I'm just wondering if anyone here has decided to not use the Calixis Sector and just play this game in any old 40K setting?

BYE

I use Calixis Sector for my game. Far too much yummy detail work already done for me to pass up, allowing me to focus more on the story and adventures than inventing the sector on the fly. I would immagine that Scarus Sector (Eisenhorn plus the Cadian Gate) and the Sabbat Worlds (Gaunt's Ghosts) would be attractive choices for some groups. Pretty sure you can still get a sector guide for the Sabbat Worlds from Black Library if you are interested in using the setting. For a truely unusual setting for a DH game, perhaps Ultramar? I would probably wait for Deathwatch before trying that one though, since the Ultramarines would feature pretty strongly in darn near anything. Since they have gone from "generic smurf-marines" to "scarred bug-hunters" it has decent possibilities for a rather militant Ordo Xenos team.

I don't, though I'm freely borrowing anything I find interesting from the background. I'm mostly using worlds inspired by the old GURPS Space Atlas 1 & 2, with some modifications to fit the 40K background. For me Calixis is too well developed. I like having a little more freedom to play with and a little less chance my players have read the setting book.

Ok, I can see a lot of existing places in 40K mentioned, but what about making up your own?

For our games (and not just DH, this started with regular 40K), I invented a sector of space. When we started DH I even went so far as to create a map of the sector, with 122 named planets in 8 different sub-sectors, all of which have a type (like the way they've done the Calixis sector), some of which have histories and full back stories, and a number of my own mysteries and events and plot hooks to allow anyone to grab it and run with it.

I just feel it's better to not be tied down to an existing backdrop, and 40K has always been incredibly vague about the fluff in order to allow you to do that.

from france

i played stand alone scenario in the necromunda setting wants familiar with playing only in a hive i will start a campaign

I use the Calixis Sector (and now the Koronus Expanse) in my games - I started reading about it during the playtest for Purge the Unclean and found that I really liked the ideas it contained - the actual Calixis background wasn't in the playtest packs, for good reason as they're not actually material that needs playtesting.

However, during the early part of the playtest, I devised a world for my players to explore. The player handout I wrote for the world is copied below, based on the planetary survey format used in the Imperial Armour books:

Heruspoort Planetary Survey

Herus System: 3 Planets (Heruseye, Heruspoort and Herustalln), 6 Dwarf Planets (I-VI)

Size: Equatorial Distance: 48,011.02km

Gravity: 1.142g

Satellites: 1 natural moon (Heruskae), 11 artificial satellites (assorted extra-planetary manufacturing complexes)

Population: 11,800,000,000 (‘Baseline’ Human), 18,400,000 (Mutant and ‘Impure’ Human). Figures are approximate.

Rotation Speed: 831.1 m/s

Climate Classification: Extreme – Very Cold, High Humidity

Tropospheric Composition: Nitrogen 72%, Oxygen 15%, Carbon Dioxide 6%, Water (as Aerosol) 4%, Argon 2%, Helium <1%.

Imperial Commander: Dominant Salazar Kraine, 144th Scion of Kraine Metallurgy (to be referred to as ‘His Dominance’)

Climate: Variously Cold to Extremely Cold. The warmest climates are in the equatorial region, and the coldest at the Eastern and Western polar regions.
Mean Average temperature is –32°C (241K), with temperatures reaching 2°C (275K) at the Equatorial region, and dropping to below –95°C (178K) in the polar regions.
The thick, CO2-heavy atmosphere means that Heruspoort does not have any noticable change in illumination or temperature levels between day and night. This is compounded by the long ‘day’ period (a little over 57 hours)

Economy: Almost 12 billion souls inhabit Heruspoort, scattered between its eight cities. Aside from scattered mutant and ‘undesirable’ ghettos in the frozen wastes around the cities, few beings live outside the cities. Each city has a population of between 1 and 2 billion people, and are functionally Hive cities of varying configurations, each with their own spaceport facilities and power supplies. Water is abundant on Heruspoort – vast amounts of the surface are covered in ice and the atmosphere is high in water vapour, and both ice-mining and condenser farms are used to extract usable water, which must then be purified. Most Hab-sections within the cities have their own purifier units.
Mining makes up the largest part of Heruspoort’s industrial efforts – even though trade is the more profitable – because of the sheer diversity of materials it can provide, specifically to Administratum Tithe Collectors. Assorted metal mines thrive in the depths of most cities, and mine labourers comprise a little over 40% of the planet’s population at any one time, and supported by a vast infrastructure of ore processors and basic metalworking facilities (making transportable ingots and billets, as well as tools). Mercantile efforts dominate the other half of Heruspoort’s industry – each city has dock facilities of some form or another and all require labourers, pilots and administrators in order to ensure that they keep running. Ex-Imperial Navy support craft – including a large number of cargo shuttles and personal transport aircraft – comprise a considerable proportion of the air and orbital traffic above and between the eight cities. Many of these are privately-owned, as often by individuals as corporations or guilds.
Due to Heruspoort’s confusing views on genetic purity, Abhuman labour is frowned upon, yet vast companies of slave labourers taken from the mutant and ‘impure’ ghettos that dot the planet can be found working the mines each day.
Heruspoort and its subordinate worlds operate a system of material and credit-based currency, with the basic unit denoted as the Imperator (colloquially referred to as Thrones, God-Creds or Twin-Eagles). The lower denomination unit is the Legate. There are twelve Legates to each Imperator, in a system mirroring the 12 High Lords of Terra representing the Emperor

Society: As a centre for subsector trade and a bustling hive-world, Heruspoort has a complex society, juggling the different demands of the state, the church and the military as well as their own interests. The Imperial Commander is an absolute ruler during his or her dominance (the local term for the Imperial Commander's reign, but also linking to the title of ‘Dominant’), yet a ruler is elected every thirteen years from amongst a vast ruling council consisting of between 80 and 140 representatives. This council is drawn from the heads of mercantile families, industrial corporations and labour guilds.
The council itself has little effect on the day-to-day running of the planet as a whole, and have no interest in doing so – their attentions are directed towards the running of their own holdings, and the Dominant has absolute power anyway. Only during the Choosing do their political aspirations come to the fore – when each house, guild and corporation has a chance to elevate themselves to power and shape the planet’s economy to its benefit.
Yet, the Council itself has nothing to do with the actual elections. Though they comprise the masses from which a new Dominant will be selected, it is representatives of the Imperium who perform the actual selection. Three persons are responsible for the task – the Subsector’s senior member of the Ecclesiarchy at the time, an Auditor-General of the Administratum (one is present on-world at all times), and the planet’s Chief Justice of the Adeptus Arbites. The three represent the interests of the Imperium, as Church, State and Military, although the Chief Justice is only deemed a military authority on a legal technicality. This is because the planet’s PDF (known locally as the ‘Blackhats’) is commanded by the Chief Justice, not by the Dominant (though the Dominant has a presence in all discussions concerning deployment), a state of affairs that came to pass after a planetary revolt in 249.M37.

Mutation and ‘Screenings’: Each of Heruspoort’s cities engages in wide-scale genetic screening on an annual basis, alongside the planetary census. These screenings – performed over a period of roughly three months and overseen by PDF forces – exist to monitor the genetic purity of the populace. Those who fall outside of acceptable variation limits – the details of such limits are unknown to the Administratum at this time – are classed as impure. Impure humans – plus any mutants discovered during the screening that are not executed on the spot – have all financial assets seized by the government, are stripped of all jobs, ranks and titles, and exiled from normal society.
The vast majority of these ‘aberrants’ (local term) dwell in ramshackle ghettos and caravans in the barely-hospitable wastes between the cities, though there is a significant mutant ghetto situated in the city of Soth, containing a little under 6 million mutants and impure humans. Large numbers of aberrants are used as massed slave-labour during times of worker shortfall, or simply by companies unwilling to pay for manual labour. As a result, strong, hardy but docile aberrants are prized as ‘bond labourers’ – the highest status achievable by an aberrant, and a cheap alternative to custom-engineered Servitors for the corporations.

Gang Warfare: In most of the cities, gang warfare is commonplace – as is common for any significant hive city. Most often, warfare is over territory, food surplus, work, or previous slights and losses. Unlike on many other worlds, gangs are not formed from a specific caste or house – lower-class labourers are all potential gangers, and gangs are recruited from within hab-clusters, work teams or merely collections of friends, and change as quickly as the situations deeper within the hives. Because internecine warfare is illegal – in spite of its prevalence – Adeptus Arbites and local Enforcer units are often called upon to put down the more violent skirmishes. Because the Heruspoort PDF is under Adeptus Arbites control, PDF Platoons often engage in peacekeeping missions against the larger and more violent gangs.

Mechanicus presence: The Adeptus Mechanicus has a considerable presence on Heruspoort, most commonly as technical overseers and as representatives of nearby Forgeworlds interested in securing their rights over ore shipments and the like. Mechanicus clergy across Heruspoort report to the Magos-Logistician based in the Templum Olympus – a vast factorum-shrine built in the image of the temple on Olympus Mons, on Mars itself. The current Magos-Logistician is Menelaus Vortigern.

Influence of Church: The Ecclesiarchy has a rather mixed presence on Heruspoort. In some parts of the cities, religion is the furthest thing from most people’s lives, yet the government allows considerable interference from the Ecclesiarchy on a considerable array of issues. This has become especially pronounced in recent years, when a Convent Militant of the Adepta Sororitas was established to assist in repelling the rapidly-expanding Tau Empire.
The highest-ranking Ecclesiarchal official on Heruspoort – who also oversees the entire Gauntlet Expanse - varies immensely. At times, the Cathedral of the Emperor Ascendant in Ist has been overseen by a Cardinal, while at others, the world’s religious welfare has fallen to a Confessor Militant. The current highest-ranking Ecclesiarchal official for the Gauntlet Expanse Subsector is Arch-Deacon Theronius Maré, until a new Cardinal can be chosen to replace the late Cardinal Polyphsis Adon.

Principle Exports: Fyceline, Uranium, Iron, Lead, Titanium, and Boron.

Principle Imports: Foodstuffs, Textiles, Heavy Machinery.

Foodstuffs: Vast quantities of stasis-preserved foodstuffs are shipped annually to Heruspoort from surrounding systems. However, this is an unreliable method of sustaining a population in the long-term and large sections of the surfaces of Heruseye and Herus I, II and IV have been covered with large-scale hydroponics, aeroponics and geoponics facilities. Such technologies are unfeasible on Heruspoort itself due to the low ambient temperatures and the cost of heating and proper air filtration. Thus, basic subsistence-level agriculture can be performed, with imported food acting to supplement that.
Further, large-scale organic recycling facilities exist for emergency use in times of famine, as well as to reduce the Aberrant population. Such information is considered highly classified, and could cause widespread revolts if it became common knowledge.

Urbanisation: Eight significant hive-cities exist. Heruspoort is considered a Proto-hive World, its populace not as abundant, nor as confined as those of more expansive Hive Worlds, especially compared to the world’s size. Each city has a population of somewhere between one and two billion souls at any one time, with numbers varying immensely on a day-to-day basis. Long stretches of rockcrete, lined with thermogenic elements in order to prevent permafrost, connect the cities, but these are only used for bulk haulage, and most day-to-day transport between the cities is done via civilian aircraft.

• Ist: Housing a population of just fewer than two billion souls, Ist is Heruspoort’s capital city. As the centre of government, it has a large, well-appointed starport and contains vast amounts of accommodation for visiting dignitaries. It is also home to the Cathedral of the Emperor Ascendant, the primary Arbites Precinct-Fortress and the Palace of the Dominant. The city itself is an atypical multi-spire hive, with a cluster of narrow, jagged spires pushing through into the upper atmosphere, with the starport situated at the top of the tallest. Unusually, the wealthiest personages are housed closer to ground level and nearer to the centre, where the city’s power generation and geothermal heat sink are located – on a frozen world, heat is a luxury for the wealthy.
• Zend: A short, squat hive of about one and a half billion people, Zend is built over one of the largest ore deposits on the planet. The Hive itself – which sprawls across an eleven kilometre-wide valley – is mostly subterranean, with much of its size concealed either below the ground or dug into the bases of the surrounding mountains. Zend is the principle city for mining and ore processing operations on the planet. Much of the city’s vast size is thus taken up by access tunnels, mine shafts and machinery.
• Erd: Built into the Reisand plateau along the equator, Erd is one of the smallest of Heruspoort’s cities. The city-structure itself is built into a cliff face, behind a colossal waterfall heated by geothermal activity. Because of this ambient warmth, Erd is considered to be something of a retreat city – only wealthy citizens live there, and the city’s infrastructure is designed solely to support the inhabitants, with minimal space given over to the heavy industry of the other cities.
• Arth: Predominantly an immense and well-worn Stardock, Arth is actually split in two – half of the city is built onto the near-side of Heruskae, Heruspoort’s moon, and the satellite is artificially tethered to the rest of the city below by vast cables and scaffolds. Arth’s size and capacity are there to support the bulk of Heruspoort’s imports and exports, and regularly berths billion-ton cargo haulers.
• Soth: Soth is unremarkable – the city itself was originally built about seven thousand years ago over a secondary vein of ore that dried up far quicker than expected. The mining companies that moved there stayed, however, and the city itself now exports large numbers of mine labourers to the mines of other cities. This also explains the ghetto of a little under six million aberrants, situated in the abandoned mine workings.
• Geth: Located over the frigid western pole, Geth exists solely for large-scale ice mining operations. The low temperatures and high water content of the atmosphere have led to vast polar icecaps. Geth contains facilities used to process and purify the ice mined from around them, turning it into usable water, as well as extracting any hydrated minerals trapped in the frozen water. Surface ice is unsuitable – often tainted by the thick, waterlogged smog and smoke that fill the atmosphere – so they’re required to dig deeply into the icecaps, where intense pressure has rendered them as solid as steel. As such, heavy machinery is used to dig the ice out – plasma cutters could melt the ice more easily, but could also lead to cave-ins.
• Toth: Built into the flanks of a Volcano, Toth is the only warm city on Heruspoort to not have a wealthy populace. Dug deep into the crust, Toth is a heavy mining operation dealing with liquid and semiliquid magma instead of solid ore. The city also serves as the world’s largest and longest-running geothermal powerplant, supplying power to the other cities through a network of immense subterranean conduits.
• Bith: Bith was the newest of the eight cities, just less than two thousand years old, and built over a then-recently-discovered vein of elemental metals that had previously been unknown to mankind. At some point during the war against the Tau, however, the city was abandoned by the government of Heruspoort, turning the city from a bustling settlement into a lawless slum of some eight hundred million people. The mine-workings abandoned, the overseers missing – possibly killed during Tau raids – the city has degenerated into a violent free-for-all in the last eleven months.

Known History of Heruspoort: Imperial records contain only sketchy information about the early history of Heruspoort. It was known to be a relatively minor outpost of a small confederacy of pre-Imperial human worlds, until it was made compliant during the Great Crusade.
Some centuries after the Heresy, an Adeptus Mechanicus survey team oversaw an inspection of the Herus system, and located the various veins of ore that now serve as Heruspoort’s primary export. Further, the system’s location at the edge of the Gauntlet Expanse – a dark nebula named for its hand-like appearance – allowed it to serve as a stopping off point for a cluster of nebula-farming colonies deeper into the Expanse.
Since that time, Heruspoort has expanded from an insignificant mining colony to being the primary world in its subsector. It is, however, the later history of Heruspoort that is of note, a sample of which is provided below for your edification.

+++SCARLET-LEVEL CLEARANCE REQUIRED+++
+++CLEARANCE ACCEPTED+++
+++PROCEED+++

In the early part of 853.M34, a heretical cult known as the Inheritors of Hekhut-Re were discovered by Inquisitor Antiogné, collectively condemned of no fewer than fifteen thousand counts of three-fold heresy (Heresy of Thought, Heresy of Deed and Heresy of Word) against the God-Emperor of Man, and eleven hundred counts of Heresy against the Machine. Inquisitorial scribes reckon it to be amongst the most extreme cases of heretical sedition in the history of the Imperium; especially considering the cult only consisted of one-hundred-and-forty-three people. The cult was purported to be seeking assorted items of pre-Imperial archeotech, though a full list of these artefacts could not be extracted from any of the cult members. The reasons behind the cult’s activities remain unknown to this day.
In the middle of M36, the world was struck by a series of seditious incidents, spanning over four centuries. It was eventually revealed that the attacks had been orchestrated by ‘Traitor Marines’ of the Alpha Legion. As a result of vicious chaos-inspired terrorist attacks and no fewer than three minor Daemonic Incursions – caused by an unnamed Alpha Legion Sorcerer – the planet’s populace was systematically sterilised, transported over ten thousand light-years, and confined to a series of isolated containment facilities under watch of the Inquisition Stronghold on Talasa Prime. Heruspoort was subsequently resettled by new colonists, each of whom had been screened for purity by the Inquisition and the Adeptus Ministorum. Knowledge of this event is heavily guarded.
In 997.M41, the Tau Empire began a campaign intended to expand their territories, now collectively referred to as the ‘Third Phase Expansion’, if sanctioned Xeno-linguists are correct. The domains of the Tau increased approximately 33% in size in a matter of months, and they claimed many more territories which they now consolidate their hold upon. Heruspoort – being on the far edge of this expansion region, from the Tau perspective, was a world they showed interest in, but ultimately were unable to claim as their own. The campaign lasted four months – primarily consisting of fleet engagements in the surrounding region, but with occasional ground skirmishes where Tau breakthroughs were made.

Known Imperial Guard and Imperial Navy Recruitment: In spite of its long history, Heruspoort has raised only a handful of Imperial Guard regiments. Consisting entirely of lightly-equipped infantry units for use during urban combat, and raised from hive gangs and PDF units alike, there have only been eight regiments of ‘Herusian Skirmishers’.
These regiments – given their mixed origins – have all been noted as suffering from variable discipline. The former PDF troopers tend to be model Guardsmen, especially in recent millennia, while the former hive gangers are undisciplined and entirely too independent to be effective rank-and-file troopers.
However, due to the docklands and heavy industry that makes up most of Heruspoort, the Imperial Navy recruits and pressgangs heavily from the populace, as often as every 3-4 years. Most of the vessels currently patrolling the region use large numbers of Herusian ratings and indentured labourers amongst their non-commissioned crew, and many wealthy families from Heruspoort have an ancestor or two who served as a junior or non-commissioned officer in the Imperial Navy.

The other GM I work with has thought about opening his game up to the entire 40k world,but we are pretty new so I don't know if it will happen.

If your looking for a 40k setting that's known but, not as full developed as Calixis. There's the Kauva system form the Dawn of War: Soulstorm if you play the game there's just enough history and tidbits to make it a nice jumping off point. and some (if not all) of it has been entered in the 40k wiki.

if your not failure with the 40k wiki... then I invite you to gaze and wonder...
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Warhammer_40k_Wiki

I'm not so much looking for under-developed areas of the 40K fluff, but more people just making up their own.

BYE

Making up their own? Well, it's not 'entirely' made up, but I put a fair effort into adapting the Tau Empire to be a good 40k RP (based almost exclusively on DH and RT), though adapting campaign ideas and plots from Call of Cthulhu . Currently their on a young colony world investigating odd happenings in the hills above a fledgling Tau City. Far beyond the skies above a lone Manta fights to protect against an oncoming Ork starship. The other similar townships across the planet remain distant outposts. The space station high above hangs neatly in the night sky. The third sphere expansion passes many light years away. It's not super detailed, but I think I've presented an alright feel for the place...

In a sentence: It's definitely not the Calixis sector.

I have always been interested in any further information on other sectors referred to, like the Ixaniad Sector, which is 'next door' to Calixis and Scarus, the 'cursed' Madragora sector, the Gothic sector, which has seen major fleet engagements of course as well as the Sabbat Worlds.

The recent Tyranid codex provides some more places, with the Vidar sector, on the borders of the Ybaric cluster, which was scoured by the Tyranids, and the Thalassi sector which saw action against Hive Fleet Jormungandr.

I use Calixis sector simply because it provides well detailed, ready-made worlds for character backgrounds. If I need a world for something I can always pick up a few of the less commonly used names inside Calixis, run them through Lexicanum to check if there is anything "official" written on them (most likely not) and just make up the rest. I simply see no use to use any other sector. At the moment I am actually palnning to write a bit more background on Sekmet and its moons because it seems like a good place to start my planned Necron awakening...

RedMike said:

I agree. I'd especially like more information on Madragora because IIRC it actually collapsed and no longer exists a a sector with a lord and all that. I'd really like to know why. Such a cataclysm or long period of strife would make excellent fluff especially if I wanted to have my acolytes venture into its ruins in search of something.

If it has 'collapsed' and is corrupt, like 'Lucky Space' in the Ravenor novels, where unscrupulous Rogue Traders were retrieving and dealing in Flects from chaos filled worlds, then there could be enormous scope for a very darkly themed campaign, even more so than normal 40K if it can be believed.

-Begin Transmission

I use the Calixis sector, for many of the same reasons described above: ease of play, volumes of information, etc.

That doesn't mean that I don't change information or warp the world to fit my campaign ideas. Keeps the players on their toes and reminds them that word of mouth is one thing, first hand knowledge is priceless. But then, my players think I'm an evil bastard. They're only half-right.

-End Transmission

For the past year my campaign has been running in the Xephilum Sub-Sector, one of my own creation. It has four systems (all reference names I'm afraid) Caladan, Reach, Degobah, and Auir. The worlds in each are all original, however. My favorite by far is the planet Terracona Which is a plain world filled with walking cities shaped like a variety of animals, the capitol of which is a manta-shaped city that swims through the world's massive subterranian oceans. The sub-sector was being overrun by a Tyranid hive-fleet when a chaotic plague swept through the hive-fleet, leaving all the buggies planet-side. About couple Dominatrices were planetside and maintained the hive-mind. To make matters worse, the Tau used the chaos to take a hold of the Auir system. The campaign has been taking place in the crusade that was launched to clear the sub-sector of xenos and the ruinous powers.

My sweet innocent players are thrown in and out of the calix sector like puppets blindly trusting the newest information and always questioning the oldest.

Thus, they arrive at planets within the Calix sector which I just make up to suit the setting as much as throwing them into some abyss on Cadia to look for ancient answers.

A mixture of both I guess, but I do not emphasise the Calix sector, it is a part of something greater.. Something far more dangerous..

I get the best of both worlds. The majority of my Campaign is set in the Hadros Sector, a place of my own devising, but borders the Calixis Sector. Recently the PC's are making the intersector journey to the Calixis Sector.

I really liked the background to the Calixis Sector but I didn't want to start my PC's out in a sector that was so corrupt and decayed. The Hadros sector is relatively benign which played better into the themes of my campaign of the enemy within.

Moving the PC's to the Calixis sector in a way shifts things up a gear. They have been used to having the support and gudence of their Inquisitor as well as being in a fairly peaceful area of the Imperium...oh are how things going to change!