vizn3r/warhammer40k-lore huggingface dataset:
Missionary - Role: Whenever a lost Human culture is discovered or a new Imperial colony is founded, a missionary must journey to that world to take responsibility for its spiritual enlightenment, using whatever tools are most expedient. For some colonies, the missionary's responsibility can be limited, as other servants of the Ecclesiarchy participate in the colonisation effort. For newly recovered Human worlds, the task is often far more challenging.In these instances, the missionary must first absorb and learn the ways of the native society and its religion, if one exists. As they come to grips with the culture, they must identify practices and teachings that can be refined to become consistent with the ways of the Imperial Creed.A missionary's ultimate goal on any new world is to convert its existing populace to the Imperial Creed, but this is no trivial matter. Often, a missionary must work without any support. As the sole representative of the Imperium, the missionary serves as an ambassador to the entire planet. Given the scale of this task, many missionaries attempt to institute a gradual and subtle reform that can subtly gain traction within the planet's culture rather than trying to violently overwhelm the local beliefs immediately by force of arms or raw charisma.Missionaries frequently begin implementing such changes by integrating portions of the Imperial Creed into the planet's native belief system. This might be a simple matter of syncretism, substituting the Emperor and His saints for the roles of those deities already within the world's pantheon. In other circumstances, a solution could require more extreme, violent actions or could take long-term planning.A missionary might also have to design a system for a far more gradual conversion process. By placing facets of the Imperial Creed subversively into the culture, a missionary can help to lay the groundwork for their successor -- sometimes one who only arrives Terran centuries or millennia later. Ideally, the foundation the first missionary establishes creates opportunities for future missionaries to exploit in the signs and prophecies the first leaves behind, ensuring that even if they cannot succeed in their lifetime, the Imperium will triumph long after their death.The precise tenets of the Imperial Creed that missionaries espouse can vary substantially. Some are generous to a fault, granting the Emperor's pardon and mercy for past crimes, while winning the population over with charm and assistance. Those who follow this path are often more dependent upon their impassioned speech and vast body of knowledge.Others pursue a more militant course, often with the assistance of particularly zealous converts or even the forces of the Astra Militarum. Missionaries who employ this conversion pattern might initiate a holy war against the planet's native religions or they might use the power of the Imperium as a tool while they ferret out threats to Humanity. Still others work from the shadows, acting to subtly introduce the Imperial Creed so that the inhabitants never truly realise a change in their culture has occurred.
Missionary - Missionarus Galaxia: The missionaries of the Missionarus Galaxia, also called the Missionarius Galaxia and the Ministorum Galaxia, are a special breed of Imperial servant, and although they operate under the auspices of the Cardinals Palatine, they are in practice a nigh-autonomous body within the state church of the Adeptus Ministorum.The missionaries are tasked with accompanying all manner of expeditions into regions of the galaxy lost or previously unknown to the Imperium. Whether it be aboard Astra Militarum vessels launching an Imperial Crusade to retake a sector lost to alien invasion, or in the retinue of a daring Rogue Trader penetrating the dark, unexplored regions of the galaxy, Missionaries bear the flame of the Imperial Creed wherever they go, and with it kindle the faith of those long separated from the true church.Upon the discovery of a new or lost Human culture out among the stars, it is the task of a missionary agent of the Missionarus Galaxia to study all they can of its society and religion. They are ever watchful for ways in which the culture's religious practices and teachings can be subtly altered, to bring them broadly into line with the Imperial Creed.Practices dubbed benighted or barbaric may be supplanted with more suitable ones, though often some symbolism is allowed to remain to lend a sense of continuity. For example, necrophagia -- the eating of the dead -- is a practise proscribed by the Imperial Creed, but when it is encountered in savage cultures it may be replaced with the symbolic consumption of a particular totem animal. Equally, the worship of a polytheistic pantheon of multiple gods will be replaced with that of a host of Imperial saints, each chosen because they embody something of the qualities associated with each of the deposed deities.The men and women of the Missionarus Galaxia are supremely skilled orators and diplomats, and they must also be cunning and resourceful to survive contact with often barbaric or belligerent cultures. They have the skill to recognise when an impassioned sermon will change the course of an entire planetary history, or when they must instead retreat into the shadows and lay plans that will not see fruition in their own lifetime.Perhaps unsurprisingly, many of the Ministorum's prelates regard the missionaries as mavericks and reckless adventurers, but the truth is that they are the bedrock on which the faith of multitudes is built.The Missionarus Galaxia operates its own well-armed voidships, known as missionary vessels.
Missionary - Reclaiming a Lost Population: For standard millennia, there have been a number of star systems that have existed in a state of disorder and darkness, cut off from the Imperium and the Emperor's word. When these lost regions of space are re-opened, missionaries of the Missionarus Galaxia are among the first to enter the vast and wild regions in search of lost Human populations that they might illuminate (and exploit) in the name of the Emperor.These explorers often take passage aboard any vessel able to carry them into the vastness of the unexplored regions, from Navis Imperialis warships to Rogue Trader caravels, and immediately set to reintroducing the Emperor's light to whatever Human populations they discover.A missionary endeavouring to reclaim a Human population that has forgotten its duties to the Emperor and His mortal agents has a difficult task ahead of them. Even after finding a stable Human population amidst the countless glimmering stars of the forgotten areas of space, the missionary must make successful contact. This requires extensive work on their part, and very likely on the part of others who they impress into their service in the name of spreading the Emperor's word across the forgotten spans of void that lie beyond the bounds of the Imperium.Rogue Traders are required to render assistance to missionaries in travelling between the stars, and many pious (or opportunistic) Rogue Traders offer considerably more help, aiding missionaries in establishing contact with rediscovered Human populations, setting up operations on forgotten worlds, venturing across these lost regions in search of holy relics, bringing scattered groups into the Imperial fold, and completing the other sacred tasks to which these wandering clerics set themselves.
Missionary - Example Requirements for Reclaiming a Lost Population: Finding a Human population suitable for conversion.Any available information on the nature of the people slated for conversion, including their origin, customs, general demeanour, and any other pieces of information to assist the missionary.Requisite charts and maps outlining Warp routes, way stops, and the system to which the missionary is travelling.A small cadre of assistants, acolytes, scribes, scholars, and negotiators to assist in the conversion.A force of troops for security and to exhibit the military might of the Imperium.Gifts, bribes, and assorted treasure for the targeted populace.
Missionary - Mission to a Benighted World: The most fundamental duty of a missionary is to find Human populations far from the light of the Emperor and prepare them for the return of the Imperium, that they can be integrated seamlessly once that happens and convinced to pay their tithes with minimal protest. There are many worlds that fit this description in the Koronus Expanse of the Segmentum Obscurus, for example, and so missionaries from the Calixis Sector flock to this region.Finding these planets in the trackless void is no easy task, however. Some missionaries prefer to drift from place to place, relying on the Emperor to guide them to their intended destination.Others pore through Imperial Navy surveys, shuffle through ancient, fragmentary records from ages forgotten, or seek rumours at ports of call. Of course, as difficult as finding an appropriate planet might be, locating it is usually the simplest part of a missionary's task.
Missionary - Establish Contact: However a missionary chooses a world for conversion, their task once they arrive requires them to interact with the locals. Different missionaries prefer different methods of introducing themselves. Some descend on wings of fire, stepping out of massive warships to terrify the locals into submission, while others prefer subtlety, slipping into the population unnoticed to observe it for solar months or even standard years before beginning to introduce elements of the Imperial Creed.Most missionaries seek to win allies in any new place they arrive, and so the first step in the arduous process of bringing a world back to the fold is winning over a portion of the population. This group can be a political faction, a ruling elite, a religious sect, or even a repressed substratum waiting for a liberator to arrive to rise up in revolt. For a missionary working alone, this is an incredibly daunting task, for many scattered Human cultures are xenophobic, and choosing the wrong faction in a power struggle can prove fatal.A Rogue Trader and their crew can prove incredibly helpful to a missionary at this stage if they wish to assist with their Emperor-given duty (or have been coerced into doing so). Even the smallest voidship with which a Rogue Trader plies the stars dwarfs most isolated populations in terms of raw military power, and the sight of landing craft descending from the sky is impressive indeed.Most missionaries who receive help from Rogue Trader allies do not simply have them flatten the prospective population of worshippers; all but the most violently zealous can see the waste of Human resources intrinsic in such a strategy. Instead, if a Rogue Trader and their crew are present, the missionary can use them as a point of contact with the local society.If there is a ruling elite, an impressive display with a few landing craft can often grant the missionary immediate access to the ears of important individuals. Further, a Rogue Trader and their crew can provide lavish gifts from beyond the stars to sway even the most worldly of local lords. If the population is divided by war, a brief display of an Imperial warship's power can frequently cow both sides into brokering a peace, for which the missionary can reasonably claim credit. Once the missionary has established channels by which they can spread their message of the Imperial Creed to a lost population, this objective can be considered complete and their true work begins.
Missionary - Study the Local Cultures: The duty of missionaries is to spread the Imperial Creed on far-off Human-settled worlds, but before they begin to speak in earnest of the Emperor and the local population's duty to Him on Terra, many missionaries choose first to listen. By learning about a culture, missionaries can most easily tailor the message to most efficiently convert the population, seeding the Emperor, Imperial Saints, and other important features of Imperial worship into the rites and religious practices of the locals rather than attempting to stamp out these long-held traditions.Studying a culture can be the work of standard years or solar decades for a lone missionary, especially if the language of the locals is not a derivation of Low Gothic or another commonly spoken tongue. While some missionaries have Sisters Dialogus of the Adepta Sororitas to assist them in translation and the study of regional mythologies, others rely on the aid of fellow scholars of a more secular bent.A Rogue Trader's seneschal can prove invaluable when the crew's missionary needs to research an obscure dialect or construct a functional lexicon in a new tongue from nothing, given how these individuals are often trained in both scholarship and dozens of codes, cants, and other languages. Adeptus Mechanicus Explorators can also be extremely helpful in this capacity, using their mastery of arcane technologies to process vast quantities of linguistic and behavioural data far more rigorously and rapidly than a missionary could do alone. Once the representative of the Imperial faith has cracked this problem, they must analyse the natives' beliefs, determining which ones are harmless divergences, which ones can be twisted to fit the Imperial Creed, and which ones must be purged.Certain practices, especially as relates to the place of psykers and other mutants in a population, can be intolerable to the Imperial Creed, but most of the time, missionaries are more concerned with inserting the appropriate elements of the faith into the belief system of the natives rather than removing anything.So long as the population pays its tithes, it matters not whether they revere the Emperor as a solar deity who brings the harvest, a guardian spirit against marauding bands of twisted fiends that lurk in ancient ruins, or a god of death whose fury spills over and floods the rivers.Once the representative of the faith has studied the culture's mythology and found figures and anecdotes that can be subverted to serve the Imperial Creed, he is ready to begin the process of conversion, and this objective can be considered complete.
Missionary - Establish the Imperial Faith: No matter how strong a plan to bring a world into the Imperial fold seems in theory, a missionary cannot truly know its effectiveness until they put it to the test. If they have developed a strong understanding of a population's beliefs and found the mythological overlaps with certain critical aspects of the Imperial Creed (as they have hopefully done in the previous objective), then the missionary knows the content of the message they should deliver to that group of people.Still, publicly reinterpreting a doctrine that has stood for Terran centuries or millennia can be extraordinarily difficult and dangerous. The missionary must make a choice: they can either go through the keepers of religion and lore, converting the hierarchy from the top by convincing the local religious figures to support their "additions" to the local beliefs, or alternatively, they can act through the laity, convincing them that their religious leaders have overlooked or even hidden the truest interpretation of their faith. No matter which path they choose, the priest faces various risks to their person, for they are doing nothing less than rearranging their religious structure to support the ends of the Imperium.Zealots, scorned hierarchs, and angry kings have all slain countless missionaries attempting to bring their worlds into the fold across the newly re-discovered regions of the galaxy. Martyrdom does not necessarily mean failure, as it might inspire revolution, religious shifts, or simply make it easier for the next missionary to complete the task. Still, most missionaries prefer to survive their labours of faith if possible.The protection of a talented Arch-Militant and other bodyguards can mean the difference between success and an excruciating death for a missionary once they have played their hand and begun the open process of converting a world. A Void-master's skills can also be extremely helpful -- the massive weaponry of the vessel they control can silence most local armed conflicts with relative ease. Further, a good pilot is invaluable in case a missionary finds themselves needing to depart in a hurry for any reason.
Missionary - Recover a Sacred Artefact: Imperial history is littered with tales of powerful artefacts associated with the Emperor, the primarchs, high-ranking priests and generals, or one of the masses of Imperial Saints. Most are merely legends or metaphors, their existence apocryphal. Those that do exist are jealously guarded by their possessors. Some are wielded by the High Lords of Terra or other powerful leaders in the Imperial hierarchy as marks of office, while others are kept in reliquaries or secure vaults on Terra or one of the Imperium's many Shrine Worlds.Most holy artefacts mentioned in Imperial scripture are lost, however, scattered to the stars by time, strife, misfortune, and the machinations of the Ruinous Powers. Countless individuals constantly scour the galaxy in search of lost holy artefacts, and a Rogue Trader can make a fortune from any such discovery.Artefacts can take any form, and can be something as small and simple as a finger bone or prayer book to something as powerful as a holy weapon or even an entire voidship. While some have actual mystical or holy abilities, the majority are notable simply due to their association with their original owner.Undertaking the search for a lost holy artefact is a great commitment, requiring copious amounts of scholarly research and interstellar travel as the hunter scours databanks and lost worlds alike in search of the goal. In the end, all of the time and money spent, not to mention all of the inherent danger and possible mind-bending horrors, encountered in the search for lost artefacts are considered a small price to pay by those who undertake such tasks.
Missionary - Example Requirements for Recovering a Sacred Artefact: Records of a suitable holy artefact.'Access to ancient texts, sacred records, or other information hinting as to the location of the artefact.Warp charts for the region in which the artefact is said to rest.Any additional vessels, troops, materiel, or support from factions within and without the Adeptus Terra required to locate and recover the lost artefact.
Missionary - Retrieving a Blessed Relic: Many Rogue Traders make a large portion of their profits by recovering ancient treasures, lost archeotech, and other items of nigh-incalculable value. Rumours of forgotten relics abound in re-discovered regions of space -- countless sacred prizes waiting to be uncovered by bold explorers. Of course, chasing phantom treasures of any sort can ruin a Rogue Trader, and so the wise only devote their own resources to pursuing those items whose locations they can confirm in some way.If another entity or group is willing to put forth the capital for the expedition, many Rogue Traders gladly offer their services -- and those of their vessels and crews -- to those following the faded footsteps of ancient saints. Other Rogue Traders do so even if not compensated handsomely for their efforts, out of a sense of piety, as penance for past transgressions, or simply to curry favour with a powerful member of the Adeptus Ministorum or individual within the sector nobility.
Missionary - Finding the Trail: Though the Imperium is built on the bones of martyrs and every world is soaked in the blood of ancient heroes, most of these individuals are unsung, their contributions to Humanity's ascension forgotten. The relics of true Imperial saints -- or of other figures deemed worthy of such reverence -- are rare.Especially in lawless regions of space such as the Koronus Expanse, it can be a daunting task to set out in search of a relic with little more than rumours guiding one's search. Thus, the first step in any quest for a lost saint's bones, a forgotten device of great power, or any other item of interest is research. A Rogue Trader and their crew must undertake considerable efforts to track down legends, scroll through ancient records, and then interpret these clues into a comprehensible map to their destination.A Seneschal's information-gathering abilities can be incredibly helpful at this stage, assisting the group in separating the wheat from the chaff as they encounter countless baseless whispers about their quarry. A Missionary's extensive knowledge of the lore of the Ecclesiarchy is also key to many of these quests.Navigators can also be crucial at this stage, using their lineages' unparalleled knowledge of the capricious Warp routes over the millennia in these lost regions to eliminate some areas and highlight others as potential regions of interest. This objective can be considered complete when the crew has sorted through the drunken voidsmens' tales, the false leads, and the cryptic clues to find the start of a trail that might lead to the relic in question.
Missionary - Following the Path: Once the crew knows where to start their search, they must pinpoint its exact location. Even if all of the information they received during the previous objective was once accurate, it might well have been rendered incorrect in the Terran centuries since the whispers that they followed were first muttered. The crew might still have a great deal of work ahead of them even if they have tracked the relic to a single star system or world.Upon their arrival, the explorers must assess their new environment and determine the most likely resting place of the relic. Accurate sweeps by crew members skilled in the use of their voidship's scanners could locate likely positions or populations that might provide up-to-date regional information. If the explorers have a direct connection to the artefact in some way, or another object in some way related to it, a skilled astropath might be able to use divination to narrow its location further.Once they have conducted a thorough examination of the region (whether that be mechanical, mystical, social, or by other means) and found an area they can explore on foot that contains the artefact, this objective can be considered complete. The more precise the information they garner during the completion of this objective, the more they know about the final objective, and what it requires of them.
Missionary - Recover the Relic: Unfortunately, most relics of Imperial Saints and other famous Imperial figures are not simply discarded several centimetres beneath the ground, waiting for bold explorers to exhume them. Once the crew has found the exact location of a given artefact, they must actually reclaim it. Liberating it from its current circumstances can be as difficult as all of the preparation that has lead up to this moment.Many such relics are hidden in the midst of ancient tombs, crashed starships, and other treacherous environs. Others are in the hands of fanatical cults -- both heretical and Imperial -- that deny outsiders any access to their treasures. The explorers must navigate dangerous environments to reach their goal, whether these be social, physical, or both.Canny explorers might be able to avoid some of these obstacles, convincing even power-mad zealots to trade for their sacred relics, while other crews with less subtlety and a more ballistic inclination might prefer to solve their problems with guns blazing. This objective can be considered complete once the artefact the explorers sought rests in their hands.
Missionary - Destroying a Xenos Threat: The creeping influence of the myriad xenos species that pollute the galaxy is anathema to the learned men and women of the Imperium. From the pointless savagery of the bloody-minded Orks to the cunning treachery of the Aeldari to the honeyed lies of the upstart T'au Empire, xenos threats are everywhere.Occasionally, it falls to a member of the Missionarus Galaxia to root out xenos and stymie their plans, especially when the xenos show too much interest in worlds the Ecclesiarchy holds dear. In cases such as these, a missionary, especially one serving aboard a Rogue Trader ship or otherwise allied with a powerful trade dynasty, might choose to raise a fighting force and take the battle directly to the enemy.Endeavours such as these can range anywhere from simply hunting down and destroying a marauding Aeldari Corsair to leading an Imperial Crusade to wrest a region of the Koronus Expanse from the grip of some heretofore unknown xenos threat.
Missionary - Example Requirements for Destroying a Xenos Threat: A world or star system threatened by hostile xenos.Troops, whether household forces or mercenaries, along with all necessary materiel for sustaining an army.Agreements and binding compacts with the Astra Militarum and/or the Imperial Navy to provide ships, troops, vehicles, and materiel.Initial reconnaissance and the gathering of intelligence regarding any and all enemy forces.Establishment of forward operating bases and a logistics chain to provide supplies for the war effort.Binding agreements with the Adeptus Mechanicus to provide technical support for all ships, vehicles, and materiel.Depending on the level of threat and availability, support from the Adeptus Astartes, one or more Inquisitors, the Adeptus Sororitas, or any other branch of the Adeptus Terra that the missionary, Rogue Trader and his crew can sway to the cause.
Missionary - Purge the Xenos: Aliens pose various threats across the Koronus Expanse, and though they do prey upon Human populations scattered across the countless worlds in this region of space, this is not the only reason that a missionary, Rogue Trader and their crew might come into conflict with xenos. Various alien factions also compete with Rogue Traders for resources, relics, and more, and Rogue Traders frequently find themselves in minor but nonetheless cataclysmic wars with xenos species.Of course, the line between holy wars and territorial squabbles over resources is often blurred. After all, what Rogue Trader would refuse the financial and military assistance of the Ecclesiarchy if they intended to rout the Orks occupying a mineral-rich system eventually anyway?Thus, Rogue Traders frequently declare minor crusades, war-pilgrimages, and other, similar undertakings of a religious bent to seek the bones of lost saints on worlds occupied by troublesome xenos or launch fleets of ships to protect "helpless" Human populations (and their valuable resources) from marauding aliens.
Missionary - Mustering Invasion Forces: Organising a military campaign to retake a world is a monumental task. How much more massive, then, must be the effort to reclaim an entire star system or even larger region? A Rogue Trader looking to launch such an endeavour must be prepared to spend considerable sums of money, favour, and influence gathering forces. Having a religious purpose for such a venture can make acquiring resources much easier.A Missionary's impassioned oration can sway many hearts to the cause. Of course, such tactics are not effective on all the factions a Rogue Trader might wish to employ. Hard-bitten mercenaries, privateers, and even less savoury individuals (especially the various xenos who fight for profit, glory, or cruel joy) rarely see the benefits of spiritual rewards, no matter how grand they might be.For recruiting such groups, a skilled and knowledge Seneschal is invaluable. Securing finances to pay hired forces, using favours or blackmail to control unruly elements, and spinning a web of intrigue from which the Rogue Trader and their dynasty can profit are all integral parts of a Seneschal's duty. A Rogue Trader and their crew might have to travel to many different worlds to secure the assistance of various allies, or even treat with other Rogue Trader dynasties to win their aid. Once the explorers have secured support from an appropriate number of backers, this objective can be considered complete.
Missionary - Reconnoitre the Battlefield: Before launching a full invasion of a region of space, a wise Rogue Trader uses the resources at their  disposal to scout all of the threats it contains. Frequently, a Rogue Trader intending to lead a larger force into a system uses their own vessel (which is already optimised for independent action in potentially hostile territory). This objective could consist of a preliminary journey to the destination to gather as much information as possible, either avoiding the enemy entirely or retreating before they can bring their forces to bear.A skilled Void-master is obviously crucial to the success of such a mission, for only the most talented pilots can avoid detection while flying so close to hostile forces. Anyone specialised in operating the vessel's sensors must be extremely adept as well, so that the Rogue Trader can draw together a full picture of the warzone before the action begins.A veteran Arch-Militant or missionary who has led many such assaults before can also provide considerable advice on how to carry out such a mission, especially if a portion of the crew needs to leave the ship to closely explore a particular feature of the battlefield. The Rogue Trader and their crew must carefully balance caution and curiosity at this stage; if they are discovered, they might find themselves facing a force much larger than their own.On the other hand, if they fail to uncover a crucial part of the enemy's defences, their lapse could prove devastating when they bring the full might of their force to bear. Once the explorers return to their mustered forces, this objective can be considered complete.
Missionary - Launch the Invasion: When the explorers have all the information they can gather about their target, it comes time to formulate a plan of attack. Rogue Traders themselves often possess considerable strategic acumen, as do many Arch-Militants. Further, the technical knowledge of an Explorator can provide considerable insight into the organisation of the enemy's defences. Other explorers might even have experience fighting the enemy in question.Even if their plan is perfect, however, executing it requires the explorers to engage in a significant battle against their enemies. The successes and failures of the Rogue Trader and their crew can reflect the overall status of the force they have gathered. If they were extremely thorough in their search in the previous objective, the explorers should probably have uncovered everything that their enemies have to throw at them.If they overlooked important details, however, then once they begin the assault, these lapses in their scrutiny can come back to haunt the explorers in the form of extra forces, unexpected defences, or other unpleasant surprises. If the explorers can navigate the trials and travails of war and vanquish their foes, this objective can be considered complete.
Missionary Vessel - Missionary Vessel: A missionary vessel is a type of Imperial voidship operated by the Missionarius Galaxia of the Adeptus Ministorum which carries Ecclesiarchy missionaries on their quests to convert newly discovered Human-settled worlds to the Imperial Creed.A missionary vessel of the Adeptus Ministorum serves as a mobile cathedrum of the Imperial Cult, complete with stained armaglass windows and infrawave Laud Hailers. Its hallowed decks contain all manner of implements that its resident missionaries use to ply their craft of conversion, allowing them to spread faith in the Imperial Cult through persuasion when possible and through fear and excruciation if unfortunately necessary.Missionary vessels are usually also well-armed and equipped in order to better survive long enough to carry out their duties to the Emperor.
Missionary Vessel - Notable Missionary vessels: Clarion -  The Clarion was a missionary vessel whose crew was dedicated to exploring the Seventh Blackstone Fortress under the authority of the overzealous Ecclesiarchy priest Taddeus the Purifier.
Mist Reaper - Mist Reaper: The Mist Reaper is a Tyranid Lictor of Hive Fleet Dagon named for its tactic of using the mists on the Imperial world of Xyan to cover its approach.
Mist Reaper - History: In the Orpheus Salient of the Jericho Reach, the Mist Reaper is a mysterious predator that has only been encountered by the Imperium on Xyan. It is believed that the Mist Reaper is a unique form of Lictor, and that it is responsible for many of the recent disappearances from the planet.The Mist Reaper has also been known to lurk near the boundaries of small communities, taking those who venture into the planet's mists. Under the cover of darkness and the sulphurous fog, it occasionally enters the city proper and abducts inhabitants from their homes.Seldom are any identifiable remains left behind, leaving most citizens unaware of the Tyranid incursion. Most often, the Mist Reaper prefers to attack from ambush, striking only in areas where both cover and opportunities for concealment are plentiful.
Mistral - Mistral: Mistral is an Imperial planet that provides artillery and infantry regiments to the Astra Militarum. It is home to the militarum regimentum known as the Mistralian Windborne.Most of Mistral's planetary surface is scoured by strong westerly winds due to its short, daily rotational period, which takes only 18 solar hours.Mistral is dominated by baronial noble houses whose rivalries define much of the world's politics.Though baronial civil wars raged across the planet many Terran years ago, it has since been united under the rule of the Imperium of Man.When the 77th Mortisian Infantry Regiment of the Astra Militarum were called in to investigate and respond to reports of heresy, they were joined by small contingents of baronial troops uniformed in a variety of colorful house liveries sent by the local barons.
Mistral - Notable Locations: Golden Vales of Lom - Two long, deep valleys bounded by hills to the southwest and the Carconne mountain range to northeast sheltered Lom Keep and the Lom family estate's vineyards from the surface winds, allowing for production of fine amasec for 2000 Terran years before the Battle of Lom.Hive Arral - Hive Arral was a hive city that included manufactoria, pit mines, and materiel warehouses. Preacher Guilhem had ministered to the workers of Vahnsinn Manufactorum 17 before a near-fatal accident invited the forces of Chaos to the world.
Miststave - Miststave: A Miststave is an exotic melee weapon that is utilised exclusively by the enigmatic Aeldari Harlequins, particularly the powerful psychic players known as Shadowseers. Traditionally, every Shadowseer carries this iconic weapon -- its complex manufacture channels their mental force to crush armour plates and shatter bones.Against living victims, even a glancing blow from such a stave scrambles their perceptions, clouding the mind with contradictory illusions and reducing sight to a slow-motion blur. The Miststave is the Shadowseer's sign of office, and its tip is a totem of the Laughing God; the front a laughing face, the back a grinning skull.
Miststave - Sources: Codex: Harlequins (7th Edition) (Digital Edition), pg. 59, 210White Dwarf Weekly 56 (21 Feb 2015), "Shadowseer," "Army List - Shadowseer," pp. 5-8, 54-55​White Dwarf Weekly 99 (19 Dec 2015), "Weapon of the Week: Miststave" pg. 30
Mitu Conglomerate - Mitu Conglomerate: The Mitu Conglomerate was one of the countless xenos empires that rose to power and preyed upon human worlds during the Age of Strife. Powerful and possessing devastating weapons and technologies, the Mitu Conglomerate comprised scores of worlds and held dominion over several vassal star systems, both human and alien.Their empire would eventually be crushed during the Great Crusade in the late 30th Millennium after a protracted and bloody war that would be led under the flag of the Primarch of the Imperial Fists, Rogal Dorn, and the contribution of the 7th Expeditionary Fleet of the I Legion, the Dark Angels.The surviving records of the Great Crusade contain precious little information on the Mitu and their empire -- the alien horror being too complete to warrant anything less than a writ of extermination by the Imperium. However, much was learned through their interactions with several human cultures in the Segmentum Obscurus, most notoriously their actions within the domains of the Manachean Commonwealth, which had suffered for many Terran centuries under the baleful tutelage of the xenos, and the Forge World of Mezoa and its allies among the Imperial Knights of House Hermetika.At the pinnacle of their might, the Mitu Conglomerate posed a serious threat to the Imperium of Man's expansion, effectively dominating a great deal of the Coronid Reach. It was held in check only by the Orks of the Grail Abyss and the might of Forge World Mezoa in the Cyclops Cluster.
Mitu Conglomerate - History: Almost nothing is known of the Mitu Conglomerate's inception or early history. What few archives or fragments remained from the Dark Age of Technology does not mention them, which leads to the conclusion that their empire emerged sometime after Old Night had taken its hold on humanity.Before the coming of the Great Crusade, the Manachea System held a technologically advanced society, a survivor state of the ancient human interstellar diaspora which, while it numbered in the hundreds of millions, also suffered under the inhuman overlordship of the Mitu Conglomerate. The Conglomerate, whose core worlds would eventually be purged by the fires of Exterminatus, was a cabal of several psychically-empowered, pseudo-actinaric xenos species believed to have evolved from a common stock.Warp-capable and possessed of advanced technology, the Mitu Conglomerate had forged a pocket interstellar empire, forbidding any attempts at space flight by their conquered peoples and ruthlessly purging any human psyker discovered within their domains.From Manachea, as well as other subjected star systems (both human and alien), the Mitu periodically demanded a culling of the population and a tribute of flesh to provide them, it was believed, with the basic components to construct their technologies. In answer to the existence of such creatures, there could be no response but total annihilation, and the war the Imperium fought to end the Mitu Conglomerate was protracted and bloody.The liberation of the Manachea System was a turning point in this great war, and for the masses who had lived so long under the oppression of inhuman intelligences and the constant threat of death, Imperial Compliance was taken up with open arms. Instituted as a commonwealth of the three inhabited worlds of the Manachea System under the rulership of a single Imperial Commander, Manachea prospered and soon came to dominate a score of nearby star systems as a regional capital, becoming a shining beacon of Imperial civilisation and all the Great Crusade had set out to achieve.
Mitu Conglomerate - Anatomy and Physiology: The Mitu were not a unified people or even a single species, but an alliance of different xenos civilisations that are believed to have evolved from a common stock. As such, all Mitu were pseudo-actinaric entities evolutionarily analogous to the sea anemones of ancient Terra that proved psychically-empowered, highly-intelligent and masters of both biomechanical and arcane technologies.Descriptions of their physique have sadly all been lost, though they are confirmed to have resembled walking, fungal sea anemones with legs, with some variation between different breeds. Though the amount and orientation of limbs varied, they were bisymmetrical, aside from their misshapen, tentacled heads.
Mitu Conglomerate - Homeworld: The Imperium has thus far been unable to identify the original homeworld of the Mitu and it is likely that it never will as no resources can be spared to research the matter. Logic dictates that it would have to be one of the worlds ravaged by the Great Crusade that now form the Cyclothrathine Holdfast. However, the two principal worlds of this domain, Cyclothrathe itself and the Mining World of Arrian, seem not to have been colonised by the Mitu due to their inimical nature to life.
Moab - Moab: Moab is an unremarkable world located to the galactic east of the great Forge World of Mezoa. Had it not been found at its location at a nexus of stable Warp-routes it is likely that Moab would never have been colonised. As it was, the world quickly became one of the most populous Civilised Worlds and even the administrative sub-capital of the Cyclops Cluster.After several solar decades of prosperity which would eventually lead to its independence, Moab would suffer harshly during the Horus Heresy, becoming most famed for the dire events known as the "Sorrow of Moab." Reconquered in the aftermath of the galactic civil war, Moab quickly regained its former position within the Gothic Sector.
Moab - History: Whereas most worlds of the populous Cyclops Cluster had been colonised during the Dark Age of Technology, Moab's colonisation only began in the later Great Crusade-era when the expeditionary fleets of the Emperor's armies pushed into the northern reaches of the Ultima Segmentum.Although habitable, Moab is a chill yet arid Desert World with high levels of local radiation, which seem to have deterred any further colonisation. Moab's value lies in its system's location, lying at the junction of several relatively stable Warp-routes that connected it to several important worlds of the Cyclops Cluster and the Manachean Commonwealth.Moab's history began as a mere way station for the armies of the Great Crusade, quickly becoming a dormitory world first for the soldiers of the Exercitus Imperialis, then outward-going mining expeditions and labour armies. With the transition of several million people through its facilities, the original administrative and dormitory compounds expanded to become real cities served by their own water reclamation infrastructure and dust-agriculture fit to house the tens of millions of its native population.In 897.M30 this demographic evolution would eventually see Moab become a sovereign world with its own Imperial Commander. Moab continued to welcome colonists and imported workers, the influx of this Human "livestock" -- often displaced involuntarily from recently Compliant or resistant worlds -- meaning that at the outbreak of the interstellar civil war, Moab's population would number well over one billion inhabitants.Moab's sole export, asset and stock-in-trade would be manpower, for it was a harsh realm where life expectancy was low and clean water a currency in and of itself. To ensure peace amongst these teeming millions, countless Enforcers brutally ensured that the harsh laws of Moab's legal code would be respected.Politically and economically, Moab could not rival the influence of such worlds as Dominica Minor and Mezoa in the region. This did not mean, however, that Moab had no political influence at all; the planet boasted its own orbital gun stations and picket ships to ward off the almost inevitable Renegade and pirate attacks.Most important amongst these defences was Moab's primary orbital transfer and defence facility; a great geo-stationary void station fashioned from the hulls of past colony arks. To the Imperium, Moab's value was important enough to warrant permanent protection by several defence squadrons of the Armada Imperialis. These would be sorely needed on other fronts when Horus declared his secession from the Imperium, leaving the world utterly vulnerable to enemy intentions.As news of the Warmaster's revolt and the dire events of the Drop Site Massacre at Isstvan V become more widely known, an insurrectionist revolt flared up on Moab, the mob chanting Horus' name. With customary brutality, Moab's Imperial Commander, Malthus Grange, ordered the revolt to be put down, which led to a bloody five-solar-week pacification pogrom by local Enforcers and Arbitrators. In the aftermath of this revolt, planetary martial law was declared.
Moab - Trivia: Moab was the name of an ancient kingdom located on a mountainous strip of land in the present-day nation of Jordan on the eastern shore of the Dead Sea.Thought to have emerged sometime in the mid-ninth century B.C., the existence of the Kingdom of Moab is attested to by numerous archeological findings, most notably the Mesha Stele -- also called the "The Moabite Stone" -- which describes the Moabite victory over an unnamed son of King Omri of Israel. The Moabite capital was Dibon. According to the Bible's Old Testament, Moab was often in conflict with its Israelite neighbours to the west.
Moderatus - Moderatus: A moderatus (pl. moderati) is an officer of the Adeptus Mechanicus' Collegia Titanica who serves as a member of the crew of a Titan under the leadership of that god-engine's commanding princeps. Moderati are specialist crew, the exact number of who are present and the roles they play dependent on the class of the Titan they serve on as well as the doctrines of their parent Titan Legion.Each moderatus is given responsibility for operating and monitoring a different Titan system, such as the sensors, the helm or a specific weapon. The moderati add their own oversight to the commands of their Titan's princeps that are fed through the god-engine's Mind Impulse Unit, a device that cybernetically links together the minds of the princeps and the moderati with the Machine Spirit (artificial intelligence) of their Titan.Several moderati are usually stationed at the princeps' side within the "head" of the god-engine, while others are located elsewhere in the Titan's mighty form -- the gun moderati, for example, are often stationed in the carapace as near to their weapons as the Titan's complex anatomy allows.As a result of the battles they come through together and because of their link to their Titan's Mind Impulse Unit, princeps and their moderati are often more closely knit than most families. Being linked to the MIU can also be dangerous and even lethal, as the potent Machine Spirit of a Titan can wreck an unprepared individual's consciousness and drive them to madness.Damage to the MIU system's circuitry can cause the MIU to go haywire, and in such circumstances, the luckiest members of the crew are killed instantly by the psychic shock, while the rest are reduced to gibbering lunatics.Most of the crew members' connections to the MIU are equipped with manual emergency cut-offs; however, sometimes the moderati and princeps are not able to utilise them quickly enough to avoid the damage. MIU links are attached via implanted cybernetic socket connectors in the cranium and neck, or in the body armour the crew wear. The armour's role is to shield them from secondary damage caused by shrapnel and impacts, and it additionally contains power and life support units, also attached by umbilicals to external devices.These umbilicals have many redundant channels, so that if any one is severed in the heat of battle, another can easily take its place, making sure that nothing impedes the crew's ability to fight.
Moderatus - Roles: The "moderati majorus" are moderati who are given oversight over a Titan's major weapon systems.The "moderati minoris" are those moderati who are given command over a Titan's minor weapon or other support systems.
Moderatus - Ranks: Moderati only have two ranks, which are granted based on their seniority within a Titan's crew and the importance of the Titan systems which they oversee. Senior moderati are given the title of "moderatus primus" and more junior moderati are addressed as "moderatus secundus."