Redemption

“It is the Ecclesiarchy’s purview, and theirs alone, to interpret the word of the God-Emperor. Any teachings other than those sanctioned by the Ecclesiarchy are to be considered heresy.”
–Excerpt from Ecclesiarchy Memorandum DCLXVII

Overview

This blasphemous world is a small, arid moon orbiting a gas giant in the far coreward reaches of The Ragged Worlds, well within sight of the seething warp storms that hem the Expanse. Recently declared off-limits by the Ecclesiarchy, Redemption was once the cemetery world for a long-lost cult dedicated to a heretical version of the teachings of the God-Emperor. What these teachings were and what befell their adherents is unknown, whether lost to time or suppressed by the Imperium, but the Inquisition has branded them heresy so heresy they must be. The moon is covered with ornate cyclopean tombs engraved with heretical bas reliefs, grand necropolises, and countless obscure monuments. Gigantic cathedrals decorated with frescoes and stained glass proclaiming the glory of the God-Emperor and His saints stand shoulder to shoulder with humble monasteries and vast, silent crematoria. Every square meter of Redemption is covered in a strange luminescent marble veined with silver that throws back the baleful, flickering light from the nearby warp storms and makes everything the color of a day old bruise.
Beneath the broad marble avenues and numerous funerary buildings is a warren of thousands of kilometers of tunnels augured deep into the heart of the moon. These seemingly endless tunnels link colossal, city-sized ossuaries and great underground temples. Inside, the bones of countless billions lie stacked in these catacombs, marked with what appear to be purity seals and covered in painted tapestries. Where there are not bones or the statues of saints, huge stone vaults with doors as strong and thick as a voidship’s armor are bored into the living stone. These vaults are locked with arcane locks of blasphemous technology and sealed with more of the cult’s purity seals. What they hide is anyone’s guess, and the Ecclesiarchy refuses to disclose any of its findings.