The Koronus Expanse

Treasure, Death and the Unknown

 An Unspoiled Land

Past the station of Port Wander and through a curtain of storms made passable by the Maw is an uncharted, little understood region of space to the galactic north of Holy Terra. It lies beyond the political intrigue of the Calixis Sector, dwelling amid the heathens and rapacious Xenos of the Halo Stars. Wherein forgotten civilisations, heretical faiths and the ignorant masses tread upon the bones and wreckage of arcane technologies and mankind’s inexorable advance across the heavens.

This place is known by many names, but to the bold, it is the Koronus Expanse—home.

If the Calixis Sector, the expanse’s neighbor, is said to be a shadowy den of inequity that had gone untouched by the God-Emperor’s glorious crusade in aeons past, then the Koronus Expanse is the part of the map you slapped a monster onto to emphasize danger. A metaphor most fitting given the perennially shifting nature of the eddies that awash the reality of this accursed region. Worse still are the marauders from without that threaten the sanctity of human worlds, yet the spiritual decay of pirates and worse remains an ever more pressing concern. Each of which is further exacerbated by the unimaginable treasures awaiting for those bold few willing to risk the region’s boundless hazards to stamp their legacy upon a place where the Emperor’s light is dim and the militant arms of His holiest crusades seldom wander.

Nowhere in the galaxy is a place so synonymous with Rogue Traders.

 Unlike Any Other

The expanse lies coreward from the Calixis Sector and can be reached through the Koronus Expanse, colloquially known as the Maw for the fact it is a tear amid the storm field that separates the Calixis from the Koronus proper. Despite this hard divide between the two, though, Imperial cartographers consider the expanse to be but another part of the Calixis Sector itself. To help wayfarers navigate this twisted expanse of void and empyreal eddies, void stations positioned along the passage are oft used during voyages to and from the expanse, each forming a long string thence known as the Stations of Passage. Yet it is the vast reaches of the expanse proper that instill in many a profound sense of dread and longing.

Entrance into the Koronus Expanse proper will bring weary travelers to Footfall station, one of the few truly neutral territories that manages to stand whatever trials may come in this dark forest. Pirates and Imperial officials find safe harbor here. And anyone who fancies themselves a merchant or cutthroat might find work or endeavors to earn their fortune within this place.

Past Footfall, dynastic borders partition entire swathes of the expanse in imperialistic domains who, on paper at least, owe their greater fealties to the Imperium of Man. Each is a minor kingdom or fiefdome trying their damndest to eke out an existence. But the greatest of these nations are the families of Winterscale, Chorda and von Valancius. Each plays a dangerous and endless game of political jockeying, vying for resources while trying to take out what they can from their rivals without them noticing. 

Yet it is what lies within, without and beyond these fiefdomes that offer death and fortune in equal measure.

Native inhabitants, both human and alien, that have never known the light of the God-Emperor exist with their tribal fetishes and fetid societies. They are harried by pirates and Xenos marauders, Aeldari and Orks being the least of them. Vast reaches of the void are where horrors beyond recounting abscond when they have glutted themselves upon mortal men and women, as well as planets that hold untapped resources and rarities that are worth their weight in gold.

From the Accursed Demense, the Cinerus Malefictum and Heathen Stars to the Unbeholden Reaches, Rifts of Hecaton and Ragged Worlds. These name but a few of the places to explore, discover and conquer.

Dangers Abound

Now more than ever before, in an era of wolves, the scions of grand dynasties must cut out a future amid the ever-twisting tangle of fate that has descended upon the Koronus Expanse. For in its tumult, the Maw has slammed shut and left those eeking out a living within the expanse to the tender mercies of marauders and pirates alike. Thereby leaving only the daring and the damned to make what they will out of the ensuing chaos of a sector cut off from the wider Imperium.

You are among their number, the heir apparent of the von Valancius dynasty, blood relative to the great and mighty Theodora von Valancius.

There are untold horrors that dwell within the great, uncharted expanse of space but so too is there treasure uncounted. Wealth and opportunity beyond imagining. However, they are not something the meek or inept could ever hope to claim. Aliens and traitors alike stalk these stars, each perpetrating their own machinations that ever aim to tear the Imperium down from its perch. It takes someone above even high calibre supplicants of His indelible might to find a future worth pursuing in such a time. But whether or not you can measure up even to the likes of your predecessor is yet to be seen.

Do not disappoint your dynasty, Lord Captain.