Cilice

The stark and jagged landscape of Cilice Prime.

Storm-ridden Cilice Prime is circled and shrouded by swirling clouds and hurricanes. Continual gales carry the spores of its simple fungal life far and wide amidst lightning and frozen hail. Beneath the storms, the peaks and valleys of Cilice’s jagged surface form a stark, beautiful landscape that was once dotted with the proud structures of a colony founded under the authority of Rogue Trader Van Arkiel.

From behind void shields and armoured crystal viewports the colonists, drawn from the wealthiest exiles of Imperial nobility and the most successful of criminals (the distinction between the two being not always easy to draw) gazed out on the beauty of the world that was their sanctuary from blood wars, vengeful rivals and the iron fist of Imperial justice. The world of Cilice is still just as beautiful, but the colony palaces lie in ruin and its pale-eyed people scuttle in the shadows, harbouring a terrible secret.

Map of Cilice system

It is said by the pious that in time no sin goes unknown or unpunished in the God-Emperor’s sight, and the punishment for Cilice was terrible indeed. Vessels of Van Arkiel carrying supplies to Cilice were destroyed by a warp storm that rose up, swallowing them whole and sealing passage to Cilice. The world itself was a pleasurable and beautiful refuge and had no capacity to produce its own food.

So it is that the few debased colony palaces harbour those who eat human flesh, and they are always hungry. Some have beacons that broadcast distress calls out into the void, seeking sustenance from unwary travellers.

Places of interest

Map of Arrogance and the Golden Valleys

Arrogance

The colony of Arrogance is a large cluster of structures on the equator of the planet, built into a mountain and across an natural arch rock formation high above a valley below, incorporating a space port and industrial buildings. The colony is now long abandoned.

Inside the mountain is the shipping nexus of Arrogance known as Butcher’s Bay. It leads down to ground level and the Arkiel Gin Distillery. At ground level there is a highway of sorts running the basin of the valley round to the palatial estates.The palatial estates can be accessed by air, although the storms will make it difficult to approach

Port Van Arkiel

Port Van Arkiel

A dozen landing platforms for heavy barge landers, suspended on carved columns of stone hundreds of feet in the air. The space port is built on a great arch of stone, whittled out of a mountain by the howling winds.

The buildings of the port are wide, squat affairs, hugging the ground like limpets against the tide. Rain blasts across the landing platforms and the wind sails underneath, threatening to hurtle you off to to the jagged valleys hundreds of feet below you.

The colony of Arrogance is built into the mountain - its spires jutting from the rock face like snapped bones poking through broken flesh.

Butchers' Bay

The largest buildings built into the mountains, immediately off the space port space port concourse, are Butchers' Bay. These are vast warehouses, receiving rooms and cargo cranes long-since rusted over from inactivity. They seem to be once-proud shipping hub for the space port.

Detritus is strewn everywhere, garbage and torn rags. The rockrete floors have been stained dark from something you hope is engine oil.

A handful of bodies are scattered around - the remains of power-lifter servitors. Anything of value has been stripped from them, and most gruesomely of all, the pallid flesh-parts have also been flensed from its metal skeleton. The only evidence of its assailants are deep gouges left by crude tools, and the unmistakeable shape of teeth marks, as though the servitor had been gnawed to the bone

Arkiel Gyn Distillery

Protected by heavy metal doors, guard towers and atmo-generators, the Gyn Distillery looks more like a military installation from the outside. It is built into the rock like the rest of Arrogance, but its design is much older than the rest.

It joins to Butcher’s Bay through a big heavy door, wide enough to fit a battle tank through. Riveted steel cranes and massive pulleys above your head suggest the distillery produced a lot of Gyn for export through the space port.

The distillery is huge and amazingly mostly intact. Great brass stills large enough to swallow a heavy lander line the walls, copper cabling spiralling off them. Other machinery seems to have been smashed or pulled apart. There appears to be little of value lying around except a few dusty skeletons, picked clean with teeth and tool.

The Mash Room is hewn from the stone with riveted steel buttresses and steel rafters high above your head. Much of the roof has collapsed revealing more of the distillery above. A strange green fungus covers the walls, originating from the huge piles of harvested fungus in vats and containers in the far end of the room.

Fungus in the Golden Valleys

Golden Valleys

Rain lashes down, running across the uneven valley floor into a deep, dark river. A highway of sorts has been constructed, now overgrown and cracked. Patches of fungus seem to be growing quite contentedly by the side of the road.

Ugly palace-fortresses lurk in the thick curtains of rain - massive constructions that were probably once quite beautiful, now layered thick with armour and crumbling weaponry. Many of the smaller ones have been levelled, now nothing but broken ruins being reclaimed by the rain.

A Palatial Estate of the Golden Valleys

Palatial Estates of the Golden Valleys

Only four Estates remain intact enough to hold any value. All of which contained sealed vaults in their crypts filled with the ill-gotten gains of their former criminal masters.

Grin Estate

House Grin no longer exist, but once upon a time they were the name in black market weaponry - anything they couldn't manufacture they could acquire for you, at great cost.

The Orthesian Dynasty were able to clear out the Grin Estate of debased locals and secure the following;

• Several crates of counterfeit xenos weapons (now destroyed)
• Plasma gun with the illegal Starflare modification
• Stasis-vault containing a trade agreement between House Grin and the Gunmongers of Fane. The agreement states the bearer is entitled to contract the Gunmongers to manufacture weapons, on the condition the bearer provides a working prototype. Stasis-vault also contains a memolith with the coordinates for a Gunmonger facility in the system of Chital.

Glaw Estate

The Glaw Household are an estate in decline, their interests being disassembled piecemeal by the various enemies they have made over the generations.

It is here the Orthesian Dynasty discovered the whereabouts of Brother Espin's missing missionaries. In the dynasty vault beneath the estate they found congregation of imperial worshippers circle lying dead on the floor, executed with a las round to the back of the head and no signs of a struggle. A senior priest was found propped up against a baroque mobile shrine on tank treads, a las wound through the side of his head and a laspistol in his hand. A hand written note was placed neatly in front of him that simply reads “Without the dark there can be no light. Emperor forgive me”

The Orthesian Dynasty were able to clear out the Glaw Estate of debased locals and secure the following;

• Condemnor boltgun

• 3 consecrated filter canisters

• A mobile shrine-canter, with built-in loud-hailer and incense burners. It has a shrine on the front meant to hold a large weapon. A dusty book sits nearby, most of its pages are missing or faded. It talks of a lost relic, an archeotech power hammer called Piety’s Charge that once belonged to a lieutenant of Saint-Admiral Troubadous. According to the book, it was last seen on the world of Sobek in the Heathen Trail.

Fallaset Estate

The Fallaset Dynasty still exists, but is under extreme financial stress from their Rogue Trader's spending habits. They made their wealth on the beast trade - capturing, killing and processing exotic beasts and vermin from across the Nomads for research, materials or blood sport.

All the Debased locals here were found dead, killed by a colony of Ambull that had set up residence in the Fallaset Estate. It appears a breeding pair of Ambull were captured by House Fallaset and kept in stasis cages in the vault. When the stasis cages failed, the Ambull escaped and began to create their own nest.

The Orthesian Dynasty were able to clear out the Fallaset Estate of ambull and secure the following;

• Dozens of Good Quality Beast Cages in various shapes and sizes, from tiny rodent-sized cages to gargantuan cages designed to hold creatures of terrifying bulk. Two of the largest cages appear to have lost power and been torn open from within. Their data-plaque is damaged, but it reads something about “Breeding pair from Gallionic. Client; Beast House”
• Half a dozen Shocknets
• A dozen shock collars of various sizes, none of them the correct size to fit a human
• A Mark 2 "Solo" pattern bolt gun
• A small personal supply of Kraken Penetrator ammunition for bolt weapons