Planescape, Warhammer 40k, and Delta Green are all great settings. Dark Heresy has elements from all three of these. The characters are members of a shadowy government organization, sent out to investigate and stop cultists, sanity blasting horrors, and terrible things from beyond the stars (Delta Green), to do this they must travel incredible distances to strange and vastly different worlds (planescape), all in the 40k universe (40k)

An amalgam of three excellent settings is true greatness, but to move all beyond greatness to pure awesomeness needs a little more. That is one more great setting. The obvious answer here is Dark Sun.

(on a side note this idea accord to me the day before WotC announced Dark Sun was coming back)

Adding Dark Sun to the mix may take a bit of work, so let’s begin. To start, we can take are inspiration from the Planescape element. How do you add Dark Sun to Planescape? Easy; Athas is just one plane among many, but rarely visited as it is isolated and a rather nasty place. Similiarly, Not-Athas (or Nathas) is just one planet is the 40k galaxy, rarely visited as it is isolated and a rather nasty place.

Indeed Nathas is a world is a place so inhospitable that it is often classified as a Death World. It is extremely hot and arid; only a small areas, called the Nablelands, is capable of supporting human life and then only with difficulty. Nathas is far from any major trade route, it possess no resource in great quantity (other than sand of course), and low sustainable population levels and growth rates makes regimental tithing impossible. Thus the Administratum was more than willing to cede Nathas to the Adeptus Mechanicus when they requested research world (more on this latter).

Now comes the hard part, adapting a D&D fantasy world to the 40k Universe while still maintaining the awesomeness of the Dark Sun Setting.

Environment/Climate

This part is fairly easy. A desert world is nothing special, especially by 40k standards. A massive sea of silt, a ringing mountain which supports some forests, a plain of broken obsidian, a totally lifeless plain of salt; all of these can be imported without alteration. Indeed the map of the tablelands can be used for the nablelands just by switching out names, though I plan to make some alterations for my campaign.
All of the non-sentient species can also be imported no problem (a new stat-block would have to be made, of course, but in my experience this is remarkably easy). Sentient species are little tougher.

Races

Rajat’s genocidal plan helps a little here, but there is still some work to be done.

Humans are humans of course. Ratlings are pretty much Halflings anyways, and giving them caniblistic tendencies just makes me smile. Similarly, Ogrin make decent half-giants, once you get rid of the giants. There are no squats, and anyways Athas dwarves were nothing like these. So let’s make nwarves a type of ahumans unique to Nathas. Muls are just like they are in Athas (likely heresy, but that doesn’t stop people).

Most of the minor races (pterran, lizardmen, etc) can be removed without any harm, but some are too important to the setting to ignore.

Thri-Kreen: A insect native to Nathas, the Nri-Nreen are primitive tool users and master hunters. Scattered across the planet in small bands and able to thrive in areas that would kill a human in hours, their eradication would be a costly endeavor. Given Nathas’ low resources (and value), and the Nri-Nreen’s non-threatening (on an interstellar level) nature, an alternate solution was devised. The Nri-Nreen was declared a non-sentient species by the Administratum, the Magos Biologus, and the Ordo Xenos, and thus no purging was necessary. How this came to be is unknown.

Elves: The problem here is that Eldar are 40k’s space-elves, but if they were common on human planet this would cause problems. And lets not even discuss half-elves. There are a few possible solutions to this.

a) Nelves are Eldar. There are a few exodite Eldar living on Nathas. They live in the Waste of the Nablelands and rarely interact with humans. The Adeptus Mechanicus on Nathas are either unaware of (unlikely), or ignore (heresy) their presence.
b) Nelves are Abhuman. This fits as Athas elves are rather different from fantasy elves, and this allows for half-nelves with few problems. However, I already have one abhuman race unique to Nathas and two might be pushing it.
c) Nelves are humans. The Nelvish culture is simply a bizarre, and likely heretical, culture that has evolved on Nathas. This makes half-nelves rather un-interesting however.

This thread is HERESY! However I do like your idea's on incorporating some of the more bizarre races from D&D. I still think you should make some reason for their to be eldar on the planet. Perhaps the planet was once a garden world of theirs only it was destroyed in some calamity millions of years ago. The few eldar present their could be searching for artifacts from their early times or visiting fallen temples to honor their dead gods.

Athas, don't maroon me there! Just throw me to the void and be done with it!

As a fan of Dark Sun, you have a pretty good idea there.

I think it will be most appropriate to present the elves are exodite eldar and halflings as scavvies/abhumans. Cannibalistic scavvies or abhumans!

Also, Thri-Keen will make a good native xenos species.

Maybe there is an unusually large number of pariahs on the planet, to represent the lack of magic?

Actually, Thri-Keen make a pretty good Xeno-species anywhere. I always appreciated their 'Alien-ness' and I occaisionally collected Mantids as pets when I was a boy. Furthermore, the possibility of discovering that this peculiar 'unintelligent' xeno specied are actually a highly intelligent and perhaps even non-native xeno-race would make for an interesting tale. Plus the possibility of a giant mantis-man with steel-sheathed forarms getting in a bare-handed duel with on of my player's sword-wielding Moritat is just too cool an image...

Nullius said:

Yes, yes, do go on!

well, now I need to work on a stat block for thri-kreen, or if someone else could make one that would be great.

Continuing on.

Preservers, Defilers, psions, and Elemental Clerics:

All have to be reduced to psykers, superstition, chaos worship, and maybe a little tech-priest archeotech (more on that latter). There is really no way around this. Luckily magic (ie sorcery) was always rare and mistrusted in Dark Sun, and psionics was always a part of the setting.

Cities and Sorcerer Kings

Having Mega-Psykers as Sorcer-King segregates would be thematic, but it would also be a recipe for disaster. Instead I’m going to go with the Mechanicus idea I’ve been hinting at. Each city is a research center for a different Magos. These cities are the only places where advanced technology exists on Nathos, and local regard technology with superstitious awe (even by 40k standards). The Magos-lords are regarded as almost godlike being (the magos differ in how they react to this) and the tools they invest their enforcers with are thought of as magic (Arthur C. Clark etc. etc.)

There is no cooperation among the Magos-lords. Some are openly hostile with each other, the rest are secretively competitive.

The “House of the Mind” in each city is where that Magos’ astropath resides (all but one of the Magos-lords has an astropath), and where psykers are held to await the black ships.

Next; my ideas for Magos-Lords. Could use a few more of these.

LordMunchkin said:

awesome. I think I'll be stealing this idea if you don't mind

Cervantes3773 said:

Or, better yet, maybe the planet was/is a place where the Necrons had a base of operations and they did something to sever the planet from warp. perhaps that experiment has gone a little off the rails in the last million years or so and some warp influence has leaked in every now and then, but psykers themselves would be a very rare sort of thing indeed.

Just throwing that out there.

weaver95 said:

Or maybe the crystal structure of all that sand on the planet has a psi damping effect which would explain why the mechanicus is so interested in a apparently worthless planet in the first place.

In keeping with Dark Sun wouldn't nearly everyone be a psyker to some degree. Maybe there is something about the planet that makes the use of the warp safer. Possibly the above psi damping effect make it so you can't roll above a 9. Or that your psi rolls are halfed, but you need 2 or more 9s.

Taking the idea of this being an former eldar garden world, along with the idea of a warp related artifact, I’ve come up with the following back story.

“Many years ago before the dawn of the Imperium, before the fall of the eldar, Nathas was a lush green world. The eldar came upon it and it made it a garden paradise. Shortly before the Fall, a powerful Eldar psyker named Najat when into the Pristine Valley, and discovered a draw power from the abundant plant life around him.

It is not recorded, not even in the depths of the Black Library, whether it was an eldar who build the tower within the Pristine Valley, or if they simply found it. By the time eldar explorer regained contact with Nathas following the Fall, the world was a desert and Najat has nowhere to be found.”

The only creature that might know what happened is the Dragon. There is no record of the giant sinewy creature before the Fall, and it’s both intelligent and a powerful psyker. However the beast is prone to lengthy episodes of omnicidal madness, and even sane will rarely acknowledge the presence of lesser creatures. What Dragon is, and how it is connected to the tower and/or the Cerulean Storm, are up to individual GMs.

Dark Sun had natural psionics, but I can’t really do that in 40k. Psykers are however fairly common on Nathas. The eldar who remain on Nathas, called nelves* by the locals, are natural psykers. Likewise many Nri-Nreen** and other local species have psionic talents. Among humans, psykers pop up more frequently in normal, far more so than the Inquisition knows. The Magos-lords to not tolerate the presence of psykers outside of their employ***, and in the wastes witches are killed if discovered. There are few tribes, lost to the Emperor’s Light, who welcome sorcerers and make use of their talents.

*not really, but this will do until I can come up with real fake names.
**yeah, the gags a bit silly
***officially these are all sanctioned psykers, but there is much heresy on Nathas.

daispike said:

Or....how about this? Ages and ages and ages ago, the planet was being consumed by the enslaver plague. This place was subjected to an experiment by the Necrons, who tried to sever the planet from the warp in order to stop the enslavers. But the experiment failed, so they sterelized the planet and moved on...but the experiment is still there, buried under the sand. And while they severely damaged the biosphere, life managed to still survive on the planet.

from france

a short answer because i am actually busy. i think it should be more a planet outside the imperium and the setting more apporiate for rogue trader than dark heresy. just remeber that in dark players begin at level 3 rather than one. and it would be easier ton integrate all the species without bloodshell or the inquisition burning evrything and evryone.

and don't remove the squat they have there place.

the way i see it the spaces surounding the planet is like a kind bermuda triangle with a lot of ship suck there and the planet is the only place to go. with milenia passing on and on teh people there have forgotten their roots. they have never known any thing else. the aliens tables are more than enough to duplicate the species. but i will never places necron and adeptus. each and evry modern weapons should be treated as an artefact. for me it is better to have it as a feral/deathworld.

oh don't forget your sunglasses

I have actually often used modified DnD settings or creatures in my games - typically those I never got around to using in any of my DnD sessions. I find the shear volume of creatures which could make interesting xenos races emensely attractive when I'm not feeling particularly imaginative myself. The trick is to add a good solid dose of 40k character to them (or Star Wars character, from my last major campaign) so they aren't immediately recognizable by your players.

Squats are abominations. They can only be cleansed with FIRE! By the way I think you should avoid having a known eldar presence on the planet. Just have unusually well preserved ruins which tribals claim to be haunted by beautiful yet terrifying spirits of the past. It could said that anyone visits these temples and finds one of these "wraiths" may ask it for some favor. These may include forbidden knowledge, items of power, unnatural abilities, aid against some enemy, etc... While this is all considered rumor by the locals, it is not unknown for particularly brave chieftains to search for one of these temples when some calamity befalls their tribe. Many do not return, often due to the sheer danger of reaching the temples, but those that do find the solution to their problem. For example a tribe might be being attacked by another lead by a powerful sorcerer. Their leader, facing the extinction of his people, leaves to seek the wisdom of the wraiths. When he returns he carries with him the knowledge of psychic wards, which his warriors carve onto their shields. Unsurprisingly, this new tool leads to the defeat of the foul sorcerer. Later, maybe years later, the chieftain unexpectedly leaves to "repay his debt to the spirits". Such is the price of wisdom.

One way to fit this planet into your game is for any eldar to have primitive nonnative human allies. After defeating them your inquisitor does some research and finds their garb unique to a world on the edge of Imperial space...

Also for the Mantis-Men you might have them in several seperate cultures. The majority would have little to no psychic ability. Their lives would reflect you basic human tribals with obvious xeno differences. The other two would reflect the end of two psychic spectrum. The first would be the one that has fully turned themselves over to the warp. While they are smaller than the majority of tribes, they are extremely violent and powerful, easily a match for the combined forces of several tribes. The lesser and smallest of the two would be those who have learned to control their ability. Much like a monastic order, they wage war on the forces of chaos, saving those they can, or ending the threat they pose to their people. Their task is thankless, as the majority of tribes avoid contact with the,. only meeting to leave their more powerful/dangerous psychics in their care. To highlight the awesomeness of these guy, just imagine a one wearing a tattered robe and wielding psychically empowered iron blades on his forearms. All while a sandstorm is going on and there are dozens of mutated mantis men assaulting him on all sides. Yeah its that awesome. To add more to my idea on the monastic order, you could have the oldest shamans among them discussing fusing all their power into a single individual in order to protect their people from chaos. An Alien Emperor in the making?

I like how you mentioned these "mantis-men" weren't considered sentient. You could have it so Lord Inquisitors of Ordos Malleus took a keen interest in this planets native species and seeing the way some of them fought Chaos, choose to save them for study by classifying them as animals. Now in order for the Imperium as a whole to stay away from this planet so they don't learn the truth, the Malleus gave this planet to the Mechanicus so they could study them. This means all the Magos on the planet could be xeno experts. You may be wondering why the Mechanicus agreed to this? Well as long as they don't harm the mantis and forward all the research regarding them to the Ordos, they have free reign to do whatever they want. So while a few Magos might be there just to study a new and unique species, may of the more radicals ones might have fought to get their positions so they could do their work without any scrutiny. Hell the Mechanicus might have given some of the more radical yet valuable Magos their post for free.

So yeah those are my ideas for now. Has me thinking of making a campaign on this planet just because it sounds so cool...

And I'm back. Didn't update this for a while as I was distracted by school and Rogue Trader.

I'm still trying to figure out stats for the Thri-Kreen. I'm trying to fit the three principle of 1) being fairly similar to the DnD version, 2) being weak enough that the low level acolytes could kill off a small number of them, and 3) being strong enough that a decent number of armed thri-kreen can hunt a lone ambul. Yes, there are ambul on Nathas. No, they are not the top of the food chain.

Oh, and Lord Munchkin those are some pretty awesome ideas. I'll probably incorperate a couple of them

For now, the first of the Magos-Lords. I intend for there to be around 7 of these, and I have ideas for 4 of them.

The format is City: Gothic name, Native name
Magos Lord: Official Name; Area of Study; (unofficial names)
The City and People:
The Lords Interests and Activities:
Possible Heresies:

and the first two are

City: BioStation 41R93, Guln
Magos Lord: Obara Ciceron; Magos Biologos; (the Noba, the forest queen, the witch of the woods)
The City and People:

Guln is located in on of only two forests on Nathas, at the base of a small mountain range near the center of the Nablelands. (The other, larger forest is found at the base of the mountain range that ring the western borders of the Nablelands and are off-limits by inquisitorial edict.) The original Biostation is only a small (~3 sq kilometers) glass and steel structure in the middle of massive city of wood and trees. Only Noba and here chosen servents are allowed into this sacred structure.
The people of Guln have things relatively easy, as the surrounding forest is rich in life and comfortable compared to the rest of Nathas. This has two consequences on Gulnian behavior.
First, they guard their forest sanctuary jealously and will kill any who intrude. Second, alone among all Nathas’ cities they truly love and adore their Magos Lord, believing her responsible for the forests continued existence. They are at least partly right about this.

The Lords Interests and Activities: Obara Ciceron was a prominent member of the Magos-biologos before she asked to be transferred to the Nathas biostation, a move that surprised many in the Adeptus Mechanicus.
The magos’ decision was motivated by her increasingly dangerous experiments. Nathas’ isolation had a twofold benefit. First it would provide a measure of containment should any of her experiments go awry. Secondly, and more importantly, it would keep her research away from the prying eyes of the Inquisition.
On Nathas Obara has created numerous bio-entities. In order to contain them she has included an ingenious fail-safe mechanism. All of her creations require high levels of water intake and ambient humidity to survive. Thus, they find even the forest surrounding the biostation inhospitable and would perish within minutes in Nathas’ wastes.
Obara desires to keep her experiments secret not only from the Inquisition, but from her fellow Magos-lords. To this end she has bolstered the cult of personality that emerged among the Gulnans and encouraged their xenophobic and territorial impulses.
The repeated intrusions by Nacosian anger Obara to no end, but she is unwilling to attack less the Magos Meteorologos use his abilities to alter the climate and potentially destroy centuries of research.

Possible Heresies: What bio-entities and other experiments has Magos Ciceron created? Vore-weapons, xeno-cross breeds, and gene-heresies are all possibilities. (personally I dislike the idea of human gene-heresy. Too easy/cliché).
How does the Noba inspire such fanatical loyalty among her subjects?
Does she encourage her worship as a god (heresy), has she created a bio-entity that fills the air with psycho-tropic spores (HERESY), has she been gathering psykers and used them to influence their minds (HERESY), has she merged herself with some genegineered xeno-creature capable of warp-sorcery and begun to corrupt their very souls (DOUBLE HERESY).

City: Nathas Climate Observation Station 01, Nacosoan.
Magos Lord: Melicos Oginver; Magos Meteorologos (the Shadow Lord)
The City and People:
The city Nacosoan lies at the eastern edge of the Gulnian forest. The weather Observation is a massive tower at the center of the sprawling city.
Since the Magos-lord rarely gives any commands to the inhabitants, a group of powerful merchant lords have established themselves as an unofficial government. This group is unashamedly greedy, and openly corrupt, but none dare challenge their rule save the Magos-Lord himself and he does not seem to care.
Nacosoan’s industry revolves around trade and savaging wood from the neighboring forest.

The Lords Interests and Activities: A minor magos form the weak branch of the Magos Meteorologos (who study weather and climate patterns); the Nathas station was about as good of post as Melicos could hope for. Officially he supposed to investigate the possibility of terraforming Nathas into a habitable planet. As the clear answer that terraforming is impossible has never been accepted, or even acknowledged, Magos Oginver has been forced to find other ways to keep himself occupied.
Completely uninterested in politics or mere human occupations, he has left the city to the merchant princes, his minimal presence earning him the name ‘the Shadow Lord’.
Instead the Magos has focused his attention on studying Nathas’ powerful and wild storm systems. Recently he has found something truly bizarre; a large sustained storm system whose movements seems completely unaffected by surrounding wind patterns. Stranger still this storm is not the standard sandstorm, but is in fact raining.
His urgent astropathic message was ignored by the Adeptus Mechanicus (like all his other messages), but did catch the attention of a member of the Ordo Malleus. Unfortunately, by the time his team of acolytes arrived, the Magos was nowhere to be found.

Possible Heresies: The magos largely kept to himself, and it is unlikely that he engaged in anything heretical.
However, he left the city largely to itself and any number of heretical activities could have started among its inhabitants.
I intend to keep these heresies rather low scale (ie possible chaos worship, but no daemon summoning), as this will be the area the acolytes would first be introduced at first level.
Lastly, there is the issue of the Magos’ disappearance. Could his investigation into the mysterious Cerulean Storm have lead him to do something foolish, or worse to **** his very soul?

so I abandoned this idea half finished some time ago as my group moved from Dark Heresy to Rogue Trader. Never got a chance to work Nathas into the Kronus Expanse, sadly.

Now I've moved and left that group behind and am in search of a new one. To occupy myself I'm going to finish up Nathas. Then I'll be able to send a new group of acolytes to if I can find one and convince them to give it a try.

Basic idea is to have a pretty long campaign on Nathas, starting at Rank 1 or 2. My RT campaign showed me how out of control high end equipment (inferno pistols etc) can get, and part of my reason for wanting this setting is that even acolytes starting gear will be pretty high end by local standards. Hopefully this will cut down on the rush for gear.

Also throwing around the idea of having the first session be just the trip to Nathas aboard a Chartis (sp?) ship that can only make short 'hops' in the warp. The ship is one the few that ever visit Nathas, and the trip will take several months. During this time the Acolytes will be able to do try to gather information on Nathas from the ships crew and the administratum documents given to them by their Inquistor, and acquire equipment they might need to survive on the planet. Depending on what they do they can get Common or Scholastic Lore (Nathas) as either basic or trained, speak language (Nathas tribes), or something else along those lines. Or the players might do something to suprise me.

This does show one of the virtues of the game and something that more tongue-in-cheek gamesmasters could use. As The Imperium consists of countless worlds that haven't seen an imperial agent in centuries (or longer) and some that may never have, enterprising GM's can always pull off other settings from their campaign shelf and add some inquisitors.

Athas isn't the only world which may need to be brought back into The Imperial fold. Eberron, Toril, and Greyhawk are all way past due in paying their tithes....

i did run a very successful Planescape/Shadowrun cross over before that was pretty awesome.

What about Cthulhutech? Has anyone tried this yet? AdEva doesn't count.

Back to work.

Because Nathas is a deadly place, I realized that an acolyte dieing during the campaign was a distinct possiblity. The replacement character would have to be native, so I started working on Nathas as an home world. This would also work for having a Nathas character in a different champaign.

Start with the Feral World Template then.

Replace the Rite of Passage trait with the following.

Nathas Native Skills: start with Speak Language (Nathas) and CL (Nathas)

Wastewalker: You start the game with the Resistance (Heat) talent. Also, you receive a +20 bonus on all Survival rolls to find water in arid habitats and a -20 penalty to all Swim checks.

This is the most basic idea. I'm less sure about the next trait.

Terrors of Nathas: The weather is not the only thing that makes Nathas deadly. The Native lifeforms are deadly and often have strange connections to the warp. Other humans can be just as dangerous, as raiders, slavers, and witches travel the wastes preying on the weak. Surviving in the enviroment has scared and toughed you.

Effect: You start the game with Resistence (Pyschic Powers) and Light Sleeper talents and 1d5 Insanity and Corruption Points.

I'm also considering having City-born Nathans being a completely different origin, based on the Hive Worlder template. However I've been distracted by working on a templates for Halflings (nathas-born ratlings), Nwarves, and Muls.

Much delayed but here they are

Halfings:
Halflings, as the Ratlings native to Nathas are called, scarcely resemble there counterparts on other worlds. Though of similar size (typically 4 feet in height), the conditions of Nathas have hardened them. In place of the normal Ratling servility and weakness, Halflings possess an iron will and a remarkable fortitude.

Halflings are found only in the forests found at the base of the mountain range that mark the northern and western borders of the Nablelands. They are deeply territorial of this region, and are known to kill and eat any outsider who dear enters them.

Despite these cannibalistic practices, Halfling society follows the main tenants of the Imperial Creed. The Emperor is worshiped as the “Ruler of Earth and Sky” who commands all the elements. Though a Halfling will typically pray first to the element connected to a given task, any prayer must end with and acknowledgment of the Emperor. Tribal elders pass on the secret signs of faith; the double eagle, the =I= of the inquisition, the eye in I of the adepta astro telepathica, and the winged bolt (the symbol of the Emperor’s Thunder the only space marine chapter known to have visited Nathas). An outsider presenting on of these symbols might be able to negotiate with the Halflings.

Common Halfing Hunter stats:
S 25
T 34
Agi 43
Per 32
Int 28
WP 30
Fel 24

Talents: Resistance (Heat and Fear), Primitive Weapons Training (melee, basic, pistol, thrown).
Skill: Awareness, Dodge, Tracking +10, Survival +10, Navigate (Surface).

Nwarf: (need to think of a better name, not dwarf)

An abhuman species found only on Nathas, Nwarves are well adapted for survival in the harsh wastes of there world. Hairless and stocky, Nwarves are resilient. Though no less intelligent than a normal human, a Nwarfs stubbornness makes it difficult for them to learn new skill. Once learn though a skill is never forgotten, and a Nwarf will dedicate years to perfecting a craft.

Stats:
S 32
T 43
Agi 24
Per 30
Int 30
WP 38
Fel 22

Resistance (Heat, Poison), Die Hard
Traits: Nwarven Focus: a Nwarf must always have a goal which they are trying to achieve. Pick a skill associated with that goal, the nwarf may reroll any check of that skill when used in pursuit of his focus. However, if the he ever passes up a chance to pursue his goal, he takes a -10 penalty to all checks for the next day.
Abandoning a focus that has not been completed requires a -10 WP check. Whether the check succeeds or fails, the nwarf gain 1d5 insanity points.

Muls

Muls are the product of crossbreeding Nwarf and a human, typically slaves and unwilling participants in the heretical act.
Despite the clear heretical nature of the act, the breeding of Muls is a common practice on Nathas, for Muls make ideal slaves. Stronger and even more resilient than their nwarf fathers, Muls are able to work for hours without tiring. Additionally the crossbreeding transforms the will and hardheadedness of the nwarf into a mental slowness and passivity far more appealing to task maskers. Though not as big or strong as an Ogrin, Muls possess enough intelligence to complete tasks without constant supervision.
Muls are always sterile and thus crossbreeding remains the only means of their production.

Stats
S 40
T 48
Agi 30
Per 30
Int 20
WP 22
Fel 23

Talents: Resistance (Heat, poison), Die Hard

Traits: Natural Armor 1 (this armor only counts against primitive weapons)
Tireless: A Mul does not suffer the -10 penalties to checks for having fatigue points