40K System – Telamon

Planet of wasted potential

An orange-yellow sun called Telamon entwines three rocky worlds, the third being Ajax, cursed with a prime position.

When the Rogue Trader Kastor first discovered this world, it was in the throws of biological creation, bacteria and slime transforming the oceans into bubbling froth of mineralization and self-refinement.

Over time the miners of Ajax delved, raising cities upon the cratons, draining the oceans into the fault line trenches. The briny soup of the trenches became the water and the food in the Fallas Network. Each craton became a civitates and the unchanging nature of mankind led to cultures, dialects and wars that served to improve one people’s mineral quota at the expense of another.

And then the Orks came, the long trail of destruction left by WAAGH!! Gaddzmax finally ending here. Every day for 21 years, the war has raged and every day for 21 years the population of Ajax runs down. It is not quite the famous line for the Third War for Armageddon “The death toll spiraled towards the billions” but the warcults of the dead grow evermore and will continue long after victory.

 

The situation on the planet itself is grim but stable. The capital Castellae remains secure in the northern-central craton. Adjoining it, the vital war factories of Total, home of the Techpriests and sprawling refugee camps.

The remaining civitates are affixed upon the old ocean floor and climb upon their cratons, perpetually under siege. Bunkers and trenches cut from sand and anchored by what once were seamounts. Saint’s Rest, reputed home of Kastor’s helmsmen Iacob and founder of the nobility. Beceen, home of the twisted cathedral. Voidport Alcázar, where fresh troops are delivered straight to the front lines. In the south, the isolated craton and civitates of Goodtown has fallen and been destroyed. Leaving only Rocky Garden and Sun City amid the slag heaps.

The Tigmamanukans are the cultures of the southern slag mountains: Goodtown, Rocky Garden and Sun City. Brought long ago based on a shared dialect/language but not culture. They profess shared mystical experiences where the Emperor divines his intentions through dreams, mediated by the Bird. A legendary living angel, like a cherub but with no arms and hard lips. Which flies by the Emperor’s authority alone and not technology.

Which civitates depends on the Bird’s name: Quetzal – Rocky Garden, Sarimanok – Sun City or Uqar – Goodtown.

The Fallas Network provides natural reservoirs and aquaculture and so form frontlines. It takes an incredible effort to successfully cross them under fire and are the most vital resource for long-term war. The Orks are hardy, but even their fungus cannot find great purchase amid the dried silt, only the Snakebite Klan might survive there in peace.

 

War defines life now. Every family has at least one serving member. The skies are lit nightly with mountain-shattering fire and whine of aircraft dogfighting over whole cratons. Desperate to conserve food and water, the Governor and local commanders have ordered some seven and fourteen years prior, that one soldier be drafted from every family for mass wave offensives. These have retaken limited ground, and the next conscription is coming. Trench warfare is backed by forward regiments of warriors fighting loosely from rugged terrain. Facing off against Komandos.

Much could be said about the worship of the Three Holy Ministry Sect and how it has been refined to include the Space Marines in the trio. But the noble leaders have lost prominence in favour of holy warbands.

Saint’s Rest is the new home of the Ecclesiarchy and the increasingly syncretic Cult of the Rhinoceros. Forefront is Bishop Torquemada Phalan, whose work on deciphering the mystery cult has provided the scripture needed to propel the faithful gun-martyrs. He despises the people of Beceen for their perceived indolence. Encapsulated in their hideous xeno civitates. The new masters of the Imperial Cult hope the orks next destroy it and Bishop Phalan deliberately withholds aid he can redirect.

When the war is over, there will be purges. The blood of the Ajaxian race will be purified of the slag from the left-hand path of Beceen and the south.

Beceen's crime was to crown their regimented masses of hab-blocks with a new district, a cathedral large enough to house all the nobility, priests and administration at once. This colossal structure looms on the craton, perpetually never finished. Planetary saint Gaudy the Mad designed it to resemble the fantastic forms of sea life that sacrificed their future existence for the glory of Ajax and humanity.

In the southern deserts and in the conscript regiments, Tigmamanukans teach their northern brethren about the Feaykin, warriors trained to seize enemy mineshafts or die in the attempt. This synchronises with the Rhinoceros Cult and justifies to Bishop Phalan that targeting the southern heretics in the refugee camps was divinely inspired.

The new name of these holy warriors is The Strong, Guetre.

Saint’s Rest and Beceen rely entirely on recruiting Ajaxians from sympathetic members of the interior and increasingly divided clergy. Warboss Gaddzmax besieges Beceen but grows dissatisfied. Gaddzmax is older, and the WAAGH!! ends here unless he came break onto the craton mass. He will not end up being a Boss of a bunch of feral orks and gretchin, eating slime and krill out in the desert. He’s thinking of doing something Kunning, like secret diplomacy or a big bomb.

Regiments raised from Chiron and Sandaaina continue to hold the vital northern gap, where the marine trenches do not run along the craton and must be dug. Here is where Warboss Karl concentrated his forces until his death from a Whirlwind missile. His chief drinking buddy Karl the Next runs the Karlist forces and has continued the same mechanized wave attack strategy.

Token Vito Secundus Purity Guard, alongside the few Skitarii from Total, man the defenses outside Alcázar. Neither get along with the local forces, but Alcázar is the only void port.

The remaining southern cratons are held by the 1^st to 3^rd company of the Fire Unicorns, the Space Marine chapter that recruits from Ajax. They are well suited to assisting the Fedaykin battle the Evil Sunz out on the salt-strewn flats. Buggy against land speeder and warbiker vs motorised roughrider.

 

The rigid approach to duty among the Iron Hand successor chapter, goes well with the ancient insistence on mining quota. From this was born the Cult of the Rhinoceros. First a mystery cult for pit fighters not chosen for the chapter. The Rhinoceros is the Unicorn: pure, mystical, stubborn and aggressive, it’s mind too small for doubt or questions. The Rhinoceros sacrificed itself to mark Humankind’s passage to the stars. For it was the steed the Emperor rode from the Garden of Life and led the way by ascension via holy human-mediated death. All should follow the Rhinoceros, to obey as a dead body obeys and Live for Death. For there is nothing but death for all mankind except the Emperor upon the Golden Throne.

Of the outer reaches, there is nothing. The moon, belt and gas giants were yet to be mined in force. Ajaxian politics being too concerned with taking each others quotas. Three Techpriest geological/observatories destroyed, a scattering of rare mineral sites. Maybe 200,000 dead. The watchstations in orbit swept aside by the ork fleet, whose ruins hangs in orbit, chewed up by a pursuing naval taskforce. The space hulk drifts, collecting all debris as a new satellite.

The Fire Unicorns are temporarily encamped on their battle barge. Their molten monastary on Ajax the Lesser (closest planet to the sun) was destroyed, but not before they evacuated their relics.