Mordian is an Imperial Hive World in the Segmentum Obscurus that is the homeworld of the Imperial Guard's Mordian Iron Guard Regiments. Many of the Imperium's enemies have underestimated these ranks of colorfully-uniformed troops, only to find out that they are among the toughest and most uncompromising of the Emperor's soldiers. The people of Mordian are often of a dour and grim temperament, living as they do in perpetual darkness. The suicide rate on the planet is reportedly now the highest in the Imperium since the destruction of the Night Lords Traitor Legion's homeworld of Nostramo. Mordian also once came under a great assault by the Forces of Chaos that was defeated only through the extraordinary discipline and valour of the Iron Guard in one of the Imperium's finest moments. Mordian is tidally locked with its star, so that the Mordian day is the same as the Mordian year. As the planet does not rotate on its axis this means that like Luna, one-half of the planet is bathed in perpetual darkness and the other half burnt to a cinder by the glaring sun. This unusual planetological characteristic makes Mordian a truly miserable world to live upon. The planet's lack of rotation prevents any strong winds from developing due to the lack of a Coiolis Effect and as such the atmosphere is thick and dark. The world's billions of human inhabitants live in vast hive cities where all resources are controlled and distributed by the Mordian state. There is much discontent among the people, and the Imperial Guard Regiments raised from Mordian, the Mordian Iron Guard, spend much of their time simply keeping the populace in line when they are not deployed to Imperial war zones.
Battle of Mordian
Mordian Iron Guard Dress Uniform
As part of a massive Chaos conspiracy, a group of Chaos Cultists met under the busy streets of the Mordian capital hive city of Vanandra. There they cast a potent summoning spell, taking the lives of many innocent Mordians to fuel its power. The spell opened a Warp Gate that brought starships full of Chaos Space Marines and summoned daemons through the Warp to Mordian. They rampaged across the planet and eventually managed to force the Regiments of the Iron Guard on the planet back to Vanandra. There the Guard put up one last defence, gradually falling back until they had to take refuge in the capitol building of the Mordian planetary government at the heart of Vanandra.
The Iron Guard had shown a level of discipline during the Chaotic assault that most Imperial Guard forces could never have emulated, primarily because their men would never have stood their ground or been willing to take the risks required to counter the brutal assaults of entities as fearful as Chaos Space Marines and their daemonic allies. The Iron Guard, living up to their name, stood against all manner of daemons even as their position proved hopeless. In orbit above Mordian, the Iron Guard's psykers had at last succeeded in breaking the power of the Chaos summoning spell, and gradually the daemons faded from the planet as they were unable to maintain their contact with the physical world without the cultists' sorcery empowering them. The disappearance of their most potent units demoralized the remnants of the Chaotic attackers and the Iron Guard took the opportunity to rout the enemy and force them from the planet. Through their sheer discipline and willingness to lay down their lives in away that would have impressed even an Astartes, the Mordian Iron Guard had held back the Forces of Chaos long enough for Imperial Sanctioned Psykers to break the spell, and ensure that Mordia would remain in the hands of the Imperium of Man. As a result of the Battle of Mordia, the regiments of the Mordian Iron Guard were soon considered some of the most elite units of the Imperial Guard in existence and were deployed to multiple conflicts across the galaxy.
Sources
- Codex:Imperial Guard (5th Edition), pg. 16
- Codex: Imperial Guard (3rd Edition, 2nd Version), pg. 59
- Codex: Imperial Guard (2nd Edition), pp. 13-15
- Only War: Core Rulebook (RPG), pp. 52-53
- White Dwarf 154, "Mordian Iron Guard"