Murder

Murder was an Ultima Segmentum world so named by Imperial forces for the aggressive megarachnid xenos species that infested its surface.

The world was brought to compliance during the Great Crusade by the 63rd Expedition under the Warmaster Horus, in a campaign fought during the early, so-called One-Forty-Twenty period of Luna Wolves operations. Imperial forces encountered the megarachnid as a non-humanoid, chitinous xenos species organised into aggressive broods, and the fighting required on Murder was markedly more costly and attritional than the largely bloodless compliances the Legion had grown accustomed to.

The engagement is chiefly noted for the role it played in the early careers of several Luna Wolves officers later associated with the Mournival, and it is recalled as an illustration of the harsher forms of warfare the Great Crusade could demand when confronted with genuinely hostile xenos life, rather than merely recalcitrant human polities.