Sepheris Secundus

Sepheris Secundus is a feudal world located in the Golgenna Reach Sub-sector of the Calixis sector in the Segmentus Obscurus. Sepheris Secundus is a world of immense mineral wealth with city-sized mines in which billions-strong hordes of serfs toil endlessly to meet quota.

Everyone born on the planet must have a master to whom they pay nine-tenths of their income. Its not only poverty that keeps the population of the world repressed but physical violence. One of the reasons that Sepheris Secundus’ culture is so primitive by many galactic standards is that weaponry and other technology is monopolised by the Crown.

The Queen’s Royal Scourges, though few in number, have such a technological advantage that they have been enough to put down a great many uprisings in the mines of Sepheris Secundus, and the planet’s history is littered with massacres where thousands of serfs fell to volleys of Lasgun fire.

When the genestealer cult of the Four-Armed Emperor finally revealed themselves after building their numbers over generations, even the Queen’s Royal Scourges and Sepheris’ Planitary Defence Forces were put on the back foot. Calls for aid were sent to the rest of the Imperium, but if the planet couldn’t hold out, then any help would come too late.

It was at this point that the populace began to take matters into their own hands. Reports started to come in of ragtag groups of serfs coming to the aid of the troops, conducting daring assaults and vicious close combat fighting with whatever impromptu weapons they could find. They took heavy losses but helped to turn the tide and hold the Cult insurgency at bay long enough for Astra Militarum and Inquisitorial reinforcements to arrive.

Once the genestealer uprising was quashed and Inquisitorial kill teams were sent in to destroy the insidious cabal at its heart, Queen Lachryma III had a quandary, the bands of peasants known as ‘The Daring Ones‘ (or Arditi in high gothic) had become folk heroes and this set a dangerous president for the rulers of Sepheris Secundus.

The solution was as machiovelian as it was brilliant. By royal decree, Astra Militarum regiments were created from each of the major mine complexes, thereby allowing the aristocracy to kill two aquilas with one bolt, ridding themselves of any disparate elements whilst also tapping in to the collective pride of the populace.

And so the Arditi regiments were born..