Hesch

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Hesch is a -class planet with one satellite named Wotan and a Tithe grade of Exactis Secundus.

A Brief History

The Kinden-Hesch System’s discovery in 5023572/M41, after a few rounds of political skulduggery between several rival factions over contract rights to the colonization, opened the floodgates to a brief wave of settlement. This released some of the perennial population pressures and ambitions on the part of many Kruppers, and it didn’t take long to populate the world to a respectable level with a relatively small portion of Krupp’s surplus. The system was then known only as Kinden, and was home to a race of peaceful, stone-age mammalian xenos designated the Kindenians. These prior inhabitants were subjected to a swift and efficient xenocide to make way for hordes of voracious hive-worlders. All that remains of this kindly and tragically trusting alien species is a few preserved specimens in the hands of xenobiologists and some trophies held by Heschian nobles in their private museums.

Krupper nobility came here to find new opportunities, considerable natural resources and an escape from the vicious house wars and pressures of their home world. They brought slaves and indentured servants with them to work their new holdings along with those free citizens fortunate enough to sign on with business concerns with a stake in the venture. Many of the slaves were judicial prisoners, exiles sent by Krupper authorities or were scoured from the inhabitants of the hive-bottoms in brutal capture-sweeps. A great many of these people’s descendants remain slaves to this day, working the plantations and mines, as well as providing entertainment or any of a host of other menial functions.

Environment and Resources

It is a temperate world with varied geography and large expanses of cultivable land as well as broad mountain ranges.

The Heschian biosphere is friendly to agriculture and considerable mineral wealth. Thus, its industries include mining, plantation-farming, fishing and animal husbandry for export. Most of this export goes to feed the hungry populace and factories of Krupp.

Settlements

Hesch has several major cities, including its capital city of Vinapest and the spaceport of Julius Landing. The Heschians enjoy a contemporary technological base, so this isn’t some backwards frontier settlement. Surface ships ply the oceans and broad plantations utilize flatlands for food and livestock cultivation, though there are still broad tracts of fallow wilderness, forest and mountains. Adventurous folk and outcasts make their way out to wilderness and have little difficulty finding places where they will be left alone. Provinces that have been mentioned thus far include Slevia and Ostia. The capital cities of these two duchies are, respectively, Bhuta and Vine.

Duchies

Hesch is divided into numerous autonomous duchies, each of which is presided over by a powerful Duke who theoretically owes fealty to the Imperial Commander. Each duchy is mostly free to conduct its affairs as it sees fit, and they constantly bicker and posture amongst themselves. A few Heschian duchies are detailed below...

Slevia

more to come...

Capitol: Bhuta

Ostia

more to come...

Capitol: Vine.

Ostia is also home to Julius Landing, which although not its capitol is the second largest city on Hesch, and is home to the planet's primary spaceport.

Populace

Heschian nobles are surrounded in sybaritic luxury while their subjects’ lots vary: the middle classes prosper and enjoy a fair amount of solidarity within their communities, while the lower strata are miserable, downtrodden and restless. The local nobles, fearing uprisings, are a particularly authoritarian lot, enthusiastically grinding their slaves into the dust to keep them in line. They are militaristic, allowing them to carry out private wars amongst themselves and to defend against small-scale uprisings.

The human population of Hesch demonstrates a higher proportion of mutation than in most of the Imperium, likely due to the origins of most of its slave and working-class inhabitants in the tainted hive-bottoms of Krupp. Heschian nobility and upper classes demonstrate no higher rate of mutation than the galactic standard. Mutants on Hesch do not fare well, even compared to many other parts of the Imperium. Those mutants fortunate enough to be free of slavery still live in poverty and misery, constantly fearing local lords' pogroms. It is unsurprising that a number of rebel groups like the Manus Negrom have formed among them.

Military

As has been mentioned, on Hesch the military is largely a class-based affair, with many noblemen keeping personal retinues of men-at-arms, while great lords retain standing armies of regulars. The nobility themselves are a military class, and every noble is expected to at least know how to operate and maintain a lasgun. The lack of major insurrections or wars has kept the Heschian military small but disciplined, and as time has gone on it has become ever more buried in ceremony, pomp and honorifics. There are a number of hereditary military families drawn from the upper and middle classes, and they tend to view war as their honorable province rather than shoveling their lessers out to fight for them (being reluctant to trust the lower classes with arms).

The equipment of Heschian forces is about on a part with the typical civilised world, with lasguns and autoguns being the primary armament of infantrymen and a similar distribution of special weapons and equipment.

Uniforms vary quite a bit from province to province, though most resemble central and eastern military regalia of the 19th century, with shako hats or pickelhaube helmets being typical, and piping, frogging and large buttons being popular.

Descriptions of the standard uniforms of various provinces' forces will follow.