Planet Spotlight: Hiveworld Scelus Prime in the Decusis System

Technology: +3 (warp mastery)
Environment: +0 (one profitable world, additional barren worlds)
Resources: +2 (one significant export - grox ration packs)

Aspects: Industrial, polluted & asteroid field.

The hive world of Scelus Prime is named for the founder of the current ruling dynasty of the system, Scelus Decusis who was an Imperial Guard commander who helped pacify a rebellion in the system; realising that Imperial forces would never take the world unless the orbital defences (which had fallen into rebel hands) were disabled, Scelus took a party of trusted guardsmen and launched a suicidal attack on the orbital las-batteries. Against all odds his group manage to take the orbital defences and set them to self-destruct, Scelus miraculously surviving when the section of the las-battery that he was in, crashed onto the planets surface; the only survivor Scelus took his survival as a sign from the Emperor and swore his life to the Ecclesiarchy ritualistically shaving his head as a sign of his faith (a fashion that endures in the ruling houses of the planet to this day). The remnants of the destroyed defences fell into a slow orbit around the planet, eventually attracting other rocks and debris, forming an asteroid belt around Scelus Prime.

Since that day the house of Decusis has ruled the planet, although their hedonistic ways are a far cry from the chaste faith of their founder; the current rulers of the planet are Corith Decusis and his twin sister Dominique. The single great hive city of Scelus Prime houses millions of people all crammed into a large twisting spire of metal, studded with factories processing raw grox meat shipped in from the neighbouring Catan system, bulking it out with algae and corpse-starch to form the unpalatable but nutritious ration packs that much of the Imperial troops in the sector rely on; the many factories studded around the base of the hive belch poisonous fumes into the atmosphere creating a poisonous layer of cloud rising up to five miles from the planet's surface, many lower hive dwellers never rise above that layer or see the sky, only the rich nobles of the Spire have the privilege of peering beyond the deathly clouds.