Caliban
| Map | Basic Data | Planetary Image | |
|---|---|---|---|
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Name: | Caliban | 
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| Segmentum: | Segmentum Obscurus[10] | ||
| Sector: | |||
| Subsector: | Caliban Subsector[12] | ||
| System: | Caliban System[2a] | ||
| Population: | Millions[6b] | ||
| Affiliation: | Imperium[1] | ||
| Class: | Former Feudal World/Death World/Legion Homeworld[11a], Formerly Destroyed[1], reformed as Wyrmwood.[7b] | ||
| Tithe Grade: | N/A | ||
Caliban was a Death World and the homeworld of the Dark Angels Space Marine Legion.[1] It was a cursed but beautiful planet, being close to the realm of Chaos.[2a]
Contents
History
Pre-Imperial History
Unknown to the Dark Angels, long ago the brother to the Tuchulcha engine known as Ouroboros was embedded in Caliban's core. This may have been the original source of the planets warp-taint.[4]
Large portions of Caliban were covered with dense forests, which in turn were inhabited by many dangerous forms of wildlife. The most feared and deadly were the Great Beasts. According to Luther, Caliban possessed a vicious intelligence that extended to its "living" forests and beastly wildlife. This intelligence was in constant conflict with the Human settlers, whom it came to despise.[6]
Isolated from Terra for approximately 5,000, years the people of Caliban lived in a Feudal system. The noble class founded many knightly orders tasked with protecting the population from the hardships and perils that came from living in such a deadly environment. The greatest and most controversial of these orders was known simply as The Order. The Order differed from the other knightly orders in that commoners were also accepted into their ranks. Lion El'Jonson and Luther were both members of The Order and would rise through the ranks together until Jonson eventually became Grand Master. Prior to the Emperor's arrival Jonson and Luther united virtually all the knightly orders in a successful campaign to rid the planet of all the Great Beasts.[2a]
Though not technologically advanced, Calibanites were able to produce rudimentary bolters, chainswords, energy weapons, and even power armour thanks to fragments of STC's that remained on the world.[6a]
Caliban was home to dozens of languages commonly known as Calibanite, which would later be codified by imperial census takers as Lingua Mortis.[13]
The Great Crusade
The coming of the Emperor brought much change to Caliban. Jonson disbanded the knightly orders and eventually joined the Great Crusade at the head of his legion. Vast swathes of the planet were cleared. Mines were dug and huge manufactories were built to provide for the Legion and the Emperor's Crusade. Gone were the villages and towns and in their place vast structures called arcologies were built to house the population. Much of the nobility lost their peasant farmers, and disenfranchised they turned to rebellion.[3]
Meanwhile, Luther and a large portion of the Dark Angels returned to Caliban after a falling out with The Lion during the Sarosh campaign. Bitter, jealous, and feeling abandoned, Luther had to deal with an increasingly violent rebellion by the anti-Imperial nobility. Unbeknownst to the Dark Angels, there were also Chaos-affiliated Cultists and Sorcerers who had infiltrated Administratum staff disrupting the status quo on Caliban.[3]
During the Great Crusade, Caliban would serve as one of the two large outposts held by the Legion which saw the largest concentration of the Legion’s infrastructure, in the case of Caliban this was centered around the Fortress of The Order. The standard pattern of operations within the Legion saw it used as a base for resupply for a force that was primarily based within the mobile halls of the fleet. Only on the rarest of occasions did any of the Chapters of the Dark Angels return to their halls for any lengthy period of rest, with garrison duty left to the rawest recruits and those masters and seneschals with Deathwing lifeguard cadres that stood warden over it’s domain. The world was considered heavily fortified and defended.[11b]
The world also held sealed vaults containing large stocks of the Legion’s proscribed weaponry, including such types as life annihilating Gene-Phages, planet destroying Magna-Torpedos and the dreaded nanite scourge of the Silica-virae.[11c]
The Calibanite Jaegers Solar Auxilia Regiments were mustered from Caliban.[9]
Heresy
By the middle stages of the Horus Heresy the Terran cultists had been eradicated on Caliban, but Luther and his loyalists (most notably Lord Cypher, Astelan, and Zahariel) had gained a firm hold on the planet. Luther intended to proclaim Caliban independent from both the Warmaster and Imperium, but was plagued by the schemes and politicking. After the death of Belath Luther openly declared independence from Caliban and oversaw a purge of loyalist elements.[5]
Destruction
When Jonson returned from the Horus Heresy, a withering salvo of fire knocked ships out of orbit. Over many decades Luther had corrupted the remaining legion on Caliban. Jonson was furious and moved his ships back into orbit, bombarding the planet. Eventually, Jonson ordered the invasion and the loyal Dark Angels landed across the planet. The corrupt Dark Angels took hold in the Order's monastery, and Luther and Jonson faced off. The ancient home was reduced to rubble and the planet was flattened.[1]
Eventually, due to the bombardment, the planet's crust began to shift and crack. Around the planet, the warp shifted as the dark powers realised they had failed again and a warp storm spewed forth around the planet. A swirling vortex of warp power was created around Caliban and it eventually broke apart, being pulled into the warp. Only an asteroid with the ruins of the Fortress Monastery remained. Luther was said to be found, but Jonson was nowhere to be seen. It is said that he was taken by the Watchers in the Dark.[1]
Wyrmwood
Ten millennia later, Vashtorr the Arkifane corrupted the ruins of Caliban with his techno-sorcery, transforming it into a mobile planetoid dubbed Wyrmwood. A planetoid of roiling Warp madness and infernal Daemonic industry, Wyrmwood was heavily garrisoned by the Cult of the Arkifane and Vashtorr's other allies. At its heart was a core sub-dimension from which Vashtorr assembled the other components of the Dissonance Engine: Ouroboros, Plagueheart, and eventually the Tuchulcha.[7a]
During the Battle of Idolatros during the Arks of Omen Campaign, Wyrmwood was redirected into the Somnium Stars and used as the center of Vashtorr's plan to acquire the Tuchulcha from The Rock. The Dark Angels took the bait, and though Wyrmwood was boarded by the Unforgiven and heavily damaged Vashtorr succeeded in acquiring the last fragment of The Key he required. With the Dissonance Engine complete, Wyrmwood ascended to a level not even The Rock could harm and used its power to bore a tunnel into the reality between the Materium and Warp much like the Webway. Aboard the Wyrmwood, Vashtorr plunged the planetoid into the abyss he created in search of The Lock.[7b]
The corrupted hulk next appeared at Vashtorr's command during the Pariah Crusade. Wyrmwood was able to bypass the nodal matrices of the Pariah Nexus, appearing well within the borders of the Skahren System. Thanks to the Arkifane's infernal artifice the nearby pylon was corrupted. Had they not been, the pylon would have quickly worn away at the Daemon World. The immaterial gravity of Wyrmwood wreaked havoc on nearby planets, pulling those planetside up into the lifeless void, cracking continents and boiling seas.[8]
The tunnels Wyrmwood creates through the liminal spaces gradually collapse after its passing. Despite this, the warbands of Chaos Space Marine and Dark Mechanicum fleets that follow in the wake of Wyrmwood navigate these dangerous, rotted and cog-churned passageways. Dark pilgrims drawn by strange visions or desire to earn Vashtorr's blessings establish strongholds amongst Wyrmwood's perilous environs. Alongside the mortals are the many daemonic entities indentured to his service.[8]
Geography
Caliban is remembered for its forests, but it was more than simply covered with trees. Soaring mountain ranges touched the clouds, cut by deep valleys never reached by light of day. Kilometre-wide rivers twisted across the landscape like foaming serpents, sometimes narrowing to torrents so swift it would break a man’s bones to dare them, other times forming lakes so vast that their opposite shores were unknown to each other.[6a]
It was a planet of dangerous moods too, a land that refused to be tamed by human hands. Storms would swell within Caliban’s mountains and tumble down to the lowlands, bringing wind and rain so ferocious they would sweep away all but the oldest trees and sturdiest walls. Spring floods swallowed whole towns. Tremors in the ground would open chasms in minutes, devouring buildings that had stood for centuries. Blizzards would bury forts and their defenders.[6a]
Beasts
The deadly creatures that populated Caliban's forests and wilds, known as the Great Beasts or simply the beasts, plagued the people of Caliban for centuries, killing many and forcing the populace to be ever wary of the forests, until Lion El'Jonson and the Order launched their campaign of extermination. Each great beast was said to be completely unique, a species within itself. There also existed the possibility that they were spawned from the warp.[2c]
This seems to be backed up by Zahariel's journey into the Northwilds and the unseemly intelligence and cruelty displayed by the beasts. All of them were lethal in their own way and slaying one would mark a supplicant's acceptance as a full knight into the Order.[2c]
Notable Locations
- Aldurukh: The fortress and central headquarters of The Order. It began as a simple cave that a great forgotten warrior used to fortify himself and others from the Beasts of Caliban, evolving over time. By the end of the Great Crusade, a developed city had been built around it.[5]
- Stormhold: A city of 4 million people, the 3rd largest on Caliban.[5]
- Dordred Heath - Part of the settlement of Storrock. Area where Luther grew up, fighting the Great Beasts.[6a]
Trivia
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- Caliban is the name of a character in Shakespeare's "The Tempest". The character Caliban grows up alone, the only human on an island. This, combined with his ancestry (the son of a witch and a daemon), results in his wild and dangerous nature. Caliban is civilised by the arrival of a great sorcerer, but eventually grows resentful of his master and seeks to rebel under a new leader. In the end, however, he remains a servant of his first master. His character arc is notably similar to that of Lion El'Jonson.
- The alternate spelling "Calibaun" is a Romany word for "black," the original colour of the Dark Angels' armour.
See also
Sources
- 1: Codex: Dark Angels (4th Edition),
[Help] - 2: Descent of Angels (Novel):
- 3: Fallen Angels (Novel), [Help]
- 4: The Unforgiven (Novel)
- 5: Angels of Caliban (Novel), Chapters 6–7
- 6: Luther: First of the Fallen (Novel) [Help]
- 7: Arks of Omen: The Lion:
- 8: Crusade: Pariah Nexus, pgs. 40-43
- 9: Warhammer Community: Solar Auxilia – The Heraldry of Honour Part 3 (posted 13/06/2024) (archived from the original 30 July 2024, last accessed 30 July 2024)
- 10: Games Workshop Facebook (posted 31/8/2020) (archived from the original, last accessed 31 July 2024)
- 11: The Horus Heresy Book Nine - Crusade:
- 12: Battlefleet Gothic: Armada (Book), pg. 155
- 13: Lion El'Jonson: Lord of the First (Novel), Chapter 1 Section II
Uncited
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