It is the ammunition of the quake cannon - the ghoulish quake
shell - that marks out the weapon as unique. Each shell
contains fragments of a planet that has undergone the ultimate
sanction of Exterminatus. Whenever planets are to be
destroyed, Tech-priests and Magos Geologis from the Adeptus
Mechanicus are dispatched to the sector to capture and store
the shattered planet’s death-throes as quickly as possible - a
dangerous task in and of itself. From orbit, as their ships are
buffeted by the destruction, these ghoulish blast-waves are
captured by immense, arcane wave-recorders. Later they are
replicated back on forge worlds, where this energy is reborn in
the form of quake shells. It is not uncommon for such shells
to be named after the planets from which their potency has
been captured. Quake shells sometimes scream as they rocket
through the air, and many suggest that this noise is in fact the
combined death wails of a planet’s population. Tech-priests have
not quashed these macabre rumours.