Iron Staff Dominion

The Iron Staff Dominion marks the remaining fastness of the abhuman Iron Staff League, centred upon the Thronghold of Magnund. This petty Empire is formed of a number of Throngholds, each of which commands a small area of space centred upon planet (Thrung, in the abhuman's common dialect) or system, in the case of the larger Holds.

The area is isolated physically from the rest of the sector, with the gaping vastness of the Mere Marches and Genosan Expanse to the North, and the Vectum Isolation to the corewards side. The League has limited contact with the Invictus and Starfire subsectors – trade with the Imperium means that a few Throngholds lend support and have good relations with the wider sector, but most – particularly the Deepholds – are suspicious and wary of the Imperium.

Political contact with the abhumans is cool but mostly continuous. Historically, the worlds of the League became a Protectorate of the Imperium following the Ibistan Complicance, and the squats and humans of the sector worked closely together. Political strain during the Nova Terra Interregnum in M35 saw the League support the Hesiod subsector against the Anton Antecedent sector, as Hesiod's leadership of the Sector brought more trade to the League. This proved dangerous in the following centuries as the Age of Apostasy saw Hesiod shrink in influence. As it merged with the Siculus subsector and governorship of the sector returned to Grovsenor, numerous petty wars and rebellions broke out across the new Hesiod-Siculus subsector as the Siculan, Hesiod and Anton Antecedent subsector governments struggled to assert political dominance or hold on to power. 

This culminated in the infamous Marshal Bron of Hesiod calling upon the League to support a popular rebellion and assault upon Grovsenor. Althing (High King) Horsa the Oathbound, believing himself honour-bound to the Lord Marshal, reluctantly threw his lot in with the Hesiod group. The Broken Covenant Confict of M36, as the League know the Hesiod Romantic Rebellion, marked a great schism between the League and the Imperium. The Age of Apostasy was raging across the wider Imperium, and tolerance of abhumans – even stable, true-breeding forms like the squats – was at an all-time low. Tensions between the subspecies were high, particularly in cosmopolitan or trading districts where the two mixed, like the Peckim system. 

Despite their firm defensive stance, League throngs found themselves fighting against Imperial troops of the Siculus and Anton Antecedent subsectors as Bron's own armies evaporated under the superior forces of the more influential subsectors. Eventually, Bron was assassinated and the Romantic Rebellion collapsed. Althing Horsa found himself in charge of the rebellion's forces, as fleeing rebels sought sanctuary with the League. Unwilling to continue prosecuting the unpopular war, Horsa sued for peace. 

The Diet of Bronnling, on the obscure border world of Gehenna IV, was meant to be a conclave of the various subsector governments; but under Sector Ecclesiarch Martial VI, it turned into a show trial of Horsa. The Althing was found guilty of sedition against the Emperor and executed. Martial VI then declared the squats xenos and ordered a crusade to be prosecuted against them. The League found themselves fighting against the whole might of the Imperium in the sector, and defeat was inevitable. Three-quarters of the League's planets were taken, their populace displaced, executed or banished; and the League dug deep into their ancestral lands to weather the storm.

As the new Althing had predicted, the sector's political will was weak. Decades of internecine warfare followed by the crusade had drained all but the most bloodthirsty of a will to fight; and the new stewards of the sector – the lords of Grovesenor in the Anton Antecedent subsector – were keen to begin consolidating their power. Support for the crusade waned to a trickle, until a series of events caused peace to break out. First, Martial VI was martyred and the liberal – and abhuman friendly – Sector Ecclesiarch Borbidas was enthroned. Secondly, the Hesiod-Siculus subsector government had rashly tried to demonstrate its power by seizing Eorta in the Scallop Stars, which triggered a massive ork counter-assault into the north of Hesiod-Siculus, and necessitated immediate redeployment of the besieging armies.

In recent millennia, friendly relations have been established between the outlying Throngholds, some of which even allow their populace to be drafted into the Imperial Guard; though the conservative Deepholds on the Dominion's core have long memories and hold fierce grudges...