Tenocit

Tenocit is a verdant jungle world/hive world located in the Segmentum Obscurus to the farthest reaches of the western borders of the known Galaxy near the foreboding Green Traverse in the Oestalan Sector. This Imperial planet serves as the Adeptus Astartes home world for the ferocious and savage Blood Jaguars Space Marine Chapter, a notorious Successor Chapter that hails from the lineage of the Blood Angels Primarch Sanguinius.

Background
Tenocit is a unique Imperial hive world, a planet that does not have polluted-choked wastelands, but a primordial jungle landscape. The homeworld of the Blood Jaguars, is a jungle Hive World, where natural selection ensures only the most deadly flora and fauna survive. Tendrils of dense jungle reach up the surrounding walls of the hives of Tenocit except for the planetary capital of Technochtitlan which is situated as the centre of a vast lake.

The Hive of Technochtitlan is separated into four vast sections; the Spire of the Stars being the planet's primary spaceport, the Spire of the Sun being dedicated to the Ecclesiarchy, the Spire of Offerings houses the planetary governor and Administratum, and the Spire of the Earth is where the native workers of Tenocit live. The Hives of Tenocit are much more pyramidal than most Imperial Hives, which seems to have its roots in the cultural practices of the native peoples in the Age of Strife.

Tenocit has been documented as being one of the deadliest worlds known to Mankind, and its inhabitants are amongst the hardiest. Almost every creature and plant on Tenocit is deadly to human life in some way. The true diversity of life on Tenocit has never been catalogued, though many Adeptus Mechanicus Explorator expeditions have tried and failed. Because of these creatures and innumerable others, life on Tenocit is unimaginably harsh; fifty percent of the planet's human population does not survive infancy, and fifty percent of the remainder does not live past the age of ten solar years. Those who do reach adulthood are invariably among the toughest, most uncompromising and resourceful warriors.

Tenocit itself has little need for a Planetary Defence Force, the world's flora and fauna being sufficiently deadly to thwart almost all invaders without the need for human intervention, and natives of Tenocit recruit from amongst the population of hunters, skilled trackers, and combatants used to clearing the encroaching jungle and driving off or slaying the beasts that would threaten the small, short-lived human settlements.

Tenocit's unusually verdant geography owes its survival to two factors. The first is the high oxygen content of the atmosphere; around 38% as opposed to a more typical 21% on colonised worlds. This would be of little consequence if not for the second factor, which is a unique fungus, Mortem Sacco, that grows around the roots of most trees on Tenocit. This heterotroph looks unremarkable at first, save for the bulbous sack-like growths that characterise it, but it is how it produces these tubers that makes it invaluable. The fungus actively absorbs heavy metals and harmful chemicals from the soil and air, storing them in the growths it produces. When full, the sealed bulbs drop off and, protected by a tough shell, remain safely isolated for decades. The fungus does this for two reasons; the first is simply survival; by removing these harmful substances from the soil, the trees the fungus needs to grow on are more likely to survive and reach new heights. The other is that the storage of these materials is simply a by-product of the fungus taking in nutrients for itself.

The Imperium naturally has seen the value of Mortem Sacco and several unsuccessful attempts have been made to transplant the fungus to the many Imperial worlds choked by pollution. Unfortunately, Mortem Sacco requires a high level of atmospheric oxygen to survive, and on all the worlds it has been taken to thus far, it has failed to take hold. For the inhabitants of Tenocit, the fungus is considered a blessing from the Sun Emperor and the bulbs are regularly collected from accessible regions of jungle and brought to the Hives, where they are crushed and the industrial useful substances within them extracted. Collection of the bulbs can be highly profitable; one consortium has risen to the status of the nobility solely through harvesting.

Tenocit has many unusual species of flora and fauna, from the jewelled rotorbird to the mighty Onyaguara. The Onyaguara (Panthera Tenoceta) is a solitary, opportunistic, stalk-and-ambush predator at the top of the Tenocit food chain, and the Animal most commonly associated with the Blood Jaguars. A compact and well-muscled animal well adapted to Tenocit's Jungles, the Onyaguara is an opportunistic hunter and its diet encompasses at least 87 species, including unfortunate aspirants who happen to be too close to a hungry Onyaguara. An Aspirant who succeeds in escaping one is seen as marked by the Sun Emperor for great things. The Onyaguara has long been a symbol of power and strength to the nobles of Tenocet.

Tehuantepec
The Fortress Monastery of the Blood Jaguars sits atop the ruined Hive of Xolotl, deep in the untamed jungles of Tenocit. Formally the Hive governor’s palace, the Monastery is known by its local name of Tehuantepec, which loosely translated into low Gothic means “The hill of wild animals”. Another translation however is “The hill of Daemons”, and given the history of the Hive, this is quite fitting. The palace is situated on the site of the Blood Jaguar’s greatest victory; the defeat of the Daemon incursion lead by the Daemon Prince of Khorne, C’rtez. In the ruins of the governor’s mansion, the titanic warp spawn fought in single combat with T’otec, Chapter Master of the Blood Jaguars whilst his battle brothers engaged the daemon’s forces. Cornered, with no lines of retreat, every Blood Jaguar fought with unbridled ferocity, but it was T’otec who showed the greatest savagery. Though the Chapter Master’s skin was flayed from his body, he pressed on, and in one final move drove his barbed power fist deep into the daemon’s chest and pulled out its still beating heart. With the death of their general the warp storm shuddered, and the remaining daemons fled back into the immaterium. The Blood Jaguars standing amidst utter destruction. Their master finally collapsed from his wounds, but was interred in the holy sarcophagus of a Dreadnought, where he still resides.

At the centre of the monastery sits the Chapter’s most prized relic: the heart of C'rtez, still held firm by the gauntlet that plucked it from the daemon’s body. A stasis field prevents the heart from being reclaimed by the warp, and it is said that if ever it beats once more, C'rtez has been reborn, and the Chapter will stop at nothing to hunt down and destroy the beast again. On the walls that once held paintings and priceless trinkets, stone carvings tell the story of T'otec's duel and the battle for the Hive, along with the history of the chapter. Where once the lord’s throne sat, a great altar has been erected, and it is here that heretics and daemons are sacrificed to the Sun Emperor.