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++Concerning Norefou++

World Classification: Garden / Medieval
Population: 12,000,000 – 14,000,000
Geoplolitical Situation: Planetary Governor comes from the Imperial Guard and is Neutral to the local warring nations. Single massive continent split into nations and city states of various sizes.
Tithe Grade: Aptus Non (For reason, see below)
Technology Level: Late Renaissance/ Very Early Industrial
Standing Military: 2000 Imperial Guard Garrison (PDF), Approx: 400 Imperial Guard (1st Local Volunteer Regiment).
-Each nation on Norefou maintains a standing army, though size varies and numbers are inconsistant.

++ The Cirumstances of Norefou ++

Before we begin our introduction to the quaint world of Norefou, I would like to tell you a little story. Now, now, stop grimancing, this won't take too long. Not too long at all.

Now, His Divine Majesty's domain stretches a million and more worlds throught the vastness of the galaxy, the mightiest bastion of humanity amongst the endless sea of stars, and resting within the imensity of such a realm, the million worlds are sundered far apart. For such an immense realm, an equally immense government was, and still is nesessary, The Administratum.

World "so and so" has been overrun by CHAOS! World "La Li Lu" has discovered promethium and titanium within its crust!

The messages arrive and then the Administratum bursts into frenzied action! Millions of requisition forms are signed, then passed through chains of clerks, and then finally to the desk of someone who does make decisions. Then, it is rejected because it isn't in triplicate and the process repeats itself thrice. ( More if someone knocks over a candle). The seal is finally slammed down upon the parchment and Munitorium issues the orders to muster. World "So and So" is to be bombed from orbit, while World "La Li Lu" is to be sent techpriests and miners.

Although, sometimes they do get it mixed up and the fleets bomb "La Li Lu" while the techpriests go to "So and So" and get eaten by daemons.

So, all in all, it is not too far a stretch that this happened.

Imagine this now, upon the firmament of Holy Terra herself, the immense palace of the Administratum and the millions upon millions of clerks and functionaries housed withtin the mighty structure. Great halls with row upon row of desks, stretching to the very horizon, each illuminated by the light of a candle or lamp while its occupant scribbles furiously at the documentation of His Divine Majesty's Imperium. Occationally, one rises, and begins the kilometers long trek to the cognition engines, where he hands the sheaf of parchment to an anxiously hovering tech priest (who eagerly awaits the end of his duty in the Administratum.) The emotionless metal features of the tech priets managed to look dull and bored, as he inscribes the data into the cognition engine. The clerk begins his long trek back.

The scribe in question has been a scribe all his life. His father was a scribe and so was his grandfather and his great grandfather and so on. He has lived within the palace of the Administratum all his life and has never left its confines. He has a scribe's bloodline and is proud of it. Oh, back in the day, he might have had dreamt of doing something exciting and had thought, if for a moment, of becomming a clerk, but that had been a long time ago. Now, he is content and hopes that one day, his son will be a scribe too. Continue the proud family tradition and what not.

He picks up the next sheaf of parchment in his pile and blinks in suprise. This is odd. He thinks as he looks at it. It has the seal of a High Lord of Terra upon it – something about claiming a newly rediscovered world as the personal estate of a particular High Lord (our humble scribe knows not which.) What would something as important as this be sent to his level? He thinks.

But he doesn't dwell on it for long, for even as he is about to pass the parchment on to someone of a higher level, the ancient vox systems built into the very walls of the palace of the Administratum flares to life and he drops the sheaf of parchement in surprise.

"Scribe of Processing Hall CXII, desk MCMXIV, haul thy posterior to the Prefectus's sanctum!"

Our scribe gasps, parchment forgotten. That is not a good sign. He scurries off into the gloomy vastness of the hall, beginning the hours long walk to the sanctum where no doubt he will be repremanded for being tardy. He never returns.

Why? No one knows. Perhaps an inqusitor burst through the wall and shot him for being tardy (heresy in a particularly impatient inquisitor's book) or perhaps upon being told of an impending promotion, his weak heart simply stopped out of excitment. We'd like to think that he was promoted, and happy ( as happy as one could be in those circumstances), and groomed his son to succeed him before joining His Divine Majesty after a lifetime of service to Him.

Eitherway, his replacement at desk MCMXIV, who arrives a day later, doesn't notice the single sheaf od parchment lying at his feet, and with an idle kick of his feet, knocks it waya into the grim darkness beneath the notice of the beaurucracy. The others, too preoccupied with their own work, barely notice the stray sheaf of (now rather dirty) parchment.

On the other side of Holy Terra, a High Lord of Terra sits comfortably in a well cushined chair. He is already planning what to do with his world. He does not know that his order has been mislabelled, sent to the wrong department and finally lost, and to him, for all intents ond purposes, the world is already his. His playground, for he has claimed a feral paradise world, inhabited only by the decendants of ancient human colonists, living a hunter-gatherer existance is caves in the mountains.

He had stumbled upon it, if only by accident on an excursion and was so pleased that he had penned the notice, staking his claim on it to the Administatum immediatly. Naturally, he had named it after himself, but due to our scribe's above neligience, no one was to know that. Hurriedly, he pens more orders, for ships, and construction material, and workers and guards. He is soon off to oversee the construction of his villa and city upon this world.

The administratum's higher offices collectivly scrach their heads in puzzlement as orders for sending workers and ships and materials to "No Record Found" arrive. They scour the data lecterns and the cognition engines for some clue, but invariably, they have no records to be found. And they wonder if that particular high lord has a few implants loose in his head. But as the strongly worded letters and rebukes from the High Lord become even more and more harshly worded, they finally relent and dispatch the requested men and materials. After all, they could spare a few men and ships to keep the High Lord pacified, and it wasn't that the numbers requested were unreasonable. Whereas, an angry High Lord would be less than reasonable.

And so the High Lord is happy, constructing his planetary capital upon an inaccesable plateu. He constructs shrines to the Emperor, and bullies the Ecceilarchy to dispatch priests to convert the scant populations and bring them forth from the caves. He has great fun pitting the tribes aggainst one another, ruling from his throne, building and planting as he saw fit. He orders guardsmen from the Imperial Guard to defend his garden world when roving orks threated it. He orders that the world is not to be tithed as it is his estate, and the population to be exempt from the service of the guard for they are his. He imports the best horses from Attila to gift to the most valiant of the local warriors. The cream of the herds of grox to seed the beginnings of a proper monetary system. In short, he mothers his "garden" outrageously.


Years later, he would order his mausolium to be built there, carving out an entire mountain to be his final resting place and forgoing the honor be being entombed in Holy Terra. But before that he made provisions for his garden world, shipments of guard and enginseers every generation or so and construction of hidden shelters in case of an invasion and finally, he laid himself to rest on the world he had poured so much love and effort into.

The Administratum and Munistratum by that time, had simply gotten used to the High Lord's eccentric orders, and figured that evenif he did send a couple hundred of the guard and a handful of lowly techpriests to dissapear into unknown space, if was worth it to be in his good graces. For every transaction and transfer to "Record Not Found" was paid for at the High Lord's expense, and he had been less aloof of late. So they processed his last orders, shrugging but not particularly curious. And so, the garden world suffered not the ravages of the Administratum, or the excesses of the Ecceilarchry, nor the mass consription of the guard.

Isolating if furthur, the guard, techpriest and assorted personnel that were sent there rarely left. The world was verdant, and the air was clean, and the Imperium by large, simply left it alone. The guards assigned there married into the population, or amongst one another, and the techpriests were treated with more respect than what they rank could have afforded them on other worlds. While the world was still undeniably feral, such small conflicts as they were were easily smoothed over and even the feral orks proved not an issue. For the natives banded together, with the first stone spears and leather shields and drove them off.

The guard assigned to the planet were never redeployed, as their records were not found after that, possibly a cataloging error within the cognistion engines. Nor the techpriests, nor the few ships assigned there. Every generation a few hundred guards and five or so new techpriest arrived, bringing news and supplies, and they too never left. Anyone assigned to 'Record Not Found" simply dropped off the map and was forgotten.

And so, left to its own devices, "Record not Found" continued its peacful exsistance. A garden world with a single Imperial outpost, forgotten and overlooked by all but those assigned there. That was five thousand years ago.

Stone and obsidian spears gave way to bronze spears, swords and armor, then, years later, to iron and steel and gunpowder, supplimented by the odd lasgun from the guard. Warriors put the now considerble herds of horses to good use, forming the first mounted raiders, and eventually, the great armored knights. Hovels and caves passed into dim myth as agriculture spread, and towns were formed, then petty kingdoms, to the construction of great cities of stone.

"No Record Found" eventually became, "Norefou." An siolated and near forgotten garden world.

And it remained that way, until ME999, during the the ongoing 13th black crusade, where a single unit of the planet's Imperial Guard joined the ongoing fight, fighting at the pheripeheray of the entire warzone, mostly unnoticed by both friend and foe.

------
What do you think?

I wanted to have my army somewhat more independant from the rest of the guard, and so I came up with this backstory.

Mate, I love it.

Only thing I don't understand is, how (after 5000 years) have the IG and techpriests remained seperate from the native ihabitants? I would assume that one way or another the two would integrate. That either Imperial technology would be forgotten or haphazardly thrown in with the primitive weaponry as 'objects of magic'.

All in all though, I really enjoyed reading this.

++The origins of the Norefou Imperial Guard++
(Currently consisting of a single regiment, the Norefou 1st Volunteers)

The circumstances resulting in the formation of the Norefou 1st Volunteer Imperial Guard Unit were non-standard to say the least and has been subject to much speculation by the members of high society of Norefou. The stories spreading amongst the gentlemen of Norefou range from the probable ( Oh! I heard he offended the Prince terribly. I suppose, Sir, that there's no better way to escape than that...) to the ridiculous. (I heard the Emperor in Heaven appeared to him in a vision and summon him to war! They'll be conscripting us next!” )

The truth is far more mundane. And even more far fetched.

The concept for the 1st Norefou began with the Marquis of Fossor of the Principality of Faeil (meant “Fort” or “Stronghold” in the local language. The nation was the front line against the feral Orks in the wastes)

A notable man within Norefou, known equally for his stout defense of the border against both neighboring nations and many feral Ork invasions and also for his flights of fancy. When not butchering his nation's rivals or Orks with equal alacrity, the man in question flitted from PDF garrison to PDF garrison, making himself a general nuisance to the local troopers, who viewed him with a mix of amusement and irritation. The sight of the man, clad in fluted plate and atop a charger, riding into the midst of troopers in flak vests and lasguns as if it were the most natural thing in the world was an odd one to say the least and Norefou PDF pictcasters often have pictures of themselves shaking hands with the local celebrity.

Now, before we proceed, I feel that a brief summary of the general trends of Norefou would provide some insight on Marquis de'Fossor's behaviour here. It won't take too long, so bear with me.
Now, Norefou, as peaceful as it is, is no stranger to war. The single great continent is home to diverse nations and city states, constantly vying for supremacy over one another. And while the PDF and techpriests stay neutral and never lend technology or help , it is not an uncommon thing to walk from the Planetary capital (According to local custom, no weapon ay be drawn, or blood split within its confines), only to find the armies of two rival barons hacking at each other a few kilometers away.

And then there is the constant ever present danger of feral Ork raids into “civilized” territory. Typically the PDF need not even intervene as the nations unite at that point and tens of thousands of footmen, harqubusiers, crossbowmen and knights converge to meet the threat. Only during the most dire of invasions, do the PDF commit to local fighting; for example ten years ago at Fossor, when the hoard of Ork swelled to over two hundred thousand strong, and broke through the Norefou lines only to come face to face with the the remnants of the then younger Marquis de'Fossor's foot knights (their horse had been slain) and a relief column of PDF chimeras.

Needless to say, the Orks didn't have such a good time after that. Multilasers and heavy bolters being well, multilasers and heavy bolters. They certainly left an impression on de'Fossor. (And also, a certain Ork, but that's of no relevance now). Needless to say,the PDF were the talk of the decade.

During this time, with the Orks largely pacified, leisure time increased (for the gentles at least for the peasants still had to work the fields.) The good feelings from the last Ork war were still warm and no one felt inclined to start another war just yet. Social events occurred almost weekly; Galas, parties, balls, masquerades and all the assorted debauchery which comes along with such events. Also, theater and poetry.


++ Brave knights, valor unsurpassed, held back the hoard of frenzied might,
till morn's glow shone, and from the throne,
came warriors with spears of light - ++
“ Extract from a popular Ballard composed (poorly) after the battle”

Needless to say, the gentles latched on to the idea with amazing enthusiasm. The idea that the Emperor in Heaven's realm was quite possibly vaster than expected had shocked some philosophers, but for the nobles, all things PDF, guard and gasp! Space Marine became in vogue. Vast sums were spent to kit retainers up in PDF gear, and reenactments of battles became popular. Blacksmiths amassed fortunes overnight casting lead figurines for nobles to play war with and copies of the Imperial Infantryman's uplifting primer became popular in libraries to the point where the PDF commanders had to ban the troopers from selling them.

The tales of adventure and glory of His Divine Majesty's armies grew wilder and wilder, which became a raging mania across the continent. Space became exciting, and romanticized, and many a young noble yearned vocally (especially in front of the ladies) that they “wouldn’t mind seeing the stars.”

De'Fossor was more enthusiastic than most, having seeing the action first hand, took to the PDF like a duck to water. While most of the boasts made by the nobles were simply rhetoric, de'Fossor tried to live up to it. Every bit of literature he could get his hands on, he read. Tatica Imperialis, the accounts of Lord Solar Macharious, the description of the Imperium of Man itself. At around this time, he began bothering the local PDF garrisons, requesting to train along side them, eventually adding their repertoire to his own military training.

And a long story short, he eventually bullied his way into Planetary Governer's office, laying down his desire to see the stars with all the rhetoric he could muster. It was fortunate than, for De'fossor, that the Governor just so happened to have a young brother, fresh from the Scholar Progenium, whom he wanted out of the way...

++ The Norefou Bluebloods++

The Bluebloods are unique in the sense that they are all volunteers. In fact, many have joined the so called Imperial Guard unit simply because it has become fashionable to do so. The unit is called the “Bluebloods” by th elocal population, as many are nobles, the young second sons or daughters with nothing to inherit or, perhaps, affluent adventurers seeking glory. Other who join are knights with no land, with a few retainers to their name who sign up as well. Some are drunk on the stories that the bards and tell, and almost none have any idea what in the Emperor's name they're going to face up there.

But they do have some advantages. Most Norefou that join the unit have been wearing heavy armor all their lives, fighting Orks or one another in conflicts between nations. Most have training in hand to hand combat; pikes, axes, maces, swordplay and such martial pursuits. And shooting a lasgun is much not much different from shooting a harquebus and much easier than waving a large battleaxe around all day till your arms gets sore. Digging trenches and planting stakes comes naturally to a Norefou man, where sieges on castles are common though sandbags and barbed wire are novel new ideas that is catching on quickly.

De'Fossor is happy, though he has stepped down as the unit commanding officer, stating that he would leave the commanding of such new and fashionable tactics to one more suited for it – the Planetary Governor’s younger brother; a melancholic young fellow thrust into a job he doesn't want. De'fossor opts instead to lead the retinue of his household knights as shock troopers.

But sometimes, especially after a strong drink with the young CO, he wonders if doing this is the right thing to do. He has read the books and he has some idea of what they'll be facing up there. But there’s no time to dwell on it. In fact he's just hired, at great expense a trainer from Cadia. A real flesh and blood Karskin....just the thing to whip his knights into shape.

-------

Well, I would say that the populations of PDF and techpriests have largely kept to themselves, while the locals keep a respectful but wary distance. Perhaps in the bronze age of Norefou, the PDF with their shuttles and machines would seem like demigods, and the tech priests would seem like socerers. But in the later ages, like this current rennaisance where society is slowly becomming more open, there is a lot more mingling between the guard and the locals. All helped along by the Ecclesiarchy, who basically told the locals that there wa snothing to fear from the guard.

Well, I hope you like this. =D