On the death world of Vanth, the primary danger comes from the plant life that makes up its trackless jungles and swamps. Almost the entire surface is one enormous, foetid mire from which rise the roots of mangrove-like trees several hundred metres tall. So ancient are the pilings of these trees that they have become interwoven over the millennia, growing together to form a web of bridges across which many arboreal creatures travel over the swamp below.
While the enormous trees of Vanth are host to a bewildering array of animal life, the true threat to exploration resides in the viscous swamps. The dark waters are host to some manner of creature or creatures preying upon anything passing over the root bridges, striking up out of the water with one or more coiling, tentacle-like vines. Having ensnared its prey, the organism drags it down into the swamp. Some xenos savants have suggested that the swamps are themselves a single planet-sized digestion system, a theory that is regarded with derision and horror in equal measure.
Ordinarily, there would be little reason to travel to Vanth. However, it was discovered several centuries ago that its swamps produce several rare and highly unusual gasses known to have utility in a number of very valuable medical procedures. Most of these relate to Juvenat procedures, used by those with sufficient wealth or power to reverse the effects of ageing and greatly extend the span of their years. When Vanth’s priceless natural resource was discovered, the eyes of some of the most highly placed interests in the sector and far beyond it were turned upon the world.
The operation to extract the juvenat gasses has always been plagued by misfortune, for there is no way of doing so without drawing the attentions of the threats that lurk beneath the swamps. Countless different methods have been attempted, and while most have met with a measure of success, none have done so without a hefty bill. At present, the most successful operation belongs to a shadowy cartel made up of several Highborn houses. It pays a huge stipend to the House of Roth, the Rogue Trader dynasty that first discovered the presence of the gas, though not the world itself.
The cartel has found considerable success in mining the gasses using a large processing platform held aloft above the swamps. Anti-grav generators procured for the purpose, at staggering expense, support the huge machinery, the trees themselves too fragile to support such weight. A siphon is piloted into position by a crew stationed inside an armoured capsule, and when a pocket of gas is located, as much is pumped off as possible before the swamp’s tentacles can mass sufficiently to tear the whole apparatus apart. Even this most successful of methods has cost the lives of many hundreds, however, for should the siphon remain on station for too long, the swamp tentacles mass with such effect that the rig itself is threatened with being pulled from the sky and dragged into the swamp. It takes scores of heavily armed mercenaries to keep the tentacles at bay long enough for the siphon crew to mine enough gas to make the attempt successful, but casualties of over two-thirds are common. So far, the effort has been profitable, to the backers at least.