In the heavens shall burn a crown of thirteen points,
Each of them a key to open thirteen gates.
When the thirteenth key is turned, the ashen throne will open,
Four kings shall contend for the mantle.
The Fifth shall claim it.
This prison is older than memory. This power is older than death.
This gift will elevate the one who wields it. It will unmake… the empire.
Long before the Imperium spread across the stars, other powers had already claimed them. Borders were drawn. Empires forged. Entire sectors bent beneath the rule of warlords.
The Craw’s Fire sector of the Galaxy was no exception, held fast in the green grip of the Orks. Like every victim ravaged by a Waaagh!, Craw’s Fire echoed with the sound of unending war. Vast populations of feral Greenskins spread unchecked across its planets, their numbers constrained only by their own frenzied rivalries. Every victory birthed a stronger challenger. Every Waaagh! eventually collapsed beneath the weight of another.
But for all their savagery, the greenskins were not the only claimants.
To the Drukhari, Craw’s Fire was a hunter’s paradise: an endless supply of brutish prey to enslave and a stage upon which to perform their dance of death. For certain twisted minds, however, it offered something more—a laboratory. A petri dish in which new forms of warfare could be cultivated. The Haemonculi seeded their own discord amongst the tribes, introducing fresh strains of slaughter and observing the results with detached fascination.
The T’au of the Sixth Sphere Expansion saw opportunity as well. The cadre had long abandoned any notion of conquering the sector outright; the Orks were simply too numerous. Instead, they adapted. Weapons, ammunition, and experimental technologies found their way into carefully chosen hands. Rival tribes gained unexpected advantages. Ancient feuds were inflamed. Across the sector, wars burned hotter than ever. And all the while, observations were recorded for the Greater Good. Weapons were redesigned. Strategies refined. Lessons learned in blood were transformed into doctrine.
For a time, the violent equilibrium endured.
For a time.
But now the Great Enemy approaches.
Chaos.
Drawn across the void to the thirteen primary worlds of the sector, from the darkness comes an armada unlike any seen before by those briefly able to witness it. Heretics and renegades. Warbands and pirates. Hosts that have set aside their rivalries not to raid, nor to conquer, but simply to annihilate. Something calls to these followers of the Ruinous Powers.
All the while, the Imperium has been watching.
Terra has no need to bring Craw’s Fire to compliance. Containment is sufficient. Whatever survives the coming war must be too broken, too exhausted, to threaten the Emperor’s domains beyond.
The age-old cycle has been broken. The balance undone.
War has come to Craw’s Fire.
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