Overview
Before the Legion came, the people of Caliban relied on armed orders to keep the forest beasts beyond their settlements. A knight riding out had a practical reason for every piece of armour he wore. The Lion rose in that country, among men who learned their trade against things that hunted human beings.
The Great Crusade brought industry and a place in the First Legion’s war. It did not prevent the quarrel that later destroyed the planet. Caliban survives in the Dark Angels’ possessions and memories, and in fragments with histories of their own. The forested world itself is gone. A mark on a chart cannot show how little remains where it once belonged.
History
The Lion and Luther rose within the Order before their relationship broke. When the Lion returned after the Heresy, Caliban’s defenders fired on his fleet. The civil war, bombardment and warp catastrophe that followed shattered the world. A fragment bearing its fortress survived as the Rock.
Military significance
Caliban trained and supplied the First Legion through monasteries, armour production and recruitment. Its forces also operated widely from fleets. After the planet’s destruction, that institutional inheritance continued with the Dark Angels, without an intact homeworld supporting it.
M41 and M42 status
Destroyed; historical location
Caliban is destroyed. The Rock travels with the Dark Angels, carrying part of the old world to locations independent of its former orbit.
Destroyed origin; fragments became mobile Wyrmwood
During the Arks of Omen, Vashtorr assembles corrupted fragments into Wyrmwood. The transformed daemon world departs through a supernatural passage. This mobile creation does not restore the original Caliban to the position marked here.
Timeline
Caliban becomes a principal base of the Dark Angels.
Civil war and warp catastrophe destroy the planet.
Vashtorr's Wyrmwood uses Caliban's fragments and subsequently departs.
Related charted locations
Administrative record
Tithe grade: Not applicable
Population: Original planetary population lost
Chart placement and sources
Disputed placement
The official 2025 Carta Galactica places Caliban east and slightly north of Cypra Mundi; an older Bodt inset places it northwest.
Both charts place it north of Cypra Mundi, but disagree about Medusa. This marker follows the newer Cypra relationship; the retained Medusa anchor cannot reproduce that chart's full layout. The marker represents historical Caliban, not the travelling Rock or Wyrmwood.
Source-reviewed regional estimate in the existing 0–1000 chart. The retained galaxy anchors, exact point and any ring size are not surveyed coordinates or territorial boundaries.
- Lexicanum — Caliban — Secondary reference
Book references indexed by this source: Descent of Angels, Prelude; Fallen Angels, chapter 2; The Horus Heresy Book Nine: Crusade, pp. 112–113
- Warhammer Community — Dark Angels and Vashtorr in Arks of Omen — Official source
Book references indexed by this source: Arks of Omen: The Lion
- World Eaters Black Book extract, printed page 4, Bodt inset — Official source
- Carta Galactica: Imperium of Man, official 2025 product preview — Official source
The dossier is available offline. Reference links open external websites.
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Cartographic positions and several administrative details are intentionally approximate where published Warhammer sources conflict or provide no canonical coordinate system.