Event · M41

Farsight expedition to Arthas-Moloch

The Farsight expedition to Arthas Moloch, also called the Molochite Tragedy, was the closing battle of the Farsight Expedition of about the 750s.M41. In it Commander Farsight fought Orks and daemons on Arthas Moloch, an artefact world, a world of pre-Imperial ruins, filled with faceless statues. It had been an Alpha Legion base settled by Chaos cults until the Scythes of the Emperor purged it in M39, and by the time of the expedition it was one of a string of Ork-held worlds that Farsight set out to conquer. At an eight-pillared temple that the Air caste named the Great Star Dais, a disc of light rose into the sky while millions of Orks fought the T’au, then opened to release daemons: first Bloodletters, daemons of the Chaos god Khorne, and then daemons of Tzeentch led by a Lord of Change, a winged greater daemon. They destroyed the Orks and turned on the T’au. Farsight looked into the portal that formed at the Dais and collapsed. On recovering, he halted the evacuation and counter-attacked at the Dais against three Bloodthirsters, greater daemons of Khorne. The Ethereals Aun’Los and Aun’Diemn, members of the T’au ruling caste, were found dead; one account records that all of his Ethereals were killed, together with his friend Moata, a stealth-suit commander. Judging that blood spilt at the Dais was sustaining the daemons, Farsight forbade any bloodshed there and had flamer-armed battlesuits dry the platform. He took up a sword he had found at the Dais, the Dawn Blade, fixed to it hexagrammatic medallions recovered from the temple, and closed the portal, banishing the daemons. One account records that he was briefly overcome by bloodlust. The battle convinced Farsight that the Ethereals knew of such powers and concealed them, and he refused the order to return to the T’au Empire, which led to the founding of the Farsight Enclaves.

See where Farsight expedition to Arthas-Moloch occurred on the galactic map in the 41st Millennium.

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