Culling of Darkfall

The Culling of Darkfall was a planetary-wide purgation campaign carried out by the merciless and unforgiving Murder Sons Chapter in the latter centuries of M35 against the recalcitrant worlds of the Darkfall System. When an Inquisitor was sent to investigate rumours of supposed atrocities committed by the darkly famed Chapter, the Inquisitor, his vessel and all those aboard, mysteriously disappeared. Conjecture still rages amongst Imperial scholars as who is to blame, but extant records indicate that a lone Murdering Sons vessel was in the area where the Inquisitor's ship disappeared.

History
An Imperial retribution crusade is launched when the Darkfall System declares against the Imperial creed in favour of an independent principality, free of the Imperium's yoke. From out of the void, the Murdering Sons arrive and proceed to strike like a thunderbolt against the various worlds within the system. The renegades responsible are systematically exterminated, and the secessionist leaders are flayed alive and crucified from the hive capital spires. Soon, multiple reports of the atrocities carried out by the Murdering Sons filters back to the Segmentum's Inquisitorial Conclave, who quickly despatch an Inquisitorial representative to investigate the truth of the Chapter's actions.

The Puritanical Inquisitor Uziel Dredd investigates the worlds that have suffered the Murdering Sons' brutal retribution left in their bloody wake, and is shocked by what he finds. While returning to the seat of his Inquisitorial Conclave, his vessel is beset by an unknown enemy. The last vox broadcast by Dredd's ship are garbled and nearly indecipherable - the sound of bolter fire can be heard in the background. The only Imperial force in the vicinity of his disappearance is the Murdering Sons' Strike Cruiser the Sanguinum Fidelis. They report no sign of the Inquisitor or his vessel. The Darkfall System is brought back under Imperial compliance within less than a year.