Nemeton is an Imperial Ocean World and Feral World located in the Elara's Veil sector of the Segmentum Ultima. It is located in the Annwyn Reaches sub-sector of the Elara's Veil nebula and there is some dispute over the name of its system, whether it is called the Ophion System or the Avalon System. As a result, many often simply default to calling the system after its primary inhabited world, thus calling it the Nemeton System by default.
Nemeton is also the Chapter planet of the Emperor's Spears Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes, which has been tasked as a member of the Adeptus Vaelarii to protect the twenty-inhabited worlds of Elara's Veil.
Nemeton is obited by the Forge Moon of Bellona, which is under the control of a sect of the Adeptus Mechanicus which is closely allied with the Emperor's Spears and is responisble for the construction and maintenance of much of their wargear and voidships. Bellona is surrounded by extensive orbital spacedocks and void stattions.
History[]
During the late 30th Millennium Nemeton was brought into Imperial Compliance during the Great Crusade by the Ultramarines Legion. Over time, however, the people of Nemeton rejected the advanced technology and attempts at urbanisation brought about by the Imperium and instead returned to the primitive lifestyle they had known during the Age of Strife of living as pre-industrial tribes in the wilderness. Nemeton is still dotted with the ruins of the ancient, abandoned cities the Imperium tried to build after making first contact. Technologically, the world's people have maintained a society equivalent to that of Old Earth's Iron Age.
The Twelve Tribes of Nemeton represent a mono-culture of interacting pre-industrial Human tribes who loosely share certain touchstones, including beliefs, cultural practices and a language. As Elara's Veil is a crimson-coloured nebula that takes up most of Nemeton's night sky, the Nemetese tribes have come to believe that rain is something superstitious and sacred born from the great lights in the sky, a belief that is considered borderline heretical by many of the more conservative factions of the Imperium.
Geography and Environment[]
Nemeton is a planet covered in enormous oceans. Its landmasses are small, mountainous and heavily forested and cover a very small percentage of the world's surface. There are several equatorial landmasses that are largely marshy jungle. Due to the temperate weather, rainfall is constant across most of the surface, and a temperate to nearly tropical climate is maintained across the globe. Rain is viewed by the population as a manifestation of the Emperor's sorrow over his lost bride Elara.
Nemeton itself is a curiously well-defended world. A large orbital minefield protects approaches to the planet, while many of the rocks and ice fragments that make up Nemeton's planetary rings have been turned into weapons platforms capable of bombarding attackers with waves of deadly torpedoes.
Further defences come from the Tech-priests of Bellona, a Forge Moon in the Nemeton System. The Emperor's Spears have formed close links with Bellona's Adeptus Mechanicus leaders, and together they are the foremost defenders of the entire region of Elara's Veil.
Society[]
The Human population of Nemeton is divided into 12 pre-industrial Iron Age tribes which hold sacred their world's constant rain, believing it to be a gift from the crimson nebula of Elara's Veil, always visible as a crimson haze in the night sky. It is named after the legendary hero Elara, a significant figure in the mythology of the people of Nemeton.
Worshipped by most of the peoples of Elara's Veil, Elara's actual historical origin remains unclear. It may be the name of the Imperial Commander or a saint of the Imperial Cult who first brought the region into Imperial Compliance. To the primitive peoples of the Veil, however, she is the Emperor's bride and her crimson funeral veil became the nebula that now bathes the stars red. The Emperor is said to weep over her loss, producing Nemeton's constant rains.
The relationship between the Chapter and Nemeton's people is very different from that of most Space Marine Chapters and their recruiting stock. The superstitious tribes see the Space Marines as the spirits of lost children, taking their young before their time and leaving them simply ghosts to be mourned.
The most esoteric belief held by the natives of Nemeton is that of the geas. Every child of the tribes is brought before a local shaman known as a "druid" who is usually a psyker at sometime after their birth, who reads the flow of fate in their blood. The nature of geases vary wildly, though all are semi-supernatural "promises" of a specific moment or choice in the child's life to come.
The Emperor's Spears believes that Nemeton's seers read these futures through the Warp's echoes, like any actual precognitive prophecy, and armed with this poetic foreknowledge, the bearer of the geas can hopefully avoid the wrong choice when the time comes. Many geases take the form of warnings against dishonour or death should the bearer ever act in a certain way.
The written runic language of Nemeton, dubbed the "Runes of Ogham," is incomprehensible to most outsiders, though the Nemetese spoken language is one of the myriad Human dialects dubbed Low Gothic.
Notable Tribes of Nemeton[]
The people of Nemeton are divided into twelve tribes, which are further sub-divided into clans or related families. The Nemetese tribes are all culturally primitive, evidencing a technological level no more advanced than that which prevailed during Old Earth's Iron Age in the first millennium B.C. despite the attempt of the Imperium during the Great Crusade following Nemeton's original Compliance action to resettle the population in cities that maintained the standard levels of Imperial technology. The following tribes are the most well-known.
- Arakanii - The Arakanii are a coastal tribe, known for their battlefield scavenging, as they loot the dead of other, larger clans after tribal wars. Some of the oldest chronicles even recorded witness-oaths seeing the Arakanii devouring the flesh of the dead.
- Kavalei - The Kavalei are the "Clan of Kings," a vast and sprawling tribe that eclipsed all others in terms of territory and victories in tribal war. As the most populous clan on Nemeton, most Emperor's Spears Astartes are descended from the people of the Kavalei.
- Novontei - The Novontei are a clan of wanderers and scavengers, going from region to region, island to island, offering their services as mercenaries and itinerant druids, preferring to serve rather than raid. The other tribes see them as a breed of necessary vermin, useful in battle and for the secrets kept by their druids, but disparaged for their lack of territory and loyalty.
- Vargantes - The Vargantes are a small northern tribe.
Canon Conflict[]
There is some dispute about the name of Nemeton's star system. In the novel "Spears of the Emperor" it is called the Ophion System, while in White Dwarf 460 it is named the Avalon System. Because of this disparity, locals sometimes just default to calling the system after its primary inhabited world, thus the "Nemeton System."
Sources[]
- Index Astartes: Emperor's Spears (Limited Edition) by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, pp. 3, 10
- Warhammer Community Online - Who are the Emperor's Spears?
- Spear of the Emperor (Novel) by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Chs. I-II, IX
- White Dwarf 460 (January 2021), pp. 38-40