I was curious as to how long it might take for a standard starship to travel from the Calixis Sector to Holy Terra? Also, what should anyone expect if they make it to the Sol system? What kind of security, defenses, customs, accommodations, restaurants, and shopping? Is it worth a Rogue Trader's time and effort to pay Holy Terra a visit?

A few things to ponder :

- Is your RT allowed to sail there ? Remember that ships are usually allowed to go on limited routes; even warrant holders can be limited to sectors, or a Segmentum. Holy Terra is a Segmentum away from the usual Obscurus RT.

- There are a lot of pilgrimages going there, so perhaps the routes are controled.

-About security : This is Holy Terra. Luna is a whole star forteress on its own, Then there is Mars. and further away, Titan. between the Custodes, the Inquisition, one of the two main Sororitas convent, the Imperial Fists, the Grey GKnights, the Astra Telepathica, a few temples of the Officio Assassinorum, the fact this is the holiest place fior the Ecclesiarchy, the place where the High Lords of Terra dwells....security ishould be strong. Over the top paranoid PC with unlimited founds and thousand generations dfedicated to build it strong.

- for the rest, not much is known. Cionsiders that terra has no longer any ocean and the Imperial Palace is as large as the Himalayas, to give the scale.

-is it worth it ? For bragging rights, it might be.

Well once a Rogue Trader visits Imperial space they immediately become subject the the laws of the Imperium so any illegal goods/peoples/technology become subject to confiscation and the Rogue Trader him/herself may be detained or worse.

That said if the Rogue Trader does things properly and doesn't just show up in the Imperium with a heavily armed fleet then things are probably not going to go too badly.After all, they are expected to return with tithes periodically.

I'd probably make a bureaucracy based endeavor with the rewards being prestige/reputation/peer/morale based.

It has the highest levels of technology available. It has the highest security in the Imperium. There are 181 known satellites of the planets and dwarf planets. 19 moons are large enough to be gravitationally round. Every one of those is likely a fortress. Every rock in space larger than 100m in diameter probably has an installation on it, if only a private mansion of some noble. Most are probably armed. There will be enough ships present to overwhelm the eyesight of a country bumpkin augur operator used to searching for a single blip on the screen. Port Wander probably has 20-50 ships present at a single time. Can you imagine what Terra-space has at one time? You are probably given a flight plan that permits absolutely no deviation, both because of security and because the voidspace is so crowded that it's like trying to come into O'Hare Airport at noon. And, the airspace of Terra itself certainly has millions, and probably billions of small craft aloft at any particular moment.

I thought of starting up a liner operation out of Calixis to Holy Terra, and back. Advertise the tourism aspects of it. What are the major sights to see, besides the Palace? I don't imagine Disney World is still there, but is McDonald's? Taco Bell?

As I understand it Terra is essentially just one giant place of worship. If you're not taking pilgrims then you're likely to be taking the incredibly high ranking Imperial Servants to do business.

Terra, also called "Holy Terra" or, in the most ancient records, "Earth," is the throne world of the Imperium of Man and the original homeworld of Mankind and of the God-Emperor. It is the most sacred and revered place in all the million worlds that comprise the Imperium.

Billions of human pilgrims from across the galaxy flock to Terra -- even the barren and contaminated soil that these pious folk tread upon when they reach humanity's homeworld is considered sacred by the faithful of the Imperial Creed.

Terra is effectively a globe-straddling temple dedicated to the worship of the Emperor of Mankind . The planet is home to the primary headquarters of many important Adepta of the Imperium since it serves as the capital world of the Emperor's realm. There is a great fear of Space Marines amongst the people who dwell there, due to events dating back to the Horus Heresy, when much of the planet was levelled and terrorised by the actions of the Traitor Legions.

Before the Great Crusade, Terra was plagued by a long age of civil war and anarchy known as the Age of Strife, which only came to an end when the Emperor personally waged the Unification Wars to reunite all the Terran factions under his own enlightened leadership. Terra is perhaps the most massive Hive World within the Imperium, with an uncounted population that numbers several hundred billion human beings.

The bulk of Terra's massive population is divided between the upper class that includes the Imperial nobility and Adepts of the Adeptus Terra and the lower classes who serve as basic labourers. The upper class is comprised of the official servants of the Emperor and his Imperium, including Imperial officials, Ecclesiarchy clergy, the aristocratic families of the Navis Nobilite, military officers, scribes, and bureaucrats. The teeming masses who comprise the Terran lower classes are far less-privileged, and many of them are nothing more than serfs or thralls who toil in the world's countless manufactorums, providing the infrastructure that keeps the heart of the Imperium's byzantine bureaucracy functioning. Terra has one moon, Luna, which is an inhabited and highly populous Civilised World of the Imperium in its own right.

Edit: That quote was supposed to be attributed to the Warhammer Wiki rather than Wayfinder. Now I can't seem to correct it.

Edit: Also

Tourist locations:

Terra is the heart and throne world of the Imperium of Man, and serves as the headquarters for many of its most important Adepta and other organisations. Most importantly, it is the homeworld and resting place of the Emperor of Mankind. The most important places on Terra and the headquarters of the vital Imperial organisations based on Terra include:

Imperial Palace - One of the largest structures on Terra, the Imperial Palace is more like a sprawling hive city than a single edifice. It covers the better part of the Northern Hemisphere, and is guarded by the Adeptus Custodes, the superhuman praetorians of the Emperor who rarely leave the confines of the Palace. It is the heart of the Administratum as well as the home of the Sanctum Imperialis, the great throne room of the Emperor and the location of the Golden Throne. The Palace is divided between the Inner and Outer Palace. It is described as "an endless, black hive of forbidden technology and subterranean passages delving deep within the bowels of the planet."

Eternity Gate - The largest entryway into the Inner Imperial Palace's Sanctum Imperialis. A mile-long passage leads to the Eternity Gate, lined with the banners of thousands of the greatest and long-dead Imperial heroes, including Lord Commander Solar Macharius. It constitutes the end of the galactic pilgrimage trail, and is itself the most important pilgrimage site in the entire Imperium, for almost no one is ever allowed entrance through the Eternity Gate into the Sanctum Imperialis.

Sanctum Imperialis - The throne room and heart of the Imperial Palace. It is the massive chamber housing the Golden Throne and the Emperor's body. It is guarded by a select group of three hundred Adeptus Custodes, the elite among the elite.

Adeptus Terra - The Adeptus Terra, known commonly as the Priesthood of Earth, is the actual government of the Imperium of Man, consisting of countless different organizations and the departments within them. Besides the vast, destitute population of non-adepts that makes up the majority of the planet's populace, much of the rest of Terra's population are members of the Adeptus Terra and of these the largest percentage are adepts of the Administratum.

Administratum - The Administratum is the administrative and bureaucratic division of the Adeptus Terra, consisting of untold billions of clerks, scribes, bureaucrats and administrative staff constantly working to manage the Imperium at every level, from assembling war fleets to levying taxes and tithes. It is the largest of the departments comprising the Adeptus Terra, and ten billion Administratum adepts work in the Imperial Palace alone.

The Forbidden Fortress - Built throughout the mountain range of the Himalayas. A single peak is carved to form the Chamber of the Astronomican, where ten thousand psykers continuously power the Astronomican beacon with their own life energies. The "psychic light" of the beacon reaches thousands of light years across the Warp. The Astronomican is utilized by the mutant psykers known as Navigators to guide interstellar ships through the otherwise trackless chaos of the Warp. Without it, long-distance Warp travel would be impossible and the Imperium of Man would disintegrate. Access to the Forbidden Fortress is restricted to invitation only, this includes even members of the Inquisition who must request access.

Office of the Inquisition - The Inquisition's headquarters on Terra is a sprawling and highly secure complex built beneath the south polar ice cap of Antarctica.

Navigator's Quarter - The headquarters of the families of the Navis Nobilite (the Navigators). It is said to be on a massive island.

Hall of Judgment - The headquarters of the Adeptus Arbites, the chief law enforcement organization of the Imperium.

Officio Assassinorum - Although its agents operate throughout the Imperium, this dark organization is based on Terra. Its School of Assassins and most of the temples that comprise the Officio are said to be located on Terra, although their actual locations are closely guarded secrets.

Adeptus Astra Telepathica - The Adeptus Astra Telepathica is the organization responsible for recruiting and training officially-sanctioned psykers for service to the Imperium. The infamous Black Ships of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica travel throughout the Imperium, gathering their tithe of psykers and returning with them to Terra. The psykers are analysed and sorted according to their psychic power and strength of mind in resisting the temptations of Chaos. The novitiates are trained at the Scholastia Psykana for five years before being sent for further training elsewhere. Some of these sanctioned psykers become Astropaths, specialist psykers who are trained to telepathically send and receive messages over interstellar distances (no other form of instantaneous interstellar communication exists). Others are requisitioned by the Adeptus Astronomica for service in the Astronomican's choir. The most powerful, those who demonstrate a strong enough mental character to resist daemonic possession on their own, often enter the Inquisition for training as Acolytes, with some eventually becoming Inquisitors themselves. Those psykers deemed too weak or dangerous to live become sacrifices to the Emperor; their souls are "fed" into the arcane technology of the Golden Throne so that the Emperor may continue to live and guide the Astronomicon that allows the Imperium to function as an interstellar civilization. Only psykers that have been trained at the Scholastia Psykana are legally sanctioned by the Imperium; all others are considered illegal, often branded as "witches," and are at risk of being summarily executed as heretics by the Inquisition's Ordo Hereticus and other organs of official Imperial power.

The Ecclesiarchal Palace - The headquarters of the Ecclesiarchy (Adeptus Ministorum), the Ecclesiarchal Palace sprawls over almost the entirety of Terra's southern continent of Australia. It is also home to one of the two major convent-fortresses (the Convent Prioris) of the Adepta Sororitas (the Sisters of Battle) on the Imperium's throneworld.

The Senatorum Imperialis of the High Lords of Terra - This immense building within the Imperial Palace complex houses the council of the twelve highest-ranking political officials in the Imperium, the High Lords of Terra, who rule in the Emperor's name as He no longer can, though His mind is believed to remain active in the Warp, guiding and protecting humanity.

How long will it take to get there?

Billions of Imperial Cult pilgrims flock to the planet every day, eager for a glimpse of the Imperial Palace or one of the untold number of gargantuan Imperial cathedrals of the Ecclesiarchy. In spite of the fact that millions of pilgrims are accepted daily, many more are kept waiting. Such is the scale of the Imperium of Man in the 41st Millennium that many of these pilgrims' journeys were started by their ancestors and only centuries later will a member of the family actually complete the pilgrimage to Terra . Many will set out hopeful and never come close to their goal. Those who make it are said to never return, crushed to death by their fellow pilgrims, executed by the Adeptus Arbites for straying into restricted areas, or perhaps killed by the crazed and destitute hive city citizens, violent gangers, etc.

Travel time depends very much on the individual ship, as well as the capability of the Navigator and the eddies of the Warp. In other words: make s**t up!

Codex fluff mentions that the Grand Pilgrimage from Ophelia VII to Terra - spanning half the radius of Imperial space - takes about nine years to complete. This includes several stops and detours along the way to other significant holy sites such as Gathalamor, and of course takes place on a civilian mass conveyor rather than a pimped out Rogue Trader vessel.

Other Imperial ships are even faster; it is said that the high speed corvettes of the Adepta Sororitas can travel about the same distance in eight weeks, and the strike cruisers of the Adeptus Astartes are only marginally slower, as exemplified in the remarkably fast redeployment of various Space Marine Chapters from Armageddon to Cadia in M41.

You will find very different interpretations in different sources of fluff, so I would say run with what you as a group consider appropriate. The Warp being rather messy when it comes to something as mundane as "time" means that travel times cannot even be guaranteed with certainty in-universe, before remembering that the franchise does not sport a uniform canon.

Thanks for all that information. It might be worth considering to make an adventure for. And not just to explore Earth, but the surrounding systems in the sector. It might be rather fun to head on over to Earth for some reason. Fortunately, at the moment, neither I nor my friend Dan can think of an adventure which might immediately necessitate such a voyage with our respective players' ships.

But it would be cool to go there, and find that McDonald's is still there, after all these years. Pilgrims gotta eat, ya know! Maybe rehash some old slogans: "You deserve a break today!" has a whole new meaning!

There's definitely potential for a campaign there. The journey in itself could make for several sessions. One evening, you gotta deal with overzealous Imperial border patrol who are unable or unwilling to accept your credentials and think you are pirates, and in another you run straight into an Ork Waaagh, and the next day you get lost in the Warp for a bit and have to collect raw materials from a Deathworld to proceed.

Maybe the RT gets called to Terra to appear before some special tributal because the Administratum has discovered some clerical inconsistencies in their Warrant, and your players have to make a case as to why they deserve it, what they have done for the Imperium so far, etc...

ah...the sacred golden arches above the golden throne....no way I'd eat those burgers though....soylent something...

ah...the sacred golden arches above the golden throne....no way I'd eat those burgers though....soylent something...

You wish to eat burgers from Holy Terra itself ?

Heretic!

Oh Holy Burger, we implore you, do not judge us all by the impety of this man! Share with us your god-given blessings! Thou that shalt not go mouldy, we honour you!

Hmm, the Emperor is THE EMPEROR, and He's hooked up to the Golden Throne; He looks like a desiccated mummy, sans-bandages. I don't think the Holy "Legally Distinct From a Big Mac or Whopper!" is going to look so pretty, if it was sitting on His tray, awaiting His holy communion, when Horus crashed his lunch party.

Humorously enough, and I don't mean to bump this off in a different direction, I've often wondered what animals exist in 40k, that are resembling of, or even descended from, any animals we would know. There are wolf-analogues with the Space Wolves, but are there dogs, even wolves (even if they were harvested from Holly Terra, and seeded elsewhere)? Gyrinx are said to strogly resemble felines, but are there any cats left? For the rich and frivolous, what might they keep as pets? Jakaeros are orangutan-like, but I'd assume they are NOT related to that species, at all; merely something with a striking resemblance, possibly because, in the 70's, it was easier than drawing wholly alien things. Some Rogue Traders are very pirate-like, but I don't know what stand in for a parrot, or a monkey, some of them might keep (thankfully, no Kowakian lizard-monkeys, sorry Salacious Crumb). On argi-worlds, if they raise feed animals, even if only for the super-rich, what things like horses, cows, chickens, and other useful, or edible, animals do they grow? Did any of our species make it off Earth, with colonists, before Holy Terra turned crap, while10,000 years of the Imperium lost all of them?

my research puts it at 2 years + 36 weeks

to go from Scintilla to Terra.

I was curious as to how long it might take for a standard starship to travel from the Calixis Sector to Holy Terra? Also, what should anyone expect if they make it to the Sol system? What kind of security, defenses, customs, accommodations, restaurants, and shopping? Is it worth a Rogue Trader's time and effort to pay Holy Terra a visit?

Given the vagaries of warp travel, I would hazard a guess of between a couple minutes and never.

I thought of starting up a liner operation out of Calixis to Holy Terra, and back. Advertise the tourism aspects of it. What are the major sights to see, besides the Palace? I don't imagine Disney World is still there, but is McDonald's? Taco Bell?

As previously mentioned, lots of opportunity for ferrying pilgrims back and forth.

But the pilgrims also need food and supplies - as does Holy Terra and all who dwell there.

Hmm, the Emperor is THE EMPEROR, and He's hooked up to the Golden Throne; He looks like a desiccated mummy, sans-bandages. I don't think the Holy "Legally Distinct From a Big Mac or Whopper!" is going to look so pretty, if it was sitting on His tray, awaiting His holy communion, when Horus crashed his lunch party.

Humorously enough, and I don't mean to bump this off in a different direction, I've often wondered what animals exist in 40k, that are resembling of, or even descended from, any animals we would know. There are wolf-analogues with the Space Wolves, but are there dogs, even wolves (even if they were harvested from Holly Terra, and seeded elsewhere)? Gyrinx are said to strogly resemble felines, but are there any cats left? For the rich and frivolous, what might they keep as pets? Jakaeros are orangutan-like, but I'd assume they are NOT related to that species, at all; merely something with a striking resemblance, possibly because, in the 70's, it was easier than drawing wholly alien things. Some Rogue Traders are very pirate-like, but I don't know what stand in for a parrot, or a monkey, some of them might keep (thankfully, no Kowakian lizard-monkeys, sorry Salacious Crumb). On argi-worlds, if they raise feed animals, even if only for the super-rich, what things like horses, cows, chickens, and other useful, or edible, animals do they grow? Did any of our species make it off Earth, with colonists, before Holy Terra turned crap, while10,000 years of the Imperium lost all of them?

I imagine that ex-Terra animals who were taken out across the breadth of the galaxy during the Stellar Exodus and the Age of Technology have evolved (or been genetically modified or otherwise mutated) into as great a variety of creatures as humanity itself has. Given the generation ships necessary to travel across interstellar distances it is probable that most forms of domesticated animal and near-domestic animals seeded the galaxy alongside human beings. So it is probable that pigs, chickens, cows, goats, horses, and other livestock were taken to the stars along with dogs and cats and - probably purely by accident - mice and rats and other animals that thrive in a domestic environment such as fruit flies and weevils.

And like the boar, the mustang, and the dingo, a good deal of these domesticated animals have probably gone wild and feral. Never mind any initial genetic modifications that might have been made to make the animals better suited to survive on their colony worlds and/or to better suit the humans who brought them with or the tens of thousands of years of evolution, some of it likely Chaos-induced, and breeding to have occurred since then.

So there are probably animals out there that are descended from animals taken from Terra in the early days. There may be zoos, perhaps on Terra, perhaps beyond, where animals very similar to those that existed prior to the Hive-ification of Terra still exist. It is even possible that some of these animals have survived into the latter part of the Age of the Imperium in a manner which we might recognize on the worlds that most closely resemble Terra today. But a great many of them are probably only vaguely recognizable - or might even be thought at first glance to be an alien creature - to humans of today.

Well, they do have horses on Tallarn and Atilla, at least.

And the cyber mastiffs deployed by the Adeptus Arbites and various planetary security enforcers at least incorporate "bits and pieces" of actual dogs.

Domesticated animals have been such an integral part of human life for so long that I have a hard time imagining there not still being several recognizable species on numerous planets throughout the galaxy. As Lynata just pointed out, Rough Riders are pretty irrefutable proof that horses are still around on at least some planets. And even if GW has specifically cited otherwise, I refuse to GM any setting where cats no longer exist; that's just too depressing.

I actually was just reading today that one of the "Knight Worlds" of the Imperium has horses - or at least had horses when their colony ship touched down - and that the defense forces of that world used horses as mounts in defense of the settlement(s) from dragon-like xenos while waiting for their mechanical mounts to be completed. I think it was Dragon's End.

Every type of dog currently around was a wolf a mere few thousand years ago. Since the setting is 40,000+ I'd have to assume that much much more is available. Also, since some of the planets inhabited by humans are bombarded with significant radiation, and have variances in gravity...to have produced a variety of human subspecies, including ogryn, ratlings, and squats, I'd think that there's quite a variety of horses, cows, pigs, dogs, cats, et al, etc., ad infinitum. Of course, they all still taste like chicken.

It might've just been my laziness, and their choices. One thing I remember from old Star Trek was how people always seemed to complain that everything just looked like a human, wearing make-up, or an animal we have, but with one "bizarre" feature, as if that'll make it obviously NOT "just a dog." Since then, Star Trek, and numerous other outlets for sci-fi, frequently use the most alien looking things, as if trying to give their work credibility. In 40K, so few people "farm", and even fewer seem illustrated to have the luxury/free time to own a simple pet, so I'd never really seen any, and the "animals" we do see are sci-fi alien-made, so that it doesn't just look like today. Half of them are alien-bred, or developed on distant worlds, thousands of years apart, so it was hard for me to picture "I am a man, and I own this cat." The cat might be a cat, or is it a gyrinx? Are they evolved from cats? Did the Eldar take a liking t Earth cats, and just not Earth people, and develop them into their own thing, or are they in no way related? I've seen horses, but the things loosely referred to as such, that the Kreigers use, for instance, are probably only as equine as a D&D nightmare, which is a demon that just looks like a horse. I don't remember if the Kreigers made an animal, and it looked somewhat horse-like, or if they played Dr. Moreau with their horses, to accommodate their environment, and the result was that hairless, weird-muscled, clawed monstrosity. Even Rogue Traders, some of the most entitled, acquiring, and eccentric people, I've never seen one with a pet, in the books. We've been introduced to 16+ NPC Rogue Traders, in the accumulated works I have for RT (every book but Soul Reaver; always too expensive), and none of them have been described as having a pet, just to set them apart, other than Charlabelle Armelan, and her Kroot. In the stuff i have read, they give you one opprtunity to get one, the gyrinx, in Lure; that's all I remember. While it's certainly a simple detail to include, at least to some, like I said, I didn't know what still existed, and the books haven't wasted too much print on "typical, mundane pets"; what RT keeps a regular critter, when they might buy a Kroot Hound, a Gretchin, or an Ur-Ghul? Now, someone who DOES own Soul Reaver, please tell me the book doesn't give rules for acquiring one of those?

Thank for the head's up, and again ,sorry if I sort of hijacked the thread with it. Have a good one.

I it worth the RT's time? The Sol system has the two most holy planets in the Imperium. The throne world Terra and Holy Mars (pr451e 7h3 0mn1551ah!) If he can't make a proffit by getting his hands on relics/tech and selling those than he isn't fit to be a rogue trader. Hell you could probably make a fortune selling "Holy Terran Soil" * to pilgrims.

* soil comes from some backwater planet in the Ultima segmentum.

Some Rogue Traders might be "totally legit, and within the law", but the majority of them, in my opinion, are more dancing the line, which their Warrant allows them to attempt, and these people would need to be on their best behavior well before they even approached the Sol System. Security is so fierce, and expectations so stacked, that I don't know how much anything the Rogue Traders could do there, if their ships could even get clearance; the purpose of a Rogue Trader is to explore the bounds beyond His Holy Imperium, to catalog what's there, and to prepare the way for His slower machine, the Administratum, to reach it. You were granted resources, a ship, and much leeway to perform this holy task, or your ancestors were, and you carry on the responsibility. Heading so far back, in the "wrong direction", might be seen as wasteful. Approaching earth, and I don't think it matters who you are, is also a byzantine process, so it might take you a good chunk of as long as some of those other pilgrim ships, the pilgrims, aboard possibly staying to die on Holy Terra, if they've been generationally trying to reach it.

Also not sure how much money you could make, in one trip, and dealing with Mars is probably little like dealing with any other Forge world. Yeah, I don't want to just be the doomsayer on a fun idea, but I thought I'd bring up some points, just for fun.

re: purpose

Even sales people far out in Wichita occasionally make the trek back to the Big Apple to

see the new products, get a pep talk, and reconnect with the old folks.

re: make money

exotic and legal goods, or far off luxuries would always have a market.

Well, in our society, what you say makes total sense, but in theirs, I'm not quite as sure. While it depends on whose writing this week, as it always seems to, with 40K, the people on Earth seem to mostly be either penniless slaves, degenerates, and hopeless people, slightly better off people who serve the Administratum, and the super-rich, among them the Lords of Terra, and the navis Nobilite houses who, literally so close to Holy Terra, can't really afford exotic (read: tainted?) relics to be in their possession. Even Earth, for being the middle of everything, is sometimes poorly described. It's a Hive World, except it's a Shrine World, and they rarely describe any Hive structures on it, beyond the Emperor's hemisphere-engulfing palace, while neither a mighty Guard regiment, the pinnacle of Astartes, nor even great ship yards surround it; all of these are elsewhere, and Earth is really but a temple, and an office building. The Custodes guard the palace, which means half the planet, at least, I suppose, but... It might be the center of mankind, but nothing cool is happening, anymore, and anything fun is also punishable by death.

As for Mars, you'd have to have pretty cool, and be pretty cool, to get to talk to them. The Necrons in charge, or Tech-Priests, if they bother to wear the three prosthetics (a Martian Magos is probably only slightly less robotic than a Flayed One, and that will have more flesh included), have much more technology than we know of.

Look, I'm sorry. I believe I am simply trying to crap on fun involving Holy Terra, but the material, itself, sort of does that. Much of the cool stuff there could be there isn't. No Guard regiment is raised from Terra, I think because, while defending the planet is critical, no one wants a standing military strong enough to seize the planet just standing there. Peasants on Terra still remember, thousands of years later, the fear of Chaos Marines burning their world, as if it is in their blood, like people in Star Wars remembered the Mandalorians, as it was back in the 90s, when Boba Fett wasn't one, but scared yokels with the suit, so there are rarely Astartes on Earth, and no Chapter is based there, while Mars and Jupiter supply her ships of defense. Any form of interaction to Terra is heavily restricted, to make sure you don't loose Cultists, Genestealers, Rogue Psykers, or any other threat they don't want. I tend to think that many of the people there view the pilgrims with contempt, and if the Emperor didn't somewhat need their faith, they wouldn't be tolerated, but I can be rather jaded about the religious beliefs of the highest echelons of their prospective religions, so that might just be me. They don't describe, in my experience, "cities" on Earth, even underhive slums, very much, beyond most of the people live in abject poverty, even so close to the Emperor, and most just hope that one of their children can rise to join the Administratum, or the Ecclesiarchy, and live slightly better. Still, if you can have fun with it, please do, and I'll stop babbling. I invented a small sub-story that saw one of my Rogue Trader characters needing to journey all the way there, to get his Warrant amended (my verse has most Warrants stored safely on Earth, and Rogue Traders have some archeotech device, much akin to the cooler rosettes, that can attest to who they are, among other things); fortunately, he was originally born on Luna, and served in Battlefleet Solar, so he knew the way, so to say, so I'm in no good position to say "there's never any good reason to go". Just maybe "you need a good reason to go, and they will ask you for it."

...Err, Ven? You do know that the Imperial Fists have their fortress monastery on Terra, right?

However: While Terra seems to have some of the most awe inspiring places in the sol systhem (the imperial palace, the hall of the astronomican and the ecclesirachical palace) It's still a post apocalyptic wasteland (dark future/ age of strife. Seriously it was Mad Max before the Big E took over!) in between the hives and palaces. And those hives have underhives just as bad as any hive city...

Here are some postcards from Holy Terra!

Wish you were here!

P.S. You guys should check out the Halls of Terra expansion for Relic.