T'au itself is a harsh, wind-scoured world of shifting dust plains and violent storm seasons, a birthplace that shaped its people into survivors before it ever shaped them into an empire. It was here that the Ethereals first appeared to end the ancient rivalry between bloodlines and here that the doctrine of the Greater Good was first spoken aloud, and every citizen of the empire still looks to this sept as the wellspring from which their civilization's purpose flows.
Forces raised from T'au Sept fight with the disciplined orthodoxy of a people close to the source of their own philosophy. Fire Warrior cadres from the homeworld are drilled in the foundational tenets of the Tau'va, and their war machines bear the sept's insignia as a mark of lineage rather than mere origin, a reminder that whatever else the empire becomes, it began on this one storm-battered world.
T'au Empire
Order of battle
The T'au Sept field the units of the T'au Empire — a detachment from the roster:
Kindred formations
Other T'au Empire formations
Bork'an SeptBork'an is the foremost seat of learning in the T'au Empire, its systems crowded with universities, laboratories and the deep-void observatories of the Earth Caste. From this scholarly sept came breakthroughs such as the stasis field and the first piloted battlesuit, and its Fire Warriors march to war bearing the finest experimental armaments the Empire can produce. Its cadres fight with cold, measured patience, trusting that a lesson learned in the laboratory will be repaid a hundredfold upon the battlefield.
Dal'yth SeptDal'yth is the beating heart of T'au commerce, a First Sphere world whose culture is dominated by the silver-tongued merchants and diplomats of the Water Caste. More cosmopolitan than any other sept, its worlds teem with aliens of a hundred species who trade, treat and dwell alongside the T'au. It was Dal'yth's envoys who bound the Demiurg to the Greater Good, and its markets are counted among the Nineteen Wonders of the Empire.
Farsight EnclavesThe Farsight Enclaves are a cluster of fortress-worlds beyond the Damocles Gulf, ruled by the renegade Fire Caste hero the Imperium names Commander Farsight. Severed from the wider Empire and forbidding all Ethereals within their borders, the Enclaves keep to the old warrior traditions and trust the blade and the battlesuit above the words of any spiritual master. To the T'au they are the Forbidden Zone, a heresy that endures; to their own people they are a free realm guarded by the finest commanders alive.
Sa'cea SeptA sprawling and populous sept whose vast manufactories and shipyards keep the empire's war machine supplied.
Vior'la SeptA volcanic frontier sept renowned for producing the empire's most aggressive commanders and battlesuit pilots.