Toloran
Junior Member
Yesterday, you received the following message from Inquisitor Yojimbo while on you were on Scintilla awaiting assignment:
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Ref: Inq/045678499/BI
Author: Inquisitor Philbright Maximillion Yojimbo
Subject: Mission Briefing
Name: Iocanthos
Location: Segmentum Obscurus
Sector: Calixis (Scintillan Sub)
Tithe Grade: Exactus Median
Notes: ref -- Ghostfire Pollen
Mission Details: The Inquisition offices on Scintilla have been formally issued with a request for assistance from the settlement of Stern Hope on Iocanthos. The report, while vague, suggests suspicious distrubances, possibly psychic or warp-based, occurring in the area of a new cathedral raised to honor Saint Drusus. The cathedral lies at the heart of the remote outpost and its successful completion will do much to further the Imperial Faith on this troubled world, a laudable goal and one that the Holy Ordos shares.
You are requested and required to proceed to the planet Iocanthos where you will assist Senior Inquisitorial Agent, Aristarchus the Seer, in investigating the incidents and ensuring that the consecration of the cathedral goes as planned. Your peripheral tasks are to gather data about any phenomena encountered and, where needed, eliminate any threats you find. For the duration of the mission, Aristarchus has the honor of command over you in my name. Assist him and afford him the same loyalty as you would give me, in the God-Emperor's name.
Passage for you has been aranged on the trade-hauler Brazen Sky for immediate departure for Iocanthos. Make yourself known and familiarize yourself with your fellow Acolytes on board using the codes you have learned during your training.
Landing close to the site is impractical due to its geographical location in a mountain range and the potential hostility of natives. Instead, you will make planetfall at Port Suffering (Iocanthos' primary Imperial outpost) and meet Aristarchus there. From Port Suffering arrangements have been made for your journey to Stern Hope.
Addendum 1: The Cathedral Mission
Missionary-Abbot Orland Skae successfully petitioned for the first Iocanthan cathedral to be built in the settlement of Stern Hope two years ago, and since then reports indicate that he has gathered a sizable congregation of native converts and worthy off-world pilgrims to his cause. Skae himself, a very distant scion of Scintillan nobility, has managed to garner both off-world donations and considerable local support to his mission, so far succeeding where others have failed.
Addendum 2: Reported Phenomena
As the cathedral structure has neared completion, unusual phenomena have been evidenced both at the site and in the surrounding area. These include strange lights in the hills, animal attacks, missing persons, an upsurge in accidents and unexplained deaths. The accidents have culminated recently in more serious and obviously unnatural events such as manifestations of phantom sounds, walls weeping blood, telekinetic disturbances and other such phantasmagoria.
Addendum 3: Planetary Briefing
Society: Iocanthos is an anarchic pseudo-feudal society, where all power-relationships are based on violence or its threat. A war-torn and brutal world, the control of the planet rests with various warlord and clan factions that compete to harvest or steal the planet's only tithed material, Ghostfire Pollen, in order to turn it over to the Imperium in exchange for supplies. The most powerful warlord is currently King Vervai Skull who is currently acknowledged as Iocanthos' de facto planetary govener. Iocanthos boasts a single fortified Administratum-controlled spaceport settlement, Port Suffering, where tithe is collected and trans-shipped.
Founding: Iocanthos was taken by General (Saint) Drusus's 2nd Army Group during the first great crusades through the sector. As the planet lacked any significant technology, Drusus's forces defeated the indiginous people, known as the Ashleen, in a single week of bloody fighting. Drusus later remarked in his memoirs that the only memorable aspect of the planet was the vast fields of wild flowers which resembled "Shimmering fields of rippling explosions, caught at the fleeting moment between beauty and destruction" [Ref. pg. 526-- Breaching the Darkness]. As ever, the general was perceptive as the Ghostfire would become central to the world's future.
Additional Notes: In times past, Iocanthos served as a penal dumping ground for undesirables that the Scintillan authorities for various reasons didn't wish to execute or expatriate further afield. Such exiles were given minimal supplies and allowed to thrive or falter without further interference. The current population is largely a mixture of their decedents and the native Ashleen.
Imperial xeno-botanist Mogren Thunt was the person who discovered that the pollen of the native Ghostfire flowers contained power psychoactive properties and refined their use.
After being graced with a powerful vision telling her to build a temple, "Where the flowers burn", Sister Semberle of the Adeptus Sororitas came to the world and ordered the building of of the Abby of the Dawn in one of Iocanthos's flint mountain ranges. The Sororitas facility is forbidden to outsiders.
Ref--Ghostfire Pollen: Iocanthos's sole tithe. It is a power psychoactive substance use as the base for a considerable amount of combat drugs used by the Imperial Guard's penal legions throughout the Segmentum Obscurus.
Past Inquisitorial Involvement: To the average Iocanthan, the Inquisition is merely a half-legendary power from beyond their world, and while there records of several Inquisitorial missions to Iocanthos in the past, they are all classified beyond your clearance rating. I have reviewed them and judge none to be currently relevant to your mission.
The planet historically registers a slightly higher per capita level of psyker birth, but not significantly so.
The Sisters of the Abbey of the Dawn regularly report any unusual heretical activity to the Conclave. Other then this, the Holy Ordos retain no standing presence on Iocanthos.
** Ignorance is a blessing not to be disdained by the wise. **
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That was yesterday, today you are already aboard the Brazen Sky while in transit to Iocanthos. You were hustled on board while the crew frantically loaded and unloaded cargo. You were left in a large and disheveled looking open-plan crew bay, largely on your own except for the other acolytes. You are told to remain in your quarters for the duration of the trip by the purser who goes by the name Sebek who occasionally visits you to "see if you need anything."
The trip is three days by warp so there are about two more days before you arrive at Iocanthos.
************************
Ref: Inq/045678499/BI
Author: Inquisitor Philbright Maximillion Yojimbo
Subject: Mission Briefing
Name: Iocanthos
Location: Segmentum Obscurus
Sector: Calixis (Scintillan Sub)
Tithe Grade: Exactus Median
Notes: ref -- Ghostfire Pollen
Mission Details: The Inquisition offices on Scintilla have been formally issued with a request for assistance from the settlement of Stern Hope on Iocanthos. The report, while vague, suggests suspicious distrubances, possibly psychic or warp-based, occurring in the area of a new cathedral raised to honor Saint Drusus. The cathedral lies at the heart of the remote outpost and its successful completion will do much to further the Imperial Faith on this troubled world, a laudable goal and one that the Holy Ordos shares.
You are requested and required to proceed to the planet Iocanthos where you will assist Senior Inquisitorial Agent, Aristarchus the Seer, in investigating the incidents and ensuring that the consecration of the cathedral goes as planned. Your peripheral tasks are to gather data about any phenomena encountered and, where needed, eliminate any threats you find. For the duration of the mission, Aristarchus has the honor of command over you in my name. Assist him and afford him the same loyalty as you would give me, in the God-Emperor's name.
Passage for you has been aranged on the trade-hauler Brazen Sky for immediate departure for Iocanthos. Make yourself known and familiarize yourself with your fellow Acolytes on board using the codes you have learned during your training.
Landing close to the site is impractical due to its geographical location in a mountain range and the potential hostility of natives. Instead, you will make planetfall at Port Suffering (Iocanthos' primary Imperial outpost) and meet Aristarchus there. From Port Suffering arrangements have been made for your journey to Stern Hope.
Addendum 1: The Cathedral Mission
Missionary-Abbot Orland Skae successfully petitioned for the first Iocanthan cathedral to be built in the settlement of Stern Hope two years ago, and since then reports indicate that he has gathered a sizable congregation of native converts and worthy off-world pilgrims to his cause. Skae himself, a very distant scion of Scintillan nobility, has managed to garner both off-world donations and considerable local support to his mission, so far succeeding where others have failed.
Addendum 2: Reported Phenomena
As the cathedral structure has neared completion, unusual phenomena have been evidenced both at the site and in the surrounding area. These include strange lights in the hills, animal attacks, missing persons, an upsurge in accidents and unexplained deaths. The accidents have culminated recently in more serious and obviously unnatural events such as manifestations of phantom sounds, walls weeping blood, telekinetic disturbances and other such phantasmagoria.
Addendum 3: Planetary Briefing
Society: Iocanthos is an anarchic pseudo-feudal society, where all power-relationships are based on violence or its threat. A war-torn and brutal world, the control of the planet rests with various warlord and clan factions that compete to harvest or steal the planet's only tithed material, Ghostfire Pollen, in order to turn it over to the Imperium in exchange for supplies. The most powerful warlord is currently King Vervai Skull who is currently acknowledged as Iocanthos' de facto planetary govener. Iocanthos boasts a single fortified Administratum-controlled spaceport settlement, Port Suffering, where tithe is collected and trans-shipped.
Founding: Iocanthos was taken by General (Saint) Drusus's 2nd Army Group during the first great crusades through the sector. As the planet lacked any significant technology, Drusus's forces defeated the indiginous people, known as the Ashleen, in a single week of bloody fighting. Drusus later remarked in his memoirs that the only memorable aspect of the planet was the vast fields of wild flowers which resembled "Shimmering fields of rippling explosions, caught at the fleeting moment between beauty and destruction" [Ref. pg. 526-- Breaching the Darkness]. As ever, the general was perceptive as the Ghostfire would become central to the world's future.
Additional Notes: In times past, Iocanthos served as a penal dumping ground for undesirables that the Scintillan authorities for various reasons didn't wish to execute or expatriate further afield. Such exiles were given minimal supplies and allowed to thrive or falter without further interference. The current population is largely a mixture of their decedents and the native Ashleen.
Imperial xeno-botanist Mogren Thunt was the person who discovered that the pollen of the native Ghostfire flowers contained power psychoactive properties and refined their use.
After being graced with a powerful vision telling her to build a temple, "Where the flowers burn", Sister Semberle of the Adeptus Sororitas came to the world and ordered the building of of the Abby of the Dawn in one of Iocanthos's flint mountain ranges. The Sororitas facility is forbidden to outsiders.
Ref--Ghostfire Pollen: Iocanthos's sole tithe. It is a power psychoactive substance use as the base for a considerable amount of combat drugs used by the Imperial Guard's penal legions throughout the Segmentum Obscurus.
Past Inquisitorial Involvement: To the average Iocanthan, the Inquisition is merely a half-legendary power from beyond their world, and while there records of several Inquisitorial missions to Iocanthos in the past, they are all classified beyond your clearance rating. I have reviewed them and judge none to be currently relevant to your mission.
The planet historically registers a slightly higher per capita level of psyker birth, but not significantly so.
The Sisters of the Abbey of the Dawn regularly report any unusual heretical activity to the Conclave. Other then this, the Holy Ordos retain no standing presence on Iocanthos.
** Ignorance is a blessing not to be disdained by the wise. **
************************
That was yesterday, today you are already aboard the Brazen Sky while in transit to Iocanthos. You were hustled on board while the crew frantically loaded and unloaded cargo. You were left in a large and disheveled looking open-plan crew bay, largely on your own except for the other acolytes. You are told to remain in your quarters for the duration of the trip by the purser who goes by the name Sebek who occasionally visits you to "see if you need anything."
The trip is three days by warp so there are about two more days before you arrive at Iocanthos.
