Battle for Deathcap Junction: the story thus far...

[Josiah]

 

 

            Deathcap Junction is a settlement located in the depths of Hive Primus. It is the only place where Necromundan deathcap mushrooms grow in large quantities. Deathcaps are among the most deadly poisons in the galaxy. A single spore will cause nearly instant death, but the victim feels like the agonizing process lasts for millennia. (A few psykers have learned this horrifying secret the hard way.)

            Two standard years ago, the Corpse Guild outlawed any use of deathcap spores as a poison. The Corpse Guild feeds reconstituted human flesh to the hungry masses, and deathcap poison lingers in dead bodies for a long time. Even worse, human tissue absorbs deathcap spores so completely that they are nearly impossible to trace after a victim dies from seemingly natural causes. And the problem is one of scale: a single polluted body will toxify an entire batch of valuable corpse starch. Put simply, deathcap poison is bad for the Guild’s bottom line. As a result, the Guild lobbied Lord Helmawr for decades until he finally delivered an edict outlawing deathcap poison.

Nearly a century ago, House Escher established a monopoly on the trade and cultivation of deathcaps, in keeping with that House’s disturbing fascination with toxins. Until recently, Deathcap Junction was ruled by the Hot Knives, a large and powerful Escher gang. To a woman, the Hot Knives were murderers and drug peddlers, but they were staunchly loyal to the Noble Houses and the Guilds. After the Corpse Guild outlawed deathcap poison, the Hot Knives were quick to wash their blades, and they immediately stopped peddling deathcap spores to wealthy spies and assassins. From that point on, the Hot Knives would only sell deathcap harvests to uphive nobles who buy the potent spores for medicinal purposes.

Deathcap mushrooms are a powerful catalyst in the rejuvenat treatments that keep many spire nobles—including Lord Helmawr himself—alive and healthy for hundreds of years. The process of refining the deathcap spores to make them safe for consumption—a process known as “quickening” by noble apothecaries—is prohibitively expensive for most people living downhive. Recently, the Corpse Guild succeeded in criminalizing the use of deathcap medicine throughout the Underhive. The Guild did this to prevent even the rare wealthy downhiver from polluting the next big yield of corpse starch.

The Hot Knives lost vast sums of credits due to the outright ban on deathcap poison and the downhive ban on deathcap medicine. This economic downturn sowed discontent among the ranks of the Hot Knives. Their second-in-command was a charismatic swordswoman named Epitomie. Epitomie believed that House Escher was strong enough to defy the Corpse Guild, and she convinced many of her sisters to join a rebellion against any Hot Knives who remained loyal to the Guilds. Before long, Epitomie found powerful allies among the Narco Lords, a recidivist organization that—until recently—had taken in large profits by selling deathcap medicine on the black market.

Epitomie’s rebel faction called themselves the Devil Cats, and they fought a brutal guerilla war against the Hot Knives. The Devil Cats took heavy casualties, but they ultimately won the war, seizing control of the deathcap trade throughout the Junction. Epitomie is deadlier than ever—she took over a dozen brightly colored scalps during the war—but she doesn’t have enough battle-ready soldiers to ward off the many House gangs that come pouring into the Junction everyday, seeking to take advantage of the new power vacuum. She has also heard disturbing news that the Corpse Guild has sent down squads of Enforcers to make sure that she pays dearly for defying their sacred laws.  

"Oh well," Epitomie has been known to say, while drawing her power sword: "I asked for an interesting life, not a long one."