Planet Rosetta, Knight world with dirty secrets.
The Planet Rosetta is a Feudal Knight world under the Imperium of man, it has a trio of forge world moons orbiting it and a ring around it, the equatorial region is mostly volcanic with industrial hives standing in contrast to the alabaster stone cities elsewhere upon the world’s iron rich deserts with oasis's forming around underground springs and rivers branching from the polar seas.
Pre-Age of Strife Rosetta was once a Garden world with gleaming cities that hovered above the untouched landscapes, during the age of strife an Ork WAAAHHHG! Led by warboss “Apawfist” crashed two of its moons together and razed the planet, forming the rings around it and throwing off its rotation, triggering volcanic eruptions and crashing the cities down. These cities would join the sand of the rust deserts, and its once proud people forced to eek out survival among the ruins. During this time Weapons and tech was forgotten, leaving only tribals to fend off the Orks poorly understood machines that slowly fell apart without the knowledge to keep them in proper shape, as each knight fell to the orks, they turned to metal spears, stone and bare hand if they had too, in many ways they would become like their greenskinned foes
Great Crusade During the Great Crusade the Thousand Sons Leagion and Explorators of the Mechanicum with Legio Cybernettica support made effort to salvage the planet and its beleaguered populous, Exterminating the Orks, Salvaging whatever tech was left to recover, Building new artifical moons and setting the third to be a base for the Mechanicum. These three moons became a collective forge world, turning the planet itself into a Knight World. The Mechanicum and later Mechanicus would naturally come planet side for raw ore, and food for whatever needs they have, in return they have added some infrastructure, roads to traverse the great deserts and the volcanic divide, and knowledge of how to maintain, repair and build their Knights in return for continued service to the machine cults as well as the protection of the Legio Cybenetica and the Skitarii. This positive exposure led most to revere the Emperor in the form of the Omnissiah. Seeing Technology as a great blessing they must prove worthy of. The Ad Mech like this arrangement as it keeps the populous easily controlled. During this rebuilding time The Marines of the Thousand Sons offered assistance in educating the people, making them quite scholarly for a feudal world and impressing their architectural influences upon them. In the wake of this the knights pilots formed into the House Kepoth, Knights of the Cog.
During their Survey of the planet the Thousand Sons found an entrance to what would one day be known as a Necron Tomb, Magnus wisely ordered the Tunnel sealed off, the Mechanicum in no position to debate. Unknown to them The Tomb however was already awake waiting, watching and weighing options
Post-Heresy The Legio Cybernetica force in this system was among the few to remain loyal to the Imperium and thus had to take strict binding oaths. The People Mourned the betrayal of the Thousand Sons, the heroes who freed them from the Orks, they would remember them as they were and vowed to help destroy what they had become.
In the 41st millennium the Planet had entered a state of comparative normalcy in the Imperium, serving the forge worlds, sending people into the guard tithe and loaning out its knights at the back of their masters in the machine cult, The House itself expending to other nearby systems, but like any world has stories to tell.
Come M42 the planet is trapped behind the Great Rift, severed from the Imperium, turning to any resource and means they possess to survive and grow as the Knights make Ready for a crusade to defend and reclaim worlds, staking to expand their own territory in the name of the machine god.
Notable Post Heresy Events The Sons Gambit/Necron Revelation/The fracturing of the knights A Thousand Sons Veteran by the Name of Ramun Soket recalled his work on Rosetta , as he was one of their recorded heroes from the Crusades, Arriving in his Flag Ship "Hsagan’s Glory" with his Rubrics, Chaos machinery and a force of Nurglites called "The Noxious Bite". He had deceived the Nurglites into believing this would be a joint operation, offering the planet to Nurgle to ensure a victory for all of chaos. In Truth his intent was to only support behind the scenes so his forces could crush the Bites, stepping in as saviors once again.
Seeding the world with cultists to subvert the PDF and summon deamons was simple, as the Noxious Bite and Thousand Sons summoned terrible plagues, Rivers flowing with blood, mutant frog beasts, plague and pestilence into their house, their streams, into their streets, and bread and drink, upon their cattle and Grox, Their fields, Into their sleep and dreams, until they would break and yield.
The Knights and Skitarii rose to the challenge exterminating the cultists and horrors as best they could, holding out for marines or Guard, only to progressively call down more blows like Thunder and fire, like hail of burning ice on every town. Worse still, the warband had distorted warp traffic, the backup sent to them was now on a direct path to the war in heaven.
Blight Drones stormed the fields and forest, every stalk and leaf, threatening to leave nothing of green. The planet was on the verge of breaking, Ready for Ramun to betray the Bites and become Rosetta’s Savior anew….
Only for a different yet equally terrifying Savior to rise up from the sand, vast pylons charged and dispelled the plagues, weakening the abominations, while what the common folk of the planet could only describe as Angels of the Omnissiah blinked into existence to exterminate the rot.
What No one had known was that the Tomb world under Rosetta 's surface was a staging area for a band of shattered tomb worlds, all united by their own brokenness, the necrons in charge had been working under the planet, traversing via stargate to act on their plans, fittingly the world had at one point been touched by the Triarch between the age of strife and the great crusade, subtly ensuring the world would last just long enough to meet the crusade. The world as it currently existed was a perfect shield from scrutiny, a shield now under threat, while different lords saw the Mechanicus presence here differently (to some they were simply useful idiots, to others a sort of kindred spirit) all agreed that they needed them alive.
Naturally this left the Thousand Sons leader without a threat to easily destroy, but assumed he could use the necrons as the new threat to save them from, this backfired badly as to his shock, as he and his Rubriks strode out of their pods, that the Arch-Magos and the Phearon were Parlaying, Moreover the common folk saw the presence of the Thousand Sons Rubriks as an insult to the memory of their original saviors, ousting him as a traitor. Ramun attempted one last gambit, to tell the knights of Rosetta of the fall of Magnus, how the Emperor had sent the wolves to kill them all simply for trying to warn him, and how the metallic agents where vial xenos seeking only to destroy them. His gambit half succeeded, successfully inciting a not insignificant portion of the knights to turn traitor and join his warband.
Though the combined forces of the Mechanicus and their Skitarii, the necrons and remaining loyal knights would ultimately drive the Thousand sons off, the warband did not leave empty handed, they took many citizens of the planet captive and had a fresh set of traitors knights joining their Retinue, the all encompassing whisper “All is Dust” leaving the world feeling this was a pyrrhic victory.
In the wake of this the world was now stuck forced to keep the necrons awakening secret from the rest of the Imperium, a Tenuos co-existence also lured certain Radicals into collaborating with them, the Necrons for their part humored these radicals every once in a while with ancient or antiquidated designs they felt no current use being handed to them as bread crumbs.
Fall of Cadia With the fall of Cadia Rosetta and its surrounding worlds were left cut from the greater whole of the imperium, out of contact and iscolated they and the necrons beneath were forced to work together to defend the planet from strikes of revenge by the Thousand sons and other enemy forces. Eventually they did receive a transmission from Belisarius Cawl. Though garbled it did inform them that a leader of some sort had “returned” and was crusading to regain contact with them, as well as a critical resource for them to gather at all costs Blackstone” and its source, necron tomb worlds. Suddenly more at odds with the co-tenants of their home world than ever, the two factions constantly shift from ally to enemy as their perceived needs of mutual survival and gaining this new precious resource change in priority
Culture The planet strongly believes in a work ethic, To create is the highest virtue, seeing the ability to preform massive amounts of labor as a display of greatness, many will their bodies to become servitors should they die, notably the Mechanicus favors slightly more aware servitor variants.
The Mechanicus often recruits fresh disciples from the world, resulting in cross cultural pollination between the planet and its moons. Their cities consist of egyptian style architecture, while on earth the pyramids were simply glorified headstones, these ones have large living quarters, often serving as vast housing complexes to shelter people from the heat, or as castles for the nobility, and even as docking bays for the Imperial Knight Houses. These Pyramids often have external accouterments to accommodate living residents, like large balconies and skylights. In contrast to the Red Mars like sand, the Pyramids are white with Gold filigree familiar to the Imperium.
In more rural farming areas the people instead make cleanly formed mounds resembling pyramids to place their dwellings on top of, elevated to have a cooling cross breeze, these psuedo pyramids are often planted with lush grasses and flowers along the sides, in addition to decoration the roots serve to further support the mounds.
Along the Volcanic regions of the Equator are a small number of hive cities, used primarily to mine the raw ore from the large lava cracks, and energy harvested from the geothermal vents available to them. As far as hive cities go they are better off than some with a steady supply of proper food shipped in via caravan or railway.
The Dead are typically taken to public Mausoleum Temples resembling the ancient Terran Der El Bahri
The PDF lack much in Vehicles and weaponry, save the basic Lasguns, flak vests and such which are kept in reserve for outer planet invasion, codes in place against using them for conflicts between cities, They Make heavy use of the local wildlife to make up for this, often kitting them with large weapons, hitching hover chariots to the largest birds.
The Knights of the House Kepoth are a gilded work horse, when not in combat or being maintained, the Knights typically take part in helping build/rebuild the cities, going back to the work ethic. Rosetta not being the Only world the House presides over, it is however their Home World.
Ecology
Most native vertebrate life is Reptilian or Avian, often blending the two, what mammals live are aquatic or amphibious specialists, large insects make up a large portion of the fauna
Plants are fairly normal though many of them have Blue leaves
The planet also has feral Orkid life that has been assimilated into the ecology, leaving some places as fungus forests prowling with squigs and the occasional Gretchin or Snotling for the PDF to train against
Notable animals
The Greater River Amitaspinax
resembling what a 2n'd millenium paleontologist would call a spinosaurus with a feathered mane, they are Apex river predators who's behavior can be described as a mix of crocodile and Lion, they Prey on most anything, either ambushing land prey from under water, or fishing on the bank for fresh water sharks, smaller breeds exist. But a well tamed one of the Greater breed is a well sought prize of noble families.
Jakowls
Dromiosauroid creatures with beaked faces resembling a Terran owl, they hunt in packs across the deserts and plains, Tamed like any dog, they are favored pets and the largest breeds can even serve as mounts for their rough riders
Apep Sand Serpent
large, venomous snakes capable of swimming through the loose rusty sand, capable of striking without warning, they are the most feared predator of the planet. Their hooded hides and rattles are prized trophies
Phoenix vulture
Great flyers resembling a mix of a bearded vulture and a microraptor, they fly long trips on the planets thermals seeking easy prey and carrion, sometimes used to ship supplies on hover platforms across the world
Geboliths
Large tortoises that graze on foliage, they grow seeds in their back, the plants leach water from the spongy tissue under their shells, in turn these plants enrich them with sugars via photosynthesis, sometimes however they can grow carnivorous plants, given the size of these creatures these carnivorous plants be very dangerous and the tortoise becomes known as Man-eater-backs, otherwise they make superb livestock, able to serve as mobile groves, traveling with the water and can serve as meat too.
Grox
Ordinary Grox , imported to the world for hide and meat.
Mantadon
Thought to be transplanted in the early days of colonization from what is now thought to be the Home world of the Mantis Warriors Space Marines Chapter, presumably to help deal with the pests now known as Rust Roaches and Keprikets. These are large Solitary Insects, prowling savannas or hiding in trees to ambush prey and are about the size of a Prehistoric Terran Smilodon, otherwise Resemble a large Mantis.
Keprikets
Winged arachnid creatures who live in antlike colonies, supporting the tunnels with a network of webbing, the size of large wolves they are dangerous and troubling, they carry food, building material and meat in large rolled balls, only recently have any means of taming them with harvested queen pheromones been found, their shells make fine decoration and silk incredibly versatile.
Rust Roaches
raccoon sized Roaches that live in rust
Kirradon
a Sauropod that slimmed down, tall like a Giraffe, but some similar more stalky breeds exist
Hyppoderm
an Amphibious Elephant breed, bearing a total of six tusks, 4 external and an inner set, though herbivorous they are terribly aggressive and territorial beasts, competing with Amitaspinax for river territory, Only the largest with seeds in their back like that of the Geboliths, ever go far from land
Red River Shark
Large fresh water Sharks resembling sting rays that prowl the rivers
Icthysuchas
Fully aquatic reptiles that live in the north polar sea
Coolacetus
Car sized otter/dolphin like creatures, some in hairy or smooth variety, living south of the Volcanic Equator