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A Basic Amnran Primer

Part Unal: What the Fuck is Amnran?

Amnran was a tiny speck of a world somewhere around the border of Tempestus and Pacificus. Made up predominantly by verdant skylines and deep valleys, dominated by a snaking river that split the largest continent in two, it was an ideal agriworld, though not especially noteworthy in that regard.

Founded some millennia prior to the Age of Strife by Terran exocolonists originating from the New Wallachia region, by the third generation their descendants cut off contact with their ancestral homeworld. Little can be deduced as to their reasoning, largely due to lack of academic interest in the planet. However, Humanity endured in self-imposed exile upon it, and while the society eventually regressed to a feudal theocracy, the fact remains it was self-sustaining prior to its destruction.

With fertile land aplenty and a subtropical climate, as well as a variety of altitudes to capitalize on, farming was the primary lifestyle for many communities. There is some evidence tea was a primary export for early Amnrani settlers, though again, records are sparse. What little legacy the world has left behind points at being the source of several variants of tea spread across the Empire, including a forebear of Valhallan Tanna.

Part Două: Putting the Cult in Culture

A feudal theocracy was the rule for Amnran, with an elite priest caste controlling the two remaining castes of merchant and serfs. Some rules carried across class, while others were more lenient or non existent the higher one climbed.

Yet upward mobility was hard to come by in the rigid structure of Amnran. Priests were often selected for their beauty or skill, meaning once born serf or merchant, the majority of inhabitants would live and die as such. Religious doctrine vilified ambition or pride in the lower classes as heretical, something unworthy of those god had formed for simple tasks. If the Serpentine Mother turned her gaze upon the unworthy, it would be a sure death sentence. At least, that’s what the priests taught.

This left them alone to pursue pleasure and pride, sequestered away in their towers, and even village priests had hidden chambers to pursue their intimate work. Clad in sacred purple, pink, and black, religious leaders obeyed no rules towards presentation that the lower classes lived by. Many were androgynous, and this mirrored the fluid nature of the sole god worshiped.

Members of the priesthood were obeyed without question, and how dangerous a thing that was varied from village to village. Some leaders were simply esoteric oddities engaged in arcane study of pleasure, pain, and the great cycle, letting their charges go about their lives so long as they walked a godly path. Some were vile hedonists who used their flock as fodder for their obscene rites. All were seen as the will of God manifested.

The merchant class were a necessary middle ground between the ruling church and the fieldworkers of Amnran. Dwelling in sprawling towns built around the snaking river of the main continent, merchants were left to handle the minutiae of society that was beneath the priesthood. To this end, they were educated in mathematics and logistics, even afforded certain freedom of expression and travel, but were still governed by and subservient to the church.

Still forbidden from pursuit of ambition or pleasure, they lived a strange half life of relative prosperity with little to occupy them but faith and their assigned works. Most towns were overseen by a boyar assigned by the church, leading to rampant nepotism by those rulers who came from these watery waystations and trader towns. Some artistic expression was afforded to the caste, but it was all practical rather than truly inspiring or creative. The majority of non-food goods were produced and provided by merchants.

Both the lowest and most populated caste was the serf class. Field workers from birth, their lot was to live within walled cities in fertile regions. Unable to escape their lot unless plucked for priesthood, their lives were hard and bitter — though as in any good cult, the majority believed their lot was divinely ordained and building towards some reward in death. Forbidden from education, pleasure, or hope except through faith, passing mentions of Amnrani society imply the largest caste was paying for some ancient dishonor, being unworthy or even dangerous if allowed more than they were given.

Serfs were not allowed representation in their own affairs. A priest was assigned to each community, often for life, and ruled absolutely. Populations were carefully monitored to prevent imbalances between church authorities and local numbers, with many young men sent away to start families in other communities rather than band together at home. Allegedly this was part of more ancient traditions, and no serf had ever thought of uprising in generations due to church propaganda and control.

Culturally, Amnran owed much to its Terran roots and visuals. Clothing was influenced in totality by medieval Eastern European trends as a whole, owing to New Wallachia’s status as a vast empire at the time of Amnran’s founding, as well as ancient Orthodoxy. Clothes became more sumptuous with rank, but silhouettes and clothing items tended to overlap between castes. The simply embroidered linen of a serf’s tunic became the richly stitched and colorful merchant’s shirt, as the priest’s decadent over robe concealed a silver and gold threaded work of velvet, yet each would be indistinguishable in cut.

Modesty was expected of both sexes, with coverage from neck to knee at minimum given the climate. For women, this also required veils, though most were sheer or light rather than thick. With few other outlets for expression, many serf and merchant women took to embroidering their veils in order to personalize their wardrobes. Veiling culture on Amnran was taken deathly seriously, as besides herself only a woman’s husband had leave to remove it from her, and only in private. To touch it otherwise with intent to disrupt or remove, especially in public, was a grave offense that required heavy penance. The dressing of a woman’s hair was also used to indicate marital status — unbound for maidens, braided for a married woman, and shorn for a widow.

Breeches or leggings for women wasn’t exactly heretical, but outside of the androgynous priesthood or certain merchant town careers it was almost universally considered odd.

Despite the dichotomy in fashion between men and women, society on Amnran was largely egalitarian between the sexes. Ones presentation or gender was not considered important save in matters of reproduction, and there was no indication the church favored any one group over the other in any aspect. Daughters could inherit as much as sons, wives were often head of household, men could tend to children if that was their desire, boyar appointment and politics were beyond patriarchal or matriarchal expectations, and the priesthood accepted every beautiful one that arrived regardless of sex.

There is some evidence there was a third gender on Amnran, but records are sparse and were poorly understood by the translator.

Part Trei: The Fall of Amnran

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WELCOME, INQUISITOR. PLEASE WAIT…

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… FILE ACCESS COMPLETE. SOME RECORDS MAY BE INCOMPLETE OR MODIFIED FOR IMPERIAL SECURITY.

Rediscovered in the late 30th Millennium by the [REDACTED] Legion, Amnran was designated Ninety-Nine Six by the Imperium. The Legion arrived to a planet beset by a tear in reality. What follows was pieced together by the verbal record of Amnran’s sole survivor, [REDACTED.]

[RECORD NOTE: They should have shot the cunt the moment they saw her. — V. Juno]

Three days prior to Legion deployment, a large explosion was noted in the distance by residents of Călareni village at dawn. General consensus was that something had happened to the nearest religious community. A contingent of local men and religious guards were permitted to investigate by the local priest. None were said to return.

By nightfall, the mountainside was alight. Later investigation on the part of [REDACTED] revealed that other villages as well as a trader town were being decimated throughout the day. Călareni was attacked by enemy forces, never reaching the next sunrise. Nine survivors set out to try and close the now visible portal in the mountains.

[REDACTED] explains the plan was to throw archaeotech weaponry into the hole in an attempt to destabilize it. Records further indicate her fellow resistance intended to throw the young woman into the rift as a virgin sacrifice in case of failure.

Resistance fell by day three, with the arrival of the Legion. Worldwide casualties were estimated at 95%, with numbers rapidly falling. Rather than questioning the continued survival of a baseline against such odds, First Chaplain [REDACTED] elected to extract the subject in a bid for answers. Her presence was later sanctified as a demonstration of the Emperor’s unknowable plan, a stroke well in line with the heretical beliefs of the Legion.

[RECORD NOTE: Fuck [REDACTED]. — A. Sankta]

[REDACTED] became the sole survivor of Amnran, with the planet being destroyed within an hour of the [REDACTED] making landfall. Her insights went on to explain that something had changed in the priesthood at least six years prior. No clear answers could be obtained, but the implications that a Chaos cult was bidding for greater power through arcane rites are clear.

[REDACTED] converted to the [M O N A R C H I A N I M P E R I A L H E R E S Y] in the months that followed. The last survivor of Amnran became a celebrated Remembrancer, reporting on the First and Second [K H U R I A N C O M P L I A N C E] as well as the life and ministry of [REDACTED.] Subject was a confirmed casualty of the [C A S T I G A T I O N O F M O N A R C H I A.]

[RECORD NOTE: Confirmed my ass. She cost my squad its finest men on Janavan III. The Lord of Ultr4mar ought to have ground her bones to dust beneath his heel before he left that damned M0narchia. — [USER HIDDEN]]