This is a fairly major project for my current game and incomplete at the moment.

Malfi

Location: Malfian Sub-Sector, 180 day trip from Scintilla (subject to dilation)
Class: Sub-sector capital, Hive
Population: 32 Billion
Local Time: 350 Terran day orbital cycle around its sun, 26hr standard Terran day
Climate: Mean temperature of 20degrees Celsius, average annual rainfall of 1500ml
Troposphere: Nitrogen 68% Oxygen 27% Ozone 1% Carbon Dioxide 4%
Pollution Index: Moderate
Hydrosphere: 55% coverage of ocean, two poles
Landmass: 5 large continents,
Native Flora/Fauna: 50% hive coverage, some jungle regions at the equatorial regions, isolated islands, industrialisation and extensive strip mining have decimated or made extinct 90% of local species
Hive Capital : D'aosta
Major Hives: Veneto, Lobardia, Marche & Calbria
Gravity: 1.08G
Principle Imports: Food, chemicals, luxury goods
Principle Exports: Industrial & Military, Administrative sub-sector
Military: 1 Billion Reserve Grade 3 PDF troops 0.5 Billion Full Time Grade 1 Imperial Guard, Grade 1 Orbital defence
Tithe: Exactis Prima
Governor: The Eminence Glydus Matriarch

Malfi has a long and successful ancient history of being something of a foundation of civilisation in the now namesake Malfian sub-sector where its armies of conquest subjugated the feral and frontier worlds in the region. Bringing law, Imperial rule, civilisation and in most cases, savage oppression. While her dominance of the sub-sector is still absolute and her armies some of the largest, well equipped and trained in the entire sector, after crushing all before it and found more sport in picking on each other. All the five main hives of Malfi seem to spend more time bickering and backstabbing amongst themselves, if they can't do that, then the large extended family groups, power brokers and stand off against one another.
Anywhere else to outsiders, it would be the sign of a dystopian social experiment about to collapse in on itself, but for various cultural reasons, never seems to quite tip over the brink and go to the proverbial hell in a hand-basket that everyone expects it to. Admittedly, even the Malfian's would agree, it makes getting anything next to impossible done honestly or quickly, graft, bribery and who you know to get something as simple as a building extension may even come down to paying someone to shoot a local member of the Administratum, then blackmailing the rest as being the cause of their colleagues death with evidence ready to be 'found' next to the nearest, corrupt Arbites station house (along with a massive bribe)
About the only real unity to be found is getting people to beat on a Scintillan, which is something of about as nationalistic and idealistic as it gets. Sure, its crooked, wrong and about as bad as humanity can get, but seems to work in its own way. For all the warts, heresy and homicide on Malfi, it still churns out massive amounts of industrial production to the entire sub-sector, so even if the rest of them don't like Malfi, they can't live without them. Likewise, Malfi with her huge population and stripped resources can't survive without them.

Technically all of Malfi's five large continents are covered in hives, but about half of that is abandoned ancient ruins and what's left of the ecosystem and introduced species of plants and animals are doing their best to grind thousands's of years old ruins back to something resembling a natural state of being. Large swathes of areas around the temperate, equatorial region are overgrown suburbs as the population has receded back into more favourable/fashionable areas to live and work, others are being reclaimed by hives wishing to expand and expeditions sent out to the wilderness with bulldozers and chainsaws. Exploring the ruins can often be a profitable business on Malfi, many small settlements popping up seemingly in the middle of nowhere on former slag heaps or large amounts of minerals and setting up a refinery to extract what they can from former generations leavings. It is a dangerous business as the abandoned areas are home to dangerous plants and animals, unstable structures, criminals gangs, armed squatters, religious isolationists and even the odd feral mutant clan. However dangerous and horrible it may be in the lost zones, it still doesn't stop groups of treasure seekers delving into the depths in search of archaeotech, artwork or heirlooms from a forgotten age that might, however remotely improbable, still be out there.
This is a stark contrast to the highly refined, sophisticated and fashionable living areas dotted through the hive complexes in their owned walled off estates, palatial villas, enviro-domes growing rare plants protected from pollution and full of well dressed, hot tempered individuals. Somewhere in the middle is the masses of closely packed terraces of suburban housing in tight streets barely wide enough to fit a full sized car down and about the only easier thing to do than get lost, is wander into the more lawless ones where you'll get knifed for the thrones in your pocket or anything shiny about your person. Down the bottom is the vast industrial zones which are as ubiquitously awful as they are in any other hive, but just spread over vast areas, getting about is best done via the underground train network, which at least while you're on it is heavily policed by the Magistratum. Bikes or small cars are the next best option depending on how far you have to go or more likely, how well you cope with dealing with Malfi's free-for-all traffic rules.

Malfi's only other infamous claim to fame is the massive criminal syndicates which always seem to have their heritage on the planet and then spread like a virus to the rest of the sub-sector, about the only reason they've managed to be semi-contained is the massive 8T's cartel outside the sub-sector which is almost the antithesis to the 'civilised corruption' of the Malfian syndicates with their savagery and brutality. Its not to say the Malfian's aren't capable of doing it either, they just culturally do it out of sight of any witnesses or X the witnesses as well. Much ado amongst inquisitional circles is the source of cults coming out of the sector which are considered quite dangerous and next to impossible, just like the syndicates to wipe out.
Ironically enough though, the average Malfi resident is a god-emperor fearing person that goes to one of the many ancient churches on the planet very regularly and many are highly devout, it just doesn't stop them from being backstabbing thieves and scoundrels if they can get away with it.

The Major Players

These are the big powers on the block, with the exception of Viscount Silvio in Hive Veneto who was born off planet, they are typically some of the most vicious individuals in their own realms of influence.

Hive D'Aosta
Eminence Glydas Sub Sector Governor
Duke Castruchio Planetary Governor- Malfi
Major Archbishop Luigi Head of Malfian church Malfi
Cardinal Regis Cardinal of Calibra Calibra
Earl Antonio Earl Free trader: Banking Sub-Sector

Hive Marche
Patriarch Lodovinco Malfian Dioceses Sub sector
Cardinal Grotin Cardinal of Marche Marche
Viscount Pescara Adeptus Prefectus Mafian Sub-Sector Administratum
Baron Serres Adeptus Masters Malfian Sub-Sector Departmento Munitorum
Judge Frankston High Judge Malfian Sub-Sector Adeptus Arbites

Hive Calibra
Cardinal Trivan Cardinal of D'Aosta D'Aosta
Marquess Gerace Admiral Malfian Sub-Sector Imperial Navy

Hive Lombardia
Cardinal Enark Cardinal of Lombardia Lombardia
Marquess Bosola Lord General Militant Malfian Sub-Sector Imperial Guard

Hive Veneto
Cardinal Ramaz Cardinal of Veneto
Earl Veneto Earl Heavy Industry
Viscount Silvio Transportation & Teamsters
Baron Rodrigo Baron Mineral Refineries
Baron Grisolm Baron Mineral Refineries

MKX said:

Typical hive worlds which are not classified as a fortress world have from 1-3% of their populations tied up in their PDF forces; though I could see Sector and Sub-Sector capitals keeping larger numbers for quick response and such. They are also expected to be able to mobilize much greater numbers in times of war, typically calling out and arming upwards of their whole populations. Actual guard units are usually more limited in number than the PDF, as Guard Regiments are generally shipped of planet to fields of conflict abroad. Additionally, according to Malfi's entry in the corebook (pg. 325) the Sub Sector Governor is one Jendrous Kaffiq, while the nominal planetary ruler/governor is The Eminence Glydus Matriarch.

Otherwise, brilliant write up, and greatly appreciated MKX.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Actually I'll go back in and edit my notes to include Jendrous Kaffiq, but it wont let me edit it here. I knew there was a difference but couldn't remember exactly, what I was basing the nobility on (and there is much more to them to come) was an old play written in 1612 called The Tragedy of the Dutchesse of Malfy written by John Webster and having the internecine fighting reflect the events there for the purposes of spinning a story that the players get involved in... and will eventually try to kill! They are all fairly unfriendly, insane, inbred evil bastards but their will filters down to the street level where influences the population at large and I haven't even started on detailing out the underworld forces who at the same time prey on the common man and carry out arms-length whims and deniable assaults of the nobility. So it has ended up a bit like Rome in decline, just sans a couple of barbarian invasions and just kept on steadily going down the shitter

Just to complicate things the place is a hotbed of my favourite 'invisible' bad guys under your nose- the Temple Tendancy who have a big hook in fairly much everyones mouth to some degree and that is where my Hereticus PC's come into play to try and figure out what exactly constitutes heresy in the church of the god emperor. After one particular atrocity in a church service they're in-character doing a bit of soul searching about being out on the sharp end...

What Malfi has militarily I haven't really included is its sub-sector battlefleet and its system defences which are inordinately vicious, whats there is just on-planet, it doesn't really count in the rest knocking around places like Facrast and Kuluth or floating around the Fydae system keeping horrible things from the halo stars from wandering in.

Work's kicking my arse for "writing-time" so its been hard to just get a few hours to think and type, so specifics will have to wait a little while longer, but there's a fair bit of fluff in the meantime which I think is important to build up a feel for the place.

Visitor Information
All five hives- Veneto, Lombardia, D'Aosta, Marche & Calbria have star-ports in place which can handle massive amounts of traffic through them and all done with relatively high levels of efficiency, but visitors are advised that due to the sheer quantity of materials and persons going through any of them at any given time there may be some delays. Depending on the nature of ones business it is advised that the visitor refer to the one most suitable to shorten any delays once on the surface.
D'Aosta- Sub Sector administration hub
Marche- Planetary administration hub
Calbria- Sub Sector and planetary Imperial Naval administration hub
Lombardia- Sub Sector and planetary Imperial Guard hub
Veneto- Planetary Industrial and Transportation hub

Malfians consider themselves much more civilised than most off-worlders, steeped in archaic forms of dress, courtesy, class, culture dating back from their core-system origins the original settlers brought with them and are deeply proud of their achievements in bringing the sub-sector out of the darkness to see the light of the true emperor of mankind and into the Imperium. Their ancestors armies and battle fleets spent hundreds of years putting down any system infested with Xenos, recalcitrants, heretics and founding civilisation in the barbarous wilderness, unlike the Scintillans who they believe simply dictated what was to be done and left the actual doing to others, the Malfians are justly proud of their hands on efforts to improve the sub sector. Indeed the majority of civilised worlds (and the sub sector does have a very high percentage of them) have Malfian architecture and distantly removed cultural remnants of those early efforts, though over time it has begun to dilute as the sub sector itself gets more traffic from outside and settled by different peoples.
Also unlike Scintilla the economy hasn't been heavily penetrated by corporations and instead the nobility (or in some cases pseudo-nobility) run everything, the labour markets, banking systems, transportation networks, military and administration. To some extent their actual structure, size and power resembles the corporate models in place but the distinction ends there and they maintain their own self-regulation between one another often outside written contracts. Words are Blood on Malfi, they are a measure of a mans worth, honour and duty, failing to keep a word dishonours not only themselves, but possibly also their family and will limit them in social standing for as long as it is remembered. To some extent these massive bastions of nobility aren't progressive in a sense that they never go away, but they do allow large amounts of small business filling niche areas that the bigger ones don't cover and successful businesses that grow stand to marry or adopted into noble families that also technically buy them out and continue to operate under their own name but with a hereditary title and support to expand.

Travel on Malfi itself comes in a variety of ways expected of a well established planet, high speed rail links for cross-hive journeys, slower industrial rail services that have some passenger services are all very efficient and reliable. There is a well run air transportation network consisting of large and small (anti-gravity type) airships which mostly serve in an industrial function but have room for some passengers for the intercontinental journeys between hives that the rail network doesn't cover. Malfian hives are vast suburban sprawls thousands of kilometres across, typically several stories deep and often hundreds high in places so walking can be efficient provided the traveller knows the area. Personal transportation in the way of cars, bikes and trucks are still popular modes for the better-off residents, ranging all the way up to extravagant hoverers for the very wealthy merchants and nobility.
Off the public transport grid, hiring vehicles is very expensive but avoids the multitudes of pickpockets that thrive in those areas.

Around the main starports in each hive are a plethora of hotels and motels which are reasonably priced depending on where and what the consumer wants in the way of amenities. Past that, housing is at an extreme premium and can get very expensive even for basic rooms and shared barracks facilities, alternatives exist for pilgrims in Ecclesiarchy sponsored hostels, who will in turn allow off-worlders or visiting clergy to stay there for low fees or payment in kind with labour.
Food is expensive, with 32billion mouths to feed the planet even with advanced hydroponics facilities cannot provide more than just a minor supplement to the monthly arrivals from agricultural and feral worlds, of which Orbell Quill supplies the majority with some also coming across from Cyrus Vulpa.
Malfi's real purpose is mostly administrative but it does produce massive amounts of industrial components and enjoys good relations with the Adeptus Mechanicus forge worlds in the sub sector that delegate some foundry work of metallurgy on-planet as well as simple mechanical production of heavy industrial goods such as wire, steel plate and refined metals. In return they have licensed a number of mid-sized businesses to produce vehicles and weaponry, with minimal AM supervision these are typically good in terms of build quality with very high outputs. Unlike a lot of hive worlds the Malfians have made some efforts to throttle back the amount of atmospheric pollution and there are some civil undertakings to establish an ecosystem back on the planet with introduced species to replace the extinct local ones. It has had mixed success in some areas to reclaim the overgrown ruins on the edge of each of the hives but the effort is only at best token unless funding is put in to expand and develop from private investors, visitors are warned that outside the hive walls they should prepare in advance for any eventuality.

Food, Transportation and Medical supplies can run up to +30-50% higher than average
Housing can cost up to +75% higher than average
Clothing, Armour and generic equipment is 40% cheaper on average
Weaponry and Munitions are 25% cheaper on average
Wages are quite good and +50% more for unskilled labour, skilled artisans and mechanically inclined persons can demand much higher with contractual employment rather than full time being much more common than elsewhere.

Side arms and melee weapons are legal to carry as is most forms of light armour and technically so is heavy military grade weaponry, rifles and armour, however without good reason it is subject to discretion of the Magistratum officers and private properties have their own rules. Serious crime is technically quite low as most of it goes unreported, there is minimal civil disobedience unless a food transport is late. Petty theft and common assault run as high as expected any other comparable hive city. *

* See Arbites Report

Arbites Report- Malfi *CONFIDENTIAL*

Malfi in essence is an overgrown weed bed of a once fine civilisation, when an area becomes too expensive to repair they simply hack out another area from the ruined wilderness and rebuild it over from scratch without much consideration to its history, which if asked about the average Malfian will just shrug and explain that history is how they remember it and the future is what matters. At first glance it would appear that they are a pragmatic and deeply materialistic society, social standing is determined by the clothes you wear, where you live, who you know and how much you're worth, to some extent even over riding the social status which is another whole different level of conspicuous consumption. There is a quaint streak of vanity which runs through the culture, its not uncommon to see labourers and menials on the weekends dress up to the nines and go strutting around the various dens of iniquity in clothes that one would only guess cost a goodly amount of their wages or sent them into debt with a loan shark.
God Emperor only knows why, its not my job to reason why and obviously the local Magistratum can't deal with it because they're in on the whole act. That is quintessentially Malfi, you either fit in or stand out like grox balls and if you don't fit in they barely consider you human, I'd swear some days they wouldn't care if you had a third arm or second head as long as you wore the right clothes and seen in the right places with the right people. For what its worth, they are hard working when they put their minds to it and provided with enough incentive to do so, cash rather than lash gets things done on Malfi with less fuss it would seem and my troops constantly report bribery to be simply part of the culture that cash pays for everything. Be it a days work or turning a blind eye to homicide. In that regard I have rotated 90% of the existing troops out to other planets and brought in outsiders, leaving the remaining 10% I figure to simply act as advisors and wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw them, I suspect I might have to keep cycling them through before they go native so to speak and pick up nasty habits. Given the sheer mass of cash here I fear temptation might cause us problems when we least need it.

The Ecclesiarchy does a roaring trade in assuaging a guilty conscience it would also seem, at least the churches are always full, I guess it alleviates a weight of endemic racism, fickle vanity, business corruption and backbiting amongst the populace, it seems to sink in at some shallow level at least for a few hours before they're off up to their necks in something shady. The really quaint thing is that they're ever so discrete about the things they know will get them in trouble, picking through the subtle, ritual lingo of arranging for a cash bribe to an assassination could have an entire book written on it. Then they'll do it discretely out of sight of anyone else unless its to make some kind of point that they're wealthy enough to be above the law and just plain don't give a ****, otherwise they tend to be more lippy than anything else. They'll spin endless lines of groxshit about anything, from how much they make to who their family is and how in a fair fight they'd win, etc, etc, this tends to end badly for quite a few of them on the end of a shock maul, the few times we've had a decent sized food riot its been put down quickly. Maybe they don't like getting blood or sweat on their good clothes, that thin veneer again of civility covering up a miasma of rottenness and it doesn't take much to scrape it off, the large scale infighting, feuding and worst of it is 'outsourced' to other families.

Family is very important to Malfians and ordinarily I would think this is a good thing, goodliness starts at home with the right upbringing and makes for decent men and women to serve the imperium and god emperor, at least in theory that is also part of the Malfian culture of family and relationships, except its just bad from the start and as best I can tell, its just always been that way. Then there are 'The Families', who don't necessarily have a blood relationship and have members across the social strata to do their business.
I guess the easiest way to describe it is like a blob of black grease which runs the gears of society.
That wont be a popular euphemism with the Ad-Mech but their presence here is also quite embedded but they tend to maintain their secularism which keeps them from becoming involved too deeply in some of the worst of it, by the worst of it I mean the cult of crime. To get rid of it I would have to literally wipe out the entire social strata and begin again, something we don't have the manpower to do, so instead we spend our days wiping out chunks of the most dire infestations and it'll buy us enough time to gather our forces for the next time it pops up and do it all over again. About the only thing in our favour is that the families are territorial and don't like each other much, so when they start wiping each other out its best just to let them do it, then move in and finish off what's left standing. By itself the crime would be just crime and dealt with as such, here though we have merely a breeding pond for things far worse to take hold inside such organisations, things which indeed keep the inquisition very busy and all too frequently for it to be chance, the cults in all their varieties, worship of false gods and warp entities, logicians, heretics and trafficking with or in xenos.
One barely knows where to begin, emperor knows there is no end to it.

If I had to point a finger, it would be easy to just point at the nobility but it, like everything else here isn't that simple. For certain there is something to them which just isn't quite right but one has to remember that you're dealing with fiendishly clever and charismatic individuals who have literally be raised from cradle to the grave to be slippery as possible. It would seem fortunate that they require little to no justification to kill off one another even if they're related, in fact especially if they're related. Provided they pay the tithe, the planet remains under Imperial rule and don't traffic with anything proscribed I really just don't care if they're killing their mothers in their spare time.

Judge Frankston

Always good stuff. Fun to read and all sorts of ideas percolate in the brain pan afterwards.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Veneto is the hive my players are currently running around in and the one I have detailed the most. Being the little savages they are, there are a few bits which have literally been wiped off the map, but in its unmolested version this was what it was like before they turned up. It is a bleak and dirty place much different to the others on Malfi, which we will get to at a later date.

Hive Veneto

Often regarded as the 'lesser' of Malfi's great hives due to its lack of prestige, crude nobility, general griminess, a place of heavy, manual labour and coarse, simple individuals, it is also the most important hive on Malfi in terms of planetary production of raw materials and manufactured goods. To some extent it is also the planets transportation hub, both locally and from space boasting a galaxy class startport capable of landing and handling anything from the billions of tons of materials annually on the biggest orbital barges in the entire sub-sector, all the way up to a titan legion with clockwork efficiency. Due to its importance in the sub-sector scheme of things it is also afforded and inordinately large amount of ground defence batteries and orbital defence grids, from space it does look like an ink smear some 400km across at its widest and over 1700km long with 7.3 billion residents.

On the ground, the quaint reference to an ink blot is about as charming as it gets.
The streets are torn up from massive 250ton freight hauling trucks to the point the potholes can almost fit a full grown man in them, the constant rumble of heavy trains that are the equivalent of a small earthquake, the outskirts dumping grounds of still steaming slag from the refineries burning 26hrs a day, 350days a year, every year that light up the omnipresent grey smog with brilliant white flares from the furnaces, that eventually comes down and coats everything in a layer of fine coal dust and soot. Including the residents if they stay still for too long and needless to say it isn't a holiday destination for off worlders looking to soak up some Malfian culture, but that isn't to say they don't come for a hundred other reasons and most all of them involving money. Which in its own way, is Malfian culture and a lot of money comes and goes through Veneto without the usual obvious aplomb of the more illustrious hives, here you can buy metal, weapons and building materials for a lot less than anywhere else in the entire sub sector, reason enough for people to make the trip on a merchant vessel full of fuel, then load its holds and flog it off for a massive profit somewhere else.

If the furnaces went cold, parts of the sub-sector would come to something of a grinding halt and as a result the power supplies and importation of fuel given higher priority to anything else. The "Iron Earl and Robber Baron's" as they're known are Earl Veneto, Baron Grisolm and Baron Rodrigo who run their own independent industrial sectors in the sprawling hive with their own standing armies, legions of indentured workers and worse lurking on the fringes. Pound for pound they're some of the most vicious capitalists in the entire sub-sector and utterly ruthless in their market domination of refined metals, building materials and simple manufactured materials, but accordingly over several generations of intermarriage have something of a gentleman's agreement with one another and inflict their generous amount of cruelty on people they consider rivals across the sub-sector, either economically or physically on anyone thinking of forming a workers collective or union.

To some extent the three also maintain some 'business' relationship with the planets mutant outcasts who live far on the fringes of the walled hive, allowing them to pick over the slag heaps for metals in return for food. Normally this kind of arrangement would be viewed very dimly by the Ecclesiarchy except for the fact that they also provide the good men and women of the church (and anyone else with the coin) with sport to go hunting on their property, providing luxury hover vehicles, guides and provisions for the trip where they can either take pot-shots from the comfort of the vehicle with a high powered gun or go down with a hand weapon for a more personal level of acquaintance with the resident feral mutants. This is generally regarded as somewhat crass by the rest of the planet, but it does make for some formidable training amongst the senior members of Malfi's church and more than a couple of the better heeled, discretely disguised nobility from other hives. As something of a by-product it does keep the mutants numbers down to only several million in addition to some begrudged recycling to minimise importations along with a macabre taxidermy industry in stuffed mutants for that prize twist uglier and bigger than the rest.

The odd boy out is Viscount Silvio, while he comes from a Malfian heritage, was born elsewhere and came back to reclaim the family business after his uncle died of old age 20 years ago, bringing with him his houses own clergy, retainers, his wife and practicing a very unorthodox form of business. It is quite easy for other nobles to ridicule him for being soft and an outsider, but more than a few are taking notes at his business practice which has annexed the planets transportation systems to the point of being a complete monopoly, he is widely loved by his employees for fair pay and management practice in handling their often nasty customer base. Well aware of Malfian predilections for blackmail and assassination, he remains distant of the others, rumour has it that he maintains his own secret cadre of influence but more likely it is much simply a case of sheer business power that keeps the others in line, if you want something moved then you pay and play by his rules or suffer the consequences of being an immobile pariah.

The best hotels and suburban high rise residential areas are within a few blocks of the starport which is the cultural, financial and entertainment centre of the hive along with a small Arbites blockhouse fortress, the Adeptus Mechanicus chapter house and Administratum buildings. Many of the petty nobility also have their estates further back behind the area while the four big noble houses have large estates on the fringes and remain distant from the rest. Veneto is a suburban hive that only plumbs 8 levels deep in the heavy industrial sectors but can be up to 100 stories tall in some of the larger skyscrapers, it does have massive 35m walls around its outside that serves as a defence against mutants and introduced species of plants and animals that can be hazardous to humans.

There is little defence against the air pollution, even with particulate filters the furnaces produce unsafe levels of toxins in the forms of fine soot and heavy metals that eventually rain down to earth in their own time or blow over the rest of the planet, which has done little to endear it to the rest of the inhabitants who would much rather see it exported to someone else's backyard. For what it is worth the hive does make the extra effort to provide its citizens with clean food and water well above the standards of most industrial hives and even some of the more run down residences, most vehicles have additional filtration systems to keep out the worst of it, that doesn't really help anyone running around outside though and breathing apparatus recommended.
Smaller metropolitan centres pop up in the denser population areas and serve the community in much the same capacity as the hive centre, the Ecclesiarchy maintains a strong presence all through the hive with a hands on help to the population with multitudes of small churches, lay-clergy ministering to people that live, work, party and die under hard conditions, often before their time. Veneto Cathedral is a massive affair 20km from the starport which has the capacity of 150,000 people, the size of a large stadium with a central dais and is a marvel of engineering in the Malfian sub-sector well serviced by public transport on underground rail.

Crime of the street gang variety is common in a lot of cases but quite low compared to other Malfian hives as anyone getting in the way of business is often ruthlessly exterminated by either the private armies of the nobility before it even reaches the ears of the Magistratum. Of whom tend to stick to their station houses and have their time taken up with the Arbites investigating a recent upsurge in white-collar crime in the CBD. Something of a irony not lost on the Arbites is the fact anything in Veneto that started out white soon turns to grey...

Bit of time of work so I've had time to write again, slightly different angle with this one as an exclusively admin-based hive rather than heavy industrial. It still mostly a terrible place to be, but it should be explained just how different it is in a lot of ways to other hives they may have visited because a LOT of cash comes though the place. As a result, its old-school (mixed in with shiny and new), civilised (bigoted) and contemporarily wealthy (jaded to hell!) Malfi

Hive D'aosta

Something of a cultural heartland for Malfian society and one of the oldest hives in the Calixis sector, it has undergone significant works over the centuries to improve its quality of life, looks and the practice of heritage orders on older buildings gives it a distinct feeling of antiquity. D'aosta is a hybrid-hive structure of a-typical Malfian 'sprawl' of outer suburbs and an inner core of more ancient buildings, unlike a lot of its sister hives it also goes 100 levels underground which houses the majority of the residents, few of whom can afford more than a lift-pass, let alone a nights rent in the opulent surface habitats. 3.8 Billion will toil away in dank conditions underground like a life support mechanism for the towering glass, adamantine and marble towers on the surface, home to 200 million of the more privileged inhabitants who are lucky enough to have a well paying job, born into the aristocracy or inherited a residence there from their ancestors. A few even manage to work their way up from the 'Grotta' though brains, muscle or both and leave the stigma of being a 'Umo' behind them, as the old saying goes though, you can take the man out of the gutter, but its hard to take the gutter out of the man.

Surface D'aosta is a glittering jewel of cities anywhere, clean, well paved streets, ancient monuments, sculptures, shrines and a new constructed temple to the Emperor are drawing millions annually on pilgrimages to the city from all around the sub sector and neighbouring hives. For many their first port of call is the primary southern starport which runs with an almost ruthless efficiency to process the teeming hordes of people coming in to visit, from there depending on the level of income they will either rent an exorbitantly priced hotel room for their stay or end up in the barracks-accommodations provided by the Ecclesiarchy in the outer suburbs. The concept of charity and hospitality to pilgrims has made this a popular destination for many in addition to being able to see relics of saints in the temple and the brighter, cleaner side of the imperium, generosity of the D'aosta clergy is a well renowned example of humanity to all who visit.
Of course, it not all roses and sunny skies in the suburbs which the pilgrims share with the middle and upper class of D'aosta who consider them at best a troublesome traffic jam on the way to work or at worst a bunch of moochers and the generosity ends with the church to the point most wont give the time of day and don't even think about asking one to take your photo in front of the shrine of St Drusus unless you want some finer instruction in Malfian vulgarities about your mother's predilections with farm animals.
The middle and upper class are for the majority, middle managers, lawyers, senior servants, small business owners and petty nobility, most are considerably wealthy and given they are preyed on by highly professional thieves has made them wary of outsiders as much as the next Umo crawling up from the underground. They like their nice clean streets, terrace houses, villas and estates just the way they are and not broken into by petty scum. Security is a growth industry in terms of both personal protection and surveillance which at its most basic is the small army of Magistratum troopers everywhere and a massive network of closed circuit cameras on every street. At the upper end of the scale are small armies of bodyguards, sales of discrete, very potent personal armour and weaponry making shopping here for those with the cash quite an experience, night life is typical of Malfi, vibrant, noisy and decadent, just in D'aosta it more expensive than normal.
Dotted through the sprawl are the corporate enclaves, walled city-states in their own right that are on-par with the upper nobility in terms of economic and miliary clout, due to the administrative role of the hive they are light manufacturing and high-tech production centres only that mostly serve as home offices for the larger off-world corporations where they have ready access to the Administratum, finance sector and use of the tertiary northern starport which handles shipping. Due to a quirk of Malfian diplomatic law which exempts these off-world, corporate territories from taxation, they are faced with the ever present threat of espionage to their companies and respond with extremely violent methods that are also exempt from Malfian law provided its on their territory. The only entrance to these is with an Inquisitorial rosette, Arbites ID and pre-arranged business, otherwise they just shoot first.
At the top are the nobility who live in massive skyscraper-castles all through the sprawl that have their small suburbs of middle class at the feet a few hundred metres below them, amongst the most supremely paranoid people in Malfi, they maintain their own personal armies of servants, bodyguards and underlings to manage their estates and businesses while they live in indescribable luxury at the very top of their armoured abodes. Some have gone that one-step further and moved out into the wilderness to maintain more conventional fortress estates and faux-historical buildings, serviced by private underground railway lines into the heart of D'aosta.

Grotta 1-20 levels are dedicated to railway transportation hubs, electrical grids, ventilation systems, vox traffic exchanges and foundations for the skyscrapers above them. Like surface D'aosta it is ancient but well maintained at this point for the benefit of both the surface and underground residents and serves as the entrance for the majority of workers that live underground but enjoy some hours a day aboveground in menial positions and the technical staff who man the utilities and transportation. Due to its importance its heavily policed by the Magistratum, mostly to keep people where they belong and not running around on the surface where they can get up to no good. For those lucky enough to work for a noble in their skyscraper or corporation, this is also the entrance to those buildings at various levels, all typically maintain massive levels of security at huge vault-like adamantine doors.
Grotta 21-60 is home to the majority of D'aosta's inhabitants in huge hab-caverns that frequently span 'bottomless drops' into the lower levels and criss-crossed with bridges to the massive lifts that take them up/down the underground. It is also full of hospitals, churches, crypts, mortuaries, Magistratum fortresses and shops. Typically the older, upper levels are kept in better conditions than the lower, newer excavations and refitting, commanding higher levels of rent and better access to utilities. The lower levels are notorious dens of inequity that have major problems with gang violence, organised crime, extortion, prostitution and all manner of things best left unsaid where a mans life is worth the ammo left in his gun, lock on his hab dorm or skill with a blade to keep. Periodically the Magistratum is forced by the Arbites to go down and restore law and order but they are hampered by uncooperative locals, lack of intelligence reports and criminals that know every nook and cranny in the place better than they know their own parentage.
61-90 is heavy industry, water reclamation, sewage, reactorium's and boasts the biggest hive-lifts up through the depth of the hive for the movement of men and materials. Due to its importance the (known) entry points are heavily policed, though it is an unloved detail for the Magistratum and Corporate security troopers alike as the air is thin and fetid.
91- and below or "Hell" as its colloquially known is a dumping ground of unsalvageable manufactoriums, waste and prison all in one horrific, unsanitary bundle where all the things and people that no one wants to deal with or look at get put. At this depth there is next to no oxygen, its perennially hot, humid and toxic. No accurate assessments have been given of its depth or what happens down there, stories abound though through the hab of the nightmares below and fairly much all of them unsubstantiated or urban legends.

Who's & Where's of D'aosta
Rising above even the largest spires of the nobility is a massive structure of silvered glass, golden alloys and black synthetic concrete reminiscent of a propeller blade in shape which houses the sub-sector Governor Jedrous Kaffiq, the largest astropathic choir on the planet, 500 stories of Administratum scribes, security personnel and sub-sector planetary representatives. Many have speculated that Jedrous Kaffiq might not actually be alive at all, his movements are unknown, no one has seen him in ages, family unknown and instead he maintains a small army of assistants that get delegated out on his whim and carry the full weight of his word. His lackeys are white collared, vicious manipulators of the highest order that are some of the most discretely dangerous individuals to be confronted by across a negotiating table. Whatever the truth, either Governor Kaffiq is the product of the most complicated, group conspiracy perpetrated in millennia or a master of the arts of distant rulership and subterfuge the planet has yet produced. Not even an inquisitorial rosette will get you an invitation, he only answers to Sector Governor Hax and even getting into 'The Blade' is an adventure in diplomacy itself, getting out if you came there with the wrong reasons is at best highly improbable.

The suburb of Oldtown is located in the centre of the sprawl, home to Her Eminence Glydas, her two young children and aging husband in far more unrestrained settings that occupy 20 hectares of gardens and a massive manse made up of approximately 4 million tonnes of concrete and marble dating back to the very early years of Malfi's settlement during the crusades. It also doubles as the parliament of Malfi and is serviced by underground railway and a small spaceport. During the day the gardens are open to visitors in limited amounts but into public parts of the fortress itself is very restricted and on a no weapons basis with formal tours arranged far in advance, along with a large amount of cash. Auger-equipped cyberhounds and handlers patrol the grounds with discrete and very dedicated service, able to call upon anything from a legion of gun servitors on a moments notice to an army group of Imperial guard with a bit more advance warning into complete martial law if the threat arises. Her Eminence is well liked by the population of Malfi as it is after all a relatively well maintained and prosperous planet with good employment rates and utilities. For all her openness and apparent welcoming nature, few would want to cross her, or more specifically her dreaded private police force, The Segrato that is quite pro-active about exterminating anyone by any means that poses a threat. Not to mention the entire resources of the planets Inquisitors and armed forces that are only too happy to help, there is an unspoken other reason that the nobility is loathe to raise a finger. Should her elderly husband kick-off sometime soon, there is also a veritable army of suitors prepared to murder their own wives and take a punt at marrying her, asking openly about how the elderly gent managed to father two kids to a young bride is also a good way of getting your head kicked in by Malfian loyalists.
The surrounding area is also typical of the settlement era with old mansions, hotels, wide streets, parklands and backs onto the Ecclesiarchy lands that serve as the residential for pilgrims, scholars of the church and students. Its newest addition is the grand temple of the Malfian Church that serves as a community college, grand mass for the people of the city (both sprawl dwellers and Umo alike that can afford the ticket to the surface) for special religious celebrations. The grand temple which spent 40 years in construction and a sum of 35 billion thrones also has the dubious honour of being the largest, most expensive building in the Calixis sector weighing in at 44 million tonnes of concrete, stone and metal extending deep underground into the Grotta. A sum a few quietly consider could have been better spent on two battleships or fleet of cruisers, considering it isn't yet finished and has another 5 years to be completed, it is functioning at 80% capacity, the work being conducted mostly by volunteer labour from pilgrims and donations from the faithful all through the sub-sector. Literally millions have come, stayed for a few years under the alms of the church, receiving clothes, tools, housing, food and tutoring in return for the work but also a chance to sweat, bleed and mark their name in history by laying the stone and concrete in the emperors name. More than a few thousand over the years have also had the chance to die for it as well being that its dangerous, not that it deters any of them as it does offer a chance out of poverty and unemployment as for all its criticism that it receives from outsiders, the Malfian church is determined to raise the standard of worship and living standards all through the sub sector as part of its mandate from long time Major Archbishop Luigi. The formidable old man spent 20 years in the Imperial Guard as a Commissar before a being discharged from service and entering the church full time as a minister for the last 22, while he disdains a lot of the political machinations of the church as its elected head of state in Malfi and still carries about him the air of the commissariat in formal settings. Something of a juxtaposition next to his charitable works for the common men and women of the sub-sector who have much to thank him for a second chance in life.

Zone-A is a distinct difference, lining the 6 lane, 5 level highway from the starport are rows upon rows of skyscrapers that are the base of operations for hundreds of banking institutions, free-traders, corporations, rogue traders, mercenary companies of an inter-system variety that make use of both the finances, judicial system and administration. The money flowing through the streets is patently obvious by the expensive luxury vehicles, hotels that start at 1000TG a night for basics and people wearing a commoners yearly income just on their shoes alone. At least out in the open, the blood doesn't flow as the Adeptus Arbites make sure that anyone looking to cause trouble at any level gets utterly crushed and the Magistratum have no say on sovereign territories, they do however man the borders and happily thrash the hell out of anyone who even looks like they don't belong there.
Trouble gets in the way of making money and to some extent the knife work a-typically associated with Malfi tends to take a back seat when it comes to business deals, of course it hasn't completely evaporated, but anyone working the assassination game in this part of town is either slick as glass or about to evaporate quicker than a of water on red hot iron. For the majority of commoners working in this part of town as menial labourers, scribes, cleaners and clerks, they rarely see the glittering spires unless they happen past a window coming up from the underground habs. At some level many of the sovereign institutions have indentured service amongst their employees on the premises with entire generations born and dying inside the corp-habs their parents worked for and rarely rising above their station and living their lives by the word of laws of the corporation. This behaviour is at odds with the Ecclesiarchy for a number of reasons and they have begun taking the word of the emperor to the 'heathens' with the assistance of the Arbites, still it is a very different upbringing than many born into the Imperium will have experienced. Somewhat spiritually bereft, they have all their needs, wants and desires fulfilled by the corporation and it is in a lot of ways preferable to growing up in a Grotta as a Umo or helot on a Forge world, derogatively they have been called "Apis" which roughly translates down from ancient Malfi to 'worker drone' akin slightly higher rights than a servitor for the average freedom loving Malfian

Who's & Where's of D'aosta cont-

Due to its relatively estranged territoriality, inter-system connection and for those with the cash and wits to get in, "The Zone" is a place where you can get anything from a small private army, harem of the finest surgically enhanced lovers, liquors millennia old, a private starship (and rego!) exotic xeno artefacts and even more terrible prescribed esoteric items... the other side of the coin is also appealing for those who would sell such things at an exclusive premium to people looking for every kind of edge or desire. Provided they live long enough to conduct the deal and make their escape from the buyer who might decide they want their money back and a small army sent to get it back. Of course, the Arbites will destroy anyone trafficking such items with little hesitation, assuming of course they can get wind of such things and make periodic sweeps of the towers to make sure there aren't any on the premises on open display or hidden.
On a much more mundane level, there is a burgeoning industry of contracted smaller companies formed to service the more usual essentials of the Zone, at a much higher standard and cost of course which makes for furious bidding wars when it comes to contracting or outsourcing an element of business. Given that a smaller company can be made or broken on winning a contract that goes into the millions of thrones per annum, the term 'Hostile Takeover' takes on a whole new meaning of business, be it throat slitting, poisoning, gunshot to the CEO's head or just outright warfare of hired guns storming someone's head office in the middle of the night and burning it and anyone there to the ground.
Most of this happens in Portland, next to the starport and where the minor companies set up shop to service The Zone, this does happen to come under the control of the Magistratum who live a life mixed with big paydirt from a bribe to let something fly, to being in the way of someone with a lot of guns and being paid to let fly and dying miserably in a pool of their own blood. Behind all this are the ancient Capos of Malfian organised crime who will field the street soldiers, arms and assassins to get any job done, for a price and a price all to many are willing to pay. The side industry to this is massive amounts of smugglers, arms dealers who make a staggering profit to the Capos who always need more guns and ammunition to keep their spot in the underworld, for what its worth, they pale in comparison to the formal Merc-Companies in the Zone itself who literally do have the best of the best for hire and not really very fussy about who they work for provided the cash is up front.

Grotta life at the upper levels is well lit, ventilated, clean water and decently renovated habs with adequate levels of policing and security in place to make sure that the workforce can work. Even the mid-lower levels are comparatively decent provided that no one messes with the utilities because if there's one thing every Umo fears, its the lights going out more than anything else even to the point of no running water for a day. Because that's when the inhabitants from the very lowest levels come out to play and prey on their better-off neighbours, it takes 3 hours to get from the top to the mid-low levels via the lifts and once the alarm is raised a lot can happen before the Magistratum and Arbites have scrambled and gone bounding down to do their worst to anyone out in the open.
To offset the underground and somewhat unnatural existence below ground there has been considerable effort put in to make sure that its as pleasant as possible and their lords aboveground do have ample coin to throw around when need be, unlike the vast majority of hives, D'aosta is riding heavily on the back of the scribe more than the labourer so they do have access to high levels of education of 'Imperial World' standards along with the obligatory church teachings. All the same forms of entertainment and access to stores is the same in the Grotta as it is aboveground, but much cheaper and nowhere near as good! In fact, some of it is quite awful.
Corporate jobs are highly prized compared to civil or public service as they offer a better chance to get aboveground and higher rates of pay, it has gone to the extent that the foundations of the skyscrapers penetrate deep down into the hive like a giants teeth and offer better access for workers, buy up the habs and rent them out to employees. Unlike above, they're less likely to begin shooting up the place on the basis of crapping in ones own nest means they have to live with it the next day and the Magistratum wades in hard and heavy on anyone agitating violence, that is not necessarily the case should the opportunity come up to run around on the surface causing havoc for the right money in someone else's backyard. Something the Capos make good use of any malcontents who have a predilection and talent for violence, quietly omitting the penalties for such activity if they're caught usually involve summary execution from either cops or Arbites that are taxed enough just processing lift passes and relish any opportunity to start blazing away with shotguns to relieve the boredom.

Organised crime of the violent type tends to be at a minimum as the population has high levels of employment of around 90%, instead it has carved out a niche when it comes to blackmarket and stolen goods from the surface, the most popular lines being clothing, weapons, household goods, booze and of course drugs of all shapes and sizes. Transport jacking of couriers, break ins and ram raiding never seem to lose their appeal for the blackmarketeer looking for a higher profit rate and ready source of muscle that's only too happy to work for a cut of the takings. The more successful ones tend to come from their own mini-crimelord foundations as hereditary as any of the noble families and work hard to create webs of influence between the surface, police and anyone with an eye for something worth stealing in their travels. The Magistratum can usually be bribed to turn a blind eye to a lift full of criminals and stolen property, what can't be avoided however is the repercussions of who you stole it off, there isn't any formal law about taking justice into your own hands (short of the duelling system), the unwritten law of ownership though means that if you stole something from someone- there is a good chance that they're going to come down into the hab and start hunting the perpetrators to get it back. Unlike the Magistratum, they have no rulebook or concept of guilt and if it means tearing fingers out by the stumps of anyone who might be vaguely related to the activity, then they will.
In a quaint kind of way that only Malfi could produce, there is also an industry inside the criminal community of individuals and groups that make a living off the criminals themselves that even the Capos fear. Once a criminal becomes a made man, pulled a few jobs and gotten some decent pay-dirt, his/her name filters down amongst the community, out of courtesy most of the organised criminals will stay out of each other way to avoid costly wars and blood feuds (something the nobility upstairs does the complete opposite of) and garner a bit of respect, possibly even an alliance for really big jobs later on.

But the "Acutus" don't care.
If you make a name for yourself on Malfi as a crim who's good, then you've also made a name for yourself amongst the Acutus' who will invariably turn up at some stage or another and if the crim doesn't run or kill them off, they'll torture the crim until he gives up all his money, worldly belongings and if he's lucky, keep all his toes, fingers and other sundry external organs. More often than not though, they'll torture their target to death even though he's given them what they want and make as messy, broken and bloody example to other criminals hoping to avoid retribution on themselves if they're found out. Almost all are completely psychopathic, the worst are serial killers and predators of the most terrible type, always looking for the next victim and any weaknesses to separate the sick and slow from the herd. The best a criminal on Malfi can hope for is that their bodyguards will be loyal and good enough to keep the wolf from the door, or send a round through the side of their head with their own gun before theyre tied to a chair somewhere dark and the knife starts sliding between their knuckle joints.

As always, interesting stuff MKX. Oddly, the thread won't show as read for me, though. I get that sort of oddity on occasion, and posting seems to be the only thing which fixes it.

Anyway, keep it up. Good stuff.

-=Brother Praetus=-