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The Cloudburst Sector, The Enemies of Man, And The Blue Daggers

The Cloudburst Sector

This young, expanding region of Imperial space takes its name from its capital moon now, but that is a recent development.  Although individual Imperial colonies existed in the area once known as the Oldlight-Proximate Circuit for thousands of years prior to its formal establishment as a Sector in M39, its overall barrenness stems from several factors that initially prevented it from reaching Sector status.  Originally, the band of inhabited worlds that comprised the Hapster Subsector along the extreme eastern edge of the Circuit was the extent of the coordinated human holdings in the region.  The Subsector was, at best, an outlier of the nearby Naxos Sector, and even then, only on paper.  The remains of an ancient supernova had littered the region with thick gas, all of it radioactive.  Though mighty Cognomen sat alone in the voids of the Circuit, there was little else to offer the Imperium out there in the hot gasses.
All of that changed with the discovery of the Dawn-break, Triune, and Septiim systems, by the renowned Mechanicus Magos Explorator Justin MacDonald, in M39.012.  The sudden awareness of five shirtsleeves-habitable worlds, that close to Naxos and unclaimed by aliens, shook the local Rogue Trader and Explorator fleets to their cores.  How had they missed such wealth?  How had fully five worlds for the Imperium gone wholly unnoticed?
A veritable gold rush of exploration trips began at once, from the Naxos Sector Forge World of Fabique, and a hundred ships sailed off into the gas storms and dark stars of the Oldlight-Proximate Circuit.

Discoveries and wealth poured into the Forge World’s hands.  Archaeotech caches, contact with dangerous aliens, maps of worlds and stars, and more disturbingly, the wreckage of well over ten thousand Imperial and alien ships were found within mere years of the exploration craze beginning.  The Inquisition’s name came up in frightened whispers more and more, between Rogue Traders and Free Chartists that spent their gold in the orbiting coaching house Star Gilt over Fabique’s shipyards.  What had driven humanity from the Oldlight-Proximate Circuit in the past?  Captains and Traders saw the sheer number of dead worlds and dead ships in dark zones on the map with increasing unease.  Clearly, humanity had lived in the Circuit once.  Some of the dead ships that Rogue Traders found floating idly through the void were post-Unification Imperial, some even with Legionary markings.
The Inquisition’s Ordo Hereticus stepped in.  Sending a Longstrike cruiser and fifteen smaller vessels off on the heels of Magos MacDonald’s fleet, the Inquisition established a temporary Seal of Verboten Passage on the Circuit, while it went to investigate the anomalous findings.

Months stretched into years.  Finally, twelve of the sixteen ships abruptly returned unheralded with MacDonald, and set in at the Inquisitorial Palace of Naxos.  Weeks of sharing and deliberation followed.  When the silence was at last broken, the message that the Spire of Astral Choirs at the Palace Naxos sent out was not what the Captains of the Circuit had expected.
MacDonald, the Inquisition declared, was a hero of Mankind.  His fleets had pushed past the radioactive remnants of an ancient and unthinkably colossal supernova and supernebula, and found a rich bounty of lost treasures, lost worlds, and lost opportunities.  Further, on his travels, he had found an additional ten shirtsleeves-habitable worlds to be earmarked for immediate scientific inspection by the Mechanicus, and for Rogue Traders and Administratum Colonization Department colony ships to prepare for Imperial habitation.
The shipwrecks, the Inquisition publicly claimed, were from a potent Warp current that had carried the remains of vast battles from the Great Crusade to the edge of current Imperial space.  The finding of these wrecks was not an ill omen, the Inquisition soothingly insisted to the superstitious Captains and Lords Trader.  They were, instead, a sign that the mercy and love of the Emperor was upon them, and it was time, in His Divine estimation, for Mankind to expand to the realms that the galaxy had previously barred to human entry.
Further, they declared, a new Sector would be formed in the Circuit, and settled by loyal Humans of the Segmentum Ultima.  Great ventures of manpower raising and construction would begin in the hives of the Segmentum, and ships would travel in the wake of the Administratum and Traders to begin the process of building a new sector.  The Hapster Subsector would become a part of this new Sector, and a Sector Overlord chosen from the office of the Master of the Administratum Ultima.

Reassured by the Inquisition’s uncharacteristic full disclosure and prodding to do what they did best, Rogue Traders and Explorators took off by the hundreds, following the markers left by MacDonald’s trailblazers.  New worlds were charted, and in the span of a mere five hundred years, the new Sector was declared established, In Nominae Imperator.

What the Inquisition, perhaps sensibly, did not disclose was what MacDonald had found beyond the Oldlight-Proximate Circuit.  Pushing past the radioactive clouds at the trailing edge of the Circuit and into the Oldlight Exo-zone proper, MacDonald had found an unspeakable charnel house of dead ships and planets.  He had spent several years mapping this non-illuminatur region (so titled because it was outside the direct light of the Astronomican at its extreme northern edge).  In that time, he had found psychic scars on planets, so intense that they left physical marks on their crusts.  He had found totems and messages in alien languages, composed entirely of the power backpacks of Mark 2 Crusader armor, and at least three hundred planets subject to psychic or physical Exterminatus-level disasters.  On one world, he had found over four hundred thousand skeletons of alien creatures, all fully made of metal.  Weeks of study had yielded the horrifying truth behind them: they were the remains of cybernetic skeletons from vat-grown and cyber-augmented alien soldiers, locked in place and left to desiccate by an incomprehensibly powerful electronic warfare device.  Such a device would have eclipsed even the Warp-tainted Electron Freezer of Moravec in power, especially since lingering radiation on their skeletal bodies suggested it had been triggered from eighty-two light years away.

Weeks of dangerous, slow, and violent travel by his Inquisitorial pursuers followed.  When the Ordos of the Inquisition finally caught up with MacDonald at the edge of the Oldlight’s western border, at the very outskirts of the Astronomican’s light, he was researching a world-sized labyrinth of tunnels and metal tubes, apparently constructed with an Old Ones Dimensional Forge long ago and repurposed by the Eldar as a Webway technology test bed.  The Inquisition was loathe to simply kill MacDonald for his knowledge, especially since the Inquisition actually knew less about what filled the Oldlight Exo-zone than he did, at that point.  A deal was struck and sealed between the Mechanicus and Holy Ordos in the shadow of that ancient xenotech.  MacDonald would return to the Proximate Circuit and lend his aid to the Rogue Traders that explored his findings, and the Inquisition would forget that MacDonald had ever come to this haunted place, in exchange for his findings and an oath not to return without the explicit permission of the Ordo Xenos.

On their return journey, however, a new discovery was made.  The combined convoy of MacDonald’s Astra Explorators and the Inquisitorial ships halted over a world in the very center of the Oldlight Exo-Zone, where the light of the Astronomican was largely blocked by the many Warp Storms between their location and Terra.  While taking a routine Navigation check, MacDonald’s ship sensors detected a colossal concentration of gaseous carbon and oxidized metal on the world below – a sure sign of a battlefield.  After pestering the Inquisition to allow him to scan the world more closely, the Explorator began sweeping the planet with his mighty Grand Cruiser’s systems.

What he found horrified him.  Below, on the surface of the planet that he immediately named Cladh in his ancestral language, he detected well over fifteen million human and alien bodies, decomposed to gas and powder.  Millions of suits of alien and human Power Armor, thousands of wrecked tanks, a complex of psi-reactive crystals, an enormous dragon statue made from human teeth, and the remains of alien bio-horrors so complex that his systems couldn’t even tell what they were; they all lay in ruins on a vast plateau.  The plateau, his cogitators helpfully informed him, had been created by the Lances on an Imperial Gloriana super battle barge, firing in Continual Discharge Mode, which would have reduced them to slag after only a few minutes.  The Lances had boiled a canyon around the plateau, and judging from the heat damage on the Power Armor nearest the impact sites, at least some Crusade troops – including Astartes – had been alive and running towards the beams at the time of impact.

At this point, the Inquisition determined, a decision had to be made about MacDonald.  A quick vote from the five Inquisitors present determined that disclosure would be more helpful than execution, and the Longstrike class cruiser hailed MacDonald’s ship.

The Emperor himself after the culmination of the Rangdan Xenocides, the Inquisitors explained, had quarantined the region.  This particular world was unknown to even them, they hastened to assure him, but the evidence was clear enough.  MacDonald looked at the surface below and immediately agreed to silence on the issue; he recognized the armor below as belonging to the Iron Warriors.  Suits of armor belonging to at least five other Legions lay draped over a toppled building, originally shaped like a planarian worm or something akin to it.
MacDonald agreed to keep the secret of what had happened here, and the convoy departed for the Circuit once more.  The Inquisition, aware of the history of the Rangdan Xenocides and now the Exo-zone, were content to know that MacDonald, at least, would probably not realize that they had flown over the site of the activation of the Labyrinth of Night.
MacDonald, his curiosity sated, compacted himself to the terms of the Inquisition’s bargain, and flew back to Naxos with the Inquisition.  When the conclave was over, he ‘humbly’ accepted the Inquisition’s accolades, and set out once more, to catalogue the worlds of the eminently less classified Proximate Circuit.  He achieved phenomenal success, ultimately categorizing twenty more systems in a mere decade.  Eventually, his stellar rise to glory landed him a position as the Archmagos Explorator of the sector, and a permanent posting on Cognomen proper.

Eight Subsectors, each named for an inhabited world around which their Control Fortress orbits, were created once the size of the Sector became clear.  They are, in rough order from galactic east to galactic west (spinward to trailing): Hapster (by far the oldest), Cognomen, Oglith, Celeste (the capital), Delving, Maskos, Thimble, and Nauphry.  The world now known as Brotherhood was once considered for a Subsector capital, but the decision ultimately favored Nauphry; this may have been a factor in the tragedy that befell Brotherhood.  To compensate for the lengthy travel times between systems and the fact that several systems of the young Sector had multiple habitable bodies, System Overlords are generally installed instead of individual Planetary Governors, and the Order Famulous is given the chance to render commentary on all high-profile Overlordship appointments.  Overlordship is revocable only by unanimous consent of the Subsector and Sector Masters Administratum (the Overlord’s own peers), and is therefore a rare event, if the Ordo Hereticus doesn’t take matters into its own hands.

The specific policy of the Sector Administratum is to integrate worlds of the nearby Cloudburst Circuit directly into the Sector proper, and is by no means adverse to creating a new Subsctor if need be.  The problem is that Cloudburst is on the very edge of the projection range of the Astronomican as of M41, and further colonization in the renamed Circuit will be dangerous at best.  The radioactive gas left over in the region from the ancient supernova that blinded the Imperium to the Circuit’s potential in the first place is just thick enough to make non-psychic travel or communication difficult, and pirates roam by the hundreds of thousands.  While plans exist to colonize some worlds Rogue Traders have secured for the Imperium in the Circuit, and a few worlds of cave dwellers and regressive primitives exist for potential acquisition, the majority of the Circuit will have to be far better mapped before the Administratum commits any more resources to the area than it already has.  The problem is that the Cloudburst Sector has lost two Agri-worlds in recent centuries, which has forced it to start importing food from neighboring sectors.  With the loss of Chlorit to the Glasians and Scalding to Chaos, the sector’s food now either comes from the worlds where it is needed, or from Cassie’s World, Forender, Grendel, and Combine.  Naturally, these worlds require constant defense from invasions.


Today, Cloudburst is a triumphal example of the latter-day Imperial ability to keep expanding, despite every reason to stop.  Though its defenses were not particularly important prior to the arrival of the Glasians, it is now fortifying at a dizzying pace.  Missionaries and Techpriests rush to worlds on the slightest hint of archaeotech or un-converted primitive humans.  The stronger the Imperium’s arms and more thorough its faith, they preach, the better the odds that the Emperor will smile on them, and the Sector will survive another Glasian Migration.  Rogue Traders and Explorators, rivals at the best of times elsewhere in the galaxy, work together to find more worlds and treasure for the sector.  A full Space Marine Chapter digs in, deep in the sector’s heart, preparing for the worst, while ruthless armies of Astra Militarum and Skitarii ferret out enemies of the sector, within its borders and beyond them.  The vast Forge World of Cognomen is now remorselessly disregarding stricture against Titan and Knight manufacture, while the Ecclesiarchy Cloudburst arms its Sisters on their beachfront palace.  PDFs across the sector kiss their Aquila pendants and pray for mercy, while furious Nurglite Cultists strive mightily to break Tzeentch’s stranglehold on cult activity nearby.  The Inquisition and Arbites burn all sign of corruption or heresy from the overtaxed populace of Cloudburst, even while fresh worlds are brought into compliance by the high-tech armies of Solstice and Septiim.
All the while, vile alien beasts stare unblinkingly at the stars of Cloudburst from their time-stasis prisons; their very cells realigning to the dark curiosity of foul Tzeentch.  Cloudburst is a place of dynamism, violence, and perfidious hope.  None knows its fate, none but Tzeentch know when Tzeentch’s experiment shall end, and even he does not know what he will do with the sector after he is finally done.

Local Imperial Navy
The Cloudburst Navy is highly concentrated, compared to the more diffuse Solar and even Ultima navies.  Given how far apart habitable stars in the Cloudburst Sector are (for whatever reason), this is a natural and unavoidable consequence for the Navy to deal with.  The Navy here finds itself thus in the unenviable situation of a Cruiser Captain outranking an SDF Battlecruiser Captain, which would normally be the other way around.  To compensate for this, and to clear up any ‘misunderstandings’ in the chain of command, the Imperial Navy has stationed a Commodore on the Waterscale space station in orbit over Septiim Secundus, where its flagship (an ancient Luna Cruiser) makes berth.  The Navy is also building, as fast as it can, to replenish and expand its forces in the inevitable event that another Glasian migration occurs.  Ultimately, however, the Naval force stationed in the Septiim system is bound to the command structure of the Cloudburst Sector, and its assets can be recalled to serve elsewhere in the sector at any time.
The lack of vessels heavier than a Cruiser in the system is a noted and increasingly loud complaint from the SDF and the Blue Daggers.  Why, they ask, is the Navy unwilling to lend any more firepower to the defense of a regional powerhouse like Septiim, especially given how the Glasians are guaranteed to attack it?  The answer is that the Navy of the Cloudburst Sector is highly overstressed.  The sector has relatively few systems to defend; however, given its sheer size, the absolute volume of territory that needs protection, and the regular losses it suffers from extragalactic incursions add up to rapid force depletion.  Building massive battleships is expensive, especially in a sector with so few Forge worlds, and while the Septiim system is easily worth defending, so too are dozens of others.  Two Retribution battleships are under construction at the Cognomen shipyards, but their time to completion can be measured in decades.  In the interim, two Grand Cruisers of different models (Avenger and Furious) are also under construction, and will launch in one year.
Battlefleet Cloudburst had little active campaigning to do prior to the beginning of the Glasian incursions.  This is not to say that they were idle, far from it.  Their confrontations with Orks and pirates, both endemic to the region to some extent, allowed them at least to maintain a reasonably experienced officer corps.  All of that changed with the arrival of the Glasian menace.  Now, the local Navy accepts the requests of Battlefleet Ultima for support only during those times that the Glasians are not forthcoming, and desperately raids any and all pirate or otherwise uncommitted forces for their shipbuilding capabilities. They have had very little success in this.  Aside from one or two Raiders captured from pirates and a single, barely-functional Gorlock class pre-fabricated ship cradle captured from the same pirates, the Navy has had no luck in expanding their forces through offensive action.  Though they have managed to push the limited Chaotic presence in the region back even further, they are all but totally reliant on the Mechanicus to expand the Navy flotilla now, and both Cognomen and Cloudburst know it.  Mutual defense priorities demand that they co-operate, for now, and this is perhaps the reason that neither faction is keen in reporting the less-than-perfect adherence the other has to strict Imperial protocol.  This has also resulted in some SDFs in Cloudburst being far stronger than the Imperial Navy contingents in their home systems, which is not always without acrimony on the Navy’s part.  How, they ask, can the Navy keep up with the demands of the local systems if their SDFs gobble up all the new ships?

There are immense opportunities for a Rogue Trader or Imperial Privateer in the Cloudburst Sector in this regard.  The taking of worlds is all well and good, but the Cloudburst defenses are stretched as it is.  The acquisition of new ships or shipyards would allow for the Navy to expand their defensive and expansion abilities.  This is especially of interest to Rogue Traders Missionary, and the occasional Proseletyzer fleet of the Ecclesiarchy.  The Adeptus Ministorum is fully aware of the threat of the Glasians at its higher levels.  They demand that the humans of the Circuit, whether left over from pre-Imperial colonization efforts or colonists from the modern Imperium, be extended the protection of the Holy Armada, so that they may be free of the menace of the Glasians.  Any attempts to capture more ships or modular shipyards for the Imperium would meet with active Ecclesiarchal support, for however little that might be worth.

The flagship of the fleet is an Apocalypse, but it is not stock.  The ship, an Anvilus-built battleship, is a former test bed of the Navy.  Named the Vulpes Ferrum, the ship appears stock from a distance, but closer inspection reveals a few small changes to its forward, ventral, and rear areas.  The armor around the engine nozzles is thicker, and the nozzles themselves longer.  The fighter bay has thicker armor around it as well, and the armored prow sports two extra frigate-weight fore-firing turbolasers.  The interior is even more heavily modified.  The Navy sought to minimize the size of internal components whenever possible to increase carrying capacity, but the Mechanicus struck their test down as being too close to the crime of innovation, and so only one vessel was given the modifications.  The ship was shunted off into a backwater sector in M40, out of the way of potential embarassments of the Navy.  The Navy of Cloudburst couldn’t care less about the Segmentum Battlefleet’s embarrassment, however, and gladly received the upgraded ship as their new flag carrier.  Because of the widely-distributed nature of the Battlefleet Cloudburst, its supreme command never changes, and is always the office of the Lord Admiral on the Vulpes Ferrum.  When Lord Admiral Maynard does need to station himself somewhere immobile, his preference is for the Coriolis anchorages, or those of Cloudburst itself.

The majority of new ships in any given Cloudburst manufacturing allotment are assigned to the defense of the Sector’s worlds from the endemic pirates and centennial Glasian incursions.  Septiim’s fleet allotment is listed separately, since their contingent rarely leaves.  Generally, given how decentralized the Cloudburst armada is, the individual Subsector Battlefleets are rolled into the Battlefleet Cloudburst contingent.  Exceptions will be noted specifically.

Battlefleet Cloudburst Contingent: Flag vessel Apocalypse battleship, Retribution battleship, Emperor battleship, Avenger grand cruiser, two Exorcist grand cruisers, Vengeance grand cruiser, three Mars battlecruisers, four Overlord battlecruisers, one Mercury battlecruiser, nine Dictator cruiser-carriers, seven Dominator cruisers, eleven Gothic cruisers, twenty Lunar cruisers, two Tyrant cruisers, twelve Dauntless light cruisers, two Defiant light cruisers, three Endeavour light cruisers, one Endurance light cruiser, one Enforcer system control cruiser, six Defender escort cruisers, one Turbulent heavy frigate, forty one Sword frigates, nine Firestorm frigates, two Infidel raiders (Captured), one Falchion escort frigate, thirty Havoc merchant raiders, forty eight Claymore corvettes, thirty six Cobra destroyers, eleven Viper missile destroyers, nine Escort Carriers, twelve Fast Clippers (courier variant)

Imperial Guard
The Imperial Guard forces of the Cloudburst Sector serve as its shield, and in the Circuit, its sword.  The Guard are as diverse and complex here as in some of the older sectors of the Segmentum, thanks to the wildly varying standards of living of the sector’s worlds.  The Cloudburst Defenders enjoy the most expensive non-powered armor money can buy, Forge World lasers and shotguns, and even a few Inferno Pistols, while the Fathon population can’t even support a Guard contingent, much less Stormtroopers.  However, regardless of the world on which they were raised, all Cloudburst regiments incorporate anti-invasion tactics into their standard training doctrine as a matter of course.  The Glasians do not care about human politics or standards of living.  They care only for conquest, and their precious Passage.

The archetypal Imperial Guard regiments of the sector base their patterns and their rank systems on that of the Septiim system, itself based on the pre-Unification Terran system of Albiona and Britanne.  Worlds that can’t afford Septiim-level deployments may make do by removing the battalion from the command structure, and scaling down its force organization appropriately (battalions become regiments, Divisions become Brigades, etc).  Common to all organizations of the Cloudburst Guard are special formations designed by the sector’s Officio Munitorum commanders, as ordained by the Adeptus Terra on Cloudburst itself.  The formations consist of officers empowered to act on the sector’s behalf in command or even battle, usually holding the rank of Brigadier General.  They tend to lead large ‘honor guards’ of hundreds of men and machines, sometimes the strength of several platoons, anf fly about in reconditioned freight carriers or troopships, taking command of Imperial forces that lack an appropriately ranked leader.  Officially, these miniature command elements are called ‘Emergency Command Asset Forces,’ or ECAFs.  The troops over whom they tend to command, often without warning, call them glory stars, if not something less polite.

The Cloudburst Guard had seen ample action prior to the Glasian Migrations.  The nearby Cloudburst Circuit and Oldlight Exo-zone ensure ample opportunities for local Guard forces to travel into the darkness and fight for the Imperium.  The nobility and PDF of many worlds in the northern Cloudburst and southern Circuit descend from the Guard recruited or pressed into serving in the retinues of Rogue Traders.

Like many of the martial forces of the Sector, the local Guard specialize in the use of specific weapons.  Unlike the Space Marines, Sororitas, or Titans of the Cloudburst Sector, however, individual worlds in the Sector choose which weapons to focus on.  Clegran Hunters, for instance, like to use plasma and Hotshot weapons, while Septiim regiments prefer bolters.  This specialization ultimately stems in part from tradition, and in part from the real logistical concerns that once held back the production of more diverse arms on Cognomen.

Ultimately, whether their command stems from locally-appointed officers or an ECAF taking command in the face of an invasion, the forces of the Cloudburst Guard have one task that supercedes all others, at least for now.  The forces of the Cloudburst Guard must keep the Glasians from conquering a world.  The one time the Glasians were allowed to take a world, Chlorit, they destroyed it, preventing anybody from recolonizing it, including themselves.  Imperial Segmentum Command is aware that the preservation of the Cloudburst Sector, though valuable, is not paramount to the survival of the greater Imperium, and is prepared to evacuate the region if needed.  Local Imperial Commanders staunchly refuse to consider the possibility.  They insist, in the face of a crumbling Imperium and a darkening galaxy, that Cloudburst can hold the line.  Against the Ork, against fleets of desperate pirates, against Glasians, and the dread claws of the Lord of Change himself, they insist, Cloudburst will hold the line.  Time alone can tell if this is true.

Organization and Ranks
Organization
Conventional Septiimi Force Allotment
Unit name	Typical Conventional Numbers	Typical Specialist Numbers	Typical commander
Fireteam	5 (4 PVT, 1 CPL)	x	Corporal
Squad	10 (preceedingx2)	x	Sergeant
Platoon	55 (preceedingx5 + cmd sqd)	1-6	First Lieutenant
Company	226 (preceedingx4 + cmd sqd)	25	Captain
Battalion	910 (preceedingx4 + cmd sqd)	100	Lieutenant Colonel
Regiment	9200 (preceedingx10 + cmd cpn)	1000	Colonel
Brigade	27620 (preceedingx3 + cmd team)	3000	Brigadier General
Division	110510 (preceedingx4 + cmd team)	12000	Major General
Corps	221040 (preceedingx2 + cmd team)	24000	Lieutenant General
Army	665150 (preceedingx3 + cmd team)	72000	General
Army group	1326320 (preceedingx2 + cmd team)*	144000	Lord General

Stormtrooper Septiimi Force Allotment
Unit name	Typical Trooper/Scion Numbers	Typical commander
Fireteam	4	First Sergeant
Squad	9	Lieutenant/Tempest Prime
Platoon	37	Captain
Company	150	Major/Master Tempestor
Battalion	752	Lieutenant Colonel
Regiment	1510	Colonel
Brigade	4540*	Brigadier General

*Never raised, maintained as a theoretical



Ranks
Terrestrial	Astralnautic	Space Marine Voidship Crew	Pay Grade
Lord General	Lord Admiral	-	O10
General	Admiral	-	O9
Lieutenant General	Vice Admiral	-	O8
Major General	Rear Admiral	-	O7
Brigadier General	Commodore	Fleetmaster	O6
Colonel	Captain/Senior Commander*	Shipmaster	O5
Lieutenant Colonel	Commander	Shipsmate	O4
Major	Lieutenant Commander	Crew Mate	O3
Captain	Senior Lieutenant	-	O2
Lieutenant	Lieutenant	High Rate	O1
Chief Warrant Officer	Chief Warrant Officer	-	C2
Warrant Officer	Warrant Officer	-	C1
Master Sergeant	Voidmaster	-	E7
First Sergeant	Chief Petty Officer	Voidknife	E6
Sergeant	Petty Officer	-	E5
Corporal	Junior Petty Officer	Voidcrew	E4
Lance Corporal	Senior Voidsman	Senior Voidsman	E3
Private First Class	Voidsman	Voidsman	E2
Private	Junior Voidsman	Junior Voidsman	E1
* The rank of Captain in the Astralnautic forces is reserved for the seniormost officer of a ship



Institutions


Within the greater Cloudburst Sector, however, the Imperial Adeptus are hard at work.  As a zone of expansion for the Imperium, the Cloudburst Administratum oversees colonization efforts and tithe efforts in a large and ever-changing area.  As a result, the tithe and psyker collection ships they administrate need additions at all times.  This, combined with the recent increase in needs among the military forces of the Sector, puts intense strain on the shipbuilding capabilities of the Sector.

It is in the Cloudburst Circuit that the Imperial Adeptus Terra loses its grip, and the more militarized forces of the Imperium pick up the slack.  Rogue Traders, Explorators, Navy patrols, the occasional Blue Daggers ship on its way to a surgical strike mission, and Merchant Privateers all cross the red-hot gasses of the Circuit on various missions.  There are technically no ‘colonies’ in the Circuit, thanks to the fact that the Cloudburst Sector expands to include all colonies that are established in the Circuit.  Since this means that the infrastructure of the Sector would have to expand to worlds far from the centers of industry and travel in Cloudburst, the Imperial-controlled worlds in the Circuit are instead referred to as ‘outposts,’ with all the lack of formal support that indicates, though some of the systems of the Circuit have been added to the Sector over the years.  Many actual outposts, such as research stations and mining nodes, benefit from little protection, and long-term postings there are considered hazard conditions at the best.

Military

Space Marines

The Blue Daggers: A Loyalist Space Marine Chapter, founded in an unnamed Founding, M41.525 from Novamarine mixed stock.  Largely Codex-compliant in general modus operandi and formation, save for their anomalous 9th and 10th companies.  The Chapter owns 63 Terminator suits, divided between Apothecaries, Chaplains, First Company Veterans, Techmarines, and Librarians.  30 Techmarines, 14 Apothecaries, 11 Librarians, 13 Chaplains, 18-man Council of Masters, 19 Dreadnoughts.  Honor Guards are of average size and gear, though they have neither psykers nor Terminators.

Company Captains never have an Honor Guard, and instead integrate their command teams directly into their Squads.  For the 2nd through 8th companies, this consists of the Company Captain, the Honored Brother-Lieutenant who seconds him, the Venerated Senior Sergeant who seconds him in turn and distributes orders to each Sergeant, the Company Champion, the Company Standard Bearer, and five troops equipped with whatever combination of combi-weapons and blades they desire. Each of these could easily have been a Sergeant in their own right in another squad.  No Master’s Honor Guard, however, is larger than six Brothers plus the man they protect, to ensure that the Chapter is not too large to maintain Codex compliance.  In practice, this is meaningless, since the Chapter is already far larger than the Codex dictates.

Among the Daggers, there are protocols that are universal, and some that are constrained to the practice of a single Company or even Squad.  The Daggers, for instance, may not, collect trophy weapons from fallen foes for their use.  The Blue Daggers practice a strict and unyielding habit of never collecting trophies in battle, under any circumstances.  Partially installed to prevent competitions between brothers, this also cuts down on the risk of a brother being tainted by Chaos.  This is also for the mollification of the Mechanicus, without whom the Daggers would be all but helpless after a costly battle.

The Daggers lack several of the traditional Master roles of the more Codex-dependent Chapters, such as a Master of Signal, Lord Victualer, and Master of the Watch.  Their tasks are delegated instead to Company Captains or to their unique Master titles.

Historically, the Blue Daggers are the byproduct of a unique Founding circumstance, one over which they had precious little control.  In M41.400, the Cloudburst Sector was abruptly attacked by a force of technologically powerful, extragalactic aliens, known only by the common phrase found in their cogitators: Glasians.  The aliens savaged three systems in the sector without mercy, hesitation, or clear objectives.  Although a combined force of Novamarines, Black Templars, Deathwatch, and Imperial Navy forces successfully drove off the monsters and blew up their massive flagship, Cloudburst was left reeling.  The presence of this race of dangerous aliens had no precedent, and worse yet, the aliens were obviously tainted by Chaos somehow, without exception.
An emergency conclave of the Ordos Malleus and Xenos on the mighty Watch Fortress Pykman was held.  After much deliberation, multiple consultations of the Tarot, and extensive testimony from the Adeptus Mechanicus, an agreement coalesced.  A force of one hundred twenty Novamarines and Angels of Fury from nearby sectors would remain in the Cloudburst Sector to defend it from further incursion.  Led by brilliant tactician Brother-Lieutenant Augustus Alderoster, this force of Primogenitors would be withdrawn in one hundred years if no sign of more Glasians emerged.  The detachment was officially dubbed Exigent Task Unit Cloudburst, and settled into the Septiim system under strict Inquisitorial observation.  The Task Unit formally began their mission in M41.425.
The force of Successors worked tirelessly to fortify a base on an abandoned Mechanicus asteroid mine, and dug in.  Periodically, members of the detachment joined the Deathwatch to hone their skills, and the Brothers harvested their own geneseed as all Marines do.
After seventy-five years of total inaction by either the Glasians or their dark patron in the sector, the Inquisition was growing impatient.  Though the Task Unit had stayed flawlessly loyal and vigilant, and had collected their own geneseeds with commendable punctuality (actually sending some back to Honorium when the Chapter needed it to replace the missing company), the Task Unit had effectively nothing to do.
The Inquisition’s Ordo Xenos was debating with the Ordo Malleus in the Conclave Cloudburst about shortening their mission when the panicked Astropathic signals arrived.  Four systems were under siege this time, by more Glasians than before.  The Inquisition scrambled its assets, aided by the Basilikon Astra and Navy.  This time, to their horror, they faced three huge colony ships, and one even larger one that seemed to command the others.  The Daggers’ asteroid base was destroyed along with ten Marines when the larger colony ship attacked them directly.  The Septiim system was besieged for almost a year, while the agri-world of Chlorit was destroyed by the activation of a Glasian FTL drive.
When the aliens were finally beaten at a staggering cost to the sector, the stark truth came clear: the invasion had occurred precisely one hundred years after the first, and had been ten percent larger than the previous.  Their forces had been more widely spread, but the sequential increase was impossible to miss.  Consultations of the Tarot and careful psy-autopsies of Glasian leaders pointed to the same result: the sector was being used as a test bed by the wicked Tzeentch.
The Ordo Malleus and Ordo Xenos debated for years.  Barely-civil arguments over jurisdiction, policy, and Imperial survival raged for months at a time in the subterranean audience halls of the Cloudburst Palace.  Finally, in M41.429, a decision was tentatively reached.  The Lord Inquisitor Cloudburst at the time, a nearly five hundred year old psychic of the Ordo Hereticus, signed and manhandled the other Ordos into signing a binding Conclave Assent to treat the alien incursions as the jurisdiction of the Ordo Xenos.  He added a caveat that jurisdiction over repelling the beasts would default to the Ordo Malleus if anything changed in the circumstances of the invasions, formally titled the Glasian Migrations.
Meanwhile, the Novamarines were confronted with a new problem.  While a great, bloody victory over millions of evil aliens was, obviously, a triumph for the ancient Chapter, they could hardly be expected to hold an indefinite depletion of one tenth of their ranks.  Furthermore, Cloudburst was not secure by any means, they pointed out to their Inquisitorial allies.  Honorium was not in Cloudburst; the Chapter had no formal ties there.  Moreover, Rogue Traders and Explorators were constantly finding new threats, treasures, and colony opportunities in the Cloudburst Circuit – who was to say that only the Glasians and Free Corsair Collective would threaten Cloudburst in the future?
When the Lord Inquisitor Cloudburst heard these arguments, inspiration struck.  After some more consultation with the Novamarines and Angels of Fury, he declared that the detachment of Successors in Cloudburst would be established as the core of a completely new Chapter.  This Special Exceptions Founding, one with no number, would formally establish the Exigent Task Unit Cloudburst as a true, equal Chapter of Space Marines.  They would be headquartered in the only system the Glasians had hit twice: Septiim.
Surprised by the generosity and prestige of this pronouncement, but delighted at the chance, the Novamarines and Angels of Fury accepted at once, and began the logistical processes of giving a tenth of their fleet and equipment to their kin.  The newly minted Blue Daggers put down roots in another, far larger asteroid base, one with room for thousands of Marines and thousands more support personnel and serfs.  Declaring the pre-Apostasy Battle Barge Sharp Edge their new command ship, and formally elevating Alderoster to Chapter Master, the Blue Daggers took back the hundreds of geneseeds they had sent the Novamarines and began rapidly expanding their ranks.
Since then, there have been new invasions of Glasians in M41.600, 700, 800, and 900.  Each is a cumulative 10% larger than the previous, and each time, the Daggers have smote them into the ground, alongside their allies in other branches of the Imperium.  Had things continued to improve for the rest of the galaxy, the Daggers may well have outlasted the Glasians.
Things have not improved for the rest of the galaxy.
Between the arrival of the Tyranids, the Necron Reawakening, the start of hundreds of catastrophic Waaaghs, heresies and rebellions unnumbered, Hrud migrations, and the explosive expansion of the Dark Eldar, the Imperium is now so strained that barely any help can be spared for Cloudburst.  Thousands of other Crusades and Wars of Faith or Reclamation drain the Imperium’s coffers and garrisons.  The stirrings of Abbadon the Despoiler in the depths of the Eye are not helping, nor is the shrinking area of the Astronomican.
The Daggers do not yet stand alone, but that may change.  The Age of Ending is upon mankind.

Senior Members: (N) designates Novamarine membership
Chapter Master – Lord Ranult Arden (N)
This ancient veteran of the Novamarines was chosen to lead the Blue Daggers because of his exceptional defensive combat and diplomatic skills; never have those skills been more favored by the Space Marines than in the defense of the Imperium in this decaying era.  His even temper and exceptional marksmanship have served the Imperium well.  He regards the human soldiers of Septiim as a useful asset, given their numbers, but he holds them in no special place in his view of the Imperium, and he is more likely to trust his brothers than mere mortals.  Perhaps unusually, he has never attempted to gain Terminator honors.  He long ago served in the Deathwatch for a total of twelve years.
Wargear:  Combi-conflagrator/auto pistol, power bastard, krak grenade belt, combat knife, Combat shield, artificer Mk IV armor (no Terminator).

Chapter Champion – Cesper Clerc
Clerc is the oldest Marine in the chapter who was not a member of the Novamarines.  Having been inducted in the first batch of the Daggers, and having served with distinction ever since, Clerc is an unrivaled master of the glaive and other polearms, which he uses with utterly terrifying speed.  He is prone to being rather silent and moody, but in battle, this serves as a source of fear for his enemies and relief for his allies, who know that it represents his absolute focus.
Wargear:  Reach of Terra (unique master-crafted Power glaive), two bolt pistols, chainsword, monomolecular stiletto, smoke grenade, artificer armor, medkit.

Master of the Armory – Lord Techmarine Doreth
Doreth was inducted in the ‘class’ after Clerc, and is one of his few friends.  The ancient Techmarine is a warrior of some great skill, but he earned his place among the Masters through exceptional and profound connection with the Machine God.  His irrefutable bond with machines and respect for the institutions of the Mechanicus and Munitorum alike make him an ideal representative of the Armory, since the artifacts within include some technotheologic items the Mechanicus would quite openly like to possess.
Wargear:  Multimelta, six frag grenades, flare gun, combat knife, servo-harness, master-crafted bolt pistol, Teleport Homer, Cataphractii Terminator Armor.

Master of Sanctity – Lord Chaplain Etienne Dunvraith
Dunvraith is a cold and frightening speaker of the God-Emperor’s word and a specter of retribution and pain for his enemies.  He has not even a moment’s concern for his appearance, which makes him even more terrifying.  He leaves his armor painted space-black at all times, save for the marks of the Chaplaincy on his pauldrons.  He uses an unusual weapon, as befits his Chapter’s Novamarine heritage: a two-handed Power Stave, which has a Crozius Arcanum’s force field built in.  In an emergency, it can be connected to his Mark 8 armor’s backpack generator for an extra surge of power, which makes it powerful enough to resist even graviton and radioactive weapons.  He does carry a bolt pistol, which he never uses except for simple target practice, or to dispatch snipers.
Wargear: Power Stave Arcanum, bolt pistol, mark eight armor, skull mask.

Master of Veterans – Venerated Senior Sergeant Porter Chandline
The role of the Master of Veterans is an odd one.  Appointed by the Company Captain of the First Company, this is the highest-ranked member of the Battle Brothers, Vehicle Crews, and Recruiters who is not actually a commissioned officer.  Invariably given Terminator Honors and usually drawn from the Command Squad of the 1st, the role is that of an advisor to the Chapter Master, and serves as one of those authorized to declare martial law for the system if the Glasians are sighted.  Chandline is the second to serve in the post, and has a spotless record of service in the Imperium.  His skills with a Stalker Bolter are such that, after a glorious century of service in the 6th, he served briefly as the second-in-command of the 10th company before being promoted directly to the 1st.  He is staid, calm, pleasant, and surprisingly pious for a Marine.
Wargear: Storm Bolter, Stalker bolter, bolt pistol, power sword, combat knife, three frag grenades, Combat shield, Tartaros Terminator armor.

Master of the Ships – Lord Gwinnet Eiger
Gwinnet Eiger is a cold-blooded bastard, with a cruel side that the Navy does not appreciate.  The acerbic and hard-willed old warrior is redeemed somewhat by his ability to picture object movement in three dimensions, an invaluable ability in a space commander.  Eiger is sharp and focused, and demands the highest possible level of discipline from his crews.  Eiger is technically the third in command of the Blue Daggers, and has been present for every campaign the Daggers have ever waged at Company level or higher, thus making him the most experienced member of the Chapter by total combat hours.
Wargear: Chain of Albrinter (unique force field projector, half the strength of that which an IG Chaplain might carry), Kraken-loaded bolter, bolt pistol, combat knife, mark seven armor.

Master of the Ancients – Percival Langhard
Another unique position in the Daggers’ hierarchy, the Master of Ancients is responsible for the maintenance and care of the Dreadnoughts and their occupants, but is also the unofficial liaison between the Daggers and the rest of the Munitorum if the Chapter Master himself isn’t present to perform the function personally.  Langhard is a dour and sharp fellow, and he carries himself with a dignity and poise that lends itself well to his somber and depressing duty.
Wargear: Heavy bolter, twin combat knives, five frag grenades, plasma pistol, mark four armor.

Master of the Librarius – Lord Tolleair Covum (N)
The only other living member of the chapter outside the Dreadnoughts who was a member of the Novamarines before joining the Daggers, Covum is a psyker of horrifying power.  His extensive service in the Deathwatch – more than any member of the Chapter save the Second Company Captain, at present – has made him quite self-reliant, and given the relative lack of Librarians in the Septiim system, he spends much of his time in meditation, divining the Emperor’s will and preparing his own psychic powers.  He is a friend and confidant of the other Novamarine Dagger and Dreadnoughts, and he is always keeping an eye out for any promising psykers in the Scholam Progenia in the system.  His Psychic Hood is a non-replicable wonder of the Dark Age, far eclipsing even those of the Grey Knights.
Wargear: Dark Age of Technology-era Psychic Hood, plasma pistol, two frag grenades, force stave, power fist, artificer armor.

Master of the Tech Brotherhood – Peter Alling-Durant
Officially, all Techmarines, including the Armory and Vault leaders, serve Alling-Durant, but in practice, he only rarely feels the need to exert his influence over the outlier branches of his Brotherhood.  Thanks to the Daggers’ (and Novamarines’) tight relations with the Mechanicus, his brothers are well trained and well equipped, though nothing on the scale of the First Founding chapters, of course.  His large and loyal Brotherhood is always ready to expand and improve the might of the Septiimi orbital stations.  He is so automated, there is barely any flesh left in him; so little, in fact, that he does not have enough flesh to inter in a Dreadnought should the unfortunate need arise.  He has also been unable to convince the Martians to either give him the plans to make Iron Halos or simply start producing them for the Chapter, which irritates him somewhat.
Wargear: Artificer armor, servo-harness, conversion beamer, auspex, combat shield, two frag grenades, two krak grenades, two smoke grenades, master-crafted melta, combat blade.

Master of the Scouts – Lionel Dwerhardt
This gifted sharpshooter and logistician is tasked with controlling, training, and evaluating the huge Scout company.  The Daggers have extra scouts because the simple size of the sector with which they are tasked in protection would otherwise tax their resources beyond any hope of balance when the Glasians arrive.  This, coupled with the Chapter’s sadly high casualty rate during the alien attacks, requires a larger pool of potential Brothers than the average Chapter needs.  Dwerhardt, whose name means ‘stout courage’ in Archaeoterran, fits the role to a tee, with the combination of stealth combat skill, logistical talent, and keen people senses that he needs to keep the youths of his Chapter alive and well-supplied.
Wargear – Stalker bolter with custom scope, recoil suppressor, and anti-armor bolts, plasma pistol, bolt pistol, master-crafted power axe, and seven krak grenades, custom carapace armor for infiltrations, mark seven armor for other duties.

Master of Arms – Gallus Forrent
This intimidating slab of muscle and scar tissue is the unrivaled hand-to-hand combat master of the Blue Daggers, and even Arden would hesitate to fight him at that range.  He is loud, raucous, violent, and shockingly strong, but no less deadly for it.  He had served in the 3rd for decades before his promotion.  Under those circumstances when a Company Captain is unavailable to recommend specific weapons to specific units for a task, all ears turn to Forrent.  Forrent served in the Deathwatch for one Vigil of six months, hunting genestealers, before returning to his Chapter.
Wargear – Mark six Corvus armor, power sword, gladius, combat knife, molecular stiletto, punch shield, two frag grenades, plasma pistol.

Master of the Reserves – Moand
This stoic, pious, and placid old soldier is tasked with the thankless and disheartening role of sending the unusually-constituted reserve companies of the Daggers wherever they are needed to combat the alien.  His companies are non-Codex compliant simply because the Glasians do not always disperse their forces to the most strategically advantageous locations for either side, and thus are hard to predict.  The reserves need to function as an entire army, without the specialization that most Chapters employ.  Moand is one of the rare Astartes whose memory of their life before induction into the Marines left him completely; his earliest remaining memory is looking up at an Apothecary after receiving a bone ossifying injection.  Oddly, his speaking skills are completely intact, and his favorite means of spending what tiny amounts of spare time he has is working in the forges with the Tech brothers, tinkering with his impressive personal weapons; an act that is as much prayer to the Emperor and Machine God as it is pragmatic preparation.  This is a relic of his time in the Deathwatch, during which he served under a Salamander Fire Drake Sergeant who did the same thing.
Wargear: Artificer armor, combi-storm bolter/plasma, bolt pistol, eight frag grenades, liquid nitrogen grenade, master-crafted chainsword.

Master of the Devastators – Norman Carache
The Master of the Devastators serves a similar role as the Masters of the Scouts and other specialized assets in the Chapter.  Norman Carache dispatches his men in groups of twenty, and his extra-sized company serves as emergency reinforcements for any world in the sector that the Navy doesn’t manage to protect from the xenos.  The final twenty-five men in the company serve as the armored fist of the Daggers, striking from the Techmarine Brotherhood’s pool of transports under Whirlwind artillery cover, using their massive weapons to destroy the heavy equipment at Glasian landing sites.  Carache was an immigrant from Terra itself as a child, and his throneworld heritage has been nothing but an impediment to his position in the Chapter.  The neophytes and initiates expect him to walk on water, while the older Marines regard him as something of a nepotist, though of course neither charge is true.  He is simply haughty, an in-born trait that all the hypnoconditioning and training in the galaxy can’t erase.  He is as accurate with his heavy bolter as some of his men are with Stalkers and Ultimas, which is some consolation to those who serve under him.
Wargear: Mark four armor, heavy bolter, combat shield, combat knife, chainsword, four frag grenades.

Master of the Apothecarion – Embri Koell
Koell is a master battle chirurgeon, charged with maintaining the chapter’s geneseed stocks and the organs to be implanted in the warriors they induct.  In battle, he is a terrifying force of military might, clad in the Apothecarion’s single Terminator suit, with his reductor and other Apothecary equipment stored behind an adamantium shield on his left arm, and carrying enough painkillers and liquid nitrogen to care for an entire company in tanks on his back.  His personality is similar, clinical and cold, with abundant hate for the aliens who dare to harm his charges, and a hidden core of warmth that only the other Masters and senior Apothecaries ever get to see.
Wargear: Indomitus Terminator armor, combat shield, master-crafted melta, bolt pistol, chainsword, reductor kit, Narthecium (Hagen variant), one melta bomb.

Master of the Forges – Kell Trebein
The Master of the Forges is also a Techmarine, traditionally the third in command of the Brotherhood, and Kell is no exception.  Heavily augmented as a result of rather severely losing a fight against an Eldar wych some two hundred years past, he embraced the Machine, and now serves the priesthood as well as the Daggers.  The Daggers have extensive manufacturing facilities, but lack most of the Imperium’s blueprints, unlike their Novamarine progenitors, and must make do with those they possess.  However, they are on good terms with both the Inquisition and the Mechanicus, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility that more advanced designs will find their way into the Daggers’ arsenals.
Wargear: Artificer armor, servo harness, thunder hammer, storm shield, plasma pistol, frag grenade.

Master of the Recruiters – Darius laFordier
Given the sheer size of the Daggers’ jurisdiction, a steady supply of recruits is indispensable.  As such, one of the eighteen positions on the Council belongs to the Recruiter.  This Marine’s responsibilities number three: recruiting the best and brightest boys from the Septiim system, overseeing the efforts of others who do the same and weeding out the defective, and casting the tie-breaker vote on the Council if needed.  Darius is a muscular, squat, argumentative man, covered in veins and scars, and fits the description of the stereotypical Imperial Guard Drill Instructor so closely that some of his Marines mutter that he must have been one before recruitment.  A lie, of course, but he finds it profoundly amusing.
Wargear: Mark eight armor, Stalker bolter, bolt pistol, incendiary grenade, chainsword.

Master of the Gargantuan – Jeremy Haskell
Haskell is a master of warships, rivaling the Fleetmaster for sheer experience, but where the fleet strides across the void, the Gargantuan never leaves its orbit.  Its massive weapons, rocky shell, servitor complement, and many, many corridors are familiar ground for Haskell, who rarely leaves.  His responsibility during the Invasions is generally extended to the other satellites and platforms in the system, save those under the express control of other branches.  His centuries of experience show on his lined and worn face, he had gone white before a mortal man might have, but his utterly ruthless combat demeanor and total control of the mightiest weapon in the sector have done much to endear him to the Navy, SDF, and Mechanicus whose platforms he sometimes commandeers.
Wargear: Mark seven armor, combi-bolter/flamer, chainsword, auspex.

Master of the Vault – Aitrandus
Aitrandus is the last of the four Techmarines on the Council, and the youngest.  His exceptional eye for detail, even for a Techmarine, allows him to carefully inspect the truly ancient weapons and armor that are contained within the vaults of the orbital and terrestrial fortresses and bases the Daggers maintain.  Beyond the Armory, where so many of the Chapter’s precious wargear relics are stored, many of the chapter’s relics have no combat function at all.  This includes things like flags, holopicts, dataslates with uncopiable files, maps of Glasian invasion routes, and other items that are both too fragile to move much, too inert to be used in battle, and too precious to lose.  As such, Aitrandus is the Council member least likely to actually enter battle, despite his vaunted rank.  This suits him, as he finds a certain calm and reverence in his task.
Wargear: Artificer armor, twin shotgun, two bolt pistols, grenade launcher, combat blade, servo harness.


1st Company – Company Captain, 50 Elites (Standard Bearer), 50 Terminators (Champion), 1 Venerable Ironclad Dreadnought, 2 Centurions (optional), 1 Assault Centurion (optional), 4 Stormravens, 4 Bikes, 2 Attack Bikes, 4 Land Speeders, 1 Land Raider Crusader, 6 Predators, 1 Predator Annihilator, 1 Whirlwind, 6 Rhinos, 2 Razorbacks
2nd – 5th (each) 60 Tacticals, 20 Assaults (Standard Bearer, Champion), 20 Devastators, 2 Dreadnoughts (various), 6 Bikes, 1 Attack Bike, 2 Stormravens, 4 Land Speeders, 1 Land Raider (various), 1 Land Raider Terminus Ultra
6th -8th (each) 60 Tacticals, 20 Assaults (Standard Bearer, Champion), 20 Devastators, 2 Dreadnoughts (various), 6 Bikes, 1 Attack Bike, 2 Stormravens, 4 Land Speeders, 1 Land Raider (various), 6 Whirlwinds, 6 Razorbacks
9th 125 Devastators (Standard Bearer, Champion)
10th 175 Scouts

Motor Pool – 40 Predators (various), 7 Land Raiders (various), 30 Land Speeders (various), 60 Rhinos (various), 4 Hunters, 8 Stalkers, 20 Whirlwinds, 2 Centurions, 15 Vindicators, 3 Vindicator Laser Destroyers, 1 Centaur, 2 Attack Bikes, 6 Bikes, 12 Rapiers, 187 Tarantulas.  All 9th and 10th company units draw their vehicles from the pool, with no assigned units.

Aerospace Force – 109 Thunderhawks (various), 1 Stormbird (5 twin-linked lascannons, 3 twin-linked heavy bolters, 6 Dreadstrike missiles), 12 Stormravens, 12 Fire Raptors, 12 Storm Eagles, 18 Stormtalons

Space Fleet – 1 Battle Barge: Age of Apostasy Era (Sharp Edge), 2 Luna Cruisers, 11 Strike Cruisers, 49 Frigates, destroyers, and escort carriers, 2 Viper Scouts, Gargantuan, 1 cutter
The Daggers are expanding their fleet as quickly as their shipyards will allow them, and recruiting heavily from the populations of worlds they protect.  Their fleet is the proportionally fastest-expanding part of their force strength, and this has saved them in the past.  Had their fleet consisted of the single Battle Barge and trio of frigates with which they had started their defense of Septiim, they would have been destroyed four times over.

Disposition – The Daggers generally do not actually place members of their Council of Masters in Company Captaincies, allowing each Company to have its own Captain, with the Master serving above him.  Though this lengthens the chain of command, it serves the widely-dispersed Chapter well, since the odds of an entire company being assembled in one place are quite low.  Further, the Master can always have a competent and loyal Captain assume command of the company in battle if it is divided across multiple battlefields, alleviating the difficulties through distributed command.  Thus, the Master of Scouts is not the 10th company Captain, nor is the Chapter Master the Captain of the 1st.  Other Ultramarine Primogenitors have been heard to mutter that this is a way the Chapter seeks to defy the Codex, though in reality, it is simply an unfortunate side-effect of the Chapter’s unique and unpleasant role in the galaxy.
In terms of behavior and conduct, the Daggers are very much the scions of the Novamarines from which their Geneseed came originally.  They conduct themselves amongst the commoners with distant politeness and are permissive of the Imperial Cult, but ultimately do not seek human company or interaction beyond what is needed.
The Chapter theoretically allows its Vehicle Crewer Marines to not count towards the allotment of Battle Brothers in a Company, but the leadership of the Chapter knows full well that if that were allowed in any significant number, they would be well over the permissible maximum size of a Codex chapter.  Thus, this privilege is extended solely to the crews of the Stormbird and Land Raiders of the Chapter, as those are considered the most Sanctified Armaments of the Chapter.  The dedicated Motor Pool of the Chapter is also crewed exclusively by Serfs, save when they are substituted out by a Marine temporarily, for the purpose of improving performance.
The chapter interacts well with the Deathwatch, and contributes Marines when asked.  The Daggers do have one notable oddity in their interactions with the Chamber Militant, however.  When a line battle company member of the Chapter joins the Deathwatch to take their Long Vigil, they are replaced in their home unit.  Vehicle Crewers are sometimes also subject to this.  On rare occasions, Chaplains and Apothecaries are also subject to this, though the Deathwatch usually chooses not to select such individuals.  If a Marine returns alive, they reintegrated into their old post alongside its new incumbent.  If said post is a command position, and therefore cannot be shared, the returning individual and the incumbent decide who shall hold the position, with the other joining one of the Honor Guards of the Council.  Chapter tradition dictates this procedure be carried out, not only because Deathwatch service is often fatal, but also because the Daggers simply cannot afford to be understrength when the Glasians arrive.  Given that those who serve the Vigil are not informed how long their service will last, it has become a necessary precaution.
The Daggers also serve alongside Rogue Traders when asked to do so by a higher authority, such as the Lord Sector Cloudburst, though only as advisors, thus far.  Blue Dagger squads or demi-companies often accompany Traders and Explorators into the Cloudburst Circuit to put down alien pocket kingdoms.

Combat Dogma – The Blue Daggers are generalists in training, and the relatively new armor and ships at their disposal somewhat limit their overall potency.  As the Imperium decays, the technological abilities of the Forge Worlds that equip the Space Marines decay as well.  Most Blue Dagger equipment is designed for maximum durability rather than raw power, and this affects their combat style.  Individual Daggers are just as tough and capable as any other Astartes, of course.
In combat, Daggers tend not to operate in groups smaller than three at the fewest, whenever possible.  Rarely, Marines will serve singly for reconnoitering or spotting, but the Daggers avoid sending their Marines off by themselves.  Some of the Septiimi love for rapid-fire weapons has made its way into the Daggers’ preferences, which lends itself to Blue Dagger vehicles mounting as many extra weapons on their hardpoints as possible.  Relatively few Space Marine vehicles have this option, however, compared to those of the Guard.
The Blue Daggers have few Librarians among them, and an abundance of Techmarines.  This can manifest in a preference for artillery and combined-forces attacks over reliance on psychic power, but the Daggers are not adverse to Librarian support for their Battle Brothers.  Likewise, the large number of Chaplains and Techmarines means that the Chapter can usually rely on spiritual or technological support against its Warp-infused foes.

The fact that the Chapter can barely equip half of its First Company Veterans with Terminator armor somewhat limits its ability to enact Space Hulk boarding actions, or confront the very largest of Tyranid or Necron foes.  The Daggers make up for the lack of Terminator armor by outfitting their First Company with as much in the way of specialized ammunition as they can use.  The presence of Vengeance, Kraken, Dragonfire, Flux, and Metal Storm bolts issued to their Veterans is standard.  Techmarines of the Chapter have less common access to ancient and potent technologies than their forbearers have, and often equip their Servo-harnesses with simpler weapons – the Chapter has but one Conversion Beamer and three Infernus pistols total.  As partial compensation for the lack of diversity of arms among the Battle Brothers, the Daggers make common use of Combi-attachments.  Meltas and grenade launchers are popular for their flexibility, but the most coveted are Combi-Gravs, as useful in boarding actions as they are in infantry battles.

Though the Daggers are used to working alongside other forces of the Imperium, they do not rely on that being so.  Having an unexpected flight of friendly Avengers swoop down on the ranks of advancing aliens may be a welcome tactical opportunity and a pleasant sight, but the Daggers would only have dispatched their troops to fight those alien ranks if they had had some confidence that they could have won without the airstrike.  Their relative lack of artillery and excess of Techmarines and Land Raiders means that the Daggers are well equipped to perform infantry advances, but not always under the best of cover fire.  The Forge Moon of Solstice is working hard to ensure the Daggers are properly equipped, but the Daggers also have the forges of the Gargantuan to use.  Eventually, the Daggers may tire of relying on the Martians to supply them, and take matters into their own hands.

Combat dogma for the Daggers emphasizes mass suppression only when they have assembled the numbers for it.  Lacking the scale of force of the Legions of old, the Daggers use groups of camouflaged Scouts and Devastators to provide cover fire and recon, then push their armor and infantry through the targets they need to engage, then leave as quickly as they came.  Since the Glasians have little discernable hierarchy and are both mobile and individually fragile, the precision insertion and assassination tactics of the Raptors or the Raven Guard are simply not as useful against them as they would be against Orks or Eldar.  Instead, the Daggers frequently make use of a mixture of old Legion-style tactics and more modern Speartip tactics.  They may employ a light artillery barrage to slow or scatter an enemy formation, lay down fire from Devastators and Scouts, then drive armored transports into fresh gaps in enemy lines to deliver Tactical Marines straight into the fight.  Alternately, the Chapter’s abundant Scouts and Devastators may shoot their way into the deepest, most solid cover available; then, when the enemy has encircled them, call in teleporting Terminators or a wave of Assault Marines.

In normal engagements against Glasians – inasmuch as anything about them is normal – the Daggers prefer anti-wave tactics.  They will equip their squads with as many anti-tank weapons as they can, then split up into individual squads and move to solid cover.  When the Glasians arrive, the Daggers begin picking off vehicles as quickly as possible, while those equipped with flamers and grenade launchers will keep any disembarked infantry at bay.  Mobility is therefore often sacrificed for cover, though the large number of Rhinos and Land Raiders in the motor pool ensure that it is never sacrificed entirely.  Additionally, the Daggers employ their respectable aerospace forces to provide saturation cover for their forces on the ground.  They focus on breaking up formations on the ground and shooting down transports with long-range weapons, as well as providing cover for disembarking Marines.  The Daggers also practice boarding tactics, since that is an integral part of their anti-Glasian operational methodology.

Captains:
1 Richtein
2 Savoir
3 Aresian
4 Trennat
5 Coleman
6 Bergeron
7 Simard
8 Drunoch
9 Levesque
10 Blanc


Deathwatch

The Deathwatch are recent guests of the Cloudburst Sector.  The Sector had suffered relatively few alien invasions in the time between its founding and the middle M41 era.  However, after the invasion of the Glasians and the discovery of their evil patron, the Inquisition sprang into action.  After the second, even worse Migration, the Deathwatch answered the Ordo Xenos’ call to expand into the region.  Some in the ancient order of Xenohunters did not agree with the necessity, given the preponderance of local Deathwatch assets in the northern Ultima region, but the Ordo Xenos insisted on the pressing need outweighing logistical costs.  The great Forge Yards of Fabique reconditioned a Ramilies star fort to serve as the headquarters of the local Deathwatch, while Cognomen crafting berths constructed the smaller Watch Stations.
The Deathwatch in Cloudburst rely on good relations with their member Chapters and with the Blue Daggers to accomplish anything.  Distinctly undergunned compared to older Vigils like Jericho or Pykman, but as fully staffed, Dascomb provides coverage against alien incursions and subversions as far away as the Oldlight Exo-zone and the border of the Drumnos Voids, and even as far as the Pox Cluster in Naxos.  The Blue Daggers are enthusiastic proponents of Deathwatch operations in the Sector, for the most part.  The fact that the Deathwatch are allowed to deploy Exterminatus in their own backyard can put a damper on relations at times, but the Deathwatch is, if anything, even more stingy with this power than the Ordos, and has not deployed their terrible weapons yet.
In the halls of the Watch structures of the Deathwatch, the Watch Commander of Cloudburst and Master of the Vigil – long fused into a single position by tradition in this remote Sector – carefully observes Cloudburst for signs of the alien.  As is so often the case, the incursions of the galaxy’s most pernicious parasites, the Ork, and previous masters, the Eldar, cause routine headaches for the Imperium in the sector.  Other, local enemies, like the Tendrilites or the skin-scrawling horror of the Ghald Mountains, rarely extend their threat past their own world.  The true foe of Cloudburst Sector, the evil Glasians, are a problem the Deathwatch understands better than anybody, except the Daggers themselves.  Blue Daggers serve in the Deathwatch constantly, with as many as twelve Brothers and half that number of specialists deployed on their Vigil at any given time.  Even the Chapter’s glorious founder, Augustus Alderoster, served for seven years in the black armor of the Watch.  The present Chapter Master, Lord Ranult Arden, served as well, as as have two Company Captains.

One tradition unique to the Deathwatch of Cloudburst is their helm decorations.  The ceremonial but combat-usable masks and visors that the Keepers of the Cloudburst Deathwatch wear receive ritual embossings on the metal covers that fit over their normal facial features.  The masks themselves are a common pattern of helmet upgrade among Space Marines, frequently worn by Honor Guards and Techmarines.  The images inscribed on those of the Keepers, however, are unique.  The five Segmentae are represented by images of bird beaks and eyes.  Solar is represented by stylized eagles, Ultima by hawks, Pacificus an owl, Tempestus a falcon, and Obscurus by the vulture.  Marines drawn from those Segmentae have the images of those animals embossed on their masks, which they are allowed to keep after completing their service (though Keepers rarely leave the Deatchwatch).
Another tradition of the local Deathwatch is to make each Watch Structure, from mighty Dascomb to tiny Octa, specialize in some way.  Dascomb, for instance, has its huge ship hull classification library.  Vault keeps records of Inquisitorial communications that concern the hunt for aliens.  Earthquake has extensive records of Feral Ork development pathways, and Octa keeps records of the frequencies on which the dead aliens of its host world communicated at range.  This trait is hardly unique to Cloudburst, of course; the entire concept of the Deathwatch is that they will keep in memory the secrets of dread xenos to ease the cost of their defeat if ever they return.  Ever since the rampage of The Beast and his Slaughter of the stars, the Deathwatch have maintained records and tactics of aliens that would burn Mankind from the stars if they had the chance.  In Cloudburst, however, thanks to the fact that the Deathwatch can go decades without significant challenge from migrating Glasians, the Deathwatch has the time to perform records-keeping and research most busier Vigils could not, such as the perennially overworked Excalibris and Erioch.
This is not to say the Deathwatch of Cloudburst are idle.  That would be a disservice to the Vigilant.  Instead, the Deathwatch of Cloudburst aggressively seek out hidden knowledge of the alien when they are not partaking of the desperate scramble to shield the sector from its avian attackers.  Orks, Eldar, Tendrilites, Rak’gol, Kroot, Vespid: there are no races the Cloudburst Deathwatch does not seek to capture for study and dissection.  Of course, finding an Eldar or Ork willing to be taken alive is a challenge in the sparse and lightly inhabited Cloudburst.

Unlike the Blue Daggers, the Deathwatch of Cloudburst does not seek to constantly expand their fleet.  A large battlefleet would defeat the purpose of the Deathwatch, in the minds of the Cloudburst Inquisition.  The Deathwatch is to be a precise and unstoppable small-unit strike force, able to insert a team quietly, exert shattering force, and disappear.  Instead, the Deathwatch of Dascomb focus their shipbuilding assets on upgrading and maintaining their existing forces to the highest possible standard.  They do not allow their fleet of Thunderhawks and precious Blackstars to leave their bays with a single bolt untightened or cable out of place.  Their shuttles and gunships bristle with weapons, and their small collection of Strike Cruisers are built to a standard of manufacture so high, Saturnyne Grand Yards could scarcely do better.  In addition, the Deathwatch of Watch Fortress Dascomb maintain a small fleet of heavy escorts, mostly Destroyers and Frigates, as well as three Kill-ships.  For emergency trips out into the Cloudburst Circuit, which is somewhat beyond the single-flight capacity of a Strike or Rapid Strike Cruiser, the fleet also maintains an Inquisitorial Longstrike ship, though it is only employed in the direst of circumstances.  This is not to say that the Cloudburst Deathwatch isn’t seeking more ships, they simply prioritize maintaining what they have.

The composition of the Dascomb detachment of Marines is as flexible as any other Fortress’ would be.  There are those Marines there for a short Vigil, those there on longer tasks, and those who joined and feel no compulsion to leave.  One constant is the presence of a ten-Marine squad of the neighboring Celestial Knights.  This chapter of Dark Angel Successors has been present in the north of Ultima for thousands of years, and have contributed at least ten Marines to Dascomb’s Vigil continuously since M41.545.  Although the Knights are considered a provocative presence by many Deathwatch veterans for their unconventional ‘recollection’ of the Primarchs, their presence is still welcome when the Centennial Migrations roll through.  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 Angel, Blood Angel, Iron Hands, and Salamander Vigils and Successors find this less forgivable, as their 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, 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 Migration number seven.  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 the millennial Migration.

(Silver Skulls dreadnought)

Watch Structures
The following is a listing of the named Deathwatch postings in the Cloudburst Sector and Circuit.
Name	Location
Watch Fortress Dascomb	AL4404

Watch Station Discus	Nauphry
Watch Station Vault	Maskos
Watch Station Forthright	AMH298
Watch Station Bunker	Cygnmo
Watch Station Redshield	ABX202020
Watch Station Peacekeeper	Lorelei
Watch Station Sempre	Hapster

Watch Point Gravity	Gorkypark
Watch Point Xenobreaker	Delving
Watch Point Earthquake	Oglith
Watch Point Revenge	Fathon
Watch Point Cyan	Aule Windows
Watch Point Repent	Oromet
Watch Point Hammer	Cognomen
Watch Point Ocular	YHGE723
Watch Point Praefector	AMH132
Watch Point Octa	AMH75
Watch Point Seabed	Soak

Watch Fortress Dascomb:
Primus inter pares for the Cloudburst Deathwatch, hub of the local Ordo Xenos, and a nigh-indestructible fortress of Imperial might, Dascomb lurks in the cold, dead space of AL4404 like a predator.  The huge station outguns any Glasian ship thus far encountered by a factor of two, and at its full defensive complement, could engage a full Subsector Battlefleet without difficulty.  AL4404 is a useless system, with very few planets and a cold, dim star.  Its isolation is perfect for the Deathwatch, who can use the structure as a prison without fear of escapes to surrounding systems if needed.
Watch Fortress Dascomb controls seven smaller Watch Stations and eleven Watch Points.  The Watch Stations range in scope from a planet-bound bunker on Cygnmo, there to observe the potentially alien-influenced local population and ready to enact a Sanction if needed, to the sprawling Watch Station Discus, the aptly-named Orbital Platform over Nauphry IV.  Watch Points are tiny structures, often far smaller than the ships that carry the Marines who use them there, and are generally single data-gathering arrays that watch specific alien worlds.  Friendly Imperial Commanders and local PDFs may provide data to the Inquisition along conventional means (or think they are doing so), but the Deathwatch is very much self-contained, and its missions may be enacted without immediate Inquisitorial oversight.  This is rare, but it does happen.  In emergencies, the Deathwatch in the region do have access to a single cache of Exterminatus weapons, including an Antimatter Collapser bomb from the Dark Age of Technology.

The hub of the Ordo Xenos Chamber Militant in the sector, the mighty Watch Fortress Dascomb, sits in a desolate and uninhabited system in the Cloudburst Sector’s trailing edge.  The fortress has a small permanent garrison of lightly-crewed Defense Monitors, but its main defenses consist of the default weapons of a Ramilies starbase, with the heaviest void shields the Inquisition could cram into it.  The Fortress is large enough to dock any ship smaller than 18 kilometers in length, and contains numerous residency wings for both Deathwatch Brothers and guests.  All systems extraneous to the goal of defending Cloudburst from aliens have long been stripped away, replaced with extra power generators, hydroponic bays, armor, and heavily shielded stasis cells.  All of this was done to harden the security of the station, against threats from without and within.
A permanent posting of the Inquisition Ordo Xenos sits beneath the main axis of the station, with its own docking clamp.  The main feature of the station, however, is in one of its wings, where the largest library of alien ship hull classifications and shield signatures in the entire Segmentum Ultima lies, staffed at all times by five Inquisitorial scribes.  This massive archive of starship configurations allows the Imperium to identify potential attackers and targets of xeno vessels, ranging from the Klirith Needles that are barely larger than a civilian car, to the colossal Planet-Killer of Abbadon, which Gothic savants eventually identified as a stolen alien vessel.  Less impressive but still valued, the Fortress’ archive of human ship profiles allows its Deathwatch Brothers and visiting Inquisitors to help identify any vessel of human build they may encounter, going back to before the Unification Wars.  The archive also includes images of non-Imperial human ships, which occasionally end up in the hands of pirates or in Space Hulks.
Dascomb’s other major asset is that it is, as noted before, not a stock Ramilies.  The internal systems for the many thousands of extra crew the platform doesn’t have were removed long ago, and replaced with power generators, capacitor and battery banks, power conduits, and transformers.  This allows Dascomb to power its overstrength shields, and achieve absurd ranges for its heavy energy weapons; perfect for fighting off aggressive aliens with a reduced crew complement.

Dascomb itself is a product of the times.  Though the station is far older than its current posting, it is presently the hub of the Ordo Xenos in the region.  Since the Ordo Xenos was given – with grudging consent from the Ordo Malleus – jurisdiction over the Glasian Migration problem, it was decided that the Inquisition needed a new hub for its vastly larger alien-suppression responsibilities.  The use of the recently-refurbished Ramilies star fortress for the Deathwatch made perfect sense.  It has far greater capacity for storage and refit than the Deatchwatch could ever need by itself, leaving plenty of room for the other Ordo Xenos assets in the Sector to stock up and perform their research.

Watch Station Discus
High in orbit over Nauphry IV, the Deathwatch waits.  The space station known to planetside stargazers as ‘Object 1532,’ local government as ‘Death-posting,’ and the SDF as ‘stay the hell away,’ is actually Watch Station Discus.  The Station is the largest offshoot of Dascomb, and was built in place over Nauphry while Fabique reconditioned Dascomb for its new role as a Deathwatch fort.  As it was purpose-built for the Deathwatch, it has none of the extraneous space or systems a reconditioned station would have.  Its interior vaults are far smaller than Dascomb’s, but its armory holds hundreds of bolters, flamers, plasma guns, and other common Astartes weapons.  Like many Deathwatch postings, Discus has a specialization, and Discus’ is energetic forensics: identifying energy weapons and their owners by the radiation or burns that they leave behind.  Over one hundred task-built Servitors work on samples brought in by Rogue Traders, Deathwatch Killbrothers, and Imperial Navy scouts, and process their results for wider dissemination.  This makes Discus one of the few Deathwatch Stations in the galaxy with routine interaction with non-Inquisitorial assets, as the results of its research are highly valuable to the Mechanicus.
Discus is a circular space station of roughly three kilometer diameter and two kilometer height, and carries cruiser-weight defense weapons and void shields.  It has no fighter complement, but it does carry a pair of Corvus Blackstars for emergency transport.  The station can dock any vessel of up to Frigate weight, and its extensive sensor baffling systems render it all but invisible in the darkness of space.  At all times, one of the five Companies of the Deathwatch in Cloudburst sorties from Discus, usually the one with the longest continual leadership.  As such, the Watch Captain assigned to Discus is usally the de facto second in command of the Cloudburst Sector.

Watch Station Vault
The structure named Watch Statino Vault is more accurately an upgunned Watch Point.  It is only barely large enough to house two Marines and a Techpriest confortably, and perhaps a servitor or two.  The structure is about as small as a long-term habitable structure can be, and occupies a high orbit over Maskos.  The Station is termed a Station and not a Point because the structure also mounts a disproportionately large cogitator and server bank, for recording all Ordo Xenos-relevant communications that pass through the system, and permanently storing them.  Obviously, there exists a philosophy among some Inqiusitors that the past should be covered up and obscured, so to prevent their own masters from tinkering with their data, Marines allow only their own and a Mechanicus curator abord the station.  Its extra size comes from its six Turbolaser Destructors, each the size of the main gun of a Thunderhawk.  Vault sometimes serves as a dipatch center for Inquisitorial assets mobilizing in Cloudburst during Migrations.

Watch Station Forthright
This station is technically not in the Sector at all, but the northerly Circuit.  At the time of building, Forthright was at the outermost edge of the Astronomican’s projection range.  Now, as the Astronomican’s range shrinks, the station is technically outside enforceable Imperial space.  However, its value for the Deathwatch has not shrunk.  The station sits on the route that Glasian ships must take to cross into the Sector, and although their technology allows them to do so in a way Mankind can’t intercept, Forthright keeps vigil for any attempt by the Glasians to attack the Circuit on their way to Septiim and beyond.
This Watch Station employs heavy void shielding and redundant radiation shields to ensure its mission is uninterrupted.  It, like Discus, has come under attack by pirates in the past, but a passing Strike Cruiser saw off the attackers before they had a chance to do any real damage.  Given how much smaller Forthright is than Discus, that is probably for the best.
Forthright is sometimes not crewed during the times between Migrations, when it is left to servitor control.  Ships still stop by every so often to download sensor data and replace worn-out servitors.

Watch Station Bunker
A name that is perhaps a bit on the nose, Bunker is a subterranean construct on the planet Cygnmo.  Crewed around the clock by at least one Kill-Brother and a team of Mechanicus Electro-Priests, this unique construct observes a mystery that the greater Imperium is not aware exists.
Cygnmo’s puzzling history of colonization by non-Imperial humans is no secret, but what the populace today does not know is that the Mechanicus found more than a Maskos machine on Cygnmo during their dig.  The Techpriest team also uncovered reics of the Eldar, unmistakably recent of construction, and made of post-Fall wraithbone.  The Techpriests found armor plating, something like a portable calculator, and a psy-active gemstone, as well as what they believed to be the remains of a Fire Prism, unscarred by battle.
Exactly what the Eldar were doing on Cygnmo, the Deathwatch has no idea, but between the possibility that the Eldar may return one day and the fact that the planet almost certainly will not survive a Migration, the Deathwatch sees fit to keep the station active.  The station hides under a natural rock formation on an island just off the coast of the largest continent of the planet, with no native human residences for eight hundred miles: perfect for privacy and defense.  In the tunnels below the solid steel roof, the Deathwatch maintain a small library, overseen by a diligent serf curator.  The library is a repository of information the Deathwatch has collected on the interactions between aliens and primitive human cultures.  Some regard the aliens as gods, others as enemies, some recognize them for what they are, and the Deathwatch seeks to understand them all.  The Deathwatch is especially concerned with the possibility that Necron Praetorians may have visited some local caemen in the past.

Watch Station Redshield
The most heavily defended of the Cloudburst Watch Stations, Redshield is the formal outpost of the Deathwatch in the Mechanicus satrap of ABX202020.  The system presently serves as the proto-Knight World of Cognomen, and does not even have an official name in the Mechanicus and Departmento Astrocartigraphicae records.
Redshield is a space platform, not a void station.  As such, it can move no more than 450 kilometers from the surface of the planet before its orbit destabilizes, unlike Discus, which could theoretically propel itself out of the Nauphry system.  Redshield defends itself with an array of heavy laser weapons, installed by Cognomen and blessed by the Dascomb Forgemaster.  The weapon array is potent enough to hull a Chaos Heavy Cruiser with three salvoes, the equivalent of a Battlecruiser’s guns in a station the size of a Luna.
This disproportionate firepower comes at the cost of manueverability.  Redshield is locked into a single orbital path from which it cannot deviate, and while it has microthrusters to allow course correction to avoid asteroid impacts, it is essentially inert when not using them.  Its shields are no stronger than would be expected from a void platform of equivalent size, but its sensorium suite can detect objects moving more than a few relative kilometers per minute at a distance of four AU.
The reason for these huge guns and expensive sensors is one of great sensitivity to the Mechanicus.  The Techpriesthood views ABX202020 as a sacred and vital place to the Machine God.  More specifically, the Cognomen Techpriesthood views ABX202020 as a sacred and vital place to the Machine God, while the Martian Techpriesthood do not know of it at all.  If they did, they would no doubt react poorly to this perceived slight against the protections of the Machine, and Cognomen’s senior leadership knows that well.

Life abord the station is watchful and routine.  Of all the Stations of the Deathwatch, Redshield is the physically farthest from any place Glasians have ever attacked, and there is no indication that the Glasians even know it exists.  The defenses of the station are self-maintaining, thanks to the extensive servitor contingent on the station.  Above the station proper, tiny sensor bouys collect the IFFs of every passing ship, as do the larger sensors of the station proper.  Any discrepancy (such as would be produced by a sensor baffle or tight-beam sensor override beam technology as the Eldar are known to have) results in immediate interdiction efforts by both Redshield and the small Basilikon detachment of the system.
The station’s High Keeper, usually hand-chosen by the Watch Commander, must check in with the Basilikon at the slightest hint of alien incursion in the Subsector.  In exchange, the Mechanicus has vowed to share with the Deathwatch any information about xenotech they recover with their Explorator fleets.  Other regions of Imperial space practice this partnership, but rarely is it codified into a binding agreement between the Ordo Xenos and the Mechanicus as it is here.  The Deathwatch are the premiere alien hunters in the galaxy, while Cognomen stood alone for thousands of years in the hot darkness of the Circuit.  Any alien threat to the future Knight World merits the highest and best-informed response that can be mustered, after all.
For its part, the Deathwatch does not like being entrusted – some would say burdened – with the Mechanicus’ dirty secret.  In practice, the Ordo Militarum would not greatly care that a single world in the absolute edges of the galaxy has a few technically illegal machines on it, but the Martian Priesthood could have significantly different ideas about Knight propriety.  However, a compact is a compact, and a free, massive, expensive space platform is a space platform the Inquisition need not pay for out of its own pocket.  Redshield is no mere bulwark against prying aliens, either, for its internal databanks and laboratories are at the bleeding edge of the Mechanicus’ state of the art.
Redshield stores extensive knowledge of the Webway and the Eldar holofield technology.  On the face of it, this may seem an odd focus for the huge station, given the very low density of Eldar ruins and Webway portals in Cloudburst.  However, the Mechanicus asserts and Deathwatch agrees that that is part of why Redshield is perfectly located for such research.  There is little chance of the research the Deathwatch and Mechanicus perform here accidentally activating a Webway gate, and the Eldar do not seem to know of the world at all (at least, not the ones from the Black City).
Moreover, the Redshield laboratories contain several dedicated hot labs, which Apothecaries and Techmarines can use to study alien diseases too potent to risk studying on Dascomb.  The low traffic and high security of ABX202020 mean that there is little risk of a contaminant escaping confinement, and if it did, the Mechanicus could simply use its Basilikon peacekeepers to purge any offending ship, since they are already watching the system like cyberhawks.

Finally, Redshield serves as an outpost for the Deathwatch’s more esoteric training.  The huge station has sufficient life support potential to allow eighty times its permanent population to dwell there year-round.  The Deathwatch and Mechanicus have built one wing of the station to house a zero-gravity boarding simulator, and its grav plates can be overdriven to simulate firefighting conditions on a ship or platform with failed gravity.  Theoretically, Dascomb could house such a training facility, but the Deathwatch sees no reason to build such a thing on their headquarters if they have one already.

Watch Station Peacekeeper
This planetside base is a contentious and controversial Station of the Deathwatch, to their own indifference and the dismay of the local military.  Lorelei is a Frontier world, one that values its independence.  Aside from its tithes of psykers, food, and titanium ore, the planet barely interacts with the Imperium at all, and its colonists are rugged, self-reliant, and independent.  When the Deathwatch suddenly showed up with a Maskos machine and began digging a subterranean warehouse for all manner of dangerous, expensive, and intimidating weapons and machines, it was the last thing the locals wanted.
Peacekeeper is an ironic name, but given its intended role, the Station’s title is apropos.  The station is the newest in Cloudburst, followed by Redshield, and is the pride of Watch Captain Paris.  Paris is a Blue Dagger at heart and will always be so, but Lorelei is not Septiim, and he was slow to notice that.  The huge underground structure is a network of tunnels and asymmetric corridors.  Designed to confuse anybody who doesn’t live there or have a Space Marine’s enhanced memory and senses, Peacekeeper’s tunnels hold thousands of rounds of variable bolter and other projectile and particle weapon ammo in air-tight lockers, openable only by a member of a Loyalist Space Marine Chapter thanks to clever gene-scan machines.  Paris is convinced, and readings of the Tarot do not prove him wrong, that the Glasians or their evil God will someday come for this world, and that if it manages to fight off the Glasian menace, it could serve as an ideal springboard for colonization and exploitation of the Exo-zone, Circuit, and maybe even the Ghoul Stars.
Watch Commander Domack and local Governor Konig do not share his enthusiasm, but both are supporters of human expansion, and so they have begrudgingly allowed his construction project to proceed.  It is the locals of the planet itself that oppose Paris.  So far, he has had to face protests, vandalism, and even an attempted theft of construction supplied.  Hangings put a stop to the robbery, but the simmering resentment remains of the people of Lorelei for the Marine who hopes to save them all from aliens some believe do not even exist.

Inside its twisting halls, Peacekeeper stores more than ammo.  An entire, self-powered Space Marine Chapel-Barracks sits between two looming stone walls, eighty feet below surface.  Kill-brothers stationed here feed by regular shipments of nutrient blocks and fresh vegetables from local farmers, who tend to appreciate Imperial money more than the base’s neighbors.  Since some locals were displaced to build the tunnels – another point of contention, given the vast building space available on Lorelei’s endless grasslands – the entire compound sports an electrified, triple-spaced border fence.

The base’s surface is well-protected, with multiple overlapping defense guns.  The core of the local defense is a buried Defense Laser in a nearby hilltop, camouflaged by expensive Mechanicus technoarcana.  The base proper enjoys several multilaser turrets in concrete shells, and two large triple-linked autocannon AA nests.
Its specialization is not yet online, but will be soon.  Peacekeeper’s intended design allows for something that Dascomb could probably do, but a dedicated facility could do better.  The tunnels extend deeper and deeper underground, and will terminate in a stasis vault upon completion.  Within the vault, Paris intends to store the few pieces of Glasian technology that are not corrupted by Chaos.  So far, the Inquisition and the Blue Daggers have recovered several pieces of technology from the wrecks of alien ships that the Mechanicus can find no taint upon, but are still too far from the designs of the Machine God to trust.  These include datapads, ammunition magazines, and mundane household items from the Cylinders.  Of course, in any given Cylinder, there may be millions of uncorrupted artifacts, but only one complete and operational sample from each wave need be preserved for the intended experiment.
The Glasians are unique.  They are the only tool-using species from another galaxy ever encountered by the Imperium.  The Tyranids do not use tools beyond their own gene-warping abilities, and the Necrons are local, if ancient.  The Glasians are a contemporary species, and one that lags behind humanity in some areas while exceeding it in others.  The Mechanicus insists that a fully operational STC library and databank with all of their few inventions made since the last STC was built in M25 would contain technology in advance of every aspect of Glasian technology.  That may be true, the Deathwatch replies, but the Imperium doesn’t have one of those, and the Glasians are close enough to human anatomy for their technology to be recognizable.
In the vault, Paris intends to house a Techmarine of the Deathwatch and a team of Techpriests from Cognomen, to study the relics of the aliens and find any technological equivalencies between Glasians and humans.  Most Techpriests would express disgust at the idea of reverse-engineering xenotech, of course, but not all.  The Inquisition is equally reluctant to sponsor such a venture, but did so anyway, knowing full well that it would not be the first time xenotech had made its way into the Imperial armory.  The Grey Knights’ Psycannon, the Digital Weapons, the Laslance, and the Phase Knife all came from enterprising Rogue Traders finding useful xenotech and giving it to the Imperium.  Perhaps the Glasians have something to teach the Imperium about their terrifyingly effective Ruin Guns, or intergalactic FTL technology, or their silent hoverpads.

In the meantime, what Glasian xenotech the Imperium has and is uncorrupted sits in a storage cell in Dascomb, awaiting transfer.  Duplicate items that are not weapons are usually disposed of by stellar incineration, to be safe, even if uncorrupted.

Watch Station Sempre
Inasmuch as one of Cloudburst’s distinct Watch Stations can be called ‘standard,’ Sempre is probably closest to standard.  Small, matte-black, armed to the gills, and staffed by a solemn Kill-Brother with secret orders, Sempre sits vigil in the darkness outside Hapster’s Oort cloud, tasked with watching over the oldest human colony in the Sector.
Sempre floats through the cold void beyond Hapster, surrounded by a halo of tiny satellites.  Each satellite is a copy of the ones that protect Septiim Tertius’ outer platforms.  No larger than a Sparrow aircar, each one has four micro-missile pods and one larger anti-fighter missile tube.  Were all thirty pods to fire on a target at the same time, the missile storm would overwhelm all but the best point defense systems.  The station itself sports a few multilasers and a trio of plasma cannons for defense, but its only long-range gun is a Cognomen-built heavy defense laser, with barely half the power of that of a destroyer.  However, given the small size of Sempre and the arduous task of finding it in the frigid vacuum of space outside a star system, that may be all it needs.

Inside, Sempre is sterile, quiet, and meditative, just the way the Deathwatch like it.  The station’s cogitators hum in the chill air, under the eye of a trio of Techpriests in the Ordo Xenos’ employ.  The station’s long-range sensors sweep the Hapster system for any sign of Warp energies to indicate ships coming and going, or the special displacement of the dirty xenotech drives that propel Glasian vessels between galaxies.  Sempre’s corridors ring with metal footsteps as Kill-Brothers on the Vigil walk between the sensor stations and their isolation cells, and the station’s spartan eatery.
Sempre watches Hapster for any sign of invasion or corruption.  It is the only Watch Station that fields Kill-Marines.  The platform is a frequent stop for Deathwatch vessels that are collecting or preparing Kill-Marines for service with Rogue Traders or Imperial Commanders.  The largest chamber in Sempre is a training hall, with extensive records of Imperial diplomatic protocol and communications.  There, a Kill-Marine can hone their non-battlefield skills.  Occasionally, the Inquisition will dispatch a diplomatically-trained Throne Agent or apprentice to the station, to assist a Kill-Marine with their task.  Sempre predates the establishment of Dascomb by one thousand years; the only one to do so.

Watch Point Gravity
Gorkypark is a massive threat to the Imperium.  The mere existence of Beast-era Tek implies that the Orks here can inflict damage on a scale out of proportion to their numbers.  So far, the only reasons the Inquisition has stayed its hand in annihilating the Orks here is the chance to capture the Graviton Compressor Array, and the fact that the Meks here refuse to ally with any other Ork.  If Ghazghkull or another Ork Warchief were to force the issue, the Inquisition suspects that the Meks would fold.
Thus, the Deathwatch commissioned Watch Point Gravity.  The tiny structure is not a permanent space station so much as a floating hab unit in space.  Anything larger, Orks might detect flying in and out of the system.  As it is, the Inquisition only dares approach the Watch Point in single ships, slowly, and with their engines muffled.
Inside Gravity is a small archive of sensor recordings from Gorkypark, as well as the collected communication intercepts between the surface and passing Ork ships.  Gravity’s data feed is the source of the Inquisition’s realization that Gorkypark is actively resisting any attempts at being snowballed into a Waaagh.  If the Orks ever found the station, it would have to self-destruct, passengers or not.

Watch Point Xenobreaker
This tiny satellite is one of the few Deathwatch postings in the Segmentum that is disguised as something else.  Among the halo of debris that orbits the planet, left over from a ruined pirate ship that attempted to capture a Delving ore hauling freighter.  Shattered and empty cargo pods from the pirate vessel drift about the planet’s orbit, long picked over for anything of value and knocked out of unstable orbits by surface guns or bombing runs by SDF boats.  However, one chunk of relatively intact ship is nothing of the kind.  Inside an artfully messed-up chunk of ship sits Watch Point Xenobreaker, a focal point for local Deathwatch activity.  This satellite peers into the dark depths outside the system, looking for any sign of Warp activity by vessels using non-Mechanicus Warp drives or Gellar field analogues.  Given Delving’s position at the intersection of an astonishing five Warp routes, accelerated to high speed by Hell’s Vortex, it makes a perfect transit hub, and thus, pirates slingshot around the system regularly.  Marines visit the Watch Point remotely, by consulting it with tight-beam communication systems when they fly by, taking on supplies for Dascomb.  The possibility that alien pirates employ the slingshot to raid Imperial space is too dire to go unaddressed.  The Deathwatch has been able to steal ships for the Imperial Navy using this technique, including the pirates that attacked Discus long ago.

Watch Point Earthquake
Oglith is an embarrassment to the Imperium of Man.  The Imperial Commanders and Mechanicum Magos who first plotted the colony here knew full well that there was a subterranean Ork infestation, and landed the colony anyway.  Plan after plan crossed the desks of Overlord after Overlord, and yet, for thousands of years, the Imperial military of Oglith managed to accomplish nothing.
The mere fact that Oglith has been allowed to play host to a resolvable infestation of Orks insults the Officio Munitorum, but the Deathwatch only stepped in relatively recently.  Watch Point Earthquake was established in the aftermath of the Third Glasian Migration.  The surge in sector-wide psychic turmoil that resulted naturally from a massive alien invasion producted demonstrable increases in feral Ork activity and spawning, though not quite enough to boost their numbers to critical levels.  When the leaders of the Oglith military finally noticed this, they began frantically arming themselves for greater conflict, building military bases, stockpiling mining explosives, and generally sending out shamefaced calls for help.
The Deathwatch responded by installing Watch Point Earthquake.  The Watch Point is technically an Administratum Climatological Observation Skyward, but it has been given over completely to the Deathwatch for the foreseeable future.  The structure has only a few point defense guns, but its function isn’t military.  Rather, it is an intelligence-gathering post.  The satellite is over four times the size of Gravity or Xenobreaker, and has enough life support capacity to house a crew of one Marine and four serfs, plus a resident Techpriest, comfortably, or a few more serfs in an emergency with some discomfort.  The satellite’s roots as a weather platform bestow on it something that most Deathwatch stations would never accept: an observation bubble with a large transparisteel vista window that allows for somebody inside the satellite to see the entire planet unobstructed.  It is a huge tactical liability, to be sure, but it allows the Deathwatch to pursue their mission.
As would be expected of a world with subterranean Ork problems, the planet Oglith has had it surface very well-mapped.  However, the planet’s population concentrates in the larger cities and on plateaus, and therefore has no observation of several points that Orks could use to attack the surface.  The satellite’s large sensor arrays keep vigil for any sign of greenskin movement on the surface, and the observation blister makes this even easier.  Earthquake carries advanced cogitator archive technology that allows it to reference instantly any observed changes in terrain on the planet below with historical norms.
In the time of the current Ork invasion, Earthquake is working constantly.  Although the Deathwatch has calculated that the current groundswell in Orks does not require their direct intervention, that will change instantly if the ferals below meet the crusading Orks above.  The combined force would be enough to conquer the planet in months, especially if more Greenskins arrive from Gorkypark.  With their horde swelling so much from the arrival of fresh boyz, a Warboss could emerge from the ranks of the invaders, which may necessitate the intervention of a Deathwatch Kill-team.  Oglith cannot be allowed to fall.  If the millions of Imperial soldiers on Oglith are lost on the eve of a Migration, Cloudburst itself may be lost.  Unlike certain other Deathwatch units elsewhere in the galaxy, oaths do not bind the Cloudburst Deathwatch to prioritize defending a specific place above all other strategic demands.  They are bound to defend all of Cloudburst, and would not hesitate to attack Oglith’s Orks if needed.

Watch Point Revenge
Fathon Prime once spat on the Emperor’s throne, and for that, they suffered for thousands of years.  It is not the place of the Deathwatch to establish penance or repentence, however, but to slay the alien.  The Deathwatch’s oldest Watch Point in the Sector is a bunker network built into a hilltop that overlooks the oldest human settlement on Fathon Prime.  With its eight built-in lascannons, its five cluster mortars, and its four short-barrel assault cannons, the bunker has enough firepower to hold off a light infantry brigade.  The spear-waving primitives of the world hardly merit such firepower, of course, but the planet is immensely vulnerable to invasion.  The world also enjoys massive deposits of oil, timber, and simple construction materials like concrete sand.  The world simply can’t be defended in the face of a Glasian Migration, and the Deathwatch knows it.  The possibility of the world’s Horus-aligned history playing some role in Tzeentch’s plans troubles the Inquisition.
The bunkers house a heavily upgraded Aquila shuttle, in case the staff need to evacuate to a ship in orbit, and four Deathwatch Bikes, each a gift from Cognomen’s expanding forges.  Each bike is tuned for maximum stealth, but is perfectly capable of fighting.  The ones with sidecars sport a multi-melta for the passenger and a plasma pistol for the driver, while the ones with no sidecar have only a plasma pistol and whatever grenades the driver can carry.  If the Watch Point is abandoned, the Bikes would be lost, but that is a small price to pay for not losing a Deatchwatch team.
Revenge can house three Marines but rarely houses more than one, as well as four Tech-adepts from Cognomen to maintain the equipment.  Most of the guns are cogitator-controlled, but the mortars are not, and have a dedicated crew of thirty-one Inquisitorial volunteer Guardsmen.  The bunkers also use a long-range communication antenna disguised as a huge tree, with its own combination of solar and geothermal power that could let it contact a ship in the Oort Cloud if needed.

Watch Point Cyan
Aule Windows is a system of beautiful blue gas giants, each brimming with all sorts of valuable chemicals.  Small moon bases siphon gas and asteroid minerals from the planets.  The stream of freighters and patrol ships through the system generally make it a valuable stop for vessels that need supplies or fuel.  The Deathwatch is not greatly concerned about alien vessels in the system thanks to the constant stream of Navy and Mechanicus ships passing through.  The problem, in their eyes, is the deposit of strange alien technology on one of the moons of the fifth gas giant, Aule 5.  The planet itself shows signs of enormous alloy blocks on the surface of the solid core of the planet, perhaps the remains of harvesting stations.  The largest moon has more xenotech on it.  Some craters and artificial depressions on the surface have over eighty megatons of alloys, polymers, and constructions in them.
Why they’re there is hardly relevant.  What troubles the Deathwatch is the fact that some of the ruins still have active power cells, and even void shields.  Keeping troublesome Mechanicus scavengers away from the sites is an ordeal, and the Inquisition handles that independently of the Deathwatch, thanks to automated warning beacons.
Cyan is a void platform, barely smaller than a Watch Station, with room for over a dozen serfs and one Marine in its command room.  The station is as large as it is because of simple need.  Aule Windows is an enormous system, over five hundred AU across.  To map and protect caches of dangerous xenotech over so broad an area is logistically impossible for a smaller station.  Cyan is able to accomplish its mission because of its stealthy exterior and its battleship-scale sensors, which it can augment by tapping the telemetry feed of any Deathwatch ships in the system.
Every time the Deathwatch thinks it has found all the xenotech in the system, more pops up.  In one notable incident, an initial pass established the ring system of Aule 2 to have no xenotech in it, only for a second pass, forty years later, to locate an entire wrecked alien escape pod lodged in an asteroid that had just happened to be facing away from the station the first time.  In some cases, capacitors and batteries that would have died tens of thousands of years ago were they made by humans have been found intact and charged in alien wrecks.
Cyan has five cruiser-weight laser guns and a missile battery to defend itself, which is less than half of the armament of an actual Cruiser of its tonnage, but most of its exterior space is stealth armor and sensory equipment.

Watch Point Repent
Oromet’s resident Watch Point is a remarkably unsubtle reminder of the Deathwatch’s presence in the sector.  Unlike most, it makes no attempt to hide from the residents of its system.  Oromet’s history of heresy is fresh in the Inquisition’s mind, but the Watch Point is officially there for other reasons.  The satellite, barely half a mile long and protected by four banks of multi-laser and autocannon point defenses, watches over the planet’s feral Ork population.  The Orks of Oromet were vicious and numerous enough to reduce the planet to barbarism prior to the recontact of the Imperium.  Only after becoming an Imperial world were the locals well-equipped enough to drive the Orks back to the mountains.
Repent is named after the world’s driving motivation.  After Archbishop Haggar’s psychic heresy was uncovered and punished, the populace was understandably driven to make up for their misconduct.  The station remains under Ordo Xenos control despite the codename, however.  The station maintains a teleporter, in case the one Marine stationed there needs to head down to the surface very quickly.  It also enjoys an extensive three-dimensional hololibrary of feral Ork weapon configurations, to help the Deathwatch identify any potential Warbosses emerging from the hordes of feral vermin.

Watch Point Hammer
This Watch Point is the oldest in the Cloudburst Sector by several thousand years.  Hammer serves as a Deathwatch staging point, and contains nothing but supplies.
The Deathwatch of Cloudburst do not enjoy the luxury of wealth that other sectors do.  With only one Forge World and one Hive World within their jurisdiction, they must rely on donations from outside sources for much of their wargear and ammunition.  However, with both Thimble and Cognomen stepping up their resource production dramatically, the Deathwatch may soon enjoy purely local supply.  For thousands of years, however, that was not the case, and Hammer served as their warehouse for operations in the sector.
The interior of Hammer is spartan and sparse even by the standards of the inaesthetic Deathwatch.  Most of its chambers are nothing more than warehousing, although it does enjoy stately chapels to the Emperor and Omnissiah.
Each chamber sports racks and shelves of bolter shells, armor repair kits, guns, explosives, medical equipment, upgrade packs, and data storage devices.  The few non-storage chambers are either the aforementioned chapels, or sensor/comm compartments, where visiting Marines can check electronic communications from elsewhere in the system.  Before the Sector had its own Fortress, Hammer and later Sempre were the only assets of the Deathwatch in Cloudburst, and Hammer has historical archives of messages and missions going back thousands of years.
For defense, Hammer has only a few point defense weapons, but the fleets of Cognomen are all it really needs.  Cognomen supplies Hammer with its precious cargo by sending up Cetacean shuttles whenever Hammer’s internal cogitators calculate that enough supplies have been drained to warrant it.
With Dascomb’s arrival in-sector, many of the Cognomen Magos have asked if Hammer even still serves a purpose.  However, it is undeniably more convenient for Cognomen to deliver things to its own orbit than a secure system a dozen lightyears away, and so it stays, at least for now.

Watch Point Ocular
Space Marines are generally not the most artistically-minded individuals, but even by that standard, Ocular is a sigularly unimaginative name.  The Watch Point is a single giant telescope, and it looks at things; such is its remit and codename.  The platform spies on the Cloudburst Circuit, and it does this very well.
The Circuit is a place of danger, exploration, and bountiful opportunity.  Wrecks of human and alien colonies or homworlds stretch from the very edge of the Sector all the way to the Terminus Warp Shock, the oval of Warp Storms that encircle the entire galaxy.  Worlds in the darkness by the edges of Imperial space have been a source of plunder and territory for eleven thousand years, of course, but the Cloudburst Circuit is an especially lucrative prize, because much of it is within the light of the Astronomican.  This allows ships with Navigators to travel through it orders of magnitude faster than in those regions where the Astronomican is invisible.  Thus, unlike the Oldlight Exo-zone, the Circuit can be explored faster than a snail’s pace, despite being farther from Terra than the Exo-zone.
Ocular serves a vital purpose for those Astartes and Inquisitors who enter the Circuit to pursue Rogue Trader and Explorator reports of dangerous aliens.  The massive telescopic array is precise and accurate enough to detect planets in orbit around stars thousands of lightyears away, and can detect radiation along such a wide frequency spectrum that there are no known human or ancient Eldar radio signals it cannot detect (though deciphering them is a different story).  Though Imperial reports casually refer to it as a single telescope, it is actually an array of seven, some for detecting light and others for detecting other radiation.
Ocular’s Deathwatch post is an attached habitation unit, and defies expectations by being the most comfortable posting a Deathwatch Marine can enjoy.  It has a small gym, a cozy bunkroom, a well-stocked kitchen, and an extensive library.  Since it was originally designed for Inquisitorial use and seconded to the Deathwatch thousands of years later, its habitation was originally built for Imperial Navy officers, and thus is far more comfortable than something purpose-built for Adeptus Astartes.  Its defenses consist of five multi-lasers and two lascannons, and has only one savior pod, though it also has a sensor-baffled Aquila shuttle for emergency evacuation.
Unlike some other Deathwatch Watch Points, The Imperial Navy is fully aware of Ocular.  Its reports are often sent discreetly to Battlefleets Naxos and Cloudburst, and to Subsector Battlefleets Septiim, Thimble, and Cognomen, the closest to the Circuit.  Rogue Traders and Explorators can pay for its data maps, as well, since Ocular is perfectly positioned to map potential obstructions for exploration of the Circuit.

Watch Point Praefector
This structure, which shares its name with a post-Age of Apostasy Terran Guard regiment, is not like most Watch Points.  The majority of Watch Points, inside Cloudburst and out, are sensor platforms that watch for aliens and those corrupted by them.  Praefector is a weapons platform, pure and straightforward.  Usually left to the control of servitors, this station hangs in the void over AMH132-4, a rocky planet much like Terra.  This planet is clearly uninhabited now, but served in the past as a refueling station for a yet unknown race of aliens.  However, unlike the more recognizable resource needs of Orks or Eldar, the aliens that visited this world long ago harvested something other than petrochemicals or plasma for fuel: water.  The archaeological record of the planet suggests that it was once completely covered in water but has since been drained to only covering about 50% of the surface.
The Inquisition and Mechanicus estimate this to have happened seventeen thousand years ago, which puts it during the peak of the human and Eldar empires.  However, there is no record of either race interacting with the aliens that have drained much of AMH132.  What kind of technology needs so much fuel – and how water could produce energy – are things the Inquisition would very much like to know.  Servitors generally control Praefector, with Marines stopping by to check up on it infrequently.  If the station were ever attacked by something that its three heavy lasers, twin-linked plasma cannon, and five point defense multilasers could not withstand, its simple cogitators would dump all of its sensor data into hundreds of tiny log modules, eject them at random into the system, and self-destruct.  These modules are a common upgrade to the comm gear of many Rogue Trader ships, so they were an easy adoption for the Deathwatch.

Watch Point Octa
While the Deathwatch combats the alien menace wherever it might be found, that problem is complicated by the fact that not all aliens announce their presence.  Even beleaguered, the Imperium is the single most powerful faction in the galaxy, and can’t be overcome by force of arms alone.  Watch Point Octa keeps vigil for those enemies of Man that would threaten it by means more subtle than war or annexation.  Some aliens threaten Mankind through techno-Heresy, bribery, drug smuggling, or parasitism.  Octa keeps watch for the last.  AMH75 has been visited by blood-drinking foes of humanity before.
The world Octa orbits is not in the Imperial Administratum Astrocartigraphicae.  Dubbed AMH75, only Space Marines have ever visited it.  The planet has no distinguishing characteristics, or even atmosphere.  Its single moon, however, is of immense interest to the Deathwatch, because of its past.  The moon has a thin atmosphere of carbon and nitrogen gasses, and was once the scene of a massive battle between the Black Templars and the Cythor Fiends.  Wreckage from that battle still covers a plateau in the southern hemisphere of the moon.  The Templars emerged victorius, and pushed the Fiends back from the edges of the Imperium.  This world represents the farthest the Fiends have ever been sighted from the Ghoul Stars, and Octa sits vigilant in case of their return.  The platform has few weapons, but does have large auspex and sensorium suites, able to detect living things millions of miles away, and moving metal objects at ranges of over two billion miles.

Watch Point Seabed
As should be expected of a world with evidence of two alien civilizations on it, the Deathwatch keeps a sharp on on Obelisk 2.  The surface of the world is inimical to the kind of heavy military infrastructure the Adeptus Astartes normally need, but the presence of two alien civilizations on Obelisk 2 demands attention.
Hanging in orbit over the world’s equator, Watch Point Seabed-alpha is a satellite, with a broad-spectrum sensorium suite, and little else.  The machines of the satellite keep watch over the surface, looking for any sign of movement from the alien robots that exist in the secured bunker the Arbites found, hundreds of years ago.  Watch Point Seabed-beta is a surface installation, consisting of a sub-oceanic structure with attached hydraulic pumps.  The structure is an armored shell, affixed to exposed bedrock on the seafloor, with an internal power supply and some simple anti-torpedo countermeasures.  The bunker contains a hydro-garage, with large jet-ski analogues to Space Marine Bikes.  These machines have mounted heavy bolters and autoguns, carefully waterproofed by the Mechanicus.  The Deathwatch has no submarines, but the bunker can deploy automated seafloor Tarantulas, if needed.  Normally, the bunker remains unoccupied save for maintenance serfs, but Marines can make their way there quickly using their water-tight Power Armor if needed, by simply dropping on top of it and climbing up into the garage.

Departmento Cartographicae Planetary Database: Cloudburst Sector

Sector and Subsector Capital Worlds: Celeste and Cloudburst

Galactic Position: Cloudburst Sector, Celeste Subsector

System: Celeste

System Overlord: The Overlord of the system is also the Lord Sector Cloudburst, presently Rhemortho Quintus; the Subsector Lord is Lady Celeste Magnolia Clement

Planets: 7, all but Celeste uninhabitable

Paradise Planet Celeste
Satellite: Moon – Cloudburst

Tropospheric Composition: Celeste has Nitrogen 72%, Oxygen 25%, Argon 1%, Water 1%, Carbon Dioxide 0.05%;Cloudburst has Nitrogen 71%, Oxygen 25%, Water 2.5%, Carbon Dioxide 1.5%

Religion: Imperial Cult

Government Type: Adeptus Terra

Planetary Governor: Yes

Adept Presence: Adeptus Administratum (Sector Overlord, Subsector Overlord), Adeptus Ministorum, Adeptus Astra Telepathica, Adeptus Arbites, Adeptus Mechanicus

Climate: Celeste is a tropical paradise, with polar tundras; Cloudburst is a barren, wet rock, with constant rainstorms

Geography: Celeste is a massive planet, over twice the size of Terra, with a total surface land area of 172.6 million mi² and Terran gravity; Cloudburst is the half the size of Mars, but with higher gravity

Gravity: Celeste has Terran Gravity, Cloudburst has .85 Terran Gravity

Economy: Gelt Thrones and Silver Thrones

Principle Exports: Sand, Salt, Copper, Iron, Fish, Silicon, Cogitator Parts, Missionaries, Nickel, Timber, Textiles, Magnets, Construction Rock
Principle Imports: Red Meat, Carbon Fuels, Alcohol, Leather, Laser Weapons

Countries and Continents: Celeste has six continents, roughly equal in size, with no national divisions; Cloudburst has no continents

Military: Celestial Guard, Cloudburst Defenders (high quality Guard and PDF)

Contact with Other Worlds: Extensive, as the Sector Capital

Tithe Grade: Exactis Tertio (combined)

Population: 4.5 billion (Celeste), 890,000 (Cloudburst)

Description:
The great, paired worlds of Celeste and Cloudburst are the beating heart of Cloudburst Sector.  The gems in the crown of the sector named after them, and headquarters of all major non-Mechanicus Imperial institutions (save, notably, the Blue Daggers and Inquisition), this binary world is a coveted place to live and a beautiful place for nobles to build resorts.  Celeste is a tropical paradise, with millions of twisting miles of undeveloped, pristine beaches, soaring mountains, dark forests, sparkling blue water, magnificent coral reefs the size of small nations, and over a hundred resort cities on stilts, rising above the waters below.  On the island of Munkaero, a farm of one billion acres feeds Celeste and Cloudburst.  It is the largest prison labor farm in the sector by an order of magnitude.  Understandably, the moneyed classes avoid Munkaero.  Coincidentally, it is also the most heavily recruited-from place for the Imperial militaries.

The resort cities are places of wildly varying contents and population sizes.  For those vacationers of piety and taste, some resorts offer the famous Celestial Bubble hotels.  The Bubble hotels are great blisters of transparent polymer, which can lower and submerge in the water, letting the vacationers inside see out into the fish- and plant-filled oceans.  For the less wealthy, great museums, theaters, and auction houses allow visitors to buy and explore all manner of local and sector history.
For those with less piety or even greater wealth, other cities offer enormous pleasure palaces, where every possible indulgence may be explored, from head-tiltingly creative sexual diversions to casino games.  Restaurants offer imported delights from across the sector and beyond, or fresh foods from the great farm and fishing fleets of Munkaero.  These cities patronize auction houses also, with perhaps somewhat less stringent restrictions on materials offered.

What visitors to the cities may not know, and even most native Celestials would rather forget, is that there are fewer cities than there used to be.  Only two hundred years before the opening of the Great Rift, two cities were sunk beneath the waves by the Inquisition, for the crime of unrepentant and repeated Heresy of the Flesh – specifically, harboring mutant cults.  A mere five years before the Rift opened, another was destroyed for harboring a Genestealer infestation so large, that the Ordo Xenos calculated that it was only four weeks from hitting critical mass to summon a Hive Fleet.  The surviving cities are blissfully unaware of this (officially), and four more cities are under construction.

The largest city, however, is not built over the water.  The planetary capital, the metropolis of Civitavecchia, houses another eighteen million souls, and is a bustling center of travel and government, complete with a 500 square-surface-mile hybrid transit hub.  The hub, partially built underground to save surface space, boasts tri-rail tracks that stretch to all edges of the continent, and enormous, fourteen-lane elevated superhighways to the dozen smaller cities within two hundred miles.  The hub also houses an air and spaceport, integrated into the local mass transit system, allowing freight cars to dismount from landed transports and hitch directly to massive cargo trains.

As could be expected, Civitavecchia has a bustling black market.  Its population lives in varying degrees of discomfort from the constant flow of traffic.  Soundproofing kits and sub-surface padded homes and apartments command a high price, as do the self-tinting window kits used by high-rise residents to block the glare from a thousand aerospace ships.  For non-residents (and wealthier natives), the black market offers a neat cross-section of the infinitely variable wares sold in the department stores and auction houses of the resort cities.  Gangs of thugs and brutes make themselves known to prospective buyers under the auspices of the House of Lending, a fanciful name for the local Thieves’ Guild.  The Inquisition has infiltrated its ranks so thoroughly that the group can take effectively no action without Inquisitorial oversight, which allows the fact that there are other, more subtle mercenary groups operating in Civitavecchia to escape their notice.

Over two hundred noble houses of the Cloudburst Sector and nearby space maintain noble estates on Celeste, and they are expressions of pure avarice.  The poorer ones, commanding only a few tens of millions times more Thrones than the average family will ever earn, make do with sprawling mansions and hunting lodges in the high mountains of the southern continent.  These look out over magnificent vistas of snow and herds of frolicking forest mammals, past picturesque mountains of colorful marble and hot springs older than mankind, and sadly ask how it could have come to this.
Wealthier families, able to buy Coastal Licenses from the Celeste Administratum and thus build mansions on the vast beaches of Celeste, build vertical estates and boat launches on the pristine waters.  These often take the shape of Imperial warship hulls, with huge, multi-story boat launches sticking out into the salty water, protruding from bloated manor houses on the water’s edge.  The manor houses reign over dozens of smaller buildings nearby.  Popular for the nobles who buy such things are small hothouses and farms, allowing them to treat guests to their own, personal stashes of food, and spartan steam rooms for sauna-goers.  The mansions often loom many, many stories over the water, with integrated VTOL pads on their rooftops to allow nobles to travel directly to them without setting foot on the planet’s surface.  Many noble families conduct fierce but impeccably polite contests to build the most diverse and well-stocked mansions they can, in the identically-sized plots of land their Coastal Licenses grant.

The very wealthiest nobles and merchants, however, go one step further.  The colossal stilted cities, some with legs that extend down over a mile, are their homes.  Palatial dwellings, with express elevators to underwater pleasure galleries and living spaces, cap these specific cities.  Entire cities may belong to one noble clan, though this is rare.  These houses own hotels, casinos, high-class brothels, low-class brothels, trading posts, factories, fisheries and hatcheries, tourist traps, chapels, and even small airports.  All are bundled into the resort cities, which stick up from the water like artificial mountains.  Though simple laws of material physics prevent the stilt cities from growing more than a mile in each dimension, and thus cannot become actual hives, they are often ruled as microcosms of the Thimble hives, with tourist and traveler levels at the peaks and waterline, and the bulk of other holdings in the middle levels, unseen by the visitors.  The visitors travel in great elevators decorated with coral and marble, riding up and down through the hearts of the cities without ever seeing them.

Most cities are not privately owned, however.  In fact, the ones closest to the protected shorelines can’t be, by direct legislative and executive edicts of Celeste’s Administratum.  The resort cities closest to the shores are instead owned by nobody, but are controlled directly by the planetary Adepts.  These are the largest cities, as well, and some are even connected to the shore by elevated tri-rail trains.  These cities have wide varieties of entertainments and lodgings, designed for the broadest customer base, and generate most of the planet’s tax revenue.


The Cloudburst Sector Administratum is headquartered in the Celeste system, on the exotic moon called Cloudburst.  The Sector Palace is a grand and awe-inspiring sight, with great towers lashed by sheets of thick raindrops, brilliant spikes of metal and glass piercing the cloud cover to rise above, and piles of black industrial slag sitting about.  The ground buckles to ninety degree angles where the subterranean building blocks penetrate the surface of the moon.  Building walls plunge above and below the flat surface, while great tubes of ferrocrete and plasteel jut straight up from lumpen surface plains.  Enormous murals decorate the sides of the buildings, in the images of the Emperor, the Primarchs, and the Saints.
The Administratum Adepts that control the Sector toil inside these huge buildings, sheltered from the storms outside.  Tithes, taxes, records, and datafiles cross a hundred thousand desks as the executive city keeps the Sector humming.  Lord Sector Cloudburst Rhemortho Quintus rules from one of the Cloud Spires, the buildings that pierce the crackling clouds and gaze on the perfect jewel of Celeste overhead.

The Ecclesiarchal Palace and Grand Cathedral is not on Cloudburst proper, however.  The Grand Cathedral is located on Celeste itself, far from the prying eyes of the Administratum.  Of course, this also means that the Adepts and functionaries of the Administratum are outside the immediate sight of the Emperor’s most pious servants.  The Cardinal of the sector, Cardinal Drake, is an ancient man, well over three hundred years into Ecclesiarchal service, and maneuvering to replace him has begun in earnest.  The irony is that many have been trying to replace him for nearly that long.  Some of his cleric rivals have been heard to remark that he would have been universally regarded as fit to rule, had he never ruled.  Possessing of much charisma and no attention span, Drake is a fine figurehead, and a terrible cleric.  Though he has a spotless record, this is largely a product of him doing very little overall.  The Ecclesiarchal troops under his command, however, do not share this frailty.  The Order of the Sanguine Soul is an Ordo Minoris of the Adeptus Sororitas, and the clenched fist of the Cardinal, on the rare occasion that he gives them orders directly.  The Order has fewer than five thousand Battle Sisters, however.  Like many Cloudburst Sector authorities, it is frantically expanding its ranks.  The Cardinal is certain that the Glasians will come again for Celeste, sooner or later, and desires a force capable of repelling them without relying on the ‘heathen’ Astartes and Skitarii.

The Imperial Creed manifests in Cloudburst as the Cult of the Immortal Divine, which worships the Emperor as a man-born-God, who has total control of the souls of the faithful upon death.  The Immortal God-Emperor of All Mankind, they preach, regards the faithful nobly, and nobility is, itself, Godliness.  The fore, the more wealth the people give to the Ecclesiarchy, the more noble the people are in the eyes of their God-Emperor.  Cathedrals of the Emperor in Cloudburst are ostentatious in the extreme, with some even having the actual skeletons of Saints attend gatherings and ceremonies enclosed in stasis fields.  The Ecclesiarchy of the Cloudburst Sector is headquartered in the Arch-diocese of the Cardinal Cloudburst, presently Drake himself.

The vast Cathedral of the Immortal God-Emperor In Cloudburst sits like a sterling coin in the heart of the pilgrim city of Quinnibeck, high in the mountains on Celeste’s second smallest continent.  Quinnibeck is a city of 14 million souls, and holds a myriad of specialized Ecclesiarchal offices.  Statues of Primarchs, saints, and Ecclesiarchs leer from street corners, cornerstones, museums, galleries, and schools.  Some of the greatest artists in the history of the sector have come to the city of pilgrims to leave their mark.  Though no member of the high echelons of the Cloudburst Ecclesiarchy would ever be so crass to as publicly flaunt their immense wealth in theory, they do so all the time in fact, unhesitatingly.  The actual poorhouses of the city are usually run by a senior Hospitaller Sister, and all divert promising young girls to the Schola Progenium or monasteries for Initiation.  Atypically for the Scholam system in general, some of these children actually still have parents.  These exceptions are made for the sake of pressing need, authorized by Cardinal Drake himself.  He fears Glasian invasion, and is doing everything he can to avoid Chlorit’s fate.  The rest of the Synod Ultima tolerates this, though they are wary of this expansion of power, and so is the Inquisition.

The military of Celeste is divided into two distinct forces of Guard and PDF.  The Celestial Guard are the Imperial Astra Militarum contingent of Celeste itself, while the Cloudburst Defenders are the contingent from the capital proper.  The PDF and Astra Militarum field regiments use the same names for their units, which can lead to confusion among those who fail to notice that PDF units are not numbered as Militarum field regiments are.  Celestial Guard units trend towards riverine, marine, and amphibious combat specialization, thanks to the long, winding coasts of their homeworld, but as a Paradise world, they do tend to be able to afford whatever equipment they need for other roles.  However, the Celestial Guard and Cloudburst Defenders do enjoy one huge advantage over many other PDFs: Mars-quality Leman Russ Annihilator tanks.  This is the result of an intact STC for the design being found by a Cognomen Secutarii on a mission against pirates many centuries before.  Celeste, as the capital world of the Sector, is the first to benefit from this discovery, though their report of no problems with the new tanks will no doubt encourage Cognomen to spread the design to other worlds in the Sector soon.

Cloudburst is not in the cradle of magnificent luxury that its neighbor enjoys.  Though the great residences carved into the rock of the moon have both great defensibility and functionally limitless expansion opportunities, they have no sky and no ocean to enjoy.
Underground residences are ubiquitous on Cloudburst, both to protect from the rain and to allow for complex construction the surface near-vacuum environment would prevent.  Large conversion engines, operated by faithful Mechanicus priests, convert the oxygen-rich crystals under the surface into breathable gasses, while water is siphoned with care from the constant rainfall.  Nitrogen and other atmospheric gasses flow from tankers that fly it in from Cognomen, as that world has no use for its industrial waste.

Cloudburst’s vast Administratum bureaucracy churns out its paperwork and the Estate dutifully files it away.  The underground labyrinths of tunnels hum with constant traffic; some tunnels are as large as the great, elevated highways of Celeste.  Electric groundcars roll silently over forty-meter wide arterial tunnels, while tri-rail trains rumble past, laden with cargo.  The few hundred thousand residents of Cloudburst generally serves as Adepts or menials in the greater machinery of the Adeptus Terra, but the moon has its own industries.  Like in much of Cloudburst Sector, mining is a popular industry here, albeit almost entirely underground instead of on the barren surface.  Cloudburst has not been left out of the trend of exploration and expansion that has characterized much of its sector’s history, however.  Periodically, a new tower will burst from beneath the surface of the moon, filled to bursting with the new offices, administrative departments, and life support systems the tower will need.

Cloudburst proper also possesses significant defenses of its own. Mounted below the rocky surface in water-tight, carefully concealed silos sit no fewer than five Mechanicus Defense Lasers, one with the range of a battleship’s main battery.  These guns, maintained by the local Mechanicus temples as bulwark defenses for the capital, are an open secret among the people.

The rainy, rocky moon was only originally settled as a compromise.  The vessel that first encountered the magnificent jewel of Celeste belonged to an Ecclesiarchal expedition.  However, the expedition was led – or ‘advised’ – by a member of the Ordo Hereticus, who saw that the Ecclesiarchy did not need to seize control of this paradise world also, when Jodhclan’s Paradise and Maskos were already under their control.  Despite opposition from the Ecclesiarchy, the Administratum also laid claim to the world.  The Inquisitor settled the squabbling factions by declaring that the Administartum would allow the Ecclesiarchy to establish a great cathedral on the world, but the Administratum would control the entire system, so long as they did not establish their headquarters on the planet proper.  Disappointed by the compromise, as is so often the case, both Adepta agreed to the terms, and construction began.  When the time came to establish the Oldlight-Proximate Circuit as a proper Sector, Cloudburst was chosen as its capital, as it was a purely Administratum-controlled place already, with no other agencies save a token Arbitrator’s office present to offer jurisdictional battles, while Celeste was chosen as the Subsector Capital.  The Subsector, therefore, is ruled from Civitavecchia, while the Sector is ruled from the planet’s moon.  Though this seems inefficient on its face, it does prevent favoritism towards the Celeste subsector from Sector Command.

Cloudburst itself is not without intrigues, however.  In the thousands of years since the moon was colonized, several Inquisitors have been forced to step in after outside forces attempting to control or influence the sector were caught.  Members of the Free Corsair Coalition trying to rile up unrest, smugglers importing xeno artifacts from the Circuit to sell illegally, and even criminals on the run from the Arbites, hoping to hide among the Administratum menials, have all been caught hiding on Cloudburst.

Life on Cloudburst is not so uncomfortable that crime is rampant, however.  The planet’s core is a mixture of dense metals, which makes gravity at least comfortable.  Use of starship-style artificial gravity plates in some buildings makes them even more Terra-like.  Swap meets among the menial families, and frequent merchant visits from neighboring Celeste, ensure that at least some luxuries make their way to the people who are willing to pay for them.  The underground tunnels left behind by the Maskos-built sub-surface terraformation and oxygen harvesting machines make ideal housing, once cleaned and flattened for construction.  Furthermore, the fact that the entire underground habitation is pressure-sealed against the surface conditions makes them easy to secure, though the shared atmosphere and ventilation makes wide-scale disease outbreaks inevitable.  Cloudburst Defenders train in tunnels set aside specifically for them.  Deployment of vehicles is extremely dangerous and expensive in the tunnels; if a regiment of Defenders are raised and equipped with vehicles, they train on Celeste instead.

Cloudburst Defenders are best deployed for urban campaigns, as they have few other places to train, and are uniformly equipped with the heaviest Carapace armor and Padded Carapace armor they can find, down to the last soldier.  While this is expensive, it makes them tenacious defenders in close-in battle.
The martial traditions of Celeste and Cloudburst are not concealed from outsiders.  The few large cities on Celeste on land often host large military parades, sometimes even proudly flaunting strategic and theater-level weapons on huge transports.  As the regiments most often called to defend individual worlds that cannot raise enough troops on their own, such as Underbar and Fathon Prime, Celestial Guard troops rarely get to return home, and even more rarely find themselves blessed with Colonization Rights of Conquest.  However, the regiments raised from the offspring of the Sector nobility can sometimes afford to return home after a mission by pooling their money and buying passage.
In combat, the Celestial Guard enjoy the use of Cognomen precision rifles.  These expensive but highly accurate weapons are a sort of catch-all term for the rifled-barrel projectile auto and slug guns and the long lasguns of the lonely Forge.  As one of the oldest continually deployed military forces in the Sector not under Forge World control, the Celestial Guard have a long and proud tradition of marksmanship contests.  These contests are held in the great Red Sand basin in Munkaero, which contains the largest military base in the system.  The base, so named because of the non-arable land that surrounds it, boasts a seventeen-mile long firing range.  Of course, that is a range far beyond even Martian las-weapons and slug sniper rifles, but the range also sees use in testing Hunter-Killer Missile upgrade pods, freshly attached to the Celestials’ tanks.
The marksmanship contests are strictly regimented by the Commissariat, who see this as a valid if theatrical means of upholding morale and skill.  Traditionally, each battalion participating in the contest sends its ten best rifle shooters to the contest, and the PDF sometimes sends troops as well.  The contests consist of moving and stationary target tests, and time trials.  The winners are divided into laser and slug rifle categories, and prizes are awarded for most consistent accuracy, longest kill shot, and fastest response time for moving targets.  Champions in each category earn a ribbon for their uniform that can’t be earned any other way, and a chance to volunteer for service in the Guard for PDF members.

Cloudburst Defenders sometimes train on Celeste as well, given the lack of vehicle training space.  The competition between Defenders and Guards is fierce, in areas from physical athleticism to recitations of the Imperial Creed to shotgun marksmanship.  The rivaly doesn’t extend as far as actual opposition or acrimony, but Celeste Defenders like to mock the Guards’ lesser armor and prestige, while the Guard have their crack at the Defenders’ limited combat versatility and bulky looks.
When they do fight together, the two forces complement each other well, to their irritation.  Defenders are the clenched fist of Cloudburst urban war, with their heavy shields, heavy armor, and Thimble uniforms.  Individual Cloudburst troopers are hard to kill with conventional weapons in the best of circumstances, and when they form an Arbites-style lockwall or lay down a curtain of smoke and advance behind polarized masks, they are an intimidating force to be reckoned with on the battlefield.  Celestial Guard are the masters of plains and mountains.  The range of their weapons and the speed of their deployents allow them to forge a beachhead in nearly any terrain, and hold tenaciously.

Because the command and control of the Cloudburst Navy is not centralized, but instead distributed over several anchorages at the Subsector Capitals, Septiim, and Coriolis, the Lord Admiral Maynard commands the fleet from the deck of the Vulpes Ferrum.  However, the capital of the sector needs some connection to its fleet, and so Cloudburst and Celeste share a small Navy anchorage in orbit.  It is too small to build ships, but it is large enough to house a dedicated Astropathic temple and several suites of offices for whatever officers may be present at the time.


The Order of the Sanguine Soul

The Order of the Sanguine Soul is the only Order of the Sororitas to have a significant presence in the Cloudburst Sector, headquartered in a colossal and partially-subterranean fortress on the pristine beaches of Celeste.  The Order consists of a few tens of thousands of Sisters scattered over the sector and a few hundred more in the Circuit.  Though their greatest number consists of the Famulous Sisters, there are several Battle and Hospitaller forces throughout the sector as well.  They are well integrated into the local Ecclesiarchal hierarchy, with Canoness Minoris Gloria Anokane presiding over the large congregations of Celeste.

The Sisters here, having only a few thousand Battle Sisters total, depend on large Frateris Miitia when prosecuting their wars of faith.  Their means of transport are limited, with only a small fleet of reconditioned Navy transports, stripped of their armaments in adherence to the Decree Passive.   The Ecclesiarchy maintains a single large ship for their own use in the collection of new Sisters from the Schola Progenia, and a few smaller troopships for the Sisters to be carried where they are needed.

The forces of the Ecclesiarchy in Cloudburst centralize their combat training, with the equipment they need supplied by the Mechanicus outfitters stationed in the asteroid belt of the Cloudburst system.  The outfitters don't make any of the Refractor and Displacer fields of the Ecclesiarchy, however, with those instead being manufactured on Cognomen.

The Sanguine Sisterhood, however, are vicious and utterly fearless combatants, each more than capable of flensing a heretic or burning a rebel in the Emperor’s name.  Though perhaps somewhat undersupplied compared to Ophelian or Terran Battle Sisters – the lack of Inferno Pistols for their Senior Seraphim is especially annoying – they make do with unbreakable faith, a wise and generous demeanor, and an unmatched victory record in infantry combat.  Even the Daggers have known defeat in past engagements; the Sanguine Soul remains unbeaten.  Of course, they also field at a strength of five battalions, which even the Black Templars can’t.

Daily life in the convent is one of reflection, but unlike those of most Orders of the Sisterhood, Sororitas of the Sanguine Soul are encouraged by the Ecclesiarchy to serve in the local chapels and cathedrals of the Emperor as direct clergy.  It is common for places of worship in the Celeste system to have a Sister or two serving within.  The Sanguine Soul Sisters have distinctive uniforms they wear on duty in this role.  Clad in armless cloaks with an angular front flap, a dress beret with the classic fleur-de-leis, muted blue and grey service robes and tabards, and pleated dresses or trousers at their choice, they stand out against the bright gold robes and capes of local Ecclesiarchs.  The Sisters serve as genetic counselors for new nobility in the expanding Sector, and since many nobles in the Circuit and Sector’s new worlds are former military, they also perform screenings and confessorships for these veterans.

Sisters of the Order also serve other secular roles in Celeste and Cloudburst governing, such as administrating the larger Schola Progenia and training the Frateris Militia that sometimes accompanies Missionaries into the Circuit.  Primarily, of course, their role is a spiritual and martial one, and hundreds of Sisters have served alongside the Ordo Hereticus as their Chamber Militant.  The Sanguine Soul has somewhat better relations with the Astartes than most Orders, but this does not make them friendly.  The present view in the Order is that the Astartes are as much a part of the Emperor’s plan as they are, despite their genetic deviancy.

Rarely, the Sororitas will send out a force to do battle with the heretics of the Sector.  It has few, because of very careful colonist selection by Naxos and the heavy military presence in the Sector, but its history isn’t spotless.  Whole cities have burned because the Ordo Hereticus has ordered it, and the Sisters have lit the fires.  By far the most violent single incident in the Sisters’ history is the purging of Brotherhood, which involved the mobilization of every Battle Sister in the Sector.  Drawing on all the sisters of Celeste, Septiim Secundus, Maskos, and Nauphry, the combined forces of seven Ordo Hereticus Inquisitors, their retinues and Throne Agents, and two Imperial Guard regiments, the conflict raged for only two weeks, but Brotherhood was left uninhabitable after it all.


The Sanguine Convent is the Abbey from which the Sanguine Soul sisters set forth.  The building is a magnificent beachfront palace of the Ecclesiarchy.  The structure itself towers over the shores and rocky cliffs of the area.  The beach on which the Convent is built is the terminus of a mountain chain that stretches from deep within the continent to the edge of the water, and the Palace emerges from its end hills like a beacon.  Stained glass windows, soaring towers, and snapping banners throw bright colors on the rooftops of the building.  The air rings with the sound of crashing waves, singing choirs, and screaming Sarissae cutting through target dummies.  The enormous Convent is actually far larger than the current Order needs, but the Order is expanding at the insistence of the two Cardinals of the Sector.

The Order does not traditionally sustain a Templar Militia.  The Sisterhood trains them as needed, instead.  Since they were established after the Reign of Blood, the Sisters here have no history of using Frateris Templar, either.  As such, the extent of permanent Templar forces in the system is a platoon of ceremonial guards, who oversee the personal quarters and starship of Cardinal Drake.  The Templars train with the Sisters to familiarize themselves with the battle callsigns and drills of the Sororitas.

Among the warriors of the Order, there number just over five thousand combatants in Celeste, with another thousand in the Maskos system.  The Batte Sisters here are defenders of Schola Progenia throughout the Sector and even in the few outposts of the Circuit.  The Convent palace also trains some of the Drill Abbots of the Schola, and more than a fifth of the Planetary High Priests of the Sector have studied here under the Abbess.
The Convent is more than a training facility or chapel, however.  It is a garage, a prison, a laboratory, a school, and a retreat, too.  All of these functions together may explain why it is so large, given the Sisterhood’s general disdain for the wealth-centric model of the Cloudburst Ecclesiarchy.
Within its ceramite and steel reinforcement and outer stonework, the building is a home to thousands of teachers, scholars, gene-techs, and guards, all of them drawn from the tens of thousands of Sisters of the Sector.  The teachers and scholars are a mix of all of the Orders of the Sisterhood, including the more obscure Dialogous.  Here, future members of the non-militant Orders train in their sacred duties, including translating odd dialects of Gothic, treating alien parasite infestations, interpreting the human genome, preventing forgery and counterfeiting, and even decommissioning heretic armaments.
Among the responsibilities of the Orders here are preserving the master templates of the genetic stock of the Subsector Overlord families, to ensure that the families that rule in the Emperor’s name are not inbred.  For this reason, water-tight and over-pressurized vaults sit below the ground level in the core of the huge Convent building.  The Order Famulous oversees the vaults, and trains the gene-techs who work here to predict strains of mutancy.  The gene-techs have another role: predicting the rise of a Living Saint of the Emperor.  So far, the Sector has produced none.
The Hospitallers of the Sanguine Soul are known as being unambiguously the best field chirurgia in the Sector, eclipsing even the Astra Militarum Battle Surgeons and rivalling the Blue Dagger Apothecarion (who have understandably more specialized skills).  The Hospitallers of Celeste take just pride in this, and their skills in healing the wounded and curing the sick have even reached the Deathwatch, who have consulted with the Hospitallers of the Sanguine Soul when they have encountered odd alien diseases in the Circuit.  The Hospitallers enjoy a whole wing of the Convent to themselves, guarded around the clock by six Cryo-Shock Seraphim elites, wearing state of the art power armor with full environmental seals and liquid nitrogen sprayers.  The security measures ensure that no strange illnesses escape the wing, but also prevent any of the hundreds of daily visitors to the Convent from entering the Hospitaller quarter.
Among the non-militant orders, the Dialogous are the smallest in number, but the Ministorum regards them as no less holy or indispensable for it.  The Cloudburst Circuit still contains dozens of regressive human worlds, and many more that could be colonized; a Dialogous Sister is invaluable to a Missionary or Rogue Trader active in the region.  The Diologous Sisters of Celeste are also responsible for copying certain texts from religious thinkers and Missionaries of Cloudburst’s past, like the great Missionary Maskos or the Arch-Deacons of Jodhclan.  The sisters then send copies of the texts along with ships that travel into the Exo-zone or the Circuit, to spread the word of Cloudburst’s finest to the heathens beyond.

Of course, when the average citizen thinks of Battle Sisters, he thinks of lethal warriors in power armor, burning heretics and hedge witches with holy flame and hate.  True enough, the Battle Sisters of the Convent are the most highly trained mortal soldiers in the Sector (with the possible exception of the Night Slaughter).  The Sisters would reject the word ‘soldier’ as a description, though.  Nobody could mistake them for unfit fighters, of course, but soldiers are professional military and nothing more, the Sisters here claim, while they have responsibilities most soldiers never will, and they also do not follow a traditional Astra Militarum hierarchy.  The Battle Order of the Sanguine Soul are ruthless, potent, and awe-inspiring warriors and paramilitary enforcers of the Ecclesiarchy’s will, and the Chamber Militant of the Ordo Hereticus Cloudburst.  On no fewer than fifteen occasions, the Ordo Hereticus has mobilized over one thousand Sisters from Celeste or Maskos to engage and destroy heretics and witches in the Sector, once destroying an entire planet in the process during the scouring of Brotherhood.
An entire wing of the building holds the vast fleet of vehicles and spare power armor the Sisters here deploy.  The garage holds Immolaters, Incarcerators, and Repressors, as well as the dedicated Rhino and Penitent Engine fleets of the Sisterhood.  Unfortunately, the Sisters do not have the means of making Exorcists, as Cognomen was not issued a copy of the STC before Mars lost it.  However, the Sisters here do sometimes work alongside the Inquisition, which fields the comparable Whirlwind Artillery Tank.
The land outside the Convent is a training field for the Sisters.  Girls as young as twelve and women in their nineties after juvenat spar, shoot, and exercise, under the frosty eye of Celestian trainers and Retributor practice leaders.  The training ground is as much a punishment field as it is a practice one, however.  After daily drills have concluded, Sisters and Initiates who have failed in some duty are sent out into the field with magnetic combs, and tasked with picked up every shard of metal scrap and shell casing they can.  The next day, if the penance for their failures are deemed insufficient, the penitent Sisters must practice barefoot, so that if they missed a shard, they will be the first to know, a practice that visiting Celestial Guard drill instructors have noted is intimidatingly hardcore.
More experienced Sisters train on elevated platforms, reinforced with steel lattices.  The platforms hold grav-plates manufactured in nearby cities and operated by Mechanicus-blessed servitors, and simulate the differing gravities of alien planets.  On the plantforms’ surfaces, target dummies and ambulatory sparring machines attempt to block Sister trainees from crossing pre-determined pathways to the other side, by either physically blocking them or setting them on fire.  Other platforms have rope assault courses, environmental hazards like whirling blades and electric prongs, or hidden spring panels that can send inattentive Sisters flying back to the start of their courses.
Specialists practice in their own areas of the training fields.  Retributors use their heavy weapons in an area cordoned off from the rest of the fields, to prevent friendly fire.  Jump pack equipped Sisters train inside a hollow tower of the Convent itself, flying from spar to spar and girder to girder in a simulated construction area, firing their bolt, flame, and limited Inferno weapons in training mode at holographic targets.

Even the most relentless and faith-fuelled warrior of the Emperor needs to rest their bodies after days of nonstop training.  The beaches of the Convent are blocked from nearby observation by holo-field projectors.  On the mile-wide stretch of sand, Sisters meditate on emblems of the Emperor and Terra that Initiates painstakingly sketch into the sand every sunrise.  With the tides from Cloudburst overhead, the emblems erode, in an object lesson about the impermanence of labor unless it is life-long.  At the edge of the water, Sisters practice swimming, for either training or recreation, one of the precious few forms permitted at the Convent.  Naturally, the presence of a mile-wide stretch of unobservable tropical beaches filled with thousands of athletic women has intrigued many a paparazzi or salubrious neighbor, who are invariably captured and given bone-chilling punishments for trying to peek on their spiritual betters.

Unlike certain other branches of the Ministorum, the Sanguine Soul Order members endure sets of prohibitions against conduct that the Convent Abbess deems inappropriate.  Some Orders are simply held to such a high standard (and drilled to such a high standard) that inappropriate conduct is unthinkable to them, but the Sanguine Soul Sisters have these strictures enforced, thanks to the past misconduct of a few who ruined things for all their successors.  The partaking of intoxicant chemicals besides alcohol and prescription medication is outright forbidden, as is gambling at a house-cut establishment, and private ownership of a vehicle.  The vehicle restriction stems from some highly embarrassing and public incidents of sector noble families from Thimble gifting their skycars to Sisters in thanks for resolving family disputes, and the untrained Sisters promptly crashing them.
Starting families is not forbidden to the Sisters, though of course few ever find the time.  The few Sisters who do usually raise their children within the Schola Progenium of nearby Civitavecchia until the girls are old enough to train in the Convent and the boys are old enough to do something with their lives.  Notably, the present Canoness Superior, Monica Lanbrie, is a grandmother, which some of her critics use as a point against her spiritual purity, but most see as being a piece of trivia at best.  Labrie is no common Canoness, either, for she is by the direct order of Cardinal Drake, the Canoness Extraordinary of the Celeste system, and even visiting Sisters from other Orders must answer to her while present in the Diocese Celeste.

The Convent has two other facilities that set it apart from a typical Ecclesiarchal facility.  The first is the prison.  Deep below the waves, under two hundred feet of sand and rock and another hundred twenty feet of salt water, the Sisters stand guard over dark secrets of Mankind.  In a field of humming capacitors and silent Multi-lasers and Multimeltas, fifty Celestians of the Order keep grim vigil over four hundred stasis, cryo, and immersion cells.  These cells host the worst heretics, recidivists, and Traitors in the Sector, captured by the Ordo Hereticus and Malleus and sent to the Convent for eventual interrogation.  Inquisitors sometimes arrive by stealth shuttle in the dead of night, having transferred to the fleet of matte-painted Aquila shuttles the Convent maintains in a space station in orbit if they didn’t bring their own.  The Inquisitors have delivered such prisoners as the Arch-Heretic Deacon Woldenbar, who led a billion souls to damnation with the whispers of Chaos, the wicked Soul-Shrivener of Clegran, who found xenotech that let him part a body from its spirit, and even Renel Abbas, a former Thousand Sons Marine, captured alive on Oglith eight hundred years ago leading a cult of ritualists.  Other cells contain Chaos-tainted pirates the Navy captured leading Traitor raider fleets, Glasian officers captured alive during Migrations, and the one Primary of the Cult of Unbound Good ever taken sane.

The other unique facility is less grim, and unlike the prison, is common knowledge among the Sisters and Initiates.  Ironically, many also hold it in contempt; they see it as a sign of the Cloudburst Ecclesiarchy’s carnal corruption.  One wing of the ten-armed Convent fortress hosts a resort for the senior members of the Ministorum in the Sector and Circuit, who may come here free of charge to relax and meditate.  The wealth-obsessed Cloudburst Ministorum promptly turned the wing into a combination hotel and bar, to the displeasure of their subordinate Sororitas.  The suites in the wing are decorated to gaudy extremes, while the rectory kitchen more strongly resembles that of a Rogue Trader gourmand than a monastery.  While the Sisters were able to enforce successfully a prohibition on joygirls and joyboys in the building, some priests and Missionaries visiting the facility do insist on bringing rather larger and more youthful retinues than a meditative journey would strictly require.
The Inquisition is aware of this trend, and views it with equal disgust, but has yet to take action.  The possibility of Slaaneshi corruption in the beating heart of the Ministorum’s military headquarters, however, is not one they are willing to discount.  The Ministorum is unaware of how close to ordering a purge of the resort some Inquisitors have come, or how eagerly the Sisters would follow such an order.

The Inquisition finds other trends of the Ministorum Cloudburst troubling.  The similarities between the modern Ecclesiarchy of Cloudburst and the pre-Reformation Ecclesiarachy are stark, enough so that eyes have been drawn from as far away as Calixis.  The ideology of Drake’s Ecclesiarchy is that of the Imperial Cult, sure enough, but his means of expressing and encouraging faith are heirlooms that date back to the very dawn of Cloudburst.  The trouble is that they are are also akin to what the Ecclesiarchy now calls the Temple Tendency, or as they were once known, the Temple of the Saviour Emperor.  Banished and crippled by Sebastian Thor, many thousands of years ago after the Reign of Blood and rebirth of the Daughters of the Emperor, the Temple of the Saviour Emperor once claimed supremacy over all theological and many military matters of Imperial state.
Although the leaders of the Cloudburst Ministorum find the very idea repugnant when asked, the fact is that the doctrine of their faith does resemble that of the pre-Thor era.  The Synod Cloudburst is a joke, given its size.  With only a few tens of billions of humans in the whole sector, the Synod consists at present of two old men.  However, as the Inquisition knows all too well, any time two people with limitless power meet, conspiracies are born as if by the will of the universe.  The Ordo Hereticus has seen sufficient evidence of Saviour Emperor tendencies among the lay clergy of the sector to suspect that any infiltration of the Ministorum comes from the top.  This is glaringly obvious in contrast to the spartan Ecclesiarchy of Drumnos, and the pragmatic militarism of the Naxos priesthood.  However, preliminary investigations of the Ecclesiarchy’s conduct in Cloudburst have revealed the opposite trend.  Some of the most embarrassing events in Ministorum history in the sector have come about because the Ecclesiarchy took their tendencies towards opulence and self-armament too far, and were chastised for it.
For example, the problem of conscription by Ecclesiarchal ships from Hapster led directly to the arrest of an Archbishop after a humiliating mutiny on Thunderhead Station.  Three worlds in the sector have either endured outright Exterminatus or at least civil war because Bishops or Archbishops were undiscovered psychics or remorseless charlatans.  The Temple Tendency has become the nuisance it is elsewhere in the galaxy because of their discretion, caution, and restraint.  The Cloudburst Ministorum displays none of these traits.
Where exactly the truth may lie, the Inquisition does not know.  However, given the building resentment between the Canoness Superior Lanbrie and the sector Cardinals with Drake and Lamarr’s constant overspending, lavishness, militarism, and lack of oversight of their subordinates, any Inquisitor so inclined could find a ready ally in the firebrand Battle Sister.