Ryza

Ryza, also known as the "Furnace of Shackled Stars," is an Imperial Forge World of the Adeptus Mechanicus that is located in the Segmentum Ultima of the galaxy. The planet is home to the Titan Legion called the Legio Crucius, known also as "The Warmongers."

During the Horus Heresy, a great battle took place on this Forge World, known as the Defence of Ryza. Forces of the Dark Mechanicum, led by the Traitor Titan Legions and their Chaos Knight allies fought against the Loyalist servants of the Omnissiah.

Countless Titans and Knights fell on both sides. Eventually, the Loyalists were able to drive back the Traitors, only to be bombarded by a Chaos Warfleet from orbit. There was little to celebrate, as the guardians of Ryza tasted pyrrhic victory.

The Forge World of Ryza has since been plunged once more into the abyss of war in the late 41st Millennium. The planet was once famous for supplying the Imperium with magnetic containment fields and Plasma Weapons -- the Leman Russ Executioner and Stormblade super-heavy tank were born within its armour cradles.

However, since Ryza found itself bearing the brunt of not one but the two major Ork WAAAGH!s of Grax and Rarguts in 925.M41, the rivers of war materiel that flood its manufactoria canals now lead only to its own defenders -- the planet has turned every cannon, stubber, and bullet it produces to an all-out battle for survival.

In truth the tech-priests of Ryza welcome the opportunity to see their creations in action first-hand, unleashing their most devastating weapons upon the foe.

Despite the preponderance of ordnance and experimental weapons, much of the fighting on Ryza has come down to close quarters. The Forge World's defenders -- from Skitarii to hulking Kastelan Robots -- have all earned a reputation as particularly fierce combatants.

Ryza's Skitarii, alongside the Warmongers of the Legio Crucius and the Astra Militarum's Catachan Jungle Fighters regiments, have taken righteous pleasure in turning Ryza's most devastating weapons upon the Orks of WAAAGH!s Grax and Rarguts.

However, after forty standard years of warfare the Orks eventually fell into disarray and were finally wiped out by the Forge World's armies following the death of Warlord Grax under the guns of the Warlord Titan Pugnus Vindictae.

History[]

Early History[]

The history of Ryza before the coming of the Imperium is well-documented, for its archivist-magi were supremely diligent in their work. Though the Age of Strife had brought many trials to Ryza and its people, they had weathered them all with a stoicism common amongst the believers of the Cult Mechanicus.

From the first colonists who settled the city of Prosperity upon a world once diverse in flora and fauna, a great technological empire grew. When the Great Crusade reached the Forge World, the people of Ryza had travelled the stars for centuries, expanding its borders beyond a single world to the neighbouring star systems, returning with substantial resources for the planet's industry.

For the Imperium of Man, the discovery of Ryza was a portentous one, serving to fuel its ambitions of conquering the wider galaxy. Amongst the Mechanicum luminaries of Mars, the method of incorporation Ryza was to be subjected to caused much contention, for some feared the substantial resources and knowledge the Forge World claimed as its own, warning that it might one day rise to rival that of the Red Planet itself.

Indeed, the strengths of Ryza were many, and though its productivity was matched by only a handful of known Forge Worlds, their true power lay in both the Legio Crucius, for the guardians of Ryza possessed a level of strength that rivalled even the Triad Ferrum Morgulus, and the unparalleled skills of the local tech-priests.

Upon first contact many amongst the Imperium advocated for unity, reasoning that the benefits of peace superseded any hypothetical challenge the world might one day offer. In the end, pragmatism outweighed fearful notions, and when offer of vassalage to both Mars and Terra was brought to Ryza it was met with little discord, the Forge World peacefully falling under the control of the Emperor, easing the worries of many.

Some, however, could not shake such thoughts, for while Ryza offered no public dissent towards Mars, many spoke of the world with a level of reverence normally reserved for the Red Planet itself and such actions saw envy fester amongst those jealous of Ryza's prominence within the Mechanicum.

It was these bitter individuals who whispered in the ear of the Warmaster Horus and they who assembled a force to assail the world, desperate to claim it as their own.

Located within the Ultima Segmentum, Ryza's position at the time of the Horus Heresy's start was secured by its raw manufacturing power and its tactical location that, since Ryza first forged treaties with the Imperium, served to fuel the reach of the Great Crusade eastwards across the galaxy.

Above all else, Ryza possessed unparalleled expertise in the engineering and production of Imperial plasma technology thanks to the Omnissiah Igvita, literally the "Life Blood of the Omnissiah," a sect of tech-priests founded upon Ryza and turned towards the study of plasma, believing each drop was the blood of the Omnissiah, gifted to His servants to ensure they crafted new wonders in His name.

Working with a dedication bordering on religious fanaticism, under their tutelage the knowledge of plasma technology upon Ryza evolved at a pace unmatched by other Forge Worlds, as numerous innovations were generated within its plasma fanes.

Defence of Ryza[]

"History will forever stand as a wellspring of truth, foretelling the doom that comes for us should we remain ignorant of its lessons."

—Old Terran Proverb, circa 18th Millennium

Origins[]

The Defence of Ryza is a tale of avarice and envy and the devastation wrought by their cloying touch. As the Warmaster Horus, once the most favoured son of the Imperium and then its most heinous foe, bore down upon Terra, his allies in the ancient Mechanicum greedily moved to secure their positions.

Many foresaw a new age upon the horizon, one where greatness stifled by outdated beliefs would be set free by the new order. Whilst the bulk of the Traitor force shattered the defences of Beta-Garmon, detachments broke free in search of other foes.

By the Warmaster's edict these disparate forces were tasked with eliminating any who might threaten his advance, yet many held goals outside this purview, for the greatest worlds of the Imperium lay close to its heart on Terra and were ripe for the taking.

So it was that sinister eyes turned upon Ryza, the so-called "Furnace of Shackled Stars," which even now strove to fill the vacuum of power left by the strife that had gripped Mars. The traitorous minions of Kelbor-Hal, fabricator-general of Mars and ally to the Warmaster, moved to seize Ryza for themselves, willing to slaughter all who dared oppose their vision and construct a darker world atop the piled corpses.

The Battle for Ryza was just one of many battles fought as the Warmaster made his final moves upon Terra. Aware that the Forge World possessed vast manufacturing capabilities and the ability to supply Imperial forces that could assail his flanks and rear, Horus dispatched a significant Dark Mechanicum force to seize control of the world and its resources.

Although the primary goal was to claim the world for the Warmaster, it was impressed upon his allies that, should they be unable to do that then it must be hamstrung and broken. In keeping with its commanders, the force that marched upon Ryza contained not a single Legiones Astartes warrior but instead was made up from Dark Mechanicum cohorts drawn from dozens of Traitor Forge Worlds, all of whom wished to plunder Ryza.

Alongside them came the Titan Legions and Knight houses, including a significant strength of both the Legio Vulturum and Legio Magna. Although the strength mustered possessed the capability of levelling a system with ease, Ryza presented a difficult target.

Even before the Horus Heresy began, the Forge World had been preparing its defences, awaiting a conflict they feared would come. Since Mars had become engulfed by civil war, Ryza had further cemented its position as a prominent Forge World, drawing allies with once-close ties to Mars to its side.

From the great void station of Ryza Secundus to the fortified forge cities spanning the entire globe, the Traitors faced an uphill battle if they sought to conquer the world, made all the harder by their desire to preserve as much as they could of its technological riches for themselves.

Battle for Ryza Secundus[]

The void station of Ryza Secundus was the first to feel the wrath of the Traitors when Horus' Dark Mechanicum allies descended upon the Forge World. Constructed during the Age of Strife, Ryza Secundus was, in scale, more a moon than a space station, its colossal structure only swelling in size throughout the millennia and in the wake of the prosperity brought by the coming of the Great Crusade.

Concealed within its form were vast cargo and docking bays capable of sustaining all but the largest of expeditionary fleets, the station's interior so cavernous that battlegroups of Titans could stand tall within if so desired.

Connecting these bays was a honeycomb of tunnels and accessways, some suitable only for the passage of a servitor while others allowed the Knights of the Questoris Familia to walk three abreast, all while mag trains ferried supplies across Ryza Secundus through the same passageways.

Ryza Secundus did not merely serve a logistical purpose, for it stood sentinel over the approach to the planet, the nerve centre of smaller defence satellites scattered around the Forge World. Interlinking rings encircled the central structure bearing extensive arrays of weapon batteries chosen to combat any conceivable threat that might encroach upon Ryza's sovereignty.

These defences were supplemented by larger batteries, located on the central structure, of a scale more often seen on the largest battleships of the Imperium's fleets. Some were unique in design, forged by the hands of the Omnissiah Igvita using knowledge gleaned from millennia of innovation and refinement.

As an entity, Ryza Secundus ensured the Forge World was all but unassailable by direct means, for even were a force to overwhelm it, they would likely no longer possess the numbers required to claim the surface.

It is for this reason that the advancing Traitors, led by Yuritus Omicron, fabricator-locum of Estaban VII, looked to subtler means to secure their prize. Hampered by the fabricator-locum's desire to leave as much of Ryza untouched as possible, to better claim the Forge World as his own, the Traitors launched a dozen vessels far in advance of their main fleet, each one a modified cruiser laden with troops intended for Ryza Secundus.

These vessels slipped into the Ryza System over a period of solar weeks, each one powering down their systems to avoid detection by patrolling ships. Thus concealed, the Traitor vessels slowly made their way towards Ryza Secundus, powered by momentum alone. By virtue of meticulously calculated trajectories, this vanguard fleet was in range when the remainder of the Traitor fleet transitioned into the Ryza System.

When battle was joined the vanguard unleashed thousands of boarding craft upon the station, flooding its hallways with Traitor troops. Such numbers were swelled by the Knights of House Morbidia as more of the station was lost to the defenders and its defences powered down.

Opposing them were a handful of Knights of House Vornherr and, when defeat seemed inevitable, the Loyalists retreated inwards, selling their lives dearly so the guns of Ryza Secundus could sound for a few more hours.

Treachery of House Ioeden[]

With the fall of Ryza Secundus the way to the Forge World was open, yet it did not stand unguarded. Across the surface of the world orbital defences were spurred into life, their barrels turned upwards to the skies in anticipation of the impending invasion.

The loss of Ryza Secundus had left Ryza isolated from the wider galaxy but it had not left the world unprotected. Initial forays by the Traitors were easily repelled, many of the landing craft blasted from the sky and what remained proved easy pickings for the Loyalist forces stationed across the world.

Once more, when direct methods proved untenable the Traitors moved to more duplicitous means, calling upon those whose allegiances were not as they appeared.

The arrival of the Traitor fleet had served as the herald for dissidents to emerge from the shadows and soon sporadic warfare broke out across Ryza, an angered minority seeking to upend the current order and replace it with another, far more sinister one.

In reality, hastily assembled forces of manufactoria workers and rebel tech-priests were of little threat to the power of a Titan Legion or the vast ranks of the Mechanicum Taghmata but they did much to hinder the efforts of the Loyalists, spreading their forces thin across Ryza as the ruling Hierophant Technis Nira Heldentun sought to impose order upon the planet once more.

In this, the dissidents achieved their goal, for their desire was not conquest but distraction, splitting up the defenders until a vital target proved vulnerable enough for the Traitors in orbit to exploit.

Such an opportunity presented itself at Conveyance Terminus Nine-Omega, an expansive spaceport located on the southern continent. A vital hub of transport and storage, Conveyance Terminus Nine-Omega was the largest of its kind on Ryza, used as both a centre of export and a staging ground for military forces, capable of supporting vast legions of troops should it be required.

At the time of invasion, Conveyance Terminus Nine-Omega was garrisoned by a battlegroup of Legio Honorum ("Death Bolts") Titans and the Knights of House Ioeden, a minor house known for their actions as raiders -- skills that had proved helpful to Ryza when they had sought supplies to fuel their industry in the preceding years of the Horus Heresy.

When insurrection saw the fall of a forge-fane near Salvation Isthmus, the threat was deemed considerable enough to require the attentions of the Legio Honorum. Led by the Princeps Seniores Galxexu, the Titans of the Legio Honorum moved to recapture the forge-fane, safe in the knowledge that the orbital defences of Conveyance Terminus Nine-Omega, in conjunction with the Knights of House Ioeden, would ensure the spaceport’s safety in their absence.

It was only upon returning to the spaceport, as a cacophony of warnings announced the impending descent of the Traitors upon Conveyance Terminus Nine-Omega, that Galxexu realised his mistake, one that would ultimately prove fatal to himself and much of Ryza.

A Road Less Travelled[]

Thanks to the treachery of House Ioeden, who had masqueraded as allies to Ryza for three standard years, Conveyance Terminus Nine-Omega had fallen, allowing the Traitors to bring the full weight of their forces down upon the planet. The Loyalists made attempts to retake the captured land but such efforts were in vain, for the defenders lay scattered across Ryza and fear of further betrayal lent caution to their actions, unwilling to amass in force lest the Traitors secure another landing zone.

Faced with no organised resistance, the Traitors were able to consolidate their conquests, seizing ever more territory in their quest to dominate all of Ryza. Their first goal was to secure passage to the northern continent, forcing the Loyalists to fight a war on two fronts.

To achieve such a goal, a significant proportion of strength from both the Legio Vulturum ("Gore Crows") and Legio Magna ("Flaming Skulls") was assembled, placed under the command of Princeps Ultima Scrindus Tepfra. While their allies gathered at Conveyance Terminus Nine-Omega to secure their ill-gotten gains, the combined battlegroup marched for Salvation Isthmus, an artificial stretch of land that spanned the oceans of refuse between the northern and southern continents.

One of many isthmuses to connect the two continents, Salvation Isthmus was the most important, not only due to its proximity to Conveyance Terminus Nine-Omega but also because it played host to a string of manufactoria that worked to recycle discarded products extracted from the Sea of Reclamation, a vast ocean of industrial run-off and effluent that spanned much of the world.

The loss of Salvation Isthmus, combined with the fall of Ryza Secundus, would be a potential fatal blow to the Loyalists for it would then only be a matter of time before a war of attrition would drain the Forge World's reserves, leading to the fall of its defenders.

Tepfra was not the only one to recognise the importance of Salvation Isthmus and even in times of peace the Titans of Legio Crucius ("Warmongers") had garrisoned the isthmus, a Titan Legion fortress constructed along the northern coast line. This fortress proved vital to the Loyalist defence, for it possessed numerous repair cradles that allowed the Warmongers to withdraw engines from the front line for repair, replacing them with reinforcements already tended to by the ministrations of the Titan Legion's tech-priests.

Combined with the narrowness of Salvation Isthmus, the superior numbers of the Traitors mattered little, grinding the conflict to a halt with neither side able to claim victory. Seeking to break the stalemate, Tepfra devised a new plan, sending the Flaming Skulls forwards to tie up the Warmongers upon Salvation Isthmus.

Meanwhile, the Gore Crows submerged themselves beneath the Sea of Reclamation, their Titans resistant to the heat and caustic nature of its contents. Though several engines of the Legio Vulturum were lost to the sea's hazards, enough emerged on the northern shore to present a viable threat to the Legio Crucius fortress.

If the fortress were to fall it all but guaranteed the conquest of Salvation Isthmus, with the Traitors able to descend upon its defenders from both sides. Though battered by days of war and unprepared for the sudden assault, the Warmongers engaged their foe, hoping to drive them back into the sea they had emerged from.

Death of Salvation[]

The loss of the Legio Crucius fortress was a devastating blow for the Loyalists and all but opened up the way for the Traitors to seize Salvation Isthmus. In many ways, the Traitors hoped the Legio Crucius would withdraw, sparing both sides from further conflict upon the isthmus, as what had been intended to be a quick victory had devolved into an extended mire of devastating warfare. In this hope, the Traitors were to be denied.

Led by Princeps Ultima Hendril, the handful of Legio Crucius Titans currently stationed on Salvation Isthmus watched as the Flaming Skulls they were engaged with withdrew, offering a moment of respite to the Loyalists, the first in many days.

Cautious at this new development, Hendril's fears were confirmed when reports reached him of the attack upon the Warmongers' fortress on the northern shore. Unable to support them without giving up ground to the Legio Magna, Hendril could only listen as those of his Legion fought and died against the Legio Vulturum, the fortress falling to the sudden assault.

A veteran of a standard century of warfare, Hendril knew that to retreat was to simply cede all he had fought for, manoeuvring his forces into the waiting Gore Crows no doubt already securing the northern edge of the isthmus. It was then that the princeps vowed to make a stand, knowing that to do so meant his death and the death of all beside him.

Contacting those of his Legion who had survived the fall of the fortress, he ordered them to retreat to the Ryzan capital city of Prosperity, gathering allied forces to stand against the Traitors before its walls. To his own battlegroup he relayed the grave news, their only option a final act of defiance against the Traitors who sought to poison their world.

It is a statement of much note to the spirit of the Legio Crucius that only those ordered to retreat objected, demanding they be allowed to stand with their princeps. Hendril's final order was to deny this, appointing them a new commander before forcing them to withdraw.

What followed was etched into the legacy of the Legio Crucius for eternity, Hendril and those under his command used as an example for newer princeps to understand what it meant to serve Ryza. As predicted, the Gore Crows did not pursue the retreating Warmongers, seeking instead to secure the isthmus.

As they advanced down its length from the north, the Legio Magna marched from the south, the two Traitor forces moving to crush their foe in an act of swift brutality. Once more they were to be denied for Hendril refused to go quietly, knowing that for every minute he stood was another minute the Traitors moved no further.

Surrounded and vastly outnumbered, the Warmongers screamed their hatred, voicing their anger through weapons that had toppled worlds and reminding the Traitors that even creatures as degenerate as they had something to fear.

Honour and Glory[]

The fall of Salvation Isthmus opened a path for the Traitors to assault all of Ryza. Splitting in two, the Traitor forces laid siege to both continents, still desiring to claim as much of the world intact as possible.

To the north, the Legio Magna embarked upon a campaign of brutal assaults, relying upon lightning attacks to overwhelm their foe before the Loyalists could regroup. This campaign achieved much success, splintering the forces of the Legio Honorum and the Legio Crucius that stood against them.

Their advance was halted at the forge city of Prosperity, where the two Loyalist Titan Legions met their foes before the city's walls and blunted their advance, momentarily throwing the Legio Magna back. This victory was to be short-lived, for dissent swept across Prosperity and malign powers were unleashed, all within consumed in a single night of bloodshed that left the city tainted, the Loyalist force abandoning it to their foe.

On the southern continent the war progressed differently, perpetrated as it was by the Legio Vulturum and a decad of Legio Mortis ("Death's Heads") Titans sent by the Warmaster Horus himself to assist the invasion. The Gore Crows practiced a far more methodical form of war than the Legio Magna, preferring to savour their kills as they ground all beneath their heel in merciless conquest.

As they moved further across the continent word reached Tsaue, the princeps magnus of the Legio Mortis, that the hierophant technis herself was located within the forge city of Endeavour, directing the Loyalist defences from there.

Desiring to sever the head of the Loyalist forces, Tsaue gathered his Legion within the shadow of Mount Causcaut, working in concert with House Morbidia to seize control of monitoring stations constructed atop the mountain and deny warning to Endeavour of the Traitors' advance.

From there, the Legio Mortis assailed the city, breaking the back of those few Legio Osedax ("The Cockatrices") Titans left as guardians. As maniples of Gore Crows moved to rendezvous with Tsaue and secure the city, Dark Mechanicum forces swarmed its streets, determined to find the hierophant technis and claim her head.

In the days following the fall of Endeavour, what Loyalist Titans were able moved to recapture the city. Few in number and drawn mostly from the Legio Osedax, they were faced with a wall of Titans standing atop the broken fortifications of the city.

Endeavour itself was surrounded by barren plains that offered little cover, ensuring any assault upon the city would be in full sight of the Traitors and, against such numbers, the Legio Osedax had little chance of survival, even with the assembled might of House Taranis and House Zavora by their side.

Torn between duty and pragmatism, the commanders of the Legio Osedax moved to debate their options, proposing a retreat and the appointment of a new leader. This course of action was not condoned by the Knights of House Taranis and Zavora, for they were loathe to see another world they protected burnt in the fires of the Warmaster's ambition.

As the sun rose on a new day, the Knight houses assembled and, as one, charged across the empty plain towards Endeavour, directly into the teeth of the Traitors' guns.

Few of the charging Knights survived but those that did broke the Traitor line, using the confines of the streets to even the odds and bring down superior foes. Outside of the city, the Legio Osedax moved into action, hoping their numbers could tip the battle in the Loyalists' favour and push the Traitors from the city.

Conveyance Terminus Nine-Omega[]

Following the recapture of Endeavour by the Loyalists, the Traitor forces upon the southern continent were thrown into disarray. The force of the Legio Mortis upon Ryza had fallen, Princeps Magnus Tsaue amongst them, while the Gore Crows were in full retreat, withdrawing before the wrath of the resurgent Loyalist forces.

To compound matters further, the hierophant technis ordered the opening of Ryza's war vaults, giving her allies full access to the deadly, and once forbidden, knowledge held within. The war entered a brief respite as the Traitors took stock of their losses and the Loyalists regrouped and rearmed.

When the defenders of Ryza marched out once more, they did so with weapons capable of sundering even a Titan with terrifying ease. Alongside them came a whole new force -- House Sidus, a Knight house previously unknown to the Imperium, consisting nearly exclusively of Questor Mechanicus Knights and kept hidden away beneath Endeavour until such time as they were needed. So assembled the Loyalists went on the offensive, hoping to throw back the Traitors before they too could regroup.

In this, the hierophant technis and her forces were too late for the Traitors, who had already issued a withdrawal, their forces on both continents falling back to Conveyance Terminus Nine-Omega. As they enacted new orders given to them by Yuritus Omicron, the leaders of the invasion force decreed that if Horus could not have Ryza then none could.

As the Loyalists gave chase to their hated enemy, they did so over the ashes of their home, its industry and infrastructure reduced to rubble and blackened ruins by the Traitors' vindictive actions. Incensed at the pointless destruction, the Loyalists vented their fury upon any stragglers they came across, ruthlessly purging any Traitor force that failed to outpace its pursuers.

It was at Conveyance Terminus Nine-Omega that the two forces were to meet in great numbers, the spaceport hosting the last battle of the invasion as it had the first. As the Loyalists had tried in vain to chase them down, the Traitors had moved to escape, their forces slowly returning to orbit destined for new warzones.

Around two-thirds of the surviving Traitors had been evacuated and those remaining upon Ryza when the Loyalists descended were left to their fate, none wishing to die alongside their allies.

Though most had escaped, the Loyalists contented themselves with punishing those Traitors that still remained, desiring nothing more than their obliteration, the surviving god-engines of all those Titan Legions upon the planet falling upon the spaceport.

Neither side offered quarter and none was asked; death was the sole outcome of this battle. When it was over, Ryza was once more free of the Traitors' taint, but at a high cost. Only a fifth of Ryza's forge cities remained intact in the aftermath of the assault.

WAAAGH! Grax[]

Forge Worlds Segmentum Ultima 1 — Adeptus Mechanicus stellar cartographic map of the Forge Worlds of the Segmentum Ultima, including the Forge World of Ryza.

Ryza has long been a formidable Forge World, said to be second in the Imperium only to Mars, the homeworld of the Cult Mechanicus. Ryza once fuelled the larger Imperial war effort, but since WAAAGH! Grax descended upon it in 925.M41, those days are long past.

Soon after, Ryza's tech-priests turned every solar second of the planet's industry to the business of survival alone. The greenskins made planetfall upon Ryza in the hundreds of millions. That number soared and dived with every solar hour of the conflict, defying even the ability of the magi logis to quantify it.

The Imperium met the greenskin assault with over twenty Astra Militarum regiments fighting alongside Skitarii macroclades, Legio Cybernetica war cohorts, even Titan Legions, yet the Orks attacked afresh with every new dawn.

The tech-priests of Ryza turned to more inventive measures: Virus Bombs rained down across the Obduras continent, laying low lesser greenskins by the million as hermetically sealed Kastelan-class Robot maniples thumped phosphor rounds into those Orks tough enough to survive.

GraxRyza2 — A battle on the surface of Ryza against the Orks at the height of WAAAGH! Grax in the late 41st Millennium.

Above the polar metropolises, Ork fighter craft were harried by Onager Dunecrawlers modified to crawl up the sheer hive city walls. Salvation teams reclaimed fallen god-machines, piecing them back together with ritual and supplicant incense even as Ork Mekaniaks resurrected their Gargants with little more than welding torches and foul language.

Upon Ryza it was not attrition that carried the day, but invention -- a quality the Adeptus Mechanicus often considered all but heretical.

The Orks eventually fell into disarray after forty standard years of fighting following the death of the Warlord Grax at the hands of the Warlord-class Titan Pugnus Vindictae. After the loss of their warlord the greenskins began to fight among themselves as each warboss jockeyed for position to lead the WAAAGH! in Grax's place, making it a simple task for the Mechanicus forces on Ryza to wipe them out.

Notable Events[]

The Dead of Ashkhelon (ca. 900s.M30) - This particular campaign was one of the few documented during the Space Wolves Legion's involvement in the latter stages of the Great Crusade, which was a relatively brief but extremely brutal affair which took place on the world of Ashkhelon III in a star system of the same name in the Ultima Segmentum, close by what is known as the Golgothan Expanse. Discovered by an Imperial Expeditionary Fleet of the Great Crusade, the people of Ashkhelon gratefully welcomed the Imperial emissaries and were rapidly brought into Imperial Compliance. A coterie of Magi from the Forge World of Ryza were despatched to the newly Compliant world. Over several solar decades, the Mechanicum Tech-priests helped Ashkhelon to become a working cog in the vast machine of the ever-expanding Imperium. But tragedy soon struck, when the Magi inadvertently awakened a long forgotten evil from the bygone era of Old Night. Before disappearing, a secret Mechanicum astropathic missive had been sent into the æther, which contained only the memetic symbol-forms for two words, translated to the common Imperial Gothic tongue as "Heretek Omega." In the parlance of the Omnissiah, this was a dire warning of having encountered a sin of the Dark Age of Technology; a human-made horror which could not be allowed to continue to exist. In response, the entire 11th Great Company of Jarl Varald Helsdawn was sent by Leman Russ, alongside a Mechanicum war-barque despatched from Mars by the Fabricator-General himself. The two forces descended to the surface of the planet, where they quickly discovered that despite the obvious signs of violence, there were no bodies whatsoever. But soon, the Imperial forces were beset upon by creatures from beneath the surface of the planet that were revealed to be no mere beasts of flesh and blood, but a mechanism, things of false life, neither servitor nor automata as the Imperium reckoned them. They were creatures akin to them, grown and spliced into frames of hydraulics and gears, and pulsing with unnatural life. While the battle raged upon the surface, several of the Space Wolves, alongside their Mechanicum allies, made their way into the darkness below. Here at last they discovered the fate of the dead of Ashkhelon, where they were stacked neatly in red-weeping alcoves by the tens of thousands, in vault after vault with no rhyme or reason other than that they had been placed there carefully. It was as the Space Wolves breached a final chamber that they encountered the foul presence of the thing that controlled the lesser creatures still attacking their forces upon the surface -- it was a Silica Animus, the blasphemy of a true, thinking machine-mind. Through the combined efforts of Ryza's Sicarian Ruststalkers and the Space Wolves, the Silica Animus' corporeal form was destroyed. Its machine-creatures, mere extensions of a single false life and inhuman will, then also perished, just as the body of a serpent dies when the head is struck off. The dead of Ashkhelon had been avenged, and a nightmare of ages past had been destroyed. From orbit, the two flagships of both the 11th Great Company, the Void Wyrm and the Mechanicum war-barque Axiom of Trinity, levelled every standing structure and hammered the sub-surface vaults into collapse. Ashkhelon was deemed a forbidden and Dead World to which humanity must never return.

An Imperial strategic map of the Ryza Warzone.

WAAAGH! Grax and the Battle of Ryza (925.M41) - The brutal juggernaut of WAAAGH! Grax spilled through the star systems of Ryza in 925.M41. Legions of Skitarii counterattacked alongside Catachan Jungle Fighters and liberated Humans who were once slaves of the greenskins. Word of the intense fighting also attracts WAAAGH! Rarguts, which breaks through the Imperial Navy cordon to invade Ryza for the third time since the conflict began. The fate of a string of star systems hinges upon the Forge World at their heart. In truth the tech-priests of Ryza welcomed the opportunity to see their creations in action first-hand. Ryza's Skitarii, alongside "The Warmongers" of the Legio Crucius and the Astra Militarum's Catachan regiments, took righteous pleasure in turning Ryza's most devastating weapons upon the foe. The Orks of WAAAGH!s Grax and Rarguts, always on the lookout for more dakka, did much the same. Every vault and warecrypt was raided, every gun reliquary broken open in furtherance of the war effort. Transdimensional beamers lit up the night, gatling Macrocannons roaed their fury, and writhing lava hoses spewed hot death into the streets. To set foot upon Ryza was to see a vision of war unbound -- and the violent industry of the Adeptus Mechanicus unleashed on a worldwide scale. The Ork invasion of Ryza became a gruelling war of attrition that lasted almost forty standard years. The Orks eventually fell into disarray and were finally wiped out following the death of Warlord Grax at the hands of the Warlord-class Titan Pugnus Vindictae.
Plague Wars (ca. 111.M42) - Following the fall of Cadia during the 13th Black Crusade, Warp Storms of a magnitude not seen since the Age of Strife wrack the galaxy. A great Warp rift tears the fabric of reality, forming from the Eye of Terror and stretching all the way to the Hadex Anomaly in the Eastern Fringe, effectively cutting the galaxy in two. Every Forge World is cut off from its Explorator fleets and, for a time, from each other. All suffer invasions and raids as emboldened xenos and Chaos forces test them, probing for weaknesses, eager to destroy the bastions of Mankind's empire. No fewer than seven Forge Worlds are destroyed altogether and several more remain missing, buried beneath fierce and impenetrable storms. At the urgent call of the newly awakened Ultramarines Primarch Roboute Guilliman, over a dozen Forge Worlds, including Mars, Ryza, Metalica, and Triplex Phall, send reinforcements to Ultramar. There they aid the Avenging Son's armies in defence and counterattack against Chaos Renegades and the Death Guard during the Plague Wars.

Geography[]

Continents of Ryza — A map of the continents of Ryza.

As attested to by the records of its first colonists during the Age of Strife, Ryza was once a world bountiful in life, two large continents separated by vast oceans brimming with biodiversity.

The millennia preceding the coming of the Imperium during the Great Crusade saw much change upon Ryza, the once-verdant landscapes replaced by barren plains stripped of life and occupied by expansive forge-fanes. Between the two continents was a sea no longer, the water boiled away by ceaseless industry and replaced with industrial run-off and effluent.

Though the two continents had changed little in size and shape they no longer stood isolated, for an extensive network of artificial isthmuses connected the two, each a vast highway offering easy access to all of Ryza.

Mag trains ran the length of these isthmuses without pause, carrying cargo between manufactoria with remarkable ease to ensure the industry of Ryza never went hungry.

These access routes were seen as a vital target for the Traitor invaders during the Defence of Ryza in the Horus Heresy, for claiming even a single one gave them unrestrained access to Ryza's continents, and it was for this reason that Salvation Isthmus was the Traitors' first target after planetfall was made.

Continent of Founding[]

The first of Ryza's continents to be settled, by the coming of the Imperium it was the least populous of the two for much of its resources had been plundered in the millennia following the colonisation of the planet. Despite this, the city of Prosperity, the first settlement built upon Ryza, still stood strong, directing the efforts of the entire northern continent towards the production of war materiel.

Within the walls of Prosperity itself, processing centres laboured day and night, assessing the quality of Ryza's products in search of imperfections; any that failed such checks were discarded, melted down and cast into the Sea of Reclamation for others to repurpose. In this way the lifeblood of Ryza flowed through Prosperity, just as it had once served as the foundation for all of Ryza's people.

Viewed from orbit, the city of Prosperity was a dense structure covering kilometres of the surface, tendrils of metal reaching outwards across the northern continent. Such tendrils were mag trains flowing through the city and the various manufactoria. The most travelled of links led to the Western Forges, where hundreds of cradles turned solely towards the engineering of war machines originally destined for the Great Crusade, including dozens dedicated to the production of the famed Stormblade super-heavy tank.

The coasts of the continent were dotted with reclamation manufactoria, their large, squat buildings the only viable route between the continental shelf and sea several hundreds of metres below through strategically vital lifts and ramps, while the structures themselves remained anchored to the seabed by vast pipes from which flowed the waste of Ryza's industry, left to rest until such time as a use for it was determined.

Further east sat Salvation Isthmus, the most important passageway between continents. Though many such highways linked the two landmasses, it was from Salvation Isthmus that the reclamation teams ventured outwards, dedicated Reclamator tech-priests scouring the desiccated seabed in search of anything of value that could be reclaimed and forged anew within the manufactoria.

In prominence, Salvation Isthmus was further secured by proximity to Conveyance Terminus Nine-Omega, the principal spaceport for both imports and exports on Ryza.

So vital was Salvation Isthmus that an artificial island was built alongside the northern coast, a handful of Legio Crucius Titans garrisoned within to ensure any threat could be met with lethal force.

Continent of Erudition[]

The more recently settled of the two continents, for it lay untouched for standard centuries following the colonisation of Ryza, it was upon the western edge of the southern continent that the ruling hierophant technis of Ryza housed their forge city.

Built in the shadow of the Fortress of Iron, a towering hollow mountain that served as the bastion of the Legio Crucius, its outskirts were occupied by dedicated spaceports and manufactoria turned over to servicing the needs of the Warmongers.

Further east sat the forge city of Endeavour, larger than that of Prosperity to the north. Where Prosperity served as a director of manufacturing and processing, Endeavour served as a repository of knowledge, for beneath the city lay archival catacombs containing the sum of Ryza's knowledge.

Deeper still sat the war vaults of Ryza, sealed by order of the Emperor after Ryza was brought into the Imperium for fear of what they contained. Known only to a few, it was also there that House Sidus made their home, engaged in simulations until such time that war called and their existence could be revealed.

Like that of its northern counterpart, much of the southern continent was given over to manufacturing, thousands of forge-fanes churning out instruments of war including integral components for the assembly of vessels destined for the Imperial fleets. Everything produced within these forges was ferried by mag train further east, fed to the warehouses of Conveyance Terminus Nine-Omega for export off-world.

Several kilometres of streets weaved their way through expansive storage facilities constructed around the spaceport. It was through Conveyance Terminus Nine-Omega that the majority of Ryza's traffic flowed and much effort was placed into its defence before the invasion, the surrounding land home to numerous orbital defences designed solely to deny landing to invaders.

Such precautions mattered little, for the tool of conquest was invited into the midst of Ryza long before the Traitors entertained notions of invasion, the Knights of the traitorous House Ioeden biding their time for three standard years before revealing their deception and seizing the spaceport.

Sea of Reclamation[]

The records of Ryza, supported by detailed soil analysis, suggests that much of the world's surface was once occupied by liquid water, the vast seas serving as a habitat for a manner of life similar to those once found on Terra before life evolved to sustain itself upon land.

Such oceans were long gone by the late 30th Millennium, replaced by a vast reservoir of effluent and industrial run-off known as the Sea of Reclamation. The exact composition of such a phenomenon was impossible to determine such was its complexity, for every by-product of Ryza's industry found its way to the sea's depths eventually.

In practical terms the sea served as a reservoir, heated by vast hydrothermal vents situated on the sea floor that, in conjunction with power stations across Ryza, ensured the effluent remained molten in nature. From Salvation Isthmus, fleets of tech-priests would sail out upon craft built for the sole purpose of collecting refuse.

Aided by servitors engineered against the harsh conditions, these teams would gather anything of value, cataloguing its properties and marking it for transportation to manufactoria across the surface of Ryza. In this manner, the industry of the world was sustained even in absence of external resources, ensuring Ryza stood self-sufficient regardless of strife.

The other purpose of the Sea of Reclamation was part experimental theory and part religious devotion. Believing the Omnissiah spoke to His followers in indirect ways, the Cult Mechanicus upon Ryza saw the Sea of Reclamation as a direct link to the Omnissiah. Within its depths innumerable chemical reactions would occur as the offcast elements of Ryza's industry interacted with each other in unexpected ways.

Over the millennia the results of these unexpected experiments were retrieved by the tech-priests who prowled the sea and lauded as gifts of the Omnissiah. It fell to the greatest minds of Ryza to unravel the mysteries of such gifts and the veracity of their claims leaves much to be desired.

For their part, the archives of Ryza claim that numerous innovations were made as a result of these findings, with one such record stating it was from the Sea of Reclamation that a serendipitous discovery within it enabled the successful construction of the first Stormblade super-heavy tank.

Furnace of Shackled Stars[]

Though the prosperity of Ryza was evident for all to see during the Great Crusade, history had not always been kind to the Forge World. Like many worlds of Humanity, Ryza was isolated from its peers during the Age of Strife, exposed to the foul horrors of the Warp and the bloodlust of xenos empires.

It was within Prosperity that the first colonists of Ryza sheltered, the forge city offering the sole protection against incursion and invasion. Though its people survived they did not prosper, centuries of warfare forestalling any hope of life unburdened by fear. As is oft the case in the most desperate times, the people of Ryza clung to faith, calling out to the Omnissiah in hope of deliverance. In a manner of speaking, their prayers were answered.

The exact founding date of the sect known as the Omnissiah Igvita, and the individuals who first preached its rites and beliefs, is not spoken of in the annals of Ryza. It is evident from current teachings that the sect, literally translated to "Life Blood of the Omnissiah" is held as the saviours of Ryza during its darkest hours.

Those tech-priests who first stood within its ranks espoused belief that the Omnissiah felt the pain of all His followers and His blood rained down upon the galaxy each time He was wounded. Unlike any other, the Omnissiah was the fire of knowledge and power, and it was not an ordinary substance that fell from His veins but the very plasma that formed the beating heart of His servants' technology.

Through this they could commune with their god, receiving the knowledge to save themselves from the terrors that faced them. As the sect grew, finding its place within the varied theologies of the Cult Mechanicus, it proved that its beliefs seemingly rang true, at least in the minds of its followers, by innovating the plasma technology upon Ryza, lending their efforts in throwing back the foes that assailed Ryza and establishing the Forge World as a formidable force.

By the time the Great Crusade reached Ryza, the Omnissiah Igvita proved an unshakable part of Ryza's essence, for members of the sect, tech-priests immersed in the study of plasma technology in all its forms, had brought much to the Forge World. Like all those of the ancient Mechanicum, the tech-priests of the Omnissiah Igvita modified their forms with augmetics, going so far as to replace their blood with plasma and installing miniature Plasma Reactors in place of their hearts.

Such was the sect's influence on Ryza that though its tech-priests held no desire to rule, believing they were the blood of Ryza rather than its brain, they remained ingrained in its political structure. Thus, when the first Imperial delegation walked upon the Forge World, the party that greeted them contained the greatest of the Omnissiah Igvita, leading one Imperial emissary to remark in her report on the people of Ryza, "Their passion burns hotter than a furnace...like many of their ilk they are esoteric and strange, none more so than those that have shackled the stars within their hearts."

Thus was born the title for Ryza of "The Furnace of Shackled Stars," an honorific that has held to this day.

At its core, such a title offered recognition of the superior knowledge and skill of the tech-priests of the Omnissiah Igvita. In the engineering and production of plasma technology, Ryza stood unrivalled, hoarding secrets as to its creation known to few outside their world.

Though many Forge Worlds bore the skill to craft the beating hearts that powered the Titans of the Collegia Titanica and the many vessels of the Great Crusade's expeditionary fleets, few dared conceive of improvements, fearful of the outcome should their experiments fail or else disabused of such notions by dogmatic values.

In this Ryza was unrepentant, for long had its magi laboured at their craft and numerous were their innovations. Indeed, much of the contribution the Forge World made to the Great Crusade took the form of plasma technology, supplying the Imperial Army with shipments of plasma weaponry and Leman Russ Executioner main battle tanks while the cradles of Ryza Secundus laboured without pause to upgrade the reactors of those expeditionary fleets that passed through the system.

Perhaps the greatest of their labours remained the development of the Stormblade, conceived as a way to overcome Mars' reluctance to share the secrets behind the construction of the Shadowsword. Originally the sole producer of such a weapon, the Stormblade became a potent form of leverage, its pattern ceded to lesser Forge Worlds in return for suitable compensation.

The knowledge Ryza possessed ensured a rapid rise to prominence within the Imperium, said to be second only to Mars in the influence it wielded. From such a position of power Ryza weaved a web of political alliances, offering patronage to others in return for their aid should the Forge World ever call.

This acquisition of allies only escalated during the Horus Heresy for Ryza's Hierophant Technis Nira Heldentun knew it was all but inevitable that war would come to Ryza. Though she claimed otherwise in the years following the Horus Heresy, it seems clear that her ambitions sat higher than mere survival and many claim Ryza sought the position of Mars within the Cult Mechanicus, motivated by a belief that the power of the Red Planet would be much diminished at the war's end.

The events that unfolded upon Ryza as the great civil war drew to a close rendered such speculation asinine, for Ryza suffered far more than Mars during its invasion and the Defence of Ryza and though it would rise once more to prominence in the Imperium in the years after the Heresy, few ever forgot how humbled it had been.

Ryza Secundus[]

Unlike Terra, Ryza possessed no moon in its orbit and instead turned to mechanical means to augment its control of nearspace; thus was born Ryza Secundus.

A vast void station constructed over a number of Terran centuries, Ryza Secundus was built both as a station for rearming and repairing space vessels and as Ryza's first line of defence, for the outer rings of the station boasted a fearsome array of weapons commonly found on the largest of Imperial ships, their strength augmented by debilitating plasma lattices that proved capable of ensnaring passing ships with deadly force.

The interior of the station was no less impressive, for its halls were cavernous, each cargo bay capable of hosting the personnel and supplies of all but the largest of Imperial expeditionary fleets.

A network of accessways linked the cargo bays, serviced by mag trains and large enough for three Knights of the Questoris Familia to walk abreast.

It was within these halls that the first battles for Ryza were to be fought, for whoever controlled the station could lay claim to Ryza's orbit, its gun batteries and repair cradles a significant advantage to any seeking to conquer the Ultima Segmentum.

Notable Ryzan Personnel[]

Hierophant Technis Nira Heldentun - Nira Heldentun was the hierophant technis, or high priest, of the Cult Mechanicus on Ryza and the world's planetary governor. She essentially served the same role as that of the fabricator-general on other Forge Worlds.
Archno-warmonger Eyrotellamax - A great hero of Ryza, this tech-priest led his armies against the xenos pirates that plagued their system. Willowy aliens fleeing the death of their empire, the pirates had become a terrible thorn in the side of Ryza. On vast artificial worlds and cold, airless lunar outposts the formidable Dhul X Cyberkastel Cohort, consisting of twenty-four Kastelan Robots, eliminated its designated targets in crackling blasts of phosphor and storms of flesh-withering flame. Eyrotellamax eventually met his end in the jaws of an enraged rift-wyrm.
Xenophagest Hexterramere Vorght - Hexterramere Vorght is a vastly intelligent and dedicated Tech-priest Dominus of Ryza, who has become driven with the obsession to discover "Orkadia" -- the original Ork homeworld and foundation of the entire greenskin species. Since Ryza has become enmeshed in a deadly war of attrition which has fed entire cohorts of Skitarii and servitors into the meatgrinder of Ryza's hellish battlefields, the tech-priests of this Forge World desperately delved into the the depths of their world's logis vaults and cogitator-crypts seeking ancient and forbidden secrets to defeat the rampaging greenskin invaders. Xenophagest Vorght believes that the answer to the Orkoid question resides not within the crumbling data-structures of their Forge World, but hidden out among the stars. Vorght has taken these ideas to an altogether more extreme level, for he believes that somewhere in the void lies the origins of the genetic foundation of the entire Ork species. Vorght does not want to merely defeat the Orks on Ryza -- he plans to destroy all Orks, forever.

Forge World Protocols[]

Red in Cog and Claw[]

Tech-priests of Ryza point to aggressive combat doctrines and zealous training protocols to explain the exceptional hand-to-hand prowess of their troops.

Skeptics, however, counter that such designs do not explain why Ryzan troops seem to revel in close-quarters violence.

Ryza Forces Appearance[]

Ryza Iconography[]

The illuminated "R" of Ryza is borne proudly by its warriors. This icon incorporates the skull and cog of Mars, a nod towards Ryza's ancestry.

Ryza Forge World Colours[]

Ryza's Skitarii Legion has a proud history and a reputation for unshakeable faith. As with many Forge Worlds, Ryza's Skitarii often bear purity seals of blood-wax and parchment to signify their freedom from harmful scrapcode. The ochre armour plates and robes worn by Ryza's Skitarii are the same hue as the immense rust dunes that bestrew the planet. The interior of these robes are deep red in memory of the blood that has been spilt there over the millennia. The Tech-priests Dominus of Ryza dress in an ochre hue that represents the ever-shifting rust dunes of their arid and lifeless Forge World.

Seniority within the priesthood of Ryza is indicated by the use of crimson on robes and armour -- the more red a Tech-priest wears, the more superior he is considered to be. Red also features sparingly on the warriors of Ryza, often appearing on the lining of robes, or on components of war machines.

Copper is used as an embellishment, particularly on weapons like the Fulgurites' electroleech staves, or mechanical adornments like the Tech-priest's mechadendrite harness.

Though the Legio Cybernetica of Ryza displays many thousands of variations in heraldry, all its robots bear combinations of ochre, deep red, silver and black. Each maniple's distribution of colour is echoed by the uniform of its assigned Cybernetica Datasmiths.

Manufactoria Capabilities[]

Ryza is renowned for the manufacture of Plasma Reactor and magnetic containment field technology. The arts and technological sophistication of this Forge World is claimed by some to be second only to that of Mars itself.

It is then unsurprising that the Legio Crucius, whose associations with Ryza are said to predate the Great Crusade, is renowned as one of the most well-equipped Titan Legions in Imperial service, and sufficient in number to provide garrison forces for several smaller outlying Forge Worlds and Adeptus Mechanicus outposts whose Magi maintain fealty or alliance to Ryza and its masters.

Ryza is also famed for its manufacture of other plasma-based technologies and the complex art required to produce the magnetic containment fields that are an integral part of any plasma-using device. The Leman Russ Executioner main battle tank armed with its plasma-based Executioner Plasma Destroyer is manufactured exclusively on Ryza.

It is said that Ryza's own Skitarii regiments are almost completely equipped with these rare armoured vehicles. The Stormblade super-heavy tank is also produced on Ryza, which was the first Forge World to begin to manufacture that pattern of tank for the ancient Space Marine Legions and then the Astra Militarum after the Horus Heresy.

At the height of their technical sophistication during the Great Crusade, the majority of Plasma Blastguns utilised on Legiones Astartes Stormblade super-heavy tanks were wrought upon Ryza, whose lords were known as the undisputed masters of this particular strand of machine lore. When the weapon fired, a roiling, barely contained bolt of raw plasma as bright as a sun was unleashed.

All but the strongest of armour was reduced to slag by such an attack and it could defeat even Titan-grade Void Shields with relative ease. During this era, Ryza was also known for manufacturing the formidable Solar-Ryza Pattern Leman Russ Tank.

The Solar Auxilia made extensive use of armoured vehicles enhanced to the "Solar" specification. These Leman Russ Tanks possessed an extensive array of equipment that allowed them to operate in the most hazardous of environmental conditions.

Sources[]

Adeptus Titanicus: The Defence of Ryza (Specialty Game), pp. 6, 8-9, 22-27, 70, 72, 74, 76, 78, 80
Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus (8th Edition), pp. 12, 21, 34-35, 50, 64, 95, 97-98, 101
Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus - Cult Mechanicus (7th Edition), pp. 29, 100-102, 104, 106
Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus - Skitarii (7th Edition), pp. 34, 38, 98-104
Codex: Imperial Guard (5th Edition), pp. 22, 27
Cult Mechanicus Painting Guide - Crusaders of the Machine God (Painting Guide), pp. 18-31
Dark Heresy: Purge the Unclean (RPG), pg. 140
Imperial Armour - Imperial Vehicles for Warhammer 40,000, pg. 16
Imperial Armour Volume One - Imperial Guard & Imperial Navy, pp. 8, 16, 61-62, 99, 101
The Horus Heresy - Book Three: Extermination (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pg. 242
The Horus Heresy - Book Four: Conquest (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pp. 89, 147
The Horus Heresy - Book Seven: Inferno (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pp. 88-91
Warhammer 40,000: Rulebook (8th Edition), pg. 73
Warhammer 40,000: Rulebook (6th Edition), pg. 202
White Dwarf 390 (UK), "The Battle for Cardrim," pg. 30
White Dwarf 454 (May/June 2020), "Index Xenos - Goff Orks," pg. 20