Hello everyone,

So after playing a bit of DH2 (and doing A LOT of reading in those books) I came upon the idea of running a RT campaign beyond the Trailing side of the Askellon Sector. There isn't anything detailed beyond what is inside the Sector, allowing me to run wild with what may or may not be out there.

The Sector is small enough that visiting planets/stations to rest and refuel isn't much of an issue, while full of merchant houses/nobles/criminal syndicates/cults/Rogue Traders to be a viable setting.

I have played a bit in the Koronus Expanse and the Calixis Sector. While I like them from a lore standpoint, I feel like they've almost been too fleshed out. There is a lot out there in each, with a ton written about every little location and person of interest. Askellon presents an emptier canvas and more space for creative freedom.

Has anyone run anything using Askellon? How did that go?

The issue with Askellon is the warp storms make trade outside the sector tricky.

I like the Koronus Expanse because parts of it has been fleshed out enough to provide waystations for my campaigns. It has in no way been populated, though. Keep in mind that it probably has over 100k stars and stellar remnants. There is enough space there, not "fleshed out," to place literally any sort of empire or ruins of empire you might want. For every star system plotted on the map, there are 2000 that aren't.

I'm not trying to discourage anyone from playing in another sector. Don't get that idea. I'm just pointing out that not using the Koronus Expanse because it's too developed is a fallacy.

There are like six Rogue Trader books all set in the Koronus Expanse, with locations/people/ships described in detail. The reason I like the idea of Askellon is that there is nothing, not even mention of what xenos are out there.

I know that the Koronus Expanse is not developed, and there is quite a bit of blank space - but the parts filled in are concrete, meaning something I would feel obligated to work around. It's the same thing with the Calixis Sector - there have been at least a dozen full books of plot hooks and descriptions of the most interesting places/people/things in that sector.

Askellon has been criticized for feeling empty, smaller, and less defined. While that may bother others, it feels like an opportunity to me.

Calling Askellon less defined is a bit a fallacy if you ask me, in fact I would say that its even more immutable from a GMing standpoint than the Calixis Sector or Koronus Expanse. Its planets are strictly and rigidly defined in the Enemy Within and Enemy Without supplements, and the factions are laid down with detail and difficult to use outside of their prescribed positions within the sector.

Adding to this, your comment of the zenos not being mentioned flies in the face of what Enemy Without has done for the sector, adding specific factions of Eldar, Orks, Necrons and even the sector's version of the Yu'Vath to the setting. Furthermore the "unique artifacts" and plot-hooks given to GMs through the books all clearly point to a specific feel for Askellon that must be followed if one wishes to not stray from the established lore.

Finally we get to the location of Askellon, surrounded as it is by the Pandemonium, and everything that represents. It is a sector that is dying, old and withered, slowly falling to decrepitude and ruin. There is nothing to find out there, no strange new planets to explore where no man has gone before. The Koronus Expanse represents the unknown, the alien and unforgiving wilderness of space beyond the Imperium's borders. In contrast the Askellon Sector is the Imperium at its most worn down, an ancient, once great place now clinging to the memories of a glorious past.

To me personally, it seems a poor setting for a Rogue Trader game as your player's would be dealing with highly entrenched factions and groups and would be forced to chip away at the existing powers already present, all the while knowing that whatever gains they make will inevitably be for naught as the sector continues its slide into ruin.

There are like six Rogue Trader books all set in the Koronus Expanse, with locations/people/ships described in detail. The reason I like the idea of Askellon is that there is nothing, not even mention of what xenos are out there.

I know that the Koronus Expanse is not developed, and there is quite a bit of blank space - but the parts filled in are concrete, meaning something I would feel obligated to work around. It's the same thing with the Calixis Sector - there have been at least a dozen full books of plot hooks and descriptions of the most interesting places/people/things in that sector.

Askellon has been criticized for feeling empty, smaller, and less defined. While that may bother others, it feels like an opportunity to me.

Koronus and Calixis - and Jericho, for that matter - are about as well defined as somebody with a map of the USA and the North American Continent freshly updated with information from the Lewis and Clark Expedition of Discovery(call it circa 1810 or so) - if not from before the Expedition - trying to describe the current state of the USA and the North American Continent. They'll get some of the major highlights - both cities and geography - but for a vast majority of it, they'll have basically no idea about what's really there, just unreliable rumors and hearsay, where they say anything at all. There're a whole lot of unknowns. In all the books there are perhaps a few dozen named and/or described systems. More named individuals, most of whom are minor/local characters, assuming they survive, a handful of major local characters, and perhaps a few dozen important named individuals who are mobile.

Saying they're too fully fleshed out ... it's like, I dunno, using the Assassin's Creed games or novelizations as the primary source for history. Or maybe it's the other way around, really - looking at history as your base and saying "where can an Assassin's Creed game go"?

Maybe those aren't very good analogies, but

Askellon is one of those parts of the Imperium where it is pulling away - think Jericho during the leadup to and aftermath of the creation of the Hadex Anomaly. It's not something that the players can really change - all they can do is slow the fall of Askellon down.

Personally, I'd rather play RT somewhere that there's still hope for a better and brighter future (for humanity), even if it's just brighter from the glow of blasted and burning aliens that you conquered and crushed underfoot in the name of the God-Emperor and profit. And then turned extracting resources from their worlds into a profitable venture or planted human colonies to develop the worlds under your control in the name of the Emperor. Do enough of that for long enough and you can forge a new sector out of Koronus - with yourself as a primary factor in deciding who the governor is going to be (probably one of your trustworthy and reliable relatives, since you probably don't want the job yourself).

Koronus is actually reasonably good for that - there's lots of unexplored places, but there're just enough "known" locations that you can fall back on in an emergency or use as stopping points/bases.

Even in a region like the so-called "Winterscale's Realm" isn't fully claimed, much less fully explored. Only reason Winterscale's name is on it is because one of them was there first, but it's still a tiny section of the Expanse.

And, if the players get too uppity about things, the Imperium has a strong and growing presence in the area - though it's still relatively light in the Expanse proper, there's a strong presence in the Passage (Fleet Base Metis), Port Wander at the Calixis end of the Passage, and the rest of the Calixis sector. Along with a spread of rival dynasties.

I'd suggest that if you're looking for that empty but unexplored feeling, just draw something up. In the end, though, you'll either draw up a sandbox or you'll draw up a series of loosely connected mini-campaigns that span a wide bit of space. It doesn't really matter, in my opinion, what setting is used. The key is keeping your players on-track for your self-generated endeavors, which usually involves inciting their greed; then having enough sidetracks left unexplored that your players begin suggesting endeavors of their own. They'll have fun exploring your creations, but they'll fall in love chasing their own goals.

Also, the Askellon Sector is an official part of the Imperium, even in its deteriorated state. That means that a Rogue Trader's power is muted, superseded, to a great degree, by the rules of the Adeptus Terra, which is half the point of being a Rogue Trader, in the first place. Some will certainly visit, and make use of the Imperium's presence/power in the region, but they'll be quick to leave, and go find mre profit, as soon as they are able. Playing in the Expanse, or the Reach, have the advantage of not being overseen, at least for the most part, by the the Imperium. The Jericho Reach has a lot of Imperial forces, but they're very busy, and let's be honest, the Reach was written in a way where it will never be part of the Imperium, again. Chaos, the Nids, and the Necrons will see to that. The Koronus Expanse is in no danger of being sectorized in the forseeable future, either, and is full of wondrous opportunities to excel in endeavors. Places like the Calixis Sector, and the Askellon Sector, are full of actual Imperial organizations, and Inquisitors, who have nothing better to do than play chicken with your right to be a space d..., um, conquer and plunder in the Emperor's name. Your power comes from being beyond the Imperium, not in a dying segment of what they already claimed. There, opinion-spinning complete.

Well, sadly I can't, as I only have the one DH2 book, and while it does spell out some of the sector, it's a rule book, and I'm sure they saved other bits for other books they've printed. As for profit/opportunities, as an official sector, I'd say there aren't as many. If you found something cool from the Expanse, or some wild space equivalent outside Askellon, you could sell it to a noble, or some such, but the sector is muchly mapped, and spent, more than likely, so I'm not sure what much there would be to find. Like the conquistadors they might be based off of, they won't find much if they don't leave Spain, first.

As for proper Rogue Traders, that might be tricky. As befits a character the player gets to make, they could fit into so many molds. I've made roughly half a dozen Rogue Traders, either as practice for the building, if I ever needed it, or potential NPCs, if a party ever needed to meet a peer, and all three are very eccentric, and bizarre, in their own ways. Due to me being me, each has several traits I like that the typical grimdark setting would rarely allow to flourish, and even the15+ examples in the book line, for all their failings, are each very different; not sure what "typical" is, with so many options. Not trying to gripe, as I can see, I think, what you were inferring, but blah, blah, blah. One thing that is typical of them is a need for freedom, and mastery of their own destiny, thus the desire to be beyond the Imperium, or at least where its agents can easily marshal.

A Rogue Trader's power and authority are vastly reduced inside the bounds of the Imperium.

Frankly, the most profit a Rogue Trader can get out of Askellon is probably transporting nobles and their assets out of Askellon to a more secure sector still firmly in the Imperium's hands, and otherwise (discretely) looting the not-quite corpse of the Askellon Sector in ways that won't get you into trouble.

There's no room for a Rogue Trader to properly explore or expand the God-Emperor's realm in Askellon.

You could probably do an Imperial Navy game, fighting to slow the demise, but Rogue Traders would have left for more profitable areas with more potential for growth. The only Rogue Traders left would be the ones who, for whatever reason, can't leave (yet) - maybe they have too many fixed assets or vaults in the sector that they need to protect while figuring out how to transfer everything they can to somewhere else. Maybe a few Dynasties will have a cadet branch busy looting the Sector's corpse, but the Warrant-bearer, and most of the cadet branches will not be in Askellon.

I can't remember off the top of my head but I think Askellon still has many areas unexplored and unclaimed by the Imperium in which a Rogue Trader could operate. Also the lack of competition in the sector, as most Rogue Trader houses and other rivals move to ostensibly more profitable locales could definitely work in the Rogue Traders favour. Also as the Imperium slowly withdraws this does have the benefit of giving the Rogue Trader more and more freedom as time goes by.

With so many fallen alien empires to explore and a flourshing trade by the Faceless Trade the Rogue Trader could use this as a basis for profiteering. Exploring and looting planets far outside or the Imperium's borders and selling them to Faceless Trade representitives well beyond the borders can lead to a lot of profit whilst still letting the trade take most of the risk as they will be the ones selling the items in Imperial jurisdiction.

Possibly other endeavours out of Hostile Acquisitions might be well suited a Rogue Trader operating out of the Askellon Sector too. An unscrupulous Rogue Trader might find himself with quite a powerful self contained empire as the light of the Imperium slowly fades.

Don't get me wrong I think all arguments above are valid but I'd rather answer the OP's question about what the sector might have to offer as opposed to looking at what issues others might have with it.