Damned: The Processional of the Damned is a vast voidship graveyard found within an unknown star system in the Accursed Demesne. There are dark places amidst the Halo Stars, cursed or beyond understanding, where the very voids reject the hand of Mankind. The unnamed star system that hosts the Processional of the Damned is one such place; it is a blighted void, a few barren worlds circling a bright and turbulent star. Closer in to the solar energies is the Processional: a thin orbiting chain of wreckage, Warp-crushed space hulks, and dead vessels of a hundred different xenos origins.If the myriad orbital shipyards of the Segmentum Obscurus each launched a new vessel at the very same time, that vast fleet might approach the scope of the Processional of the Damned. The currents of the Warp have cast these uncounted thousands of sorry wrecks and ship-ruins here, perhaps for longer than Humanity has travelled the stars -- perhaps for longer than Humankind has existed. Ghosts and other Warp-echoes orbit with the Processional of the Damned, hence its name, bound to the wreckage and the dust of their remains.There are many tales of the Processional of the Damned. The past crew of Rogue Trader Wrath Umboldt spins one such yarn about how his vessel, the Righteous Crusader, came silently to the outer reaches of the Processional of the Damned's system whilst upon an expedition far beyond cursed Dolorium. The very void of the system was haunted: presences stalked the crew on darkened decks, foreboding patterns swirled in the auspex grids, and the Righteous Crusader's Machine Spirits become disturbed.Moaning astropaths of the Righteous Crusader's choir were sedated whilst devices failed and unexplained energies crackled about the Warp-Drive. Umboldt pressed onwards into the Processional, and at his order his crew packed themselves into salvage craft and launched into the voidship graveyard. Some returned with great treasures and strange xenos artefacts, some with crew driven mad and babbling, but most did not return at all, swallowed by the Processional of the Damned, or lured into frozen emptiness by auspex-ghosts and failing tech-devices.
Koronus Expanse - Heathen Stars: The Heathen Stars are a diffuse region of old stars in the Koronus Expanse that burn with a darkening light and whose worlds have been inhabited since times long past. Human societies and communities long separated from the greater body of Humanity dwell in the Heathen Stars. These communities know nothing of the divine light of the God-Emperor, and some strange cultures harbour unusual technologies from Mankind's lost past. It is possible that these scattered Human domains are the remains of one or more greater empires that have long since vanished, leaving these fragmentary enclaves like detritus left behind the retreating tide.Tenuous Warp routes have begun to be established from Winterscale's Realm to Naduesh and Zayth of the Heathen Stars, but the remainder of these fallen worlds are a matter of mystery and rumour. Rogue Traders have barely touched upon the treasures of the Heathen Stars, and have yet to bring the word of the God-Emperor to the local Human communities.A billion heathen souls await the coming of missionary zealots and great Imperial auto-temples dropped from orbit. Some speak of great treasures upon Dead Worlds, whilst others lust after the myths from a lost age kept secret by those who dwell in the baleful light of the Heathen Stars.
Koronus Expanse - Agusia: Agusia is a Cemetery World that circles a dim red star. A lost Human civilisation from the Age of Technology transported their dead to Agusia for millennia, and in doing so turned it into a necropolis world. The vast ruin-deserts and spire-mountains of Agusia remain desolate, eroded, or half-buried by wind-driven dust, empty of all but the remains of a long-distant past.Every part of Agusia's surface is buried beneath strata of crumbling edifices and seas of dust eroded from the ancient stonework. Every chamber is a sepulchre of great antiquity, every space a mausoleum. The decaying upper tomb-spires and kilometres of compacted ruins beneath contain the material echoes of a trillion dead souls.Agusia remains almost untouched by Imperial explorers with the sole exception being a small expedition of the Disciples of Thule sect of the Adeptus Mechanicus, which has penetrated into the catacombs beneath the icy deserts of the northern polar zone. So far the Thuleans have investigated only a small fraction of the world, and vast amounts remain hidden and undisturbed.Yet what the Tech-priests have discovered is both wondrous and puzzling: ornate sloping tomb-fanes, huge dormant prayer-mechanisms of a dozen varieties, mausoleums efficiently filled by stacked biers, impassable walls of black-green metal set with intricate, silvered magnetic runes, ornate hololithic displays of abstract art somehow still active after the passage of many standard millennia. What wonders or terrors lurk in the unexplored portions of the world remain to be revealed.
Koronus Expanse - Naduesh: Naduesh is a Human-inhabited Frontier World and Feral World of hot, dry plains and enormous, sprawling megacities that are now little more than ruins but which speak of an awesome and now lost technological achievement. The mega-cities of Naduesh are maze-like warrens beneath an arching dome supported by huge pillars and walls set with massive bastions. Every part of the whole is set with structures that cling like gargoyles and riddled by vaults and tunnels.The bulk of the planet's population follows a tribal existence away from the cyclopean megacities, following herds of herbivores that sustain and clothe them while viciously warring with each other for honour and bloody sport. The people of Naduesh have little understanding of the relics of advanced technology left behind in these ruins, and seem unable to fully rebuild their society. The sounds and structure of the Nadueshi language and culture indicate a distant root in High Gothic and tie the population and its ruined megacities to a now lost age of Mankind during the Age of Technology.The most influential of the Human population on Naduesh dwells in Marajur, an immense enclosure of ruins thirty kilometres broad and three kilometres from ground wreckage to crumbling vaults high above. The interior space of Marajur gapes empty between its support pillars, and the curved ceiling vaults are set with enormous mosaics.The entire structure is large enough for its own weather systems, the haze of distant wall-bastions broken by white clouds and sudden, warm showers. As awe-inspiring as it is Marajur is now but a shadow of its former self: its base structures are ruined, its upper vault braces failing. With each passing Terran year another of the upper vault structures tumbles down.Despite its fallen status, Naduesh is used as a supply point by many Human Renegades and outlaws in search of provender beyond the reach of would-be hunters, trading weapons and slaves in return for livestock and fresh recruits from the planet's feral warriors.
Koronus Expanse - Zayth: Zayth is a War World scarred deeply by constant conflict. Enormous vehicles the size of cities churn the surface of Zayth's single macrocontinent. Each is a fortress and weapon platform armed with fearsome devices of war and destruction. Within them dwell Zayth's Human population, protected from the radiation and toxins unleashed by long Terran centuries of warfare.Zayth's surface has been barren for millennia, ploughed and poisoned by shellfire, rapacious, urgent strip-mining, and the passage of hive-vehicles. Despite their weaponry and extraordinary vehicle cities the Humans of Zayth have fallen far from the knowledge of their ancestors during the Age of Technology when the world was settled in all but war, and the knowledge of producing their hive-vehicles is long vanished. Great plasma generators and engine vaults are permanently sealed by copper doors or guarded by hereditary Engine Orders who guard the traditions and culture of each clan hive-vehicle.
Koronus Expanse - Raakata: Raakata is a ruined Feral World that can only be reached by passing beyond a shifting and treacherous region of the Warp. Its collapsed and empty hive cities are said to be laden with untouched relics of the Dark Age of Technology, while the void around Raakata is filled with vox broadcasts of strange languages, garbled binary code, and blurts of static.Its Human population is composed of feral and vicious savages who daub themselves in ash and powdered rust; the knowledge and sophistication of the ancestors who built the ruined hives and technological treasures rotting within are long lost to them.All that is known of Raakata comes from the accounts of the Rogue Trader Toros Umboldt, who claimed its discovery but has subsequently failed to rediscover the world in two later expeditions. All traces of his earlier passage have been erased by the changing Warp, and his standing amongst his peers is diminished greatly as a result.
Koronus Expanse - Vaporius: All that is known of the Feudal World of Vaporius and its strange people is gathered from rumours that circulate in Port Wander, Footfall, and wherever explorers and Renegades gather. Vaporius is said to be a world of red deserts, gleaming turquoise seas and great cities of copper towers, enamelled domes, and sprawling buildings covered in brightly coloured tiles of glass, metal, and ceramic. The Human population of Vaporius is tall, with proud, almost feline features, and eyes of brilliant cyan.The Vaporians move about their cities in robes of shimmering fabric that subtly changes hue as they move. The rule of Vaporius is reputed to lie in the hands of a caste of priest-kings who control the distribution of water that is held as a divine force of life but is impregnated with some psychic force that the priest-kings use to maintain their absolute rule over their people. It is said that solar decades ago a clutch of Imperial missionaries voyaged to Vaporius to break the rule of the heathen priest-kings. Nothing more was heard of them apart from whispers of torture, slaughter, and blood.The deserts of Vaporius are dangerous wildernesses, haunted by the undead psychic revenants known as the Unquenched who seek to feed on the bodily fluids of all living things it encounters.
Koronus Expanse - Unbeholden Reaches: Beyond the larger nebulae of the Koronus Expanse are regions visited only by the silent Disciples of Thule and few others. Tales are told of ghost-vessels, beauteous but deserted worlds, dust-nebulae that claim the souls of the damned and forsaken -- and of course, wealth beyond measure, awaiting the courageous Rogue Traders who will claim it.
Koronus Expanse - Concanid: Concanid is a distant, unvisited star that through association with the dying words of a psyker has become a place that both beckons and repels explorers. In 633.M41, an astropath in Footfall was driven to madness and slow death by terrible visions. Before he died, the astropath spoke of "dark worms beneath a green-eyed star," the "sea of molten gold," and other half-named terrors.Some scholars of the arcane suppose the star Concanid in the distant Unbeholden Reaches to be the "green-eyed star." This is because Concanid regularly flares green for reasons unknown to Tech-priests of the Divine Astrometricum, who toil endlessly to record such celestial events in minute detail. The star remains unvisited by Imperial explorers, and the full testament of the dying astropath now decays within a few private collections of esoteric works.
Koronus Expanse - Orn: The only knowledge that Mankind has of the Forbidden World of Orn is from the Disciples of Thule, who were drawn to the tangle-forests of Orn by the emanations from a dormant Warp-Drive within a half-buried xenos starship. There the Explorators discovered a warlike, near-feral xenos breed using the strange vessel as a form of township or nest.The xenos wielded tech-devices as though relics, and hunted, tore apart, and consumed surveyor servitors dropped from orbit. The Thuleans marked the world with the rune of intransigence, declared it anathema to Humankind, and moved onward in their quest.
Koronus Expanse - Von Valancius Protectorate: House von Valancius is one of the three largest Rogue Trader dynasties operating in the Koronus Expanse alongside the houses of Calligos Winterscale and Incendia Bastaal-Chorda and it maintains a powerful trade empire that stretches across several worlds in the region. The following planets are considered a part of the house's holdings and its protectorate as recognised by its Warrant of Trade in the Expanse.This trio of gem worlds brings untold prosperity to the house. Each one works in conjunction with the other and trades with them across the Expanse, providing what they cannot produce on their own.
Koronus Expanse - Janus: Janus is an Imperial Agri-world in the Telikos Epsilon System of the Koronus Expanse that is part of the trade empire of the Rogue Trader House von Valancius.Janus is covered in jungle plant life and was repurposed by House von Valancius to serve as a world where profitable cash crops could be grown for export to other worlds in the Expanse and the Calixis Sector.
Koronus Expanse - Kiava Gamma: Kiava Gamma is an Imperial Industrial World in the Cranach System of the Koronus Expanse that is part of the trade empire of the Rogue Trader House von Valancius, though it is managed under a deal with that dynasty by the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus.A Warp storm in the Koronus Expanse recently cut the Warp routes that once connected all the worlds of the von Valancius trade empire and contact has been lost with Kiava Gamma.
Koronus Expanse - Dargonus: Dargonus is an Imperial Civilised World that serves as the capital planet of the Rogue Trader House von Valancius' protectorate in the Mundus Valancius System.In order to govern a Rogue Trader dynasty and the great many assets under its purview, there must be a guiding hand and central powerbase from which the Rogue Trader's presence might extend. A place for the Administratum to erect their bureaucratic monuments, for the glories of a dynasty's lineage to be arrayed, for politics to be played, galas to be held and raids to be repelled.Dargonus is the foremost jewel of the von Valancius dynasty, resplendent with the glories of past conquests and ventures undertaken by Lord Captain Theodora von Valancius and her predecessors. It hosted a vast conglomerate of noble families that hailed from the dynasty's supplicant worlds within its protectorate. Each had sworn an oath of fealty to the house long before Theodora's heir apparent rose to power as the new Lord Captain, but each with their own realm of influence within the von Valancius Protectorate. And each vassal family participates in an endless competition with their counterparts to jockey for the Lord Captain's efforts and attention, always seeking to curry their favor so the prosperity they find might spill out onto their family first and foremost.
Koronus Expanse - Rifts of Hecaton: The Rifts of Hecaton are an unnatural darkness in the far depths of the Koronus Expanse, like the anger of gods fallen upon worlds long ago. Their presence casts a long shadow across the Expanse; the Rift stars are white dwarfs and neutron stars that are guttered and dead, and the bold Rogue Traders who go there do not return.The Rifts of Hecaton long ago swallowed the potent Lord Inquisitor and Rogue Trader Kobras Aquairre, and many suppose the same fate to have befallen the Disciples of Thule who followed in his wake. The Rifts of Hecaton also long ago swallowed the now-damned Asuryani craftworld of Lu'Nasad which has recently emerged to threaten the Expanse. The stars that exist in the shadow of the Rifts of Hecaton are ill-omened places of which little is known apart from the uncertainties of myths and prophecy.
Koronus Expanse - Melbethe: The Dead World of Melbethe is located near the Rifts of Hecaton in a system dominated by an angry, churning star. Around it, the void is choked with debris and flaring energies.The Disciples of Thule are among the only Imperial explorers to venture this far into the Koronus Expanse and return. They hold that Melbethe once hosted a strange xenos civilisation who sculpted black palaces of the asteroids in its star system and left vast, obsidian sculptures hanging in the void. They are long-gone, vanished to some unknown fate, leaving behind only this broken wreckage.
Koronus Expanse - Far Corpse Stars: Many are the corpse stars of the distant reaches of the Koronus Expanse: the Seven Dooms, the Pyres, and the ragged, nameless white dwarf and neutron star embers that drift within the very fringes of the Rifts of Hecaton.These are stars that guttered and died long ago in some vast and sweeping catastrophe. Now veiled by the cast-off gases of their destruction, they await the coming of Mankind. Dire forces, dead for aeons, may now stir upon blasted worlds in those distant regions, and the Warp is troubled.
Koronus Expanse - Pulsar 484 Scran: Pulsar 484 Scran is a pulsar, a highly-magnetised, rapidly-rotating neutron star that emits high-intensity radio signals at a regular interval located on the fringes of the Rifts of Hecaton.
Koronus Expanse - Cinerus Maleficum and Other Astronomical Phenomenon: The Cineris Maleficum are a string of white dwarf and neutron stars surrounded by shells of thinned star-matter cast out from their ancient demise that forms the central region of the Koronus Expanse.
Koronus Expanse - Dolorium: Dolorium is a Feral World settled by Humans that is located in the uncharted territories of the Cinerus Maleficum region of the Koronus Expanse in the Segmentum Obscurus.The Adeptus Mechanicus sub-sect of the Calixis Sector known as the Disciples of Thule discovered data-vaults from a space hulk drifting through the void above the Feral World of Dolorium in 741.M41. The so-called "Dolorium Vaults" revealed details of the unexplored regions of the Koronus Expanse that began a rush of Imperial exploratory voyages -- especially by Rogue Traders -- into its far reaches.Many of these Imperial explorers disappear and much of the data proves inaccurate, or to have been rendered so by the passage of time. Whispers circulate that the Disciples of Thule have deliberately corrupted the information. Some go so far as to assert that they have kept some fragments secret from those outside their order.
Koronus Expanse - Falcon's Fall Gamma: Falcon's Fall Gamma is a Feral World of the Koronus Expanse.
Koronus Expanse - Ntharis: Ntharis is a Feral World of the Koronus Expanse.
Koronus Expanse - Power Groups of the Koronus Expanse: The Koronus Expanse is a gulf of darkness in which the few facts known by Humanity stand like guttering candles. Within its vast bounds wait worlds and secrets that it would take generations of explorers to discover, and within these vast gulfs of the unknown and uncharted dark other things move and plan with inhuman minds and soulless purposes.From the long-dead makers of the Halo Devices to the treacherous Aeldari, many other powers have a claim or interest in the Koronus Expanse, and each has its own purposes and knowledge that drives it to act. These motivations frequently bring them into contact with the Rogue Traders who are but the youngest of their kind to walk these stars.
Koronus Expanse - Greenskins: The Orks are a race of brutish, ugly, green-skinned humanoids with an unquenchable thirst for violence. They are a green-skinned blight on the galaxy, constantly spawning asexually, gathering together in huge numbers, and battering through the stars like a bloody fist, looting and destroying all that is in their path. That might is right is an unquestionable and obvious mantra to all Greenskins and one that they understand in every cell of their being. They constantly fight amongst themselves, and only the strong survive in Ork society. Those who achieve authority over other Orks ("da Boss" as they are known to Orks) do so because they have proven that they are the meanest and toughest Orks around.An average Ork stands as tall as a Human but is hunched with muscle and would tower over most Humans if he were to stand fully upright. They have long arms that are knotted with slab-like muscle; they have a thick skull set low on their hunched shoulders with a heavy brow and glittering red eyes. Their mouths are filled with jagged fangs that jut out like a feral predator. The physiology of an Ork is such that they are exceptionally hard to kill and can shrug off injuries that would kill a Human, and can survive and recover from even having limbs severed and crudely reattached later. Orks speak a harsh, guttural language that mirrors their physical appearance and blunt outlook on existence.Though Greenskin technology is crude by Imperial standards, never mind that of the Aeldari, they are possessed of an innate, genetically-encoded understanding and affinity of and for advanced machinery and weapons. This racial genetic knowledge manifests through the abilities of so-called Oddboyz, who possess a strange quirk of understanding or ability that sets them aside from the rest of the Orks.Of these the most crucial to the Ork war machine are the Mekboyz who create the weapons, armour, and vehicles used by Orks to do what they do best: kill things. Mekboyz are ingenious but unreliable artisans who are masters of creating ramshackle but fearsome starships, war machines, and weapons from scrap and salvage. Even if they do not come out exactly how they were intended, these devices are still terrifyingly effective -- most of the time.
Koronus Expanse - Stryxis: The Stryxis are a sparse, nomadic xenos species with a reputation as untrustworthy traders, wanderers, and sometimes slavers and pirates. Encountered infrequently in the Koronus Expanse, their reputation is a dark one. The Stryxis are a truly hideous xenoform to look upon beneath swathes of ragged, bone-coloured cloth and trinkets, described variously by Human onlookers as a gangling and multi-eyed creature that resembles a Human-sized, skinned, dog embryo. Yet they communicate easily with willing Humans through a common language of greed, curiosity, and self-interest. Scavengers and obsessive hoarders, they possess a wealth of technology stolen and bartered from countless intelligent species.The Stryxis delight in trade, attaching worth only by perceived value and rarity of things they can grasp in their bony talons. They seem to care nothing for conquest or territory, abstract wealth, nor even their own species, but are driven instead by avarice and viperous petty intrigues.This being said, they are not to be underestimated and can be extremely dangerous and treacherous. They are creatures wrapped in subtle lies who conceal dark intellects behind their eccentric behaviour and obsession with trinkets and baubles. They will not hesitate to betray those they deal with if they perceive a great profit in doing so. The Stryxis will trade with almost anyone, Human or xenos, even the worshippers of the Ruinous Powers, but they despise the Aeldari. They will kill them if they can, and avoid them otherwise.The Stryxis inhabit wandering caravans of starships plying commerce routes between distant worlds. These caravans are often salvaged mishmashes of patchwork vessels and hollowed-out asteroids, fitted with engines and augmented with numerous stolen or traded technologies. These caravans contain relatively few adult Stryxis, along with larger numbers of slaves, mercenaries, "acquisitions," and gene-engineered servant creatures.Aside from the adult Stryxis -- who continuously politic and backstab each other for rank and prominence in the caravans' social hierarchies -- no young, gender variations, or other culture to speak of has ever been encountered. When questioned about their own species, the Stryxis will spin endless and often contradictory lies about the matter.Stryxis caravans interest Rogue Traders who do not mind dealing with these nefarious xenos for their myriad opportunities for commerce and profit. In addition, as inveterate wanderers and collectors, Stryxis are often troves of secrets, legends, and information. Their contacts span the Koronus Expanse and beyond -- if the Rogue Trader has the wit to separate the truth from the lies.
Koronus Expanse - Forces of Chaos: Within the realm of psychic energy that is called the Warp exist dark and malign intelligences formed from the darkest thoughts, desires, and fears of sentient creatures. The greatest of these beings are called variously the Dark Gods, the Ruinous Powers, or the Chaos Gods, and they promise all manner of powers and gifts to those who are foolish enough to bend their knee in worship to them. These deluded fools who become enthralled to the power of Chaos have forfeited their immortal souls, and their lives are subject to the whims of their dark masters; whether they believe it or not, they are slaves to darkness and eternally damned.Tempting and seductive, brutal and punishing, the servants of the Dark Gods take many forms in the Koronus Expanse. The most dangerous are the piratical Renegades who are made up of vicious and deluded men and women, some of whom have fled the Imperium and fallen into the worship of the Ruinous Powers. Others hail from worlds deep in the Expanse where the light of the Emperor's truth has never penetrated, and the taint of Chaos has gone unchecked since the Age of Strife. Piloting captured or Renegade Imperial starships, or mysterious vessels of unknown origin, they are truly monstrous and rapacious creatures, no longer fully Human. It is better to die than be taken to join the ranks of their slave crews and corrupted servitors. These disciples raid any convoy or world too weak to defend itself. They come in search of slaves, murder, and riches.Using sorcery and the fickle guidance of Daemons bought with blood and souls, some Chaos pirates traverse the Warp and roam the Koronus Expanse in search of prey, either as lone void ships or in predatory packs that can pose a threat to even the most heavily armed vessels, harrying them and finally brining their larger quarry down like a pack of wolves attacking a lion. Some of these corrupted pirates are bonded together by loyalty to a particular cult of the Ruinous Powers, and their ships are ruled by pirate demagogues, their holds given over to vile fanes.Others are warbands of corrupt and often mutated warriors, bound together under the will of a charismatic individual who is touched by the power of Chaos. To some, the acquisition of more power, resources, and prestige is what they desire, and the power of Chaos is something that they foolishly believe can help achieve these desires. Others seek only to burn and destroy, leaving things of value in an orgy of slaughter and realising their darkest desires in the service of their Daemonic patron.
Koronus Expanse - Chaos Reavers: The Koronus Expanse is the hunting ground of many enemies of the Imperium, from the barbarous Orks to bitter Imperial exiles, but greatest of these voidfaring predators are the Chaos reavers. Pirates and slavers pledged to the glory of the Dark Gods, Chaos reavers prowl the Warp routes, eager for the blood of the foolish and the unwary. Agile and well-armed reaver vessels wait in ambush amongst the outer clouds of those star systems that draw Imperial explorers like Rogue Traders, pouncing savagely before the prey can react.The reavers cripple their targets in short order and board them before repelling crews can be mustered. Once on board, the reavers unleash an orgy of bloodshed as they slaughter all resistance, working their way towards the bridge and the final confrontation with the vessel's master and their guards. Having gained control of the voidship, the reavers put it and its crew to a range of uses. Useful vessels are captured as prizes and converted to pirate ships, while the best the captured crew can hope for is a quick death. Most are enslaved, to be sold into a cruel life of misery to one of the petty empires to be found in the Koronus Expanse. Others are slaughtered in the name of the Ruinous Powers, or forced to serve in the pirate hordes, or press-ganged as crew.Many different reaver groups prowl the Koronus Expanse. One such group are the damned hosts of Iniquity, under the control of Karrad Vall, the Faceless Lord. These debased brigands have, as their home, a world many believe to host beneath its blasted surface something utterly malign and born of the Warp.It is not only in the hearts of hunters and reavers that the touch of the Ruinous Powers is to be found in the Koronus Expanse, for like many regions of its type, the area is host to countless worlds settled countless millennia ago and subsequently lost to Humanity during the Age of Strife. Such worlds are entirely ignorant of the greater galaxy, their ancestors having lost contact with the rest of Mankind long before the coming of the Emperor and the rise of the Imperium on Terra.Yet, Chaos lurks in the hearts of Humankind despite the specifics of their existence, and even the most isolated colonist is not deaf to its whispers. Indeed, the populations of many such worlds exist in such abject misery and ignorance that the Dark Gods are their only succour. Wilderness Space is strewn with worlds entirely in the thrall of the Ruinous Powers, some so steeped in the power of the Warp that they are the hunting ground of Daemons.For one who treads the path to glory in the name of the Dark Gods, the Koronus Expanse represents an opportunity to forge their own destiny according to their own vision. They might attempt to build an empire, or simply to satiate their bloodlust in endless attacks upon those who would stray beyond the borders of the Imperium. Others seek to uncover ancient secrets and, in so doing, gain immeasurable power. These are the most dangerous, for should they ever gain the power they seek they will plunge once more through the Maw and visit upon the Imperium doom that it has not known in ten thousand standard years.
Koronus Expanse - Chaos Space Marines: Chaos Space Marines are mighty transhuman warriors of the Adeptus Astartes who have betrayed the Imperium, forsaken their vows, and become monstrous warriors who answer to nothing but their own dark desires and the Chaos Gods. These Renegades and Traitors are terrifying warriors who are amongst the most potent and terrible of the mortal servants of Chaos. From hidden bases and defiled voidcraft they wage war against the Imperium that they once protected.Fell whispers have begun to spread that warbands of Heretic Astartes have been drawn to the Koronus Expanse in search of something that might be an apocalyptic weapon or a terrible fragment of lost technology. These Traitor Marines have assumed dominion over the lesser mortal servants of the Dark Gods in the Expanse like proud and bloody lords who demand that lesser men bend the knee or be subject to torment and death. If this proves true, the danger these Chaos-tainted, transhuman killers represent is a terrible one, and no world or domain of the Expanse is safe.
Koronus Expanse - Saynay Clan: The Saynay Clan is a dynasty of corrupt monsters that fled the fetid world of Dusk after the corruption of their blood was discovered by agents of the Inquisition. In time they made their way to the Koronus Expanse, and here they exist still in disparate voidcraft whose insides are like slaughter houses hung with the dismembered corpses of those taken in the Clan's raids on shipping and isolated outposts.The Saynay Clan and its vassals feed on the dead, daub foul Chaotic runes in the Dark Tongue on the hulls of their voidships, and perform terrible sacrificial rites to summon Daemons into the defiled flesh of the dead. Above the slaughter preside the flesh-gorged matriarchs and patriarchs of the Saynay Clan, their finery and rotting wigs cracked with dry gore. Such is the reputation of the Saynay Clan that even other pirates and raiders shrink from them and cower at the threat of their attention.
Koronus Expanse - Reavers of Karrad Vall: The name of the Chaos Lord Karrad Vall is a dark curse on those who have ventured into the Koronus Expanse. No one has ever seen him, but the barbed prows of his Chaos starships and the baying of his scarred warriors are enough to have caused captains to scuttle their craft rather than be taken before Karrad Vall, the Faceless Lord. Some whisper that Vall was once an adept of the Departmento Munitorium, a former tithe-master swayed and fallen to the lure of the Dark Gods, whilst others claim he was once a trusted admiral of the Imperial Navy's Battlefleet Calixis.What is known is that Karrad Vall braved the Maw in 794.M41 and promptly established his intent by shelling Footfall and engaging Calligos Winterscale in battle. His small fleet tore through the defences arrayed against them. As Vall departed, he cast several last taunting messages in his wake before disappearing without a trace for the next solar decade.The ships of Karrad Vall are a brutalised selection of Imperial voidships taken in raids or pulled as hulks from the void and refitted, and steered by the craft of vassal Chaos Sorcerers and powerful Daemon pacts. Each of the Reavers of Karrad Vall owe loyalty to him above all, but the Dark Gods and the punishments for treachery are as terrible as a dedicated servant of Chaos can devise. So far all of the Reavers' actions have been aimed at gaining resources to expand Vall's pirate fleet: voidships, weaponry, and slaves. With each successful raid on ships in the Koronus Expanse, the danger posed by these jackals of the void becomes greater.Karrad Vall's fleet is often called "the Wolfpack," a mismatched group of vessels including many of obvious Imperial origin. Some of these voidships are captained by ruthless raiders as infamous as the vessel itself. A partial list of known starships belonging to Vall's Wolfpack is presented here:ExcrucianGift of DespairMortis Ex AstraOptimus Nemesis
Koronus Expanse - Followers of False Gods: There are worlds waiting to be discovered within the Koronus Expanse that are inhabited by people who have fallen to the worship of false gods which are but a mask for the Ruinous Powers. Proud and decadent civilisations build temples to the Dark Gods and bind their societies together with sorcery, terror, intrigue, and atrocity.On certain planets, they may worship the glory of Chaos Undivided as a pantheon of gods and divine Daemonic servants, the dark reality of their beliefs cloaked in strange names and mystery. Others may have fallen into the embrace of worship of a single major Chaos God, becoming a world in which war and bloodshed is the bedrock of existence, or one which has evolved an elaborate social and political hierarchy around which intrigues, lies, and secrets move like poison.Where these worlds may be or what devilries they harbour are yet to emerge from the dark unknown of the Koronus Expanse, but they are there waiting like serpents in long grass. Were ever such a world to be discovered, then all true servants of the Emperor would destroy its people and the lie of its gods completely and utterly, lest its poison and lies spread.