The Black Reef



"The Warp is a child's play pen compared to that place; mark my words, you cross the Stygian Break and you had best be ready to die."

         -Callat Glass, void-master of the Mark of Perdition

The Black Reef
At the extreme edge of the Canis Salient, along the coreward side of the Jericho Reach, lies the Black Reef, a cosmic briar patch of gravitational madness that spans over a dozen light years, and effectively blocks off the entire flank of the Tau empire's incursion into the Reach. Between the worlds of the Canis Salient and the Reef itself lies a vast open stretch of empty void. Called the Stygian Break, it is an area where the calm silence of normal space gradually twists and warps into the raging tempest that is the Black Reef.

The Black Reef itself is an area where the gravitational forces seem to work along completely different laws of physics than elsewhere, and its gravitational storms are so powerful and vast that they reach even into the Immaterium and can pull ships right out of the Warp at a whim. Because of this, the Reef is considered nearly impassable to normal void faring craft, and no known warp routes through it exist as far as the Imperium knows.

The Tau have made extensive use of this as a nutural barrier to protect their newly founded Velk'Han Sept (the Tau name for their empire in the Jericho reach) and focus their war efforts along the Greyhell Front. While the Tau seem to have been unable to traverse the Reef yet, it is speculated that they have been trying for as long as the Crusade to navigate a stable route through, and it's apparent that the side that first manages to find such a route will have a massive strategic advantage over the other.

Within the Reef
Records from before the Age of Shadow do include records of the Black Reef, although there is no information on whether it's ever been explored or what's inside. Ever since the return of the Imperium to the Jericho Reach and the first skirmishes with the Tau, there have been a myriad attempts to navigate the Reef. Imperial navy vessels, Mechanicum ships, and Rogue Trader craft have made the attempts. Most have never returned, and those who do have usually only skimmed the surface without ever delving into the depths of the Black Reef.

The tales that are brought back by these few survivors paint a bleak picture of what the Reef contains. They speak of massive gravity storms that push and pull at ships, debris, asteroids and in some cases even planets, flinging them across the void and into new, obscure paths. Tales abound of enormous debris fields where wrecked craft are pulled together, sometimes in such volume that space hulks form and drift aimlessly throughout the Reef. These ships are supposedly of all types and marks, and event from races and factions not known to be present in the Jericho Reach. Some even say that there are whole planetary empires existing within the Black Reef, ruled over by xenos races the Imperium of Mankind have never even heard of.

While the stories vary wildly, there are some common ground among them. Most notably that there is no such thing as normal warp travel within the Reef. All travel needs to be performed in shorter jumps with frequent realignments in realspace inbetween.

Many captains also have reported of another astronomical qirk: it seems that ships within the reef attract other objects at a much greater force than in normal space, and travel outside of the Warp is a literal game of dodgeball with cosmic debris, as wrecks, asteroids and even planets will seek out ships trying to cross the Reef, changing course and accelerating as if drawn by a potent magnetic force.

Last, but not least, the few captains who have delved deep into the Reef and returned, tell of an area of the cosmic anomaly that seems more stable, and is located deep within the core of the Black Reef, light years away from any aid or semblance of safety. While non can say what exactly it is, they all agree that there is something hidden deep within the Reef, something massive...