Death Korps of Krieg - Krieg

[Baron von Lexus]

Krieg:
Segmentum: Segmentum Tempestus
Affiliation: Imperium of Man
Classification: Hive World/Death World
Sector: Unknown
Sub-sector: Unknown
System: Unknown but presumed to be Krieg, Latvianus is mentioned as another planet in the system but unconfirmed.
Population: Unknown but expected to be relatively high due to the high Tithe grade placed upon the planet.
Tithe Grade: Maximum (Exactis Extremis)

The Bloody History of Krieg:

Before the Revolt in 433.M40, not much is known about the planet Krieg and its history is shrouded in mystery. The Ruins that sprawl across the world suggest that Krieg was once a prosperous hive world; a trading and manufacturing center with a population numbering in the billions. Before the fall the planet was ruled by the council of Autocrats an increasingly corrupt and debauched council of rulers who served the same function as a planetary governor. The Autocrats became increasingly paranoid of outside threats to their dictatorial rule that they began to use the resources of Krieg to strengthen the defenses of their individual hives. They raised private armies and surrounded the planet in a ring of steel facing outwards. The Autocrats also began to resent the influence of the Administratum on ‘their’ world and their ruling style. They began to protest the tithes extracted by the Departmento Munitorium arguing that these resources were for their own defense. The populace of Krieg was kept in the dark throughout this tumultuous period and had no idea their leaders were leading them down the path to treachery.

In 433.M40 the High Autocrat of the planet’s largest hive and de-facto planetary governor, whose name is so abhorred by the people of Krieg that it has faded out of existence, declared that Krieg was under planetary martial law and seceded from the Imperium of Man.

Civil War erupted across Krieg and soon most of the planet capitulated to the rebels. After the rebel’s initial attacks only Hive Ferrograd remained in loyalist hands; this was primarily because the Krieg 83rd Imperial Guard regiment, under the command of Colonel Jurten, was in the final stages of mobilization at Ferrograd when the civil war broke out. Responding to the revolt, Colonel Jurten moved quickly taking control of the hive and Ferrograd became a desperately needed rallying point for the remaining loyalist factions.

The loyalist situation at this point was dire; the rebels, numbering in the millions, besieged Ferrograd. The loyalists were also on their own, the planetary defenses were under the traitor’s control and these were strong enough that a full-scale fleet would be required to get past them. Colonel Jurten had been informed that a fleet powerful enough to reinforce and take back Krieg was not available. Jurten’s orders were to resist with every means available, engage the enemy, bring the Emperor’s retribution upon the traitors, and emerge victorious – no matter the cost. Faced with such horrific odds and these orders, Jurten came to the fateful decision that the world of Krieg would belong to the Imperium or it would belong to no one.

Deep in the bowels of Hive Ferrograd was a top-secret Adeptus Mechanicus storage facility that Jurten and his loyal Mechanicus ally, Archmagos Greel, moved to unlock and unleash the facility and the ancient and forbidden weapons stored within it. Outside of Ferrograd the siege drug on but inside the defenders worked to enact a desperate plan.

On the Feast of the Emperor’s Ascension, the good Colonel Jurten and Archmagos Greel unleashed their long planned counter-attack against the traitors on Krieg. A vast multitude of long range missiles were launched from the depths of Ferrograd and its secret Mechanicus facility. The rebels watched helplessly as the missiles arced high up into the stratosphere before exploding in blinding blasts of atomic energy, unleashing tons of lethal isotopes which covered the entire planet in deadly nuclear fallout. For days the atmosphere burned and became an ocean of nuclear fire. Due to Jurten’s desperate attack Krieg’s eco-system completely deteriorated. The air became poisoned and the climate collapsed. The fires blocked out the sun and Krieg was engulfed in nuclear winter. As a result untold billions perished, and those who survived the ‘Purging’ as Jurten’s plan became known as by future generations, took to fallout shelters and began a subterranean existence. Krieg was devastated and irrevocably altered but the purging had evened the odds. The loyalists had prepared well for the attack and the rebels suffered terribly. Despite this, the civil war would go on.

Krieg’s nightmare however had only just begun. In the minds of Imperial officials Krieg was lost and no longer worth saving. Krieg became a man-made death-world, under the oppressive blanket of nuclear winter. The war between the rebels and the loyalists degenerated into a merciless and bloody war of attrition across a planet with every inch covered by trench-works, razor wire, and shell craters in a landscape of drifting fallout ash shrouding the numberless bones of the unburied dead.

The war dragged on and eventually Colonel Jurten perished, though it is not known how, but the descendents of those who followed him in his divine mission lived on. They became as fearless as they were grim in their determination to win back their world from the traitors. War was all they would ever know, and they were raised from birth to fight. These determined men who advanced great coated and vapor masked through the barren landscape and bombed out cities became known as the Death Korps. They existed only to endure the planet’s hellish surface, to fight, kill and emerge victorious in the Emperor’s name. It took fifteen generations of bloody and brutal attrition for the loyalist forces to retake their world. Inch by inch they advanced, trench by trench and tunnel by tunnel, with bayonet, grenade and when necessary atomic fire. After more than 500 years of the most horrific and brutal fighting imaginable and in 949.M40, Krieg finally belonged to the Death Korps.

Sources: Imperial Armour 5: The Siege of Vraks Pt. 1, Imperial Guard Codex, Lexicanum, Wikipedia

[BrainDeleted]

Good. Spelling and Grammar are OK as far as I can see and it is factual.

[phil]

Great

[Baron von Lexus]

Thanks guys. Next up the article about the Death Korps.

[Brother Warchild]

Its in!

[Lord Commander Erus]

Great job.. Showing exactly why I picked you out man. Most impressive. A hearty + rep!