Unbeholden Reaches

[The Hive Mind]

Unbeholden Reaches
"So as these realms of stars are, so once were all realms that are now counted amongst the Imperium of Man: rich with the fear and darkness, and rank with the smell of secrets that belong to the dead."
—attributed to Rogue Trader Solomon Haarlock

Beyond the larger nebulae of the Koronus Expanse are regions visited only by the silent Disciples of Thule and few others. Tales are told of ghost-vessels, beauteous but deserted worlds, dust-nebulae that claim the souls of the damned and forsaken -- and of course, wealth beyond measure, awaiting the courageous Rogue Traders who will claim it.

Concanid
"Any who set out on a course from the ravings of prophets and witches are already lost, and any who voyage with them are fools."
—Vilius Hope, voidsman

Concanid is a distant unvisited star that through association with the dying words of a psyker has become a place that both beckons and repels explorers. In 633.M41, an Astropath in Footfall was driven to madness and slow death by terrible visions. Before he died, the Astropath spoke of “dark worms beneath a green-eyed star,” the “sea of molten gold,” and other half-named terrors. Some savants of the arcane suppose the star Concanid in the distant Unbeholden Reaches to be the “green-eyed star.” Concanid regularly flares green for reasons unknown to Tech-priests of the Divine Astrometricum, who toil endlessly to record such celestial events in minute detail. The star remains unvisited, and the full testament of the dying astropath now decays within a few private collections of esoteric works.

Illisk
"Lies, all of it...especially those portions as ring true in the heart when first heard. This is the liar’s craft displayed, and so undone. That is my judgment upon these so-called Thulean secrets."
—Astigos of Far Prol, Seneschal to Morthus Winterscale

The Disciples of Thule possess records that speak of a strange machine world deep in the Koronus Expanse: hidden cogitation arrays are packed beneath every part of its crust in huge vaults descending to the very limits of geoauspex probes. The surface is swept by tumultuous storms and rendered barren by ancient strip mining. Huge towers vent geothermic heat through vast shafts into the turbulent atmosphere, the heat driving frenzied storm belts of churning clouds. Ten citadels project from the crust, each massive as a hive, echoing and empty but for the whispering dust of xenos dead. Corridors tens of kilometres long are crowded with niches in which dried xenos corpses remain, their desiccated flesh still punctured by filaments that link into the vast machines.

Orn
"Though I walk amongst beasts and feel their claws, may the Emperor hear my prayer and let me pass unharmed."
—from the Canticle of Passage of Saint Drusus

The only knowledge that Mankind has of Orn is from the Disciples of Thule, who were drawn to the tangle-forests of Orn by the emanations from a dormant Warp-Drive within a half-buried xenos starship. There the Explorators discovered a warlike, near-feral xenos breed using the strange vessel as a form of township or nest. The xenos wielded tech-devices as though relics, and hunted, tore apart, and consumed surveyor Servitors dropped from orbit. The Thuleans marked the world with the rune of intransigence, declared it anathema to Mankind, and moved onward in their quest.