Korvosi, formerly known as Kolossi, is a Daemon World and Fallen Knight World under the control of the Daemon Prince Be'lakor in the Imperium Nihilus that was once the Knight World of Kolossi, the seat of House Raven.
During the Charadon Campaign of the Era Indomitus Be'lakor corrupted the garrison force of Knights that House Raven had left behind on their capital world and used them to aid his invasion of the planet with the armies of his Disciples of Be'lakor. When the corrupted Knights turned on their fellows, Be'lakor's invasion succeeded and he took control of Kolossi. Rather than lose his new prize to an approaching fleet of the Indomitus Crusade, Be'lakor used his immense power to unleash a sorcerous ritual that moved the entire world through the Warp to a new location somewhere in the Imperium Nihilus.
Korvosi has been reshaped into a Daemon World under the command of Be'lakor and his allies in the Disciples of Be'lakor, including Traitoris Militarum regiments, Heretic Astartes warbands, daemonic legions in service to the Dark Master, elements of the Dark Mechanicum and House Korvax, the Infernal house of Chaos Knights that are all that remains of the House Raven garrison the first Daemon Prince corrupted.
History
Seat of House Raven
Thousands of Terran years ago Kolossi was a virgin world of verdant plains and forested mountains. When the first Human settlers arrived in the Age of Technology they found an environment conducive to life, with little in the way of natural predators. However, the settlers built legions of Knights, their industries strip-mining the Kolossi continents for materials. Ancient tales tell of an evil that lurked in the darkness of the Kolossi star system, the Tethras System, or perhaps within the heart of the star itself, and it was against this evil that the settlers were protecting themselves.
If there is truth in these tales time has erased any evidence, leaving only rumour and conjecture in their wake. In time, the society of Kolossi stratified and House Raven rose to prominence among the settlers, becoming a title synonymous with the Knight World. As the rulers of Kolossi came and went each added to the world's armies and fortifications, stripping away more of the planet's mineral wealth. By the time that House Raven made its enduring alliance with the Forge World of Metalica, Kolossi had been reduced to open pits, towering slag heaps and smog-wreathed manufactoria lit only by guttering promethium flares from soot-stained chimneys.
This degradation of Kolossi has only worsened through the millennia. In addition to House Raven's own mineral needs Metalica added its own demands upon Kolossi, endless shambling lines of mining servitors slowly hacking their way toward the heart of the world. Only a handful of cities remain on the planet, islands of steel and smoke amid the deep-core shafts and strip-mine canyons.
Greatest of these is the Keep Inviolate, an adamantium-plated fortress over a kilometre high, its glittering peak long welcoming home Nobles as they descended from orbit into Kolossi's roiling banks of smog. The work of centuries, the Keep Inviolate is a fortress to rival the Space Wolves' Fang on Fenris or the Emperor's Imperial Palace on Terra, its walls hundreds of feet thick and its Macrocannons capable of tearing voidships apart in orbit.
The real power of the keep though lies in its Vault Transcendent. Dug deep into the bedrock of Kolossi, its heavily shielded walls housed hundreds of Knight suits, each one ready to stride out onto the scarred surface of their world should it ever face invasion. However, the real threat to Kolossi, when it did come, came from within.
Fall of Kolossi
The fall of Kolossi began during the Charadon Campaign of the Era Indomitus, when the Daemon Prince Be'lakor used his powers to sway a number of House Raven's Sacristans to his cause who then secretly corrupted their Knight suits' Thrones Mechanicum with the power of Chaos. After this was done, Be'lakor unleashed the daemonic legions and Heretic Astartes warbands under his command as the Disciples of Be'lakor upon House Raven's Knight World of Kolossi while the Questor Mechanicus house prepared to defend their world. Most of its Knights, however, were already fighting elsewhere in the Charadon Sector, under the command of their Princeps Grevan Raven, leaving the few left on Kolossi heavily outnumbered.
These valiant Nobles were led by the Knight Seneschal Havlorn, and he had the remaining House Raven Knights protect their primary fortress, the Keep Inviolate, which was being used as a refuge for Kolossi's population from the daemonic assault. The Daemons and Chaos Space Marines eventually reached the fortress, but as Havlorn was preparing his Knights to defend it, disaster struck. The Nobles who sat upon the Thrones Mechanicum that had been corrupted by the Traitor Sacristans were suddenly transformed into Chaos Knights under the command of Be'lakor. These corrupted Traitor Knights then fired upon their still-loyal allies and Seneschal Havlorn was among the first to be slain. Many of House Raven's remaining Loyalist Knights on the world died soon afterwards and the few remaining survivors were forced to escape offworld. This brought an end to any significant resistance and Kolossi fell to the forces of Be'lakor.
However, a distress call had been sent out before House Raven's collapse and it was answered by Battle Group Tarsus of the Indomitus Crusade's Fleet Primus. As the battle group made its way to Kolossi, they sent a vanguard force ahead of them to undertake a reconaissance-in-force of the Knight World. This fleet neared Kolossi even as Seneschal Havlorn and House Raven's remaining Loyalist Knights were being slain by the Traitors. When the Imperial vanguard reached Kolossi they were suddenly attacked by the Disciples of Be'lakor, who had seen the vanguard fleet approach the Fallen Knight World.
During the battle that ensued, the vanguard of Battle Group Tarsus dispatched an Adepta Sororitas strike force to Kolossi, but the corrupted House Raven Knights counter-attacked. Though the vanguard fleet and Sisters of Battle strike force were both quickly overwhelmed, Be'lakor knew that that the full might of Battle Group Tarsus would soon arrive. Rather than risk losing his newly-won prize, the Daemon Prince enacted a sorcerous ritual to transport the entire world through the Immaterium to a new location deep within the Imperium Nihilus, where he soon transformed its surface into a realm of shadows more to his liking, renaming the planet Korvosi and its Chaos Knights House Korvax.
Korvax's nightmarishly deformed Chaos Knights are now among the most powerful of Be'lakor's servants who stand with the forces of Daemons, Heretic Astartes and Traitoris Militarum that also defend the Dark Master's new realm.
Geography
Korvosi, once the Knight World of Kolossi that was home to House Raven, is now a Daemon World and a Fallen Knight World of mist and shadow, reshaped dramatically from its former incarnation as world of industry by the hand of the Dark Master Be'lakor, the first Daemon Prince. Korvosi is now enshrouded by a darkness so vast that it stretches into the surrounding void of space. This shadow makes the world appear to conventional augurs more as an absence against a backdrop of stars than a visible presence.
Rumour and nightmarish tales are all that have reached the cognoscenti of the Imperium concerning the fate of Kolossi. Fleeting glimpses of Korvosi's surface have fuelled tales of immense chasms that now scar a bleak, fractured landscape. Hypnotic balefires and monstrous machineries churn in their depths. Whispers have surfaced of gigantic land masses the size of continents that float in the skies, tethered by immense chains with links as broad as battleships.
Upon one of these continent-sized shards there is said to stand a colossal fortress-city, seething with wailing souls. At its pinnacle, so the tales recount, is an enormous throne upon which sits a brooding malefic entity -- Be'lakor, the Dark Master and true ruler of Korvosi.
Sources
- Codex: Chaos Knights (9th Edition), pp. 28-29
- Codex: Imperial Knights (8th Edition), pp. 36-41
- The Imperial Knight Companion (6th Edition), pp. 68-79
- War Zone Charadon - Act I: The Book of Rust, pp. 7-8
- War Zone: Charadon Act II: The Book of Fire (9th Edition), pp. 14-15, 18-19, 43