u/SorcererOfDooDoo

During the Great Crusade, the Rogue Trader Grand-Prince Sebastian Nathaniel Russ Kulat III discovered this sector in Segmentum Tempestus. During this time, much of this stretch of space was dominated by xenos. Even today, xenos remain a majour issue in the sector. The capital world is a Hive World known as Tholossia; a power-hungry military dictatorship under the command of the Grand Master General. The worlds of Kulassia are expected to maintain their own extra-planetary armies to maintain Imperial dominion against Xenos and Heretics alike, but this ends up driving conflict, as the subsectors infight for dominance over resources and favour, essentially acting as their own smaller unofficial empires.

The main threats of this sector are xenos--often of lesser-known species. The chiefest of these xenos threats at the moment are the Fimiri; a parasitic species that emerged from the rock and soil of their homeworld in the 40th Millennium. Coming from the southern border region is the multi-species Vodaya Empire, headed by multiple host species, including uncontacted Humans. Preying throughout the sector, however, is a formidable martial species of hunters and warriors known as the Car'Narites, seeking out the strongest, and most challenging monsters and warriors to fight and prove themselves. The Tyranids of Hive Fleet Leviathan also are an increasingly grave danger in the sector. The Genestealer Cults first appeared in the sector concurrently with the Badab War. Previously assumed to be some variant of mutants, they've since been labeled as a majour threat, with an entire Hive World having been subjected to Exterminatus for it, now a lifeless rock in space. Propaganda across the sector has since been spread by order of the Inquisition, urging people to report symptoms of "Gene-sickness" and "Congenital Gene-sickness", and to avoid contact with anyone who shows said symptoms.

Another threat comes from piracy, with them becoming more and more bold and powerful. Eldar Corsairs and Ork Freebooterz of the notorious Kaptin Blakktoof run rampant. Recently, pirates in the sector have shamed Battlefleet Tempestus by wresting yet another ancient battleship from their clutches.

This sector produces an unusually high number of psykers. The most notable example of this is Tholossia itself, but all worlds in the sector seem to have unusually high psyker birthrates, which has the Inquisition on higher alert than in normal sectors. The Black Ships frequent this sector more often, and the Inquisition is more active in the area. Also of note is the number of Chaos Cults in the sector. Rumour has it that these cultists seek to tear another hole in realspace similar to the Eye of Terror or the Maelstrom in the Kulassian Sector.

Ever since the opening of the Cicatrix Maledictum, despite being nowhere near it, the Imperium has lost much territory in the sector, and with many of their soldiers being sent to fight in the Indomitus Crusade, xenos have been on the rise with weaker resistance against them, similar to the Time of Waning. Very soon, the Grand Master General may declare a state of emergency, and start a crusade in his own domain.

>!There's no sector or other subsetting flairs, so I'm using this one for now. I've been sitting on this for a while now, so it's nice to get it out there.!<

Long ago, Vaprak, the god of Trolls and Ogres, had a pet Hyena. He delighted in how she would rip things apart and maim and kill everything she found. He would lead her to kings, sages, temples, and let her kill as he stole their riches, plundering Dwarvish crowns, Elvish jewels, and Halfling ale. Yet even when the Gods intervened, they would be held back by Vaprak's beloved pet. Moradin brandished his hammer against her, but the Hyena used her size and speed to overwhelm him. Corellon strung his bow and knocked his arrows, but the Hyena's strength was enough to ignore the arrows, which had trouble getting through her spotted fur and knotted muscles, and she overpowered the Elf god. Yondalla, realizing it a poor idea to attack the Hyena herself, tried to sneak past it instead, but the Hyena's nose sniffed her out, and she was chased away. With no one able to get past this divine beast to retrieve their belongings, all would come down to the slyest of the gods: Garl Glittergold. And he came up with a plan.

Setting out into the wild, Glittergold found a handful of male Hyena cubs, and taught them the peaceful arts, raising them as his own. So when the time came that they were old enough, he brought them to Vaprak's home. There, Vaprak noticed the males, and laughed, "Is this the best the gods can send?" He commanded his pet rip them to shreds. Yet when she was set upon them, she stopped, and simply stared at them--no anger or aggression in her eyes, but curiosity. Vaprak watched on in confusion, "Well? What're you waiting for? Crush them! Cut them in half! Bite their heads off! Rip them limb from limb!" As Vaprak was distracted, Garl Glittergold would sneak into his lair, and stole the riches back, even plucking the very jewelry off of the troll god himself as he stared in disbelief. The males began to lure her away, and she followed, and Vaprak began to angrily bark orders at her, "What're you doing?! Come back here! I command you!" She followed the males until he could no longer see them. And that was the last of them.

Baffled, Vaprak stared out into the empty wilderness slackjawed. He brought his hand up to rub his head, only to feel that his crown was missing. And that's when he saw his rings were gone too, and his necklace, and all of his riches. Looking around, he then spotted Garl Glittergold doing away with all his treasure. His shock and confusion boiled over into rage as he began chasing down the gnome god with a tirade of threats of crushing him, chopping him, cooking him and eating him up, through hills, fields, fens, and forests. Glittergold hid under the roots of a tree before Vaprak could reach him. Having lost Glittergold, Vaprak began smashing and snapping boughs and branches, turning over boulders and pulling trees out of the ground. This angered the Treants, who attacked him. As he lost his balance, the treants would rip his arms off, and in a final push, they ripped head off and threw it into the river. His body ran around like a chicken, trying to find his head. In that moment, Glittergold emerged and waved Vaprak goodbye, as his head bobbed down the stream, streaming curses and slurs--even invented some new ones--as his confused body followed him downstream. From there, the Elves, Dwarves, and Halflings would retrieve their belongings from Vaprak's home, and he wouldn't get his big ugly hands on them ever again.

And so from that day, Garl Glittergold taught his people the Gnomes of the value of thinking outside the box--and how useful it is to live underground sometimes.

>!A story I came up with and had to write down and put out there. It's meant to be a story told to Gnomish children, yet also unknowingly a cultural memory of the origin of the Gnolls. I originally posted this on r/DnD, but then I got a notification for this sub instead, and it seems a better place to put this. Also made some revisions while I was at it.!<

I'm sure most of us have heard of Star Trek's Klingon Bloodwine, and discussions about the viability of making wine from blood usually lead to the same destinations. But for this, I wanna throw another fictional wine into the ring.

In Warhammer 40,000, the Blood Angels chapter of Space Marines have a special wine they make called Karash. This is wine with blood from either their serfs or their enemies added to it, both to change the flavour, and to stave off the Red Thirst, to mild success. It's also noted as stimulating their Omophageas (one of the organs used to make space marines).

So my question is as in the title of the post: how would adding blood (let's say pig or sheep blood) to wine affect either? Would it add some form of protein to the drink whilst killing any harmful microbes? Or would it introduce new harmful microbes? To what degree would it damage the blood cells? And how would it affect the flavour and texture of the wine? How well would the wine be able to age? I know that blood is used as an ingredient in cooking certain foods, so did any real world cultures ever try something like this? Has anyone tried recently?

So, I have not one, but two copies of the Ulisses core rulebook. The first one was purchased way long ago, and the second one was bought because my dad forgot that we already had a copy. I've recently been looking into the system, when I found out that there's a newer, better version of the game, meanwhile I'm infuriatingly stuck holding two copies of the subpar system of a publisher that's no longer supporting the game. Is there a policy for trading them in for the newer version (+ maybe a supplement)?

[EDIT] Yeah, it's sounding about as I feared. Thank you guys for the patience with this question.

I'm referring to conversion between the Imperial and Machine cults. What happens when a priest of the Adeptus Ministorum converts to the Machine Cult, or vice versa?