Melkior (Fortress/Unclassified World)

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Cryptic references to a Fortress World named "Melkior" have recently surfaced. According to the source, Melkior was stricken from the Roll of Worlds sometime before the Battle of Hethgard. The reason is not listed, but the planet's supposed location is: it's only a short jump from Hethgard or Eleusis.

Melkior was found to be a relatively pleasant Earth-like world with fairly decent resources. Its poisonous atmosphere is being processed by massive Mechanicus air scrubbers and will be breathable in a few generations. Meanwhile, the population is hosed in a string of domed cities.

Apparently there was some form of a viral outbreak or something in the cities, although it's unclear exactly what it was and who it infected all the cities. On orders of the Inquisition the failsafes on the dome airlocks were overridden and the people inside perished over the span of a single night.

If the domes are closed and the millions of corpses removed, Melkior can be made into a working settlement. 

Spite (Fortress World)

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Spite was a Fortress World from which Lord Commander Sebiascor Ebongrave marshaled the forces under his command against the Tau. This world was a heavily settled and industrialized but was left in ruins following a Tau counteroffensive that involved a massive uprising of human malcontents (widely believed to have been supported by the Tau). The Tau did not, however, stay to claim the world, but moved on to other targets.

The system was still being fought over by the remnants of Imperial loyalists and Tau-sympathetic rebels when Barotta arrived. The civil war between "Imperials" and "Tau-lovers" has died down, largely thanks to Barotta. An uneasy truce is in effect, but bloodshed could resume at the drop of a feather.

The planet itself is a fairly nice affair, where humans can comfortably walk around without protective gear, and even live off the land. In terms of resources, it's meager fare indeed. With enough settlers, it could become a prosperous world. Some human refugees from Tau-held worlds have arrived over the past few years, but the planet could take many more.

Calisi (Fortress World)

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The cities and garrisons of Calisi were abandoned prior to the Battle of Hethgard. The citizens were moved to other, more defensible locations, while the soldiers and their arms were used to reinforce Hethgard. Only the poor and the useless were left behind. Servants too old to be useful, former soldiers too injured to fight, women and children.

Fortunately, the Tyranids never arrived, and the planet was spared. The system was claimed by Barotta, but the inhabitants couldn't care less. They know how to fend for themselves, and have little use for an overlord who will only take their meager earnings, and abandon them in their hour of need.

The people remaining here either live in shanty towns around the old industrial-military complexes or wander the empty countryside, looking for salvage. The planet could easily house a few hundred million settlers and several armies.

Karlack (Fortress/Dead World)

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Karlack was a human-inhabited world that had retained a semblance of civilization despite 5 millennia alone in the dark. It's peoples initially rejoiced when reunited with the Imperium, but their happiness was soon crushed by the demands of the crusade. The world's population swelled tenfold, its industries multiplied a hundred times, and its fields were farmed beyond exhaustion. At some point, the planet's ecosphere collapsed, and people became resentful, rebellious even. Harsh measures were taken.

Karlack was the principal seat of the Achilus Crusade High Command, home to the single most powerful concentration of the Imperium's military might within the Reach. After Hethgard, no one heard from the system, and none of the patrols sent there returned.

It was eventually revealed that Karlack had turned to Chaos, specifically Khorne. Every ship that had gone there had been seized by cultists, and incorporated into the "Great Star Ark" that would carry the faithful back to their loved ones on Carmyn. It's a given that there would be bloodshed when they arrived to find their promised paradise a cesspool of Saaneshi corruption.

Barotta put an end to this dream, seizing the hulk, and reclaiming the ships that could still be repaired. He then virus-bombed the surface of Karlack, wiping away all life.

Pyrathas (Fortress World)

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Pyrathas: Pyrathas was an Imperial Fortress World found within the Pyrathas Majorus System of the Jericho Reach. The system's primary star is a fierce, blue-white supergiant. This star is orbited by a second brown dwarf in a tidally locked orbit. Inside this brown dwarf's penumbra, Pyrathas also hangs in a tidally locked orbit, shielded from the fury of the supergiant. Its strategic location made it the second-largest (after Karlack) anchorage for the Imperial Navy in the Iron Collar.

The planet is marginally habitable and resource-poor and was ignored by the Imperium until Hive Fleet Dagon seemed like it might devour everything. It was believed that the glare of the system's primary would be enough to deter any Tyranid invasion. Thus, a colony was established on the surface, a place of retreat in case things went south.

A tendril of the Hive was indeed utterly devastated at Pyrathas. But rather than make the Tyranids stay away, it made them evolve. The next, larger tendril returned around the time of the Battle of Hethgard, fully adapted to the harsh stellar radiation.

The two Navy escorts protecting the place were quickly overwhelmed, as were orbital and plane-based defenses. Tyranids landed en mass on the surface, and all seemed lost. Then the God-Emperor interceded, the Tyranid Overmind was destroyed, and the Tyranids at Pyrathas lost cohesion, and the absorption of the planet's resources was halted.

Numerous feral Tyranid creatures continued to roam the planet for years. They were dangerous if provoked, but rarely worked in groups anymore, and could even be scared away with high noise and bright lights. By the 230s they had largely been eliminated by Marine Scouts proving their worth to the chapter.

Alphos (Fortress World)

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Alphos: Alphos was a human-inhabited world that was conquered during the first expansion phase of the Crusade. It was subsequently turned in to part of the Iron Collar, the ring of Fortress World protecting the Well of Night.

Alphos was only lightly defended during the Battle of Hethgard, but still managed to gain the upper hand against the Tyranid splinter fleet sent there. Something about Alphos made it very hostile to the invading Xenoforms, and more Tyranids died to the environment than to the guns of men. The invaders eventually adapted, and from a crashed hive ship a Tyranid synapse creature directed the remaining Xenos against the increasingly weak human garrison. The synapse creature was eventually eliminated by Barotta's new breed of Aurum marines, greatly reducing the Tyranid threat on Alphos. 

The searing hot sulfurous atmosphere makes Alphos a hell-hole, requiring heavy protective garments and breathers if you want to go outside, but it's vast mineral fields are too rich to be left idle, so the workers toil now, as they always have, stripping away one layer of rock to expose the next. The Adeptus Mechanicus did some preliminary terraforming studies, but the results were not promising, and the project was ended. Instead, a large number of Squat abhumans were moved here, as they are better suited to Alphos' harsh environment. 

Wrath (Fortress World, Canis Salient)

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Wrath is an Imperial Fortress World (yes, there are that many) within the Achilus Crusade's Canis Salient in the Jericho Reach. It acted as both the Achilus Crusade's secondary command center for the salient, as well as the salient's primary source of internal security. While the Fortress World of Spite drives the Canis Salient's forces onwards, Wrath guards the worlds already claimed and watches for treachery, sedition and the scourge of xenophilia.

No word has been received from Wrath in more than two decades, but data still keeps being streamed there by the handful of slaved astropath transmitters. Only specially sanctioned Imperial vessels were allowed to access Wrath; no civilian vessels were allowed in-system upon pain of Excommunication.

Hethgard (Mining/Dead/Fortress World, Orpheus Salient)

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Hethgard was a Fortress World with three moons (also heavily fortified) that served as the primary command center for the Achilus Crusade's Orpheus Salient in the Jericho Reach. When the Tyranid menace codenamed "Dagon" was encountered, Hethgard's purpose changed: it was to protect the rimward flank of the Achilus Crusade's advance, and more importantly, to prevent the enemies of Humanity from reaching the Well of Night and the Jericho-Maw Warp Gate within it.

To that end, it was remade as a Fortress World, with every square kilometer of its surface and many hundreds of meters below ground devoted to the protection of its defenders and the repulsion of an invading force. Designed by a coterie of Divisio Tactica siege engineers and Adeptus Mechanicus artisans out of the lathes, Hethgard's fortifications were carefully arranged to allow for the swift and effective detection and destruction of invaders, its structure devised by ancient strategic lore, arcane formulae, and the results of intensive prognostication.

When Librarian Barotta of the Sons of Xandor arrived sometime after 212.M42, Hethgard still remained. There were scant few human survivors to be found, only four were located, but the world had proven true: the Hive Fleet had broken against it, wasting its power, until finally the controlling synapse was destroyed (details unknown).

The freezing, thin air of Hethgard's mountains had preserved the dead as if they have died only recently. Countless million human dead, and endless fields of slaughtered Tyranids. And an enormous amount of war material. Much of it destroyed or damaged, but the sheer scale of the battle fought here meant it was a near limitless pool of scavenge.

Hethgard's pickers still contribute to the Sector, even if their economic importance has waned a bit. A few lesser mines have been reopened, and towns and villages have sprung up to support the growing population.