Malaeor
| Map | Basic Data | Planetary Image | |
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Name: | Malaeor | 
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| Segmentum: | Segmentum Obscurus[1] | ||
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| Population: | |||
| Affiliation: | Imperium[1] | ||
| Class: | War World[1], Feudal World[1], Mining World[1] | ||
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Malaeor is an Imperial Feudal Mining World, that lies deep within Segmentum Obscurus and it is currently being invaded by the Daemons of Nurgle.[1]
History
Fortified mining compounds dot through Malaeor's mountain ranges, but beyond their battlements the rest of the world languished in serfdom and ignorance. Only Malaeor's ruling elites possessed any access to modern-day Imperial technologies, which led them to be known as Tech Lords and they did not share it with the world's serfs. These serf-classes lived short and fearful lives in service to their Lords and as they had little in the way of education or prospects, the serfs clung to their faith in the God-Emperor. Because of this arrangement, the serfs have, over centuries, come to despise all technological or scientific lore. To them, such matters were the sole domain of the God-Emperor alone and that no mortal should seek to master them. Because of this, though, when an outbreak of Retchpox began in Malaeor's backwater province of Piety's Promise in M42, it spread dramatically.[1]
While medical corps from a nearby mine complex offered their aid in curing the easily treatable disease and the region's baron agreed to this, the population of Piety's Promise fiercely resisted the treatment. Rumors were circulating across the settlements that accepting the cure betrayed a lack of faith in the God-Emperor and village priests fed the flames by promising healing through flagellation and prayer. The priests had long benefited from the superstitious natures of their flocks, and did not wish to see their power undermined. This soon led to angry mobs forming within Piety, who began clashing with bewildered medics and the baron's militia. In the resulting attacks, lives were lost on both sides, all while the Retchpox outbreak continued to spread. As the disease went on to claim more and more of the region's serfs, a chorus of suffering, sorrow, and pleas for salvation from its victims seeped into the warp.[1]
Matters further escalated when several victims of the disease that were under the care of a priest named Frater Kalimund, recovered without receiving any of the medics' aid. The reasons for this were unknown, with perhaps their illnesses not being serious or even that the serfs' recovery was truly miraculous. Whichever the case, Kalimund took it as a sign that he had been chosen by the God-Emperor to heal the sick of Malaeor. He claimed the plague was a test of faith and preached that the world's population should turn away from the false promises of heretic healers and barons, and instead make the pilgrimage to Kalimund's shrine in Promulga Valley. The priest said it would be there, that he would work a great rite of cleansing, and all of the Retchpox's victims would be healed. Kalimund's message would spread faster than the disease and soon, many thousands of serfs flowed towards the shrine spreading the Retchpox as they did. Militia cordons were overrun by them, while the frantic warnings of the medicae adepts continued to go unheeded by the serfs. Some of the militia even joined the serfs and because of Kalimund's actions, Promulga Valley was overcrowded with pilgrims on the day the preacher chose to begin his rite. Despite his desire to heal as many of the sick at once as he could, however, word had reached Kalimund that Malaeor's Imperial Commander had dispatched the Astra Militarum's 98th Mordian Iron Guard to put a stop to matters. This led the priest to quickly begin, as he knew his miracle had to be worked before the Guardsmen arrived there, otherwise Kalimund's efforts to bring healing to his people would end in a massacre.[1]
He was only seven verses and seven lines into his oration, though, when Kalimund began to convulse. At first, the congregation believed the preacher was gripped by the spirit of the God-Emperor, until the Frater erupted in a revolting spray of diseased fluids. The Great Unclean One Obloxxothrax then drew itself from Kalimund's ruptured remains and with a bass chuckle, raised its leprous hands in benediction, over the screaming pilgrims. The sight of the Greater Daemon caused them to flee, but the congregation could not escape. For Obloxxothrax's blessing was only seven words long and as the Great Unclean One gave the last glottal syllable, the Retchpox blossomed within its victims. Those infected by the disease Obloxxothrax had spread on their world, began to be devoured by it and collapsed as their liquefied innards erupted from every orifice, before their flesh in turn melted into bubbling ooze. When the 98th Mordian Iron Guard later arrived and looked down upon Promulga Valley, they saw nothing but a lake of liquid corpse-slop, whose putrefaction was reminiscent of a bubbling cauldron. Soon even the most faithful of the Regiment's Guardsmen began to sicken at once, as the Valley's miasmal fumes rolled over them. As they choked, Obloxxothrax waded out of the lake and a shambling army of plague Daemons followed behind the Great Unclean One.[1]
The Mordians fired upon the Daemons and many continued to fight, even as their comrades collapsed, vomiting blood and pus, or ran screaming. Yet despite the losses they suffered, more of Nurgle's Daemons surged from Promulga Valley's lake of corpse-slop. Soon the Guardsmen were buried by an avalanche of filth and the Great Unclean One Obloxxothrax and his army marched over them. Soon, the land sickened before the Daemons and thunderheads of miasmal foulness gathered on high, before plague rains and whirling fly storms began. These heralded the Greater Daemon's advance, as rivers of filth also gushed across Malaeor's lands. Forests touched by the liquid withered or bulged with putrescent life, even as the Imperium's forces on Malaeor fought back as best they could. However this was not a war that could be won with their weapons. By the time the world's distress calls were answered by a Salamanders strike force and the Inquisitors of the Ordo Malleus, it seemed they could do little to save Malaeor. Yet still they joined the fight, for just as a single Retchpox sufferer had begun this pestilent nightmare, so to could Malaeor not be allowed to be but the first of many worlds to suffer Obloxxothrax's plague.[1]
Related Articles
Sources
- 1: Codex: Chaos Daemons (9th Edition), pg. 23 - War Zone: Malaeor
