Adyghan Prime

The Imperial planet of Adyghan is an environmentally stunning and abundant homeworld of Adygh and the Imperial Guard regiment known as the Adyghan Guard. The planet has two natural satellites: Mazet'u and Mazetyzh.

The landscape is made up of vast forests, grass plains, river lands and majestic mountains dividing the regions. there is one greater and one smaller continent, separated by oceans.

The planet is involved in three different imperial planet categories. The world was originally an Eldar Maiden World but left unsettled for some reason after its terraforming was complete. And meanwhile more than half of the population lives a feudal life in rural areas, the rest lives in average-sized, environment-friendly cities, to ensure the sustainability, unity and safety of Adyghan Prime. Thus making it a Maiden, Feudal and Civilised World.

An important thing to note is that even if it is an Imperial World, Imperial Gothic only applies in the urban areas and usually in official business with outsiders. The Adygh have preserved their language over thousands of years and endured against the Imperial assimilation.

The planet is governed by a democratic council called Khase, overseen by a highly respected elder, to be elected by Khase itself. Each representative has equal rights in the council, each has right to speak for their own society. But the thing that differs Khase from other forms of democracy is the fact that the representatives are not fixed, each Khase, communities choose a different representative, to neutralise the personal opinions of the representatives about each other, thus preventing corrupt politicians to exist in Khase in the first place. If Khase decides, it is sacred. If one dares to disobey, immediately gets dispelled from their community. Depending on the situation, lighter punishments can be executed too.

In times of crisis, when there is no time to gather the Khase, an emergency council takes command, which members are elected by Khase, and re-elected regularly.

Social Life
Society governs itself according to the ancient Adygh honour code of Khabze. Khabze is built upon following crucial things: Respect, thoughtfulness, discipline and self-control. Many imperials who visit Adyghan Prime think that it is more effective to discipline kids in this society, rather than raising them in Schola Progenium. This code regulates every single part of social life, every single action that an individual can possibly do. Relations between men and women, elders and children, brothers and sisters.

The council of Khase gathers once in 50 years to regulate Khabze, misfunctioning rules are removed and newer, required regulations are added to the code, keeping it practical and updated.

But unfortunately, in the urban areas of Adyghan Prime, code of Khabze is worth less in the eyes of people. And it is getting even more worthless as the Cities expand. Morality and honour becoming more and more insignificant. Things such as jails, gamble and prostitution entered the world's urban areas when Imperial assimilation began. It took them several centuries to earn their place on Adyghan Prime's underground life, but it seems like it will cost even more to wipe it off.

Early Colony
It has been colonised in M23, by a colony ship which departed from Terra in M3. The ship travelled for 20.000 years in sub-light speed, captained by an AI, while 40.000.000 colonists were in hibernation.

According to their records, they departed from Terra as a whole nation, who called themselves Adygh, claiming to be the oldest surviving nation in existence, dating back to 19 millennias before the beginning of the Age of Terra. If their claims are true, they are the purest and unmutated human bloodline in existence.

As they were departing from Terra, they brought the tombs, catacombs and graves of their deceased ones with them, later to place them on their new home world. As they are a folk which is very loyal to their past and traditions, they could not leave them behind.

They also took most of their horses with them, which they adored and treated almost equal to humans. Claiming to be the oldest horse breeders, they bred their horses to be even faster, stronger, more durable and smarter. Upon their arrival, due to technical incapabilities, they weren't efficiently able to produce vessels to get around, so their horses made even more use than they have thought they would. Even after industrialisation, use of horses did not cease. Cavalry regiments have been formed in the military, and nearly half of the population embraced a pastoral way of life, very similar to their ancestors' lifestyle, during M2. Though they did not abandon medical and weapon technology and made even more advanced versions of them. Later on, they embraced the feudal lifestyle of their ancestors too.

The rest of the population built average-size, environment-friendly cities, to ensure the unity, safety and sustainability of Adyghan Prime, provide industrial needs, while the others provide the food and other natural resources.

But one should not be fooled by the stunning beauty of the Maiden World, it has seen hundreds of invasions, yet why it is not war-torn and inhabitable at this point remains a mystery.

Plague of Eden
By the end of the first half of the millennia of their colonisation, an unknown plague had wiped out the half of the planet's population, a plague that is alien to the human biology. Martial law had been declared, mass graves were used for the first time in their history. It was for the Guashenay Neghuey's effort which saved them, a public icon for the doctors and healers of the Adygh society of the present day. She found the cure for the plague and saved their kind from a highly probable extinction.

First Orkish Contact
By the end of M24, an Orkish invasion rained down upon Adyghan Prime, warbands coming from Charadon Sector. Orks defiled abundant fields, burned down virgin forests, slaughtered millions of civilians. The war against Orks lasted half a millennia, and with costly efforts, former Adyghan Guard managed to stop the Orkish invasion and cut almost the entirety of them, but the surviving Orks fled to the forests, which still trouble Adyghan Prime in the present day.

But the airborne Orks never ceased their raids around Adyghan solar system, they performed hundreds, if not thousands of minor raids, and tens of other greater invasions, in the following millennias.

The Zul'gann
In M26, They have been invaded by a barbaric Xeno race those who called themselves "The Zul'gann", furry, anthropoid creatures which possess a short tail and two antlers which glow in red. Their size is close to an Ork's, but they did not have the reproductive advantage that the Orks had, they were mammalians. Even though the Zul'gann launched a full-scale invasion upon Adyghan Prime, they were easily defeated, with the help of high weaponization rate of civilians throughout Adyghan Prime.

In the following decades, it has been found out that they have originated from a nearby star system, Khase decided on a counter-invasion, and Adyghan Prime sieged their homeworld and reduced their technology to post-industrial level, to make sure that they won't try to take revenge very soon.

Alsanta Invaders
Just three hundred years after the Zul'gann invasion, Orks launched a second one, with a larger party. These were the Orks of Alsanta system, a considerably nearby solar system to Adyghan. Luckily, a large portion of the incoming invasion fleet had been halted and destroyed by the Adyghan Navy, but the remaining ones were enough to rain fire upon the planet. After eighty years of constant fight in the frontiers, Adyghan Guard won an another costly victory, which its laments are still singing in the modern day. One of these laments belong to the famed Adyghan Rider named Sawser Sshnakho, who turned the tide of the war as he rode into the Orkish lines, hacking and slashing without halt through the greenskins for twenty minutes, almost seemingly dancing on horseback against the slugga and shoota fire like wind against trees, and ultimately severing the head of the Orkish Warlord.

Imperial History
They have been introduced to the Imperium in M31, during the Great Crusade, but they were first to spot Imperials. They managed to capture an Imperial trade ship and found out about the current state of the galaxy, which forced them to hide their technological advantages and historical records away, which some of them even dated back to M0.

Horus Heresy
During Horus Heresy, the world suffered from two major invasions. First one was the invasion of Word Bearers, which carved wounds upon the world so deep, that its effects are to remain even to this day. They have destroyed many important landmarks, catacombs, tombs and libraries, that some parts of the bloodline's history had been presumably lost forever. Millions of civilian lives lost, hundreds of settlements have been burned to ash. Khase called help from Ultramarines and Blood Ravens, but the help did not arrive. With costly efforts, Adyghan Guard managed to wipe the Word Bearers off the surface of their home world.

Shortly after, the World Eaters invaded the planet, but the help that Khase had requested during the previous invasion arrived, and together, they fought off the traitors and saved Adyghan Prime.

Zul'gann Finale
In M34, another Zul'gann invasion took place, but this time they were not on Adyghan Prime for conquest, but genocide. They have been away from the Khase's interest for too long, due to the loss of information in the archives about their previous invasion and Adyghan Guard's counter-invasion. They had more advanced vessels and weaponry this time, and only to kill in masses. They succeeded to destroy a large portion of the planet's population, and they would complete their campaign of genocide, only if the Adyghan Navy Admiral Aytech Qoble, who sacrificed himself to save his kin. In a blink of a moment, he saw a chance, ordered all personnel to abandon the ship he commandeered, and piloted all by himself, to nothing but to ram it into Zul'gann mothership and detonate it in contact. Now there is a statue of him located in the Hall of Valor, in the capital of the planet.

After a short period of time, Ultramarines spotted the Zul'gann homeworld and purged once and for all.

Age of Apostasy
Age of Apostasy brought nothing but ruin to Adyghan prime, which took place in M36, but relatively less than most Imperial Worlds. The church never had a strong presence on Adyghan Prime, and their effort to tax the population by dispatching troops to the planet resulted in them getting slaughtered by locals in few days. But soon after when Goge Vandire took over the Imperium, a larger quantity of troops have been dispatched to Adyghan Prime, waging war against every single individual on the planet. They burned down settlements, killed without sparing women nor children, tearing embryos out of women's wombs. Khase responded quickly, and so violently for the first time in their history.

Upon the marches of Vandire's forces, they rained down the limbs of the troops upon them from the high-altitude stealth aircrafts, which they have killed, collected and stored for similar purposes. This terrifies them as the limbs are seeming coming from nowhere but the empty sky, making them think that it is a punishment upon them from the heavens. Sometimes the fear that Vandire's forces are so intense, that they are reports telling about Commissars who flee into the forests in panic along with other troops, instead of disciplining them, to avoid the constant rain of limbs upon their heads. They have either been slaughtered by feral Orks who roam the forests, or the Adyghan Guardsmen who have prepared ambushes for them. Sometimes they would launch EMP mortars upon them, disabling their weapons, and crushing the Vandire's forces under the stampede of Adyghan Riders like they were dead leaves and dry splints. But after such battles, the bodies of the dead have been collected and contained quickly, and the battlegrounds have been sanitised to prevent the spread of deadly plagues in Adyghan Prime. As Sebastian Thor's rebellion gained fame and progressed, Adyghan Guard also dispatched forces to aid them.

Damocles Gulf Crusade
In M41, Millions of troops departed Adyghan Prime to take part in Damocles Gulf Crusade, unfortunately, two out of five of the enlisted warriors did not return home. This is considered to be the first active use of Adyghan Prime by the order of the High Lords of Terra and the first encounter of Adygh culture and Tau Empire, attracted the interest of the Ethereals and Emperor's Holy Inquisition.

Ethereals have noticed the difference between Adyghan Guard and other Imperial forces that they have fought against. They were noticeably different in terms of physiology and mentality. They had more shapely skeletons, muscles and faces. They were more liberal in terms of religion, had other things motivating them, something similar to the Tau ideology of the Greater Good.

In the other hand, Emperor's Holy Inquisition was also interested in this culture too, but not in a good way. Hundreds of Inquisitors have been sent to Adyghan Prime to investigate possible heresies such as the use of Xeno technology, unauthorised consorting with Xenos and Chaos corruption, which seems like the least plausible.

From then to this day, the natives of the world have been suffering from the oppression of Inquisitors, the population is so fed up, that their urge to gut the Inquisitors is almost irresistible. An era of conflict seems to be on the way.

Inspiration
The Adygh are the direct descendants of the present-day nation Circassians.