Planet: Mandrobaum

Warning: the following planet takes some liberties with astrophysics.  I am not an orbital mechanic.  

 
Two inhabited planets circle the star of Mandrobaum.  One is dying, the other is being born into a cruel inheritance.  Mandrobaum II, once a centre of learning, culture and enlightenment without an equal in the sector, lies desolate, its only remaining inhabitants the abandoned dregs of society.  Those who have not resigned themselves to their fate are increasingly desperate to escape their fate on the doomed planet.  The moons of gas giant Mandrobaum III bristle with the adamantine skeletons of new construction; each of the three icy rocks is on its way to becoming a fledgling hive world. 

Mandrobaum has been a leading light in the culture of Belsegoria for as long as can be remembered, producing artists, scholars and gentleman-warriors from its universitat and sending them out amongst the stars to make known the name of their homeworld.  But this world is no longer a green and leafy oasis against the backdrop of war - Mandrobaum II has entered its final days. 

This crisis has been in the making for six thousand years.  Long ago, during the reign of Arian the Mystagogue, Mandobaum was held under the vicious rule of the Immolatrix, a dangerously intelligent devotee of the Blood God.  She pillaged the libraries and set a thousand fires in the cities, brutalising the people of Mandrobaum for decades.  It eventually became evident, of course, that Lady Militant Belsymia’s crusade of reconquest would be victorious. 

Her orbital support lost and her armies exhausted, the Immolatrix made her final act of defiance.  She detonated the world’s entire nuclear and conventional stockpile simultaneously, all in one small section of the western continent.  The rest of the reconquest had to be carried out by Mechanicus heavy skitarri and helmeted Astartes, such was the fallout cloud covering most of the planet, but it was reconquered. 

Centuries of time, aided by the ingenuity of the surviving intellectual elite of Mandrobaum, healed the world.  This slow recovery, however, gave way to deep sense of unease.  The system’s astrographic charts were wrong.  It slowly became apparent that Mandrobaum II had been dislodged from its orbit and was slowly, painfully slowly, spiralling towards its own sun. 
 

None of the generation which made that discovery has lived for two millennia, but over time the question of what Mandrobaum II’s population should do has become increasingly urgent.  Recent decades have seen successive planetary governors seek to broker resettlement deals with their peers elsewhere in Belsegoria, but the high demands made by the governors have always prevented a final deal being reached.  Slowly, the intellectual and economic elite have trickled away, to their planet’s old rival, Jotunheim, or elsewhere.  All that remains are the lower classes - literate, yes, but unremarkable. 

The final governor, Chancellor Horsca, has made a deal which serves his own interests - the Administratum will pay for the construction of three new hives on the moons of Mandrobaum III, and Horsca will supply his own people to serve in them.  They will be indentured data entry clerks in a new hub of the Imperium’s bureaucracy.  Horsca, of course, will be the new planetary governor, his quality of life undiminished. 



Mandrobaum II
The old world is finished.  Almost everything of value is gone, the libraries have been sold, destroyed or taken by the Administratum, the cities have been stripped of their valuable goods and all sources of civil order have withdrawn.  Only the dregs, those deemed not worth saving, remain, and most of them despair, for there is no escape.  Rioting, looting, murder and rape are daily occurrences for those left behind.  The only ships which land on the surface now are illicit salvagers, taking the last pickings before the parched world tips into its final dive. 

There is one prophet of hope, proclaiming a miracle to come, She Who Speaks of Light.  The Imperial authorities, having abandoned the world to its fate, do not know of her, but everyone on Mandrobaum II knows who she is, and some hope she is their prayed for Messiah. 

Mandrobaum Orbital
Prefabricated in the great docks at Syzygy, Mandrobaum Orbital hangs outside the orbit of Mandrobaum III’s three natural satellites.  When finished, it is intended that it should serve as the administrative hub of the world.  Chancellor Horsca is already in residence in one of the finished portions, as is Adept Gawain Atremius, his liaison with the Administratum.  The orbital also provides docking facilities and acts as a transport hub.  When finished, it will be the part of Mandrobaum most easily accessible to off-world visitors. 

Alecto
The hive of Alecto is the only one currently close to operating as the Administratum intends.  The hive infrastructure is in place and whilst large portions of the interior remain unfinished it does possess functioning transcription halls and cogitator cores, the first to be in use in the new colony.  The population, although certainly discontented, is being kept in line by the Administratum censor teams. 

Megaera
Megaera was, until two years ago, almost at as advanced a stage as Alecto, but elements amongst the first settlers have seen to it that its construction has not gone smoothly.  A radical group, the Mandrobaum Liberationists, have sworn to force the Administratum out.  They are intelligent and ruthless, and have frequently halted construction of Administratum facilities and assassinated high ranking censors and adepts.  They seek to find a foothold on Alecto. 

Tisiphone
Technical difficulties have slowed the construction of Tisiphone, and large areas of the hive remain without basics such as energy or even life support.  Most of the intended population remains idle aboard cramped refugee ships and are growing dangerously restless.  

Planet: Gnosis

The playground world of a rogue trader dynasty, Gnosis is owned, personally and in its entirety, by the Edo dynasty.  It is said that one may stand anywhere on its surface and see something beautiful.  The sky is clear blue, the terrain is varied and family legend says (if this blasphemy is to be believed) that it resembles a pristine Terra of ages long past. 

It is hardly surprising that people would wish to flock to Gnosis.  Lady Michiko no Edo  is quite happy to oblige visitors, if they bring their money with them, and the world is a popular resort amongst the highest echelons of the Imperial interstellar nobility, its high ranking military, and the great merchants.  It is said that, when Gnosis and Belsegor are compared, it is by no means certain which contains the highest number of prestigious Imperials.  

These visitors are not, of course, the only source of wealth for Gnosis.  Gnosis has been consistently rich for ten thousand years, and was bought in its entirety by the first of the Edo lineage, Lord Kawagama no Edo and has been persistently enriched by the incoming wealth of the Edo fleets.  Today Lady Michiko’s daughter, Lady Kiso, exercises the family’s ancient right to adventure beyond the rim of the Imperium whilst her mother, recently returned, settles into a quieter and more retired life for her final century or so. 

Gnosis, then, is a centre for trade - not the bulk trade of the sort which goes through Syzygy or Faraday, but a trade in high quality consumables and incredibly rare or even unique items.  Many of the latter originate outside the Imperium, and in the more exclusive emporia of Gnosis those who ask the right questions of the right people may even find artefacts of xenos origins.  Lady Michiko, of course, makes a point of coming down on anyone who is stupid enough to get caught trafficking illegal goods but it is hardly surprising, given her dynasty’s history, that she is secretly somewhat relaxed about such practices. 

Gnosis has a relatively small native population.  The House of Edo has a number of cadet branches, many originating from the pairing of an Edo with an important officer of their merchant fleet.  The captains, seneschals and pursers of the fleet are all tied to the House of Edo by blood and by obligation, and these ties hold on Gnosis as well as in the void.  Each cadet branch, be they the House of Voss, Ikhmenev, Ng or Tatamklulu or one of dozens of smaller ones, holds a portion of the planet in its care and has immediate jurisdiction over those families who reside within its sphere of influence.  The word of the House of Edo is absolute, but Edo is happy, much of the time, to delegate. 

The Villa of Blossoms
Approached down an avenue of sweet-blossomed trees said to be descended from seed stock from Terra itself, the villa is the seat of the Edo dynasty.  It is here that Lady Michiko spends much of her time in leisure, horseback riding or practicing swordplay.  Her seneschal, Hesperus Ng, takes care of many of her day to day affairs, and those seeking her out would do well to seek her before noon, as she does her best to have her administrative duties concluded by then.  But it would be foolish to imagine her a vain autocrat or an enervated sybarite; Lady Michiko has played many games over the centuries - war, politics, grand finance - and she has won them all. 

The Gnosis Zouaves
The eccentrically dressed Zouaves are Gnosis’ answer to planetary levies.  With a small population and a high amount of capital, the planet cannot raise Imperial Guard regiments in an orthodox fashion if its contribution is to remain at parity with its ability to contribute.  The Zouaves are partly drawn from the planetary population, it is true, but much of their strength is taken from passing adventurers aboard the many vessels which make a stop in the system.  The Imperium may, at times, disapprove of the soft and unwarlike native population, but the well equipped veterans Gnosis provides in their stead more than assuage their concerns.  Brightly coloured and expensively equipped, the Zouaves have a long and noble military history.  Their recruiting citadel on Gnosis, on the landing fields of Glavius, marks the site of their return to Gnosis in the final push of the Reconquista. 

Silverfish Covered Market
Situated by the equatorial inland sea of Halcyon, Silverfish Covered Market runs for several kilometres along the coast.  Some of the stalls are given over to the fishmongers for whom the market was founded, but most of the space is now taken by merchants of more exotic goods.  Although strange emporia can be found in every major settlement on Gnosis, Silverfish Covered Market is the most famous.  Stalls are set out permanently, many traders operating through the night.  The apparently simple stalls are often augmented with a variety of field and auspex technologies to improve security for valuable items, and especially opulent merchants may own two-storey showrooms set back from the shore at the rear of the market. 

The Ikhmenev Retreat
The Ikhmenev Retreat provides an experience which is literally more than money can buy.  The House of Ikhmenev do not charge their guests for the privilege of staying in their retreat - gifts are exchanged and favours are promised implicitly.  Whilst at the retreat, important guests (and only the important ever become guests) may relax and enjoy whatever pursuits appeal to them, whether the solitude of the mountains, the conviviality of a fine table, beautiful companions or exquisite musicians. 

The House of Maui
The entire surface of Gnosis belongs to the House of Edo and other houses merely act as regents of their feudal domains.  There is one house, however, which is not a cadet branch of the Edo line, and which, for all its long history of cooperation with the rogue trader dynasty, will not brook any interference in its own affairs. 
Above Gnosis, and well above the orbital facilities of Gnosis, the House of Maui hangs immobile.  It has been moored at the planet’s first Lagrange point, suspended between the lit face of Gnosis and its sun.  Away from other traffic, the navigators of the House of Maui live in splendid isolation, taking their share of Edo wealth and setting forth on trading as necessary, or as the fancy takes them.  Chief among them is Lord Aremata Rora, the Long Wave, the second most powerful individual in the system. 

Planet: Belsegor

Here is the first planet I'm putting up, the capital world of the Belsegor Sector, also called Belsegor. I have written most of my planet write-ups in roughly this format, with an overview of the planet to begin with and then two or three locations or groups of people which deserve a closer look. 

Belsegor is the administrative capital of the sector which is named after it.  Nowhere else in the sector sees such a diversity and concentration of adepti from the various arms of the Imperium’s ruling caste and many of these organisations have chosen to place their centre of operations on Belsegor.  Moreover, it is on Belsegor, in the Alabast Chamber, that the leaders of the Adeptus Terra meet to discuss matters of local import, and it is to the Vitrian Chamber that the planetary elites and the sector’s foremost chartist captains send their representatives to discuss cooperation and trade throughout the region. 

Being at the centre of sector-wide bureaucracy and legislature, it is little wonder that local culture and local government sometimes seems overwhelmed, but Belsegor’s own nobility frequently rises to the challenge of involvement in higher government.  Although the post of planetary governor, held by the Chancellor of the Belsegorian Senate, is regarded as a rather parochial appointment by comparison, many of the world’s noble houses have built their wealth upon chartist interstellar shipping or service to one of the organs of the Imperium.  Given the number of exemptions and privileges claimed by branches of the Adeptus Terra, the planetary government is in fact a poor choice for those who seek to wield influence; as so much of the planet is beyond taxation and beyond local jurisdiction, the planetary government is left with a very circumscribed role. 

Outside of the rarefied orbit of high politics, the majority of the population lives in relative comfort.  Although not a major academic centre in the manner of Jotunheim or Mandrobaum, the majority of the population is literate, relatively well educated and politically enfranchised.  The senate is elected by universal adult suffrage and, where it is left to administer itself, the planet is generally well managed. 

Belsegor’s status has the centre of the sector dates back as far as the Great Crusade and is a sufficiently well established tradition as to be practically uncontested, even by other important systems such as Procopius Mons or Paladine.  Long before the coming of the Imperium, Belsegor was a major centre of administration and trade, and

The Cities
Belsegopolis and the Imperial City, the two largest hives on Belsegor, have long ago become nearly indistinguishable, merging into one vast double-spired hive-conurbation straddling the sluggish River Tesoro.  Usually, the whole area is simply referred to by its inhabitants as “The Cities”.  Although no law has been laid down to this effect, it is a generally respected custom that the civil authorities of Belsegor and native private interests base their operation in Belsegopolis to the west of the Tesoro whilst the various arms of the Imperial government likewise operate from the Imperial City on the eastern bank. 

Each planet in Belsegoria sends their representatives to the Vitrian Chamber, atop Belsegopolis.  This ancient parliament has evolved over the millennia as a forum for frank discussion amongst the sector’s most important local interests - the planetary aristocracies which hold power on the ground and the chartist captains who ply the void between them, as well as a score of local but important groups such as the couriers of the Frumentarine Sydicate or the various pilgrim guilds. 

Although the Vitrian Chamber likes to project an image of great influence, it is often little more than a talking shop, unable to enforce policy except by the cooperation of planetary goverors and frequently overruled by the judgements of the arbites, administratum and other Imperial authorities.  Nevertheless, the sheer amount of money and influence available to most of its members outside their roles in the chamber is such that, in the rare cases where the Vitrian Chamber reaches a consensus, the various adepti usually find it easier to cajole them into cooperation with bribes and diplomacy rather rankle them with a naked use of power. 

The adepti do have power in abundance, however, and it is their council, the Alabast Chamber, which is properly regarded as the upper house of government within the sector and is located in the Imperial City.  The deliberations of the Alabast Chamber are not open to the public.  It issues pronouncements on all things and imposes the will of Terra upon the many billions of souls within Belsegoria.  A dozen powerful individuals, each of them leaders of their own branches of the Adeptus Terra, convene regularly under the Lord Sector Absalom Vaughn, the man whose writ of office bears the seals of the High Lords themselves and whose power, wealth and prestige are simply beyond the imagination of most of his subjects. 

But beneath these chambers, lower down the flanks of the twin hives and out in the sprawl of the immense urban hinterland, life is more mundane.  Millions of clerks travel to work every day to offices in government departments, trade consortia or as servants of the Adeptus Terra.  Even the planetary government, the Senate, feels like and afterthought to these two massive axes of power which hang over the Cities.  A thriving economy exists to supply the expensive tastes of the potentates who have made their homes near the seats of power.  Only, perhaps, the covered markets of Gnosis can rival the glories of the River Tesoro’s dockyard stalls, where one might find wines imported from Feldspar Brax, stasis-fresh samfire from Elanax or elegant sidearms mastercrafted on  Faraday. 

The local population does well materially out of their masters, living in relative comfort compared with much of the Imperium, but know that the true power on the world is vested in the hands of men and women born on distant planets.  Whole quarters of the city are carved out as exclusive administrative possessions by the Administratum and the Arbites while the Inquisition’s headquarters, the Sublime Court, is avoided by the local population quite voluntarily.  The Senate building, parts of which are pre-Imperial, is dwarfed by the spire of Belsegopolis which has grown above it, and the people it represents are resentful of their second-class status on their own soil. 

The Silent Spire
The Silent Spire was once, despite its name, a hub of communication.  It is the hope of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica that it shall be so again.  The spire, long home to Belsegor's primary astropathic choir, stands in a deeply forested area a hundred miles outside the Cities and two dozen miles from the nearest civilisation. 

The Silent Spire, always an area kept tightly under a security cordon, has been under an almost impenetrable Inquisitorial interdict for the past few years as a result of a serious incident in which all of the resident astropaths lost their lives.  The Adeptus Astra Telepathica is slowly preparing the site for reuse, but each section of the structure is undergoing meticulous exorcisms.  The worst of the psychic backwash from the incident seems to have dissipated, but investigators still disappear from time to time and all those working in the structure are under orders to keep on a constant open vox channel.  Unseasonable weather, which plagued the site for a year after the incident, has thankfully abated. 

Communication is currently routed through the Zemlya, a frigate owned by the Adeptus Astra Telepathica and moved around as needed to patch holes in the Imperium's astropathic network, currently geostationary orbit above the Cities.  This provides adequate cover for much of Belsegor's business but full, secure and uninterrupted communications are likely to be restored only once the choir at the Silent Spire is re-established. 

Belsegor's Histories

In 2005 (005M.02), I'd just finished university for the first time, and I had a lot of time on my hands whilst I searched for a new job, and then still had almost as much time once I had a part time job which at first only gave me measley hours.  I played a lot of Civilisation and Morrowind, and got through a lot of reading, but I also spent hours and hours trying to write up a sector for Warhammer 40,000.  This was partly with the idea of eventually using it for roleplaying purposes but mostly just for my own entertainment.  This sector, named after its capital world, is the Belsegor Sector. 

I have no intention of it ever being anything other than fun, but I would like to share what I've written over the last six years.  I have about thirty planets, most still just hastily-scrawled ideas but some increasingly detailed worlds.  I have some interstellar movers-and-shakers and sector-wide historical events sketched out.  The whole thing is going through a thorough rewrite as of about a year ago, when I took a look at the original stuff and decided a lot of it was just a bit too silly or didn't quite work right.  

Here then, to start us off, is a brief overview of Belsegoria's other history, which began not six years past in the attic of a student let but over ten millennia ago, when the Emperor's Light still pushed at the darkness and there still seemed hope that it might triumph decisively. 

Belsegor is Central

Much of what we see of the Imperium happens on the frontiers.  Covering the galaxy as thinly as it does, this is hardly surprising; the Imperium's tenuous hold on much of its territory leads to a disproportionate quantity of its worlds being "frontier" worlds, even in areas of the relatively well settled galactic west.  The Belsegor Sector, although possessing a few resource-poor marginal worlds in which the Imperium takes only a passing interest, is not a frontier sector.  The sector sits within the Segmentum Solar to the west of Sacred Terra and close to the border with the Segmentum Obscurus.  Those parts of the sector which can be settled have been settled for longer than human memory can reach back, and those parts which have not been settled are in any case inimicable to human life, empty stars of interest only to astrographers.  Before the coming of the Imperium, the sector was close to the heart of the lost human civilisation which spanned the galaxy during the Dark Age of Technology. 

Belsegor is Imperial

The sector was brought into compliance by the Imperial Army  ten thousand years ago.  Most worlds, already cowed by the great tumult of the Age of Strife, timidly submitted to the paternal care of the mighty armies which arrived in orbit, whilst some resisted, but only the most ancient documents reveal which worlds reacted in which way and all became compliant in the end.  Their previous history is in almost all cases so distant and so different that very few members of society even think of an alternative to Imperial rule.  

Belsegor Remembers the Great Enemy

Whilst it is true that the Imperium has an ancient history in the region, some worlds do remember the events of the thirty-fifth millennium.  Of all Black Crusades, the fourth came the deepest into Imperial space, and even as Abaddon's assault was turned back on El'Phannor, a splinter fleet under the leadership of the messianic Arian the Mystagogue broke away from both the retreating Chaos fleet and their Imperial pursuer.  Convinced that ancient prophecies and infernal revelations told him to conquer the Belsegor Sector and uncover the secrets of the Immaterial Realm, Arian established a personal fiefdom on a score of worlds and the Imperium, distracted in the wake of the Black Crusade, could not even begin a crusade of reconquest for decades.  Even six millennia after Arian perished by his own hand as he realised his reign was finished, even after the Inquisition rooted out his sympathisers and purged whole planetary populations, his taint remains.  

Belsegor Might Yet Burn

Those who remember the past either fear its return or are seduced, seeking to bring about those things prophesied by Arian and his predecessors, lionizing him as one who saw the truth and who will come again.  Even without such a heresiarch to bring together those discontent with Imperial rule, small cults, heretical association and secessionist groups spring up each year.  The dismal world of Carnegie is consumed by internecine war, the greenskins have only just been halted at the Heights of Pater and the Holy Ordos continue to collate suspicious activities on almost every world in the sector, although a guiding hand has yet to be found behind any of them.