Nakaris

Nakaris is a forbidden world located somewhere within the Ultima Segmentum that serves as the Adeptus Astartes homeworld of the savage and lightning assault-oriented Storm Sons Space Marine Chapter. From their fortress-monastery, the Chapter sends forth its kill-teams throughout the Imperium and beyond, serving as outriders for the Explorator fleets of the Adeptus Mechanicus on the edges of Imperial space, or crushing insurrection on worlds whose loyalty to the Golden Throne is found wanting.

The Utrar Khanates
The Utrar Khanates are a cluster of half a dozen systems in the Ultima Segmentum settled during the Great Crusade, united by a shared common heritage and root language, base Khorchin. Its estimated 42 billion strong population are directly descended from Chogorian and Terran colonists installed by the V Legion, White Scars, during the Great Crusade to enforce Imperial compliance after the 40th Expeditionary Fleet's xenos eradication pogroms.

The Divine Purging
Despite a prosperous beginning rooted in the dawn of human unity, the demands of the Great Crusade and the events of the Heresy eroded at the Terran authority installed by the V Legion. Imperial Governors through generations of nepotism and mismanagement were recast into self-styled emperors and dynasties, resulting in eight millennia of poor administration, petty squabbling and the inexorable technological and cultural decline that followed.

As the Khanates slowly fragmented into thousands of petty kingdoms, empires and vassal states competing for dominance, the lack of Imperial guidance eventually took a much darker turn: one by one, the outer systems slipped from the Imperial fold entirely when the Empress of the Qhwarazheen Dynasty, the largest Khanate empire of its time, fell sway to the Eternal Foe towards the end of M.38 and overthrew the last of the pro-Imperial confederacies.

The Imperial response was absolute: a purge action led by the Ordo Hereticus with three regiments of out-system Astra Militarum, supported by an Ecclesiarchy militia. In the third year of hostilities as the conflict spread throughout the sector, an instrumental ally came from an unexpected quarter: an Adeptus Astartes strike force comprising of the White Scars and their successor chapter Storm Lords, a total of 48 Space Marines.

Within days, the combined White Scars force led the assault on the Qhwarazheen palace compound. Once the Empress had been deposed, no less than two planets within the sector were sanctioned extremis to contain the influence of the Chaos. The Qhwarazheen Dynasty and their vassal states were eventually annihilated, a moon utterly destroyed, and more than a third of the entire sector's sixty billion strong population perished in the conflict or executed thereafter by Imperial forces during the subsequent purging.

[NB: For a full account of the Qhwarazheen Dynasty's crimes against the Imperium and subsequent military action, reference file ++CF-W12332-5433++]

Noting the Astartes merciless punishment of their distant gene-cousins, the Inquisition's support for the formation of an Astartes presence to guard and enforce Imperial interests in the region was expediently ratified by the High Lords of Terra. Stable gene-seed derived from the Storm Lords was entrusted to Storm Lords commander Torgha Khan and formalised as a Chapter, drawn from the remnants of the combined Astartes strike force.

For two thousand years since its formation in a period named by Imperial scholars as Pax Chogoria, the Storm Sons have guarded the Utrar Khanates against corruption, re-moulding its culture into a model Imperial vassal sub sector, lest the populace faces the wrath of the Khagan once again. Under their jurisdiction, the Khanates have been moulded into a diverse and potent recruitment pool for the Astra Militarum, and to date have raised several decorated regiments such as the XXIInd Utrar Mhukals and the vaunted outriders of the Ordu Zolhotaya.

The Ikh Khorig
In subsequent decades following The Divine Purging, the Qhwarazheen home system, once the jewel of the the Khanates, is now closed to all but the pre-industrial settlers re-populated by the chapter and the Storm Sons themselves. An asteroid belt created from the remnants of a moon destroyed during The Divine Purging forms a cordon known as the Ikh Khorig (the 'Great Taboo'), maintained and enforced by the Storm Sons from the rest of the Utrar Khanates. Based in the former Qhwarazheen dynasty's core, the planet was re-named Nakaris (lit. "Nest of Hell") and re-classified by the Administratum as a Forbidden World, all traces of the former dynasty systematically erased from Imperial history.

Once famed for its lush jungles and garden cities, Nakaris is a shadow of its former self following the destruction wreaked by Imperial forces during The Divine Purging. Now subject to frequent volcanic and seismic instability, Nakaris is now a planet of unending plains of ash and bladed grass, supporting a fragile eco-system on which its nomadic warrior tribes eke out an existence.

Sünsitai: The Soulforge
The shamans of the tribes of the Sungha, Uirats and Dhawas amongst hundreds of others speak of the legendary Sūnsitai - the Soulforge - in the heartlands of Nakaris, guarded by the metal warriors of the Eternal Emperor. In the two thousand years since The Divine Purging, an extreme punishment awaits those who violate the sacred law of the Yassa: deemed too damned to be judged by men, the guilty must instead be adjudicated by the Eternal Emperor’s mystic warriors by sailing the Sea of Souls to the Nest of Hell. None who sail are ever seen again.

Such are the legends of humanity that contain a kernel of truth, for the Soulforge lies deep within the mass of the highest mountain ranges on the Death World of Nakaris. Every day cycle, the penal ships convey hundreds of potentially useful servants (and occasionally recruits) for the war forges of the Storm Sons. These unfortunates, along with thieves, the diseased and other outcasts of the pre-industrial nomadic clans who now inhabit Nakaris, are left to fend for themselves at base of the Sūnsitai, and often perish in the extreme weather and topography; or be savaged by the beasts that dwell within the mountain range.

Only death awaits those who fail the Trial of the Mountain, for it is the ultimate test of survival, initiative and will. The hundreds of millions that have perished have have their material possessions scavenged, their bones bleached against the black volcanic landscape. From above, a ring of bone hundreds of kilometres in circumference around Sūnsitai can be seen from low orbit, a macabre landmark that marks the chapter’s only visible presence on Nakaris.

The few who survive, locating one of the numerous entrances to Sünsitai and enter through its thresholds are fortunate indeed, taken into the Soulforge by the Storm Sons to await judgment by the Zadyin Argas. No one who has survived the Trial is wasted. If they are of age, male teenagers begin the aspirant trials for their eventual transformation into Adeptus Astartes, whereas females and adults of both sexes become useful additions to the Storm Sons as indentured chapter serfs. Particularly promising young females, especially those with nascent psychic talents, are tested for suitability for service in the Holy Ordos.

Thousands of miles of chambers, vaults and tombs snake through the mountains of the Sitai range and deep into the planet’s crust, where the magma generated by tectonic activity provide suitable heat for the war forges of the Storm Swords, with ore mined from Nakaris and its surrounding moons. The Soulforge acts as a base of operations for the Storm Swords' fleets, supplying the material for the chapter's deep space voyages, who often do not return to the Khanates for decades.