Orpheus Sector



The Orpheus Sector was famed Sector Imperialis only recently revoked by orders of the High Lords of Terra, following its devastation in the still ongoing Orphean War. The planets of the Orpheus Sector are counted amongst the oldest celestial bodies within the galaxy, planets whose soil until recently hid a dark secret. Yet, for four millennia, the Orpheus Sector has been a powerhouse of Imperial might, a stronghold at the outer borders of the Imperium of Mankind. Located in the Dark Marches region of the Segmentum Tempestus and boasting its own warfleet and proud history, the Orpheus Sector was only established in M.36 following the famed Dark Marches Crusade. Although its days of glory long rest in the past, the Orpheus Sector has defiantly stood on the Imperium’s frontier despite being plagued by several strange warp phenomena, xenos raids and Chaos-led uprisings. However, everything changed when an old menace in form of the Maynark Dynasty awoke. Belonging to the vile breed of Xenos known as Necrons to the Emperor’s Holy Inquisition, this foe would lay waste the entire sector in a few short months, ravaging its worlds and conducting genocidal campaigns of extermination on planetary scales. With so many arrayed to combat the threat of the Tyranids in the Ultima Segmentum, the Imperium was left ill-prepared for the emergence of this new threat on its southern border and was left with no other choice than to abandon the sector and eventually reclaim it when enough troops and vessel could be gathered to launch a proper Imperial Crusade.

History
Contrary to many of the Imperium’s domains, which have existed for the last ten millennia, the existence of the Orpheus Sector as a fully recognized Sector Imperialis only dates back to the last century of M36. Like others regions in the galaxy, the planets of what would eventually become the Orpheus Sector were however colonized by humanity during its first galactic expansion in what is referred today as the Dark Age of Technology. Contact with the wider Imperium was also established during the Great Crusade as somewhen between 570 and 750.M30 the legendary Rogue Trader Lady Arica Orpheus ventured further than the Mandragoran Stars into the Sector that would eventually bear her name.

Rogue Traders usually function as scouting elements for far larger and military-minded fleets, and in this the voyages of Lady Arica were no exception. Soon expeditionary forces of the Great Crusade followed in Lady Orpheus’ wake, bound on reestablishing contact with those few scattered human civilisations that had survived the Long Night and the baleful attention of xenos raiders. Some of these races had successfully established their own pocket empires and would need to be exterminated but for the most part the Dark Marches as they were then still called were a barren and desolate streak of galaxy. The vast majority of these worlds were tremendously old, incapable of sustaining human or xenos life, but many bore the tell-tale signs of former biospheres and indeed unknown civilisations for the surviving records of the Lady’s later voyage - now safely guarded within the Great Covenant Navis Temple on Holy Terra - indicate many findings of gargantuan xenos ruins. It was also at this time that the world of Amarah Prime was colonized by Lady Orpheus’ fleet, acting both as a supply point and safe haven for her own later voyages and the forces of the Great Crusade tasked with pacifying the region. It is worthy to note that even in this distant time, Imperial forces suffered from frequent raids from the Dark Eldar which have probably been preying on the worlds of the Dark Marches Region for a long time. As Lady Arica ventured further and further to the galactic border, she finally reached the turbulent regions known as the Veiled Region which proved too dangerous to cross, thus marking the outer limit of her voyages.

While the Rogue Trader’s work was now completed, the work of the Imperial Army and Legiones Astartes was not. Unfortunately the Imperium would then descend into a time of chaos and anarchy known as the Age of Darkness that followed the Horus Heresy.

The Horus Heresy
While the Imperium is torn apart by the civil war that followed the Warmaster’s betrayal, the Orpheus Sector is largely abandoned to its fate, neither Loyalists nor Traitors showing much interest in this far-flung region of space. Those xenos domains not yet eradicated by the forces of the Great Crusade surged forward and the Dark Marches quickly became a lawless borderland where renegades and xenos corsairs roamed freely. Only the outpost on Amarah Prime continues to enjoy some sort of stability, which however would not last indefinitely. Somewhere during the first century of the 31st Millennium, a traitor warlord by the name of Dynat Mal -- originally belonging to the Alpha Legion -- elected the Dark Marches as a safe haven to escape the press of those armies loyal to the Emperor which had by now launched a new crusade known as the Great Scouring. Having gathered a thousand strong coterie of renegades, heretics and diabolists around him, Dynat Mal's warband took the name of "The Shadowed Ones" and destroyed the outpost on Amarah, plundering its stores and stockpiles after having massacred the outpost’s entire population. Several punitive expeditions launched by the reemerging Imperium are destroyed through the use of guerilla tactics and the use of baleful powers.

With the destruction of the outpost on Amarah, any Imperial claim to the region is effectively severed. Yet the Imperium would not so easily let a known enemy roam freely and especially the Raven Guard Chapter still sought to avenge the deaths of their fellow Legionaries during the Battle of Lyx, for which Dynat Mal was responsible. In the 170’s of M32, the Raven Guard dispatched a sizeable taskforce under Captain Kallengier to bring Dynat "Crowbane" Mal to justice. Yet, despite intensive researches the Alpha Legion still eluded the vengeful Raven Guard until the taskforces reaches the heart of the Orpheus Sector. There, in the deep jungles of the world of Apollyon the discovered the broken hull of a Strike Cruiser quickly identified as the Occam’s Razor, known to have belonged to the XXth Legion’s fleet. While the Strike Cruiser’s demise could not be ascertained for sure, the surroundings of the broken strike cruiser were still more unsettling: like a grim tombstone or grave marker, the Occam’s Razor stood over a valley filled with the bones of the dead. The corpses mostly belonged to mutated humans but also to the Eldar, to the Khrave and to several unidentified xenos forms. Most disturbing were however the sundered warplates of the Legiones Astartes which not only bore the colors of the Alpha Legion, but also those of the White Scars and the Iron Hands. Who had perpetuated this massacre remained unclear and the Raven Guard did not linger long for their Librarians’ visions told of an impending doom should they stay too long. Their vengeance denied, the Raven Guard departed the baleful valley, their questions unanswered.

For the millenia that followed, the Dark Marches were utterly neglected by Imperial authorities and left to fight for themselves. Very few facts can be verified for what indeed occurred in this region as the Segmentum Tempestus is frequently isolated by powerful Warp storms and other stellar phenomena. It is only in the wake of the Age of Apostasy that the eye of the Imperium rested again on those worlds that would soon become the Orpheus Sector.

The Rising Storm and the Birth of the Orpheus Sector
Whereas other regions of the Imperium were weakened by the events of the 35th and 36th Millennium, the Segmentum Tempestus knew a period of stability. The heavy Warp Storms that had given the Segmentum its name were slowly abating and with the end of Goge Vandire’s Reign of Blood and the death of the usurper, the Imperium turned its eyes to the Dark Marches Region. With the approval of the High Lords of Terra, the Segmentum authorities declared a series of interlinked campaigns and crusades to rid themselves of xenos plagues and other menaces, but also fortify the Imperium’s borders. It would take some time before the Imperium ventured in those regions that had been left abandonned since the Horus Heresy-era, but following the launch of the Dark Marches Crusade, the Dark Marches Region became the primary focus of the Imperium’s expansionist efforts. Athough the Crusade would take nearly a century and half to reach its conclusion, the Dark Marches Crusade was a great victory, culminating with the formal creation of the Leyak, Hazak and Eurydice Sectors alongside the famed Orpheus Sector. This name was both an hommage to the early Rogue Trader, Lady Arica Orpheus which had explored this wold region of space several millennia before as the true consecration of the crusade’s mastermind, Lord Tempestus Hal Orpheus which became the Sector’s first appointed Governor. Amarah, the former outpost was rebuilt and soon became the Sector’s new capital where the old Lord Tempestus, barely alive thanks to the ministrations of his very personal entourage of Mechanicum savants built his palace.

Yet, at its beginnings the Orpheus Sector remained a frontier realm of the Imperium, a realm with no august name to draw settlers to it and where life was particularly harsh and dangerous. The unhabited system of Myre was given over to the Adeptus Mechanicus which soon began to exploit the system’s riches and thus laid the foundation-stone of he Sectors trade-routes. Other worlds were given over to victorious regiments of the Imperial Guard that had participated in the Dark Marches Crusade, claiming by Rite of Conquest what they had fought and often bled for. However, apart from zealous pilgrims and fratris militaris, few other colonist followed. This the High Lords would not tolerate and soon entire planetary population were placed under the Edict of Transmission to rally the Orpheus Sector and make it their new home. Most notoriously, millions of citizens were brought in from the overcrowded Hive Worlds of the Warre and Uhulis-Sector and those survivors and refugees from distant worlds ravaged by war, depleted of natural ressources or habitable biosphere were soon rerouted to colonize the Orpheus Sector and its neighbours. Many a colonization fleet vanished on its perillous travel through the Warp, but many also reached their goal. These colonist would then form the true population of the Orpheus Sector. To better protect the rapidly expanding trading-routes the Sector was rapidly gifted with the right to form its own warfleet, Battlefleet Orpheus whose mighty flagship, the Apocalypse-class Battleship Arica Dominus had once carried Lord Tempestus Hal Orpheus into battle. The Battlefleet soon took the Lantern of Orpheus as its official symbol, a design believed to have been derived from the personal heraldry of Lady Arica Orpheus in whose honour the Arica Dominus had been named.

For more than an entire millennia, the Orpheus Sector knew nothing but prosperity, an era that is now seen as something akin of a first Golden Age. With the Sector’s first millenial anniversary close at hand, the entire Sector rejoiced, ordinate, commoner and noble celebrating the good fortune of the ever-growing Sector which had quickly risen into prominence amongst the other sectors of the Segmentum Tempestus. As part of the ceremonies of this most notable event, the preserved corpse of Hal Orpheus, now regarded as the spiritual father and founder of the Orpheus Sector is born upon the Arica Dominus to complete a tour of the Sector’s most influential worlds. Many holy miracles and visions are told and reported to have ocurred in the wake of the relic-corpse passage. Yet, in a relatively short period of time, the atmosphere of optimism and religious zeal of the Orpheus Millenial is replaced by one of wary caution. When in 976.M37 all contact was lost with the neighboring Leyak-Sector, the High Lords of Terra declared several edicts that would see the Orpheus Sector gear up for war. The Sector’s wealthiest worlds began to fortify themselves, securing their domains by raising new regiments and investing a large portion of their wealth and industrial output into orbital defence platforms. Battlefleet Orpheus also greatly benefited form this new evolution, both in terms of manpower and ships as the ever more paranoid Sector authorities diverted growing resources to their own defences. By Imperial Edict several Frontier Worlds of the Sector were declared Perdita and barred from trespassing under pain of death, but the huge expenditures in military build-up ultimately contributed to destabilize the system.

While military speaking the Sector continued to build up its power, the heavy tithes imposed to finance this rise in power bred considerable social discontent and the Adeptus Arbites and the Ordo Hereticus are frequently called upon to conduct social purges or violently reprimand outburst of anti-Imperial nature. Cultic activities steadily rises but the first true test of the Sector’s defences did not come from the Outer Darkness or as feared thus far from the silent Leyak-Sector but from within.

The Time of Woes
While the Orphean Admiralty focussed on surveying their border with the Leyak Sector and douse the brushfire revolts within the populace that steadily destabilized the Sector over the following centuries, the Orpheus Sector was also the theatre of countless unexplainable or mundane tragedies. By the beginning of the 38th Millennium, the Orpheus Sector had effectively become a tinderbox, waiting for the inevitable spark to ignite it. This spark was not however as Segmentum authorities had feared an alien attack from the outside, but from within, when the renegade Von Mallas pronounced his war of faith. Originating in the Segmentum Pacificus, the teachings of ’The False Saint’ or ’The Transgressor’ as he came to be known in the years that followed fell upon fertile ground within the Orpheus Sector and in other locations of the Segmentum Tempestus. Entire solar-systems and planets declared for the Transgressor as did both the Hive World of Colkasth and the Agri-World of Epirus. The regiments and troops bound to survey the borders soon were called upon to prosecute a campaign againt what the Ecclesiarchy had dubbed the Von Mallas Black Crusade and war soon engulfs the Orpheus Sector. Resistance is fierce, especially on Epirus which is entirely devasted by the fightings and would take decades to recover to even a shadow of its former capacities. With the renegades finally subdued, Sector authoritues decide the foundation of the penitentiary world of Morros Lachrymal to harbour those that would rather toil in atonement for their sins than finish on the pyres of the Ecclesiarchy and Ordo Hereticus.

While the immediate crisis had been adverted, the devastation of Epirus would prove to be an entirely seperate catastrophe. The loss of the Agri-world’s output bore heavily on the Sector’s trade and commerce routes, which had already been overstretched beforhand. The loss of an entire harvest cold perhaps heve been contained, put the reconstruction of Epirus would take decades, thus considerably weakening supply in the Capitoline Sub-Sector. Famine and pestilence soon became the Orpheus Sector’s worst ennemies as increasing Warp storms made importations from other Sectors more dangerous and expensive. This did not fail to breed considerable bitterness within the population, which gradually turned away from the Imperial Creed. Cults and sects greatly rose in power following these dark years, the most notable of them being the Celestarii. First encountered in 715.M38, the Celestarii were heavily persecuted by both the Adeptus Arbitres and the Ordo Hereticus put proved to be extremely difficult to root out, for the cult preyed on the desperation of the common folk. What made the Celestarii so dangerous was that they reounced the Emperor’s divinity, claiming that the galaxy’s true masters were in fact immortal beings that had fallen in an eon-spanning slumber but would eventually rise again and reward their followers with immortal life. To those that would oppose them, these sleeping gods would bring only death. The cult, which to several investigations endulged in cannibalistic rituals had taken some of the xenos-archeological artifacts that the Sector harboured in great quantities as their sacred relics, but seemingly rather worked to further the power and enrichment of its inner circle rather than openly challenge the Imperial Creed. The Celestarii are believed to have been considerably reinforced following the mysterious fate of the world of Tlaloc.

Located at the very edge of the Orpheus Sector in the Drucillan Sub-sector where it borders the Leyak Sector, the world of Tlaloc has always been regarded as a dangerous place. Segmentum and Sector authorities for instance still remembered the lost colonization fleet that vanished during M36, but left them unprepared for what occurred in 889.M38. Garbled distress signals emanating from Tlaloc were received by the authorities which promptly rerouted a squadron of battleships from Battlefleet Orpheus to investigate the matter. Before being abruptly cut off the distress signal had told of an impenentrable darkness and unspeakable massacres which clearly indicated that the matters at hand would not be taken lightly. Upon its arrival, the squadron found the world in ruins: Tlaloc had been turned in a charnel house. Landing parties reported blood-splattered streets and walls and still burning ruins. Neither bodies nor data could be recovered, the first one having been horribly mutilated and the second one broken beyond repair. What ever had brought Tlaloc to its knees had done so in a matter of a few hours, a highly unsettling thought. Tlaloc’s proximity to the lost Leyak Sector spawned many speculations, which warranted an official investigation led by Inquisitor Kussan of the Ordo Xenos. The Inquisitor interpretated the lack of remains as evidence of the actions of Eldar Kabalite Corsairs, more commonly referred to as Dark Eldar. Yet, other influential persons amongst the Orphean Admiralty and the Sector’s Ordos disagreed with Kussan, fearing the involvement of a very different force, perhaps the baleful ennemy that was also responsible for the loss of the Leyak Sector. As a precautionary measure, the Sector’s Lord Commander decided for the world to be quarantined, a quarantine that has been upheld until the beginning of the Orphean War.

The Orpheus Serctor entered the 39th Millennium in the same state as it left the tumultuous 38th Millennium: on the verge of open conflict. While supplies no longer posed an issue and no famine had visited the Orpheus Sector for many centuries, the worlds of the Orpheus Sector - still heavily hindered by the tremenduous military tithes they were subjected to - were fractured, no spirit of kinship or loyalty existing between them. Sector governship had long passed from the extinguished line of House Orpheus to the stewardship of the House of Laan, distrusted by many for the House of Laan had a reputation for intrigue and excesses. To some extent, the Sector was kept together and functionning only by the tireless efforts of Battlefleet Orpheus, which successfully adverted a number of crisis that would have plunged the Sector into chaos had they not done so. For instance, in 160.M39, a powerful Ork-fleet, led by their gigantic flagship - the Mega-Kroozer entered the Orpheus Sector from the galactic South. Battlefleet Orpheus tirelessly engaged the enemy, fighting him in a nineteen-weeks running battle on the edges of the Deluvian Sub-sector. With the help of reinforcements from the Adeptus Astartes, namely continents drawn from the Revilers and Red Seraphs Chapters, the major threat was eliminated. Yet some of the Orks managed to escape destruction and found shelter in the great debris-fields on the edge of the Sub-sector, raiding and harassing Imperial worlds and convoys, yet even as the Orks proved an evergrowing thorn in the side of the Sector’s trade relationships, the planets lacked the common will to unite and expuge this calamity for good.

The Orphean War of Faith
At the end of the 39th Millennium, the Orpheus Sector is in a deep state of neglect, its defences overstretched and its governments in political disarray. On Amarah, the last scion of the Sector’s founding dynasty, the line of Orpheus, died, and the Sector’s governance passed over to the House of Laan, a house overtly distrusted by many for their reputation was one of intrigues and excesses. Lacking the political back-up of the other houses, the rule of the House of Laan was a fragile one at best, and one ill-suited for the hardships to come.

With the Haxan Wars still roaming in the neighbouring Haxan Sector, the Orpheus Sector’s military ressources mainly fuelled the Imperium’s fight against the Apostad Hepstad and the Eldar Slaughtervane Kabal. At the same time, the Sector needed to tend to its own defence as both xenos - the descendants of the Ork-incursion of 160.M39 - and renegade raiders plagued the Drucillan and Deluvian Sub-Sectors. Unable to keep in check theses menaces, tensions over tithes and the cost of the ongoing war degenerated first into campaigns of petty vendettas and assassination, and later on into outright war between entire worlds. Open conflict truly erupts when the honour-clans of the Drucillan Cluster overthrow local opposition and declare their secession from the Orpheus Sector. The cluster’s principal world, Drucilla Majoris, quickly becomes a heaven for other renegade fractions within the sector, posing an ever-growing threat to the sector’s stability.

In the Deluvian Sub-sector, feeling threatened by its neighbours, the parliament of Amraphel intends to conduct a pre-emptive strike against its rivals. As no trace of their involvement can be left, the parliament calls upon xenos mercenaries to do their dirty work, only to find out that these mercenaries were in fact a splinter-web of the dreaded Khrave. The Khrave devour the conspirators’ minds and add the planet’s rulers to their larders before using their influence to subdue Amraphel’s population. As the number of mysterious disappearances increases over the following months, the Adeptus Ministorum uncovers the truth and leads the population in uprising to rid Amraphel of the xenos taint that has befallen it.

If these were not enough, it becomes soon obvious that - like in the Haxan Sector - the malign taint of Chaos is behind a series of brushfire conflicts and revolts. To regain control over this precarious situation, Imperial Guard regiments need to be brought in, but after initial success encounter hordes of mutants fighting alongside the heretics and rebels. On the world of Apollyon and Selakhar, the Imperial soldiers also encounter the foul daemonkin. This then acts as a catalyst for the disunited ruling classes of the Sector to put their own interests aside and join together, ultimately leading to the Orphean War of Faith. This war would be sparkled by the arrival of a person of great importance, Arch-Confessor Marduk of Helvamon, later canonized by the Ecclesiarchy for his vital part in the Orphean War of Faith. Led by visions of the Holy God-Emperor Himself, Arch-Confessor Marduk had decared a War of Faith for the souls of the Orpheus Sector, his visions warning him of a terrible menace for the Imperium, "...rising where the light of Orpheus falls forever in shadows." In 903.M39, the Marduk ramschackle fleet arrived within the Orpheus Sector, the fiery oratories, ecstatic visions and martial fervour having gathered a crusading force around the Arch-Confessor. This army many hundreds of thousands strong was not merely constituted by Imperial zealots or pilgrims, but also held many trained militia-men and even seasoned Imperial Guardsmen in its ranks. However of an even greater strategic importance was the presence of the Arch-Confessor himself as Marduk soon became a figurehead and rallying point for those that opposed the forces of darkness.

With the arrival of Arch-Confessor Marduk, the Imperial wareffort gains momentum. In the Sector’s East, thus-far untouched by the growing turmoil, countless ordinary citizens soon swell the ranks of Marduk’s crusading forces, inspired by the Arch-Confessor’s vision and embolded by his public speeches. One by one, the Sector’s secular and spiritual authorities rally around the inspirational Arch-Confessor which leads his crusade along the route now known as the Orphean Pigrimage. When the baleful presence of the Daemon is confirmed and the presence of several warbands of Chaos Space Marines identifed conclusively, the Imperial crusade is soon heavily reinforced by contigents drawn from the Adeptus Astartes, the Adeptus Ministorum and the Inquisition. To counteract the baleful influence of the daemons, the Ordo Malleus despatched a full taskforce - believed by many to have also contained Battlebrothers of the Grey Knights as well as the more commonplace inquisitorial Storm Troopers and Inquisitors. The most numerous of these reinforcements were however the Space Marines of the Angels Revenant, whose entire chapter answered Marduk’s call, and the Sisters of Battle of the Adepta Sororitas with contigents drawn from the Order of the Valorous Heart and the Order of the Black Sepulchre. Despite this fresh troops, the Orphean War of Faith raged for nearly twenty years, ravaging the Sector’s economy and several of its worlds, until by 921.M39 the Chaos-aligned fractions had been pressed back to their fortress of Colkasth.

On this former Hive World, the chaos warband known as the Death Mongers had settled, their Warpsmiths turning the world into a living hell, Colkasth’s population having been used as raw materials for their abominable plans, former Imperial citizens being turned into living flesh-weapons or mutilated and insane cannon-fodder to die in the fight that would follow. In contradiction with any military tactics, Arch-Confessor Marduk decided that his assault forces on Colkasth would be entirely human and thus despatched his allies from the Adepta Sororitas and the Adeptus Astartes to haress, to seek out and destroy those elements of the Traitors already vanquished or retreating. Faithful to their oaths, neither did question the orders of the Arch-Confessor and thus the last battle of the Orphean War of Faith began. From the last signals that were received, it is known that Marduk’s offensive met with initial succes, the crusading soldiers-zealots holding back the fury of the daemons with fire and faith and establishing several landing zones on the planet’s surface before astrophatic contact with the besieging Imperial army was abruptly lost, but not before the alarm could be raised.

The first ship to reach the system was the Intercessor, an Adeptus Astartes Strike Cruiser belonging to the Angels Revenant. As soon as the Intercessor had cleared the system’s Mandeville Point, the mighty vessel was attack by two unidentified, yet smaller vessels which proved extremely agile and powerful. It is largely accepted that while mysterious, the vessels neither belonged to the Imperium, nor to their chaotic opponents, and must thus be of xenos origin. Severly damaged, the Intercessor remains victorious, destoying one attacker and forcing the second one to retreat, but the Strike Cruiser is virtually crippled, its engines largely destroyed. Reduced to a frustratingly slow pace, the Intercessor can only witness a great naval clash in the inner systems on its long range augurs, the Angels Revenant unable to intervene. It is only hours later that the limping vessel reached Colkasth’s orbit, only to find its cities and fortresses shattered, great parts of the world’s surface engulfed in radioactive fire. The imperial armada likewise lies in ruins, reduced to a great field of burning debris and gutted hulks, the attackers long-since gone, their motives and identity unknown. The Angels Revenant boarded their vessel’s crafts in search of clues and found some scatteresd groups of survivors amidst the fleet’s wreckage and the surface’s fallout-shrouded cinders. Those that bear the stigmata of Chaos and treachery the Space Marines immediatly put to the sword, while those survivors which had fought for the Emperor, mostly wounded and often catatonic with shock the Angels Revenant carry to safety. Unfortunately, Marduk did not count amongst these survivors and the Arch-Confessor was soon beatified by the Holy Synod of the Ecclesiarchy, warranting a change of name for the black, ash-shrouded world that would stand testimony of the Arch-Confessor ultimate failure or succes: Saint Marduk’s Bane.

The Sector Resurgent
Despite the untimely death of Saint Marduk, the Orphean War of Faith is celebrated as a great success, having averted the Sector’s fall and expunged the chaotic menace. In the following years and decades, the Orpheus Sector slowly rebuilds it might, greatly aided in this by those followers of the martyred Saint. By special dispensation of Segmentum authorities, many regiments of the Imperial Guard are allowed to settle within the region, either returning fully to civil life or by incorporating the seasoned and battle hardened regiments within existing or newly created Planetary Defence Forces. This new influx of able man, many of whom could now boast a sizeable amount of military experience, greatly strengthen the Sector’s defences.

In honour of the fallen soldiers and Saint Marduk, the minor colony world of Libertha, of which the late Saint had been particuliarly fond of, is elevated to the rank of Shrine World in order to harbour and celebrate the Oprhean War of Faith millions of glorious and blessed death, as the Sector had lost a full fifth of its overall population in the fighting. To further strengthen the Sector’s ability to defend itself, the until then space-faring Space Marine Chapter of the Angels Revenant are given stewardship over Libertha, their fortress-monastery built amongst the rows of tombs, mausoleums and Basilica to be erected on the Shrine World. The Inquisition, and in particular the Ordo Malleus, also establishes a far more permanent position within the Orpheus Sector, as many millions of refugees and survivors need to be examined, evaluated, processed and relocated, or if need be, purged from the population. With typical zeal, the servants of the Inquisition laid a heavy hand on those worlds fallen to corruption or conquest by the forces or the Archenemy. It came then as no surprise that in the Capitoline Sub-Sector the world of Apollyon, which had seen several daemonic incursions and warp breaches been twarted, was given over to the sole control of the Inquisition, the different Ordos fully take control of the planet.

Thanks to these new additions to its defenders, the Orpheus Sector enters a golden age of expansion and prosperity which would last for many centuries. Yet, these centuries did not pass by smoothly as especially in the wake of the Orphean War of Faith, many raiders seek to pry on the resurgent Sector and many conspiracies are unveiled by the diligent hands of the Inquisition. Slowly, as decades became centuries and more mundane enemies such as the hated Orks supplant the chaotic menace, the mysterious foe responsible for the events of the Bane of Saint Marduk are slowly forgotten, the ’Sleepers of Orpheus’ as they had been called slowly fading into myth and dark legend, their baleful power forgotten. During the next portion of the 40th Millennium, the Orpheus Sector continues to prosper and to weather the crises that came to disturb it. In 319.M40 for instance, the southern regions of the Orpheus Sector fall prey to a WAAAGH! led by the Ork Warboss Badrok Gutgouga of the Evil Sunz Clan. In a gruesome seven month campaign, the Orks are finally cornered on the world of Lysmarchus, the armoured regiments of the Imperial Guard drawn from the distant world of Koenig encircle the Orks and systematically annihilate them with the support of the Orpheus Sector defence forces. Most tellingly, as a grand gesture of victory, the Ork Warboss’ carcass is taken from the battleflied and publicly hanged from the spire of the Red Cathedral on Amraphel, marking the beginning of celebrations throughout the entire Deluvian Sub-Sector.

On the wider scale of the Segmentum, and indeed the entire Imperium, the Orpheus Sector is widely recognized for its contribution to the Great Severan War, which ravaged the border regions of the Segmentum Tempestus and the Ultima Segmentum from 580 to 591.M40. In a great muster of armies, commonly referred to as ’the Emperor’s Due’ by the Amaranthine Courts, the Orpheus Sector places over thirty-nine million men and women under arms and at the disposal of the Imperial Guard. Few of these new regiments ever returned to the Orpheus Sector but their sacrifice is comemorated on Libertha by the raising of a new towering and imposing edifice : the Basilica Severan. As part of this further militarisation of the Sector, the Penitariy World of Morros Lachrymal, previously a mining facility is devoted to the sole raising and training of Penal Legions.

Yet the prosperity of the Orpheus Sector had also its downsides, as slowly but surely other worlds rose to prominence, Amarah status as ruling world of the entrire Dark Marches Regio was increasingly being contested, mostly on the Hive World of Decapolis, a thriving world in the Sector’s galactic West. By the middle of M40, Decapolis population and economic output effectively surpassed Amarah Prime’s, which due to tradition and practice nevertheless remained considered as the Sector’s principal world, harbouring not only the seat of the Imperial Governor, but also the Administratum and the headquarters of Battlefleet Orpheus. Using their influence and position, the Amaranthine imposed ever heavier tithes on Decapolis, hoping to hinder the world’s growthand retain their ancestral position of power. This led to considerable resentment within the mercantile and military castes of Decapolis, to the point where even Decapolis ruling council of Decrachs increasingly chafed at Amarah’s ever-growing demands. As it is often the way in these things, resentment quickly turned to hatred which blossomed into conspiracy. The Decrachs hatched a considerable number of plans to destabilise Amarah’s government and thus supplant it until sector-wide authority would be transferred to Decapolis. These plans consisted mainly, but not only, in the covert funding and arming of several groups of political dissidents, smugglerrings and heretical groups such as the Cult Celestarii in order to conduct a planned campaign of assassination and terror. The conspiracy is however discovered when the Inquisition’s Ordo Hereticus captures several members of a Celestarii-cell and put them to interrogation. Undeniably proof of the Decrach’s involvement is given when a heavy weapon crate in the cult’s possession can be traced back to a manufactora on Decapolis.

The Decapolis Conspiracy, as it was soon named, demanded immediate retaliation and hursh punishment. The Inquisition descends swiflty on Decapolis and conducts a series of systematic and thorough purges, the accused being publicly condemned in a series of show-trials that lasted nearly nine years. The entirety of the Decrachs fall prey to these purges, and outright revolt or even civil war is only prevented through the Inquisition’s ruthlessness and oppressive methods. By then however, the damaged had been done. Identification and death of the primary instigators of this conspiracy failed to better the situation on Amarah itself, the disquieted population perpetuating the belief that secretive forces were working to the world’s fall, which leads to several incidents of public unrest. This paranoia also gains the Amaranthine Courts, the Sector Governor imposing even heavier tithes on the seditious world of Decapolis to further weaken Amarah’s principal rival. This in turn would fuel resentment on Decapolis, the governement of both worlds now definately opposed. Over the following decades, this climat of tensions would spread throughout the entire Orpheus Sector, seizing its worlds in an unshackable grip of discord and distrust, which every world gradually turning on itself. The Orpheus Sector’s hardfought unity is then shattered, which explains why many historians view the Uncovering of the Decapolis Conspiracy as the end of the Sector’s golden age.

Portents of Doom
It is in this state of disarray that the Orpheus Sector entered far more tumultuous times than the centuries that preceded it. With local political powers squabbling amongst themselves, it falls to the Sector’s foremost defenders to stand up and keep some measure of coherence within the region.

However, this task had grown far more complicated as starting from 672.M40 the Orpheus Sector was increasingly plagued by sudden and unpredictable Warp squalls, Aetheric disruption or other strange phenomena of the same ilk. This was no mere isolated phenomena, as at the same time much of Segementum Tempestus encountered the same problems. The Warp had grown restless, and even safe and established routes were not spared from this rise in aetheric activity. Many ships were lost in the Warp, so much that commerce within the Sector rapidly declined, inter-system shiptraffic gradually reducing to a historic minimum. Only the vessels of Battlefleet Orpheus and the Angels Revenant tirelessly continued their patrols. However, this increased Warp activity also bore dire consequences in the physical realm.

The untamed Warp energy is held responsible for many cases of natural disasters, but most notoriously it spurned chaotic cults into action, which increasingly ventured out of the shadows they were hiding in. At the same time, psyker-daemon incursions rose to dramatic levels the which the Sector had not seen since the Time of Revolts. On many worlds latent psykers and sensitive Imperial citizens reported recurring nightmares, all painting a bleak picture of a rising darkness and burning cities. Some told of pale figures treading in eerie silence in the dust of dead worlds, or stalking immense labyrinths, malice written in their eyes. This unsettling reports quickly came to the ears of the Inquisition, which immediately tried suppress wider knowledge of this facts, increasingly sending more agents in the field to act as their eyes and ears. Embolded by these aetheric disturbances, the Eldar corsairs of the Hesod Nebula also increased the numbers of their raids, preying on the worlds of the Cold Veil and the Capitoline Sub-Sector alike.

In the end, the power of the Empyrean gave birth to a full Warp Storm, the Howling Vortex, which engulfed the system of Morros in 689.M41. All communication with the penitentiaries of Morros Lachrymal and its thirteen million prisoners was lost, their fate unclear, as does the fate of the last prison-hulks recently despatched from Decapolis. It is generally assumed that the vessels, like so many others in that time, perished in the Warp. With the activity of the chaotic cults contered, the Celestarii Cult emerged from the shadows ad redoubled its activities which culminated in the famed Kellerman Murders of 744.M41. With the Sector’s political rulers still openly distrusting each other and unable to set their differences aside, the Inquisition, already overstretched at this point fails to prevent and chaos-aligned uprising on the industrial worlds of Chemarium. While still contested, the Sector lacks the strenght to fully smash the rebellion and the worlds of the Chemarium-system are cordonned off, its loyal citizens and cities left to fight alone. These kind of events,both great and small perhaps explain why no further importance was alloted to the incident ocurring in 811.M41 in the distant system of Harrow Watch, at the exterior borders of the Orpheus Sector. The Wayward Son, an escort-sized warp dromon of the Rogue Trader flotilla of Rogue Trader Caleb Gilderoy unexpectedly returned from the Outer Darkness, limping into the Harrow Watch Exlusion Zone. The ship seemed heavily damaged, and what garbled communication could be received on the Mechanicum outpost indicate that its crew claimed to have been attacked by unknown xenos, this ’terror’ from beyond space having entirely wiped out the rest of the Rogue Trader’s flotilla. The comminications ended in desperate pleas for immediate sanctuary at Harrow Watch, but as the ship did not carry the proper authorization codes to enter Harrow Watch’s defence perimeter, the Wayward Son is destroyed by the Mechanicum for having failed to comply with the Magos’ orders to turn back.

The Wayward Son-incident was unique, but stands representative of a rise in vessels lost at the Orpheus Sector’s outer borders, but as the Harrow Watch-system is also close to the Hesod Nebula, the losses were attributed to Eldar Corsairs rather than to another exterior factor. Even when operatives of the Inquisition ascertained that the Cult Celestarii awaited the imminent End of Times, these news were not taken serious or indeed linked together. In hindsight, it appears however that these events heralded the awakening of the Necron-menace. Alas, even the last and most obvious sign was misinterpreted.

After having plagued the Orpheus Sector for more than three hundred years, the warp turbulences and other strage phenomena are suddenly snuffed out by a tremendous Warp squall. Many ships are driven off course, emerging in systems far distant from their original destination, some reemerge brutaly within reality or drop out off the Warpwhile the least lucky are simply destroyed, broken upon by the force of the Immaterium, the souls of their crew and passagers fodder for the Neverborn. All across the Sector, Astropaths, Psykers, hedge-wizards and witches suffer inexplicable dead or see their minds burned blank by the stress put on them; even normal people are affected as the cases of mass hysteria, mania, unexplicable murders or disappearances in the Cold Veil-region and the Drucillan Sub-Sector testify. Believing the Warp squall to be but a precursor of a large daemonic incursion, from Apollyon, the Ordo Malleus and the Conclave Orpheus issue a warning for maximum vigilance. So it was that at the end of the year 990.M41, these urgent messages supplanted a testimony from the distant Mechanicum outpost of Harrow Watch, a message which stated that both suns of the binary Caracol-system beyond the Veiled Region had both gone supernova at the same time that the Warp squall had hit the Sector’s outer limits. This report was largely dismissed as being insignificant.

No one within the Ordos thought of cross-referencing the destruction of the Caracol-system with the sacred text of the Cult Celestarii, which had foretold that these stellar catastrophe would herald the End of Time. In hindsight, these event can be clearly interpreted as unheeded warnings as to the awakening of the Maynark Dynasty which would destroy the Sector in the following Orphean War. One can help but wonder if the right people had correctly interpreted these warnings and acted swiftly and with sufficient violence upon them the Orpheus Sector would still exist today.

Orpheus Sector Timeline

 * The Voyages of Orpheus (ca.570-750.M30) - As part of the Emperor’s Great Crusade, the Rogue Trader Lady Arica Orpheus mounts several far-ranging expeditions into what would eventually become the Orpheus Sector. With the foundation of the Imperial outpost on Amarah, the Imperium officially claims the Dark Marches Region. Several military campaigns follow to exterminate identified xenos threats, but the Sector is still not entirely pacified when the Horus Heresy plunges the Imperium into galactic civil war.
 * The Sundering of the Imperium (005.M31-020.M30) - Following the Great Betrayal and the descent of the Age of Darkness upon the domains of the Imperium of Mankind, both fractions entirely retire from the region, leaving its colonists to fight for themselves. Although no great battles are fought in the Orpheus Sector, the population suffers from the resurgent xenos and Dark Eldar raids.
 * The Scourge of Dynat Crowbane (pre 100.M31) - Driven outwards by the resurgent armies of the Emperor of Mankind after the Battle of Terra, an Alpha Legion warlord known as Dynat Mal, the main architect behind the Raven Guard’s shaming defeat at the Battle of Lyx seeks shelter in the Dark Marches. Having raided and destroyed the only semblant of organised resistant in the region, the Imperial outpost on Amarah, Dynat Crowbane and his warband reign over the Sector, the Shadowed Ones - as they’ve come to name themselves - repelling several punitive expeditions set to destroy them.
 * Vengeance Denied (ca.170.M32) - A punitive taskforce of the Raven Guard Chapter under Captain Kallengier is despatched to seek and destroy "The Shadowed Ones" and their master but only discover the ruins of Crowbane’s ship, the Occam’s Razor, buried in thousand of tons of bones and corpses.
 * The Child of the Beast (552.M32) - As part of a great migration of Orks that plague the entire Imperium, an Ork-crewed Space Hulk known as "Da Iron Worm" vanishes in the Dark Marches region after having laid waste to several powerful worlds in the Uhulis-Sector.
 * The Rising Storm (610.M36) - Following the tumultuous time of the Age of Apostasy and the death of Goge Vandire, the Segmentum Tempestus knows a resurgence in power and fortune. While the tremendous Warp Storms that had given the Segmentum it’s name now abated, Segmentum authorities launched a series of campaigns and Crusades designed to expunge lingering threats and fortify the Imperium’s borders. This was only possible through the relative calm that reigned within the Segmentum whereas other domains of the Imperium such as the Segmentum Solar or the Segmentum Obscurus had been weakened by other conflicts. The eye of the High Lords soon came to rest on the wayward Orpheus Sector and the entire Dark Marches Region and were thus were marked for conquest, the dangers of the past seemingly forgotten.
 * The Dark Marches Crusade (610-759.M36) - The Dark Marches Crusade is but one of the campaigns launched during the Rising Storm and that would lead to the inception of the Orpheus Sector. After having served as advance port for the crusade for nearly thirty years, the world of Amarah is chosen as the Sector’s new capital.
 * The Lost Fleet (817.M36) - A colonization fleet carrying some sixteen million colonists bound for the verdant fen-covered world of Tlaloc mysteriously vanishes, never to be seen again.
 * The Colonisation of Tlaloc (ca.847.M36) - A second colonisation fleet -much smaller than the one that vanished before - successfully reaches Tlaloc and settle on the world.
 * The Orpheus Millenial (759.M37) - To celebrate the 1’000th anniversary of its creation, the entire Orpheus Sector rejoices. The deathly remains of its esteemed founder and first Governor, Hal Orpheus is born in grand ceremony throughout the entire sector, his former flagship the Apocalypse-class Battleship Arica Dominus conducting a great tour of the region.
 * The Silence of Leyak (976.M37) - The neighbouring Leyak-Sector abruptly ceases all communication with the wider Imperium, causing the loss of billions of lives. An Ordo Xenos taskforce ventured into the now silent Sector and successfully returned but did not disclose what they had witnessed there. Soon afterwards, the Segmentum Conclave of the Ordo Xenos drastically increased the military tithes of every worlds of the Orpheus Sector, raising new regiments for the Imperial Army and Planetary Defence Forces, and requiring of those more industrialized worlds to heavily reinforce their orbital defences. In parallel, Battlefleet Orpheus is to be considerably reinforced, while all worlds of the Veiled Region are declared forbidden under pain of death. As a further precautionary measure, several of the most outlying worlds such as Altun are also declared Perdita.
 * The Black Crusade of Von Mallas (unknown date.M38) - The heavy tithes resting on the Orpheus Sector had bred considerable discontent amongst the population, sometimes erupting into violent revolts and full-sclae rebellions that were brutally reprimanded by the Adeptus Arbites and the local authorities. These tensions led to several purges against the civilian population which prove unsuccesstul to stop the rise of cultic activity. Preying on this spirit of discontent, demagogues and doomsayers have a great influence within the populace. Originating form the Segmentum Pacificus, the Black Crusade of the Apostate Cardinal Von Mallas, more commonly known as "The False Saint" or "The Transgressor", soon spills over into the Orpheus Sector and its neighbours. The worlds of Epirus and Colkasth fully embrace the heretic’s creed and battle is joined. Those regiments raised in the wake of the Silence of Leyak soon need to fight the Transgressor’s expanding splinter-empire. Although the secessionnists worlds are ultimately defeated, the Agri-World of Epirus is totally devasted, the loss of its output causing food-shortages and famines across a great deal of the Orpheus Sector, breeding further discontent as time after time worlds are ravaged by pestilence. The penitentiary world of Morros Lachrymal is founded to process those heretics that which to repent for their crimes.
 * The Rise of the Cult Celestarii (715.M38) - Born of the despair and bitterness caused by the recurring famines since the devastation of Epirus, a previously unknown cult quickly rises in power, particularly amongst the wealthy and nobles of the Orpheus Sector. Haven taken the name of the Celestarii, the cult has taken the widespread xeno-archelogical remains and foundings as sacred relics and places, spreading the belief that the Imperial Creed is but a lie and that the true gods of the galaxy, the Celesatrii would one day awaken from their eternal slumber and grant those that follow them eternal life, while bring bloddy death to those that would oppose them. Little is known of their practices, although the Cult is heavily persecuted by the Adeptus Arbites as well as the Ordo Hereticus. Investigations seems to show that the Cult in fact acts more as a secret society, furthering the enrichment and power of their inner circle rather than trying to topple Imperial rule alltogether. Several clues indicate that the Celestarii carry out rituals of cannibalistic nature.
 * The Death of Tlaloc (889.M38) - In 889.M38 a patrol of Battlefleet Orpheus received garbled distress signals form the Agri-World of Tlaloc, at the very edge of the Drucillan Sub-sector. Upon their arrival they find the world in ruins, its decimated and every single recording device broken. The landing parties described that the townships and cities had been turned into an abattoir, every corpse seemingly ripped apart, cut into ribbons or having been flayed; yet despite their heavy mutilations, it was clear that there were not enough corpses to account for the entirety of Tlaloc’s population. As usual in this case, the Inquisition led an official investigations on the matter, which discovered that the ruin visited upon the world had been done in a matters of hours. Inquisitor Kussan of the Ordo Xenos came to the conclusion that the mutilations and savagery of it were tell-tale signs of Dark Eldar raiders or Eldar Kabalite Corsairs. Other Inquisitors and several officers of the Orphean Admiralty however did not share this hypothesis and motioned for the world to be quarantined, a quarantine that was still in effect at the time of the Orphean War.
 * The Battle of the Gorgon Deep (160.M39) - With the help of the Revilers and the Red Seraphs Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes, Battlefleet Orpheus succeeded in stopping the rampage of a major Ork incursion at the Sector’s borders. Boarded by Terminator-squads that spearheaded tha assault on the enemy flagship, the Mega-Kroozer, the Ork are vanquished in a nineteen-week long space battle. However many of the smaller Ork ships scattered and found refuge in the asteroid belts, debris fields and gravitic vortexes that surround the Deluvian Sub-sector, soon to prove an almost constant thorn in the Sector’s side. Piratic and raider activity soon increased, putting further strain on Battlefleet Orpheus and the Sector’s shipping lines.
 * The Time of Revolt (860-903.M39) - Following a millenium of tensions and both minor and major crisis, the Orpheus is put under new strain by Segmentum authorities when new troops are to be alloted the seemingly endless wars in the neighbouring Haxan Sector, where the Imperium was entagled on two fronts against the Eldar Slaughtervane Kabal and the Apostate Heptad. This ultimately proved too much bear and the long-running tensions and rivalries between planets and rouling houses finally erupt first in bloody vendettas and assassination campaigns and then into open conflict. Sector-wide civil war is reached when the honour-clans of the Drucillian Cluster overthrow local opposition and declare their formal secession from the Orpheus Sector. Drucilla Majoris quickly becomes a haven for all sort of criminals and renegades but most importantly it became a rallying point around which other renegade fractions could rally. The world of Apollyon and Selakhar fell to the sway of the Ruinous Powers while on Amraphel the xenos mercinaries commissionned by Amraphel’s parliament to attack its neighbours prove to be a splinter-web of the baleful Khrave which prey upon the worlds elite. The infestation is discovered and expunged by an Adeptus Ministorum-led civil uprising.
 * The Orphean War of Faith (903-922.M39) - With several worlds firmly on the grip of the vile adorators of Chaos and the Orpheus Sector on the brink of tearing itself apart, an unexpected arrival led to the greatest military campaign since the Dark Marches Crusade. Guided by visions of the Holy Emperor Himself, Arch-Confessor Marduk of Helvamon had declared a war of faith to save the Orpheus Sector. His ramshackle fleet bore thousands of Imperial zealots, Guardsmen and militiamen as well pilgrims, but more importantly in the Arch-Confessor the fractitious planetary governors and rulers found a figure behind which to rally. Soon, the Imperials launched a powerful counter-attack, it fervor makig even the Daemons of Chaos shirk back. As the influence and presence of several warbands of Chaos Space Marines was confirmed, amongst which could be counted members of the Alpha Legion, the Night Lords and the Death Mongers, the Arch-Confessor called for help and his Crusade was soon reinforced by the entirety of the then space-faring Angels Revenant Chapter as well as the Adepta Sororitas in form of detachments from the Order of the Valorous Heart and the Order of the Black Sepulchre. Lastly, upon learning that daemons had been set lose, the Ordo Malleus also despatched a strike-force of its most fearful warriors, the legendary Grey Knights. With this mighty host, the Imperial reconquer their Sector in a gruesome twenty year long campaign that would see a full fifth of the Sector’s population die.
 * The Bane of Saint Marduk (921.M39) - Regarded as the last great battle of the Orphean War of Faith, the events of the Bane of Saint Marduk are shrouded in mystery although later events seem to confirm the major role of the Maynark Dynasty in it. By 921.M39, the victorious forces of the Imperium had gathered to lay siege to the last stronghold in the hands of the Archenemy: the former Hive World of Colkasth that had been turned into a hellish fortress by the Warpsmith of the Death Mongers, fusing the bones and souls of the world’s inhabitants into grotesque defensive structures or leaving them as mindless cannon-fodder. Daemons had been called from the Warp to further reinforce the defenders as the Imperial host around Arch-Confessor approached. While the first stage of the Imperial counter-invasion met with some measure of success, the contact with Marduk’s army was soon lost, the last communications raising the alarm and calling for assistance. The first ship to reach the system, an Adeptus Astartes Strike Cruiser belonging to the Angels Revenant, which was met by two smaller yet extremely powerful ships of unknown provenance which succeeded to damage the Intercessor. The Space Marines however retaliated and destroyed one of their foes, upon which the second one disengaged, but the damage had been done: its propulsion systems nearly entirely destroyed, the Intercessor could only limp system-inwards and witness a terrific space batte occurring around Colkasth, presumably led against the same unknown enemies they had just driven off. Upon its arrival, the Intercessor found only scores of debris field and a ravaged world in the grip of a nuclear winter, yet the radiations did not match any form of weaponry known to man. Only few survivors could be saved and it soon appeared that Arch-Confessor Marduk himself had been slain. None the wiser, the Angels Revenant departed the system after having conducted emergency repairs. As the Arch-Confessor was soon beatified by the Ecclesiarchy, the world soon became known as Saint Marduk’s Bane and recolonized after ritual purification to make sure that none of the foul taint of Chaos still lingered there. This marked the birth of the mysterious menace known as ’The Sleepers of Orpheus’, a tale that would however soon be forgotten.
 * Establishment of Libertha (circa 010.M40) - Following the death of Saint Marduk and the eradication of the last Chaos-aligned forces within the Sector, the Orphean War of Faith is deemed a great success. To comemorate the Saint’s death, the colony world of Libertha, which the Saint had grow fond of, is converted into a Shrine World to harbour the war’s honoured dead. The Space Marines Chapter of the Angels Revenant, until now a crusading Chapter, is given custody over Libertha, which consideraby strengthens the Sector’s defences.
 * The Death of Badrok (319.M40) - Unifying the descendants of the great Ork incursions of the 39th Millennium, Evil Sunz warboss Badrok Gutgouga launches a WAAAGH! from the Shattered Deeps-Region against the Orpheus Sector. Confronted by the Orpheus Sector defence forces and reinforced by regiments of the Imperial Guard, most notoriously armoured regiments from Koenig, the Orks are brought to battle. After seven months of gruelling battles, the Orks are finally encircled and defeated. Warboss Gutgouga is slain and his mortal remains are famously hanged from the spire of the Red Cathedral of Amraphel, marking the beginning of festivities across the entire Deluvian Sub-sector.
 * The Great Severan War (580-591.M40) - As the border regions of the Segmentum Tempestus and the Ultima Segmentum are ravaged by this conflict of epic proportions, the Orpheus Sector contributes over thirty-nine million of men and women to the Emperor’s armies. To meet these requirements, the penitaries of Morros Lachrymal are converted from mining facilities to the raising and training of Penal Legions. Few of these regiments ever returned to the Orpheus Sector but their sacrifice is comemorated on Libertha by the raising of the great Basilica Severan.
 * The Decapolis Conspiracy is Uncovered (619.M40) - Located to the galactic West of the Orpheus Sector, where it borders the Eurydice-Sector, the Hive World of Decapolis has grown powerful and rich, mostly through the trade with the neighbouring Sector and the Mechanicum Domain of Myre. Decapolis wealth, population and economic output was such that it eclipsed even Amarah itself, the ancestral seat of power and government of the Orpheus Sector. However, the ruling houses of Amarah jealously tried to remain in control, imposing ever-increasing tithes on Decapolis’ merchant class in a vain effort to hinder its growth. Eventually, these tithes became so oppressing that Decapolis’ ruling council, the Decarchs, both mercantile and military governors decided to fight back. The Decarchs hatched a series of conspiracies and plans which revolved around the covert funding and arming of political dissidents on Amarah, heretical groups such as the Cult Celastarii and even nacro-smuggling and counterband rings. As several officials were being eliminated in a targeted assassination campaign, these deaths prompted an Ordo Hereticus-led investigation. Upon interrogating captured Celastarii-culltists, the full extent of the conspiracy is uncovered when the heavy weapons crates in their possession can be traced back to manufactura on Decapolis. For the following nine years, the Inquisition heavily purges Decapolis, conducting a series of systematic purges of Decapolis ruling elite and sentencing them to death after extensive show trials. The harshness of these purges utlimately prevent outright civil war, but the even heavier tithes imposed by a now paranoid Amarah upon the Hive World leads to vast civil resentment. The relation of trust between the worlds of the Orpheus Sector is shattered and on Decapolis in particuliar the population’s fealty is more enforced than earned.
 * The Storm Tide (672-990.M41) - As many other of the Emperor’s domain within the Segmentum Tempestus, the Orpheus Sector is increasingly plagued by a number of sudden, unpredictable, warp-related torments such as Aetheric diruptions and Warp squalls which make warp-travel increasingly dangerous, even amongst estalished and well-travelled warp-routes.The number of vessels lost in the Warp steadily rises and cultic activities with it. Many latent and established psykers are plagued by horrifiying dreams and visions, featuring dead cities and the recurring image of a rising darkness, led by pale figure streading the dust of silent worlds and endless labyrinths. Only by the thorough efforts of both the Ordo Hereticus and Ordo Malleus, which battles ever more frequent incursions of psyker-daemons, is wider knowledge of these bleak portents of doom kept from the overall population. With the planets of the Orpheus Sector growing ever more isolated, the unity and security of the Sector is only maintained by the tireless vigilance of the Angels Revenant and Battlefleet Orpheus, which constantly patrol the vicinity of the Hesod Nebula to hold off Eldar Corsairs that seek to prey on the more isolated worlds.
 * The Howling Vortex (689.M41) - A located but violent Warp-storm, designated the Howling Vortex, manifests in the Barren Stars-region of the Capitoline Sub-Sector, cutting all communications with the Penetentiary World of Morros, the fate of its thirteen million inhabitants remains unknown.
 * The Kellerman Murders (744.M41) - On Amarah, investigations led by the Adeptus Arbites reveal that a series of thefts and murders within the Kellerman Scholam are in fact a larger ploy of a Celestarii-cult seeking to retrieve ancient xenos artefacts that are being stored and studied there. Cornered by the Adeptus Arbites, the Celestarii entrench themselves in the Scholam, which is successively ravaged by a fierce gun-battle and a conflagration which ravaged the Scholam’s extensive collection. Several testimonies from eye-witnesses state that an unidentified figure stalked the ruins of the Scholam, seemingly unharmed by blaze that had engulfed the building, apparently retrieving several artefacts before vanishing under mysterious circumstances.
 * The Damnation of the Manticore (766.M41) - En route from Arcantis to Ribasu, the chartist freighter Manticore Agirus Geller Field suffers several breaches while in the Warp and is overrun by Daemons.The crew’s and their three thousand passengers’ screams of agony plague astrophatic communications in the entire Capitoline Sub-Sector for several decades.
 * The Warning of the Wayward Son (811.M41) - Several years after heading to the outer darkness, the exploration fleet of the minor Rogue Trader Caleb Gilderoy unexpectedly shows signs of returning to the Imperium’s borders when one of the flotilla‘s escort vessels, the void dromon Wayward Son appears outside the defence perimeter of the Mechanicum outpost of Harrow Watch. As soon as contact is established, the Wayward Son states that it has been heavily damaged in battle with unidentified xenos, claiming that the Rogue Trader’s flotilla has been entirely wipped out by an unknown "terror" from beyond space. The Wayward Son desperatelly pleas for immediate sanctuary at the Adeptus Mechanicus base, but as it has no clearance to enter Harrow Watch exclusion zone its request is flattly refused by the Mechanicum officials. As the Wayward Son continues on its approach vector, despite explicit warnings not to do so, the ship is destroyed by the Mechanicum’s guns. What small portion remains of its wreckage is placed under quarantine for further investigations.
 * The Shadow of the Beggar King (819.M41) - On the industrial world of Chemarium II, Iidris hive succumbs to a seemingly contagious wave of madness and despair, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Imperial citizens either through suicide, murder or rampage. To further sabotage the world’s manufactoring capabilties, many workers hurl themselves into the machines they were operating. Anarchy reigns within the streets and the collapse of society swiftly follows. Amongst this chaos, no doubt touched by the Ruinuous Powers, arose a previously unknown individual, Ranker Nonesuch, the so-called ’Beggar King’. Successfully eliminating or corrupting Planetary Defence Forces, the Beggar King slaughters planetary government and leads his hordes of insane followers to corrupt the other three remaining planets of the Chemarium-system. Soon cults such as the ’Endless Tide’ and the ’Crawling Darkness’ lead large scale terror campaigns and insurrections in those Hive cities remaining loyal to the Imperium. Due to unstable Warp-conditions, the Imperium is unable to marshal sufficient forces to expunge these heretics and so an exclusion zone around the Chemarium-system is established. As guerilla war slowly turns into a war of attrition, the outbreak is contained to the Chemarium-system while the Inquisition mobilizes its Stormtrooper regiments to deal with the threat.
 * The Dying Stars (990.M41) - The Warp turbulences that have been plaguing the entire western marches of the Orpheus-Sector since the Storm Tide three centuries before are inexplicably snuffed out by a powerful event in the Warp, leaving only the Howling Vortex. The shockwave causes much tremors in the Warp and a great many vessels are thrown far off course or destroyed, while throughout the entire sectors, astropaths burn up or have their minds consumed by the shockwave. Meanwhile, the deep range observation facilities of Harrow’s Watch report that the binary stars of the forbidden Caracol-system at the edge of the Veiled Region inexplicably and unexpectedly went supernova, the event ocurring roughly concomitantly with the shockwave in the Warp. In the light of more recent events, it is safe to assume that these seemingly unrelated events were the first tell-tale signs of the awakening of the Maynark Dynasty.

Notable Celestial Phenomena

 * Hesod Nebula - The Hesod Nebula encompasses large parts of the Orpheus Sector northern approaches. It has long served as a safe haven for Dark Eldar corsairs and pirates which Battlefleet Orpheus had thus far failed to eliminate. This would however change with the beginning of the Orphean War as the raiders either perished at the hands of the Necrons themselves or were forced out of hiding onto the guns of the Imperial Navy and the Minotaurs Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes.
 * Howling Vortex - The Howling Vortex is small-magnitude but extremely fierce Warp Storm that manifested itself in 689.M41, engulfing the world of Morros and cutting all contact with it since that day. The Howling Vortex effectively reduced the Barren Stars-region to the sole Hydrogast-system.


 * Shattered Deeps - Located at the very South of the Orpheus Sector, the Shattered Deeps form a Warp/real-space anomaly akin to the famous Maelstrom or the Eye of Terror although of much smaller magnitude.


 * Veiled Region - Located to the galactic South-West of the capital, the Veiled Region marks the Segmentum Tempestus outer border, a final obstacle before the immensity of the Outer Darkness. The region carries its name well as dense nebulas, great debris fields and turbulent gravitic forces make navigation utterly impossible and even "veil" the light of the few existing stars left that are only orbited by Dead Worlds. It would seem however that at least a portion of the Necron invader indeed came from the Outer Darkness and thus passed through this region of space to reach the Orpheus Sector. How such a feat was possible remains entirely unknown.

Notable Sub-sectors
The size of the Orpheus Sector is such that to ease its ponderous administration, the sector was divided into three primary sub-sectors and several independent administrative regions.
 * Capitoline Sub-Sector - As its name indicates the Capitoline Sub-sector is the most important division of the entire Sector, englobing both the Sector Capital of Amarah and the populous worlds of the Arcantis Cluster. These heavily industrialized and populated worlds heavily rely on the imports from the semi-autonomous domain of the Barren Stars and the Agri-world of Hydrogast that lies therein to survive.
 * Deluvian Sub-Sector - The Deluvian Sub-sector lies to the galactic South-East of the Capitoline Sub-Sector and is perhaps the second most important region of the Orpheus Sector. Following the Orphean War, the Deluvian Sub-Sector has suffered the less and still defies the invaders.
 * Drucillan Sub-Sector - The worlds of the Drucillan Sub-Sector were by far the least advanced of the Orpheus Sector, yet suffered perhaps the worst during the eons as the outlying worlds fell one after the other to the baleful presence of Xenos species, adorators of the Ruinuous Powers or others perils. Being located to the galactic South-South-West of Amarah where the Orpheus Sector touches the lost Leyak Sector, the Drucillan Sub-Sector was the first to fall before Necrons of the Maynark Dynasty and is considered utterly lost by the Imperium’s tacticians.

Notable Exclusion Zones
Subjected to many strange Warp phenomena, the Orpheus Sector counts many worlds upon which the Inquisition has placed a ban and where no citizen of the Imperium should dwell. The true reasons for this ban are however most often kept secret. Most tellingly, those prohibited worlds are all located on the exterior of the Sector, close to the Segmentum’s borders with the Outer Darkness. In this there is only one notable exception, the Chemarium Exclusion Zone. The words of the Chemarium-system had simultaneously entered a state of open revolt against the Imperial rule and had been cordoned off in awaiting of sufficient reinforcement to pacify these worlds which seemed to have fallen to the sway of the Powers of Chaos. Those reinforcement were hastily redeployed at the outset of the Orphean War.
 * Altun (Dead World)
 * Carocol (Dead World)
 * Chemarium (Industrial Worlds) - Located in the Deluvian Sub-Sector, Chemarium I - IV were heavily industrialized worlds whose output principally went to Amarah itself, the Hive Cities of Decapolis and the Forge World of Myre. On Chemarium III, the civilian population had risen against the rule of the Divine Emperor under the leadership of the so-called ’Beggar King’, warranting a blockade of the entire system which became known as the Chemarium Exclusion Zone. Although the baleful influence of the Ruinous Powers has been confirmed it is unknown how the taint had spread so long unnoticed.
 * Cutlar (Dead World)
 * Nightshard (Prohibited World)- Located at the very edge of the Veiled Region, the world of Nightshard is a scientific enigma and has therefor been declared Prohibita by the Sector's Conclave of Ordos. Nightshard's celestial mass is highly anomalous for a planet this size.
 * Tlaloc (Agri-World) - Tlaloc is an ill-fated Agri-World established on the very southern borders of the Orpheus Sector, where it touches the now lost Leyak Sector. When the first colonization fleet bound for Tlaloc mysteriously vanished, nobody truly suspected the horrible fate that would be visited on this world in the last decades of the 800s of M.38. Referred to as "the Death of Tlaloc" in several open records, the world’s population was decimated, not a single intact corpse to be found amongst the ruins of the planet and the broken remains of every single recording device on the planet. Official investigations led by Inquisitor Kussan of the Ordo Xenos put the blame on Eldar Corsairs, but in the wake of the Orphean War it woud seem that far older, darker forces were at work on Tlaloc. Nevertheless, since 889.M38 and these mysterious events, Tlaloc has remained in permanent quarantine.
 * Utmal (Death World)