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Kor Megron - Fall of Rhodax: The Dark Apostle Kor Megron led his Word Bearers Host in a bloody Dark Crusade across the galaxy for millennia. It was upon the Cardinal World of Rhodax that Kor Megron would perpetrate his greatest work and be granted the boon of daemonhood by the Ruinous Powers. The vile Dark Apostle fought a brutal war of attrition over a period of 3 solar months against a pitiful number of soldiers of the Imperium. As the streets of Rhodax filled with bloated corpses, Kor Magron's Bolter ran dry. He continued to fight on towards the Basilica of Saint Petch, a shrine devoted to a beloved Imperial Saint to whom the world now looked for salvation. He slew the servants of the Corpse Emperor with his ancient Power Sword until the energy cells powering the weapon ran out and the blade had snapped off in the spine of a shambling Ogryn. Not dissuaded by this temporary setback, Kor Magron continued to fight on with his armoured fists.Together with his warband he assailed the Imperial defenders on the steps of the fallen temple. The 14th Cadian Shock Troops Regiment of the Imperial Guard attacked the warhost en masse, 2,000 of their soldiers storming the marble staircases of the basilica, but the Word Bearers pushed them back. Though many of the remaining Word Bearers were wounded and they were running low on ammunition, they remained unbowed. While his men continued to fight, Kor Megron toppled the forty-foot tall statue of Saint Petch, piling the bodies of the Cadian dead around it to form a blasphemous mound upon the consecrated ground of the basilica.Now bolstered by agents of the Inquisition, the Cadians attacked once more. Kor Megron stood upon the mound of the dead, roaring his devotion to the Ruinous Powers, offering up the piles of Imperial dead as a dark sacrifice. For his unflinching loyalty and dedication to Chaos, the lords of the Warp rewarded their devoted servant with ascension to daemonhood on the spot. Seething with barely restrained power, Kor Megron's body transformed, twisted by the warping power of Chaos. Where once had stood a proud and strong Chaos Space Marine now towered an almighty Daemon Prince.The Word Bearers roared their exaltation at their lord's transformation, fighting on with renewed vigour, for they had been blessed by the Dark Gods. The Daemon Prince ripped the marbled blade free from the statue of Saint Petch, and transformed it into a twisting and corrupted weapon of cruel destruction with his newborn Chaotic powers. Kor Magron strode forth and wreaked terrible slaughter upon the Imperial defenders of Rhodax. Soon after, Rhodax was declared a Dead World by the Inquisition, drifting lifeless in the void of space, a mute witness to the fury and hate of Kor Megron, the Reaper of Rhodax.
Kor Megron - The Spear of Sicarius: The scions of Ultramar had arrived -- the vaunted Ultramarines 2nd Company, and a small force of 1st Company Veteran Marines, had been hastily diverted to Eydolim by their Chapter Master Marneus Calgar. Receiving his instructions with barely disguised enthusiasm, Captain Cato Sicarius, the leader of this relief force, had diverted his battle force with all haste. As the Chaos Space Marines swarmed towards the outer walls of Eydol, the Ultramarines would deploy en masse in support of the Imperial Guard and there, before the gates of the capital city, the Warriors of Ultramar would throw back the hordes of Chaos.For the forces of the Imperium, the frantic battle fought across the outer curtain wall of Eydol City is remembered as one of tragic loss and heroic sacrifice. Official Imperial records refer to it as the Battle of Eagle Gate -- a frenzied and violent engagement that left a battlefield littered with bodies and broken war engines and a sizeable portion of Eydol City's east quarter ablaze.
Kor Megron - Warriors of Damnation: The hateful wrath of the Daemon Prince drew not only the Foresworn together, but also forged the great alliance between the disparate Chaos Space Marines and Renegade bands. Indeed, as the fighting within Eydolim reached its zenith, it was Kor Megron who wrought the summoning of the daemonic host. More than two hundred Chaos Space Marines from the Word Bearers Legion were present in the final assault on Eydolim. First into the fray were the Sons of Damnation -- vile Traitors who lay claim to diabolical deeds stretching all the way back to the Siege of the Emperor's Palace during the Battle of Terra at the height of the Horus Heresy. A large force of Chaos Space Marines of the Word Bearers Legion, the Foresworn were the spear tip of the Chaos Space Marine assault. Focusing their offensive against the main temple, the Sons of Damnation's Chaos Terminator Squad carved a bloody path towards the heart of the Imperial lines.The Chaos Space Marine forces were bolstered by warriors from the Black Legion, few of whom were as influential, or as cruel, as the Corpsemakers. This twenty-strong squad of Traitors and murderers battled their way into the breach before the Ultramarines' Terminator Squad Argan ended their bloody advance. The bloodthirsty Khornate Berzerkers of Gladiator Group 138 were also crucial to the Chaos assault. With Chainaxes wailing, they smashed through Eagle Gate, butchered the defenders and then continued into the waiting guns of the Imperial Guard. Kraagon Gorefist earned the slaughter crown for his brutality.
Kor Megron - Martyrdom: At the end, the wrath of the Foresworn and their allies was halted before the Gate of Martyrs -- the great eastern portal into Eydol City. There, a hastily gathered force of Space Marines and Imperial Guardsmen made their final stand. Kor Megron hurled himself at the defenders, determined to slaughter his way through. In the face of his fury, Cato Sicarius stood firm as the Daemon Prince brought down his accursed weapon in sweeping arcs, hammering the Space Marine Captain with such ferocity that his knees buckled and his finely wrought Talassarian Tempest Blade was notched and chipped. With a clawed foot, Kor Megron stomped Sicarius to the floor, cracking his breastplate and grinding him down. Triumphant, the Word Bearer raised his blade high, braying his victory to the skies. The killing blow never fell.A nearby Imperial Guardsman, seeing the mighty Astartes captain in mortal danger, forgot his fear and hurled himself at the towering Daernon Prince. As his bayonet plunged into the infernal beast's flesh, the course of the battle, and the fate of Eydolim, shifted forever. Kor Megron, distracted, turned his gaze upon the brave Imperial Guardsman and burned him to ash in a torrent of Warpflame. The distraction was all the Ultramarines captain needed. In the blink of an eye, Sicarius jammed his blade upwards, past the breastplate of the daemon and into its heart.With a skull-rending scream, the Daemon Prince was dragged into the Warp. Stunned at the loss of their leader, and worn to the breaking point by the defenders, the Forces of Chaos began to fall back, retreating under a sustained bombardment. For the Imperium, a reprieve had been bought at great cost. For the Legions of Chaos, there would be another reckoning.
Kor Phaeron - Kor Phaeron: Kor Phaeron was the first captain of the Word Bearers Traitor Legion and the Primarch Lorgar's spiritual counsel and foster father during the years of Lorgar's youth on the Word Bearers' homeworld of Colchis, before Lorgar was rediscovered by the Imperium.When the Emperor found Lorgar on Colchis, Kor Phaeron was far too old to undergo the full implantation process to become a true Space Marine, but so favoured was he in the eyes of his Primarch that he received the most potent of the biological augments it was possible to bestow upon a mortal man short of elevation to the Legiones Astartes, and was declared First Captain of the Word Bearers Legion.Scorned by many in his Legion as a "half-Astartes", Kor Phaeron nevertheless had the ear of the Primarch and, more than any other individual, is responsible for the corruption of Lorgar and the Astartes of the XVIIth Legion into repudiating their oaths to the Emperor of Mankind and becoming willing pawns of Chaos.Though still aging and never having possessed the sheer potency of a full Space Marine before being infused with the power of Chaos, the First Captain nevertheless exerted great influence upon his Primarch and within his Legion, his conviction and zeal always unfettered and undiminished.After the Word Bearers' fall to the service of the Ruinous Powers, Kor Phaeron became a powerful Dark Apostle known as the "Black Cardinal" or "Dark Cardinal" and the "Keeper of the Faith" of the Word Bearers.He remains in the 41st Millennium one of the two most influential members of the Legion's ruling Dark Council, alongside his ancient rival and sometime ally, his fellow Dark Apostle Erebus.
Kor Phaeron - Schism Wars: However, as Lorgar grew in standing amongst the people as their religious leader, the other members of the Covenant's ecclesiastical hierarchy began to grow jealous of his popularity. Lorgar's youth had been constantly plagued by visions of a mighty warrior in gleaming bronze armour coming to Colchis, a one-eyed giant in blue robes standing beside him. At one point, the visions reached such an intensity that Lorgar claimed that the prophesied return of Colchis' one, true god was soon to occur.He began to preach this news to the people of Colchis, causing disruptions to the theocratic rule of the Covenant as people converted to his dissident beliefs in the One God. Lorgar's enemies in the Covenant saw this as the opportunity they had been waiting for to remove the threat that Lorgar presented to the status quo, declaring him a heretic to the Old Ways.Those of the Covenant who came forward to arrest Lorgar were killed by his followers. The Covenant split into two factions, the followers of the Old Faith and the Godsworn, the Brotherhood of Lorgar, who continued to believe in The One, and a holy war of immense proportions erupted, eventually forcing the entire population of the world to choose a side.This conflict, called the "Schism Wars," lasted six standard years, ending when Lorgar and his supporters stormed the temple of the Covenant known as the Cathedral of Illumination in the heart of the capital of Vharadesh, at which the Primarch had trained, killing the monks within and eliminating the heart of the Covenant's conservative religious resistance to his ideas concerning the One God. Possibly as part of this conflict, or after it, one-third of the people of Colchis were said to turn against Lorgar, and the first Great Purge was conducted by the Brotherhood's fanatically loyal warrior-monks hand-picked by Lorgar.Lorgar, now the ruling Archpriest of the reformed Covenant, promised the masses that their new god would arrive on Colchis no more than a local year after their victory and that they would know him only as "The Emperor." Kor Phaeron confessed to his adopted son that he remained a believer in the gods of the Old Faith, but that he also believed like Lorgar that the One God was the most powerful of their number.
Kor Phaeron - The Great Crusade: The Emperor of Mankind finally came to Colchis less than a local year later with the Primarch Magnus the Red, alongside an Expeditionary Fleet of the Great Crusade and a contingent of Thousand Sons Space Marines. They offered Lorgar command of the XVIIth Space Marine Legion (at that time known as the "Imperial Heralds") as had been foreseen in Lorgar's visionsLorgar deeply desired that his foster father accompany him on the Great Crusade after he assumed command of the XVIIth  Legion. But Kor Phaeron was already far too old to receive the gene-seed organ implantations and prepubescent genetic manipulations necessary to grow into one of the Astartes. Instead, through rejuvenat treatments, the surgical insertion of costly bionics and limited gene-forging, Kor Phaeron was exalted above humanity as a sign of the value placed in him by his Primarch and was granted the rank of First Captain within the Legion.Many within the soon-to-be renamed Word Bearers Legion came to hate the First Captain, and believed him to be a "false Asartes" who was impure, a pinnacle of genetic compromise. Despite having become far more than human, Kor Phaeron had not ascended to the ranks of the true Astartes.But nevertheless, Kor Phaeron was overll accepted amongst Lorgar's Space Marines because of Lorgar's esteem for him. Kor Phaeron served as both the Primarch's second-in-command and the Captain of the elite 1st Company of the Legion. Even in a Legion defined by its religious zealotry, Kor Phaeron stood out. Phaeron led the warriors under his command with a fanatical ferocity unmatched by any of their brethren.Kor Phaeron also served as a Chaplain for the Legion, a special rank created by Lorgar after he took over the Imperial Heralds. Kor Phaeron advanced quickly through the ranks of the Word Bearers' Reclusiam, assimilating the holy words of their Primarch concerning The One, which were to be preached to all of the peoples brought back into the God-Emperor's fold in the course of the Great Crusade.
Kor Phaeron - Day of Judgement: Lorgar led his Legion throughout the glory years of the Great Crusade, setting out to eradicate and destroy all forms of blasphemy and heresy that threatened the Emperor's realm. Despite the strictures of the Imperial Truth, the Word Bearers at their Primarch's direction erected across the galaxy vast monuments and cathedrals dedicated to the worship of the God-Emperor whose divinity Lorgar had foreseen upon Colchis. The greatest Chaplains of the Legion preached to the conquered worlds of the Emperor's divinity. Lorgar himself delivered countless speeches and sermons, converting millions to the worship of the Emperor with his words alone.The Primarch penned the Lectitio Divinitatus, his magnum opus, which argued persuasively that the Emperor of Mankind was a divine being and worthy of the worship of the human race as their One True God, a direct contravention of the Emperor's own atheistic Imperial Truth. This holy text spawned a loyal cult following that would later give rise to the Imperial Cult and the Adeptus Ministorum itself in the centuries after the Emperor was interred within the Golden Throne following the Horus Heresy.The progress of the Word Bearers during the Great Crusade was thorough, but slow. None escaped the Crozius or the Bolter. Entire worlds were scoured of the living for their refusal to submit to the divine will of the Emperor. Never once, in over a Terran century of faithful service, had the Emperor chastised Lorgar for his Legion's zealous idolatry, though it went against the dictates of the Imperial Truth. Yet the Emperor increasingly took note of Lorgar's apparent lack of progress during the Great Crusade, and knew that the reason was that Lorgar was spending time spreading his illegal religion to every world his Legion conquered or brought into Imperial Compliance.The Emperor finally brought His unfettered wrath down upon the Word Bearers, and ordered the XIIIth Legion, the Ultramarines, to destroy the great city of Monarchia on the world of Khur, a planet brought into Imperial Compliance only six solar decades earlier by the Word Bearers Legion. Monarchia stood as a testament to the Word Bearers' faith in the God-Emperor, a faith that stood against everything that the Imperium had sought to stand for since the Great Crusade had begun.The Ultramarines obeyed, and gave the population of Monarchia six solar days to evacuate the city. At the appointed time, the Ultramarines carried out their orders and utterly destroyed the "Perfect City" and its monuments to religious faith with an orbital barrage, sending a message to Lorgar and his Legion that the worship of the Emperor as a god and the spreading of such idolatry was in direct violation of the Imperial Truth, and would not be tolerated.
Kor Phaeron - The Old Faith: Upon returning to his personal Battleship, the Fidelitas Lex, after the terrible rebuke on Khur, the Primarch retreated into his shipboard quarters for a solar month and refused to speak to anyone, except Kor Phaeron and the Legion's First Chaplain Erebus. Lorgar mourned the Emperor's command. Removing his Power Armour, he wore nothing but a sackcloth, his golden skin smeared with the dust from Monarchia's surface over his features with each new day. His kohl-ringed eyes were darkened further by exhaustion and narrowed by the burden of shame.In the meantime, the 47th Expeditionary Fleet of the Word Bearers sat idly by, orbiting the world of 47-16 (the sixteenth world to be brought into Imperial Compliance by the 47th Expedition), awaiting for a command, any command, to be issued from their Primarch. As the Word Bearers sat becalmed in deep space, following the Emperor's rebuke of Lorgar's actions, it was Kor Phaeron who first gave voice to the idea that if the Emperor would not accept their worship, there were other beings in the galaxy who would.Kor Phaeron and Erebus sympathised with Lorgar's unrequited religious longings, and felt that the Word Bearers Legion should serve gods truly worthy of their worship. Kor Phaeron understood Lorgar's need for acceptance by a divine power and he knew that the powers of Chaos turned noone away. Kor Phaeron's quest for power had long ago led him to Chaos through the Old Faith of Colchis, which had been a religion dedicated to the different aspects of the Chaos Gods before Lorgar's coming had unleashed the new faith of the God-Emperor upon the Colchisian people. Always having maintained his belief in the Old Faith through his membership in the Dark Heart of the Covenant that had never given up the Old Ways, Kor Phaeron now determined to convert his Primarch to the service of the Dark Gods.As Lorgar brooded over the Emperor's reproach, Kor Phaeron worked subtle manipulations and whispered appeals to Lorgar's pride alongside Erebus, who had also long been corrupted by Chaos, slowly poisoning the Primarch against his father and the Imperium He led. Thus the seeds of the Horus Heresy were first sown amongst the Word Bearers. Intrigued, Lorgar demanded that the Legion find these gods, and Kor Phaeron and Erebus, both of whom had been secret devotees of Chaos for solar decades, proposed a sacred journey similar to those undertaken in the myths of the Covenant, later known as the Pilgrimage of Lorgar.Hearing of Lorgar's inaction, the Master of Mankind was on the verge of once again reprimanding His tardy son, when news reached Him that the Word Bearers had suddenly renewed their campaign with great vigour. Instead of Imperial Compliance, the embittered Lorgar only offered the doomed populace of 47-16 the sword, and in his wrath untold numbers of atrocities were committed. Not aware of what had truly occurred in the wake of His reprimand, and pleased with what appeared in initial reports as progress, the Emperor focused on the other matters at hand.
Kor Phaeron - Post-Heresy: Since the Heresy and in the absence of Lorgar as a force in the XVIIth Legion, Kor Phaeron has become the Legion's "Black Cardinal" and "Keeper of the Faith." He was often engaged in a power struggle with First Chaplain Erebus for control over the direction of the Legion.Concerned that Erebus has too much sway over the Dark Council and that he is leading the Legion down a self-destructive path, Kor Phaeron tried to organise the secretive cabal within the Word Bearers Legion known as the The Brotherhood to remove Erebus from power, but the former First Chaplain was tipped off about the attempted coup by his fellow Dark Apostle Marduk. Kor Phaeron then renounced all ties to The Brotherhood and kept his position of leadership within the Legion, but the animosity and distrust between the Black Cardinal and Erebus has only intensified.
Kor Phaeron - Era Indomitus: During the Era Indomitus, Kor Phaeron launched a massive Chaos invasion of the Talledus System that was controlled by the Ecclesiarchy in the Veritus Sub-sector of the Segmentum Solar.Though the system capital, the Cardinal World of Benediction, was the Chaos forces' primary target in this so-called Talledus War, all the inhabited worlds of the system faced a large-scale assault led by the Dark Cardinal.The Word Bearers, as always, sought to convert the bulk of Humanity to the service and worship of the Chaos Gods. They took great pleasure in furthering this agenda by attacking a world and system that was of such importance to the Imperial state religion that they deemed a fraud. To this end, Kor Phaeron forged an alliance between his Word Bearers and an Iron Warriors warband command by Warpsmith Etrogar and a piratical Night Lords fleet under the control of the Chaos Lord Yharas Kine.The fall of Talledus and Benediction to Chaos, and the conversion of its people to the true faith of Chaos, were deemed a potentially major milestone in the Word Bearers' plan to throw down the Corpse God of the Imperium and claim Mankind for the Dark Gods.The war proceeded on three fronts, on Benediction, on the Astra Militarum Fortress World of Ghreddask and in the void surrounding the asteroid belt called the Tears of the Emperor at the very edge of the system.On Benediction, the Word Bearers forces commanded by Kor Phaeron nearly seized control of the Grand Honorificum cathedral-city complex. The Loyalists were saved by an unusual phenomenon that was part of the Psychic Awakening when the faith of those gathered in the cathedral summoned forth from the Warp the protective spirits of the sacred Imperial dead.This supernatural force, later remembered as the "Saints' Wall," surrounded the Grand Honorificum in a protective psychic shield and extinguished the grip on reality held by many of the daemons making up Kor Phaeron's attacking army. This miracle allowed a demi-company of Salamanders Astartes to cut the remaining force of Chaos troops in two and establish a new defensive perimeter for the cathedral complex.Though the Imperium has so far managed to blunt the Chaos assault on the Talledus System on every front, the conflict is far from over.
Kor Phaeron - Wargear: The Terminus Consolaris - Too old for transformation into a full-blooded Space Marine when the Emperor found Lorgar on Colchis, the Primarch nevertheless assured, through the use of gene-craft and anti-agathics, that his foster father would join him on the Great Crusade as his First Captain. Before his later transfiguration by Chaos, Kor Phaeron's aged physique was augmented in battle by a custom-designed suit of Cataphractii Pattern Terminator Armour reinforced with additional medicae, exoskeletal and life support systems known as the Terminus Consolaris.2 Lightning ClawsDigi-Flamer - Concealed within Kor Phaeron's regalia of office is a miniaturised flamer weapon which is as powerful as a full sized Hand Flamer.
Koronus Expanse - History: What follows is the chronicle of significant events that mark the selected history of the Koronus Expanse, as it is generally known and agreed upon by scholars within the Imperium, with particular reference to the deeds of the Rogue Traders that have forged it. Within are accounts and records of the exploration of the Koronus Expanse, and the strange and wondrous worlds found beyond the Emperor's Light.Few, however, who compile the chronicles of the Expanse have ever ventured there, and thus they rely on the accounts of others. The sources used by most scholars are the records kept by Rogue Traders and their associates. Such records are prone to inconsistency, embellishment, or outright falsification, and so claims as to the completeness or accuracy of any chronicle of this region are best treated with suspicion.
Koronus Expanse - Great Warp Storms of the Halo Stars: On the rimward margins of the Calixis Sector boil vast Warp storms that have since ancient times barred passage into the Halo Stars. This barrier of raging tempests has claimed the lives of many who would dare to find new passage to the unexplored expanses. They ebb and flow with a ferocity and maliciousness that can lure even the most seasoned Navigator to destruction in a sudden rending surge. Though these Warp storms are referred to as a group, they are in fact an amalgamation of individual Warp storms that clash, overlap, and occasionally consume one another.Passage through this mass of interdimensional tempests is almost impossible outside a few stable routes that run through the storms like narrow threads of calm. Some storms have persisted for long enough that they have acquired names of infamy amongst those who travel and navigate the Sea of Souls. Of these, the most infamous are the Void Dancer's Roil and the Screaming Vortex, which bracket the stable passages known as the Maw like Daemon sentinels at the gates to a waiting hell.The Void Dancers' Roil is a mass of subtly sliding drifts and beguiling currents in the Warp that can lead the most seasoned Navigator astray and carve apart the hulls of starships that dare their tides. It is said that ghost-ships have been sighted drifting amongst the Void Dancer's Roil, their hulls as pale as carved stone.The Screaming Vortex is a boiling mass of Warp turbulence and vortices that clash and grind against one another with unceasing fury and power, giving rise to a constant psychic wail that can be perceived by those sensitive to the flow of the Warp. It is this dread wail that gives the perpetual Warp storm its name. The character of the Screaming Vortex is that of a raging beast whose teeth clash and gnaw in a never-ending search for food, and it is said by the Voidborn that it has claimed entire fleets to satiate its endless hunger.Nesting within or beside the Screaming Vortex and the Void Dancer's Roil are other, lesser Warp storms whose nature is permanent and distinct enough that they have acquired their own infamy and doom-laden titles. Some Navigators who have strayed within or to the edge of the great storms whisper of the Deathveil as a strange cascade of unnatural beauty that will draw the mind of the unwary to within its soft and silent embrace never to return.Old voyagers into the Halo Margins of the Calixis Sector exchange strange stories of the pocket of stillness within the fury that they name the Whispering Storm, where the fingers of the dead caress the hull and forgotten voices whisper inside the minds of the living in voices of crackling static.These strange storms within the Warp, and many others beside, all whirl and dance together and so create a wall within the Sea of Souls that cannot be crossed except by a rare few stable Warp routes. The greatest and most easily navigated of these is the Koronus Passage, or "the Maw" as it is more often called, which passes through the Great Warp Storms and into the dark unknown of the Koronus Expanse.
Koronus Expanse - Port Wander: Port Wander is a void station on the uttermost edge of the Drusus Marches Sub-sector of the Calixis Sector, rightly regarded as the last bastion of the rule of the Emperor this side of the Koronus Expanse. A place of desperate hopes and vain dreams; Port Wander teems with a transitory population of traders, spies, merchant factors, pilgrims, and missionaries amongst which move Adeptus Administratum functionaries and minions of the Adeptus Mechanicus, all feeding on the riches that flow from the realms beyond the Warp storms in the Koronus Expanse.All who travel into the Koronus Expanse share one common experience in that they pass Port Wander. Be they the pious bringing the Emperor's Light into the darkness beyond the Imperium or black-hearted monsters searching for the keys to forbidden dreams, many will stop in the last place where the rule of the Golden Throne keeps the horror and possibility of the unknown at bay.Port Wander was founded by the Imperial Navy in 917.M40 as a staging ground to investigate the loss of many vessels on the fringes of the Drusus Marches. With the discovery of the Koronus Passage in the late 40th Millennium, the void station grew in importance owing to its close proximity to the Passage. Its original role as a base for military operations was slowly forgotten, and Port Wander became a way station for those daring passage into the Koronus Expanse. Merchants and mercenaries began to choke the once-deserted corridors of the void station, and strangers shook the dust of distant stars from their boots while trading wondrous things from beyond the Great Warp Storms.
Koronus Expanse - Rubycon II System: Rubycon II is the star system that is home to Port Wander in the Drusus Marches. It is centred on a a bloated red star that is nearly a thousand times larger than Blessed Sol and burns a deep crimson. It is a dead system of two large gas giants whose pale surfaces flow with great typhoons that spread and die like bruises on flesh. These two planets are named the "Ruby Brothers," and between the two worlds lies a wide and dense field of asteroids that may be the remains of a lesser sibling planet whose gravitic death occurred long ago. This broken string of asteroids is a common hiding place for those wishing to avoid Imperial notice, and has become a meeting place for agencies of ill-repute who would still chance the Koronus Passage to the Expanse.Beyond the orbit of these two bloated twin gas giants is Port Wander itself, set amongst a clutch of asteroids, many of which have been converted into other installations, orbital ship yards, housing units, research stations, repair docks, and storage facilities. Surrounded by vessels of all shapes and sizes, it glows with the lights of hundreds of beacons and tens of thousands of souls.Beyond this island of Human life are the comets, untold hundreds of thousands of chunks of ice and carbonaceous soot, each a glittering mote in the heavens. Finally there is the true void, still and serene except for the silent roar of mighty plasma drives as voidships pass in flight or in hope.
Koronus Expanse - Structure of Port Wander: From a distance, Port Wander resembles a small Imperial cityscape, with spires and cathedral towers arching upwards and a huge Aquila marking its allegiance to the God-Emperor. Numerous long piers protrude from the sides with spider-like docking fixtures, ready to bring in a voidship and anchor it to the space station. Smaller shuttle bays dot the station where numerous small voidcraft carry cargo and people between voidships and the station.Deep crevasses run along the station, showing the slow layers of expansions through the many solar decades and the somewhat patchwork nature of many of them which includes parts from small vessels such as the nearly intact hull of the Solstice Imperialis, grafted onto one side of the void station many Terran centuries ago. Further construction and external maintenance is constant, with servitors crawling over areas of damage or expansion like flies over a bloated metal beast.On the underside of the station are the main repair yards, where damaged ships can contract out for refurbishment and mending. The yards include entire sealed drydock bays, where smaller voidships can be totally enclosed for more intensive work. Also along the station's keel are a variety of elaborate and mysterious arrays and probes used by the Adeptus Mechanicus in their arcane research into the nature of the Warp passage leading through the Great Warp Storms to the Koronus Expanse beyond.Across the length and breadth of the void station are Lance emplacements, weapons batteries, torpedo launchers, and Void Shield Generators, all placed for maximum efficiency and kept in readiness. In addition to these static defences, squadrons of heavily armed monitor craft are stationed near Port Wander, and warships from the Navis Imperialis' Battlefleet Calixis pass the port on regular patrol. Port Wander may be the gate to the Koronus Expanse but it is a gate that is well-guarded.At any given time there are at least a half-dozen Rogue Traders docked at the void station, as well as other merchant vessels, enormous transports, and numerous smaller voidcraft moving into and out of docking stations like swarming insects. Other vessels move through the area, offloading raw fuel gases mined from the two larger gas giants or minerals and ice from the further reaches of the system. There are also numerous asteroids sharing its space, most of which have been turned into fuel depots, palatial manses and estates, crude habitats, storage facilities, voidship yards, and other more useful installations.
Koronus Expanse - Koronus Passage: "The Maw": The Koronus Passage is a stable but dangerous Warp route that passes through the Great Warp Storms separating the Calixis Sector from the Koronus Expanse. The Koronus Passage was discovered by a Magos-Explorator of the Adeptus Mechanicus in the distant past, lost for millennia, and found once more by the Rogue Trader Purity Lathimon at the very close of the 40th Millennium. The Passage links Port Wander and the Drusus Marches to the great star Furibundus and the Imperial void colony of Footfall -- and beyond Footfall, the mysteries of the Koronus Expanse beckon.Superstitious voidfarers call the route "the Maw." To their eyes the Maw is a beast made of Warp storms, cunning and malicious, whose crushing gullet must be braved by those who seek to break through to the Koronus Expanse beyond. Many have died in trying, and traversing the Maw remains harrowing despite standard centuries of experience gathered by Navigators and Rogue Traders. Some say this ill-omened title came from the first to survive the crossing -- and that they returned wild-eyed, at the edge of sanity, and few journeyed to the voids again.The possibilities of a passage through the Great Warp Storms were first recorded by Abenicus, insane Navigator of House Benetek, and have gripped the hearts and minds of Rogue Traders ever since that time. Vast riches and a way through the Great Warp Storms were once a lure to the brave and foolhardy, and many died for pursuing what they believed to be the truth. In time, cautious steps into what would be called the Maw laid the groundwork for the Stations of Passage that guided steps of those passing through the Maw.Later, during the Mistaken Age of the early 41st Millennium, Navigators learned to read the Maw and its moods -- to see signs in the Warp for what they were and so avoid the sudden, sweeping maelstroms that doomed earlier explorers. The Stations of Passage fell into disuse, save as refuges from unexpected upheaval in the Empyrean, and as covert rendezvous points for plotting Rogue Traders.In the present times the Maw is a rite of passage for Rogue Traders of the Calixis Sector. A Lord-Captain may bear the greatest Warrant of Trade ever seen in Port Wander, but until they harrow the Maw and survive to see the raging light of Furibundus at its farthest end, they are no better than a common Free Trader in the eyes of their peers.
Koronus Expanse - Stations of Passage: The Stations of Passage are locations within realspace at which voidships can safely drop from the Warp while navigating the Maw. Rogue Traders religiously avoided certain Stations, and some still retain an ill reputation. Many of the Stations of Passage are clear voids, howling streams of energised gas, or the outskirts of dead star systems. Others are more intriguing, however.
Koronus Expanse - The Temple: The Temple is a dead star system at the very outskirts of the Great Warp Storms, a short Warp jump from Port Wander. It is a strangely symmetrical, almost artificial star system of perfectly spherical rocks several hundred metres in diameter orbiting a sun that is a cinder of dense matter. Nothing else exists -- no dust, gas-streams, or worlds.The Temple is so named because of a long association in voidfarer myth with the "Temple" card of the Sybillan deck of the Emperor's Tarot. The card signifies the commencement of a blessed endeavour but also the passing out of the realm of the sanctuary of the known.
Koronus Expanse - Witch-Cursed World: The Witch-Cursed World is a large, rocky rogue planet set alone without a star to orbit in the deep void like a bauble discarded by the whim of a god, its atmosphere frozen to glaciers upon its surface. Whether it is an exile from its former star system or was formed within the lightless void is unknown. No crew will stand for a long stay in these voids -- it is an ill-omened place.
Koronus Expanse - The Battleground: Legend has it that The Battleground was an ancient wreckage field even before the Rogue Traders Trame Lathimon and Ettimus Lathimon fought here to mutual destruction over the Ragged Worlds. A vast span of voidship debris swirls slowly under dim starlight, most of it Imperial, spread across the empty void. Every crew has a dozen tales as to what happened here long before Rogue Traders traversed the Maw.
Koronus Expanse - The Hermitage: In the midst of the Mistaken Age, a tiny Adeptus Ministorum sect paid vast sums for Trame Lathimon to carry them and their void station Hermitage out into the Halo Stars. Lathimon cast the hermits forth from his holds at the Conclave, a station then known for the frequency with which vessels met to trade for rumours of what lay beyond.The outer reaches of the Hermitage have crumbled and opened to the void, but a few hermits still come to dwell here. Rogue Traders have long left ciphered messages at the Hermitage for their allies, hidden at prearranged points within the void station. The richly decorated central transept is sometimes used as a neutral zone for clandestine trade, the parties standing before a bluestone altar, platinum Aquila, and perfectly preserved banners depicting the victories of Saint Drusus.
Koronus Expanse - Furibundus System: The light of the star Furibundus marks the far side of the Great Warp Storms and the formal beginning of the region known as the Koronus Expanse. It is a huge and primal stellar mass, far brighter and more energetic than any star should be. Its fires rage so fiercely that the cataclysmic energies unleashed within cause vast bulges of burning plasma to distend Furibundus' form, writhing as though immense beasts fight within. The outer envelope of the star's photosphere constantly tears and ripples, throwing off huge, flaming masses into the near voids. Furibundus is surrounded by shells of remnant gas expanding outward, each a remnant of the star's outermost layers.The Imperial presence around Furibundus clusters in two locations: the stonework void-settlement of Footfall, and the Adeptus Mechanicus temple of Altar-Templum-Calixis-Ext-17. Footfall's ornate, tethered structures orbit at a sufficient distance from the star to be safe from the lethal ribbons of solar plasma, and for voidships to operate with little impediment.Further inwards, close to the primal roar of Furibundus, there is a planet set in a frantic orbit and blasted to molten rock over and over again by its proximity to the bloated star. The only way it can be seen is by the shadow it casts on the movement of plasma-ribbons. This is Altar-Templum-Calixis-Ext-17, and it is here that the Mechanicus hide a heavily-shielded fortress-temple, within which tech-priests study the secrets of this furious star.
Koronus Expanse - Footfall: The settlement that was once Dewain's Footfall, and now simply Footfall, is a tethered network of hundreds of stone structures floating in Furibundus' void. It is a mass of buttressed temples and plasma-pitted fanes whose towers jut out at all angles into the void. Most are linked by enclosed stonework tunnels and arch-bridges, in addition to huge steel chains. At the very centre is tethered a huge macro-statue of the God-Emperor, larger than many warships.Many of Footfall's buildings would not look out of place upon an Imperial planetary surface, while other spiral mazes and winding tunnels of unsupported stone would fall apart under the tug of gravity. Sections of Footfall have no gravity, and many have fluctuating levels of generated gravity. The few structures that have their own stable gravity generators are highly desired prizes and are fought over by the most powerful factions, changing hands over the corpses and regrets of their prior occupants with alarming regularity.Over the Terran centuries since its establishment, Footfall has become a lair of villainy and intrigue, the descendants of its original population of stoneworkers and Rogue Trader vassals now far outnumbered by less-reputable newcomers. Here, religious fanatics rub shoulders with assassins, spies, fugitives from Imperial justice, narco-tribesmen, rowdy voidship crew on furlough, and a wide range of disreputable merchants, mercenaries and Free Traders.Beneath this tumult of lawlessness can be found an even more shadowy world: Hereteks, Chaos Cultists, unrestrained criminals, unsanctioned psykers, and worse. Here a thousand forms of deadly intrigue can be found, and anything from a starship to a Human soul can be bartered in Footfall -- for a price. It is for precisely these reasons that many great powers and factions from the Calixis Sector maintain secretive agents in Footfall: the Administratum, Battlefleet Calixis, the Great Houses of the Imperial nobility, the disciples of the Dark Gods, the Adeptus Ministorum...and perhaps even the Holy Ordos of the Inquisition as well.For the Rogue Traders and their agents, Footfall has many uses beyond those of a simple port. These individuals come to learn about competing interests, find an array of illegal services unavailable on Imperial worlds, send forth trusted crew to carouse, gather new recruits to replace those lost to the void, and participate in deadly intrigues to gain an edge in the exploration of the Koronus Expanse.It is also a place where a vessel can shelter to refit and repair damage in relative safety, provided a Rogue Trader can abide the thousand assorted scum who might flock about, or the dubious strangers who will swarm their injured vessel and toil upon its hull for a few thrones apiece -- or the Hereteks whose price is far higher but whose "no questions asked" expertise makes them worth the Daemon's bargain to hire.
Koronus Expanse - Egarian Dominion: The Egarian Dominion was once a populous xenos domain that spanned a handful of close stars. Many millennia past, the alien civilisation that dwelt in this domain fell victim to a nameless doom that left only empty, desolate worlds and crumbling structures in its wake. The principal worlds of the Egarian Dominion are dry, cool desert planets, covered by tightly packed structures that form a vast maze in three dimensions, walls and corners hundreds of metres high and extending in belts for thousands of kilometres across the desert plains.These claustrophobic xenos complexes are buried by windblown sand and dry soil, their borders ragged cliffs that mark the edge of lowland deserts. Egarian building materials glisten with rainbow light as though oily, even as they crack and crumble with age.They somehow channel the light of the Egarian stars, and even the deepest regions of the xenos hives are lit with a disturbing, shifting glow. The passageways are cramped for Humans, and the hive mazes are empty, as though the xenos and almost all their works simply vanished overnight. The only sound is the moaning of the wind as it blows through enclosed maze-spaces and across desert outcrops.
Koronus Expanse - Murdered World of Jerazol: Jerazol is a desolate Dead World of ash and charred bone. It is a world, tales say, murdered for greed and spite. Discovered by a pious Rogue Trader whose name does not survive in Imperial records, Jerazol was verdant, fertile, and supported a population of Humans whose culture had regressed to the level of a primitive, pre-industrial tribalism. The unnamed Rogue Trader was determined to bring the population back into the light and dominion of the God-Emperor. He began the process of tutoring and civilising the population, while purging it of any trace of deviancy or corruption.Not long after Jerazol was discovered, it was also found by other explorers, who believed that the primitive Humans where hiding wonders of lost technology in warrens beneath the earth, built by their forgotten ancestors who first came to the world from across the stars during the Age of Technology. These machines, they said, were worth any price in blood and death, and when the nameless Rogue Trader stood against them, they destroyed his vessels, letting their wrecks fall to the surface of Jerazol like the burning tears of a god. Then, it is said the murderers bombarded the world, burning its surface to ash and choking its atmosphere with smoke.The tales do not agree as to whether the despoilers found the technological treasures they sought. Some say they unearthed such wonders that they rose to the highest tiers of power within the Imperium, others say that they only found ash, bone, and mud and that they cursed the dreams that had brought them through void and madness to murder a world for naught. No matter the truth of the tales, the burned and Dead World of Jerazol exists as testimony to the price that can be paid in search of the riches of Winterscale's Realm.
Koronus Expanse - Rykad Minoris: Rykad Minoris was an Imperial Civilised World in the Rykad System of the Koronus Expanse that was the capital world of that system, long a part of the trade empire controlled by the Rogue Trader House Winterscale.In 531.M41, the world was lost to an uprising of the local population instigated by a Chaos Cult that had been seeded by agents of the Word Bearers Traitor Legion and its star system's sun was stolen by the Drukhari, forcing the newly-raised Rogue Trader of House von Valancius, who had been present seeking aid for their flagship after losing their Navigator to a Warp incursion, to abandon the dying world.
Koronus Expanse - Quetza Temer: Quetza Temer was a Jungle World in Winterscale's Realm that had been transformed by Calligos Winterscale into a hunting preserve. There he hunted Aeldari he had captured in vengeance for their raids upon his worlds. By this time, Winterscale had begun to be corrupted by his growing bloodlust against the xenos into an unwitting servant of the Chaos God Khorne.The Rogue Trader of House von Valancius eventually came to Questza Temer and confronted Winterscale. The outcome of Winterscale's final encounter with the von Valancius Rogue Trader on Quetza Temer is unknown, but if the Rogue Trader failed to redeem Winterscale and turn him away from Khorne, they were joined by Winterscale's captive Aeldari, including the Harlequin Solitaire Nocturne of Oblivion who had previously aided the von Valancius heir during their time in Commorragh, to slay their captor. If the Rogue Trader had also fallen to Chaos and joined with Winterscale, the captive Aeldari fought against them both.
Koronus Expanse - Maleziel: Maleziel is a Penal World located in Winterscale's Realm.
Koronus Expanse - Solace Encarmine: Solace Encarmine is a Pleasure World located in Winterscale's Realm.