Geography: Predominantly vast steaming jungles, deep forests, and areas of volcanic stone where tribal fortresses are constructed. The world has volcanic activity on a vast scale.
Population: Estimated 15 Million (Scattered primitive tribes and Ork settlements; high density of hostile megafauna).
Tithe Grade: Exactus Decimus (Nominal tithe of timber and basic foodstuffs; rarely collected).
Government Type: Tribal Kingdoms / Remote Protectorate (Rule by ancient royal families; no active Imperial civil administration or Planetary Governor).
Planetary Governor: None (Imperial authority is nominal; the planet is absentee-governed).
Adept Presence: Negligible (No Adeptus Administratum presence; occasional visits from the Adeptus Astra Telepathica’s League of Black Ships).
Military: Gregornian Warrior clans (primitive tribal militias using bows and spears); dominated by the militaristic Ork Blood Axe clan.
Trade: None (Official) / Illicit Xenos Trafficking
“S’a good place. Lotsa fings tryin’ ta kill you, lotsa fings ta kill. Big fings dere. Like, really big. Umies dere to fight, too. Dey got no dakka—not any more, anyways. Just stickas. Back when, dey wuz s’posed to have mega dakka, but da Orks put a stop ta dat, hur hur hur.”
–Septikk da Blagga, Blood Axe Nob
Gregorn is a savage, feral planet, a world of steaming jungles, colossal beasts, and volcanic activity on a vast scale. Its proud, mannered, and primitive human population clings grimly to the planet’s shifting tectonic plates, beset by warlike rival tribes, bizarre megafauna, and the depredations of brutal xenos mercenaries.
The world orbits tightly around its yellow star, resembling an apex predator pacing within a cage. It is one of the lesser known worlds of the Cyclopia Sub-Sector, a primitive outcast in a region which seeks to portray itself as a mercantile hub. While the planet has a formal tithe rating based upon the theoretical export of timber and foodstuffs, it has no actual planetary governor or Adeptus Administratum presence. No sub-sector commander has seen fit to allocate resources to collect its tithe for millennia, largely due to adverse local Warp conditions impeding shipping.
As such, Gregorn sees little interaction with the rest of Askellon. Indeed, it is suspected to be a base for rampaging xenos pirates in recent decades, though the Askellian Navy has notably failed to bring these miscreants to battle.
Gregorn’s landmass sprawls across the surface in a handful of continents that grind against each other like anchored boats upon a stormy sea. Where the land masses meet, mountain ranges are thrown up, each a nursery for dozens of erupting volcanoes, magma flows, and collapsing calderas. The constant tectonic upheaval stirs up minerals from kilometres beneath the surface; at the edge of each lava field, dense rain forests loom hungrily, awaiting the inevitable cooling of the soil.
The world is warm, with small polar ice caps. Most of the continents exist in the tropical band of the northern hemisphere, resembling a blue-green orb dotted with black volcanic regions and flickering rivers of fire. The skies are heavy with silicate dust, regularly cleared away by great storms, with their black rain eagerly devoured by the steaming forests. These fecund jungles fill virtually all available land and smother the ground in a green blanket hundreds of metres deep.
Behemoths lumber within these verdant depths; herbivorous saurids and pachyderms the size of heavy landers mutely chew the cud alongside colossal armoured ungulates. Deadly predators of great size and ferocity lurk there too. There are great carnidons, scaled bipedal beasts with teeth the length of a human forearm and who mass nearly that of a superheavy tank, yet move through the forests without disturbing a twig. There are mora, towering flightless avians five times the height of a man, with cruel, hooked beaks that can scissor a hunter apart in a heartbeat. These beasts battle hideous gulas, abhorrent predatory pack animals who scour all life from their path. Gregorn’s feral human inhabitants war with these great beasts constantly, precariously maintaining dominance.
A single enormous crater almost sixty kilometres wide mars the landscape. For leagues around, barren deserts are littered with debris from this impact site; nickel-iron ore, pitted metal, and a coating of radioactive dust. The natives avoid this blasted landscape; though they are primitive, tribal superstitions and natural caution correctly train each generation that the area is cursed.
Within the ruined realm abutting the great crater lies a collection of shanties which belch noxious effluent. These shacks surround a succession of rough orbital landing strips, pits, foundries, and scrapyards. Here resides a portion of one of the many small but highly mobile Ork mercenary clans.
These aliens have had a presence here for as long as any human can recall. Ancient legends among the native Gregornians tell that the Orks descended in fire and smoke, bringing misery and death. Ork numbers on Gregorn vary substantially. At any one time there are a few hundred, but this changes rapidly as new warbands visit, travelling via a variety of vessels, tellyportas, and unreliable bubblefield-shielded Roks.
Currently, the greenskin population is dominated by the infamous Blood Axe clan. Under the leadership of the unpredictable warlord Kaptin Gen’ral Kakkbad the ‘Eadbita, this portion of the clan has gone from strength to strength, absorbing smaller settlements. While Kakkbad’s rise is a cause for some concern among Imperial authorities, his forces’ raiding activities have not yet reached a level where a coherent military response is required. Among the planetary governors and merchant fleet officers subject to greenskin attack, this indolent official response is a scandalous indictment of the waning capabilities of Battlefleet Askellon.
The Ork warlord visits Gregorn with his entourage regularly, finding the planet’s selection of vicious predators to his liking. Here, he hunts, fights, and holds court accompanied by a train of lesser warlords and sycophants. In particular, Kakkbad has strong alliances with piratical Freeboota Krews who see much to admire in the warlord’s ambition. Like all of his clan, Kakkbad is drawn to the Imperium's brutality while repelled by its discipline; he even controversially tolerates the presence of human mercenaries within his ranks.
Holding their ground against the Orks and the beasts of the deep forests are the human natives of Gregorn. Descendants of some lost pre-Imperial civilisation, the tribal population takes the form of small kingdoms, each headed by a single royal family of ancient lineage. While their technology is primitive, the Gregornians are culturally sophisticated. Several scribes have noted that their very language is replete with calques and loan-words similar to High Gothic patterns.
Although most tribes resemble hunter-gatherers, the central control exerted by the royal families permits communal projects for the betterment of all. Invariably this takes the form of the construction of great fortresses and towers which the native population can flee to in the event of attack. These fortresses-constructed of volcanic stone blocks carved and wedged into place-are of a sufficient number that humanity on Gregorn is free of the threat of immediate extinction.
Gregornian culture is militaristic. Young nobles prove their mettle by hunting the most deadly predators of the jungles, using their deadly nasharn spears. These weapons are made of an impossibly strong and flexible native wood. Uniquely, nasharn spears can be strung with gulas-gut and converted into huge bows; astonishingly, they can be unstrung and instantly re-used as spears without affecting their shape or strength.
The human population of Gregorn has a rich tradition of storytelling. From birth, those born into noble bloodlines are taught that they are inheritors of an ancient legacy, destined to defend the world. This code requires nobles to employ strict ritual phrases of greeting; woe betide the traveller who inadvertently uses the wrong title. Offence given-even unintentionally-is met with formal challenges to combat, which can be to first blood, maiming, or death according to complex societal customs.
Key among Gregornian myth-cycles is the tale of the Iron Kings, the legendary precursor rulers who founded the royal families. This tale tells that in ancient days the Kings walked the land in gigantic suits of iron armour, striding taller than trees. It is said they were so mighty that they harnessed the power of the sun, casting spears of golden-white sunlight that could fell even the greatest carnidon with a single blow. The tale describes how the world was humbled before the Iron Kings, and how they chose to populate the forests with beasts from the stars to keep their blades keen.
The tale ends in blood and fire. At the height of the age of the Iron Kings, a glowing light from the sky fell to the south, searing the sky and covering the land in darkness for years. After the darkness came the Orks. Creeping across the lands in thousands, they were at first hunted by the Iron Kings for sport, but the greenskins eventually overwhelmed them in battles lasting hundreds of years. For every Ork burned by white hot light, ten more stepped into his place. Eventually all of the Iron Kings were pulled down, their bodies rent and their armour used to create foul weapons for the Orks. Those few Imperial scholars who have heard this tale regard it of crucial importance in determining the history of the vanished pre-Imperial culture.