Warp-cults rarely pay any heed to worlds such as Cel, one of the most productive agri-worlds in the Askellon Sector. This is exactly what occurred in late M40, though, and it was only by the timely intervention of an Ordo Malleus warband operating under the direction of one Inquisitor Eldrik that a sector-wide calamity was averted.
Long the source of meat considered by many as the finest of delicacies, Cel ships mhoxen flesh across the sector and beyond, its produce found upon the tables of Askellon’s highest classes. Over the centuries, a coterie of epicurean fanatics had developed in appreciation of the delicacies of
Cel, a group that to many appeared akin to a cult and which on several occasions drew Inquisitorial attention. Each time, however, the group was found innocent of any crime other than its obsession with the meat of the mhoxen and—thanks to its connections with the highest nobles in the sector—was always able to avoid censure.
The terrible scope of this obsession was revealed when it was discovered that members of three noble houses had insinuated themselves into nearby planets, and over the course of decades tampered with the prey creatures below mhoxen in the food chain. For twenty years, the mhoxen had been fed creatures injected with a substance the cult had crafted from the rendered cranial tissue of kidnapped and ritually slaughtered Navigators, intending to grant themselves a purity of senses that would allow them to fully appreciate the exquisite flavours of their favourite courses. However, it also led to a rampant mutation in each house that was increasingly impossible to hide. Undercover Acolytes within the houses passed word to Inquisitor Eldrik, who realised with horror that the Warp-tainted substance could also make the scions of these three houses easy targets for Daemonic possessions or Warp-breaches.
The solution was simple, and one which Eldrik is known to have taken some personal satisfaction in enacting. Calling upon her Acolytes and other resources across the sector, Eldrik oversaw the creation of a hunter-killer genophage keyed to the genetic signatures of the three noble houses, and insinuated this into the already compromised food chain. Shortly after, all three houses were extinct, their epicurean scions slumped dead at the tables of their great feasting halls