Open main menu

Warhammer 40k - Lexicanum β

Golgotha

Targetdrone.gif This article is about the the Ork World. For other uses of Golgotha, see Golgotha (disambiguation).

Golgotha is an Ork World, conquered and infested by forces under the command of Ghazghkull Thraka after the Second War for Armageddon. An Imperial attempt to purge the world of the alien taint and execute Ghazghkull took place shortly after the Orks landed on the planet, but met with failure.[1] Since then - apart from a brief, significantly smaller, Imperial expedition to the planet[2] — Golgotha has remained in Ork hands.

Map Basic Data Planetary Image
Galaxy-Rift-Ultima.jpg
Small cross.png
Golgotha
Name: Golgotha Unknown.jpg
Segmentum: Ultima Segmentum[3]
Sector: Unknown
Subsector: Golgotha
System: Golgotha
Population: Unknown
Affiliation: Orks
Class: Ork World, possibly Tomb World[2c]
Tithe Grade: Unknown

History

In 996.M41, Marshal Actoan of the Black Templars led a Crusade to eradicate the Ork presence on Golgotha.[4]

Armageddon Wars

After the Second War for Armageddon, Commissar Yarrick tracked Ghazghkull to Golgotha and confronted him in a canyon in the Ishawar mountain range. Here, his force was trapped between Ghazghull's army and a second, similarly sized ork force. In the ensuing battle Yarrick's Baneblade, the Fortress of Arrogance was severely damaged by an Ork Stompa and abandoned during the fight and the Commissar found himself captured.[1] Yarrick would later escape and led a vengeful attack on Golgotha with Titans and Ordinatus engines, scouring the world of Orks.[6] However, Ork forces managed to retain their hold on the world.[2]

Operation Thunderstorm

Spoiler!
This page contains spoilers for: Gunheads (Novel)

When Ghazghkull prepared to attack Armageddon again, Yarrick requested that the Fortress of Arrogance be salvaged from Golgotha and repaired. The Imperial Guard 18th Army Group "Exolon" was dispatched to recover the tank under their commander General deViers, but after making a concentrated push towards the last known location of the tank, they discovered that the orks had besieged their supply base and forward outposts. However, the Fortress had been moved, and so, with "help" from the Adeptus Mechanicus, the Army Group tracked the tank further, discovering the ancient ruins of the alien city Dar Laq in the process. After an apocalyptic battle between the survivors of the Cadian force and large numbers of orks, the Cadians found the tank under the control of an Ork Warboss, but managed to eliminate the Ork crew (after losing most of the 3 divisions sent), and called for a Mechanicum Ark to repair and transport the vehicle off-world. The tank was then presented to Commissar Yarrick on Armageddon, but ironically, General deViers wasn't able to present it personally, as he had been killed by the Ork Warboss in its last death throes. Soon after, the Fortress was used in the Third War for Armageddon.[2]

Geography and Planetary Conditions

A world of mountains, sandy plains and rocky outcrops, Golgotha sports a thick atmosphere and a slightly higher than Terran-standard gravity, around 1.12G. Viewed from space, the planet looks like a stirred-round mixture of reds, yellows and browns. This thick cloud-cover reduces visibility, interferes with vox-communication and also happens to smell like rotten eggs, due to high levels of sulphur in the atmosphere. The constantly shifting sands - or fines - of the planet, which often whip themselves up into storms, are so small in particulate form that they could enter the bodies of humans through skin pores, resulting in a wide variety of medical complaints, many serious. The only known indigenous lifeforms discovered on the world are small creatures referred to as "dannih"; essentially insectoid leeches, that bore through flesh with relative ease.[2]

The movements of the 18th Army Group (aka "Exolon") during Operation Thunderstorm mapped a large area of the planet in some detail, including several prominent features within the desert. The Army Group's HQ was built on the Hadron Plateau, a flat-topped, sheer-sided and vaguely-regularly shaped rocky outcrop situated near the equator. Made of black basalt and some 4 kilometres in diameter, it provided a suitable defensible position for the beginning of the Army Group's mission, and was fortified extensively by the Army Group. The majority of the area around the Hadron Plateau was discovered to be desert, one that retained the hot temperature of the day due to Golgotha's thick cloud cover.[2]

Moving out from Hadron, the next location mapped - or re-mapped - by Exolon was Karavassa, an Imperial outpost from Yarrick's time built on another basalt outcrop, this one part of a chain of staggered foothills that bisected two deserts, Garrando and Hardar. Other old Imperial outposts, Tyrellis and Balkar were similarly retaken, providing a supply route through the Garrando Desert and into the Hadar Desert. From there, the route taken passed through the Red Gorge, as the rocky outcrops coalesced into a an uplifted area known as Vargas, that eventually led into and formed the Ishawar Mountains. It was in a valley of these mountains that the last battle between Yarrick's army and the forces of the Orks was fought, the wreckage of armoured vehicles marking the graves of many humans and orks. During their investigation of these mountains, the 18th Army Group found mysterious and ancient ruins; a whole abandoned city built into and completely through a mountain. Sequestered Adeptus Mechanicus records revealed the site to be called Dar Laq, a city of possible Necron/Necrontyr origin.[2c] Several other examples of such cities are rumored to exist, although none other than Dar Laq have been explored.[2b]

It is known that on the Largot's Gulch was constructed an airfield for Orks aircrafts.[5]

Previous Editions/Retcon

Golgotha was originally portrayed as a Squat World, with Commissar Yarrick's doomed army being primarily Squat in makeup. After the removal of the Squats as an official playable faction in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, this piece of background was eventually rewritten into the above.[Needs Citation] The Squats still make an appearance of a sort in the newer version of Golgotha's history, if only as curious artistic depictions discovered in ancient ruins.[2a]

Related Articles

Sources