Koronus Passage: The Maw

[The Hive Mind]

Koronus Passage: "The Maw"
"It is a beast that swallows the apostate, the doubter, and all who ship with them. Better to slay the unfaithful than risk the dread Maw whilst such false wretches draw breath."
—Opening lines of the Voidfarer's Warning from the Drusian Play

The Koronus Passage is a stable but dangerous Warp route that passes through the Great Warp Storms separating the Calixis Sector from the Koronus Expanse. The Koronus Passage was discovered by a Magos-Explorator of the Adeptus Mechanicus in the distant past, lost for millennia, and found once more by the Rogue Trader Purity Lathimon at the very close of the 40th Millennium. The Passage links Port Wander and the Drusus Marches to the great star Furibundus and the Imperial void colony of Footfall -- and beyond Footfall, the mysteries of the Koronus Expanse beckon.

Superstitious voidfarers call the route “the Maw.” To their eyes the Maw is a beast made of warp storms, cunning and malicious, whose crushing gullet must be braved by those who seek to break through to the Koronus Expanse beyond. Many have died in trying, and traversing the Maw remains harrowing despite centuries of experience gathered by Navigators and Rogue Traders. Some say this ill-omened title came from the first to survive the crossing -- and that they returned wild-eyed, at the edge of sanity, and few journeyed to the voids again.

The possibilities of a passage through the Great Warp Storms were first recorded by Abenicus, insane Navigator of House Benetek, and have gripped the hearts and minds of Rogue Traders ever since that time. Vast riches and a way through the Great Warp Storms were once a lure to the brave and foolhardy, and many died for pursuing what they believed to be the truth. In time, cautious steps into what would be called the Maw laid the groundwork for the Stations of Passage that guided steps of those passing through the Maw. Later, during the Mistaken Age of the early 41st Millennium, Navigators learned to read the Maw and its moods -- to see signs in the Warp for what they were and so avoid the sudden, sweeping maelstroms that doomed earlier explorers. The Stations of Passage fell into disuse, save as refuges from unexpected upheaval in the Empyrean, and as covert rendezvous points for plotting Rogue Traders.

In the present times the Maw is a rite of passage for Rogue Traders of the Calixis Sector. A Lord-Captain may bear the greatest Warrant of Trade ever seen in Port Wander, but until he harrows the Maw and survives to see the raging light of Furibundus at its farthest end, he is no better than a common Free Trader in the eyes of his peers.

Stations of Passage
The Stations of Passage are locations within realspace at which voidships can safely drop from the Warp while navigating the Maw. Rogue Traders religiously avoided certain Stations, and some still retain an ill reputation. Many of the Stations are clear voids, howling streams of energised gas, or the outskirts of dead systems. Others are more intriguing, however.

The Temple
The Temple is a dead star system at the very outskirts of the Great Warp Storms, a short Warp jump from Port Wander. It is a strangely symmetrical, almost artificial system of perfectly spherical rocks several hundred meters in diameter orbiting a sun that is a cinder of dense matter. Nothing else exists -- no dust, gas-streams, or worlds. The Temple is so named either because of a long association in voidfarer myth with the Temple card of the Sybillan Emperor’s Tarot. The card signifies the commencement of a blessed endeavour but also the passing out of the realm of the sanctuary of the known.

The Witch-Cursed World
The Witch-Cursed World is a large rocky rogue planet set alone without a star to orbit in the deep void like a bauble discarded by the whim of a god, its atmosphere frozen to glaciers upon its surface. Whether it is an exile from its former star system or was formed within the lightless void is unknown. No crew will stand for a long stay in these voids -- it is an ill-omened place.

The Battleground
Legend has it that the Battleground was an ancient wreckage field even before the Rogue Traders Trame and Ettimus Lathimon fought here to mutual destruction over the Ragged Worlds. A vast span of debris swirls slowly under dim starlight, most of it Imperial, spread across the empty void. Every crew has a dozen tales as to what happened here long before Rogue Traders traversed the Maw.

The Hermitage
In the midst of the Mistaken Age, a tiny Adeptus Ministorum sect paid vast sums for Trame Lathimon to carry them and their void station Hermitage out into the Halo Stars. Lathimon cast the hermits forth from his holds at the Conclave, a station then known for the frequency with which vessels met to trade for rumours of what lay beyond. The outer reaches of the Hermitage have crumbled and opened to the void, but a few hermits still come to dwell here. Rogue Traders have long left ciphered messages at the Hermitage for their allies, hidden at prearranged points within the void station. The richly decorated central transept is sometimes used as a neutral zone for clandestine trade, the parties standing before a bluestone altar, platinum Aquila, and perfectly preserved banners depicting the victories of Saint Drusus.