Ryza - Furnace of Shackled Stars: Though the prosperity of Ryza was evident for all to see during the Great Crusade, history had not always been kind to the Forge World. Like many worlds of Humanity, Ryza was isolated from its peers during the Age of Strife, exposed to the foul horrors of the Warp and the bloodlust of xenos empires.It was within Prosperity that the first colonists of Ryza sheltered, the forge city offering the sole protection against incursion and invasion. Though its people survived they did not prosper, centuries of warfare forestalling any hope of life unburdened by fear. As is oft the case in the most desperate times, the people of Ryza clung to faith, calling out to the Omnissiah in hope of deliverance. In a manner of speaking, their prayers were answered.The exact founding date of the sect known as the Omnissiah Igvita, and the individuals who first preached its rites and beliefs, is not spoken of in the annals of Ryza. It is evident from current teachings that the sect, literally translated to "Life Blood of the Omnissiah" is held as the saviours of Ryza during its darkest hours.Those tech-priests who first stood within its ranks espoused belief that the Omnissiah felt the pain of all His followers and His blood rained down upon the galaxy each time He was wounded. Unlike any other, the Omnissiah was the fire of knowledge and power, and it was not an ordinary substance that fell from His veins but the very plasma that formed the beating heart of His servants' technology.Through this they could commune with their god, receiving the knowledge to save themselves from the terrors that faced them. As the sect grew, finding its place within the varied theologies of the Cult Mechanicus, it proved that its beliefs seemingly rang true, at least in the minds of its followers, by innovating the plasma technology upon Ryza, lending their efforts in throwing back the foes that assailed Ryza and establishing the Forge World as a formidable force.By the time the Great Crusade reached Ryza, the Omnissiah Igvita proved an unshakable part of Ryza's essence, for members of the sect, tech-priests immersed in the study of plasma technology in all its forms, had brought much to the Forge World. Like all those of the ancient Mechanicum, the tech-priests of the Omnissiah Igvita modified their forms with augmetics, going so far as to replace their blood with plasma and installing miniature Plasma Reactors in place of their hearts.Such was the sect's influence on Ryza that though its tech-priests held no desire to rule, believing they were the blood of Ryza rather than its brain, they remained ingrained in its political structure. Thus, when the first Imperial delegation walked upon the Forge World, the party that greeted them contained the greatest of the Omnissiah Igvita, leading one Imperial emissary to remark in her report on the people of Ryza, "Their passion burns hotter than a furnace...like many of their ilk they are esoteric and strange, none more so than those that have shackled the stars within their hearts."Thus was born the title for Ryza of "The Furnace of Shackled Stars," an honorific that has held to this day.At its core, such a title offered recognition of the superior knowledge and skill of the tech-priests of the Omnissiah Igvita. In the engineering and production of plasma technology, Ryza stood unrivalled, hoarding secrets as to its creation known to few outside their world.Though many Forge Worlds bore the skill to craft the beating hearts that powered the Titans of the Collegia Titanica and the many vessels of the Great Crusade's expeditionary fleets, few dared conceive of improvements, fearful of the outcome should their experiments fail or else disabused of such notions by dogmatic values.In this Ryza was unrepentant, for long had its magi laboured at their craft and numerous were their innovations. Indeed, much of the contribution the Forge World made to the Great Crusade took the form of plasma technology, supplying the Imperial Army with shipments of plasma weaponry and Leman Russ Executioner main battle tanks while the cradles of Ryza Secundus laboured without pause to upgrade the reactors of those expeditionary fleets that passed through the system.Perhaps the greatest of their labours remained the development of the Stormblade, conceived as a way to overcome Mars' reluctance to share the secrets behind the construction of the Shadowsword. Originally the sole producer of such a weapon, the Stormblade became a potent form of leverage, its pattern ceded to lesser Forge Worlds in return for suitable compensation.The knowledge Ryza possessed ensured a rapid rise to prominence within the Imperium, said to be second only to Mars in the influence it wielded. From such a position of power Ryza weaved a web of political alliances, offering patronage to others in return for their aid should the Forge World ever call.This acquisition of allies only escalated during the Horus Heresy for Ryza's Hierophant Technis Nira Heldentun knew it was all but inevitable that war would come to Ryza. Though she claimed otherwise in the years following the Horus Heresy, it seems clear that her ambitions sat higher than mere survival and many claim Ryza sought the position of Mars within the Cult Mechanicus, motivated by a belief that the power of the Red Planet would be much diminishedat the war's end.The events that unfolded upon Ryza as the great civil war drew to a close rendered such speculation asinine, for Ryza suffered far more than Mars during its invasion and the Defence of Ryza and though it would rise once more to prominence in the Imperium in the years after the Heresy, few ever forgot how humbled it had been.