Chaos Victory on Drenthal

Drenthal has been claimed in the name of the Ruinous Powers. Oceans turn blood-red as butchered corpses bob and float upon the surging tide, while Daemon-forged drakes whirl and screech overhead.

Smoking wreckage fell across Drenthal’s endless oceans like a meteor shower as the armies of Mankind sought to scour the legions of Chaos from the face of the planet. The enormous seasteads were aflame, ignited by daemonic fire and hammered relentlessly by traitor artillery. The virulent plagues of the Death Guard spread with horrifying speed amongst the remaining civilians. Imperial High Command swiftly came to a grim realisation – Drenthal could not be saved. Instead, it must be denied to Chaos. By overcharging the titanic fusion drill housed at Terebral Station Sigma, the Imperials would unleash a tectonic catastrophe upon their hated foes.

As the brutal fighting escalated in the cramped alleyways of floating hive cities, warriors splashed though tides of bilge water and spilt blood, past bloated corpses and shimmering promethium slicks. The sense of havoc and confusion was only exacerbated by the actions of a hidden cult of xenos-worshipping traitors that had long lain dormant amidst the vore-whale tanneries and promethium refineries of Drenthal. Forced to the surface by the war erupting all about them, these mutant killers slipped from sewer access hatches and bilge tunnels to fall upon any intruders, striking with swift and deadly force before retreating to their hidden lairs with purloined weapons and ammunition. Rumour spread of even worse horrors that crawled out of dark hiding holes to snatch away unsuspecting soldiers, dragging them screaming into the pitch blackness of the underwarrens.

The battle also raged across Drenthal’s scattered island archipelagos. Bikes and speeders roared across treacherous coral-dunes, the air echoing to the ceaseless chatter of pintle-mounted bolters. As vicious as the ground war had become, the battle in the air was just as deadly. The full might of the Aeronautica Imperialis was unleashed upon the Chaos invaders, and vast wings of Stormravens and Valkyries met with flying Daemon Engines in a murderous storm of flak-bursts and blossoming explosions.

At Terebral Station Sigma, the forces of Chaos launched furious assaults against the Imperial occupiers, while enginseers tried in vain to enact the machine-rituals necessary to sabotage the fusion drill, chanting desperate prayers to the Omnissiah as they worked. It was too late even for such desperate measures. A cabal of Chaos Sorcerers channelled the aura of savagery and carnage rippling across Drenthal, and tore open a wound in reality, spilling Daemons into the cavernous drill chamber. In an orgy of bloodshed, the enginseer work crews were slaughtered, and the destruction of Drenthal averted. The ocean world would make a fine staging point for the ongoing assault upon Ultramar.