Watch Station Iobel

Watch Station Iobel is less of a Watch Station and more of a fortress, located deep in the storm-wracked mountain range of Iobel II in the Wicked Sisters. Its winding halls are carved out of the very mountain itself, and its facilities are large enough to house and train multiple Deathwatch Kill-teams simultaneously.

Iobel has acted as the primary launch point for all operations into the Hadex Anomaly, and contains various ancient devices for monitoring and observing the movements of xenos in and around the warp rift.

With its new status as the primary Watch Station for all operations around the Hadex Anomaly, it is highly likely that a Kill-team operation within the Acheros Salient would be stationed at Iobel at some point. Due to its recent additions, its size, and its close proximity to Watch Fortress Erioch, Iobel contains an extensive armoury as well as many large vehicles to which other Watch Stations do not have access.

This wide access to supplies is a great boon to Kill-teams, but it doesn’t come without its difficulties. Because of the number of Kill-teams operating out of the Watch Station, a Battle-Brother may find the wargear he wants has already been requisitioned by a different Kill-team.

History
For the long millennia of the Age of Shadow, Watch Station Iobel was no more than a lonely tower perched atop a storm-wracked mountain range.

The dark halls were all but empty save for a few serfs and servitors and the two Battle-Brothers whose task it was to stay ever vigilant for the rise of whatever unknown threat the desolate planet posed.

The Watch Station originally housed no equipment for monitoring the rest of the system it inhabited. From what the Deathwatch could ascertain, its original purpose was to watch over the valleys far below the mountain on which it stands.

A grand network of pict-feeds had been assembled and maintained across the surrounding area of the planet, though the images they transmit back to the Watch Station are commonly blurry and distorted from the massive electrical interference within the planet's atmosphere.

There was little evidence as to why the architects of the Watch Station desired the barren valleys to be observed. Year after year the pict feeds would return nothing but grey, static images of a barren landscape.

Fanciful tales were passed down amongst the serfs, tales of mechanical horrors that stalked the valleys during the worst of the storms. But this was always dismissed as nothing more than the superstitious legends of mortals.

However, there are some Battle-Brothers amongst those who have served at Watch Station Iobel that believe the tales of the serfs. Scattered through the archives are different grainy picts, saved from the feeds, that depict looming silhouettes of mechanical spiders, a faint green glow emanating from lines on their bodies through the distortion in the storm.

Each time one of these picts was taken, the Battle-Brothers would leave to investigate after the storm subsided, but would find no evidence that any such being ever existed. This has led to the Watch Station getting a strong reputation for ghost stories and tall tales.

Since the Achilus Crusade came to the Jericho Reach, Watch Station Iobel has seen a radical transformation. As the Hadex Anomaly expands, it has begun to consume the systems around it. One such lost world housed Watch Station Midael, the closest Deathwatch outpost to the Anomaly.

With the loss of Midael, Iobel became the closest, and it began housing all Kill-teams operating in the area. This increase in traffic was far larger than the small tower could possibly house, and as more and more Kill-teams passed through, it became a necessity to expand the Watch Station.

Techmarines and serfs under the supervision of Harl Greyweaver began construction to enlarge the Watch Station, hollowing out the very mountain it stood on. Intricate networks of passages were carved out, a giant hanger was created, and ancient equipment was shipped in.

Within the course of a decade, the Watch Station turned from a lonely tower to a veritable Space Marine fortress. Now, the hallways of Watch Station Iobel bustle with activity. Banks of cogitators process information on xenos activity in and around the Hadex Anomaly, Kill-teams prep for missions, and Ordo Xenos Inquisitors commonly make use of all the facility has to offer.

With the explosion of activity within Watch Station Iobel, its original purpose has been pushed to the background, all but forgotten. The network of picters and cogitators continues to monitor the valleys, but all its fuzzy data is stored away and forgotten. But as the Deathwatch focuses on the Anomaly, something has begun to awaken deep beneath the planet's surface.