Genestealer Cult - Coming of the Great Rift, M41-M42: Note: All dates from this point forward are provisional due to errors in the Imperial Calendar, meaning these events could actually have occurred at any time from the early 41st Millennium to the early 42nd Millennium.The War of Beasts (Unknown Date.M42) - As the Great Rift tears open the skies of the Imperium, the Orks of the Supreme Speedlord, Krooldakka, invade the Sentinel World of Vigilus at the mouth of the Nachmund Gauntlet in the Dark Imperium. In doing so they trigger an uprising of the Cult of the Pauper Princes, who fight the Greenskins with great fervour to regain control of the world they were poised to seize. With communication lost amidst an unprecedented level of Warp Storm interference, the Atalans of the cult's outriders come into their own, acting as go-betweens to better coordinate the uprisings in each hivesprawl continent. They fight dozens of running battles against the Speed Freeks who form the bulk of the WAAAGH!, the sharp reflexes of hybrids on agile bikes and Wolfquads lending them a critical advantage against the thuggish upgunned buggies and wagons of the Orks. Control of the wastes passes back and forth as the Imperials counterattack the xenos invaders, but Vigilus has worse to come. The Chaos invasion that follows sees Abaddon the Despoiler assail the world, and hidden Chaos Cults rise up to match their dark faith against the righteous ire of the Pauper Princes. The planet is brought to the brink of utter destruction.The Wolf Bites Back (Unknown Date.M42) - When the fortified water reservoirs of Oteck Hivesprawl on Vigilus are corrupted by the Claw of the Thirsting Wyrm gene-sect of the Pauper Princes, a Space Wolves strike force led by Haldor Icepelt track down the mutant xenos hybrids responsible and put them to the torch. Several of the Space Marines fall in the battle, and three of their number are trapped in the rubble when the entire district is collapsed by pre-planted explosives. One veteran of the Fenrisian force upon Vigilus, Brand Sabrewulf, fights his way back out, waging a oneman war against the underground xenos worshippers that culminates in Brand slaying the gene-sect's Primus in a bloody duel. When the Astra Militarum finally reclaims the area, Brand is found wounded and out of ammunition, but alive. Upon his recovery, his knowledge of the tunnels proves invaluable in the wars to come on Vigilus.A Subtle Conquest (Unknown Date.M42) - The formidable Neris Vignostiquod, appointed as vizier to the Court Ingenius, is greeted in great ceremony as she descends from her sleek voidship upon the scribe-moon of Hexensix. The event is attended in person by Quillmaster-General Retrovetch, the de facto leader of the court and hence the entire planet. From the moment their eyes meet, Retrovetch is spellbound, for the newcomer has something about her that commands instant respect. So smitten is he that his usual machinations fall by the wayside. Instead he spends every waking moment learning of the new philosophy espoused by Vignostiquod, that of communality in the name of the Holy Sun. When the rest of Magus Vignostiquod's dynasty arrive, the solar cults who have taken control of the planet mean it is already ripe for the taking by the Star Children. Too late the Court Ingenius realises they are, in reality, worshipping a collective xenos entity that will soon blot out the sun above their world...A Blade Unsheathed (Unknown Date.M42) - The scions of the Bladed Cog, having thrown off their oppressors on Feinminster Gamma, take their crusade against the oppression of the Adeptus Mechanicus to a string of Forge Worlds across the system -- and to the Iron Hands Space Marines that the priests of Mars call their allies. They propagate the belief that the Machine Cult is misleading the people of the Imperium by cleaving to the mantra that the flesh is weak, and those without access to cybernetic augmentation prove most receptive to the idea they too have intrinsic value. The Bladed Cog welcomes the flesh and blood as well as the cyborg, preaching that flesh is clay to be hardened in the kiln of war rather than replaced entirely. In secret training camps they amass their armies of faith, equipping them with the finest wargear the Imperium can provide. When they strike against the Iron Hands of Clan Raukaan on the Forge World of Ghoulwright, the resultant techwar sees the planet consumed in the fires of battle.Parasites Within (Unknown Date.M42) - The Cult of the Innerwyrm spreads far and wide across the Affluix Sector by using the grox-meat export network of Peregrim's World. The steroid-enhanced beasts grown by Ethod Peregrim's famous meat dynasty reach truly massive sizes, altered by the dictates of the industry's selective breeding to have vast torsos and abdomens -- large enough to contain Purestrain Genestealers sewn into their guts by Innerwyrm abattoir workers. By sending the massive grox carcasses to a dozen different worlds in the famously paranoid Fort Adere star system, the Innerwyrm agents bypass the complex bio-scanner protocols that would otherwise have picked up on the biological tissue of the Genestealers smuggled within the meat. A new ecosystem is born on each of the infested planets, though it is not just grox-meat that forms its sustenance.The Heart of the Voidbrood (Unknown Date.M42) - After the worldwide invasion of the Agri-world Taurensi IX, during which a vast swarm of Tyranids descended to annihilate the planet's Astra Militarum defenders, the Hive Mind's creatures begin to consume the planet -- but do not turn upon the Genestealer Cultists of the Voidbrood who helped prepare the way for their conquest. Perhaps the strange departure from the Tyranid consumption modus is due to a psychic imperative from the cult's Genestealer Patriarch, or perhaps it can be traced to a flaring of the Cicatrix Maledictum high above -- but to the cultists themselves, it is simply another aspect of their divine ascension. They take to the skies in bulk freighters alongside the vast, sky-spanning bio-ships of the Hive Fleet, and are ignored entirely by the Tyranids, much as the tiny scavenger-fish is ignored by the goreshark with which it shares a symbiotic bond. The rest of the Taurensi System is conquered by an invasion of zealous, frothing Genestealer Cultists and the trillions-strong swarms of the Tyranids that they think of as their allies -- when in truth, the synapse creatures of the Tyranid hordes see the cultists as little more than ambulatory biomass to be consumed whenever the need arises.Tiamet Rising (Unknown Date.M42) - Ziaphoria, the repugnant and anomalous Jungle World claimed by Hive Fleet Tiamet, becomes the site of a disturbing new development in the curse of tyrannoforming, the hyper-accelerated biological process that is used to overcome and devour the prey worlds of the Hive Mind. There the conquering Hive Fleets have constructed vast psychic resonators of fleshy, encephalitic material -- some the size of mountains, some large enough to cover entire continents. The world forms the end point of a vast pilgrimage of Genestealer Cultists from the nearby planet of Heinrich's March. Led by a blind prophet known as "the Conduit," they depart from a world plagued by the Dark Gods, plying the stars to eventually land upon Ziaphoria's pulsating crust. Those who touch the corrupted earth with their bare flesh are instantly brought in thrall to it -- and convince their brethren to go back into space as missionaries, carrying the Creed of Tiamet to as many Imperial worlds as possible. They are the first of dozens of interstellar pilgrimages that seek out Ziaphoria, and in doing so, add to its power. The Tyranids of Hive Fleet Tiamet defend the planet so ferociously it is declared Quarantine Extremis and abandoned entirely by the Imperium. Only the Deathwatch of the nearby Watch Fortress Haltmoat -- and Inquisitor Kryptman, who comes out of his long exile to join them -- have any inkling of the threat posed by the immense psychic resonator of Tiamet. The theories they discuss long into the night are so wild, and the other threats facing the Imperium so dire, that they are given little credence by the wider Inquisition.