Tundra's Shield

Tundra's Shield, known formally as ' Tesca arctica scriptor protector ', is an arid and harsh desert world that serves as the Chapter homeworld of the Ardent Shields Space Marine Chapter. Located in the highly contested Armageddon Sector in the Segmentum Solar, the Ardent Shields are one of many Adeptus Astartes Chapters that stand as a bulwark against encroaching Orks and other threats.

Background
Tundra's Shield]]'' ' ) is a desert world where every Hive city is encased in a massive dom to protect against the nearly 300 mile an hour dust storms that will appear. The period between storms can range from a few weeks to a few days. When the storms are not active, there are still many dangers when going out of the dom. Whether it be from the roaming Ork gangs who hide in their underground workshops during the storms. The normal desert worm grow to the size of a Leman Russ and pray on anything smaller than it, the safest place from these is near the massive rocky locations the Hive Cities are built around.

The much bigger mother worms can grow from either 500 meter to just under a kilometer long, swallowing low flying aircraft and large convoy vehicles. The smaller worms are often times the prey of the desert Scorpions who at their biggest are the size of your average human. Their venom is strong enough to kill even an Ogryn well they mandibles are strong enough to eat through the armor of a Chimera. These pests often lay still under the sand, waiting for any movement, below or above ground subterranean before moving to conserve energy, but making them excellent ambusher’s.

This sudden movement will attract the underground worms looking for food only to be stung by the tail end of this beast. It has also been known to sometimes pray on small conveys if it is hungry enough. Right below these rocky locations is a massive water reservoir that spans kilometers in every direction giving the idea the planet may have once been a water world before something happened that turned into into what they see now. This has made the patrolling of these reservoirs a necessity due too beasts from the desert coming there to drink. The ever changing terrain of the desert makes it hard convoy’s or merchants without ships to get from city to city as it is impossible to tell when an Ork raiding group is about to come leaping over one of the dunes in their buggies before running back to their hidden caves under the sand.

The Ardent Shields retain a somewhat indirect rule of the world and its neighbors. They will attend many services and major event such as the celebration of their founding in order to inspire moral among the populace and troops. They will also only make changes if something has affected the efficiency of anything negatively, otherwise they leave it up to the sub sector council which consists of a leader from each of the planets in the sector.

Chapter Recruitment
The Ardents Shields recruit in one of two ways, the most common being trial by hunt in which 2 men are chosen from the local Planetary Defense Force or the 'Ardent Guard' and put out into the desert with nothing more than a canteen combat knife each. They are told to survive 5 days in the desert by any means necessary. Each initiate has to keep his partner alive, if either one of them dies the other will have failed the trial. The second way of recruitment is much less common, but it is through being selected by the first Comitatu Imperator/Magister Psyler. When ever this has happened, it has almost always lead to a man who would go on to receive Terminaitor Honors and a story that would be remembered in the Ardent Hall of Heroes in the Sacrarium Spiritus Sanctus.

Fortress-Monastery
Sacrarium Spiritus Sanctus, or known as the Sanctuary of Silence to Imperial citizens is built into the side of a massive mountain. It is a place of where Marines of the Ardent Shields come too rest and reflect, looking over the vast deserts were multiple Hive Cities sit on the horizon. It is a place where the only sounds that can be heard is the stepping of Tech Priests, servitor's, serfs, and other Marines. Records of almost every Marine in the Chapter is recorded on a holo wall in the very center of the sanctuary, from the newest Scouts too the oldest Spartan. It is the job of Magister Psyler and his chosen serfs too look over the wall and make sure all the names are correctly remembered. The Sacrarium Spiritus Sanctus is completely automated with it's own outer defensive guns and a void shield that may cover it in times of crisis. This is the place where you are most likely to meet one of the Chapter’s Fidelis, or Faithful who act as the Chapters Chaplins. The Monastery was built upon the site of the ancient Tech Priest reliquary.

Forge of the Omnissiah
Off some distance away from the Chapter's Sanctuary of Silence stood a lonely peak of a mountain that held a inactive magma chamber below the surface. Along with it, it held the Chapter's forge where most of the Chapter Wargear was created by the Magister Mundus Creatus Est. The forge echoed with the sounds of machinery and the clanging of metal, a mirror of the Chapter Monastery where you could almost never hear a word uttered as no words needed to be spoken as too what they were doing as they all knew that speaking was not needed when crafting a weapon or armor. In the deepest part of the Forge is the Master of Creation workstation where he works above a molten bed to repair Terminator armor, Chapter Relics, or to create masterfully crafted pieces of gear.