Editing Setting:Cloudburst/Jodhclan (section)

==Jodhclan's Paradise Description==

Jodhclan’s Paradise hosts the second of the two Cardinal Diocese of the Cloudburst Sector.  Unlike most Cardinal Words in the galaxy, which played host to a massive Crusade’s end or the life of a Saint, the Ecclesiarchy claimed Jodhclan’s Paradise just for the sake of having a Cardinal World in the Sector, which the Administratum has never approved of.  Every year for the past seventeen centuries, the token Administratum representative on Jodhclan’s Paradise has pleaded with the Ecclesiarchy and Lord Sector Cloudburst to revoke the system’s tithe exemption.  Perhaps the Cardinal World itself could be exempt, but Jodhclan’s Shield and Jodhclan’s Wake could do their fair share, at least!  Alas, the petitions are consistently shot down, year after year, and the pattern never changes.  The three Jodhclan worlds were always fiefdoms of the Ecclesiarchy.

The world of Jodhclan’s Paradise resembles old Terra in many ways, from its great biodiversity of its forests and plains to the size of its tides.  The planet’s cities look like models from space, with tightly planned layouts and neat, efficient design.  Ecclesiarchal leaders and preachers dictate nearly every tenet of public life, from education to commerce.  As a result, the world operates at a far lower threshold of production of resources than most other worlds of equivalent population.  The world imports as little as possible, however, and the Ecclesiarchal leadership insists on minimal depletion of the world’s resources.  As a result, much of the planet’s population lives in conditions an outsider would mistake for poverty.  Billions of residents of the planet live in small homes or larger apartment complexes, dwell in the abbeys and cloisters of the many, many shrines of the world, or live on the orbitals with little to their names but faith.  By contrast, the larger shrines and the great Cathedrals of the Emperor are skyscrapers, coated in expensive facades and artwork, and staffed by Adepta Sororitas.

Not all life on Jodhclan’s Paradise is martial or religious.  The world has a population in the billions, and that necessitates agriculture and mining.  The world has almost as much industry as most other worlds, despite the asceticism of its lay folk and citizens.  The industrial and agricultural hubs of the world sit far from the great cathedrals, out of sight and out of mind.  In those places, workers and servitors toil to make millions of devotional items, meals, and books.  Since the world’s population is largely transitory, as those Cloudburst citizens who can afford it travel to complete pilgrimages to the great cathedrals, the world maintains a roaring trade in religious trinkets and iconography.

Its primary industry is books.  The world has timber farms of millions of acres, and routinely harvests them for pulp to make books.  While most are religious in nature, the world also makes a variety of faith-friendly literature, and collections of quotations from the saints.

The planet itself is a magnificent paradise, befitting its name.  It has thousands of miles of beaches and hundreds of magnificent mountains; its oceans are clean and blue; its rivers wend their way down tranquil farmlands and across ancient ruins.  The world was clearly inhabited by at least some humans long ago, but their colony seems to have died out almost immediately.  The remains have long since been picked clean of anything valuable.

For those less inclined to scale the bones of history, hundreds of picturesque islands dot the coasts, oceans, and seas.  Many have private retreats for major members of the Ecclesiarchy.  This includes some for members of the Naxos and Drumnos Sector Ecclesiarchy, and the contrast between their relatively constrained architecture and the abundant wealth of the Cloudburst one is impossible to miss.

The capital city, Durantsberg, is the center of Ecclesiarchal power, and the entire city could well be a single shrine to the Emperor.  The Cathedral of the Immortal Emperor is a massive structure, in contrast to the relatively spartan architecture of the majority of the planet’s inhabitants.  The Cathedral does not tower over the surrounding buildings, however, thanks to the half-kilometer parade ground that surrounds the entire building.  It has no defensive walls, but it does have thick stone facades, with crenelated Gothic metal trimmings.  Its stained-glass windows depict the lives of the Saints and Primarchs.  Unlike the Celeste Cathedral, it does not have any visible external military assets.  However, they are simply more concealed than they are on Celeste.  The parade ground conceals a Defense Laser.  The building itself contains no mounted weaponry.

While pilgrims pass through the cities and cathedrals, marveling at the devotional lifestyle of Jodhclan, the natives train.  Each year, Jodhclan’s Paradise produces hundreds of thousands of clergy.  Most go to Thimble or other Hive Worlds of the Segmentum, and most of the rest go to worlds that the Imperium is laboring to drag into the Emperor’s light.  Some accompany Rogue Traders into the darkness of the Circuit or Exo-zone.  Others join the retinue of Imperial Commanders and Governors or Overlords, to serve as their personal Confessors.

However, the great Cathedrals of Jodhclan’s Paradise also train the War Clerics of Cloudburst.  War Clerics often accompany the Emergency Command Asset Forces, or ECAFs, that react to signs of alien incursion that strike at the isolated worlds of the Cloudburst Sector and Circuit.  Most regimental-strength military forces and all warships in the Cloudburst Sector also have at least one Chaplain, and some worlds like Obelisk 2 deploy as many as seven per regiment.  Just like the Ecclesiarchal forces of Celeste, Jodhclan’s Paradise Chaplains and Battle Sisters suffer logistical shortfalls in their stockpile of advanced weapons.  The Battle Sisters of the Sacred Rose, however, have much older and better-established logistical ties to the Mechanicus than the Sanguine Soul Sisters, so their shortfalls aren’t as severe.

Life in its cities is safe, for an Imperial world.  With omnipresent religious and military authority, crime is rare.  The world’s art culture, rooted deep in the extravagant lifestyle of its senior clergy, is booming.  Dozens of arthouses, guildhalls, and large iconner foundries churn out sculptures, paintings, and other bits and baubles of high art to decorate places of public worship.  The world has no native predatory life large enough to threaten humans, and enjoys relatively peaceful ecology.

The most dangerous aspect of the Jodhclan Ecclesiarchy is its present leader.  Cardinal Lamarr is one of the two reigning Cardinals of the Synod Cloudburst.  Jodhclan’s Paradise is more than a Shrine World, it is Lamarr’s Cardinal World, and the hub of most Ecclesiarchal assets aside from the Sisters of Battle.  Lamarr’s fear of Eldar fuels his paranoia.  His forces routinely sweep the outer system for Eldar holo-fields, or the surface for Webway gates.  His paranoia stems from more than just his certainty that the world is a Maiden World, but it is the largest source of his condition, and since there are no other experts on the Eldar in the system, there is nobody around to correct him.

The mercenary forces of the system are varyingly aware of the potentially illegal nature of their employment by the Cardinal.  Most, however, don’t know or don’t care.  The Cardinal has taken care to break up any troublesome forces and spread them over multiple formations, and has even given several of them custom uniforms and weapons to use.  This just increases the suspicions of the Ordo Hereticus.  Barrack structures built well outside major population centers house the mercenaries, save the core of elite bodyguards and counter-assassins Lamarr has hired for his own defense.  The funding for such massive mercenary hiring comes from the tithes paid to the world, but given the immense ostentation of the world’s religious institutions, the amount needed to hire the mercenaries represents a relatively small percentage of its income.

The world is not completely opposed to the idea of export.  Jodhclan’s Paradise exports books and teaching contracts to planets across the Cloudburst Sector.  Schools as far apart as Oglith and Hapster employ Jodhclan faculty for religious institutions.  As is so often the case in backwater sectors, some worlds simply do not have the infrastructure to train their own educators, and Jodhclan’s Paradise clergy are happy to provide teachers when asked by any loyal Imperial world.  This is, in fact, one of the few redeeming factors of the local Ecclesiarchy in the eyes of the Ordo Hereticus.  The Temple Tendency was rarely so magnanimous with educators.

Not all of the teachers are civilians.  Many of the Drill Abbots that run the Schola Progenum across Cloudburst train in the great cathedrals of Jodhclan’s Paradise.  The worlds that have their own adequate clergy may employ them instead, like Cloudburst or Septiim Primus, but worlds that do not have a strong history of Ecclesiarchal presence, like Drimmerzole Secundus, generally recruit their Abbots on Jodhclan.  Furthermore, several pious Rogue Traders have trained on Jodhclan’s Paradise to prepare themselves for the burden of traveling beyond the Emperor’s light and bringing heathens to the Throne.

The planet has over six hundred orbitals of greater than forty meters in width, which host everything from a Black Ships depot to a triple-linked Heavy Defense Laser.  The largest hosts two full wings of space fighters, a gross of ships, to defend the pilgrim barges from pirates looking to take slaves.  Jodhclan’s Paradise enjoys a larger orbital defense than any non-capital world in the Sector except Septiim, overall, though it has very little shipbuilding capability.

Beyond their questionably legal mercenary buildups, the military of Jodhclan’s Paradise does fulfil other normal duties.  The world’s PDF trains alongside the mercenaries, as well as under the Battle Sisters of the Sacred Rose, and are thus both far higher in quality than most PDF and friendlier with the mercenaries than the Sisters are.  The Sisters loathe and detest the mercenaries, who they see as being little more than glorified thugs and hitmen, demanding money for something they should be doing for free.  For their part, the mercenaries largely ignore the Sisters’s scorn, since the Sisters are both inferior in number and highly unlikely to actually field against them.  Cardinal Lamarr’s building paranoia about the Eldar has led him to force the Sisters and mercenaries to get along, for now, with the PDF stuck in an uncomfortable middle ground.

The PDF train on the moon that gave them their name, Jodhclan’s Shield, and their work there is complex.  As they are tasked with protecting two planets and a moon with very little in the way of ships available to transport them about, the Shields train in rapid deployment techniques every week.  The moon’s gravity is far too low to train outdoors, and thus the Shields practice their combat techniques in gravity-controlled chambers.  The atmosphere of Shield is actually human-breathable, but the pressure is far too low for the kind of exertion that combat training causes.  Therefore, the chambers are air-sealed, generally built into hillsides.  The Jodhclan Shields practice with the full array of basic Imperial Guard equipment and vehicles, but do not train for air support – the SDF of the system is too small to spare much airpower.  This is the crucial vulnerability of the SDF in Jodhclan, and Lamarr knows it.  He has covertly opened lines of communication with Magos on Cognomen to buy more fleets of fighters and bombers for his SDF, or so he imagines.  In practice, his line of communication is with the Ordo Militarum, which is preparing a preliminary investigation into Lamarr’s conduct.

The Sisters of the Sacred Rose, however, remain blissfully ignorant of the conduct of their master.  Their devotion to the Emperor is both beyond reproach and amply demonstrated.  The Order Famulous sisters of the Rose travel the breadth of the sector, advising on arranged marriages and laws on dozens of worlds, alongside their sisters from Maskos and Celeste.  The Ordo Hospitaller of Jodhclan’s Paradise is the largest for hundreds of light years, and accompanies Imperial Guard forces and Templar Militia in the service of Rogue Traders as far away as the Gothic Sector.  Their Battle Sisters practice most of the same traditions and battle cants as the majority of their sisters in the galaxy-spanning Sacred Rose, but do have one quirk.  When in battle, the Sisters of the Seraphim and Retributor battle units make no audible sound.  Their armor is polished and oiled to the highest standards possible, and their helmets are vacuum-sealed.  This does not confer any additional protection from enemy fire, but it does render their movement silent until they shoot, which is generally not a concern for Battle Sisters, who rely on intimidating the enemy with noise and fury more often than not.  In combat, the Sisters of these two orders may use their helmet radios, but only turn on their helmet speaker grilles after the fighting is over.  Heretics used to fighting the bellowing forces of Templar Militia and most other Battle Sisters may find this contrast eerily unnerving.

The Sisters also serve another role on Jodhclan’s Paradise and Jodhclan’s Shield.  The many chapels and churches of the system can’t all have a Sister present, unfortunately, but there are enough Sisters around to ensure that many Imperial Commanders and other worthy sorts have a non-combat Sister at their side on mission into other Sectors, or to the sites of new colonies.  Cloudburst is a backwater, despite its military triumphs, and many Imperial officers and nobles would kill for the chance to be seen in the company of such an impressive figure as a Sororitas.  Some Sisters would turn up their noses at being as such a status symbol, but most choose instead to see it as a measure of their responsibilities, since they would also advise such an individual on proper marriages, the correct course of spiritual purity, and adherence to the Imperial Creed.  More importantly, it would also ensure that a person with the most morally proper worldview would lead any newly established colonies of Mankind with leaders drawn from Cloudburst.  Inquisitors often find promising recruits or even replacements from the Sacred Rose sisters dispatched in such a way.

In battle, the Sisters of the Sacred Rose fight with the full panoply and raiment of their order, with the broad spectrum of Power Armor, relics, and weapons that they traditionally enjoy elsewhere.  Theirs is the only working Exorcist in the Cloudburst Sector, and they field it only in the direst emergencies.  Like the Sanguine Souls, the Sacred Rose Sisters field Penitent Engines in limited numbers, but they do not field any air forces.  Instead, on the rare occasions that the Sisters of the Jodhclan Convent require air support, they depend wholly on the Imperial Navy.  Likewise, Confessors and Priests of the Ministorum usually accompany them into battle, both for morale support of whatever units they may be accompanying and to make it unambiguously clear that they are fighting directly in the Emperor’s name.



{{CloudburstSystemFull
|worldtype=           Agri-world: Jodhclan's Repast
|satellite=     Seven uninhabitable moons
|troposphericcomposition=     Nitrogen 77%, Oxygen 21%, Argon 1%, Water .9%, Carbon dioxide .01%
|religion=      Imperial Cult
|governmenttype=   Adeptus Administratum
|planetarygovernor=   No
|adeptpresence=   Adeptus Administratum, Adeptus Ministorum, Adeptus Mechanicus, Adeptus Astra Telepathica, Adeptus Arbites
|climate=   Extensive polar freeze, with some habitable zones between the tropics, frequent floods
|geography=          .85 times the size of Terra, with shallow oceans
|gravity= .8 Terran Gravity
|daylength=    42 Terran Hours
|economy=      Gelt Thrones and Silver Thrones
|principalexports=    Food, Water, Coal, Salt, Ore
|principalimports= Agricultural Machines, Fertilizers, Clothing
|countriesandcontinents=   Four continents, no national divisions
|military=       Jodhclan’s Shield (low quality PDF, high quality Guard)
|contactwithothersystems=    Daily
|tithegrade=   Solutio Extremis
|population= 107,171,900 (human), 2,000,000 (servitors)
}}