Editing Icelus (section)

==The First Men==

Sit down, boy, and listen! My father told me this story, and his father told him, and before that his father's father and his father's father's father, and so on until the very beginning of time. This story has been told for as long as our clan has been riding these rails.

Listen! The people in the hives say that the rails are here for their sake. But my ancestors know otherwise. Before the hives, there were the First Cities, and before the Imperium, there were the First Men. Our ancestors, boy.

Listen! The First Men came from the stars, to this world, Icelus, which means "Paradise" in an ancient tongue. How can anyone call such a place paradise, you ask? Well, a paradise it was, back then! A green and lush world, covered in deep forests and clear blue seas. And so the First Men settled here, and they were pleased.

But then came the Great Calamity, and the Star King decreed that no man should venture out into the stars again, and sealed the Void with tempests of fire and beasts and nightmares that dwell there even today. So the First Men remained on Icelus, surrounded by a terrible storm, and waited for the coming of the Star King. But as they waited, they forgot the old ways, and fell into despair. They wanted to return to the old life, but knew not how. While the last sparks of the old life died out, the Calamity from the stars came to Icelus. It poisoned the water and murdered the trees, it dried up the seas and filled the air with evil dust. And so our ancestors left the great cities to dwell in caves and roam the wilderness, never staying in one place too long, for to remain is to displease the Evening Mother, the Voice of the Star King.

Listen! Then the skies cleared again, and emissaries of the Star King returned. Changed were they, and changed we were also; and so, not understanding each other, we clashed in war. On the grounds where brothers bled in vain, the great hives were built. And the new children of Icelus looked around them, and knew nothing but the dust, and the wasteland, and the hives; and they believed that was all there ever was.

Listen! Don't believe what they do! For we are the children of the First Men, the Star King's chosen. We must remember that which was lost, for if we do not, no one else will. Pass this story on to your son, boy, for if you do not, He will not look kindly upon you.

- Rail nomad legend, recorded by Scrivener Anton Basjid. Investigation by Adeptus Administratum pending.