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Warhammer 40,000
Blood & Beauty


...// Segmentum Ultima \\...
...// Planet Arterium \\...
-- Designation: Agri World
-- Hive Cities: 1 'Babellum'
-- Main Export: Sanguinalla Extract
-- Strategic Priority: Low
-- Status: Stable (Marked for Inquisitorial audit)

"It is easy to overlook such a quiet, beautiful world when rooting out corruption and heresy. To the untrained eye, a world such as Arterium plays no part in the greater schemes of the galaxy. Much to their surprise, these worlds are the most at risk of incursion from the alien, the mutant, and the heretic. While the rest of the galaxy turns a blind eye, I watch through a magnifying glass. These are the worlds that decide the fates of entire sectors. There is corruption here. I can smell its wretched stench hidden among the lovely flowers. I can taste it in the sweet air. It does not want to be found, but I will find it all the same."
Inquisitor Arthur Trask
Ordo Hereticus
991.M41

"Arbitrators! Atten-tion!

... Right, listen in, everyone. Some excitement just landed on our doorstep. I'm sure you're all tired of corralling the common rabble to and from the flower fields and arresting petty criminals. Seems our quiet little world is up for an audit by the Holy Inquisition, and the inquisitor, who should be planetside in a matter of weeks mind you, is requesting a local escort from Babellum's Adeptus Arbites. That's right, that means half a dozen of you get to tour an Inquisitor around and show him all the pretty sights. Arterium is peaceful enough, so I don't expect he'll come across any real issues. That said, in case something arises, I want you to report it back to me immediately so we can take care of the problem in house before things get too out of hand. I'll be passing down a list of names for the Inquisitor's escort party in a few hours.

Ahem... Arbitators! Dis-missed!"
Thaddeus Blesse
Babellum Arbites Judge
991.M41


...//Early Expedition Records: Vitalitus, Segmentum Ultima, 577.M35\\...

It is rare for a star system to harbor so many habitable worlds, only for one to be considered a home for humanity. While it is true that humans could thrive on eight of the total eleven celestial bodies, there are certain factors on all of the other worlds that add unnecessary risk to long term life. One world, Vitalitus Three, entertains an annual event that lasts through the entirety of its summer seasons where the flora uproots and relocates to seemingly random locations. This uprooting leaves the soil of the flora's previous site dry, unstructured, and spongy, which makes construction difficult and too costly. Not to mention that the flora, for Throne knows why, has no problems with rooting on settled territory and digging their roots through infrastructure and concrete.

Vitalitus Five, on the other hand, seems like a true paradise for human habitation. But every expedition down to the world has always seen the most inexplicable, most terrible luck imaginable. Many of the system have considered the planet to be cursed. Ships have randomly been unable to translate into the warp around it, other have sprung leaks in their most vital mechanisms for void travel. Food suddenly would spoil. A particularly cold day would arise at a crop's most vulnerable point. It is almost as if the planet doesn't want to be colonized, and so, after far too many blunderous attempts, its wishes had finally been granted.
...//Settlement History: Arterium, Vitalitus Prima, 780.M35\\...

There is a laundry list of things to be said about the ever-so tempting red herring worlds of Vitalitus. But I'm afraid this record would never see the light of the Astronomicon if it were all to be included in this 'brief' report. Let us focus on the one world that truly matters. Vitalitus Prima, named Arterium by its settlers. It is a world similar in size to that of Holy Terra. Similarly enough, the planet sits just over one astronomical unit away from Vitalitus itself, and the world has developed a very close range of biomes and landscapes to the cradle of mankind. There were signs of primitive sapience on this world when the settlers arrived. But they were too aggressive, and thus a single contingent of Imperial Guard were dispatched to the world to wipe them out. When it proved too difficult for an army of the Imperial Guard to effectively combat them, a newly founded space marine chapter, spacefaring at the time, known as the Sanguine Hands decided to become involved. The entire might of the astartes chapter rained down on the primal world and, very swiftly, eradicated the native civilization. They claimed Vitalitus Prima as a world under their watch, and they built their fortress monastery in the mountainous regions where the only battle brother in the chapter was felled by the primitives.

After the initial conflict with the native species on the planet, settlement of Vitalitus Prima was smooth and unhindered. Word of the paradise world had spread like wild fire throughout the sector, and the planet's economy began to thrive. But after nearly a century of interest, prospecting the world for vital resources until that time had been almost entirely fruitless. The world was beautiful and quiet, yes, but it held no strategic value with its lack of any resource needed en masse by the Imperium. Thus, Vitalitus Prima would begin to stagnate, and with the strangely uncooperative worlds elsewhere in the system, the Imperium would begin to not care about the little gem of a world. Several cities were erected for farmland and agriculture, but the planet's total population was quite low in relative terms, too low for the Imperial Tithe to be enacted for future Imperial Guard regiments or any amount of mass food production. The astartes of the Sanguine Hands were given free reign to recruit from its population.
...//Record of Conflicts: Chaos Invasion of 877.M39\\...

This quiet, peaceful little world is only noted to have seen one major conflict in recent history. This is, of course, the invasion by the forces of Chaos which led to the utter destruction of the Sanguine Hands chapter. The conflict was short but bloody. At the time of the invasion, the Sanguine Hands in their entirety was located on the planet to take part in a tradition of blood in honor of their Primarch Sanguinius. The Planetary Defense Force was spread across the planet to act as a military police force to assist the lowly manned Adeptus Arbites, but the PDF was inexperienced in conflict and widely regarded as soft, lazy, and complacent. Additionally, a single Warlord titan, was out of repair as the small, overworked contingent of Adeptus Mechanicus were too busy maintaining the priority systems of Babellum, the planet's only Hive City. Needless to say, Arterium was ill prepared for a full scale invasion at the hands of the ruinous powers, and its survival relied solely upon the thousand battle brothers of the Sanguine Hands.

The battle in orbit was trivial. The PDF's naval capabilities were limited to only two heavy cruisers and their escorts, as well as a bomber wing and two fighter wings each. When the warp translation was detected by deep spaces auspex, the two cruisers tried to link up and combine their might to fend off the assault. But a second warp translation forced the two cruisers to split and fight alone. Four colossal daemon-driven battleships came forth from the first warp translation, and without backup, the doomed cruiser and its tiny fleet was swiftly annihilated. The other imperial cruiser was making an admirable attempt in its engagement after having destroyed two chaos cruisers, but the battleships would reinforce the second chaos fleet and swiftly remove the last of the imperial orbital defenses. While the battle in the void raged on, several drop pods of Black Legion traitor astartes descended upon the world. Before Arterium could muster its defenses, the Black Legion was upon them, followed by several regiments of renegade guard. The population that survived initial shock assault were gathered by the PDF forces and escorted within the safe walls of Babellum while the Sanguine Hands met the enemy on all fronts.

The defensive line held by the Sanguine Hands was never meant to hold ground, but to just maintain enough of a buffer between the front lines and the imperial population that as many lives as possible could reach Babellum where the void shields could protect them long enough for reinforcements to arrive from elsewhere in the sector. Unbeknownst to the imperial forces, this was precisely the plan. The ruinous powers had just as few cares for the world as the Imperium did, and leaving forces behind to hold the world would only weaken them when it came to assaulting more important and well defended Imperial worlds. Their sole purpose for assaulting Arterium was to strike at the Sanguine Hands while their entire chapter was planetside. By attacking the civilian populations and raiding the planet with overwhelming force, the Sanguine Hands were strategically forced into their positions to meet the enemy and be cut off from support from the rest of Arterium's armies. Constant barrages on Babellum's void shields required constant maintenance and work from the Adeptus Mechanicus, preventing the Warlord titan from hastily being brought to combat readiness and depriving the Sanguine Hands of a much needed force multiplier.

To the credit of the Sanguine Hands, the forces of Chaos were held at bay for nearly three months against completely overwhelming odds. Nearly every inch lost was paid for in renegade blood. They held out long enough for the remaining population of Arterium to all be squeezed into Babellum, leaving the rest of the world as an open battlefield. The chapter continued to fall back in their defensive circle until the high walls of Babellum were in sight. By the time the Sanguine Hands had their backs to the hive city, only thirty of them remained. One battle brother, a Sanguinary Priest of the Chapter, was tasked with taking the chapter's remaining gene-seed and safeguarding it within Babellum. Should the Sanguine Hands fall, the Sanguinary Priest would inherit the title of Chapter Master, and begin rebuilding. He begrudgingly left his brothers outside the walls, and took with him only enough gene-seed to, hopefully one day, produce ten new astartes.

Another month passed, and Arterium's remaining PDF forces were left to man the walls of Babellum and watch as the Chaos Warlord and Chapter Master of the Sanguine Hands shared the last blows of the war. The Chaos Lord would win, striking down the Chapter Master in a show of exaggerated violence before the exhausted and desperate soldiers of the PDF. And just as the defending forces prepared for a long winded siege that would starve them out, the forces of Chaos simply just left. Their goal was complete. The Sanguine Hands had been destroyed and the world was left in ruin save for Babellum. To honor the lost chapter, every street corner in the high hive found itself under the eternal gaze of golden statues, each representing a different battle brother of the Sanguine Hands.
...//Ecological Study: Sanguinalla Flower\\...

Shortly after the forces of Chaos has left Arterium, the baffled imperial citizenry began to salvage the remains and rebuild the ruined world. The surviving Sanguinary Priest of the fallen space marine chapter, named Ramiel, made for the Fortress Monastery to begin rebuilding. It was discovered that all of the facilities needed to create astartes were entirely destroyed or tainted by chaos. Worse yet, the gene-stock hidden within the fortress monastery had also been found and pillaged for all its worth. Any gene-seed that wasn't stolen by Chaos was tainted. The Black Legion had ensured that the chapter would never rebuild. Ramiel was the last of his kind. The Sanguinary Priest scoured the rest of the monastery, finding that, like the gene-seed, the chapter relics were stolen too. He remained within the fortress monastery for years, working alone to clear the signs of destruction and battle from the place and bless the site. To this day, the fortress monastery of the Sanguine Hands is considered holy ground, and a separate military unit of PDF veterans was established by Ramiel to guard the ruins from intruders known as the Honorbound Watchers. As Ramiel returned to Babellum, he noticed patches of bright red flowers pockmarking the fields surrounding the hive. He noticed that each site was the final resting places of all of the battle brothers that he had personally seen to. Ramiel believed that their blood had mixed with the soil below and had bred a new genus of flower. Out of respect for the fallen defenders, the government of Arterium allowed the flowers to bloom and spread.

The expansion of the Sanguinalla was rapid. Far more rapid than anyone had anticipated. In a matter of months, the Sanguinalla was the only thing to be seen for hundreds of miles. The plant was capable of growing up surfaces like creeping vines, and soon even the walls and towers of Babellum were coated in the blood red flower. In the years to follow, Arterium became known for its swathes of red landscapes and the hanging red gardens of Babellum. Before long, the Sanguinalla flower's potential was discovered. It was an exceedingly versatile plant, with nearly every part of the flower having a practical application in some way. Most notably, the Sanguinalla flower's nectar that dripped from its wispy petals made an excellent reagent in rejuvenat serum. The government, understanding that the flower needed to be kept in check so it didn't interfere with critical infrastructure, found an excellent opportunity to turn this rapidly spreading flower into renewable resource that'd put Arterium back on the economic map.

A campaign was launched to harvest as much Sanguinalla as possible and build the facilities necessary to convert its nectar into rejuvenat serum. Soon, Arterium's rejuvenat would become a major resource in the sector, sought out by nobles of other worlds and rogue traders seeking to make their fortunes elsewhere. Nowadays, the sprawling fields surrounding Babellum are home to massive mobile factories that trawl and harvest the planet en masse. Barges filled with thousands of tons of flowers would deliver their cargo to the refineries in Babellum where the flower would be reconstituted into dozens of other materials and commodities. With rejuvenat in huge quantities, the high hivers of Babellum enjoyed extensively long lives. Even after two millennia, much of Babellum's nobility and upper class are the very same people who witnessed the final stand of the Sanguine Hands.
...//Planetary Report 991.M41\\...

One would struggle to find one rooftop in Babellum that is not capped with a garden of lush Sanguinalla. The hanging gardens that characterize the city have become a massive attraction for those not burdened with eternal war. The Hive City has grown significantly over the past two millennia, and the vast majority of the planet's population resides there. Working the Sanguinalla fields or in the plants is tough work, but the people of Arterium all seem motivated and content with their lot in life. Arterium is a stark contrast to the rest of the imperium. Many people actually like to live there to the end of their days. The people of Arterium, from the lowliest field worker to the most powerful arbitrator are paid in both Imperial Crowns and small doses of rejuvenat to keep the body strong and healthy. The working class is what keeps the wealth and prosperity flowing, and Arterium is a rare case where its people aren't overworked to death. With the population and the economy now in such a strong place, the greater Imperium has imposed the Imperial Tithe on Arterium for the very first time. Five imperial guard regiments have been requested from the world, and rejuvenat has been ordered to Holy Terra itself. With the increase of demand for Arterium's resource, the planet now enjoys a permanent battlefleet in orbit around the planet and a larger PDF force. Still, the Imperium sees the importance of a single agri-world as lesser when compared to forge worlds, fortress worlds, and hive worlds when held in the grand scheme. Rightly so.

Arterium's strategic importance is considered low, as rejuvenat is hardly a strategic resource, nor a vital one. It merely prolongs the lives of governors and nobles which can potentially bring its own problems with it. For that same reason, many of the Imperium's enemies also don't see a point in attacking or conquering Arterium. It simply just will not make a dent or deal a blow to the Imperial war machine. Due to its low overall importance, Arterium's military forces have once again slumped into a complacent attitude. Becoming a member of the PDF is to avoid working the fields, and that is about it. Commissars sent to Arterium to oversee the founding of the first give Arterium regiments have commented on the lack of discipline and fitness of the troops, citing that their excellent and expensive equipment will count for nothing in battle if they're out of breath and miserable in the first few minutes. The Warlord titan that never saw battle two thousand years prior, remains in a state of disrepair, and its hull is now covered in Sanguinalla. Indeed, the most experienced and battle hardened institution on Arterium is its Adeptus Arbites.

As the population and wealth grew, so too did the criminal element in the underhive. While Sanguinalla has many uses for machinery and life extension, it too also has exploitable properties for opiates. Drug trade has become rampant in the underhive, and gangs have risen to control streets below. They share a high degree of wealth with smuggling off world, and thus their equipment is comparable to military force. What makes these gangs so threatening is that they're always in competition, leading to turf wars of well equipped hive gangers battling it out for control. The most veteran gangers are more skilled than even the imperial guardsmen that Arterium is training. These high threat gangers have in turn led to the Adeptus Arbites requiring a high standard of excellence and equipment to overcome these gangers. The Arbites of Arterium are well known in the sector for being elite in comparison to other worlds, making them high sought after as trainers and chief arbitrators on other worlds. But Arterium is loathe to give away its elite police force, for every one of them is needed to the keep the dangerous gangs in check in the underhive and away from the eyes of far more powerful organizations.

[color=gray][center]
[img]character image here[/img]
[h1][color=dialoguecolor]character name here[/color][/h1]
[color=dialoguecolor][b]AGE[/b][/color]
##

[color=dialoguecolor][b]GENDER[/b][/color]
M/F/Other

[color=dialoguecolor][b]RANK & ROLE[/b][/color]
Your role within the Adeptus Arbites. The maximum rank your character can be is Arbitrator. Refer to the WH40k wiki on Arbites to find their rank structure.

[color=dialoguecolor][b]HOMEWORLD[/b][/color]
Few Arbites ever serve on their homeworld. Those that do are immensely privileged.

[color=dialoguecolor][b]PERSONALITY[/b][/color]
The attitude and ideologies of your character, as well as any quirks or ticks they might have.

[color=dialoguecolor][b]BACKGROUND[/b][/color]
The history of the character and how their life has panned out up to the point in time Blood & Beauty takes place.

[color=dialoguecolor][b]EQUIPMENT[/b][/color]
Most Arbitrators are equipped with carapace armor and a shock maul. But specializations, rank, and personal preference can and will dictate your character's preferred loadout.

[color=dialoguecolor][b]MISCELLANEOUS[/b][/color]
Any other pertinent or flavorful information not covered by the above categories.
[/center][/color]

Arbitrator Example

AGE
42

GENDER
Other

RANK & ROLE
Rank: Arbitrator
Role: Patrol Officer

HOMEWORLD
Necromunda

PERSONALITY
Serious, by the book, and very zealous. Goes to sleep reciting laws and giving thanks to the Emperor for delivering more criminals to their shock maul.

BACKGROUND
Born on Necromunda as a ganger. Wanted more in their life and joined the Arbites. Posted on Arterium where they clubbed several opium addled lowlifes and delivered the Emperor's justice.

EQUIPMENT
Carapace Armor
Shock Maul
Book of the Imperial Truth
Bolt Pistol

MISCELLANEOUS
Has a permanent scowl.

1. The primary goal of this RP is to have fun.
2. The GM's word is final on disputes.
3. No lore-checking other players. Not everyone is as knowledgeable as you on the source material. If you haven't noticed, this RP isn't exactly 100% lore friendly.
4. Try to maintain a somewhat regular post pattern. While I don't enforce post orders, they can help in motivating a story along. If you cannot post in a timely enough manner, a simple 'Skip' in the OOC chat is acceptable and we'll along without you.
5. This is Warhammer. It is grim dark. It is violent. It takes your morality and rubs it in the dirt. If you can't handle hard subject matter, do not involve yourself in this RP or follow its progression.
6. The usual RPG rules apply.

2022-10-23
- OOC Launched
Whoami Member

All things atmospheric...

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