Garmesh
| Map | Basic Data | Planetary Image | |
|---|---|---|---|
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Name: | Garmesh | 
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| Segmentum: | |||
| Sector: | |||
| Subsector: | Mathenda Sub-sector[1] | ||
| System: | |||
| Population: | |||
| Affiliation: | Imperium[1] | ||
| Class: | Unknown[1], former Hive World[1][1] | ||
| Tithe Grade: | |||
Garmesh was an ancient Imperial Hive World, until it fell to an invasion by the forces of Tzeentch, which were led by the Lord of Change Tz'Keth'K'Zar.[1]
History
It was once the beating heart of the Mathenda Sub-sector, until shifting trade routes, depleted resources and a string of incompetent Imperial Commanders, drawn from the noble Clan Habeyl, saw the world decline. This led to Garmesh's population languishing in poverty, while their indolent noble rulers hid in hive spire fortresses and ignored their plight. In M42 the resentment towards the hive world's current Imperial Commander, Habeyl VII, led nine individuals of Garmesh' population to form a cabal within its underhive. Each member was a psyker whose abilities manifested after the creation of the Great Rift and were drawn to each other by a voice heard within visions they received while dreaming. This voice bade them to pool their powers together to save Garmesh and led the cabal to believe it was the God-Emperor speaking to them and that he had chosen them to be his champions. All this made the cabal do as the voice commanded and shortly afterwards, a winged being of blazing light manifested in their midst. This entity blessed them by magnifying their psychic abilities ninefold and told the cabal they had the power to change Garmesh beyond recognition - if they fully employed their newfound psychic powers. Blinded by faith and hope, the nine cabal psykers named themselves the Heralds of Change, and set about mounting a sorcerous insurrection upon the hive world.[1]
Their powers allowed the cabal to form a coalition of hive gangs and zealous militia, which fought against Garmesh's Enforcers sent to destroy them. Later, as the faith of the Heralds of Change took hold throughout the hive world, many amongst the authorities and the manufacturers' guilds, and even some of Garmesh's Ecclesiarchal Preachers, joined the cabal. Habeyl VII could not grasp the scale of their rebellion until it became an inferno and caused the fearful Imperial Commander to order astropathic distress calls for aid to be sent out and for him to be evacuated off-world to safety. Habeyl and his fellow nobles would then hide out in their hive spire fortresses, where they demanded that their household guards hold back the Heralds' onslaught until help could arrive. Once the cabal learned of this, they became desperate and, with victory so close at hand, the Heralds beseeched the God-Emperor to aid them. However, it was not the Emperor, but the Lord of Change Tz'Keth'K'Zar who answered their plea. He had been the voice in the Heralds' visions the entire time and all had occurred as he had foreseen when K'Zar had first appeared to his unwitting pawns and bestowed his gifts upon them. He was all too pleased to aid the cabal and once he manifested upon Garmesh, he had the nine Heralds consumed by raging pillars of warpfire, which quickly connected into a nine-sided Warp Gate. Out from that inferno spilled the Daemonic legions of Tzeentch and the hive world's skies soon filled with kaleidoscopic clouds that whirled faster and faster about the world until those who looked upon them were driven insane. This maelstrom swallowed the worst afflicted of Garmesh's population and its hives weird extrusions and rearranged themselves no one could know where any doorway, crawlspace or processional might lead. As Tzeentch's power engulfed the hive world, gravity; time; relative position and causality - all melted away before the Chaos God's might. Rebels and the Imperial Commander's guards alike found themselves lost in impossible mazes, trapped on stairways that never ended, or attempting to fight while standing upon sheer walls or arched ceilings. All the while the Daemons of Tzeentch advanced and changed everything around them as they did. Fortifications transmuted into brittle glass, while those behind them were driven mad or mutated beyond recognition by the Daemons' powers. By the ninth hour after the incursion began on Garmesh, all hope was lost.[1]
Sometime later, the Imperial Navy frigate Hopeful Saint arrived at the hive world, to evacuate Habeyl VII. The warship was commanded by Shipmistress Endara, who had expected an easy job of evacuating a unctuous noble fleeing from his mistreated subjects, but instead the bridge of the Hopeful Saint was painted with the riot of colours thrown off by Garmesh's now flickering weather systems. The bridge's vid-screen showed the hive world as though Garmesh was aflame and as her crew became increasingly nervous by the unnatural sight, Endara attempted to make vox contact with Habeyl. What greeted the Shipmistress instead of the Imperial Commander, however, was an appalling confusion of babbling and screaming, threaded distinct pleas for help. Then the image on the vid-screen expanded and Daemons of Tzeentch emerged from it, engulfing Endara and her bridge crew in Warpfire.[1]
See also
Sources
- 1: Codex: Chaos Daemons (9th Edition), pgs. 18-19 - War Zone Garmesh
