Arn

The world of Arn is an inhospitable and verdant death world and is also an Adeptus Astartes homeworld of the Gloam Strikers Space Marine Chapter. This isolated planet is located to the far northwest of the Halo Stars, past the Segmentum Pacificus.

Arn System
The star system of Arn consists of three other bodies outside of the single planet closest to the star there, Luh, which lays just in frontal edge of the habitable zone, that being Arn.The home world of Arn is a treacherous and dangerous swamp land of countless trees, inky black air, and hostile lifeforms that would test even the hardest of Adeptus Astartes, but the creatures are the least of concern. The air is unbreathable even by Astartes lungs due to the fact it is primarily chlorine and sodium based, and less than ten percent oxygen. The chemicals in the watery mud and the small rivers that run for miles in windy, nonsensical patterns, lead those who follow them lost and into the heart of the forest's darkness. Despite fungi and plants that emit infrared radiation, insectoid monsters that burrow in the hundreds in massive hives that span the world underground, city sized volcanic craters and caverns that open up underfoot and forests so thick not even vehicles can pass through normally, the canopy of these forests are safe and make many a hideout for criminals that have escaped Arnisia and set up bases of operation that are often the target of Gloam Strikers initiates on their test of proving themselves worthy for supplies and the mere fun of bloodletting. Occasionally the sun will break through the red skyline and unleash its ultraviolet flares on the spots of vegetation and burn it into a circle of dust. Besides these hostile conditions, they are ample grounds for training Astartes in the basic skills of stealth and survival.

Beyond this world, two gas giants and the world of Stellis, a minor forge world owned by the Adeptus Mechanicus, drift slowly and calmly. Classified as a jungle/death world though much unlike Catachan, the sky of Arn is constantly covered by a thick, inky and blackened cloud layer that shrouds out most of the incoming sunlight, therefore making the surface of the planet a moist, shrouded world. The eternal darkness that clouds the world has left for the fauna and flora of the planet to be bioluminescent and nocturnally based. For the normal human, it would be as if the night was moonless and the barely visible environment would be unable to navigate without additional light sources. This is because most of the bioluminescence of the animalia and plant life is transmitted through infrared light, nullifying thermal vision to be impossible to use.

The air of Arn under the black cloud layer which covers the entirety of the planet is hazardous and hot, unlike the cooling ground underneath it. It is filled with chlorine and trace amounts of sodium, and requires rebreathers or some forms of air filtration to allow even astartes to take in bare minimum amounts of oxygen. The dense coverage of forest makes travel throughout the planet hard for large groups of individuals, and because of this most of the larger animals of Arn tunnel underneath the ground, steps often lead to pothole formations. The trees are covered in thick moss that releases infrared wave radiation, filling the air with intense heat. This “Brimstone Moss” recycles bacteria with the acidic properties of the atmosphere and give off infrared as waste products. To add to the already unpleasant nature of Arn, greenhouse effect from the clouds that hold in carbon dioxide released from the plants at the canopy of the forests heats the air of the jungle to a point that it would singe the skin in the summer.

The water of Arn forms minuscule rivers and streams that collect across the entire surface of its three continents, and collects in the massive roots of trees. These cover near every ten square feet of Arn and are commonplace to quickly evaporate and form areas of boiling steam that kills everything in its path. Several lakes across the surface of the continents are interconnected by massive caves that pool the water in large underground chambers. The ocean of Arn is a slimy, oily sea, slugged by the contents of the air molecules being trapped in air bubbles. Nothing is able to live within its inhospitable cocktail. The only human settlement of Arn is the Hive City of Arnisia, of which its walls and gleaming, ivory spires rise far above the black polluted clouds towards the bright, cool, blue sky.

The sun of Arn bathes the city in a sterilizing white gold light which shimmers like a diamond off of the harsh glass and adamantium towers, golden archways, and quartz statues that adorn the chapter's fortress monastery which sits atop the highest spire of Arnisia, shining like an iron citadel among a metropolis of rocky snow-like buildings that are piled atop one another without mercy. The city is painted white and light colors as too cool it from the harsh rays which blast it constantly with desert heat, the dry air above the clouds however is fresh and clean. The atmosphere itself allows cool winds to give some comfortable breathing room for the rich nobility who rule without thought or mercy over their workers who are numberless. Above these, only the most aristocratic and talented merchants and artists could afford.

Below the clouds the slime of the city in their billions toil and sweat and bleed ceaselessly to produce for their overlords the gleaming rich architecture and materials required to construct more of the city to accommodate its growing population. The base materials are brought in from Stellis, and any and all who are given the chance, run to the forge world to escape the dark, harsh environment that encapsulates them all, from the depths of the underhive to the deepest mines, scum from all corners run to the Mechanicum, despite their harsh nature being conservative, the life of being a servant is much preferable than that of being less than a slave to the aristocracy of Arn. The pollution exasperated from the high chimneys tirelessly sputtering out smoke and other gases clout the surrounding area with an unbreathable air and smog underneath the already blackened clouds, so most of the people there who are not trapped in the terrible underhive don heavy duty gas masks and cumbersome air tanks which are rationed.

The city walls are harshly guarded from constant attack by a feral ork band that struggles itself to survive on the planet surface, and an insect horde of monstrous creatures that hive throughout the planet. The planet defense force is a heavily experienced and fortified presence that are experts at night fighting amongst the walls and surrounding areas of them. Although hardened, the guard there are scavengers and do not have an exact uniform, being known to have the potential of selfishness and a hoarding attitude except when in the presence of their kindred. The culture of Arn is very tribalistic. Large families ranging into the hundreds sleep, eat, and live together in large housing blocks within Arnisia, each block contains anywhere from one hundred to one thousand people depending on how rich the Block Lord is able to fund. These Block Lords, usually wealthy tradesmen who employ these poor families, who in the long years of existing in this constant state of working have built themselves a sort of inherited blood right to jobs in a caste system, find work and contract out their services, or families, to all sorts of menial labor, from working various positions within the ten manufactorums that range from the middle upper hive to the acidic sludge lakes at the bottom of the underhive, where mutants and gangers are sometimes the least of the worker’s worries.

The Block Lords also sell off these members if they see fit into slavery without question, for if any rebellion is sensed by them, as in Arnesian tradition now, entire families can be sold off and separated forever in the great vastness of the lower hive to other Black Lords. This is practiced more or less, however, to keep the genepool fresh in the Hive, and cruelty can be seen as a virtue by the higher ranking societies in the city as a necessary cruelty to prevent the degeneration of their people, in a sense. If block members are orphaned, they are generally either thrown out to the PDF, or sold as pleasure slaves to the reigning elite, where either they will be clasped eternally to the outside of the spires until they starve with chains wrapping around their scarred, burnt and naked bodies tied to the harshly boiling white gold surfaces of the high spires and towers which reflect the sunlight like mirrors in the highest extants of the planet’s atmosphere, or die from sun poisoning, or are forced the rest of their lives to become man servants or maids to the wealthy elite and artists.

Art is prized in Arnisia as many people here are born to the machine and do not contain many skills outside of mechanical operation. Individualism is rewarded, of course, only to the upper caste, and is punished in the workers, often leading to their families being sold off and mixed into other housing blocks. It is common competition among the elite to chain as many people to the outside of their gleaming pearlescent spires to show their wealth and power over their people. The people of Arn, or Arnians, descend from an ancient human colony that settled this world ever since the Great Crusade took place, as a forward outpost for the Imperium then to further colonization into the dangerous reaches of the Halo Stars. After the Heresy cut them off as more important local assets were obtained by both scouting traitor and loyalist forces, the people of Arn were forced to fend for themselves.

After the third generation the people of Arn were little more than raving, near blind, mad, and inbread, needing surviving archeo-tec torch lights and lanterns fueled by human and animal fat to illuminate their way. The various tribes in their hundreds aligned themselves in semi-clans that would grow once families intermarried. Each clan was ruled by a warlord, who commanded over several chieftains each assigned their own tribes. The meak and unworthy man-peasants incapable of hunting or fighting were often either sacrificed to the sun, which the people came to worship whenever it came poking out from the black poisonous sky that scowled the people down below each day but opened up on extremely rare instances. The men who could only hunt were gifted with wooden spears to hunt with and torches, while the hunting band, called in their language, a Cern, was often handed down by the chieftain his own archeotech weapon to keep the others in line, often either stub guns or even chainswords.

Warlords were the only ones allowed, in Arnian culture, to carry warbows, and as such each warlord’s bow was a sign of his dominance over the territory commanded. Cerns often hunted in dangerous areas, where the massive insects and dangerous monsters that lurk the shadowy realms provide ample challenge for the hunters who often die. Lesser Champions of the Gloam Strikers are given only bows to hunt the Arnian Bear, the largest and most dangerous creatures that inhabit the wilds around Arnisia. Even when they do successfully collect enough to eat, hunters eat the last in the tribe, the women, and warriors eat first. Most women in the Arnian clans only wed and reproduced with warriors and often the orphaned girls and women were enslaved to either the concubines of the warlords, or sacrificed to the sun god, named by them Luh, by being sent into the forest without a light source to die. Similarly, each chieftain and warlord near his death, would end his own life in the same fashion. The darkness was given godhood in their culture as well, and it was named Morgon (More-gone).

Discovery
In the year 300.M39, an imperial expeditionary fleet being safeguarded by a theorized Sons of Antaeus transport detachment, happened upon the System of Arn. After surveying and cataloguing the planet, a scouting detachment from the space marine transport ship made planetfall. After discovering and performing multiple tests on the humans found there it was determined that there was little chaos infection and no mutations within their ranks. For a time Arn was left alone with only a few Adeptus Ministorum outposts set on slowly converting the local populace. When the expeditionary fleet returned from their patrol in the year 402.M39, the entirety of all the clans and tribes were united under the Ecclesiastical leadership of Missionary-Priest Jabocus Arinian, who had been the product of the fully integrated Ministorum populace that intermarried with the tribes after earning their trust.

Jabocus completely annihilated all the temples, worship sites, and idols constructed by the old chiefs and warlords. These men were either forced to convert to the Imperial Creed, or fed to the forest. A lesser chieftain from the Midnight Hunters tribe of Arn, named Artax Hellgrim, had personally converted himself under the missionary’s watch and had been appointed Divine Magistrate and Minister of Arn, and, using the enslaved tribes under the crushing power of the stationed ministorum crusader force that was given over command to him as to show that the Imperium trusted his decisions, though they never truly did under his direct command, like Jacobus, crowned himself King of Arn and was directly influenced by Jabocus. He had built a mighty walled city and named it Arnisia.

Barbican - Fortress-Monastery
Forcing the various tribes to relocate and toil under him, lest they be convicted of heresy and either be tortured to death, or sent to the forest without food, tools, and clothing, made his tribe a royal family, and the Midnight Hunters earned their title as being the ruling noble house presiding in Arnisia. Over the time the populace of Arn had stayed, they had used crude filtration masks to breath on Arn, from archeotech masks for the warlords, to animal guts for the peasants. Eventually the people of Arn’s sight adapted naturally to the dark, but the light from the star ships’ engines when they had returned sent many of them blind, these blind ones were formed into a covenant with the Ministorum and formed the first religious order on the planet, the Convent of Darkness, and was the direct connection to the Ecclesiarchy from Arn, their justification that the engine burn of the starships of the Holy Imperium directly connected them for their experience from laying eyes on their technology, and who helped established the Gloam Strikers from a mysterious organization of astartes as a Chapter in the 405.M39.

Today the Order only recruits from the Underhive which house blind workers found there. They exist in one of the highest spires and act as gatekeepers to the entrance of the Gloam Strikers Fortress Monastery's Barbican. The Barbican is an armored elevator that uplifts to the Grand Hall, which in itself is another even grander elevator that leads the Great Hall at the top of the spire. The Great Hall, however, is the actual front gate to the Fortress Monastery, and is guarded by the blind and silent Dark Covenant guards, who see with implants, or by sensing vibrations. They wear white robes and black covers over their faces.

The Grand Hall is coated in obsidian and glass, the inner decorum is reminiscent of the dark forest below. Wavy vines and asymmetrical figures representing the cave paintings of yore, when man and beast was equal on this world, encrusted with gold and clasped in marble, depicted ancient tales of revelling and glory in the heroes of the mythologically historical past. Large stained glass windows showing victorious heroes of the chapter’s past ordain all who see them in rainbows of color. The Grand Hall is decorated with countless carpets and illustrious sitting areas spread over a great distance. A separate segment of bare metal was excluded solely for unit movement, behind a thin paper wall that arose until the eye couldn’t see to its top, as it extended along with the elevator to the Great Hall, thousands and thousands of meters upwards, illustrations and paintings are illuminated with candles and torches from behind giving the illuminations a holy lighting.

Behind this paper was a drab staircase that went all the way up and down, and was used only by the chapter when guests were appearing, or by acolytes to let them build their stamina and strength. The Great hall was plated from the inside with gold, glass, and hematite, the floor tiled with cracked obsidian. Lining the long walkway to a large pedestal shows the countless figures and statues of great heroes from Arn’s short history, separate from the chapter’s own figures. From here a Scriptorium, and entrance to everywhere else can be found, outside of the Fortress Monastery, as it is available to guest use, guests for the chapter however, had to have been very important figures within imperial society, for not even the nobles of Arnisia could enter. Separate glass archways for chapter use were carved straight from volcanic streams of lava from Arnisia’s volcanoes, where guests cannot see them in the darkness above them, gave off a radiance and beauty to astartes eyes.

Around the outside was lining the various defense lasers and outer perimeter guard stations, spires that kept close watch over the six launcher pads and two shuttle silos, led a constant vigil and watch over the sapphire skies above. The chapter solitorium was a singular tall spire inaccessible to all, other than through the means of aerial transportation. Here a domed stone ceiling exposes the meditative to the merciless sun and arid air, the inside totally coated in black paint and obsidian, making the temperature there intense even for Astartes to withstand for a time. Here the Penetorium is also located, where the heat was used as torture for non-astartes trespassers. Despite their seclusion, the space marines of their chapter hold one holiday dear to their hearts.

Every three hundred years the Gloam Strikers gather in their monastery and here they feast and then slumber for ten days, after these ten days they hunt in the dark forests around them, bringing their food to the dark belly of the underhive and middle hive to feed to poor workers there, and then they recruit from the hardiest and toughest they find there. They who are in campaign, or missing, are mourned with the dead, and given rites of glorification within the chapter in Reclusiarch led ceremonies with the various secret societies of the chapter, who show their heads and reveal themselves to new recruits who are attending their first "Mercy Feast." Due to them recruiting every three hundred years, this leaves their scouts to train longer and harder. Each tactical squad of Gloam Strikers comes with one scout under the direct command of the sergeant appointed.

Each company’s Captain is appointed two chapter servants to act as his squires, helping communicate orders and serving as his watch, prepare his food, clean and maintain his gear, and carry his knowledge in large tomes. They also carry arms to protect themselves. The gloam strikers have a put together astartes fleet that gets their units where they need to get going, consisting of ancient ships gathered and outfitted for war. The greatest ship in their shoddy small fleet however, is their most valuable one, the once derelict cargo ship now named the “Glorious Ancestry”  is just such an example of the Gloam Strikers scavenging and refitting gear to suit their needs. It is here, that the Enforcer of the chapter sits and directs his chapter when in war and sends the commands of the Chapter Master Hamr Ghul, the first Gloam Striker who sits in total seclusion except for when the Mercy Feast comes to the world, out to the warriors of the chapter across the galaxy.