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Dawn of War (Novel Series)

Map	Basic Data		Planetary Image
	Name:	Tartarus
	Segmentum:	Unknown
	Sector:	Unknown
	Subsector:	Unknown
	System:	Unknown
	Population:	N/A
	Affiliation:	None
	Class:	Destroyed
	Tithe Grade:	N/A

Tartarus was a planet besieged by Orks, and at one point, five different forces clashed on the planet: they were Orks, Imperial Guard, Chaos Space Marines of the Alpha Legion, Eldar of the Biel-Tan Craftworld, and Space Marines of the Blood Ravens Chapter.

Terrain and Climate

The planet was made up of several well-populated cities among vast forests, and had at least one major river. All the water had been pumped out of one flood valley, so that it could be used as the site of the planet's capital city, Lloovre Marr. Later on, when the Blood Ravens arrive, they note that the land around Lloovre Marr has been saturated with enough blood to be turned into a bog.

History

At the very end of the campaign as Tartarus, the Blood Ravens find out that there had been a very early human colony roughly around the Great Crusade. However, a cyclic Daemon Prince that emerges out of the Warp every three thousand years had appeared there and seduced the whole population to Chaos Cults. In response to this, Farseer Macha of Biel Tan arrived with an army to stop this threat. Macha held that it was her duty to defeat and trap the Daemon, and would later suppress his will every 3000 years. In the ensuing fight, the Eldar Guardians had the task of holding back the cultist forces and Bloodletter daemons, as Macha held a warp storm at bay and the Biel Tan Avatar of Khaine fought the Daemon Prince. The Eldar were victorious, but the cost of victory was their Avatar. Macha trapped the Daemon in a stone called the Maledictum, then buried it. To be certain that the stone couldn't fall into the wrong hands, the location could only told through a series riddles and clues.

At the same time as this first incident, a small group of Deathwatch Space Marines accompanying an Ordo Xenos Inquisitor called Jhordine had been tasked with finding the Avatar's weapon, the Wailing Doom. They succeed in finding it, though the weapon is shattered, and a Blood Ravens Captain attached to the Deathwatch squad manages to recover a shard. After the team escaped, the shard would be used in the construction of the Daemonhammer God-Splitter. All records of this event were expunged by the Inquisition. Tartarus would be recolonized 300 years later and treated as a new planet.

Over the centuries, the new colony on Tartarus defended itself, and successfully fended off many invasions by the Orks and pirates until 999.M41. The Daemon in the Maledictum had began to inluence the population once again, inspiring fear and heresy, including in many Imperial Guardsmen of Tartarus' Planetary Defence Force. Simultaneously, the Alpha Legion, lead by the Sorcerer Sindri Myr and the Chaos Lord Bale, tried to take advantage of the reawakening of the Maledictum, and organized Orks into attacking the planet. With the defense of the planet at the forefront of Imperial attentions, the Alpha Legion's actions in finding the Maledictum were largely unknown until the Blood Ravens uncovered evidence that linked Chaos activity and the recent invasion of the Orks.

It was during the failing defence of a key spaceport by the Imperial Guard when the Blood Ravens arrived and started to force the Orks back. Lead by Gabriel Angelos, who was accompanied by his long-time friend Librarian Isador Akios, the Blood Ravens helped hold back the green tides of Orks. In the aftermath of one battle, Angelos was confronted by Inquisitor Mordecai Toth, who urging him to take the Blood ravens and leave Tartarus before an incoming Warp Storm arrived. Determined to root out all traces of Chaos, Angelos refused and continued the search for heretics, and later the Maledictum as he learned more about the about the artifact left by the Eldar. In due time, the Blood Ravens would soon come into conflict with the Biel-Tan Eldar, again lead by Farseer Macha, who had been working to keep the Maledictum hidden. In a brief confrontation between Angelos and Macha, Sindri stole the Maledictum. The Blood Ravens soon attacked the Alpha Legion, who were attempting to free the Maledictum from protective bindings. As part of a scheme by Sindri, he escaped, letting Angelos kill Bale; then Akios, who had just turned to Chaos with Sindri's help, stole the Maledictum and flee, only to have the Maledictum taken away by Sindri, and distract the Blood Ravens as Sindri worked on with Maledictum. In a duel, Angelos defeats and kills Akios, making Akios an example of what happens to traitors and heretics.

Afterwards, as the Blood Ravens move to attack the remaining Alpha Legion's forces, Toth apologizes to Angelos, as he sensed the taint of Chaos near him. Although Akios had been the heretic, Toth was nearly certain that Angelos had been, largely due to Angelos' actions at Cyrene. Toth then entrusted Angelos with his weapon, which Toth revealed to be God-Splitter. Sindri in the meanwhile, had used the Maledictum, so that his body would ascend to a Daemon Prince in a sort of fabricated ascension. Aided by Toth and Macha's remaining Eldar forces, the Blood Ravens puch back the Alpha Legion and kill Sindri.

Against Macha's desperate warnings, Angelos used God-Splitter to destroy the Maledictum, believing that would destroy the Daemon within. Macha proclaimed that Angelos had "just damned us all," and swiftly departed. As Toth and the rest of the Blood Ravens begin to flee the incoming Warp storm, Angelos paused and was confronted by the Daemon Prince. The Daemon revealed to Angelos that Tartarus was no more than an altar at this point, and that every death since the Orks invaded was a sacrifice to him. Having freed him and unknowingly provided him with and the best sacrifices, the Daemon Prince allowed Angelos to escape with his life.

Sources

• Warhammer: Dawn of War - Real Time Strategy game by Relic Entertainment
• Dawn of War (Novel Series) - The first book in the series by CS Goto