With the addition of three new Homeworlds in Enemies Within (and I expect more to come with further expansions), I was having a little look at the Random Homeworld table in the core book and it got me thinking about how many Acolytes would come from the various different Homeworlds. The new ones all give the option of substituting a result for another in a certain range, which seems a little odd, but it works as a "tacked-on" sort of mechanic. If, on the other hand, you were to re-write the table entirely, those new Homeworlds will be taking the place of the core-book ones.

This brings up the crux of my question; given the lore, which Homeworlds should have higher frequency on the table? It can't just be a factor of population, otherwise I figure Hive Worlds would dominate at least 40% of the table, given that the majority of the population of the Imperium lives in Hives, it's also got to incorporate the likelihood of people from those worlds becoming Acolytes for the Inquisition.

For instance; Highborn characters have to come from one of the least populated "cultures" in the Imperium, but the resources and training they have access to creates a much greater incidence of them being recruited by the Inquisition than might be expected from their population alone.

It's very much a 'how long is a piece of string' argument - for starters, if the warband is operating on a given world, you should have a preponderance of that specific world.

Agreed that by population alone, Hive Worlders make up the vast proportion of the cultures. You can make a good argument for everything being about equal, to be honest. It very much depends how the individual has been recruited - 'in passing' during an investigation, or from some central recruitment hub, or in the process of raising a new cell of acolytes for a specific world or task.