Jericho Reach

Welcome to the Eastern Fringe


“It is born of blood and darkness and to blood and darkness it shall return.”
–Words spoken during a reading of the Emperor’s Tarot at the outset of the Achilus Crusade


The Jericho Reach lies far on the Eastern Fringe of the Imperium, a place that has been all but forgotten but now lies at the center of an Imperial Crusade to reconquer its territory...for within the Jericho Reach lies a singular prize; an ancient and mysterious warp gate that links it to the other side of the galaxy.

Overview

The Jericho Reach is located in Ultima Segmentum at the borders of the Imperium. At its center lies the Hadex Anomaly, within which several Daemon Worlds exist. The Jericho Reach is connected to the Koronus Expanse in Segmentum Obscurus through the Jericho-Maw warp gate.

Position in the Galaxy : Sits close to the Eastern Fringe in the Ultima Segmentum. 

History

The Jericho Reach used to be called the Jericho Sector, before years of neglect from the Imperium left the Sector to fall into decay and eventually into the hands of Chaos. For thousands of years Chaos has been left to fester in the once rich Imperial worlds, watched only by silent posts manned by the Deathwatch.

• Before the Fall of Night:

Though the Jericho Reach is now an open wound of bloodshed, infected with the lies of false gods and the presence of aliens, it was not always like this. The area of space now known as the Jericho Reach was brought within the Imperium of Mankind during the Great Crusade waged by the Emperor and his Space Marine Legions over ten millennia ago. Though few details of its founding exist, it is known to have been an exceptionally bloody campaign, and the subsequent events of the Horus Heresy and the painful aftermath of civil war caused further devastation to its worlds. In the millennia that followed, untamed worlds and xenos-domains were obliterated, and the Jericho Sector was built as a bastion of Imperial might and majesty carved from the cold wilderness of space and colonized by a powerful and expansive Imperium. Worlds were raised from rubble and ashes to industrial power-houses, populations grew prosperous, and with them, the importance and splendor of the Jericho Sector increased. Order predominated, and the wounds of the past became scabbed over with piety and the surety of stability. From the highest obsidian spires of the world-hives of Verronus to the glittering glass shrines of sainted Eleusis, the dominion of the God-Emperor ran uninterrupted across a hundred worlds. Though wars and lesser disasters would come and go like passing storms, the Jericho Sector remained a paragon of Imperial order and strength for many millennia, until quite abruptly, all was lost; utterly relinquished to the darkness and bloodshed from which it had been raised.

• The Age of Shadow:

The Jericho Sector’s Age of Shadow did not begin overnight, but rather was a slow, subtle slide into chaotic anarchy and barbarism. Many of the Imperium’s most learned scholars acknowledge the beginning of the Age of Shadow to have occurred during the Imperium’s own Age of Apostasy – an era of insularity and civil war that hit every system controlled by man. The same scholars cite a mysterious increase in difficulty in sending and receiving Astropathic messages as the true cause of the Sector’s corruption. Coupled with sudden and violent warpstorms that sprang up to block both trade and military reinforcements from reaching the Sector, the foundations for failure were laid.

Cut off from the greater Imperium, a corrosive sense of dread and isolation spread amongst the Sector’s populations. One by one, the planets once firmly in control of the Imperium fell into darkness. Some, such as the Sector’s capital of Verronus, succumbed to its own rot and decay, crumbling in upon itself like a rusted hulk. Others waged war upon their neighbors, knowing full well the Imperium would not and could not reach them to enact vengeance. Still more heard the whispered promises of the Dark Gods and collapsed under the weight of warfare or hedonism. Within a single generation, most of the Sector had fallen into anarchy. What few Imperial forces that remained in the surrounding space were consumed by those that turned from the Emperor’s light, or fled into the warp, never to be heard from again.

The Age of Shadow lasted five long millennia, and now, amidst the culling sword of the Achilus Crusade, few details of this time are known. Even the Deathwatch, present for the rise and fall of the Sector, recorded very little for their eyes were trained elsewhere in anticipation of a more ancient and sinister threat.

During the thirty-seventh millenium, the High Lords of Terra declared that the Jericho Sector, along with many others were no more a part of the Imperium until Crusades could once again bring them back into the fold. The region formerly known as the Jericho Sector was renamed the Jericho Reach.

• Recent history:

The discovery and subsequent opening of the Jericho-Maw Warp Gate at the edge of the Calixis Sector has once again ignited the Imperium’s interest in the distant Jericho Reach. Indeed, once the Warp Gate was tested, it took the Imperium little time to launch a Crusade to reclaim what was once firmly the domain of humanity. Now, the Reach is once again embroiled in a Sector-wide war as reinforcements from the distant Calixis Sector pour through the gate to feed the meat-grinder.

Few systems have been claimed, despite the heavy losses of the Achilus Crusade. Meanwhile, the Deathwatch lingers as it has for millennia, watching the Reach and waiting to meet what could be humanity’s greatest threat

Present day

        The Jericho Reach is a region of space long lost by Humanity. It has succumbed to darkness and barbarity, become infested by xenos, and is tainted by the Ruinous Powers. Laying close to the Galactic Eastern Fringe, the area known as the Jericho Reach was part of the Imperium in ancient days, and remained so for many millennia until it fell into an age of isolation, disintegration, and evil. One particularly significant discovery changed the region’s status: it contains a Warp Gate that connects two far-flung edges of the galaxy. Now, the Imperium once again dreams of making the Jericho Reach its own, but its attempted re-conquest has quickly become mired in blood and its hopes have turned into nightmares.  


      The Achilus Crusade is a war of re-conquest fought on three fronts. It is a savage war waged with every weapon that the Imperium possesses, and its commanders have sworn that it will not fail. In spite of such oaths, the Achilus Crusade may come to ruin. The Tau Empire has cast their desiring eye over the worlds and resources of the Reach and move with all force to make it their own. On worlds long forsaken by the Imperium, the slaves of the Dark Gods of Chaos reign and at the Reach’s heart, unsuspected at the Crusade’s outset, they have created a blasphemous domain ruled over by Daemon Princes and Chaos Lords, where the quixotic laws of the warp rather than those of fragile reality now hold sway. Perhaps even worse, from the depths of the untamed void the Great Devourer has risen; the Tyranids who would consume all within the Jericho Reach and leave nothing but carcass worlds spread amongst the ancient stars.

        While the war between the forces of the Achilus Crusade and its many enemies rages, others with agendas far older than those of the Crusade move amongst the stars of the Jericho Reach. They have watched over these worlds and stars since before it fell into shadow. They are the Deathwatch: A unique division of the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bound together by ancient oaths and who stand the long watch against the greater darkness that is still to come. While the rest of the Imperium turned its face from the Jericho Sector after it fell, the vigilance of the Deathwatch has never wavered. In the long millennia of the Age of Shadow, they have stood sentinel from their Watch Fortress and scattered Watch Stations dotted across the fallen sector, sometimes the hunted but more often the hunter, a shadow within shadows. By their hands, many enemies of the Imperium have been denied and cast down amongst the Reach’s forgotten stars, and many great threats ended before they rose up to beset the greater Imperium of Man, unspoken of and unknown even to the Deathwatch’s distant masters. However, these battles have been but the prelude to the battles to come, for according to many, the true Time of Ending has come at last, and the final watch has begun. The Jericho Reach hangs in the balance—the intervention of the Deathwatch may be the only way to influence the outcome of the Achilus Crusade, for good or for ill.


Achilus Crusade

• The Orpheus Salient:

Launched soon after Lord Militant Tetrarchus assumed command, the Orpheus Salient was tasked with conquering the many frontier worlds that occupied the rimward portion of the Reach. General Curas, the youngest member of Lord Tetrarchus’ command group was charged with control of the salient, despite the many protests from the Lord Militant’s more senior advisers.

For many years Curas proved his naysayers wrong by winning back many worlds for the Imperium, and he did so quickly. However, his fortune changed when, suddenly and mysteriously astropathic communication went black. Several astropaths described a fog-like effect in the warp that prevented them from seeing and navigating their messages through to their destinations. Only later was it revealed to the Lord Militant that the Tyranids had arrived in the Jericho Reach.

Now, much of the salient’s progress has not only stalled, but been reversed. Many worlds turned to the sway of the Imperium in the earlier years of the Crusade have since fallen to the Tyranid swarm, (which now bears the name, “Hive Fleet Dagon”).

• The Acheros Salient:

The central arm of Lord Militant Tetrarchus’s strategy has been a costly venture from the beginning of the Crusade. Stiff resistance has been encountered from most worlds that lie in the salient’s path – many of which have fallen to the worship of warp entities. Worse still is the appearance of the Hadex Anomaly and the vile traitor legions!

Tetrarchus himself holds sway over the salient, issuing orders from the heart of the Crusade: the fortress world of Karlack. The Acheros Salient is widely regarded as the bloodiest of the Crusade’s efforts. Amongst the Reach’s Guardsmen, it is known as “the meat grinder” and to be deployed to one of its worlds is a death sentence.

• The Canis Salient:

The Canis Salient is the largest and oldest war zone in the Jericho Reach. Lord Commander Ebongrave, once a proud and capable Guardsman serving under Tetrarchus himself, has been reduced to an increasingly paranoid and bitter man as a result of his assignment, and he rarely leaves the relative safety of Fortress Spite.

Imperial forces involved in the salient fight a war on two fronts, one against the Tau and their auxiliaries, the other against the Tyranid menace that has only recently moved into the Jericho Reach.

The Tau fight a more subtle war by fomenting rebellion amongst the desperate Governors and Guardsmen in the Reach, though their tactics are no less harmful to the Imperium’s cause than the bloody carnage wrought by the Tyranids. The Canis Salient’s losses are staggering and its forces are stretched thin. Lord Commander Ebongrave fears betrayal at every turn and has made matters worse by ordering the executions of whole squads rumored to have been in contact with Tau Water Caste ambassadors.

It’s only a matter of time before the Imperial lines break and one xenos or another floods through the breach.