Planet Piety
Planet: Piety
Subsector: Drusus Marches
Sector: Calixis Sector
Segmentum: Obscuros
Population: 13,000,000,000 (est.)
Government Type: Adeptus Terra
Governor: Lord Autocrat Joquyn Haxtes Drusus Astleford XLII
Tithe Grade: Exactus Extremis
Military: Imperial Defense Forces of Lord Astleford. House Astleford's private military, and various personal armies of private and household armies, which owe ultimate allegiance to Lord Autocrat.
Geography:
Extensive overcontinent, primarily desert. Several seas, highly polluted, no indigenous life. Surface of Piety uninhabitable without augmentation.
Brief History:
Piety's settlements date back well before the Avignon Crusade that forged the Calixis Sector, likely back to the Dark Ages of Technology, and local tradition maintains that it had been brought into the Imperium's fold during the Great Crusade. Whatever the truth, by M39 it was long lost to the rest of humanity.
Piety was one of the first worlds to be subject to reclamation by Saint Drusus the Warrior upon his promotion to Lord Militant, under the personal command of General Octavion Astleford, who took as his base of operations the settlements now known as Drushold. More than the war effort, however, the success of the campaign was the result of missionaries among the Emperor's lost children. The petty lords who refused to submit to the Imerial forces often had less to fear from the invading armies than they did a force of their own subjects, burning with the zeal of converts, lead by a priest preaching death and damnation to the Emperor's enemies. The power and influence left to the Ministorium prompted its inclusion into the Imperium under the name Piety.
After the end of the Crusade and the formation of the Drusus Marches, Piety served as the seat of the Drusian Arch-Diocese until a massive Warp Storm in 415.M40 cut Piety off from the rest of the Imperium for more than a decade. When the storm finally passed, the planet had suffered from widespread rebellion and chaos. Pacifying Munitorium and Ministoriam forces returned to bolster the armies fighting on the side of the faithful, centered around Ashe of Brux, who emerged as a rallying force for the forces of Mankind. The world was quickly reclaimed, but the center of religion in the Drusus Marches remains on Thical to this day.
Piety serves as a gateway between the Drusus Marches and adjacent subsectors, which grants it exceptional wealth and influence. Most pilgrims must at least stop or pass through its orbit to reach the outer worlds of the Marches, even if they do not make it a part of their circuit, which is a constant source of wealth to its coffers. Its governance is a complex series of allegiances and entanglements, with all loyalty directed ultimately to the Lord Autocrat, but with day to day operations of any given area largely autonomous. Piety has little in the way of raw materials, and so its manufactoriums are an engine driving the subsector, buying the unshaped elements from the fringes and selling them back everything from silks to spaceship engines, and of course supplying the Imperium at large an endless line of weapons, materiel, and men.
