A Guide to the Farpoint Sector: New Viridia

Hi!

As I have today off, I thought I would start laying some groundwork for my Farpoint campaign and also give me some inspiration for my Catachans too so without further ado, heres a brief guide to the lush jungle world of New Viridia:

Situated within one jump of the sectors capital of Farpoint, the lush jungle world of New Viridia is in stark contrast to the desert planet that is the seat of government. Approximately twice the diameter of Terra, New Viridia teems with life, both in its steaming equatorial forests and its mighty oceans. 

With a gravity of 1.1 Earth Standard, it was classed as a high priority planet for colonisation as it is both rich in resources and uninhabited, at least according to the initial survey team which scanned the planet back in the 40th millennium. New Viridia was promptly forgotten about during the great rebuilding of the Imperium but approximately a century ago, the Viridian Corporation successfully petitioned the Emperor Corvax, the current Empresses father, for colonisation rights.

The Viridian Corporation are experts in settling and and exploiting the wealth of heavily forested worlds and even Deathworlds and were seen as the perfect choice to bring this new world into the fold of the Imperium. A Viridia Corp exploration team duly set forth and landed on the new world and found it rich in vegetable and animal life while the outer system had an abundance of mineral wealth in its asteroid field.

Within a decade settlers had built the first solar city, named Arborea. Following Corporation tradition, the mighty pyramid structures that formed Viridian buildings were incorporated into the forest with the minimum of destruction while the huge solar arrays that sheathed them supplied the city with almost all the energy it needed. 

Things seemed rosy for the Viridian Corporation as weath started pouring in from its exports from the planet. The great reptiles that inhabited the jungles provided meat, fisheries situated on vast floating platforms in the oceans reaped vast shoals of fish for the ever hungry Imperium and the dizzying array of plants in the jungles promised new potential for drugs and medicines of all manner.

Then disaster struck. A survey team, exploring the deep hinterlands of the main continent on New Viridia reported finding the remains of a vast spaceship buried in the jungle. Before further information could be reported, all communication was lost with the team. A rescue team was dispatched and were greeted by a very unexpected sight. Upon landing at the last known coordinates of the missing team they were set upon by a tide of green skinned savages and the fate of the missing team was explained. Orks were present on New Viridia. 

The rescue team retreated from the savages and managed to get back to Arborea but it was as if a dam had been broken. Reports began flooding in from logging camps, exploration teams and outlying settlements, they were all under attack from greenskins. 

It has since become clear that the Orks had crash landed a hulk on the planet at some time in the past. Losing all trace of civilisation and technology, the Orks reverted to savagery but held onto the primitive belief that the ruins of their hulk were sacred ground. They had been aware of the humans arrival on New Viridia but had avoided contact until they entered the sacred groves that were taboo.

The ensuing conflict raged for over a month as outlying settlements and camps were over run or hastily abandoned. Not willing to lose such a fertile world, or worse yet seem weak in front of the Empress, the Viridian Corporation fought a desperate struggle with the Orks that finally held them at the very outskirts of Arborea. Thousands died on both sides of the conflict but the turning point came when the board of directors of the Viridian Corporation sent in its trump card, the Catachan Jungle Fighters. 

Born and raised on the Deathworld of Catachan, the inhabitants of this world are experts in survival who have taken all the planet has to throw at them and lived to tell the tale. Catachan is another Viridian Corporation holding and they quickly dispatched two brigades of troops to bolster the defences of their new holding. Having spent billions of Imperial Credits setting up the colony and aware that it could potentially generate trillions more, the Corporation was damned if it was going to let a bunch of indig savages ruin it for them.

The Catachans arrived just in time, deploying from their landers at the spaceport and straight into battle and slowly the Orkish incursion was driven back from the city and eventually most of the lost settlements. That was fifty years ago and even now the Orks, or Indigs as they are known locally continue to raid out of their reservations and harass human settlers and it is almost unheard of for any citizen of the planet to be seen unarmed as the Orks have been known to attack Arborea itself.

The Catachan brigades continue to serve the people of New Viridia and the grizzled veterans of the Arborea campaign are now respected citizens of the world they helped save and their children have replaced them and their original force has now grown to full regimental strength.

While the Orkish threat has abated to raiding, rumour of the rise of a new warlord has filtered back from the hinterlands and patrols are being dispatched to fortify forward positions as the military consider it only a matter of time before this new warlord unites enough of the savage tribes to try to once again throw the human settlers off world. To make matters worse, a pack of the super predators known as Growlers has been spotted on several occasions operating alongside the Orks and it is surmised that somehow the Orks have tapped into the beasts packmind which could prove a deadly new threat.

The Imperium doesn't really care about such problems as long as it gets its tribute from the Viridian Corporation but the new Governor General of Farpoint, Laars Van Dorn has dispatched an investigation team to the planet to investigate rumours of lost tech, possibly of Eldar design having been glimpsed in the Orkish territories.

The deposed Governor, Alexandr Vosk also has agents in the system operating in the underworld rackets that thrive in the seedier parts of Arborea and run protection rackets and drugs dens in the slum districts and mining camps that dot the planet. No doubt he will be using these agents to strike at his hated archenemy in hopes of regaining his position.

Hopefully that sets the scene a bit for a skirmish setting in a lush, jungle world! I am going to be making some scenics alongside my Catachans and also need to get some savage Orks to fight against at some point and am currently pondering the possibility of using the GW plastic savage Orks as they have the look I am going for...

All the best!