KES S AN DRA S SYSTE M

LOCATIONS
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Jungle World:
Kesserin
The third planet of the Kessandras System, Kesserin’s continents
are almost entirely covered in temperate rainforest. Its flora is
exceptionally hardy and fast-growing, and much of it is poisonous
to Humans. These factors, coupled with the planet’s mountainous
topography, saw Kesserin put to use as a training ground for
Astra Militarum regiments. Prior to the opening of the Great Rift,
numerous barracks, staging grounds and training facilities were
carved out of the ever-encroaching jungle. However, the escalation
of conflict throughout the Chalnath Expanse has seen these
facilities largely abandoned, and in the absence of Human life, the
jungle has begun to reclaim them.
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Ice World:
Rorgan
Rorgan is a large and sparsely populated ocean world with a wildly
elliptical orbit that results in sharp changes in temperature. Even
when close to the system’s star, its small polar continents are
frigid expanses of snow and ice. At the furthest extent of its orbit,
the seas themselves freeze solid to a depth of almost a mile.
Despite these extreme environmental conditions, the Imperium
has found its uses for Rorgan. The majority of the populace dwells
at the northern pole, where an Imperial garrison and its support
staff are responsible for operating the planet’s orbital sensors
and communication relays. These facilities consist of clustered
towers, aerials and squat hab bunkers screened behind curtain
walls and protected by faltering enviro-shields. Beyond the poles,
a sparse population of Human natives survive aboard ocean-going
submersibles of ancient origin, eking out a precarious living by
harvesting Rorgan’s sea life.
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Desert/Penal World:
Kumenos
A gigantic world covered in cool deserts and dust wastes, Kumenos
possesses an exceptionally dense atmosphere and gravity
considerably in excess of Terran standards. Its storm-ridden
skies render atmospheric exit and entry a perilous endeavour.
Embedded within the planet’s equatorial mountain range is a
colossal prison complex housing felons and petty heretics from
the Kessandras System and beyond. The inmates of the penal
colony are regularly ferried out into the desert expanse, carrying
out forced labour in sprawling quarries, extracting gemstones to
be used as focusing crystals for heavy laser weapons. Rumour has
it that the latest of these excavations has uncovered a series of
previously unknown ruins, the origin of which remains a mystery.
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Astropathic Relay:
Ochari
Ochari is the outermost moon of the Kessandras System’s capital
world, Volkus. It is believed to have been terraformed millennia ago,
yet despite this, it remains an inhospitable place. Its atmosphere
has been badly polluted by Imperial industry. Its urban sprawls
comprise a mass of industrial facilities, hab-blocks and military
compounds. Beyond these inhabited regions, expanses of grey-
white dust pock-marked with impact craters stretch across the
moon’s surface. There is little in the way of vegetation, and almost
no native fauna beyond the invasive vermin that accompany
Human settlement. The most obvious and important structure on
the moon’s surface is the system’s astropathic relay, a gigantic
needle-like structure that rises from a fortified asteroid crater
bristling with gun batteries to pierce the stratosphere at the
moon’s equator.
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Wrecked Ork
Settlement: Futility
The only moon of Kesserin, Futility is crater-pocked and barren,
its thin atmosphere barely capable of sustaining life. Low
mountain ranges loom over sweeping plains of cracked, dry
stone and scattered boulders, dust-devils faltering across them
upon thin and moaning air currents. For all its desolation, Futility
does boast a number of rare elements vital in the manufacture
of cogitator systems and the finer cranial implants of servitors.
As such, the Adeptus Mechanicus have established mining
operations at sites across its surface. It may well have been
the miles-high plumes of smoke and spoil-dust thrown up by
their industry that drew the notice of Ork pirates, or perhaps
the prospect of a good fight against the defensive clades that
watched over the extraction-temples. Whatever the xenos’
motivations, their invasion craft rained down across Futility
and started a wasteland war that has raged now for countless
revolutions of the desolate moon. Several extraction-temples
have fallen to Orkoid attacks, just as numerous Ork settlements
have been bombed to ruin by flights of Archeopters or purged
by Skitarii and weaponised servitors. With both sides reinforced
in dribs and drabs, and no sign of either seizing significant
advantage over the other, Futility seems doomed to a never-
ending stalemate between its resident warring factions.
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Glitcha’s Void Station:

Da Kill-sphere
Lurking on the fringes of the Kessandras System, Big Mek Glitcha’s
so-called Kill-sphere is an agglomeration of void-junk, gun turrets
and armour, all wrapped around the unidentifiable core of what
may once have been a mighty Imperial void fortification. The
anarchic product of a brilliant – if chaotic – mind, Da Kill-Sphere
is a labyrinth of decks, chambers, engine rooms, loot vaults and
void docks whose layout even Glitcha himself is hazy on. Some
sections bear the stamped aquilas, the copious hazard stripes
and robust construction favoured by Humanity. Others are pure
Ork, creaking and bolted-together masses of scrap metal and
tangled piping where atmospheric pressure is maintained more
by luck than judgement and gravity is a handy afterthought. Then
there are those areas of the Kill-sphere that must have been
fashioned by other alien hands, their strange forms and perilous
traps exotic-looking and often counterintuitive to sentient bipedal
life. The one unifying factor throughout Da Kill-sphere is the junk
– both valuable and otherwise – heaped in every handy chamber,
corridor, armoury, lift shaft and latrine pit. Glitcha never likes to let
anything go ‘coz yooz never know’. So it is that genuine treasures
of ancient technology lie forgotten amidst piles of rusting scrap
and Orkoid refuse, forever picked through by curious Meks and
light-fingered Grots, where it hasn’t ended up as nesting material
for some large and territorial squig.
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CONFLICT ZONES
WORLDS IN NEIGHBOURING SYSTEMS
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Urban War Zone:

Minoa
The largest and most populous planet in the Vedik System, Minoa
is also one of the most significant industrial worlds in the galactic
south of the Chalnath Expanse. Its primary hive spans an entire
continent. Despite the Vedik System’s close proximity to the
Kessandras System, their location within the Imperium Nihilus
means that communication between the two remains fragmented
and inconsistent. Deprived of resupply, Minoa has begun to fall into
the grip of civil strife. Xenocults and heretical cabals have risen up
against the governor, and hab-districts and industrial centres alike
have been transformed into bloody battlefields upon which bitter
rivals do battle.
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Cityscape War Zone:

Celebris (Tsorin System)
One of two habitable worlds in the Tsorin System, Celebris formerly
served as a waystation for the Navis Imperialis sector fleet and
was only a short jump through the Warp from the worlds of the
Kessandras System. Since the emergence of the Great Rift,
however, travel between the two systems has been rendered
extremely perilous. Having previously benefited from near-
unrestricted trade, the nobility of Celebris possessed extreme
wealth and indulged their expensive tastes in the glittering spires
and neon-lit pleasure dens of its hives. Cut off from their sources
of prosperity, however, the high-born have become increasingly
tyrannical. They have used their enforcers to hoard stockpiles of
food, medicine and weapons. The resultant discontent amongst
the underclass has led to war, with organised criminal gangs and
anarchist rebels fighting running battles against the household
enforcers of their aristocratic overlords. In such fertile soil, the
seeds of heresy grow swiftly.
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Shrine World:
Imperator’s Grace
The second of the Tsorin System’s inhabitable planets, Imperator’s
Grace, could not be more different to Celebris. This world is an
austere monument to the Imperial Creed, home to several large
cathedrum districts, innumerable shrines and statues and even
a Schola Progenium training facility. Beneath this facade of piety,
however, Imperator’s Grace hides some disturbing secrets. Some
whisper of xenos structures concealed beneath the foundations
of places of worship, and bizarre power signatures have been
detected emanating from deep beneath the planet’s crust. Since
the opening of the Great Rift, these power fluctuations have
increased in regularity. As if these happenings were not worrying
enough, xenos raiders have turned their attention to the shrine
world, launching repeated assaults. This conflict has scarred the
once-pristine spires of Imperator’s Grace, and the clangour of
battle echoes through the streets.