Warzone: The Cardinal Worlds

The Cardinal Worlds campaigns

[//Revelation of the Martyrs, a pict-recording of Morgetheon displaying those 'brave marines who gave their lives for the true son of the God-Emperor' during an address to the assembled army on Oblitus Primary. This was formerly titled Execration of the Traitors, with Morgetheon displaying the heads of those marines betraying Terra by standing with the Abomination-unto-him.+]
[//jamie_c/@mutantsnakeeyes+]

'May this curse be a blanket; may our deaths choke you; for we spit defiance at you and your insatiety. You will never own us, for we would murder the ground itself to deny it to you.'

 [incepted: Perkunos+]

Belligerents

[//Princip. belligerents={Orthodox alliance}//] +Death Eagles (I); Flesh Eaters; Carcharadons+]

[//Princip. belligerents={Partisan}//] +Riven Lords; Wormwood Sons; Iron Guard+]

The Cardinal Worlds were repeatedly ravaged during the War of the False Primarch, with individual planets repeatedly changing hands. Some areas were forced to endure a near-constant state of active warfare for more than four decades, reducing the formerly critical cities and ports to worthless ruins, fought over through sheer spite and bloody-mindedness.

[//Bastion saw some of the fiercest fighting between the Iron Guard and Death Eagles (I)+]
[//jamie_g/@cthonianreaver+]

The region saw the dogged involvement of some of the most ruthless Chapters from both the Partisan  cause and the Pentarchy of Blood, with neither side willing to back down, and both grinding each other to paste without hope of quarter.

***

Background to the conflict

Lying near adjacent to Sector Morqub, it was nearly inevitable that the region would be heavily-involved in the war, and from the beginning it proved a powderkeg of danger for both sides. 

[//astrogation: The Cardinal Worlds occupy a substantial portion of the Cambyses Subsector, Heliopolis+]

Activity in the Warzone was low-level near constantly, but the critical points to this stage can be summarised:

• The Execration of the Traitors – Morgetheon, later to become Antiecclesiarch, raises a colossal army to fight the Partisans; but inadvertently cedes them to the Iron Guard, thereby forcing an impromptu change of allegiance. This resulted in uprisings and riots between arguing factions, all of which further degraded the region's ability to defend itself.
• The flight of the Death Eagles (II) and pursuit by the Jade Talons, Void Barons and Riven Lords. This action in the early war largely saw conflict on the Cardinal Worlds limited to internal Partisan uprisings supported by the Jade Talons and Riven Lords.
• After the launch of Operation Gauntlet, the False Primarch sent three whole Chapters to placate and capture this critical region – the already-established Riven Lords were supported by the Iron Guard and Wormwood Sons, along with hundreds of Morqubi Imperial Guard Regiments. The Pentarchy and Orthodoxy were unwilling to cede the region, and deployed some seven thousand Astartes from the Carcharadons, Flesh Eaters and Death Eagles (I). Alongside them, they fought under the auspices of Ecclesiarch Benedin II and his substantial retinue.

It is to this latter stage that we turn in this missive. By the end of the period, the Cardinal Worlds were devastated – but so too was the Partisan assault blunted. Nearly all of the Riven Lords and Wormwood Sons were lost in these brutal campaigns – including a number of critical command staff – and the Iron Guard were likewise heavily-depleted. Unwilling to accept defeat, the three became increasingly ruthless, entrenching themselves for bitter final stands, or salting the earth in their retreats with atomic or conventional warheads.

With the details of the wars that raged over the Cardinal Worlds too complex and poorly-recorded to neatly summarise, here are presented the extant isolated vignettes of combatants believed to have been involved.

***

Orthodoxy

Death Eagles I

[//Kill Team Litany, Death Eagle (I)+]
[//jamie_g/@cthonianreaver+]

Identified as led by Brother-Sergeant Lyrkan, 7th of the Name, 35th of the Canon, Litany was deployed in a covert operations capacity in the Cambyses Subsector, notably engaging Red Fish kill teams on multiple occasions. 

The names of Litany are recorded in the Chapter Archives of the Death Eagles I. The names of their many foes are unremembered, as the pale dawn rises.

[//excerpt from Inquisitorial Archives 871.M33+]

[//Corinthia Triarii conflict+]
[//oskar_s/@greenstuffflu+]

[//spooldatacorrupt+]

***

The Auric Order 

The arrival of the High Lord Ecclesiarch Benedin II in the region immediately led to a substantial increase in recruitment for the regional Frateris Templar. This in turn helped to staunch the gradual flow of Partisan-sympathisers and fifth columnists, and enabled the defenders to create a more convincing resistance. 

In the fighting following Operation Gauntlet, the Partisans found themselves confronted by the elite of the Ecclesiarchy's forces, the Auric Order, a group trained to an astonishing level of quality and equipped with the best-available Imperial technology. Well-led and provendered, they proved the lynchpin of the defence in a number of critical battles.

[//Archimandrite Keth-Ra’har, line officer of the Auric Order of the Frateris Templars.+]
[//daniel_g/@blood_partisan+]

[//Frateris Templar Var'hest; a member of the elite Auric Order. Pictured prior to deployment on Mordant.+]
[+//blood_partisan/+]

Drawn from the so-called 'Diocese of Mauridal' , this collection of semi-feudal border worlds lacks strong Terran institutions outside of the Imperial Church, and thus exists under the de facto control of the Ecclesiarchy. 

Eager to expand their influence and build the reputation of of their fledgling private army, the Church Elders of Mauridal pledged their forces to the Orthodoxy’s war effort. Keth-Ra’har proved herself among the Auric Order’s most able field commanders. 

During the Sorrowful Years, alongside more traditional deployments she was tasked with several raids on Partisan alligned or neutral shrine sites. The goal of these strikes was alleged to be the expropriation of religious relics, though they were officially conducted for strategic purposes. She would be listed as KIA in the Hever System during the later stages of the war, though the circumstances of her death are not recorded.

[//Summarium, Segmentum Solar – Execretus+]

***

Carcharadons

[//dennis_k@the_iron_within+]

[//spooldatacorrupt+]

***

Umathron Ur-Wodan Confederacy

[//Umathron Ur-Wodan Confederacy boarding party. + 6.537.827.33M +]
[//nathan_s/@natedungeon+]

An Umathron void clan flotilla, alongside a supporting squadron of Death Eagles Astartes waylaid the merchant vessel Mercaede’s Venture while on route from Coldforge. The vessel had been believed to be smuggling supplies to partisan rebels on Rybal and Moreaumunda for some time. A moderate level of resistance had been put up, but with how outnumbered the Mercaede’s party was they eventually surrendered. After two days of inspecting the cargo, and investigation, nothing confirming the suspicions of consorting with partisan elements could be satisfactory found. The commanding Dominar of the flotilla nevertheless ordered all but one of the macro containers be confiscated, and held at the Confederacies’s orbital city of Tezhotl. The Mercaedes Venture was then released to continue its route.

[//Naval report, Cardinal World regional shipping+]

***

Flesh Eaters

[//Ostroth the Terrible,at the Morgant Suppression+]
[//mikl_h_w/@duckcalledsue+]

“Take me away, and in the lowest deep

There let me be,

And there in hope the lone night-watches keep,

Told out for me.

There, motionless, and happy in my pain,

Lone, not forlorn –

There will I sing my sad perpetual strain,

Until the morn,

There will I sing, and soothe my stricken breast,

Which ne’er can cease

To throb, and pine, and languish, till possest

Of its Sole Peace.

There will I sing my absent Lord and Love: –

Take me away,

That sooner I may rise, and go above,

And see Him in the truth of everlasting day.”

[//the Terran poet Aelgaer, circa M1+]

[//spooldatacorrupt+]

***

Partisan

Wormwood Sons

[//nick_t/@k0rdhal+]

[//spooldatacorrupt+]

***

Riven Lords

[//cole_c/@sharkamanderminis+]

[//mikl_h_w/@duckcalledsue+]

[//spooldatacorrupt+]

***

Iron Guard

[//jamie_c/@mutantsnakeeyes+]

[//spooldatacorrupt+]

***

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