40k Orrery

Event · M41

Gravalax Incident

The Gravalax Incident was a crisis of 931.M41 on Gravalax, an agri-world of the Ultima Segmentum lying almost surrounded by T’au space. The Valhallan 597th Regiment, accompanied by Commissar Ciaphas Cain, was deployed to the world amid tensions between the Imperium and the T’au Empire. A genestealer cult sought to exploit the T’au diplomatic presence to provoke open war between the Imperium and the T’au. Cain halted the resulting annexation attempt and fought the cult’s patriarch, during which he first met Ordo Xenos Inquisitor Amberley Vail. Lord General Zyvan commanded the Imperial garrison on Gravalax throughout the incident. Cain was afterwards awarded the Order of Merit of Gravalax, second class, for his part in the affair. Ordo Xenos Inquisitor Amberley Vail was already on Gravalax when the crisis broke, working under the cover of a travelling lounge singer hired for entertainment at the governor’s reception. From that disguise she pursued a genestealer cult in the undercity, lost her first team, and enlisted Cain and his aide Ferik Jurgen to press the investigation anew. Her psyker Rakel’s violent reaction to Jurgen led her to recognise him as a blank; with that protection she and Cain fought through the cult’s nest to the cellars beneath the governor’s palace, where she killed the tainted Governor Grice with a digital needler concealed in a ring. When two T’au Pathfinders later emerged showing signs of infection, she chose not to warn their comrades, content that the curse would travel with them off-world.

See where Gravalax Incident occurred on the galactic map in the 41st Millennium.

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Locations

Involved characters

  • Amberley Vail (Worked under lounge-singer cover, enlisted Cain and Jurgen, recognised Jurgen as a blank, and killed the tainted Governor Grice.)
  • Ciaphas Cain (halted a T’au annexation engineered by a genestealer cult and first met Inquisitor Amberley Vail)