| abstract | - Xana II was a powerful and isolated Forge World, whose capable forges and faculties were unmatched in its region of the galaxy. This Primaris-grade Forge World was located in the Vicidax Thule Sector which lay on the very edge of the western galactic reach of the Segmentum Pacificus. Long the subject of sinister rumour around its finding and inclusion into the Imperium during one of the darkest episodes of the Great Crusade's early history, Xana's masters were notoriously independent and politically long-estanged from Mars. Xana's privilege was bought largely with the vast outpourings of its forges to fuel and arm the ongoing Great Crusade, and expediency was the mother of the pace which bought the Forge World into the Imperium by negotiation with the emissaries of the Emperor, rather than full auspices of Mars. While the forges of distant Xana issued forth provender and munitions in vast quantities, it was largely left alone. As the Horus Heresy suddenly and bloodily unfolded, Xana's isolation only increased and it was a situation its ruling synod of magos, known as the Vodian Consistory, did little to attempt to outwardly alleviate, choosing initially neither faction to favour, avowing, at least publicly, that the matter was an "internal matter of the Great Crusade's military" in which they had no direct involvement. As the war went on with no clear avenue of victory in sight, both sides now looked to the increasingly bellicose and active Forge World of Xana with renewed interest. In their years of isolation since the war's outbreak, the forges of Xana had not been idle and evidence began to amass that a vast and well-guarded stockpile of munitions and war machines had been built up in the system, and readied as if for shipment to a client, but to what end or to whom remained unclear. Eventually, Rogal Dorn, Primarch of the Imperial Fists Legion and Praetorian of Terra, made an open proclamation declaring the Forge World of Xana Traitoris Perdita and under sentence of death. At the same time, covert entreaties were made via intermediaries of Malcador the Sigillite for the remission of this sentence in return for absolute allegiance and the deliverance of stockpiles of war material immediately to the Loyalists build-up in the Segmentum Solar. The Warmaster, however, was to offer a more subtle and honeyed bargain, which would inevitably lead to Xana's downfall, and ultimately, they would become the first of the so-called Hell-Forges of the Warpsmiths of Chaos.
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