Corusco Parva

The world of Corusco Parva is a strange world in a strange system on the rimward quadrant of the Segmentum Solar. It is a planet-sized volcanic moon orbiting a gas giant in the habitable band of a massive white star. Alternatively categorized back and forth between a Death World, Agri World and Civilized World, it is the adoptive home world of the Obsidian Wyrms Legion and the site of the Corusco Incursion, in the wake of which the Primarch Elias Dammerung was discovered by the Emperor.

For its many unusual characteristics, Corusco Parva is an old world settled by Terran colonists around the 19th Millenium during the Golden Age of Technology and it has retained to this day many of these ancient technologies thought lost by the wider imperium. Once a center of arts and philosophy, the Long Night and the Incursion of the late 30th Millenium transformed it from a world of craftsmen and thinkers to one of warriors-artisans putting their creative drive towards that which protects them from extinction.

Golden Age of Technology
Corusco Parva was settled in the late 19th Millennium by Terran colonists who named it Small Shimmer in High Gothic due to the jewel-like appearance it and its parent gas giant projected from orbit. Upon discovery it was not initially considered for colonization as initial surveys suggested it to be inhospitable, but closer inspection showed that appearances were deceiving and that the world was teeming with life beneath its oceans. From the early days, Corusco Parva's oceans were a most unusual breadbasket for other planets of the Sector.

As population increased, the economy diversified itself and the world grew more prosperous, with refineries and workshops springing up from the vast resources of the gas giant Corusco Magna and its many other moons and trojans, culminating in the construction of the shipyards in the high orbit of Corusco Magna.

After becoming a major world of its Sector, the focus of Coruscoans shifted largely towards the arts and humanities. From elaborate, lifelike paintings to grand sculptures gleaming like crystals, passing by giant melodiums and theaters making use of the most advanced immersion technologies imaginable, there was no discipline left shunned or unexplored. It became a center of entertainment, beauty and discourse known throughout the Sector often visited by the local nobles of other worlds despite its rough ecosystem.

Long Night
When human civilization as it was known collapsed abruptly in the beginning of the dark ages known as the Long Night, the effects were not immediate as the people of Corusco Parva were self-sufficient enough to keep themselves fed and continue to indulge their various artistic sensibilities. In their arrogance, its people believed that even while worlds fell into anarchy and civil war to famine, internal tensions, uprisings of the Men of Iron, or psyker-born disasters, their planet was somehow above this widespread chaos. They believed that there was no need to concern themselves with other worlds' turmoil and that they could simply ignore them and continue living as they always had.

Then came the predations of various Xeno raiders. The Coruscoans were woefully unprepared to defend themselves from such threats as they had not known war for millennia and lived largely in decadent idyll. Times and times again, the Xenos came to plunder and destroy with sadistic enjoyment that hinted to some sort of long-rooted bitter revenge. People were at times slaughtered and at times abducted en masse while great symbols of the planet's wealth and pride were toppled and burned. Before long, all lived in fear of the next raid and were no better off than the shattered worlds they had been mocking and lording over a scant decade prior.

With time, though, fear morphed into frustration, and frustration became defiance. Coruscoans eventually put their skills and creativity towards producing fine weapons and suits of armor, resulting in the appearance of a sort of warrior-caste that resembled the Techno-Barbarians of Terra, but had trappings of warrior-poets rather than savage brutes. These roaming bands of soldiers exchanged protection for tribute and status to the large population centers. Not without difficulty and bloody cost, they managed to repulse some of the Xeno raids, and the fame - and size - of this new warrior caste swelled as the people were shown that it was possible to fight back. For the next five thousand years, what were once disparate bands coalesced into the armies of Warlords who miraculously avoided fighting one another for dominion of the planet, instead focusing their efforts on making the regular would-be invaders pay a bloody cost for their audacity, competing between one another to see who could do so faster, or with more flamboyant style.

Corusco Incursion
The greatest foe that would come to threaten Corusco Parva materialized itself at the very very end of the Long Night, when the system was choked by warp storms of unprecedented force and intensity. So encroaching were these warp storms that the people needed only look up at the skies to see its raging energies dancing in the void above, coloring the very skies with shades and hues that were only as beautiful as they were terrifying.

At first, sightings of the Creatures were few and isolated, appearing from nowhere with unknowable purpose, only to vanish back into the aether, leaving confusion and dead bodies in their wake. These strange hauntings and first cases of possession were not something that could be fought or predicted, but for better or worse, these were but the early warning signs. Eventually, greater packs of twisted lifeforms - at times deformed beyond any recognition and at times vaguely humanoid - began to appear, and with greater frequency, but their movements and goals were still completely impenetrable and the Warlords' armies could do nothing but try and spread out their forces thin in patrols. The tactic was not successful, and the small, isolated patrols lost most of their encounters with the Creatures. For the first time in five thousand years, the much expanded and battle-hardened armies of the Coruscoan were powerless to fight the assailant, and fear arose once more.

It was then that a strange Oracle - a mere child of then-unknown background, yet strangely tall and gifted of great foresight powers - stepped up before the Lord-Grandmaster of Corusco Parva. This anonymous Oracle was able to sense the presence and intentions of the Abominations, being able to provide early warnings of their sudden attacks more often than not. It was by no means a perfect system, and the Oracle could only provide a small heads up that did not catch every raid, but it helped make the difference and allowed the Coruscoan warriors to greatly increase their ratio of victories to defeats.

More surprisingly of all, the Oracle seemed immune to possession, where previous would-be prophets would be driven mad or spontaneously killed by the energies of the Warp Storm in a variety of gruesome ways in short order after revealing themselves. In the ensuing years, the Oracle became the most trusted and renowned advisor of the Lord-Grandmaster's court, yet she declined any and all worldly titles, wealth or positions of authority, seeming content with simply providing assistance to the court with no personal ambitions. This caused jealousy on the part of many other advisors who did not take well to her having the undivided attention and ear of the Lord-Grandmaster, but each and every plot they schemed was brought to light before they could get anywhere, and each and every verbal joust and political attacks were turned on their head and shamed.

An uneasy status quo eventually befell Corusco Parva as the years continued, but the very land around them seemed to slowly become corrupted by the unending Warp Storm, with entire areas of the Wilderness becoming full of mutated predators and hostile, oft-carnivorous plants that had never been seen before. As growing anxiety arose over these new developments, the air was unexpectedly and abruptly rended from several great fissures in reality. No more small packs, now entire armies of the abominations flooded onto the ashen plains of Corusco Parva, and the Warlods' armies finally had a target they could engage in open combat. Yet, the fiends were brutally ferocious, and their numbers seemed limitless.

Coruscoan soldiers fought hundreds of battles, masterfully directed by the Oracle who had by then also gained the implicit trust of the world's Warlords, yet it was not enough. The Creatures' attacks never slowed or relented no matter their casualties, and attrition was slowly weakening the Warlords' great armies. Without any changes to this new status quo, they seemed doomed to a slow, painful death where their forces were bleed with an almost calculated and sadistic glee by the twisted abominations that seemed to care not for their own survival, and only for slaughtering all they encountered and shedding blood and destruction. With no other options, a daring gamble had to be taken.

Only by taking the fight to the rips in reality from which the monsters appeared could their unending reinforcements be stopped, but this would require formidable power and resources that the Warlords were not confident in being able to muster. That is when the Oracle began taking to the field personally, carrying a giant power flail that was capable of breaking the bodies of several humanoid abominations in a single sweep just as easily as it could crush the skulls of their towering war-beasts. Additionally, the Oracle presented new, terrible weapons capable of turning the awesome energies of the Warp Storm all around them back on the savage brutes it seemingly spawned.

Entire throngs of the Creatures were obliterated by Vortex missiles that devoured any and all matter in their wake, leaving gaping craters in the ground where they hit the ground instead of detonating in midair. Massed ranks of the Warlords' hosts sent forth deluges of explosive shells, some of which had the ability to deflagrate into rending Warp energies, and the Oracle fought at the forefront, wherever the misshapen hordes were at their strongest using a mix of uncanny prescience and a prototype teleportation device allowing her to blink back and forth like some kind of ghost. Yet, even with all these advantages, the abominations were full of hate and fury and did not go down quietly, inflicting horrendous casualties on the Coruscoan warriors as they closed in on the Rifts.

At the height of the fighting, a creature as tall as a Titan emerged from the Rifts, seemingly drawn in by the incessant fighting and carnage, and its presence almost broke the ranks of the tattered remains of the Warlord's combined armies. The Oracle challenged the titanic creature which looked like a textbook description of the very devil of old Terra itself, but she was quickly put on the back foot, and for a moment all seemed lost for Corusco: If they failed, there could be no second assault - no other chance. Suddenly, the Oracle became visibly imbued with Empyrean power, channeling its impossibly dangerous energies as if some sort of living avatar of power. With every strike of her flail causing explosive blasts of rending force, the Oracle was able to turn the tide and banish the red titan back from whence it came, and with its apparent death, the Rifts abruptly closed, and the Storms in the skies slowly started to disperse. Corusco Parva was saved, for now.

Imperial Renaissance
Shortly after the dispersion of the Warp Storms that had isolated Corusco Parva from the rest of the galaxy for over two decades, the gold-gilded fleets of the Emperor of Mankind arrived in high orbit. The forces of the warlords were still recovering from the Incursion and were not ready for another fight, but one would not be needed, as the Emperor's goal was merely to meet a certain individual. As Imperial records would have it, the mysterious individual whom had been known up to this point as The Oracle was none other than the lost Primarch of the IInd Legion. A rather strange scene played out before the Emperor as he stepped planetside, only to witness the uncannily familiar vision of Elias arguing with various Coruscoan nobilities that she was not, in fact, any form of divine being.

Though the people of Corusco Parva were apprehensive at seeing the Oracle leave, many were also enthusiastic at the idea of mankind restoring its old dominion over the stars, and it did not take much for Elias to convince them of the necessity to support the Compliance effort with all available resources that could be spared. The world became the adoptive homeworld of the Obsidian Wyrms, and in doing so quickly regained a position as a major world amongst the fledging Imperium, which did much to placate the local nobility and ensure their further cooperation.

In the following years, although Coruscoans paid a heavy price in resources and manpower being tithed to the Imperial Army, the world quickly began to prosper anew now that something resembling peace had been achieved. While the Ashen world was neither the biggest, nor richest, nor most populous, it quickly grew to become the most politically influential in its quadrant of space and earned the position of capitol world of the newly formed Corusco Sector. With trade blossoming for the first time in millennia and the high quality workmanship of the Coruscoan artisans increasingly sought after, plus immigration from other overcrowded Imperial world and massive investments in strengthening and expanding the military industry, Corusco Parva saw a massive boom and period of growth in but a few decades.

Before long, the population of Corusco Parva reached then exceeded the numbers it once had prior to the Incursions and its industry continued to grow. The Mechanicum took exceptional interest in the small ashen moon as its denizens held a great many pieces of technology that had been lost to the Mechanicum since the Long Night, and though they attempted to appropriate it, Coruscoan politicians were shrewd and canny and managed to retain production rights, only allowing limited and tightly controlled license productions while maintaining exclusive ownerships of the STCs proper. By the time of the height of the Compliance effort, Corusco Parva has returned to its status as a major world of the Segmentum Solar and the arts and science are slowly starting to bloom again.

Planetary Characteristics
Corusco Parva is an habitable moon of a size similar to Terra but slightly inferior orbiting over a gas giant significantly less massive than Jupiter, yet much larger. This results in many unconventional characteristics, of which one of the most noteworthy are the tides. Due to the massive gravitational forces the gas giant of Corusco Magna exerts on the much smaller planet that is its moon, the tide of Corusco Parva are immense in scale, with easily a hundred meters of difference between its highs and lows. As a result, it is impossible for any form of conventional seaport or marine infrastructure to even exist. With much of the early economy of the world coming from its Oceans however, the savants of the Golden Age of Technology designed highly advanced civilian vessels able to take off to the void as easily as to dive deep to hundreds of atmosphere's worth of pressure with little difficulty.

Another immediately noticeable characteristic of the ashen moon is its vegetation. Plants and grass on Corusco Parva have evolved to reflect the heavy radiation of their star - an A8V main sequence bright white star - by adopting a white-hued pigmentation. This means that most plans on the planet, from the Savannah-like steppes of the Ashen plains to the giant kelp jungles making up much of its oceans, are of a white hue pure like snow. It is this strange coloration which gave the planet its name and its shimmering appearance when viewed from orbit, as it very much so looks like a foggy gemstone to the casual observer. Despite the hostile conditions and thick atmosphere, vegetation and animal life are fairly common, both underwater and on the surface, though forests are rare much of the life-sustaining biomes are reminiscent of various biomes of old Terran Africa.

As the habitable zones of A-type stars are much, much farther away than Sol, Corusco Magna's revolution around its star takes 865 days, or roughly two and a half terrain years. Meanwhile, Corusco Parva has a slow retrograde orbit that completes one revolution around Corusco Magna roughly every 187 days, or roughly half a Terran year. Seasons are fairly even all year long, though regular periods of total darkness lasting roughly 10 days occur every half Terran year as Corusco Parva finds itself in the shadow of Corusco Magna during its normal revolution, causing a long total eclipse of its star.

Demographics and Culture
The population of Corusco Parva is relatively small compared to the densely populated Hive Worlds and Forge worlds of the Imperium, but it is fairly respectable by Civilized World standards. The bulk of the population lives in metropolitan urban centers, but these are still much less dense than the arcologies known as Hive Cities and pollution is relatively low. The population demographics are fairly varied, but limited to Terran origins, resulting in relatively diverse ethnicities, but none that come from non-Terran sources such as Mars. The bulk of the population is of working age and no ancient mythologies are represented as the atheism is the dominant belief owing to a strongly rational and pragmatic mindset.

For as long as it has existed, Corusco Parva has been focused on artisanship and craftsmanship. Though this was most visible through the fascination for arts of all kinds of its early civilization, it was not limited to aesthetic or entertainment pursuits. Indeed, every aspect of Coruscoan society is dominated by this focus on individual workmanship rather than automated mass-production, and everything from weapons and grand starships to modest meals in restaurants and apparel are hand-crafted. No Coruscoan will ever willingly acquire something that was mass-produced if there is any other option and they take great pride and serious in their work. It is a common saying that anything made by Coruscoans has been measured, checked and tested in triplicate so that only the finest comes out of their workshops. There is no greater disgrace for a Coruscoan to be demonstrated to be a fraud of little talent.

As a result of the disdain for mass-production, the structure of the entire civilization of Corusco Parva is much different than that of either Old Terra or the average Hive World. The overwhelming majority of menial tasks - which would occupy a huge chunk of laborers on the average Imperial world - are taken care of by crude Automata units that are not intelligent enough to be considered Abominable Intelligence by the Mechanicum. These toiling hordes of Automata are overseen by highly skilled technicians whom may easily supervise over a hundred Automata workers, ensuring the machines do not deviate from their assigned tasks nor suffer delays or efficiency shortfalls. As such, the bulk of tedious tasks are accomplished by a workforce that never tires or complains, and most humans are free for more worthwhile endeavors.

Thus, the overwhelming majority of the Coruscoan population makes up the Artisan caste or middle-class. Rather than sprawling manufactorum complexes, Corusco Parva features Grand Workshops no less imposing in size in which thousands of journeymen, masters and apprentices refine their craft, some learning and teaching from one another, others jealously guarding their secret techniques and methods. Each and every Artisan is provided adequate tools and devices and ample workspace while larger, heavy, rare or overly expensive machinery is available for collective use. Cogitator-assisted design and auspexes ensures that for products that require very precise dimensions and makeup are as stringently produced as if they came from the forges of the Mechanicum itself. With so much of the people of Corusco making up this strata of makers and builders, the lack of volume of production that comes from refusing to embrace mass-production is mitigated somewhat.

Though peace has tentatively come back to Corusco Parva and arts are starting to burgeon anew, it is not as vibrant as it once used to be. Artistic productions are relatively modest, as five millenia of outside threat have hardened Coruscoans and made many decide to continue focusing on more pragmatic pursuits rather than indulging in creative idyll. The specter of a new invasion is never quite far, and there are many still willing to join the warbands of the old Warlords - or in this case, the Imperial Army - even despite the harrowing losses suffered during the Incursion.

Industry and Economy
The economic activity on Corusco Parva is fairly solidly diversified. From the earliest of days, despite the seemingly inaccessible nature of its oceans, kept out of reach by the unnatural tides, they have been a major sector of activity. Fed by countless geothermal vents and chasms in the oceanic plain, the oceans are very much so swarming with life. Grand forests of white-hued kelp covering thousands of square kilometers each are common under the waves and host hundreds of species of marine life. Through controlled patterns of scheduled harvests and regrowth, countless tons of alga, fish and assorted seafood can be gathered by deep-pressure Coruscoan hybrid ships and exported to feed other Imperial worlds or to keep the soldiers of the Imperial Army well supplied.

Another early sector of economic activity dating back to the Golden Age of Technology are noble gases harvested from the upper atmosphere of Corusco Magna by large Voidships, their volatile bounty useful in high-grade fuel, plasma weapons and various industrial applications. The most impressive of these Harvesters however - equipped with LosTech Gravitic Shields - are able to dive deeper in the atmosphere of Corusco Magna where pressures can reach thousands of times that of Terra, and well enough to crush even the most study of Imperial Battleships into a crumpled husk of metal. The crews of these harvesters brave these dangers for a most rare bounty: crystals and diamonds by their tens of thousands per trip - if not millions - being formed from the carbon atoms being compressed by this same impossible pressure. Naturally, the process by which these ships are made is jealously guarded and they fetch enormous prices for the Mechanicum's Explorer corps whom is most interested.

More recently, with the restoration of the old Demesne and the establishment of the new Imperium of Man, Coruscoans have began exporting large quantities of the Wargear they have learned to produce over the past five thousand years. Weapons and suits of armor from Corusco Parva are generally sought after as the methods of production and attention to workmanship means that even an humble lasgun might be more durable and effective if it happened to come from the grand arsenals of Corusco Parva, its name being synonymous with above average quality. This full list of war equipment produced on Corusco Parva is large, but it can be roughly boiled down to the following main categories: Equipment for infantry and heavy infantry, Vortex ordnance of all sizes from small grenades to massive Nova Cannons, and Voidship components and smallcrafts.

Military
The armed forces of Corusco Parva - or at least what remained in the wake of the Incursion - is extremely well-equipped and battle hardened from the Long Night. Since the dispersion of the Warp Storms and the integration of the volcanic moon in the newly formed Imperium, the armies of its once Warlords formed the bulk of what would later become the Coruscoan Velites, elite Imperial Army regiments on part with the lauded Solar Auxilia which would largely serve alongside the Obsidian Wyrms legion during their long battles in the Imperial Compliance.

The Coruscoan Velites are as well-trained and supplied as the Warbands that preceded them and are specialized in short and close-range engagements, being especially lethal in the assault of enemy positions, or to defend a position from one such assault by hostile forces. Their standard equipment was centered around the Shimmerscale pattern of Void Armor and the Interdictor pattern of assault shotguns, complemented by large quantities of Charnabal Sabers, all produced locally on Corusco Parva. Coruscoan Velites are also noteworthy due to being one of the only forces outside of the Legiones Astartes to feature Dreadnoughts among their ranks, many of whom are inhabited by old Warlods and heroes of the Long Night.

In addition to these regiments, Elias has in the decades since returning to the side of the Emperor ordered the construction of many extensive and heavily hardened fortifications capable of standing up to anything short of repeated, concentrated naval bombardment or Exterminatus-grade weapons, slowly turning Corusco Parva into a fortress world. Unlike most planets officially designated as Fortress Worlds which are outwardly very obvious in their purpose, these fortifications are largely hidden, with the majority being constructed inside or underneath large mountains, both to hide their full extent from any would-be invader and to act as additional protection from attacks.