Hey y'all.

In response to a similar thread, I thought maybe we could assemble an unofficial non-canon "tour" of the Calixis sector. Specifically, write ups of any GM created systems or planets we may have come up with.

I'll start off first with Tanhauser system, a trinary star system that is similar to the triple-forge worlds in the book (I swear to god I wrote this before I found the forge world descriptions)

In the Calixis sector lies a nearly empty region of space. Known as the “deadlands”, it has remained unexplored, or at least reported unexplored, for tens of millennia. In this vast waste of space there is one single system through which stable passage has been chartered as a destination. The Tannhauser system is unique, comprising of a trinary star system and some 80 planets, of which a handful have evolved into bodies suitable for habitation. Due to an elaborate dance between the stars’ own orbits, and the orbits of the planets around the system, navigation directly into the system via warp is practically impossible. Instead, it is standard to warp into one of the outer planets, specifically the hive world of Tannhauser Gate (also typically called Gateway). From there, normal interplanetary travel is used to move deeper within the system, or in more exotic cases, a system navigator can be rented to chart a warp jump directly into the orbit of the desired planet.

The Tannhauser system is home to four large terrestrial worlds in close orbit to Tannhauser A,B, and C (the stars). Their erratic, spiraling orbit has produced over millions of years extreme deposits of minerals, which encouraged the inner planets (Dante, Vangelis, and Wagner) to develop into mining worlds. The erratic orbit made routine, dependable shipping of raw materials impractical, and thus began the slow evolution of Tannhauser’s inner planets into forge worlds.

Tannhauser system now produces prodigious amounts of industrial goods, from weapons to tools to refined construction materials. Due to some anomaly in the system, most metallic items manufactured in system are instantly identifiable in origin due to their dark, midnight blue sheen. When freshly cut, steel glistens as normal, before quickly darkening to it’s normal hue. This “oxidation”, for lack of a better term, prevents all further rust or signs of corrosion, save for extremely strong acids. Tech priests have surmised that there is an impurity within the ore mined in the system that causes such coloration, but any metallurgy research comes up with standard, expected chemical compositions, with variances never known to cause something similar. More interestingly, although any formal investigation has come up inconclusive, many psychics claim that they can feel a “presence” psychically of any metallic object from one of the system’s forge worlds. It is not a “tangible” presence, and offers no resistance nor shows any sign of malice, but simply is “there”, with a sensation that is described as “something is in the room with you” from most Psykers. Buildings primarily constructed from Tannhauser materials tend to be uncomfortable places for most psykers. Thankfully, most psykers in system quickly become used to this “presence”, and learn to block it from impeding their functionality. The inquisition has, over the years, taken a great interest in this property, both for exploitation in some capacity (which is limited, since so much metal from the system now is in the sector), or more importantly, due to taint from the warp. While no taint has been found, collectors of Tannhauser products have been placed under mild, extended surveillance to look for signs of corruption or heresy.
The entire output of four forge worlds is ferried out through an intricate and vast system of cargo lifters, ferries, and other inner-system cargo ships operating constantly for years at a time without an empty hold. All goods flow through the Gate, as the outermost planet is named, before being offloaded into charter ships to be dispersed to the Imperium at large.

The three main forge worlds however are not always reachable. Due to intense gravity fields, the radiation from the three stars, and the winding, spiraling path that the forge worlds take through the system, there are periods when each of the three worlds passes between the stars, and even approaching the planet becomes lethal. During this time, all surface activity ceases, and the population moves deeper into the planet interior. Thus, in an ironic twist, the wealthy and established of Tannhauser tend to live deeper in the earth on these forge worlds, instead of in the spires of the hive worlds as normally expected.

During these periods of imposed exile, most of the surface forges which process raw material or package goods ready for off-planet shipment, go dormant. The forge worlds subsist off of the food and goods stored in the months leading up to the exile (the common-tongue term), and instead turn their attention to the more subtle factories and artisan workshops. What major factories do remain open stockpile their goods to flood the market after an extended run down of stock. Goods produced during an exile, especially a lengthy one, tend to be of higher quality, due to the lower levels of pressure to maintain export, and of the somewhat introspective nature of the populations during such treks. It has become something of a mark of prestige to assemble the highest artistic works of machinery during exile, and the Gate has entire museums devoted to the product of record-breaking exiles for each of the forge worlds. Currently Vangelis is undergoing something of a renaissance, producing relatively large quantities of artistically master-crafted products, weapons, and other items, during their exiles. Wagner was the previous heir to the title, and tensions are tight between the two worlds, especially if citizens from both worlds meet off world, such as at the Gate.

These exiles have wildly varying cut-off times, with the shortest being a few weeks as one planet grazes the lethal zone, all the way to several years as the forge world gets caught into the gravitational fields of the stars and spiral and swirl within the radiation zone. Even predicting such periods is difficult due to the highly erratic orbits of the three worlds, and thus over the centuries a very small astro-navigational guild has risen to power in the system. Tech priests, taking mathematics almost to a fetishistic level, slave away taking position of the stars and their orbiting planets, often with ancient, manual tools, and small guild ships zip to and fro, sampling gravity, monitoring the stars’ solar activity cycles, and feeding back immense amounts of data, sometimes mere minutes old, to computational savants (not servitors, but full humans) who sift through the constantly changing data and apply arcane formulae to produce an almanac for all the planets in the system. This almanac is constantly updated, but in over two thousand years the guild has managed to maintain a 100% accuracy of this complex system. Being the only group who every really knows where every planet or solar flare is at any given moment has also led to a lucrative navigational business, whereby ships needing passage deeper into the system pay a hefty premium for access to the positional computations in the almanac, in addition to a navigator/savant to translate the bricks of meaningless numbers into a useful course to plot. While the guild is operating under Imperial charter, it is officially neutral politically, but different factions within the guild occasionally take an interest in system politics, risking their protected, monopolistic position in the system to achieve personal goals. More often than not, inner-guild rivalries put an end to such aspirations.

Topics to explore:

Feral worlds- failed colonies left to fend for themselves

Agriculture worlds- The thin green line that feeds billions

Solar-centric stations- Psykers from the navigational guild provide a small facsimily for the astronomicon, to allow imperial fleet movements in-system without having to consult the almanac. Also, such stations serve as focal points for planetary positioning surveys, since they never move relative to the rest of the system due to static Lagrangian points- gravity wells created by each of the three stars. Currently there are three such stations (also referred to as Waypoint stations) where the freighter fleets of Gateway rendezvous and transfer finished goods and import materials to the lighter fleets that ply to and from the different forge worlds. Waypoint stations also serve as transfer points for food from the in-system agricultural planets.

The Boneyards- a capital shipyard that was never finished after it was determined that the raw materials, while present in system, were far too difficult to steadily ship to the edge of the system. A few scattered superstructures were started before being abandoned.

I like it and it leads to a thought....Perhaps we can put together a Fanzine that will accomplish people's interest in more Calixis sector information. Would people be interested in such a things?

Salcor

Sure... I have a few more planets/systems that I'm gonna flesh out, but I wanted a really flexible "mini calixis sector" to get my players' feet wet.

So... where are the c-beams glittering in the dark?

Cifer said:

Well the orcs haven't invaded yet...

"Da red beams hit harda!"

I always liked Bladerunner, and the visual themes of the movie mesh very well with a hive world in my mind. Also, Tannhauser has some connotation with Wagner and also with Germanic legend, so that also fits well with me. I'm kind of running with the unspoken concept that the empire that the Emperor established is very Roman-influenced, while further acquisitions and additions to the empire have a distinct germanic feel to it. At the moment, while the players are unaware of their own "cultural influence" that they suffer from, they can instantly tell through an easy fellowship roll if the person they're dealing with is "old empire" or "new empire". It's going to become a theme down the road in the story, helping show the slow decay of the Imperium and how the "new empire" probably is going to survive the eventual death of the Emperor, as they had managed to survive for far longer without the Emperor than the "old empire" ever did. It won't be a strong focus of the story, but a pervading, subtle theme.