ARCANA (40K Perpetual Quest)

Tarrghus. With a history stretching back into the dark ages before the Imperium, it had once been a jewel among the stars, famed for its technological sophistication, robust industry, and bountiful environment. Few worlds in the Imperium of Man could compare to Tarrghus, powerful and great, with its vast, sloping mountains, its near endless forests, stretching from serene coast to serene coast.

Then came the Despoilers. The Emerald Tide. The Hands of the Beast. Orks. Conquering Tarrghus, they enslaved who they could put to work, and butchered the rest for meat, establishing vast and cruel factory-cities where they worked their new human underlings to death to forge munitions for the armies of the Beast Set Loose.

For an entire generation, Tarrghus was held in the grasp of its greenskin overlords, long after the Beast had been destroyed. How its liberation was achieved is a question with many, many different answers.

To the Tribes, descended from the slaves of the Greenskins, the worlds salvation came at the hands of the Apostle, a humble servant of the Emperor who encouraged the Tribes to rise up and overthrow their cruel overlords, personally freeing the workers of many factories, setting the stage for a series of battles that saw the planets Orkish governor slain in personal combat by the Apostle, who perished of his own wounds afterwards.

To the City-Borne, the planet was freed by the work of the Astra Militarum, led by Flavius Orinthius, who battled for a century to break the siege, tirelessly working year after year to push the Orks back inch by bloody inch, never retreating, never giving ground as they broke the Orks stronghold one by one by one, ending when General Orinthius killed the Orkish governor by calling in an artillery strike on himself while challenging the Ork to a duel to distract it, finally breaking the greenskins and allowing the full liberation of the planet.

Of which is the truth and which is not is a question for the ages. Perhaps both. Perhaps neither.

But the result is the same: Tarrghus is now under the sigil of the Palantine Aquilla. But just because the Beasts servants are dead, does not mean their legacy died with them. The Orkeoforming of Tarrghus was never complete, inhibited by unknown means, but even slowed, their infestation had an entire century to take root, producing vast fungal colonies and endless bands of violent, brutish feral ork Klans to prey on the tribes and pirate from the city-borne.

Only by the constant work of both Tribe and Cities are they beat back, with the Braves constantly venturing into the fungal canopies to set fire to budding ork colonies, and Suppression Squads doing their best to exterminate the wandering warbands.

The Former, the Tribes, live an existence of subsistence, relying on the harsh, mutated wildlife for sustenance, a lifestyle that by its very nature is dangerous, as a side effect of the orkish colonization is the wildlife adapting to become violent, dangerous in order to compete with the fungal invaders, from the gargantuan Ur-Mammoths, to the sedentary but no less dangerous carnoflower, to say nothing of the squigs that have adapted to live side by side. It is for that reason that more than half of their number become Braves, warriors dedicated to fighting and slaying the monsters of their world (and typically bringing back whatever edible meat they had acquired in the process).

The latter, the Cities, stand at the heart of every continent, vast sprawling megalopoli operated day and night in order to produce the arms, tools, and men required to purge the orks from the face of the planet, all aspects of their designed to facilitate that. Industrial complexes large enough that on less developed worlds they'd be cities unto themselves. Below them was the Underspill, a network of tunnels where their populations resided in communal bunks, ferried to and from the factories they toiled at works beginning and end, with strictly regimented schedules for sleep and even stricter for leisure.

Was it any wonder that because of such a harsh lifestyle, the City-Borne venerated the Suppression Squads, who due to their duties were granted such pleasures as an increased sugar ration, the ability to take leave from their work one singular week out of every solar cycle, and pay of ten solar thrones a week for which to buy luxuries? Is it any surprise that each and every City-Borne child dreams of joining those hallowed ranks?

Then, of course, there was the Outskirts, a place not quite city, a place not quite tribe-ground, where the outcasts of both societies congregated, converging together and mingling, doing their best to avoid both scrutiny and depredation by the hostile denizens of Tarrghus, both orkish and otherwise: on occasion, one of these lost souls might find salvation by convincing whatever group hadn't rejected them in the first place to accept them into their number. However, for the vast majority, there was no such salvation to be found, leading to the construction of vast shanty cities amidst the long abandoned ruins. Still, even for the Outskirts the Ork was not to be tolerated, and many among their number sought absolution through martyrdom, throwing themselves against the feral tribes in a mad bid to take as many greenskins with them. Others dug among the dirt, working alongside archeologists to unearth various artefacts of the Beast in order to obtain enough money in order to leave Tarrghus, in the hopes that in the stars, they might find redemption.

Of course, even with both these groups attempting to strangle their influence on the world, the Klans fight back: every two hundred and fifty years, like clockwork, a great crusade is drawn up by the greenskins, crashing into the tribes first, scattering them to the winds, before marching one on the seven cities, led by their monstrous warlord. An unstoppable wave, halted at incredible, devastating price, like dread, brutish clockwork, leaving behind ruin, broken and shattered tribes, and wrecked cities of scrap.

It is to Tarrghus you were born...

ORIGIN

[ ] Grew up an Orphan: Your parents died, casualties of the green pox, one of the rare examples of an orkish plague, and an even rarer example of an orkish plague jumping to humans. Its said that the pox killed one third of everyone who caught it, leaving behind entire mountains of dead corpses. You yourself had caught it as an infant some time after they perished, and your survival had been a miracle according to your caretaker, with you fading in and out for an entire week. You had been sickly and weak after that, a weakness that has never gone away, not fully. Not entirely. Start with Flaw: Weakness.

[ ] Child of a Disgraced Elocutor: The local leaders of the faith, Elocutors ministered to tribe and city alike and taking recruitment from both, training them up above, in the Santica Celeste, an orbital cathedral that served as Tarrghus's great heart of the faith, as well as the first defence against foreign foes such as Ork raiders. Your mother had been an Elocutor, acting as the left hand of the Emperor and distributing divine justice to those who stood in his path, raising you with the same fervor and zeal...until it was discovered she was engaged in some heinous crime, the details of it suppressed by the Santica even as they banished your parent from their halls forever. However, even though you know not what she did, the mere knowledge that your mother had sinned against the Emperor had ensured that her disgrace was your disgrace also your disgrace, ensuring that you grew up in grotesque poverty. Start with Flaw: Disgraced.

[ ] Foundling: Rare indeed, you were the result of someone stumbling upon an infant in one of the many megaforests that dot the planet. Adopted, you grew up among your caretakers people, not quite rejected, but not quite accepted: growing up, you had to deal with whispers following you as those around you speculated as to your origin, with many among your adopted people suspicious of you, believing you an ill omen or cursed, the strange child from the forest. Start with flaw: Suspicion.

CAREER

[ ] Suppression Squad: Despite your flaws, through your hard work you had managed to achieve that what every city-borne dreams of: membership among the suppression squads. It had been a hard climb, but now you had access to resources you had only dreamed of as a child. Yes, the risk incurred was great, but the prestige made it worth it. Start with an array of combat skills and talents. Must spend variable amounts of AP per turn on combat actions.

[ ] Tribe Brave: Despite your flaws, through your cunning and resourcefulness you had been made a Brave of your tribe. Your duties are many, but the two chief ones are providing meat for your tribe, and attacking ork colonies before they grow large enough to threaten your tribe. It was a hard life, but you would walk it with pride. Start with an array of survival skills and talents. Must meet a specific quota of either meat or dead orks every month.

[ ] Archaeologist: You dug things out of the ground. More specifically, artefacts from the time Tarrghus was ruled not by man, but by beast, such as journals, tools, and other items of historical providence, and sold them to the collectors that ventured to the world every so often, hoping to add another strange xeno artefact to their collections. Contrary to what some might think, it is not a particularly safe job: dig sites are often located in the heart of Beast ruins, which are almost always filled with congregations of Orks attracted, subconsciously, to the ruins of their ancestors. Start with an array of survey skills and talents. Will regularly be issued deadlines by which point a certain amount of value in artefacts must be collected.