ONLY WAR: THE TARVUS CLEANSING
A Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay
It is the 41st Millennium. For more than a hundred centuries The Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the Master of Mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.
Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the Warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor's will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst his soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary defence forces, the ever vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants - and worse.
To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.
999.M41 - The Tarvus System, a lonely outpost on the Eastern Fringe, has remained silent and uneventful for as long as any can remember. Largely untouched by the machinations of the burgeoning Tau Empire and the corrupting influences of the Ruinous Powers, it has merely existed, its few inhabited worlds dutifully paying the Imperial Tithe. However, in 903.M41, a classified object was discovered on the surface of the arid Frontier World Tarvus Secundus, and an Imperial Navy blockade has sat in high orbit of the planet ever since. The world was placed under immediate quarantine, with all travel on and off the planet restricted, leaving the few colonists on the surface to scrounge out a meagre existence in the shadows of the world's rocky bluffs and cliffs, unsupported by shipments of food and resources from the wider Imperium.
Over the course of the next few decades, Tarvus Secundus was almost forgotten, with the Navy ships in orbit gradually dispersing to deal with more pressing concerns, leaving only a minor blockade to secure the planet. The colonists on the surface eventually devolved into an almost feral state, with techno-barbarian tribes roaming the unforgiving landscape to war over the planet's extremely limited resources. Rumours across the system insisted that Mechanicus vessels of sable and crimson occasionally ventured down to the world, sometimes never to return. However, this state of inactivity soon changed, when in 997.M41, scout tendrils of the Tyranid Hive Fleet Leviathan were sighted on the edges of the Tarvus System. The entire Sector was placed under martial law, and the Navy blockade of Tarvus Secundus soon tripled in size. A year later, as the jaws of the Great Devourer finally closed in upon the system, hundreds of regiments of the Imperial Guard were shipped to Tarvus Secundus, charged with fighting off the hordes of the extra-galactic menace for long enough for the hidden agents of the Inquisition and Adeptus Mechanicus to pursue some classified agenda deep within the planet itself.
To the average soldier of the Astra Militarum, however, these lofty schemes and hidden projects were an utter irrelevancy. The planet of Tarvus Secundus became a living nightmare, being partially consumed by the Tyranids while the armadas of the Imperial Navy, anchored in high orbit, rained fire down upon the world's surface. Amidst this Chaos, the men of the Imperial Guard suffered, beset by alien enemies on all sides while struggling with incompetent commanders and conflicting orders. The arrival of a heretical fleet of the Word Bearers Traitor Legion mere weeks into the campaign only served to intensify the chaotic operation, with unending mobs of damned cultists descending upon the planet alongside disciplined ranks of superhuman warriors bearing the blessings of the Dark Gods themselves, hellbent on enacting their own grand designs upon Tarvus Secundus.
A DECENT TO PROFICIENT UNDERSTANDING OF THE LORE AND MECHANICS OF THE WARHAMMER 40,000 UNIVERSE IS REQUIRED TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS RP
Welcome to Only War: The Tarvus Cleansing. This roleplay will follow a rag-tag group of Imperial Guardsmen (a player will play a single character) who, after a particularly disastrous engagement, have been left stranded in Chaos territory. With both renegades and the Tyranids closing in, they must overcome their varying differences in order to survive and make it back to Imperial forces. With the harsh landscape being as unforgiving as it is, and no decent intel available, a map will not be provided for this RP, but the players are knowledgeable of the general direction they will have to travel in to make it back to the front.
IC RELEASED: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=446912
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