Dozaria is a Class M civilized planet in the Dozarian System of the Corvus Cluster.

The world had a reputation for excellent governance, as Imperial governors over the millennia balanced economic growth, the preservation of the environment, the living standards of its citizens, and compliance with Imperial tithes.

This favorable state of affairs ended a decade ago when the planet was afflicted with the Kassig Plague, a virulent warp-tainted pathogen that killed hundreds of millions within a year. This disaster was soon followed by the arrival of a massive Death Guard invasion force.

That invasion still is being contested by Imperial military forces. But a decade of war on a planetary scale has shattered the world’s economic prosperity, devastated its ecosystem, and psychologically scarred its remaining citizens. Today, the planet knows nothing but violence, disease, and death.

Dozaria once boasted of its success in maintaining a variety of ecological zones despite a growing population and economic development. Much of this diversity is endangered by the invasion of the Death Guard.

Ecosystem

Dozaria has a typical terrestrial climate, similar to Terra 40,000 years ago. There is a mix of arctic polar regions, tundra, temperate forests, plains, deserts, rain forests, and savannas.

Many of the planet’s forests are dying as warp-tainted pathogens spread across Dozaria, affecting not just men but the planet’s flora and fauna.

The average planetary temperature is 14° C, with regional and seasonal variations ranging from 55º C to -80º. Until this century, vegetation was prolific outside of arctic and desert regions. But two events have begun to degrade the planet’s ecosystem.

The first was the accelerating growth of eight major urban centers, some of which had grown to a degree that they were proto-hive cities. As is often true for such monolithic structures, the landscape around these meta-cities became increasingly barren as pollutants poisoned the soil and surrounding air.

This threat to the ecosystem is dwarfed, however, by the invasion of the Death Guard.

Using their warp-tainted witchcraft, the traitor Astartes and their allies have transformed the regions they control into a rotting, disease-ridden wasteland. It is uncertain if any recovery efforts in the future—including wholesale burning of every square meter of land—will permit the re-introduction of healthy flora and fauna.

Population

On the war-torn world of Dozaria, victims of the Kassig Plague (often called zombies) are starving. Although they are drawn to human victims, hunger is forcing many to target the planet’s agricultural fields in search of nourishment.

The pre-invasion population of Dozaria was 17.2 billion citizens. Over the past decade, the population has fallen to five billion. Although the majority of casualties are attributed to the Kassig Plague, at least 3 billion deaths are attributed to the horrors of battle.

These casualty figures include one horrific caveat: Approximately 1 billion of the casualties are not technically dead. Instead, they are plague victims, little more than diseased, mindless, and hyper-violent creatures that stumble about and attack anything that moves.

The once-prosperous life of the remaining population is long extinguished. Even the most noble of families have been impoverished and forced into the all-encompassing war effort. Approximately 500 million citizens have been drafted into the PDF. The planetary high command would like to double this figure, but that goal is impossible given the current state of the manufactorums still under Imperial control.

In these industrial areas, the remainder of the adult population—as well as older children—have been put to work in still-functioning manufactorums and agricultural regions, laboring diligently to supply the massive military effort necessary to keep Dozaria under Imperial control.

Planetary Government

The Governor’s Palace was a symbol of Imperial authority before the hive city of Mokto was destroyed by orbital bombardment.

For millennia, the planetary governor was the hereditary office of House Geriarch, and the last of this line was Adolph Geriarch. He was credited with many administrative, economic and diplomatic initiatives that limited the deterioration of the planet’s ecosystem and improved living conditions for all classes of society.

His rule—and much of the Administratum’s role on the planet—ended in 738.M41, when the traitor fleet of the Death Guard launched orbital strikes on the planet. The capital city of Mokto was utterly destroyed, and Governor Geriarch, the senior ranks of the Administratum and the planetary Senate were killed.

Declaring marshal law, PDF General Hagan Kirkeby created an improvised High Command of surviving military and Administratum officials. Given a rapidly changing military situation, coupled with poor communications, various regional governors were appointed—essentially independent provincial governments that were required to provide tithes of men and war material.

With the arrival of Imperial reinforcements, a new governmental order has been installed. With the support of the Blood Angels and Knights of Altair space marine chapters, General Mikhail Botha of the Imperial Guard was named high marshal and took supreme command of all Imperial forces on the planet, and General Kirkeby was named commander-in-chief of the Dozarian PDF.

Civilian control of the government was assigned to Kaiya Larrall, a rising star in the Administratum who was promoted to prefectus. She is, however, having to use all her diplomatic powers to convince the regional governors to accept limits on their local autonomy, and she has occasionally been forced to take more subtle but violent steps to ensure acceptance of her Imperial-granted authority.

The city of Alicante now serves as the de facto capital of the planet.

Many of the planet’s manufactorums have been destroyed in the decade-long battle for control of Dozaria.

Economy

The pre-war economy was affluent. Even after paying high planetary tithes to the Imperial, a well-conceived economic plan resulted in high manufacturing productivity, strong in-system and inter-system trade, and a rising standard of living.

This general prosperity ended within days of the Death Guard invasion. At least 20 percent of the planet’s industrial production was destroyed in the initial orbital bombardment by the traitor Astartes, and another 40 percent were destroyed as traitor forces marched through some of the most economically productive regions of the planet.

Planetary tithes have been halted, along with an end to the production of any non-vital consumer goods. What’s left of the production capabilities of the planet have been diverted to a total-war economy. 

Hive cities

The hive city of Mokto before it’s destruction. Only a handful of hive cities and proto-hives still exist on Dozaria.

The economic model  of the planet has long been to strike a balance between industrial production and quality of life, and every effort has been made over the millennia to avoid the creation of hive cities and the inevitable social and environmental harm that accompanies them.

But high Imperial tithes could not totally stop  the inevitable concentration of industrial production and population, and at least eight metropolitan areas on the planet have grown upward and outward—four officially recognized as hive cities and four that are clearly the foundation of future hive cities.

Three of these giant metropolises were destroyed by the orbital bombardment of 738.M41, most notably the capital city of Mokto. Another, Alicante, suffered serious damage, and the city of Inaspolis has fallen to the the traitors.

Two metropolises–Alicante and nearby Mygor–have been prime military targets of the Death Guard, with millions of heretic troops being thrown against the cities’ defenses. As of mid-743.M41, these assaults have been repulsed with great loss.

The Future

With the arrival of massive Imperial reinforcements, the war on Dozaria is relatively stagnant. Fighting continues across the planet, but neither Imperial nor Death Guard forces have managed to achieve any great advantage on the battlefield.

With the launch of the Damocles Gulf Crusade, new Imperial reinforcements appear unlikely, which raises the prospect that the current military stalemate will continue for years to come. 

But there is one nagging concern among Imperial commanders. The pestilence introduced by the Death Guard is virulent, and there is constant danger of these contagions spreading beyond traitor-held territory and bringing havoc to Imperial forces. In fact, that threat is considered a likely strategy of the traitors and their heretical allies.

The ultimate fate of Dozariza remains unclear.

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The Corvus Cluster is a Warhammer 40K blog documenting our gaming adventures in the fantastical sci-fi universe of Games Workshop.