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Ave Omnissiah!

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My blog is primarily my own personal fluff in the Warhammer 40,000 universe regarding the Draconis system such as the Knight House Yato in Ryusei, their Household Militia, the Draconian Defenders, and the Forge World of Draconis IV with its Adeptus Mechanicus priesthood, Cybernetica cohorts and Skitarii legions, and the Titan Legion, Legio Draconis, known as the Dark Dragons.

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Thursday, November 26, 2015

Forge Worlds

FORGE WORLDS
The Forge Worlds are an empire within the Imperium itself. Theoretically, all Forge Worlds are subservient to the authority of Mars, the rulers of the Red Planet lording over vast network of industrial planets, ancient technology and arcane rituals. Of course, the out-lying Forge Worlds tend to be distanced from this steel grip of Martian rule and become more autonomous and independent, yet they must rely on each other for trade and protection in order to survive the dark days of the 41st Millennium. Forge Worlds are entire planets devoted to industry, manufacturing ships, weapons, ammunition and armor to the millions of armies that serve the Imperium, and thus are an indispensable to the Imperium's suvrival. For without their resources, even the vast, uncountable armies of the Imperium will be unable to fight against the endless dark tides of hostile Xenos and the despicable forces of Chaos.

Forge Worlds are also famous for being homes to Titan Legions, manufacturing the venerated god-machines, as well as supplying Knight Houses with armor and Sacristans, for without their expertise, the Knight suits will fall into disrepair and even the most powerful Knight Houses will decline. Same goes for the Titan Legions.

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Sorry, but I don't understand the map. Leave it to the Tech-priests.
Mars
The holiest of Forge Worlds, and the Father of them all, Mars is the primary planet of the Mechanicus. The Red Planet is home to not just the Fabricator-General, who commands undisputed authority over all the Forge Worlds in the Imperium of Man, but also to a dazzling array of technology, huge repositories of technical knowledge, immense libraries and databanks. Efficient and functional, the Tech-Priests of Mars and their manufactorums lack ephermeral concepts such as aesthetics and morality. Mars used to be a jewel in the crown of Mankind's achievement, the pinnacle of technology as terraforming transformed it from a barren wasteland into a home for humans, but it has been since reduced into a smog-choked hellscape through millennia of incessant construction. Oh boy. Total Recall.

Notable forces include House Taranis, THE Premier Knight House - the first and foremost of all Knight Houses. Read Mechanicum and Lightning Hall by Graham McNeill for more details and House Taranis lore. Wherever you find a Martian expedition, you'll find a House Taranis Knight accompanying them. They were there along with Martian Skitarii when fighting on Ulanor against the Beast. Archmagos Belisarius Cawl has a whole lance of House Taranis Knights on his Ark Mechanicus. Nice. Oh, and Mars is also home to the Triad Ferrum Morgulus, the original three Titan Legions of the Collegia Titanica. They include the Loyalist Legio Ignatum (the Fire Wasps), the Traitor Legio Mortis (Death's Heads) and...the Loyalist (?) Legio Tempestus (the Storm Lords). Though, a good portion of Legio Tempestus turned Traitor, the remnants of the Loyalist Titans of the Storm Lords no longer reside in Mars, instead moving to Orestes in the Sabbat Worlds. Read Dan Abnett's Titanicus for more details regarding Legio Tempestus and their new homeworld of Orestes. In any event, the only original Titan Legion of the Triad Ferrum Morgulus left on Mars is Legio Ignatum.

Mars has never been invaded throughout their history, and aside from the Horus Heresy where Chaos settled and turned a full half of the Titan Legions against the Loyalists, there are no recorded conflicts on Mars that were not due to schisms and civil wars in their own ranks. In other words, Mars Attack! But they don't get attacked. Well, we'll ignore the three Necron vessels that somehow broke through our naval cordon and landed on the surface of Mars. We nuked them to oblivion, so they don't exist. Not anymore, anyway. Apparently they were trying to get to the Noctis Labyrinth where the Void Dragon slumbered, but ancient, obsolete Necrons are no match for the holy and arcane technologies of the Adeptus Mechanicus!

The Red Planet also has this pretty cool thing above the Martian equator, massive orbital constructions known as the Ring of Iron, which kind of makes sense given how Mars is red because of all that Iron (III) Oxide in its soil. They build spacecraft and ships for Battlefleet Solar, but I thought we had the shipyards of Saturn for that. Hmm...anyway, Deimos is gone because the Grey Knights confiscated it for their own nefarious...I mean holy ends, and Phobos has become a space station. You know, like when you fly toward it, you'll be like "that's no moon! It's a space station!" except that Phobos actually IS a moon. Oh well.

Lucius
The father of the infamous Draco Malfoy...no, he's the guy who created the Bat Mobile and other cool gadgets and vehicles for Bruce Wayne. It's no wonder they name the Forge World after him, he's such an awesome guy and incredible inventor (Morgan Freeman is also a great actor). The Forge World of Lucius is actually hollow, possessing an artificial sun in its core. It's essentially a titanic fusion reactor that powers the underground industrial cities. Thanks to this boundless power supply, they are the most innovative in terms of military technology with the best Ironstriders and Onager Dunecrawlers among all Skitarii, and even the Legio Astorum AKA Warp Runners benefit from this by having the only Titans that can teleport straight into battle! Where is your cheese now, huh?! Said Titans are known as the Warp Runners because they run through the warp when teleporting. They also emerged triumphant over Hive Fleet Leviathan, who ran out of biological matter to eat while the Mechanicus maniples recycled their metallic parts over and over again while hiding underground. Fortunately, the Tyranids weren't able to evolve tunneler breeds to dig underground to where the tech-priests, servitors and Skitarii were hidden, or Lucius would have been screwed. But let's just celebrate the rare moment when Hive Fleet Leviathan got their asses kicked! Perhaps the Mechanicus maniples and Skiarii of Lucius should go to Baal and help the Blood Angels and their successors clear out the Red Scar of Tyranid organisms now. Omnissiah knows they could certainly use the help.

Agripinaa
The Forge World on the threshold of the Eye of Terror, and thanks to our awesome Cadians, they stand strong against the evil forces of Chaos, driving back all those annoying Obliterator Cults, Daemon Engines and Traitor Titans! Stupid Warpsmiths of the Traitor Legions want their technological wonders, and keep attacking, only to keep failing just like Failbbadon...I mean Abbadon. Except that he finally succeeded in destroying Cadia, and all the memes of "Failbbadon" along with the poor planet. The planet broke before the Guard! Anyway, Agripinaa is not only protected by the Cadians, they also provide more than enough weapons and armor to equip the entire Cadian System, contributes one of the largest Skitarii Legions in the galaxy, and wipe out entire soul forges under the Dark Mechanicum with the righteous fury of the Adeptus Mechanicus's Skitarii Legions and Legio Cybernetica. Awesome. Even after the fall of Cadia, they continue to be the one lynchpin in the sector, driving back the forces of Chaos streaming from the Eye of Terror and serving as a stalwart bastion of hope and defiance against the Warmaster and his Black Legion hordes. Seriously, if you want to know how badass they (and their Cadian defenders) are, just look at this. In the aftermath of Cadia's destruction, a whole gang of Warpsmiths led hordes of daemon engines invaded the forge world, accompanied by Nurgle's concoctions of plagues. To make matters worse, the World Eaters Chaos Lord Kossolax led his World Eaters plus Night Lords, Black Legion, Thousand Sons and Death Guard Legions to invade poor Agripinaa. Unfortunately for them, not just the Skitarii and combat servitors of Agripinaa, but also the entire displaced Cadian diaspora stood strong and held a stalwart defense, driving the Legions of Chaos off the forge world and sending them fleeing back toward the Eye of Terror. Just Cadians and Agripinaa macroclades against five Heretic Astarte Legions. Can you believe that? Oh, okay...admittedly they had plenty of help, not least in the form of Blood Angels (wait, aren't they busily clearing the Baal system of Tyranids from Hive Fleet Leviathan?), as well as Draconian regiments, Skitarii macroclades and Knights of House Yato (plus a bunch of other Knight Houses, Imperal Guard regiments and Adeptus Mechanicus macroclades besides, not to mention Space Marines), but still...that's just badass.
Oh, and if the Leman Russ Executioner tanks are the mainstay of Ryza and Draconis IV, then Agripinaa hass their Leman Russ Eradicator tanks, whose nova cannons are prized. Awesome.

Stygies VIII
The Tech-Priests who love forbidden xenos technology! Awesome! Just like the Tech-Priests of Draconis IV! I can see us getting along. Thankfully, they provide a great deal of war material to the surrounding systems, so the Imperium decides to close one eye to their transgressions and happily accept the bribes...uh...war supplies instead. This doesn't prevent conflicts between Deathwatch teams, unfortunately, but screw those Space Marines. They are known for their stealth, which is reflected in the crunch by -1 penalty to hit rolls if they are more than 12" (or was it 24"?) away. Because you need to be stealthy when collecting xeno-tech, or else. It is not known if they were one of the worlds in the Stygius Sector that fell to the Thousand Sons...but I guess Stygies is not in the Stygius Sector. Yeah, confusing, I know.

Graia
The planet in Relic's Space Marine game! You play as Captain Titus of the Ultramarines and save Graia from Orks and Chaos! Yay! As for the Forge World itself, the Skitarii fought against voracious Donorian predators on the surface in a war that all but destroyed the planet, so they actually rely on gigantic space stations floating above instead, a network of constructs and structures so huge they actually span half the globe! Even better, the Tech-Priests of Graia can transform this into a mobile battle station that can fly away and take orbit over any planet they want. Awesome! Wait...isn't this different from the game? Speaking of which, Captain Titus wasn't the Captain of Ultramarines 2nd Company in the non-game fluff either...
In any event, Graia is also the most prosperous forge world in the Belt of Iron and is home to the Titan Legion, Legio Astraman a.k.a. the Morning Stars. Oh, and their orbital forge networks can fly on their own, but they don't do that anymore because the last time they tried it, they got screwed over by a fleet of Necrons. Uh...what? Good thing they have Cybernetica Cohorts that wrecked the s out of those undead ancient xenos. Right now, they are currently embroiled in the Rust Fields War, trying to grab resources and minerals from asteroids...only to find them infested with Orks.

What can I say? Sigh.

Metalica
Full heavy metal! A Forge World form almost entirely of metal, even its surface is silver instead of rock. No biological life forms on Metalica (apart from the Adeptus Mechanicus, and it's debatable whether they count as life forms...well...they are cyborgs so they technically count as semi-biological beings at least) because the Tech-Priests declared Genocide/Exterminatus and had their Skitarii annihilate all life on the planet. Huh. Brutal. They provide weapons and armor to Armageddon, which is the home world of the legendary Commissar Yarrick and his Armageddon Steel Legion in case you didn't know, and have a Titan Legion called the Iron Skulls AKA Legio Metalica, whose Princeps Kurtiz Mannheim appeared in the novel Pyres of Armageddon (so did Yarrick and his Steel Legion). Metalica also has Imperial Knight allies from the nearby world of Kolossi, which is cool. That's House Raven, by the way, the largest Knight House with the most number if Imperial Knights, and also the only House in the Imperium to outnumber House Yato and its allies, House Uesugi and House Takeda. Speaking of which, they are currently under attack by the Death Guard in the whole Warzone Charadon debacle, the War of Rust and Slime or something. Damn. I hope they drive the Death Guard away, or the whole Charadon Sector is screwed. Well, according to 8th edition lore, they did succeed in defeating the Death Guard, but...you never know. Retcon is a thing, after all. After the events of Armageddon, the Iron Skulls barely have two-thirds of their Titan Legion restored, and the current Princeps Senioris is a cautious guy who doesn't dare risk his god-engines. And after losing so many Titans, who could blame him? I hope Legio Metalica regain their former glory soon.

Ryza
The Forge World of plasma! Whenever you hear about plasma, you think about this guy. They are the ones who came up with the Titan's plasma blastgun, the plasma blastgun on the Stormblade super-heavy tank, the Leman Russ Executioner tanks, everything! They are the Forge World that Draconis IV is striving to emulate, much like how our Draconian Imperial Guard regiments are Cadian wannabes. They have an order called the Omnissiah Igvita, or "Life-blood of the Omnissiah" that was founded on Ryza and dedicated itself to the study of plasma technology. The more radical tech-priests of the Omnissiah Igvita were exiled to Draconis IV, where they continued their borderline heretical research on plasma weaponry, which explains why Draconis IV ended up being known as the Second Ryza, but I digress. Ryza used to have this awesome orbital platform called Ryza Secundus, which got scuttled during the Horus Heresy when the Warmaster's forces invaded Ryza. Wait, apparently it's still there because the names of the 12 House Vonherr Knights who fought to the end to protect it are inscribed there, so yay. They are home to the Titan Legion, Legio Crucius or the Warmongers, who were crucial to the defense of the Imperium. They also have their own Knight House, House Sidus! Cool! Currently, they have fought off not one but two Ork Waaaghs!, Waaagh! Grax and Waaagh! Rarguts. Thanks to the Astra Militarum regiments stationed there to defeat the combined Ork Waaaghs!, they were able to secure the forge world from an invasion by Daemons. Phew.

Atar-Median
One of the forge worlds in the Belt of Iron and home to Legio Atarus a.k.a. the Firebrands. Got screwed over by the politics of Phaeton, so they ended up being eager to prove themselves and thus stood loyal to the Emperor during the Horus Heresy. Not to mention Legio Atarus wanted revenge after Horus Lupercal nuked a good portion of their Titans at Istvaan V.

Valia-Maximal
Traitor Forge World who pledged their support to the Warmaster. Home to Legio Laniaskra, the Impalers. These Titans fought against immense beasts that dwelled in the caustic seas of the Forge World.

Kalibrax
Traitor Forge World who is home to Legio Kalibrax or Legio Kulisaetai, the Gatekeepers, who were screwed over the moment Legio Mortis personnel infiltrated their ranks. They couldn't keep the gates safe, though, and ended up carrying out Scorched Earth tactics because...grimdark.

Arachnus
Loyalist forge world that is home to Legio Venator, the Iron Spiders. The Titans are used to combat gigantic spiders...ahem, arachnid megafauna that once dwelled on the forge world's surface, as well as raiders. Half of the Legion split off to form Legio Tritonis, the Dark Tide, who was a Blackshield Titan Legion, and got wiped out later.

Urdesh
You probably recognize this from the Gaunt's Ghosts series. The premier forge world in the Sabbat Worlds Crusade, often exchanging between Loyalist and Traitor Hands. Lord Militant Ibram Gaunt finally scored a famous victory here with his Tanith First and Only, sealing his position as Lord Executor and with the death of the Anarch, all but exterminated the Sons of Sek and struck a huge blow to the ambitions of Urlock Gaur and his Blood Pact. Not only is Urdesh famous for its legendary Urdeshi Storm Troops, apparently it used to be home to a Titan Legion called Legio Damicium, the Unbroken Lords. Unfortunately, Urdesh was unable to build its own Titans, so when the Traitors were destroyed, apparently they no longer have their own Titan Legion in the 41st Millennium. Which might be a good thing, considering the trouble the Sabbat Worlds Crusade had to face. Sigh. The Unbroken Lords ended up being broken by Legio Ignatum and other Loyalist Titans, and they no longer exist in the 41st Millennium. The fame of Urdesh now lies in their Urdeshi Storm Troops, which is cooler if you ask me.

Jerulas Station
Formerly known as Diroth, it didn't take long for the rebellious tech-priests to revolt against the Imperium and the Imperial army regiments and Legio Ignatum Titans stationed there, declaring for the Warmaster and launching forbidden technologies that...uh, ended up wiping themselves out. No, seriously. Nobody knew what happened to Jerulas Station. When they finally reached there, it was empty. Well, not exactly empty, because a bunch of presumably xenos ships (or maybe a fleet of Men of Iron) showed up and blasted the investigating fleet to atoms, leaving a third of them to flee with their tails between their legs. They decided to not visit Jerulas Station ever again, and presumably it's an empty planet devoid of all life. Probably left that way even 10,000 years later.

Arl'yeth
Loyalist forge world that was vital to the Belt of Iron because of precious ores found within it. Helped the Imperium out greatly during the Heresy. Should still be going strong in the 41st Millennium.

Konor
In the Realm of Ultramar, named after Roboute Guilliman's adopted father. One of the key worlds that build ships for Battlefleet Ultramar. The Knights of House Yato and Skitarii of Draconis IV took part in the defense of Konor during the Plague Wars against Mortarion's Death Guard and successfully repelled the Plague Host. Yes, I participated in the Konor Campaign with my Knights and Skitarii, and won a few crucial victories. Heh. Right now, it's ruled by Tetrarch Severus Agemman of the Ultramarines Legion, ahem, I mean Chapter.

Gantz
No, not the manga about a death game. It's the forge world that's home to Legio Praesagius, the True Messengers. Part of the Five Hundred Worlds of Ultramar.

Anvari
Home forge world to Legio Oberon, the Death Bolts II. Also related to the Ultramarines.

Xana II
The traitor Forge World that is home to the nefarious House Malinax, the archenemy of House Yato. Apparently the Dark Mechanicum found a way to move it to the Eye of Terror, where they manufacture Daemon Engines for the forces of Chaos today. They are particularly famous for their Hell Blades and Hell Talons, infernal aircraft used by Chaos Space Marines. Also home world to Legio Vulturum, the Gore Crows, who often deploy alongside the Scions of House Malinax. Both powerful forces continue to operate out of the daemon Forge World and harass the Imperium even today. But the Knights of House Yato and Titans of Legio Draconis stand strong against them! I hope.

Draconis IV
Well, considering that this is an original Forge World created by yours truly, I think we deserve a page of our own, do we not? While I did a long write-up of the Draconis Coalition and the History of Draconis III, I also gave Draconis IV its own dedicated page. I will also do so for House Yato and the Draconian Defenders.

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