Setting:Ætern Sector

Long ago, a celestial clock was constructed, a testimony to the very concept of time. Long ago a daemon committed the penultimate sin, and was hounded to a place colder than hell. Long ago and to this day he drags the ill fated to share his prison. Now the clock's gears are welded, melded, sprung and stripped. There are those that wish to fix it for their god, there are those who wish to break it for good, and there are those that wish to command it for their own gain. The most, however, have become so many ticks and tocks. The spring is wound tight, the pressure mounts, and the friction is burning red hot.

Where will you stand when the clock strikes midnight?

Welcome to the work of 8chans /tg/, a custom sector built on a whim from scratch. It is intended to serve as a setting for Fantasy Flight's Warhammer 40,000 roleplaying games, and to an extent also the tabletop wargames. Work started on it back in September of 2015, and has continued on and off since then. This article will be continuously updated as the contributing posts of various elegan/tg/entlemen are organized into something coherent. Come join us in Æternity.

Summary

The Ætern Sector is a part of the Imperium of Man skirting the edges of the Veiled Regions, and within the bounds of Segmentum Tempestus. Imperial forces carved it out in late M37, but humans have inhabited it for much longer. It is a relatively sparse region of space, only containing a few dozen stars and few planets of mineral wealth; in addition, stellar activity and climates are often colder than average in Ætern, exacerbated by the shadowy phenomena of the Veil (among other factors). The Imperium controls much of the sector, though its reach weakens further into the clouds, and ceases altogether in the region's center. Ætern is divided into four sub-sectors (technically five) surrounding the center, clockwise: Vladimur's Domain, housing the Sector Capital (Carstein), Sothoth Deeps, containing the Adeptus Mechanicus hub (Belmond), Függönyfal, the Veil-choked permanent frontier (Liona Prime as the de jure capital) , and the Bram Highlands, paradoxically containing a seat of Ecclesiarchal control (Himmelwelt) and primary destination for a unique xenos-and-human immigration problem sector-wide. This problem is termed the Pharos Aeterno Effect, an inexplicable psychic lure radiating across the galaxy from the sector's center, the Ænigma Damnatio, a bizarre and impossibly old doppled warp anomaly (composed of the Brass Labyrinthe and the Forever Pit below it). The Pharos draws in the unwanted, the undesirable, and the misfit in their billions every year through infectious dreams, and within Ætern they come to stay. The peoples of the sector all move to a rhythm, billions migrating (often in circular fashion) around the sub-sectors. It is their blood, souls, and actions which fuel Ætern, both in mild prosperity and in the coming damnation. The forces of Chaos boil within the center and rampage without, aliens swarm in from all corners of the galaxy, a Daemon-god bellows in its maze, and a great clock counts down to midnight.

Subsectors

Vladimur's Domain

• Carstein: Hive World and Sector Capital
• Blightstone: Mining World/Partial Quarantine in Effect
• Cornucopia of Certainty: Space Hulk (near Blightstone)
• Judicium: Imperial/Fortress World
• Butabash: War World
• Vogtei Barbarossa: Knight Worlds Zone (ten systems)/Stewardship (Overlaps with Sothoth)
• Soror: War World (technically)
• Havzook: Death World

Sothoth Deeps

• Belmond: Forge World
• Craftworld Arhanrhod: One big infinity-shaped hunk of wraithbone
• Epitaph: Special = system containing twelve (really fucked up) planetary bodies ("There is a binary star system with a pulsar blasting away: two tomb worlds, an archeotech world, a mystery dyson sphere, a scared shitless forgeworld, and an orc scrapyard").
• Okidamme/OberOkidamme: Gas Giant and Imperial World moon
• Kheeran al-Melk/Wazir: Feral/Feudal World (Space Marine Recruitment)

Függönyfal

• Liona Prime: Imperial/Frontier World (though located in the Highlands, is the Imperial authority best connected to the other sub-sector)
• Sycorax: Renegade/Desert World
• Kheirôn: Xenos World
• Net of N'zoagew: Unclassified/Anomaly
• Be'enteshaai Fleet: Spess Moths/Cochroaches spread their wings
• Eisenloch: Forbidden. Here be the Men of Iron.

Bram Highlands

• Himmenwelt: Shrine World/Cardinate World
• Agharta: Xenos World
• Arcadia: Agriworld/Renegade
• Godalming: Penal/Death World
• Saloniki: Imperial World
• Nodens' Chariot: Space Hulk

Ænigma Damnatio

• Azharad Kheluthum: Dark Forge/Chaos
• Hand-in-the-Gate: Chaos/Renegade world
• Various Chaos and Renegade Worlds
• The Brass Labyrinth: Vast Chaotic Anomaly. Big fuggoff maze-like contruct of purplish warp clouds and brass energy, rests above the Forever Pit like a rock balanced above a well. Unless your view is blocked by part of the Veil, every planet in Ætern can see it in their night skies. Hashut bellows and directs his minions from inside it. Every thousand years, the "gates" of the anomaly shift open, each time allowing Hashut and his hordes free reign to rampage for longer. The next opening is reckoned to allow him a century of mayhem. None know why the gates open on this pattern, or why they stay open longer with each shift.
• The Forever Pit: Vast Anomaly. A huge. sucking darkness haloed with warp light. The ticking heart of Ætern. Even more mysterious than the Brass Labyrinth, the Forever Pit is supposedly the elder anomaly by millions of years. All sub-sectors are touched by its edges, but thanks to its darkness, it is not usually noticed.

Entities and Organizations

Imperial

• The Voivode's Dragulmen (Imperial Guard)
  • Dragulmen Hussars (Stormtroopers)
  • Carstein Armoured Gauntlet (PDF)
  • Carstein Militia
• Godalming Penal Legions
• Belmond Firemen (Skitarii)
• Legio Spectral (Collegia Titanicus)
• The Martlet Horde (Adeptus Astartes)
• Desert Tempests (Adeptus Astartes)
• Order of the Burning Void (Adepta Sororitas)
• Mothers of the Abyss (Adepta Sororitas)
• Knight House Barbarossa
• Die Uhrmacher (Adeptus Mechanicus sub-faction cult)

Chaos

• Hashut, The Brass Bull
  • Hearth Kargilathor (Chaos Squats)
• Mistress of Monsters (Slaanesh)
• The Floating Butcher's Bill (Khorne)
• The Hidden Hands (Slaanesh)
• Hunter's Moon (Raptor God)
• Biologis Plaga (Nurgle)
• Dark Mechanicus Enclave (needs more information)
  • Magos Al-Jahiz the Grand Designer
• The Diomedarchs (Khorne)
• Malalik Warband
• Sons of Kheti (Freelancers, against both Chaos and Imperium)

Eldar

• Craftworld Arhanrhod
• Hidden Exodite Worlds
• The Immigrants
• Dark Eldar Raiders
• ??? (Unknown)

Necrons

• The Ankekhet Dynasty
  • Xanzsan
  • Ebin
  • ???
  • Enslavers
  • Saviors(?)

Orks

• WAAAGH! Evasmash
• Tinboy WAAAGH!
• Ayeturn Freebootas

Misc Xenos

• Be'enteshai
• Veil Races (TBD)
• Mindless Tyranids
• Hive Fleet Splinter Svaðilfar (Zoats)

Other/Obscuro

• Caller Cults
• Nanoplague
• Things in the Dark
• Men of Iron
• The Judge
• The Forever Guardian
• Dornier's Curse
• Pharos Æterno