Setting:Tri-Sector/Naxos

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Naxos Sector

In the Naxos Sector, the foe of greatest import is Chaos, the Primordial Annihilator. The Naxos Sector has at its heart an enormous ring of dense, radioactive gas, the remnants of a colossal supernova over eighty million years ago. This ring of gas is curiously flat, deviating from the equatorial plane by only fifteen degrees, which may have been caused by the unusual alignment of the stars at its center. The ring of gas circles a trio of enormous White-sequential stars, among the largest the Imperium has ever detected that have not already collapsed into black holes. Their gravity pulls at each other, and their rotation around a Lagrange point that contains a cluster of uninhabitable, gravity-torn planets spins the disc of gas around them. The entire region is bathed in Warp energy, of such intensity that natural Warp Rifts have formed here over time, and slowly close absent effort by Warp-dwelling beings. The region is known as the Pox Ring, and serves as a hub and home for the forces of the Archenemy.

The Sector was founded in the years of the Age of Reconstruction that followed the reforms of Lord Regent Primarch Roboute Guilliman. However, some of its colonies are over thirty thousand years old, dating all the way back to before the Long March Colony Fleets dispatched from Terra when it was still called Earth, even before the invention of the modern Geller Field. All of its Forge Worlds were founded in the final wave of the Secault Colony Venture, immediately predating the destruction of the Master STC, which at least ensured that its few Forges were established with the very best equipment in the galaxy before their own STCs failed. However, complacency, poverty, and the sting of constant skirmishes have done much to unravel the strength of this ancient and rich Sector. Its rulership is vested in a core of families that lead the local aristocratic peerage as titled gentry Nobles, each of which has stakes on at least one and as many as seven systems. The grip of the Imperial Guilds and megacorporations is somewhat looser here than in the other two Sectors of the Tri-Sector area, but its commerce still flows.

The Tri-Sector area has at its spinward edge a long, open stretch of space. Sectors in the Imperium tend to have some significant distance between them that far from Terra, and that space is often filled with Warp Storms, drifts of cold asteroids, nebular wastes, and empty vacuum. The Tri-Sector locale at the spinward-most point is the Naxos planet Paros, which also holds the Imperial Mint and Exchequer offices that supply the currency used in the region. It benefits from vast fortresses that dot the surface and huge orbitals to protect it from the potential dangers that may lurk in the void.

Regional Threats

The predominant foe to the people of Naxos now is the Dark God Nurgle. The Grandfather of Disease has staked an iron claim on the place, and will not relinquish it, ever, unless the Imperium can overcome all his servants through sheer force. Nurgle has been sending cultists, daemons, dark dreams, diseases, war fleets, even the Terminus Est and Typhus himself. However, the Warp Rifts that allow his servants to come and go from his territories in the Warp are tumultuous, unreliable, and frequently unstable, not unlike his human cults. Therefore, although he has been able to reap hundreds of billions of souls from the nearby regions, he has never been able to wrest the core worlds of the Sector from the grip of the Throne.

Nurgle is not the only foe of Man in the Naxos Sector. Thanks to a network of closely-linked Webway gates in the region, the Dark Eldar and Mandrakes have always been a problem in the region. However, unlike in the Cloudburst Sector, the Imperial Navy has had some success in finding these Webway gates, and has destroyed several, thanks to the Archon given control of them at the time of their activation having been quite sloppy, and accidentally revealing their locations through hasty action. Some have been relocated, an expensive action even with the resources of Commorragh, while others have been abandoned, and more yet destroyed by either the Imperium or the Dark Eldar themselves.

To a lesser scale than the Dark Eldar or the forces of Chaos, there are Orkish problems in Naxos, as there are Orkish problems in all places in these dying days. However, there are no known Orkholds in the region that even distantly approach the scale and potential threat of Gorkypark in Cloudburst. Rather, there are populations of Feral Orks on several worlds, lending further credence to the idea that the Northern Fringe was subject to a fast-moving Waaagh! in the distant past. It is probable that the human colonies of the Terran Federation were assaulted by a Waaagh! after the collapse of the Terran government, by an Ork fleet looking for easy targets, and the Ferals that pollute the Naxos, Cloudburst, and northern Drumnos Sectors are the footprint of that tide of filth. No fewer than forty Feral Ork populations have been detected by Imperial scouts and colonists in the region, with as many as fifteen more having been found destroyed by other Orks or by Eldar military forces on the border of the Cloudburst Circuit.

Piracy is less of a problem in the region than might be expected, given the routine disruptions of Imperial patrols by Nurglite incursions. However, most pirates are smart enough to understand that if Nurgle takes the heart of Naxos and pushes to trailing to conquer Cloudburst, there won’t be anybody left to steal from, and Nurgle won’t hesitate one second to spread his ‘gifts’ to any pirates he encounters – a fate worse than death for a pirate.

Thus, the pirate flotillas that infest the northern Naxos Sector are opportunistic, cautious, and quick to retreat. They have had some success raiding the freighters that haul goods from the Cloudburst Sector’s many Agri-worlds to Naxos’s beleaguered defenders, but are little threat to the overall prosperity of the region.

The final problem that the militaries of the Naxos Sector faces is that of the cloaked and deadly fleets of the Saim-Hann Craftworld. Although the Craftworld is nowhere near the region at present, its loyal ships and Wild Guardians still sometimes appear, trailing sightings of the Aspect Warriors of the Craftworld in attacks against Imperial border forts and supply posts. Precisely why this is the case is not yet known, but it seems that the Saim-Hann are looking for something, perhaps an object or a place, of some great importance to them. These Eldar invariably retreat if they encounter overwhelming force, and look upon their Commorrite cousins with unhidden contempt and disgust, but they always come back, always searching for something they feel no compunction to enunciate to the Imperium Mon-keigh.

Common Factors

The worlds of Naxos Sector are ancient compared to Cloudburst. Their Hive and Industrial Worlds are smog-choked mazes of buildings, bestial wildernesses, violent gang territories, toxic Nurglite Contaminant zones, and walled-off compounds of unfathomably rich Highborn merchant and noble families. The Imperial Guard regiments of Naxos include hundreds of millions of men and women recruited from the great Hive Worlds that dot the region, and not far fewer drawn from the populations of the noxious industrial cities that fuel the Hives and Forges on other worlds. This is not without benefit, as the Officio Munitorum has been able to use the bonds of gang loyalty between the groups to ensure relatively high retention and low desertion rates among their Hive Scum tithe regiments. However, it does mean that many of the Naxos Sector regiments do lack any intrinsic advanced technical or motor vehicle skills, which in turn requires extra training and Mechanicus oversight, which are expensive costs in the war-wracked Naxos Sector. Others from more habitable Hive Worlds have that training, and often lead the countercharge to drive back Nurglite invaders.

As the large cities of Mankind often accumulate pollution and disease thanks to the immense population density they possess, the taint of Nurgle is never far from the Naxos populace. The Inquisition's Ordo Hereticus is vigilant for any sign of cult activity among either the immense Highborn-packed Hive Spires that decorate the crowns of the vast cities, or signs of other Chaos Gods taking advantage of the cramped living spaces to ferment the strains of sedition. However, the Ordo Malleus is also present in these places, and focuses more narrowly on ensuring that the huge manpower tithes of the Hives do not contain the seeds of the classic Chaotic infiltration mechanisms: the Warrior Lodges that took the old Legions apart from the inside and spread Warp-taint through the Emperor’s sons. That, and actual daemons arising from the filth of the Imperial Hives.

The Imperial Guard of the Naxos Sector must keep a presence active on these worlds at all times. The threat of Nurgle can arise slowly or quickly, and to leave the rich worlds undefended would be an unacceptable risk to the Imperium’s ability to contain Warp-spawned threats. This is a pricy stance, however. Some Imperial Guard regiments have been raised and stationed at these worlds without ever firing a shot, with all of their soldiers mustering out from age.

Of course, the military consignments of the Sector are more than just Hive Scum in nature. The vast networks of well-travelled worlds around the physical perimeters of the Sector, far from the Pox Ring from which the Nurglite fleets stage, have less risk of Warp taint, but also fewer residents. These worlds are the Mining and Agri-world hubs that supply Fabique and the Hives with their endless resources. The planets around the Naxos periphery provide teratons of food, salt, leather, water, timber, cement mix, and other raw goods to the industrial powerhouses of the region, overseen carefully by experienced Adeptus Terra officials to prevent overharvesting or depopulation. The Space Marines of the Celestial Knights and the small local Deathwatch stage from here, recruiting from selected worlds and hiding their fleets in the maze of resource-dry asteroids that hang around the edge of the supernovae nebula that birthed the neighboring Sectors. Here they stand vigil, watching keenly for any sign of Tzeentchian incursions from his target to trailing, or for any sign of the vicious aliens of the Cloudburst Circuit seeking fresh prey in the Naxos Sector’s rich worlds.

Other forces under arms in the region stage from these slightly safer worlds, including a number of small Knight Houses. Most of these Houses are those that survived the Old Night by hunkering down in the timber-producing worlds of the Rosids Cluster, a network of fifteen systems containing habitable worlds. These systems are rich in iron, cobalt, nickel, uranium, bauxite, and other useful industrial metals, and the high concentrations of silicon, carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus in the nebular gasses from which their crusts coalesced ensure that their soils are rich and fertile. This means that these planets were seized for rapid colonization by the Eldar and Humans who colonized the region tens of thousands of years ago. Several of the worlds are still inhabited by Knights and their vassals and peasants, or Eldar Exodites who have turned their sprawling frontiers into veritable mazes of fortification and concealment that make rooting them out in the face of imminent Nurglite apocalypse a somewhat low priority.

However, some Knights of Naxos Sector do not sortie from these timber-filled paradises or endless fields of grain and tubers. Some field from the great cities of the Hive Worlds at the core of the Sector’s regional industrial zones. The core Hive Cities of several of the Terran Federation-era city worlds sometimes field advanced weapons, including Knights, in their own defense, in addition to the huge Hive Scum Guard tithes. These worlds had the same STC systems as every other, and used the Knight patterns contained within as a template for their own advanced self-defense forces in the face of assault by alien slavers from Old Night’s depths. Some others of the Hive Worlds surrounding the Pox Ring are so old and so heavily built up that their upper atmospheres contain whole strata of noxious lighter-than-air gas, that vac-suited SDF fliers patrol on great wingships and zeppelins that never need to stop moving or refuel over the tides of pollution. Others use silent hovercraft and skimmers to patrol the wastes and swamps that dot the land between glowing xenon bulb-studded Hive Spires, seeking mutants or Nurglite cults that hide in the oily water.

Neither are the Hive Worlds the only ones that have unusual defenses. The Glacier World of Althori is the Imperial planet physically closest to the Pox Ring without being inside it, and has its own methods of defense. Huge coils of thick iron wire sit beneath the surfaces of some of its ice fields, surrounded by concealed cameras, auspexes, sensorium pods, and even electro-telescopic arrays. These machines are carefully maintained by incense-swinging priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus in cold-suits, and can detect inbound starships outside of Adeptus Administratum-defined aerial approach corridors from anywhere on the surface. When they do so, they turn on their heat coils, generating impenetrable mists that completely shroud the ground, buying time for the Althorian Ice Fiend Guard regiments to mobilize their camouflage Rough Rider snowmobiles and Ice Dragoon organic cavalry defenders. This has saved entire cities from nighttime Nurglite pirate raids, since it makes safe landings almost impossible.

Institutions

The Adeptus Mechanicus of Naxos maintains its local command from the ancient and wealthy Forge World of Fabique. As is typically the case with old Forge Worlds, the planet has a specialty. For Fabique, that is vacuum construction. Its orbitals are not mere space stations, they are vast chains of attached asteroids and dry-docks, each connected by huge, flexible tubes lined internally with insulation and electric tracks. On these tracks, the Adeptus Mechanicus runs void trains, unencumbered by gravity and friction, that haul around megatons of metal ingots, finished parts, electronic assembly modules, Warp Cores, and sheafs of data-wafer. The trains drive from asteroid to asteroid, some connected to the planet below on massive carbon-fiber and Ceramite Orbital Spires at the equator, delivering goods and personnel to the hollow rocks that provide better shielding from outside attack than a dozen Void Shields. Inside the asteroids, mining and manufacturing centers hum with energy, collecting natural resources from the stone and then using their hollow shells to create zero-gravity warship assembly cradles. In this way, Fabique increases its manufacturing capability even as it increases its income, a clever system that Fabique expects other Forge Worlds to adopt within a few thousand years.

Fabique holds these asteroid chains in detachable blocks called ‘distretto,’ which can be broken away from Fabique and loaded into Universe Mass Conveyors to be brought whole to other systems, and serve as a sort of starter culture for their own orbital work. Hundreds of these asteroids and their attendant train lines have sprouted from the Fabique web over the years. Several are chained together in orbit around a small moon elsewhere in the Sector, wherein the asteroids are used to assemble the armored vehicles of the Celestial Knights Chapter of the Unforgiven, and some are used as war fleet staging points in orbit around the Sector capital Fortress World of Asklepian.

Fabique has other noteworthy features, including its enormous polar Void Fortress, called the Star Gilt. This orbital coaching house and pleasure palace is the regional hub of over a hundred freelance cartographers and Rogue Trader flotillas. They belong to around fifty Rogue Trader Houses of this and neighboring Sectors, who use its vast auction house and casino to sell their discoveries and blow off steam. The main chambers can be reconfigured to serve as fighting pits, opera halls, gambling dens, or any of a dozen other entertainment venues with the flick of a few consecrated switches in the operations chamber of the huge space station, and it even offers a variety of secured, lightless, refrigerated, or other custom storage chambers to those Traders who are willing to pay for them.

Fabique does have a few unique weapons and technologies to its name. To aid in the defeat of the monstrous forces of Nurgle, the Forge World has petitioned Mars for the right to develop, and eventually share, the technology needed to purge Data-Daemons from the circuitry of electronic equipment, such as the cogitator cores of ships. They have expended much energy in this pursuit, and have made some significant progress. However, their true strength is zero-gravity metallurgy. The Fabique Artisans are true masters of variable-environment fabrication. They use this knowledge to create the metal components of starship interiors inside their asteroid cradles, which can be made to contain any combination of heat, pressure, and gravity the Mechanicus desires. Thus, the Fabique Magi are able to nearly match the versatility of the Dark Age Ring of Iron that orbits Mars in terms of the materials from which they make the hulls of their ships. The Magi Artisan of the distretto that make ships for the Adeptus Sororitas are especially skilled, and can craft their vessels at speeds and to standards of quality not far below the ancient Saturnyne Yards themselves.

As with most Forge Worlds of ancient wealth and means, Fabique fields a Titan Legion, specifically the Legio Spartae. The Legion stages from a massive orbital named Korinthus, in honor of the ancient city of Mars. Given the hostile conditions of many of the Naxos worlds thanks to ancient contaminations by Nurglite disease, chemical weapons used to corral them, or the radiation of the supernova chain that birthed the adjacent Cloudburst Sector and their own Pox Ring, the Naxos Titans are understandably clad in the best environmental sealing and Void Shielding technology the enormous Forges can provide. The Legio Spartae is authorized to field the fullest selection of Titan-scale weapons, including the great Volcano Cannon and superheavy Plasma Blastgun. For obvious reasons, the Legio Spartae practices the deployment of weapons that can function in any environment, such as lasers and plasma, instead of flamers and chemical-propelled weapons. That said, the Titans of the Legion do have special training systems in place to allow their artillery Titan Princeps and Arms Moderatii to practice using rocket-propelled ordinance like missiles and torpedoes in both pressurized and non-pressurized environments, just in case.

The Legio has claimed more Chaos Titans than Chaos has claimed of theirs, a battle honor the Forge World wears with justifiable pride, given the insane logistical requirements of fielding a Titan Legion against an enemy that can come back to life in the Warp. The Legion further enjoys the support of an orderly and loyal Corpus Secutarii cadre of hardened veterans. Like their Martian templates, the Fabique Corpus Secutarii sometimes armor their officers’ carapaces with small pieces of destroyed Titans, for totemic value as much as extra protection. However, the Fabique Corpus Secutarii also have a rank unique to their cohort. The rank is held by the member of the Corpus who has seen the death of the largest number of enemy Titans or Titan equivalents, and is called the Astriarch. The Astriarch of Fabique serves as the de facto field commander of the Corpus Secutarii, and carries with them an auspex and master-crafted Volkite Caliver gifted to Fabique from Mars after the Legio Spartae killed the Nurglite Warlord Titan Whipscarred of the dreaded Legio Covenentia. The Legion also trains in vacuum battle, by having its Titans walk around the outsides of the huge asteroids that orbit their staging worlds, performing mock battles against stone targets, in case their Titans ever need to walk on the hull of an enemy warship.

The Legio Spartae has a tattered history. Like the Legio Tuetur, it was swayed by the perniciousness of the Mechanicum Fabricator General, Kelbor-hal, to the service of Horus. Unlike the Legio Tuetur, it didn’t notice it was on the wrong side until Horus was already dead. The Legio Spartae only exists today because the Grand Master Princeps of the Legion surrendered his Legion after seeing firsthand how deep the rot of Chaos had spread in the ranks of the Night Lords, and how utterly their allies had abandoned any pretense of righteousness. The Legion was allowed to continue to exist, only upon swearing binding and terrible oaths of servitude and loyalty to the Golden Throne and Olympus. The Legio Tuetur actually crossed swords with the Legio Spartae and Cohort Syracuse once, when the Syracuse contingent were withdrawing from a dread battle after seeing the misbehavior of the Traitor Legions, but the scar of that battle was sewn shut by force after the Scouring. The Martian Techpriesthood had made it abundantly clear that the grudge was over and done; no further acrimony between the erstwhile allies would be permitted.

The Houses of Knights of the Naxos Sector are generally either the small and Adeptus Mechanicus-pacted Questor Mechanicus Houses allied with the Legio Spartae, or one of the war-scarred Houses Imperial that are more generally aligned with Terra. However, given the constant battles of the Sector, all of the Houses of the Knightly Orders present in the Sector have seen atrocious losses and triumphal victories alike, and not one House is younger than nine thousand years old. Rolls of battle honors that dwarf some Third Founding Space Marine Chapters decorate the walls of the citadels of these Houses.

Unlike the other two Sectors in the area, Naxos has a few Freeblades present and active. The Freeblade Knights Triumphal Gestures, Engine of Glory, and Dark Clouds have all taken part in battles against the Death Guard spinoff warbands that periodically emerge from the Pox Ring. More ominously, the Renegade Knight Cruel to be Kind has also been sighted in the area, and brutalized a regiment of Althorian Ice Fiends Motorized Infantry during the Fourth Battle of Al-hazr only two years before the opening of the Rift. While nearly all of the Renegade forces in the Sector are those of the Nurglite Traitors, this is not true of the Knights, most of whom refuse to pact to a specific Chaos God. They instead prefer to simply align themselves with any foe of Mankind in exchange for a chance to act on their rivalries with the forces of the Emperor. This does not always work. Some find themselves so consumed with a desire for battle and vengeance that they make alliances from which withdrawal is not an option.

Unlike the other major Forges in the area, the Fabique military includes no Robot cohorts, but its Secutarii is much larger as a percentage of their total force under arms. The Corpus Secutarii of the Legio Spartae are part of the reason that the Legion has had such success against their Nurglite counterparts, and the Legion knows it well. No expense is spared on their Field Generators and Transuranic Sniper Rifles, and the Galvanic Caster heavy weapons their Peltasts bring to battle. They are akin to the ancient Titan Guards of the Taghmata in their formations and the raw power of their approach. All Peltasts in the Corpus Secutarii of the Spartae receive extra cybernetics in their ankles and knees that allow them to sprint while fully encumbered by their wargear, all the better to outflank those hiding from their Titans’ guns in ravines or collapsed buildings.

The Celestial Knights Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes bases itself in the Naxos Sector on the planet Weidbthoros, where it stands vigil against the forces of Chaos that have filtered into the region for thousands of years. It is a member of the Seventh Founding. The Chapter was founded specifically to secure the Naxos Sector against the Threat Beyond, Chaos. Specifically, they are to shield the Sector from the rapacious violence and subversions of Nurgle the Grandfather of Plague. Their Chapter Master is Lord Giuseppe Caruso, a veteran of four hundred years, and former Captain of the 2nd Company. Their remit to engage in constant battle with the forces of Nurgle has led them to abandon the Reserve Company system and deem their 2nd through 8th Companies as all Battle Companies. Their First Company Veterans are the Stormwing, and mix Terminators in with conventional squads for greater versatility. Their Second Company are the Ironwing, and employ a mixture of Predator tanks and upgunned relic Sicarans to give their fast attack units extra punch. Their only other deviation from the basic Dark Angels template is a slightly smaller number of Librarians and a substantially larger Apothecarion; their Chapter organization is otherwise identical. The Chapter does not have access to the Nephilim Jetfighter, but all other Dark Angel templates exist in their arsenals.

As a fairly old Chapter, they have had time to accumulate various relics, as well as a few obscure vehicles and ordinance types in addition to their Sicarans. They have a trio of Land Raider Ares, plus a fourth on loan to the nearby Cloudburst Sector Deathwatch. Their centerpiece of their relic armory is a Solemnus Aggressor Land Raider, outfitted with extra armor, a siege shield, a pintle storm bolter, and a missile launcher. This monster of anti-infantry firepower is called the Wrath of Angels, and has never left the Naxos Sector. They also do not have access to any of the Achilles-series Land Raiders, simply because Fabique can’t manufacture them yet, nor does the Forge Moon that supplies them with mundane arms.

The Celestial Knights are also regular contributors to the Deathwatch of the Cloudburst Sector. Their combination of lengthy anti-Glasian experiences, well-stocked armory, and unhesitating desire to confront and excoriate the Glasians makes up for their deficient understanding of the Imperium’s founding personnel in the minds of most of their Brothers. Other members of Dark Angels, Blood Angels, Iron Hands, and Salamanders Vigils and Successors find this less forgivable, as the historical transgression is against their own Primarchs. The Knights have merged the roles of the two Angel Loyalist Primarchs into one being, referred to as the Angel of Death, and the loyal Primarch craft masters into a single being they call the Smith. Given that the Dark Angels especially have extensive recordings and other materials made of Lord El’Jonson himself, and the Knights are his Successors, other Unforgiven find this particularly perplexing – how can their kin be so wrong? That said, though, even Dark Angel and Blood Angel Marines are unlikely to escalate this historical disagreement to outright battle, both because of strict Inquisitorial policy, and because of the Knights’ unhesitating generosity towards the short-funded Dascomb. They have contributed no less than a staggeringly rare and Forge World quality Land Raider Ares for the unrestricted use of the Fortress against the filthy Glasian migrants, and have commanded it into battle alongside Dascomb’s two living Dreadnoughts, one of whom is a Dark Angel himself. The Knights have even contributed three Watch Captains and a Keeper. One Captain serves now, during the buildup to the Seventh Glasian Migration. Given the importance of the number seven in Knight internal beliefs, and their fiery hatred of Tzeentch, the Chapter has even volunteered the service of their Seventh Battle Company in the defense of the Sector during this, the Seventh Migration.

Human life has little value in the Imperium at large, but perhaps somewhat more in the Naxos Sector than its less war-torn cousins. The simple mathematics of the endless war against the Drukhari and Nurgle add up to some basic measures of population stability and safety being needed. Thus, while the common man is of no greater worth to the Imperium than the weight of his labors and the strength of his arms, there are at least some small standardizations in education and physical fitness standards in the Naxos Sector.

The Adeptus Administratum and Estate Imperium stage and operate primarily from the sprawling equatorial fortress of Inkwell on the Sector Capital planet of Asklepian. The planet, named as much in defiance of Nurgle as in reference to its unique contents, is a massive Fortress of the Adeptus Terra, with multiple full Army Groups of the Officio Munitorum just on its visible surface. Subterranean and orbital staging areas further increase the world’s defensive capacity, while its sub-oceanic network of seabed power plants, hydroponic gardens, and residential areas could allow for a few thousand people to ride out even light Exterminatus events. The planet plays host to the largest medical center in the Galactic North, which contains a surprising number of non-Inquisitorial medical research facilities and even common medical practitioner offices, all of which serve to make Asklepian one of the healthiest places in the North of the Imperium even sitting as it does within sight of a vast holding of the Plaguefather. Some Inquisitors wonder if this is tempting fate, but others point out that that doesn’t mean much. If a Dark God personally and vengefully targets a world, they cynically mutter, there isn’t much a frontier sector like Naxos can do to defend it that they haven’t already done. The Master of the Administratum for the Naxos Sector is Madam Overlady Naxos, and former Commodore of the Imperial Navy, Malala Juneal Lim, a direct descendant of the Naxos Sector founder, Overlord Masef Lim. She rules from the Capitol Castle of the massive Fortress World Asklepian.

Of course, where goes the proletariat, so goes the faith. The Adeptus Ministorum of Naxos is the polar opposite of their Cloudburst colleagues. The Naxos Ecclesiarchy is a believer of penance through poverty. They encourage their members and parishioners to undertake lives of deprivation and contemplation, as opposed to the Cloudburst practice of ‘spend if you feel bad.’ It is from Naxos that the most strident opposition to the Cloudburst Ecclesiarchy’s profligacy stems, and has led to a near-complete breakdown of friendly relations between the two clerical bodies.

The Ecclesiarchy of Naxos does take in tithes, of course, but they spend it gainfully instead of on ostentation or mercenary armies. The Naxos Ministorum spends their wealth on the alms-halls of their great cathedrals, where the hundreds of millions of refugees from Nurgle’s endless wars or the other conflicts of the Galactic North pass through on their way to new lives. Many of these unfortunates end up dead, or in the Imperial Guard (which in Naxos is not a healthy place to be anyway). Others become settlers to colonize worlds in the Cloudburst Circuit or the farther Oldlight Exo-zone, while others yet are inducted into the Schola Progenum of the Adeptus Terra. Some, however, remain on Naxos worlds as guards for their cathedral-fortresses, or even join the Ecclesiarchy as prelate-inductees, and eventually become licensed Missionaries of the God-Emperor on Terra. Others remain on the worlds to which they flee, and become part of the civic work forces of those planets, which helps bring fresh education and manpower into the tithe-strapped industrial worlds of the region.

Of course, the Ministorum also must tend to their actual jobs, and so every few months, hundreds of thousands of monks, Priests, Confessors, Preacher-Converters, Missionaries, Flagellants, and other officials of the faith take to the streets in great parades of penance, faith, duty, and public declaration, whereupon they demand of the weary people of the Sector the names of mutant neighbors, Warp-Worshippers, tithe-skippers, and other drains on society. Of course, the Ministorum is no more authorized to act on these tips in Naxos than they are in any other Sector, but there are always a few Enforcers or even full Arbites on wealthier worlds who tag along and dutifully collect these leads.

Other Ecclesiarchal duties in Naxos consume the rest of the Ecclesiarchy’s local money. The worlds of Naxos are beset by heretics, hundreds of billions of them, some who just don’t stay dead. The cult of Nurgle is pervasive and persuasive, and the greatest gift of Chaos is immortality. Once in a while, the infamous Hell-Barges of Chaos, the very same that once threatened the homeworlds of the Salamanders and Space Wolves, burst forth from the rupturing Warp-Veils of the Pox Ring, and disgorge untold millions of Nurglite cultists and soldiers on the systems of Man. Of course, the most dangerous of heretics are the ones who don’t feel the need to introduce themselves with a shotgun, and so the Ecclesiarchy must work closely with other Imperial institutions of the Sector to survey potential vectors of Nurglite contaminations of the mind and flesh of its citizens. Part of the reason that the Sector does have such a self-deprived lifestyle is because it needs its resources to undertake these massive domestic campaigns against the toxin of the soul that is heresy. Luckily, the fact that its alms-halls are so well-funded, welcoming, and well-defended does help keep the hundreds of thousands of indigents that pass through it from being too sympathetic to the whispers of Chaos.

The Ecclesiarchy also takes a very active role in the mergers and marriages of the thousands of Naxos Noble Clans, including those who are empowered by the Estate Imperium, Ordo Famulous, and Adeptus Terra to directly command the Hive Worlds that provide most of the Sector’s income. These families have reigned for thousands of years, and sometimes more than that if they are one of the lucky ones that were able to maintain their genealogical records of the Age of Strife or even beyond. The families must be careful to avoid inbreeding or giving in to the impulse to increase their power at the cost of their worlds’ productivity. A Highborn family that hides mutant relatives or skims off the top, especially in a place under yearly attack by Chaos itself, is a Highborn family that finds certain popular family members waking up in minesweeper teams in penal legions with inescapable certainty.

The Adeptus Ministorum, for all of their local power, is nothing compared to the power of the Inquisition, however. Between the powerful Ecclesiarchy and all-present Inquisition, the Adepta Sororitas are a force to be feared and respected in the Naxos Sector, and have the numbers, firepower, experience, and scale of logistics to bring down an entire Adeptus Astartes Chapter if they had to. These masked Valkyries of the Emperor have descended on wings of fire and Adamantium to crush entire cities without warning if the taint of Chaos is deemed present, and will certainly do so again. The Sororitas serve as Chamber Militant to the Ordo Hereticus here as in many Sectors, and their leaders are the Lords Hereticus who command the chamber of the Inquisitorial Palace on Asklepian’s White Island Superfortress. Here the Ordos debate, plot, and scheme, and periodically emerge to pronounce doom on those whose worship of the Emperor seems lacking or disingenuous. The Inquisition of this Sector concerns itself rather more with direct oversight of the military than in most Sectors, which is a burden it begrudges, but it has saved regiments of Guardsmen from falling to Chaos in the past, and probably will again in the future.

As the Convents here share heritage and co-founders with several in Drumnos, the focus on the non-combat portions of the Sororitas mission is strong here as it is there. Because of the region’s far less dense population, the Battle Sisters make up a larger portion of the total Adeptus Sororitas contingent, and their Dialogous and Hospitaller branches are quite large and well-funded. Aside from the obvious advantages of the clergy of the region being healthy and well-educated, the Ordo Hospitaller here also fields their Sisters in huge numbers to the battlefields of the Plaguefather. The Ordo Hospitaller in Naxos is seen, fairly so, as the saviors of the Sector’s downtrodden. The obvious contempt in which the poor of the Sector are held by the Adeptus Administratum means that despite being the people most likely to need lifesaving medical care, the Naxos poor are not likely to get it. Therefore, whenever the forces of Nurgle strike at one of the Industrial or Hive Worlds of the Sector, the Hospitaller splits a goodly amount of their focus to tending to the poor of the worlds in question. Aside from the good practice it gives their Sisters (and the obvious benefits of not allowing Warp-plagues to fester in a world’s working classes), it works wonders for morale. The other portions of their focus are the military forces of the Sector, who often need help overcoming the effects of the Nurglite diseases that ravage their readiness. The Ordo Hospitaller works diligently with the Apothecaries of the Celestial Knights to ensure that their medical and spiritual healing techniques are up to date and implemented where they are needed most. The great Fleurs-de-leis superimposed over the white and red crosses of their order decorate the sides of temples and field chirurgeon tents from one end of Naxos to the other, and are guarded by fanatical Templar Militia composed of retired Guardsmen whose lives were saved by the Sisters on duty there. The arrival of Hospitaller forces in a conflict zone or plague ward are greeted with thunderous cheers that rattle glass in windows and lift the hearts of all the Nurgle-scarred in those places. There was even briefly talk of elevating the local Order’s founder to Sainthood, simply on the weight of their medical and humanitarian work, until her successor pointed out she had never actually performed a miracle.

The Adeptus Arbites are a constant presence in the huge cities of the Naxos Hive Worlds, but they are also present in smaller numbers elsewhere in the broad Sector. Their role is identical here to what it is in every other Sector, but the number of Judges they need to perform their roles means that they absorb a disproportionate number of the orphans in the Scholae. They also work closely with the Ordo Hereticus of the Inquisition to track the interstellar movement of Heretics spreading the lethargy and loving cruelty of Nurgle, an expensive task indeed. The local Arbites even have a flagship. The vessel is a Punisher class cruiser named the Scales of Justice, which the Arbites salvaged from a crashed Space Hulk on the Arboreal World named Grunloke 6. The vessel, taken to the huge orbital trains of Fabique and refurbished to perfect working order, and then outfitted with every communications upgrade the Arbites can afford, is ideal for tracking the movement of pirates and Nurgle cultists in the dense, radioactive gasses and asteroids of the Naxos-Cloudburst border. This is because their sensitive comms gear can detect pirate communications at greater ranges than those pirate ships can detect each other’s, allowing them to execute ambushes and surprise attacks through simple triangulation.

As might be expected in a Sector that requires constant defense against Chaotic invasion and subversion, the Naxos Sector has a large Astropathic contingent from Terra. The Adeptus Astra Telepathica maintains at least one contact temple in each of the systems of the Sector with more than fifteen thousand residents, with a minimum of four psykers per temple. The capital, Asklepian, houses no fewer than fifteen psykers of the Choir with a Scholastica Psykana Master Astropath commanding them, plus another seven in the Inquisitorial fortress.