Editing Isstvan V

{{topquote|This is a terrible place to die in." "Where's a good one?|Cormac McCarthy, ''Blood Meridian''}}

'''Isstvan V''' ([[Derp|also spelled Istvaan because the FW and BL editors apparently stopped caring at some point]]), is a desolate, volcanic Death/Dead World in the Isstvan system, located somewhere in the Segmentum Ultima. It is infamous as the planet where the [[Drop Site Massacre]] took place.

==Overview and History==

When the Imperium first found the Isstvan system during the [[Great Crusade]], it was evident that many of its planets had undergone some type of terraforming in the far distant past. Several of these planets were habitable for humans and had native species of flora and fauna with similar genetic origins, suggesting that someone had been seeding the system for colonies. [[Isstvan III|One of these planets]] was home to a thriving human civilization, but Isstvan V was a desolate, lifeless rock, its former inhabitants apparently driven away by generations of tectonic instability and volcanic eruptions. Traces of the xenos species that had once called the world home were still extant, including fragmented road networks, collapsed dams, and the shells of long-abandoned fortifications.

Aside from these traces of civilization, Isstvan V was a bleak and barren world of volcanic mountain ranges, black-sand deserts, tainted seas, and windswept moors. This made it the perfect spot to set up the mother of all Space-Marine-killing traps when [[Horus]] and his boys rolled up to the system to get their heresy on. While the loyalist elements of the [[Sons of Horus]], [[Emperor's Children]], [[World Eaters]], and [[Death Guard]] were being [[Battle of Isstvan III|purged on Isstvan III]], Horus dispatched [[Fulgrim]] and the unengaged Emperor's Children to Isstvan V to begin fortifying the planet. Fulgrim, who'd been a prissy little shit even before falling to Slaanesh, bitched about being given the drudge work until the Warmaster stroked his <s>dong</s> ego a bit. The Emperor's Children, who were also less than pleased with the job, dug in at the foot of a volcano on the Urgall Plateau, creating a vast network of trenches, bunkers, redoubts, and weapons emplacements around one of the ancient xenos fortresses, which was established as Horus' HQ for the coming engagement. The fortification complex was so powerful and well-defended that it was impossible to completely destroy from orbit, meaning that the loyalist forces would have to come down and do things the hard way.

==The Drop Site Massacre==

When the [[Iron Hands]], [[Raven Guard]], and [[Salamanders]] arrived, they dropped an orbital bombardment on the traitor forces before deploying into the Urgall Depression, a valley that faced Horus' redoubt. For the first few hours things seemed to be going okay; the traitors were being driven back by the fury of the loyalist legions, and it seemed that the time was ripe for the [[Iron Warriors|four]] [[Night Lords|loyalist]] [[Word Bearers|legions]] [[Alpha Legion|in reserve]] to enter the battle and finish the job. Unfortunately for the loyalist legions, said reserves had already hit the "change team" button and were just waiting to pull off the backstab to end all backstabs. As the Iron Hands continued to press the attack, led by their incredibly angry primarch, the Salamanders and Raven Guard disengaged and retreated toward the newly arrived Iron Warriors, Night Lords, Word Bearers, and Alpha Legion, meaning to rest and resupply while the other legions joined the engagement. Instead, they were met with a hurricane of fire from the men they had believed were their friends and allies. On cue, the apparently retreating traitor forces immediately rallied and launched a counterattack that saw the three loyalist legions pinned between superior forces. [[Rape|Things went about as well as you'd expect]]. In short order, the Iron Hands, Raven Guard, and Salamanders were all devastated. [[Ferrus Manus]] was beheaded in his final duel with Fulgrim, [[Vulkan]] disappeared after the Iron Warriors fired a tactical nuke at him, and [[Corax]] was forced to go to ground in the nearby Illium Rifts after narrowly failing to kill [[Lorgar]] and having his Thunderhawk shot down. [[Grimdark|The blood of 200,000 Astartes, most of them loyalist, now soaked the black sands of Isstvan V as the traitors began butchering the wounded survivors]] and [[Khorne|collecting skulls to pile up into arcane pyramids]].

In the aftermath of the massacre, most of the surviving loyalists fled the planet by any means available, but Corax and a significant number of Raven Guard remained on the planet, cut off from escape and waging a desperate guerrilla war against those elements of the traitor legions who remained behind. The fighting was made worse by the hundreds of wrecked ships that crashed into the planet, punching huge craters into the desolate soil and spraying millions of tons of ash and sand into the atmosphere, darkening the skies and interrupting vox traffic. The Raven Guard spent months fighting off hunting parties from the World Eaters, Death Guard, Sons of Horus, and Iron Warriors while also interfering with the Dark Mechanicum's salvage efforts at the drop site and grappling with their own exhaustion, depression, bitterness, and vengeful fury, all of it amplified by the Warp rituals the World Eaters and Word Bearers were enacting. They were ultimately retrieved by a XIX Legion fleet element that had come to the planet under the command of Captain Nev Branne just as they were about to be wiped out by Angron and the World Eaters. 

After the Raven Guard escaped, the traitor legions had little more reason to stay at the planet and so departed, leaving Isstvan V a blackened, blood-soaked ruin of a world.

==Later History==

Like Isstvan III, Isstvan V was left a dead and broken planet for the rest of the Heresy. It was reoccupied by traitor forces at some point and then reclaimed during the [[Great Scouring]] by the Desert Lions Chapter, who used battle-automata from the Legio Cybernetica to probe the traitor defenses before launching their own attack. They successfully recaptured the planet with only seven casualties, and inducted the automata into their chapter as honorary battle-brothers in thanks for their sacrifice.

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[[Category:Imperial]]