Departmento Cartographicae map of the Imperial sectors surrounding the Eye of Terror before the birth of the Great Rift.
The Cadian Sector of the Milky Way galaxy is a sector of the Imperium of Man in the Segmentum Obscurus to the galactic north of Terra. Before the 13th Black Crusade and its fall, the planet Cadia was the Imperium of Man's most important Fortress World as designated by the Administratum. It guarded the only known navigable route, a passage called the "Cadian Gate", to and from the massive Warp rift known as the Eye of Terror.
The world's dangerous proximity to the Eye of Terror made it necessary for the people of Cadia to heavily fortify the planet. The Cadian Sector was always the first target of the Chaos Warmaster Abaddon the Despoiler's assaults and multiple Black Crusades, when the forces of Chaos launched themselves from the Eye of Terror every few standard centuries in an attempt to break out and invade the Imperium proper as they did during the Horus Heresy.
History[]
Pre-Heresy[]
Primarch Lorgar, the Urizen, of the Word Bearers Legion, during the Pilgrimage of Lorgar to Cadia.
Some forty standard years before the outbreak of the Horus Heresy, Cadia was a world inhabited by a primitive race of violet-eyed Humans who worshipped the four Chaos Gods, probably a remnant of Mankind that had turned to the Ruinous Powers during the hardships of the Age of Strife.
Prompted by the so-called "Pilgrimage" of the primarch Lorgar of the Word Bearers Legion to discover whether or not the gods once worshipped by adherents of the Old Faith of the Word Bearers' homeworld of Colchis actually existed, Lorgar journeyed with his Word Bearers Legion's Chapter of the Serrated Sun to what was then the fringes of known Imperial space as part of the 1301st Expeditionary Fleet of the Great Crusade.
At this time, Lorgar had not yet fallen to Chaos, though he had turned against the Emperor of Mankind as a deity no longer worthy of his worship after the Emperor and the Ultramarines Legion had personally humiliated him and the entire Word Bearers Legion on the world of Khur, 43 standard years before the start of the Horus Heresy.
The Emperor had come to Khur personally with Malcador the Sigillite after ordering the Ultramarines to destroy the Khurian city of Monarchia where the Emperor was worshipped as a god as a result of the teachings of the Word Bearers. He made his displeasure known to Lorgar about the Word Bearers spreading the religion of Emperor-worship to every world they brought into the Imperium, in direct contravention of the rationalist, atheist philosophy of the Imperial Truth.
The Emperor forced the entire Legion to kneel against their will through the use of his psychic might and then explained that they were the only Astartes Legion to have failed His purpose on the Great Crusade. After this humiliation Lorgar, on the advice of his First Captain Kor Phaeron and the Word Bearers' First Chaplain Erebus, decided to undertake a pilgrimage to discover if the gods worshipped by the ancient Old Faith of Colchis were real and worthy of the Word Bearers' faith and allegiance, since clearly the Emperor was not.
The Word Bearers were also accompanied on this pilgrimage by 5 members of the Adeptus Custodes who had been set by the Emperor to watch over everything the Word Bearers did to prevent them from falling back into error once more. The 1301st Expeditionary Fleet exited the Warp near the largest Warp storm in the galaxy, later known as the "Eye of Terror", the remnant on realspace of the Fall of the Aeldari. The fleet's Master of Astropaths advised Lorgar that unusual "voices" in the Warp were heard in the vicinity of the great Warp rift, voices that spoke directly to the primarch as well, the voices of the Chaos entities within the Immaterium.
The decision was made to hold orbit over Cadia and for the 1301st Fleet's elements to make planetfall on the unknown world, designated as 1301-12. The landing force was comprised of Imperial Army, Word Bearers, Adeptus Custodes and Legiones Cybernetica elements. The landing party, led by Lorgar, was greeted by a large number of barbaric Human tribes, people described as "dressed in rags and wielding spears tipped by flint blades...yet they showed little fear." Most notable were the barbarians' purple eyes, which reflected the colour of the Eye of Terror itself in the spectrum of visible light.
Despite the Custodian Vendatha's protests and request to execute the heathens, the Word Bearers approached the natives. A woman emerged from the crowd and addressed the primarch directly, calling him Lorgar Aurelian and welcoming him to Cadia. This woman, the priestess Ingethel, would ultimately lead the primarch down a path of spiritual enlightenment that actually marked the beginning of Lorgar's fall to heresy and Chaos.
Later, Ingethel of Cadia would lead the 1301st Fleet's scout vessel Orfeo's Lament into the Eye of Terror and thus change the Word Bearers forever as they were exposed to the Ruinous Powers of Chaos and slowly corrupted, the first of the Legiones Astartes to worship the Chaos Gods and become Traitors to the Emperor.
The Cadians, primitive as they were, used a language which was akin to the Word Bearers' own Colchisan tongue. Many traditions of the Word Bearers were mirrored by the culture of ancient Cadia, leading Lorgar to believe that the original settlers of both his own homeworld of Colchis and Cadia shared a common heritage. Following the visits into the Eye of Terror, Lorgar ordered a cyclonic bombardment of the planet, wiping out the Cadians and leaving the planet abandoned so none in the Imperium would know what had transpired there.
Post-Heresy[]
Departmento Cartographicae map of the Cadian System before the Fall of Cadia.
Following the Siege of Terra that ended the Horus Heresy with Horus' death and the internment of the Emperor of Mankind in the Golden Throne, the defeated Traitor Legions and their allied forces among the Imperial Army and the Dark Mechanicum fled from Terra.
Some of the exhausted Loyalists rallied and gave chase, but most remained on Terra to consolidate their great victory over the forces of Chaos. Many of the surviving Traitors were put to the sword, but the majority of the Traitor Legions escaped into the great Warp rift known as the Eye of Terror in the Segmentum Obscurus, a region of space where reality and the insanity of Chaos collide as the raw psychic energy of the Immaterium pours into real space-time.
Within the Eye of Terror, the Chaos Gods rule over uncounted numbers of planets, all warped to reflect their own dark aspects. It was there that the Traitor Legions found refuge, isolated from the rest of the galaxy by potent Warp storms. Each of the planets within the Eye is a Daemon World, warped and twisted by the whims of the Ruinous Powers and the powerful Daemon Princes who rule over them in the Dark Gods' name. The Chaos Space Marines regrouped and nurtured their hatred of the Imperium, planning for the day when they would wreak a terrible vengeance on those who had defied them and their foul masters.
Within the Eye of Terror time flows differently than in realspace. Those same Traitors who fought on Terra over 10,000 standard years ago still fight today in the service of Chaos. They fight against each other to prove their supremacy and against the forces of the Imperium when the Warp storms calm enough to allow them to emerge into Imperial space.
The Imperial sectors surrounding the Eye of Terror are heavily militarised to resist these frequent invasions and none more so than Cadia, the former Imperial Fortress World that long stood at the very mouth of the only stable navigational route leading out of the Eye of Terror, the dreaded "Cadian Gate." The planet's strategic location made it useful to the Imperium and in the 32nd Millennium Imperial colonists were dispatched to resettle the world, becoming the ancestors of the present-day population of Cadians. Perhaps as a result of the Eye of Terror's proximity, this later population of Cadians also soon developed the unusual violet-coloured eyes that had marked the first Human inhabitants of the planet.
Before the Era Indomitus, Cadia stood upon the only known reliable route out of the Eye of Terror and thus was one of the most strategically vital worlds in the entire Imperium. There were other routes out of the Eye, but none were stable like the Cadian Gate and no military force of any true size could venture forth from the Eye without first passing through it.
The exact reasons for the existence of this unusual region of stability were long unknown, though many magi of the Adeptus Mechanicus believed it was due to the presence of the famous Cadian Pylons. These mysterious black monoliths, now known to have been created by the Necrons millions of standard years ago to hold back the psychic influence of the Warp that was so feared by their C'tan masters, dot the landscape of Cadia and their origins remained mysterious until the time of the 13th Black Crusade.
Cadia itself was a bleak, merciless and wind-blown planet, where only the strongest survived to adulthood and discipline was learned from the moment a babe took his or her first steps. Cold winds howled across wide, sundered plains where armies trained with live ammunition and every solar day not spent training was believed to be a day wasted. Every Cadian fortress-city, or "kasr", was a great citadel, with the streets and buildings fashioned with superior tactical cunning by the finest military engineers and siege specialists of the Astra Militarum.
Every Cadian was taught the skills of the warrior as soon as they could walk and they were much sought after by commanders throughout the galaxy. Cadian military gear was considered top-rate and was used as the standard for all wargear given to the regiments of the Astra Militarum. Such a world bred hardy and determined warriors and the Cadian Shock Trooper regiments of the Astra Militarum had a well-deserved reputation for both honour and a relentless fighting spirit.
From the earliest age, Cadians were taught to field-strip a weapon with their eyes shut and tactical doctrine was learned even before basic literacy. One soldier in every ten was recruited into the Cadian Interior Guard, regardless of ability or achievements, and as a result some of the most able soldiers spent their entire Imperial military service on Cadia. Even the soldiers of the Cadian Planetary Defence Force were amongst the most skilled soldiers in the Imperium, the equal of many other worlds' full Astra Militarum regiments.
13th Black Crusade and the Fall of Cadia[]
"The Chaos dogs cower before our guns. Gentlemen, let us take back what is ours."
Abaddon the Despoiler, Warmaster of Chaos and architect of the Fall of Cadia
In ca. 999.M41, when Abaddon the Despoiler finally launched his 13th Black Crusade, the greatest Chaos assault on the Imperium since the Horus Heresy, the forces of Chaos managed to make landfall upon Cadia itself and occupy large swathes of the planet despite ferocious Imperial resistance.
The campaign was kicked off by the unexpected betrayal of the Volscani Cataphracts of the Astra Militarum, whose regiments successfully assassinated the Cadian High Command, including the Lord Castellan, the Cadian planetary governor and leader of its armed forces.
Led by the skilled strategist Ursarkar E. Creed, the colonel of the 8th Cadian Regiment who was suddenly vaulted to the position of Lord Castellan, the Imperial forces were able to contain the initial Chaos assault and hunt down most of the occupying forces after the defeat of the initial Chaos armada in orbit. Unfortunately, the Despoiler had barely begun to fight. He unleashed a massive second Chaos warfleet on the Cadian System and a ground assault that was led by one of his Chosen, Urkanthos, the Lord Purgator of the Black Legion.
Urkanthos led a massive horde of Chaos Space Marines, Chaos Cultists and Daemons against Kasr Kraf, the Cadian fortress-city that represented the primary centre of Imperial resistance. When Urkanthos was slain in the wake of the Living Saint Celestine's arrival and Kasr Kraf was saved, she bought the Imperials enough time to move their defence to the Elysion Fields, the largest grouping of Cadian Pylons on the planet. It had become clear in the course of events that Abaddon's true reason for constantly assaulting Cadia through his Black Crusades had always been the destruction of these pylons.
The Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl, another recent arrival to the Fortress World, had been led to Cadia by the Harlequin Shadowseer Sylandri Veilwalker, and believed that he could decipher the true function of the pylons. With the aid of the Necron Lord Trazyn the Infinite, who had been present when the pylons were first constructed by the Necrons millions of standard years earlier, Cawl proved capable of mastering the enigmatic xenos artefacts' internal systems deep in the catacombs beneath the pylon field. But this came just in time for Abaddon to launch his final ground assault against the Elysion Fields, as the Despoiler was determined to assuage his pride by personally ending the Imperial defence.
Once Cawl successfully activated the pylon network and cut off the access of the assaulting Chaos forces to the Warp -- even the Eye of Terror began to shrink as it was struck by the pylons' anti-psychic emissions -- Abaddon abandoned his desire to crush Cadia's defenders personally.
Finding a modicum of grudging respect within himself for the Imperials' valour, the Despoiler decided instead to unleash his horrific fail-safe plan. He launched the remaining bulk of the Blackstone Fortress Will of Eternity, badly damaged by the assault of the Imperial Fists' star fortress Phalanx, into the surface of Cadia like an artificial meteor.
The Blackstone Fortress Will of Eternity hurtles from orbit to strike Cadia.
Cadia shuddered from that impact, as impossible forces jarred it loose of its age-old orbit. The survivors clinging to the ruined fortresses of the continent of Cadia Tertius barely had time to scream. Those beneath the vast impact site perished first, super-heated wind roaring in their ears before it seared flesh from bone, and reduced bone to scattered ash.
The Blackstone Fortress' remnant struck, gouging a crater hundreds of kilometres in breadth. Mountains crumbled to dust. Seas vanished into plumes of scalding steam. Continental plates rumbled and groaned as they shifted beneath titanic forces not seen since Cadia first cooled from the star-stuff of the galactic void.
The tremors spread, tidal waves and screaming particulate winds their heralds. Coastal bastions that had survived bombardment and siege drowned beneath the unnatural tide, ripped from their foundations and dragged beneath the squalling seas. The island of Ran Storn vanished entirely, its shell-ravaged landing fields drowned beneath the waves. A thousand kilometres inland on the continent of Cadia Secundus, the enduring spires of Kasr Vark at last fell, smashed apart by the waters of the Caducades Sea as the tidal shelves buckled.
In the wake of the kinetic strike by the ruins of the Blackstone Fortress Will of Eternity the Eye of Terror envelops Cadia as the planet rips itself apart.
Forests that had been old when Humanity first settled Cadia burned away in the briefest of moments. Crustal platelets shattered and split, the furious life-blood of the world boiling forth. Long-dormant volcanoes flared to life along the Rossvar Mountains, pyroclastic flows consuming all in their path. The great killing fields of Tyrok, site of Creed's ascension to the rank of Lord Castellan, split asunder and vanished into magma-lit gloom, swallowed by the world's torment.
At the Elysion Fields, half a world away from the impact site, they heard the roar of the winds, and saw the dark onrush of particulate clouds that blocked out the sun. The canny sought what cover they could amongst the pylons and ruined war machines. The slow-witted perished, torn apart by the vaporised bones of Cadia.
The winds grew, hurling tanks across the pylon fields, crushing those who had sought shelter beneath them. The ancient pylons gave up their grasp on the bedrock, toppling like petrified trees. The pylon field's beam of dark light cast outwards into the void flickered as the monoliths fell. The retreat of the Immaterium faltered, and then slowly reversed as the Eye of Terror began to expand once more.
The storm raged for solar minutes that seemed eternities, and then fell away into hurricane winds. They blew over a world forever altered. The continent of Cadia Tertius was gone, obliterated by fire and drowned beneath howling seas. The Krian Fault, bane of the continent of Cadia Tertius since the Age of Strife, had ruptured one last, fateful time, and the planetary crust split apart.
The continent of Cadia Primus was half-drowned, its forested mountainsides now isolated islands scattered across a new ocean. Cadia Secundus lay wreathed in fire, its continental plates sinking as the pressure of their neighbours forced them steadily inwards. None of it mattered. Cadia was already dead.
But even then, there was worse to come. As the aftershocks of impact rippled through the dying rock, more pylons shattered against the dust-strewn tundra -- not just at the Elysion Fields, but at the lesser sites of Kasarn, Trosk and Vorg. As the pylons fell, the nodal web stuttered, and then withered entirely. The dark light beam, Belisarius Cawl's dagger struck into the heart of the Eye of Terror from the activated pylons, flickered once more, and died. A new sound pealed through the howling winds -- the dark laughter of gods too long denied their prize. The crimson maelstrom of the Eye of Terror pulsed anew, and reached out to embrace sundered Cadia.
Save for the presence of the pylons, the Immaterium would have claimed Cadia long ago. The long-dead Necron artisans who had set the pylon fields in Cadia's living rock could not have foreseen the Eye of Terror's cataclysmic birth with the Fall of the Aeldari, could not have known the vital bulwark for the galaxy their works would become. But now, with the pylons' fall, the tendrils of the Warp laid their first loving caress upon Cadian realspace, and the Daemons of the Dark Gods spilled forth.
These were not the flickering manifestations so lately loosed upon the world, their presence in realspace under constant challenge by the pylons' power. These were the servants of the Ruinous Powers, hale and whole, fed by the raw stuff of Chaos. They first appeared amidst drowned Cadia Tertius, where the Blackstone Fortress' demise had torn a rent in reality's veil through the sheer loss of life. But as the Eye of Terror slipped its ancient bounds, the rifts multiplied, dragging the beleaguered world into the bowels of the Immaterium.
The monstrous kinetic strike wiped out most of Cadia's remaining defenders, destroyed the network of Cadian Pylons and tectonically destabilised the world. As the Warp and its foul denizens claimed the remains of the Fortress World, Lord Castellan Ursarkar E. Creed arranged an evacuation of the planet that saved 3 million of its citizens before the planet finally ripped itself apart -- though not before Creed himself mysteriously disappeared.
The Fall of Cadia represented a once-unimaginable triumph for the servants of the Dark Gods, and the Eye of Terror began to slowly expand without limit, opening Abaddon the Despoiler's coveted Crimson Path to Terra and creating the Great Rift that soon divided the Imperium in half.
Yet among the few survivors of Cadia was a handful of Imperial heroes who had successfully escaped the destruction of the Fortress World with the aid of the newborn Aeldari faction known as the Ynnari. The combined forces fled through a Webway gate found on the ice moon of Klaisus in the Cadian System.
Together, these Imperials -- the so-called "Celestinian Crusade" -- would forge an uneasy alliance with the enigmatic xenos that would offer a new hope for the servants of the Emperor in their fight against the waxing power of the Archenemy -- the resurrection of the primarch Roboute Guilliman.
Era Indomitus[]
The Cadian Gate region after the fall of Cadia, Era Indomitus
At the culmination of Abaddon's 13th Black Crusade, the Cicatrix Maledictum had all but consumed Cadia. With the great pylons toppled by Abaddon's conquering hordes and the colossal Warp storm of the Eye of Terror no longer held at bay, the dread powers of Chaos ravaged the planet beyond recovery. And still the neighbouring worlds and star systems of the Cadian Sector remained defiant.
Had Cadia not been famous for holding so long against the odds, it is likely the other planets in the Cadian System would have capitulated or given up almost immediately. No normal world could stand in the face of the horrendous, sanity-devouring armies that descended upon the Cadian Gate in such terrifying measure. However, the wider systems of Cadia, Belis Corona, and Agripinaa stood fast.
Perhaps, just as a veteran can lead lesser men to deeds of great heroism, Cadia had inspired those worlds around it to defend every nation and city to the last bullet. Perhaps Cadia's surviving soldiery lent strength through their hunger for retribution. Perhaps those battered by the storm simply fought for survival. Whatever the reason, the defenders of the Cadian Gate resolved to uphold the virtues of its lost lynchpin world come what may.
In the confusion of outright war, the hordes of Chaos began to turn upon themselves. Though they were ascendant, their ultimate conquest had yet to be clinched. Rival warlords, both mortal and Daemonic, clashed over the spoils of victories not yet won. The Imperial defenders were quick to capitalise on each strategic misstep, for many were veterans of the wars upon Cadia, and they knew how to goad a fractious enemy into overextending its reach.
After its fall to Chaos, the shattered remains of Cadia have become a new stronghold for the forces of Chaos.
From dissolution came destruction. Solar day by solar day the Imperial armies clawed back a semblance of control. Soon the war zone was in contention once more, the dread stranglehold of Chaos loosened by the sheer determination of the Astra Militarum and the vengeful fury of the Space Marines.
Each new dawn was greeted by a scattering of ships from the Great Exodus, those fortunate souls who had braved the Empyrean tempests and lived to tell of it. Again and again the fighting escalated, the fires of war that had burned Cadia to cinders roaring to life anew upon the other worlds of the Cadian System, as well as those of the Belis Corona and Agripinaa Systems.
The broken hulk of Cadia itself was resettled by the forces of Chaos following its partial destruction. It soon became a Chaos stronghold at the heart of a burgeoning new Renegade empire.
Sometime after the Great Rift's creation, the Adeptus Custodes' Captain-General Trajann Valoris ordered a small, fast-moving force of Custodians to travel to the shattered hulk of Cadia. Details of their mission are suppressed, even amongst their comrades, but they were accompanied by a number of warriors drawn from the ranks of the Shadowkeepers.
Notable Worlds[]
- Cadia (Fortress World) - The former lynchpin Fortress World of the Cadian Sector. Cadia stood alone for almost 10,000 Terran years, a failing beacon of the Emperor's light flickering against the encroaching night, and the inevitable tide of Chaos that Abaddon sought to unleash upon the Imperium of Man during the Long War.
- Kasr Holn (Fortress World) - Besieged by the forces of Chaos during the 13th Black Crusade in ca. 999.M41.
- Kasr Partox (Fortress World) - Besieged during the 13th Black Crusade in ca. 999.M41.
- Korolis (Industrial World) - Promethium weapons-grade atomic materials produced here.
- Macharia (Militarised Hive World, Destroyed) - Macharia was a populated Imperial world in the Cadia System that was obliterated by Abaddon's dreaded warship known as the Planet Killer during the 13th Black Crusade in ca. 999.M41.
- Pervigilium (Space Marine Chapter Homeworld) - Pervigilium is the Chapter homeworld of the Angels of Vigilance, and is situated just outside the Cadian Gate.
- Prosan (Uninhabited World) - Hostile environment training ground for the Astra Militarum.
- Solar Macharius (Industrial World)
- St. Josmane's Hope (Prison World) - The first of the inner worlds of the Cadia System to fall, St. Josmane's Hope was destroyed by a specially selected Imperial strike-force composed of Adeptus Astartes from various Chapters, a Death Cult assassin, five Tech-priests and additional support personnel, as well as some unnamed Inquisitors. They successfully overloaded the generatorium grid of the planet's main prison complex, which caused massive tectonic instability, and the inevitable destruction of the planet. None of the operatives of the Imperial strike force survived.
- Vigilatum (Naval Training World) - Besieged during the 13th Black Crusade.
[]
Many notable Navis Imperialis battlefleets protect the surrounding systems of the Cadian Sector by constant patrolling the space lanes around the Eye of Terror, constantly vigilant for Chaos raiders or another approaching Black Crusade.
- Battlefleet Coronus
Notable Cadian Astra Militarum Regiments[]
Many notable Astra Militarum regiments of the Cadian Shock Troopers have been drawn from Cadia, including:
- 7th Cadian Regiment, "The Lucky Sevens"
- 8th Cadian Regiment, "The Lord Castellan's Own" - The 8th Cadian was led personally by Lord Castellan Ursarkar E. Creed during the 13th Black Crusade
- 39th Cadian Regiment,"Xenobane"
- 69th Cadian Regiment, "The Fighting 69th"
- 81st Cadian Armoured Regiment, "Rolling Thunder"
- 89th Cadian Armoured Regiment, "Steel Lords"
- 110th Cadian Regiment, "Shadow Corps"
- 122nd Cadian Regiment - Distinguished themselves in the Vogen Campaign
- 412th Cadian Regiment - Featured in the PC game Dawn of War: Winter Assault where they carried out the Imperial assault against the Chaos Space Marine and Ork forces of the ice world of Lorn V
- 417th Cadian Regiment, "Hellbringers"
- 516th Cadian Regiment, "The Wildcats"
Sources[]
- Cadia Stands (Novel) by Justin D. Hill, Part 4, Chs. 2-8
- Codex: Adeptus Custodes (8th Edition), pg. 33
- Codex: Astra Militarum (9th Edition), pp. 12, 19
- Codex: Chaos Space Marines (3rd Edition, Revised Codex), pp. 8, 81
- Codex: Chaos Space Marines (5th Edition), pg. 46
- Codex: Chaos Space Marines (6th Edition), pp. 20, 25, 57
- Codex: Eye of Terror (3rd Edition), pp. 5, 11, 24, 37
- Codex: Eye of Terror (3rd Edition), pp. 5, 11, 24, 37
- Codex: Imperial Guard (2nd Edition), pg. 11
- Codex: Imperial Guard (5th Edition), pp. 14, 57
- The First Heretic (Novel) by Aaron Dembski-Bowden
- The Eisenhorn Trilogy (Novel Series) by Dan Abnett
- Eye of Terror Worldwide Campaign - Newletters
- The Gathering Storm - Part One - Fall of Cadia (7th Edition), pp. 10, 68-88
- The 13th Black Crusade (Background Book) by Andy Hoare
- Warhammer 40,000: Rulebook (8th Edition), pg. 161
- Warhammer 40,000: Core Book (9th Edition), pg. 19
- White Dwarf 182 (UK), "Cadian Shock Troops: Imperial Guard," by Rick Priestley