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Catachan

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"One of the most dangerous and perilous ordeals known to Mankind."

— The World of Catachan.[3]
Map Basic Data Planetary Image
Galaxy-Rift-Ultima.jpg
Small cross.pngCatachan
Name: Catachan Catachan.jpg
Segmentum: Ultima Segmentum
Sector: Unknown
System: Catachan[Needs Citation]
Population: 12,000,000[5]
Affiliation: Imperium
Class: Death World, Jungle World
Tithe Grade: Solutio Primus[5]

Catachan is the most infamous and lethal Death World in the entire galaxy.[3a]


Overview

It is located in the Ultima Segmentum and is covered in dense jungle. The planet's entire ecosystem seems consciously hostile to all foreign life. Each and every element of the native flora and fauna of the planet represents a real danger to any human, even Space Marines are said to avoid this hellish place. Catachan has no need for the Planetary Defense Forces utilized by other worlds, its flora and fauna being sufficiently deadly to thwart attackers without the need for human intervention. The planet is known to house the single deadliest creature in the galaxy, with some of its native wildlife even being released on other worlds to dissuade invasion. Catachan's only valuable resource is its people, who by virtue of being born on the harshest world in the Imperium, are invariably tough and cunning. It is the homeworld of the hulking and fearsome Catachan Jungle Fighters of the Imperial Guard. For the death world’s finest, Humanity’s wars present no greater hardship than they face daily, so they proudly answer the Emperor's call to arms.[1][16][17][21]

History

Catachan has been colonized by humans for longer than Imperial records can remember. When the first probes arrived, the planet was a deceptive, calm green orb from orbit but when the colony ships crash-landed and the colonists had no way to escape, they awoke to find themselves on one of the harshest planets in the galaxy. The colonists only barely survived, holed up in their spacecraft against a living, besieging jungle, a battle for survival in which many undoubtedly died.[1]

Currently, the few settlements which can hold back the jungle forces are giant fortresses surrounded by vast plains which have been cleared to give improved lines-of-fire. Building on Catachan is difficult as vines and lichen take hold anywhere and poisons melt the mortar and vines can crush bunkers and tanks. Buildings must constantly be rebuilt; it seems that wherever they build, the jungle redoubles its efforts to destroy them. As well as the jungle, the native wildlife gather to repel the human invaders and eventually the numbers grow enough to push the humans out of their settlement so they must resettle elsewhere.[1]

In such dangerous surroundings, children are quick to learn survival tactics and only those who are fast and have a good natural aim survive to adulthood. Children often learn to shoot before they walk, and must be deadly fighters in their own right by the time most normal humans learn to spell.[1][15]

Recent History

During the Thirteenth Black Crusade the Death World found itself in the path of both a wounded Void Whale and a Waaagh! led by the Freebooter Kaptain Badrukk. However, due to interference caused by the Warp Storm Bas Infernia, the Imperium was unable to warn the Catachans of the threats heading towards them.[10]

During the formation of the Great Rift, Catachan was caught within the malignant rift and exposed to Daemonic Invasion. However when Guilliman's Indomitus Crusade arrived, they found that the local Catachan regiments had already dealt with the threat.[11]

Geography

Catachan

Flora and Fauna

All of the animals and plants on Catachan are geared in some way to destroy humans and any other invaders. Every plant is poisonous, making foraging impossible. Some plants secrete pollen into the air which is poisonous and destroys air-filters. Others secrete sticky liquid to capture passing animals and slowly dissolve them. Other plants poison the ground and turn the immediate area around them into boggy wasteland to trap invaders. In the jungle, even the slightest scratch can prove fatal as necrotic bacteria swarm in to putrefy it. The native animals are as deadly to humanity as the plant life, the Catachan Devil with jaws as big as a tank is a major threat to human living centres. The giant Shambling Mamorphs of the volcanic regions are also considered to be a major threat.[1][15][18]

Flora

  • Barbed Vemongorse — Possessed of a primal, cunning sapience, this carnivorous plant is highly adaptable, which snakes toward anything that lives, able to generate new weapon-growths and toxins throughout its life cycle while injecting debilitating neurotoxin with invariably fatal results. Commonly found with a collection of dead animal bones, xenos skeletons, and the odd unfortunate desiccated guardsman entangled in its sapient roots and boughs. The venom from a single one of these xeno-weeds is enough to kill most of a hive city. Mesh-like leaves, buds, and barbed flowers, a thick tangle of thorned creeper vines. Produces deadly subforms like the Grappleweed.[25]
    • Grappleweed — The most common and deadly subform of the Barbed Vemongorse. The Grappleweed is a hideous alien plant, with stumpy bushes with trumpet like flowers, able to shuffle across the landscapes of the galaxy in search of fresh morsels of prey. The writhing barbed tentacles are a deadly menace which will drag any prey with its grapple-barbed tongue into the fleshy trumpet for eventual digestion. It is a ravenous carnivorous plant that tumbles towards its prey with astonishing swiftness before dousing it in highly corrosive chemicals and consuming the slurried remains.[25]
  • Brainleaf — A vegetative carnivore: a small tree, not particularly conspicuous on Catachan, but is able to attach its tendrils to the spine and brain of a person, taking control over their body. This creature may be an offshoot of the Tyranid Cortex Leech, a creature with similar abilities.[18]
  • Breathweed — Infects a host's tongue and eventually replaces it.[26]
  • Canak Floater — These bizarre and deadly plants are filled with lighter-than-air gases, and drift across the planet with the vagaries of the wind. They have sensitive feeler tentacles, which detect warmth and moisture above the normal local levels. This is usually to detect streams, hot springs and other sources of water, but unfortunately is also sensitive enough to detect the temperature of and moisture changes caused by humans. When it finds such a place, the floater explodes, scattering its seed pods over a wide area. These seed pods have a diamond-hard outer casing with razor sharp edges, and will scythe through anything within range.[19]
  • Miral Catcher — Ground-hugging vegetation which has roots that are extremely sensitive to vibrations in the ground, such as might be caused by an animal wandering past. It looks innocuous enough when dormant, but when it attacks, huge tentacles whip from its many frilled maws and lash out. They carry a paralysing toxin, which acts almost instantaneously.[19]
  • Shardwrack Spines — Also known as "devil's-teeth", an evasive species of jagged formations of fossilized organic matter that have hardened over thousands of year forming razor sharp walls of crystalline growth bursting from the ground. A usual sight on any deathworld – menacing, bizarre battle zones that only the strongest or the most foolhardy would dare fight on. They form impenetrable barriers that hamper movement, able to mortally wound anything that might come near – their strange shapes and sharp spines can pierce armour as if it wasn’t there.[25]
  • Spiker — Another deadly plant. Known to fire its spikes into its victims' bodies, which then releases a mutative chemical which literally turns the person into another spiker.[18]
  • Spitting Cactus — A deadly form of jungle cacti, able to fire toxin-coated spines directly at nearby prey.[19]
  • Spore Tree — The branches of this plant hold dangling flowers which launch a cloud of spores when they detect something moving close by, to carry their seeds to other fertile areas. The spore cloud is so dense, the creature which disturbed the tree often chokes and dies. This is also useful for the spore tree as its victim's decaying body will enrich the ground around its roots.[19]
  • Strangleplant — These plants prefer shady spots to grow in, where their distinctive tube-like trunks are hidden from view. When they detect the disturbance caused by a passing animal, their long, highly adhesive stamen uncoil, wrapping themselves around their prey and dragging them back to die of dehydration.[19]
  • Stranglevine — A plant that prefers shady spots to grow in, where their distinctive tube-like trunks are hidden from view. When they detect the disturbance caused by a passing animal, their long, highly adhesive stamen uncoil, wrapping themselves around their prey and dragging them back to die of dehydration.[23]
  • Sucker Tree — A plant that is fairly innocuous looking to the untrained eye; it is simply a fungal-like growth on top of a seemingly normal trunk. However, the trunk can twist and turn when it detects prey, bending over to drop its suckers on top of the heads of its victims. It quickly drains them of their life fluids and then flings the corpse away, to ensure that future victims are not made suspicious by a pile of bodies.[19]
  • Venus Mantrap — A giant carnivorous plant common to jungle Deathworlds. It resembles the Terran Venus Flytrap for which it is named, but is far larger, and unlike the flytrap, it is able to move its leaves to attack and consume its prey. The Mantrap consists of a number of mobile leaves attached to a single immobile stem.[18]
    • Catachan Mantrap — A plant which, while having a similar name to the Venus Mantrap, uses a much more aggressive hunting technique. It can move its leaves around, actively searching out prey and clamping its jaw-like leaves around its victims.[19]

Fauna

  • Blood Wasps — Swarms of small, deadly insects that are known to eat their prey alive, stripping them to the bone in under an hour.[20]
  • Catachan Barking Toads — Although appearing benign and harmless, the Great Barking Toads are arguably Catachan's deadliest animals: the creatures are easily startled and, whenever they feel threatened, explode in a cloud of toxins which kills and liquefies anything within a one kilometre radius, including the Barking Toad itself. The toxin is virulent enough that even respirators and sealed suits such as power armour offer no protection. They are known as the most toxic creatures in the galaxy.[17][4] There are two type of Barking Toads:
    • Great Barking Toad[4]
    • Lesser Barking Toad[2a]
  • Catachan Bloodflies[8b]
  • Catachan Devil — Voracious predators, looking somewhat like many-limbed scorpions. They can be as long as a land train but are very bulky and slow moving, meaning that escape is possible.[Needs Citation]
  • Catachan Face-Eater[18]
  • Catachan Pusworms[9]
  • Catachan Water-drakes[8a]
  • Death Flies[20]
  • DrakebatsOgryn-sized, winged, pseudo-reptiles that lurk amongst the upper canopy of the equatorial jungles of Catachan, descending from the treetops to ambush and devour unsuspecting prey.[21]
  • Wild Grox — Although originally native to the Solomon system[2b], the animals are prized for their highly nutritious and tasty meat, and have been introduced to many worlds throughout the galaxy, so that the Grox is now the most ubiquitous livestock animal in the Imperium. Grox, however, are extremely ornery and virtually impossible to keep under control without some form of brain-implants or lobotomy. On Catachan they have become wild, and are deadly predators.[18]
  • Heretic-Ants — Named on the account that they always attack their prey's feet (or "Soles") first. One bite from these insects will put a fully grown man in the infirmary for a month, two bites will give them around a day to find treatment before dying, and three will simply kill them outright.[20]
  • Shambling Mamorphs of the volcano lands are tough fighters and put up a good fight even against the Catachan Devil.[18]
  • Spinebore Leeches[23]
  • Vein Worms — Secrete an ooze that numbs their prey when they bite, so that they cannot feel a thing. The Worms then dig their way under their prey's skin and into the bloodstream to lay their eggs. The eggs will spread all around the host's body, and when the larvae hatch they will eat their way through the host's brain, heart and bones. There is no known cure for Vein Worms once they have entered the bloodstream.[20]
  • There are also many types of venomous serpents on Catachan, including the Flying Swamp Mamba, the Coiling Death Cobra the Catachan Black Viper and the giant Blackback Viper, all are deadly to most living beings. Some can kill in under 30 heartbeats.[15][18]

Climate

On Catachan even the climate itself is considered deadly towards all human life.[22]

Disease

The threat of disease is also a constant hazard on Catachan, as there are many kinds of poxes and fevers that can kill a man within a few hours. Many of the planet's native insects also carry virulent diseases on top of being venomous, meaning that a single bite can be lethal in more ways than one. The world does not just breed diseases in its fauna. Most of the more dangerous microbes cannot be seen at all, floating through the air until they find a host and enter their bloodstream. There are swamps where a single breath of the fog will burn a person's lungs out, causing a long and agonising death. Even the water itself on Catachan can prove fatal to drink as diseases and poisons flow through it. Foot Rot can occur after a few weeks within the jungle, where the rotten feet will detach from the legs, producing a vomit-inducing stench. Many Catachans consider disease to be a greater enemy than any beast or monster.[20][8][24]

People

Catachan Colonel[27]

The people of Catachan are not only hardy, but pragmatic, with an easy grasp of realities and an uncomplicated attitude towards danger.[6] They are also somewhat disdainful towards people from other worlds, believing - with good reason - that few others in the galaxy have had an upbringing as dangerous as their own.[3b][7]

Catachans are known for being both physically and mentally resilient on a level that normal humans simply cannot match. Due to their heavily muscled physiques, they are often nicknamed "Baby Ogryns" by other Guardsmen, although never to their faces, as it often results in serious injury.[12][13][14]

See also

Sources

Uncited