Marchel was a low-level agri-world on the fringes of Imperial space. It had been discovered three thousand years after the Great Crusade had ended by forces from the Imperial Navy Explorators. The planet had a primitive population of bipeds that were easily removed by the forces of the Imperial Guard from the Harkonin 33rd Regiment who were given the priviledge of colonizing the world for the Emperor. The group quick established a focused and organised agricultural society, the old command staff forming the regional lords and the regiments commander, Marchel Levarus, being its first Imperial Governor. The Lord-Commander quickly opened his arms to the Ecclesiarchy and desperately urged the Adeptus Mechanicus to send one of its machine ships to harvest the planet's limited natural resources. The Priests of Mars deemed the planet unworthy of a machine ship to remove its meagre supply of resources but sent a small team of Adeptus Mechanicus Tech Priests to begin rundimentary excavations.

It was during these excavations, several thousands of years later, that the team uncovered an ancient artifact. The currently planetary governor and all of the regional lords quickly migrated to the area, hoping that finally the planet may receive important attention and the rewards that come along with it, from the Imperium.What they found, however, was not exactly that. The Tech Priests had uncovered a tomb of unimaginable power, a remnant from the Great Crusade that had risen man back to its prominence within the galaxy. The Governor and his lords ordered immediate entry into the tomb and an investigation into its contents. What happened within the tomb is impossible to describe accurately but the Governor and his lords did not return as the same men they were when they left.

In a standard communique the Tech Priests had sent to inform Mars of their discovery Inquisitor Heisenburg was recalled to investigate. The Inquisition routinely monitors all communications sent throughout the Imperium and the mention of a device allegedly built during the Great Crusade on a world that was never reached by the Imperium during that time was of great concern to the Inquisition.

During the course of Inquistor Heisenburg's investigation he discovered that the artifact was a demon temple seeded on the planet by the Word Bearer's Traitor Legion, not during the Great Crusade but during the subsequent actions of the Horus Heresy. What he found among the lords and Planetary Governor was what finalised his decision. The heriditary leaders of Marchel had descended into infamy, forsaking the Emperor in favour of the hedonism of Slaanesh. The disease had already spread among the majority of the planet's populace, only the most outlying settlements not yet fully devoted to the worship of the blasphemous enemies of humanity. This crime of heresy could not go unpunished. The Inquisition quickly made his departure after personally destroying the temple with melta-bombs. Summoning one of the Inquisition's secretive and ghostly ships he had the planet scoured, all life upon it eradicated in the name of the Imperium and the souls of the Emperor that it contains.

Compiled by:
Adeptus Zuriel Bashaska
In accordance with the Pax Imperius Schola