Geography: Planetary-scale iron core, extensive subterranean tunnel networks
Population: Approx. 14 Billion (Estimated, large undocumented underclass)
Tithe Grade: Exactus Prima
Government Type: Hereditary Dynastic Oligarchy (The Dynants)
Planetary Governor: High Dynant Valerius Ousmane
Adept Presence: Moderate (Mechanicus, Ministorum, Administratum)
Military: Pellennian Deep Guard, Private Dynastic Militias
Trade: Major exporter of refined iron, rare silicates, titanium carbide
“Mutant cults? You’ve discovered that there may be some mutant cults in the mines? There have always been mutant cults in the deep tunnels! The difficulty isn’t ‘discovering’ that they exist-it’s ‘discovering’ ways to cull enough of the filthy scum to keep them from overrunning our homes and butchering us in our beds!”
–Captain Thibalt Psarkin, 2nd Regiment, Pellennian Deep Guard
Pellenne is one of the Grand Worlds of the Askellon Sector. It is crucial to the sector’s economy, not only by virtue of its tremendous mineral resources, but also by dint of its vital strategic position. It sits squarely along the Grand Processional, the primary Warp tributary linking the sector’s Grand Worlds in relatively stable travel paths. The Processional permits access to the sector capital, Juno, with Warp journeys between the two worlds lasting only scant weeks. In addition, Pellenne sits at the centre of a local web of lesser Warp-routes to a number of Low Worlds within the Stygies Cluster, and acts as a jumping-off point for spinward-bound traffic exiting the wider sector.
Pellenne is a large planet consisting primarily of high-purity unprocessed iron. The iron is not mixed in with rocky ore, or locked below a crust; rather improbably, the entire world appears to be the cooled core of a far larger former planet. It has a thin atmosphere, which at surface level has been heavily polluted and is barely capable of supporting human life. For this reason, human society on Pellenne is almost entirely subterranean.
The planet is riddled with gigantic tunnels, most over a kilometre wide and some much larger. All run for hundreds or even thousands of kilometres in meandering, apparently random courses through the world. Some drop vertically from the surface to unfathomable depths, while others form lazy spirals that slowly meander towards the core. The tunnels appear to have been cut through the iron during some ancient era, using vast boring machines that have now vanished. There has been much speculation as to the source of these channels; the official explanation is that the tunnels are wonders of the Dark Age of Technology, created by the legendary first Askellian settlers. However, quiet speculation suggests they are far older, dating back millions of years to some unspecified pre-human culture. The planet’s gravity hovers around one Holy Terran standard; despite the planet’s vast size, this implies that much of its mass may have been removed by whatever created the vast tunnel network.
The planet's unusually elevated radiation levels, atypically, do not appear to derive from the Pellennian system’s own star, but from the planet itself. Radiation levels increase with proximity to the core; at the surface they are raised, but tolerable. In the lowest tunnels they can become quite lethal. The source of the radiation has never been satisfactorily explained, and few are anxious to journey into the lower depths to discover it. Given this, the iron mined on Pellenne should be highly radioactive; however, this is surprisingly not the case. While the iron exhibits high levels of radiation at depth near the core, it somehow loses this quality as it is brought to the surface in a phenomenon not fully understood by the Adepts who have studied it.
Such an environment is inimical to human habitation, and as such the planet’s surface outposts and extensive subterranean cities are well-protected with void shields and other protections to ward against the horrific effects of rad-corruption. However, much to the dismay of the planet’s long-term inhabitants, mutation rates among the population remain unusually high, even within the richest and best-shielded noble enclaves. Why this should be the case is a growing concern to senior figures within the world’s ruling classes. Some have suggested that the mysterious radiation source deep at the planetary core emits energies undetectable by the traditional rad-augurs, energies which have the effect of mutating human genetic material.
Pre-Imperial records relating to Pellenne are scant, but all extant documentation consistently describes it as a mining world. Contracts retained by the ruling dynasties indicate that the planet’s initial human population was small-a long-vanished caste of peripatetic interstellar mining clans using a high degree of mechanisation. Over millennia, as the skills necessary to maintain their equipment were lost, Pellenne’s rulers became reliant upon vast numbers of unskilled labourers shipped to the planet from adjacent inhabited worlds.
Pellenne corrupted these labourers; mutation ran rife among those toiling in the deep tunnels. For as long as there have been humans on Pellenne, there have been mutants and outcasts clinging to existence. The arrival of the Imperium only hastened the planet’s reliance upon offworlders, locking imported labour into hereditary contracts of indentured servitude to do the jobs the resource-rich Pellennian ruling dynasties-the "Dynants"-were not prepared to do themselves.
Pellennian society remains highly stratified. The Dynants live in shielded towers on the surface, protected by regiments of the Deep Guard, while enticing the poor of the Stygies cluster with promises of honest work. Every year, hundreds of thousands of naive workers arrive in Fornix, the subterranean capital, to discover that they must carry out decades of backbreaking work in radioactive mines. Any worker exhibiting signs of mutation is dismissed immediately, exiled from the protection of the great tunnel cities, and driven into the vast and ancient mutant underclass.
No one knows exactly how many mutants there are on Pellenne. Since time immemorial, they have lurked at the edges of human society, watching with envious eyes. In recent years, as many of the great excavation machines have begun to malfunction, these outcasts have assumed a greater economic importance; each mine’s overseer now musters them together every work-cycle in their thousands and herds them into the deepest mines, where they hack away at the bare iron with hand tools in exchange for meagre scraps of food.
Those wretches closest to the currently-worked mines are largely recently-mutated indentured workers still utterly dependent upon human society. They occupy hastily-assembled shanties and jostle for the scraps thrown to them by Pellenne’s untainted population. At a remove from these unfortunates are the descendants of earlier outcasts. These more experienced mutants are less servile and more resentful of their lot. Prone to forming ruthless, exploitative, and secreted bands with their own gang-cant, they are opportunists and innovators. The movers and shakers of mutant society, they operate tattered drinking dens and seedy outposts, many of which are the grandest buildings in the under-towns. These crime lords and agitators are responsible for many ill-fated uprisings against the cruelty of the Dynants over the centuries.
At yet a further remove is a third mutant community. This is by far the most poorly-understood population, consisting of those mutants who, in ancient times, fled deep into the lowest and oldest tunnels. Every year, as if at some secret signal, thousands of mutants wander into the darkness in ones and twos. Many die, their desiccated corpses littering the dark, spiralling tunnels. Yet many seem to find others of their kind, there living a peculiar, almost tribal existence, feeding upon each other and the strange mould that glimmers wetly in the darkness. Here, strange societies bloom and fall, worshipping and sacrificing to hidden gods. Here the spiral mutants breed and plot, waiting patiently for the day when their numbers are so great that they can rise up from the deepest tunnels and drown the light of the human cities in eternal darkness.
The Consanguinity is a Pellennian sect dedicated to the total eradication of mutants and their sympathisers. Even among other anti-mutant groups, this cult stands out for its extreme fanaticism and willingness to inflict violence upon both mutants and untainted humans. Founded three centuries ago with a manifesto branded into the chest of a charred corpse nailed to Fornix’s High Templum, the cult has since spread throughout the Stygies Cluster.
Highly dogmatic, the sect refuses to accept any utility for mutants within the Imperium. Brothers of the Consanguinity insist on destroying mutant communities where local authorities refuse to act. They are known to assassinate Imperial figures who display leniency, often framing mutants for the murders. The sect routinely conducts purges where those bearing minor birthmarks are burned alive, and summarily executes citizens believed to have had dealings with the unclean.
The Consanguinity is obsessively secretive; each “Frater Consanguinitas” operates within an organised cell structure, hidden behind black robes. The Dynants are increasingly concerned by the support the sect enjoys among the working classes; while they despise mutants, they fear threats to their own primacy more. Rumours suggest that the Inquisition now views the group as a destabilising influence. There are reports of covert purges targeting Consanguinity cells, though they often reappear in new, more powerful forms.