GM Lacusta – Feral World of the Windriders

Segmentum: Obscurus
Sector: Calixis
Sub-Sector: Drusus Marches
Classification: Feral World

Planetary Overview

Lacusta is a brutal relic of Dark Age terraforming, a savage world of equatorial savannahs and polar jungles. Its human tribes live at the mercy of the environment and the monstrous reptilian predators they tame as mounts. Survival is a cycle of bloodshed, raids, and ritualized hunts.

From the Lacustans’ perspective, the Imperium is not a distant empire but a capricious sky-spirit: without warning, vast fire-lizards descend from the heavens, searing the night with engines of flame and thunder. Entire villages of adults vanish into their bellies, never to return. The truth—Imperial Guard recruitment raids—is known only to the Administratum. To the tribes, the fire-lizards are gods of hunger, and abduction is simply the fate of the strong.

Environment

Equator:
The planet’s equatorial belt is dominated by vast savannah plains, a golden sea of grass broken by jagged basalt ridges and scarred rocky escarpments. Occasional thornwood groves and firegrass thickets provide shelter for both prey and predator. Shallow inland seas lie scattered like mirrors beneath the sun, their shores ringed by salt flats and reed-beds where the Lacustan tribes hunt, dwell, and war. These open expanses are the heartland of the mounted clans, and the broad plains make them the easiest targets for Imperial raiding craft, which can land and depart swiftly. Villages are built in temporary clusters of mud-brick and hide, often abandoned and rebuilt after raids, floods, or battles.

Poles:
In stark contrast, the poles are choked with dense, steaming jungle, where colossal trees entwine with strangling creepers, and the canopy itself is said to blot out the sun. Within, the air is a constant mist of vapor and rain, thick with spores, buzzing insects, and the cries of unseen predators. The undergrowth is hostile to movement, and enormous reptilian hunters prowl both canopy and swamp. The Imperium has never mapped these regions. No confirmed records exist of the jungle tribes, though crude myths from savannah clans speak of beast-cults who “drink the sky” and raise their mounts in caves beneath jungle. To the Administratum, the polar tribes are a complete mystery, and the Departmento Munitorum has judged them not worth the cost of retrieval.

Climate:

  • Equatorial regions cycle between blistering droughts and sudden, violent floods. Grasslands burn during the dry season, creating vast firestorms that sweep across the plains.
  • Polar zones know no true dry season: instead, they are locked in perpetual rainfall and mist, where constant damp corrodes metal and rots flesh.

Inland Seas & Marshlands:
Two small inland seas punctuate the equatorial plains. Though shallow, their sheer size creates vast marshland deltas that sprawl for hundreds of kilometers. These wetlands are treacherous: hidden sinkholes, quickmire, and swarms of venomous creatures abound. The tribes treat these regions as both hunting grounds and spiritual borders. Predatory reptiles, some as large as river barges, lie in wait beneath the mud. Imperial raiding craft avoid these marshes; landing is too hazardous. To this day, the marshland clans are poorly documented, known only from stories that describe them as “half-swamp, half-spirit” and adorned with bone charms and reptilian skins.

Inhabitants & Culture

Lacustans are organized into warring clans bound to their reptilian mounts. Their culture revolves around:

  • The Beast Bond: Each warrior must subdue a lizard alone, surviving or dying in the attempt. The mount remains with its rider for life.
  • The Feast of Blood: After combat, riders and beasts feast together upon the slain—an act seen as proof of shared spirit.
  • Fearless Fatalism: Life is brief; death in combat or beneath the fire-lizards’ shadow is inevitable. This fatalism translates into near-suicidal courage in battle.

Imperial scholars note that the tribes do not recognize the Imperium, only the “sky beasts” that devour their villages. For every generation, dozens of settlements vanish into the sky.

The Windriders Regiment

To Lacustan eyes, the fire-lizards take their kin for food. To the Imperium, these raids are Astra Militarum recruit collections. Transports swoop down, seize entire adult populations, and depart without explanation. There is no negotiation, no settlements, no governance—only sudden abduction.

Tactics in War

Those taken are swiftly indoctrinated, armed, and cast into Imperial service. As Windriders, they:

  • Charge enemy lines on reptilian mounts, biting and hammering alongside their riders.
  • Rely on speed, shock, and savagery to break enemies before discipline falters.
  • Routinely ignore self-preservation; Commissars report they “meet death like an old friend.”

Iconic Equipment

  • Carapace-Scale Armour: Diamond-shaped armplas plates modeled after reptile scales, offering mobility and cultural familiarity.
  • Lacusta Hammer: A long-shafted warhammer wielded from the saddle, capable of crushing both armor and bone.

The Reptilian Mounts

  • Size: 4–8 meters long, muscled and scaled like walking engines of war.
  • Temperament: Aggressive and carnivorous; trained only through blood-oath rituals.
  • Bonding: Each beast is subdued individually. Rider and lizard are inseparable until death.
  • Aversion to Psykers: The mounts exhibit violent hatred for psykers, often tearing them apart on sight. This phenomenon has kept Lacusta’s psyker population minimal, limiting Imperial Black Ship harvests.

Imperial Utilization

  • Imperial presence: Minimal. No colonies, no temples, no outposts.
  • Military value: Shock cavalry regiments valued in frontier campaigns.
  • Population control: The savannah tribes are periodically harvested; the polar jungle and the marshland clans remain mysterious, their fate unknown.

Imperial Assessment

  • Colonization Potential: Nil.
  • Resource Value: Minimal.
  • Military Contribution: Moderate—feral cavalry with unique shock tactics.

Archeotech Prospects on Lacusta

Overview

Surveyors of the Adeptus Mechanicus and scribes of the Administratum have long noted the paradox of Lacusta: a world clearly terraformed in antiquity, yet devoid of visible colonization remains. Its semi-stable biosphere, the presence of imported Terran megafauna analogues, and a pre-Imperial human population all point to purposeful settlement during the Dark Age of Technology.

And yet, despite centuries of limited observation and tithe raids, no surface ruins, datavaults, or confirmed archeotech sites have ever been catalogued. The plains and savannahs show no sign of city-cores, manufactoria foundations, or transport spires. The tribal population has no memory of artifices.

Hypotheses

  • Colonial Collapse: The terraforming project succeeded, but the human population regressed after some calamity—disease, rebellion, or loss of logistical support.
  • Buried Infrastructure: One Mechanicus augur sweeps suggest anomalous strata beneath polar jungle canopies, consistent with subsurface installations. These readings remain unconfirmed due to constant atmospheric interference and local fauna.
  • The Lost Hull Theory: One persistent tradition among savannah tribes speaks of a “Sky-Cave,” a mountain that “fell screaming and now sleeps beneath green giants.” Some Magi speculate this may be the wreck of a colony-ship, swallowed by jungle.

Archeotech Indicators

  • Terraforming Signature: Atmospheric gas balance is suspiciously precise compared to natural worlds of similar class. Water cycle and soil fertility are self-regulating.
  • Imported Fauna: Genetic analysis of Lacustan reptilian megafauna shows grafted DNA strands of ancient Terran Komodo lizards, deliberately altered to favor rapid growth and heightened aggression. Such modifications are consistent with Dark Age predator breeding protocols.
  • Human Distribution: The feral population is genetically stable, suggesting bottleneck colonists seeded the planet millennia ago.

Lacusta endures as a feral world feeding the endless wars of Mankind. For its people, survival is brutal and fleeting, and the fire-lizards from the sky are as inevitable as death itself.