Okay, got a quick question for the lore-monkeys out there: has there ever been a codified ranking of the adepts of the Departmento Munitorum in any of the background material? More importantly, what would the title of the head coordinator on a planetary level of the departmento munitorum be?

And while I'm asking questions about a depoartment(o)s within the Administratum, has any other departmento's been codified? So far my players and I have just been making things up as needed (there's the Departmento Medicinae keeping records of, counting, and administering to the general health and vitality of the Imperial citizens as only a massive uncaring bureaucracy can, the Departmento Comitis administering the counting and tallying of most general goods and commodities inbound and outbound from a planet and assigning an Imperial Code of Worth to such things, the Departmento Census who assay planets assigning them their tithing grade and keep general tallies of the production potential of Imperial Worlds) but I'm curious if any others outside the Munitorum have ever been set down in any book. After all, the biggest damned bureaucracy ever conceived has got to have millions of departments, all of which never communicate with one another, have no idea what the other is doing, will always blame the other if something goes wrong, and refer you to them for anything you need only to have them refer you back stating that they have no idea why you were referred to them in the first place...

Edit: and if the likely is indeed true and no other Departmentos have been codified, what departmentos have you guys come up with for your games?

I'm not aware that anyone's ever set out an exhaustive list of Administratum roles. Lots of writers have created regional variations, but there's been no overarching scheme.

I'd carry on as you have so far, making things up on the fly. Put in lots of sub prefects, deputy scriveners, Junior Arch-Facilitators, Scribes 12th class etc etc. I've always seen the Administratum as an amalgam of the British civil service, the government departments from 1984 or the movie Brazil and the worst excess of corporate middle management. So loads of pointless job creation, indecipherable management speak, self-important but pointlessly long job titles, random sounding department titles and the like.

EDIT: Logically, though, I suppose that given the many roles of the administratum, you could come up with loads of Departmento titles.

Assessing the tithe - This would involve many different sub- Departmentos. You're absolutely right, you'd need a departmento census, (in fact maybe lots of different sub-departmento, so subdepartmento census agris, subdepartmento census populi, subdepartmento census manufactorum etc etc) then a departmento calculorum to work out how much to demand from each planetary governor (and the same sort of subdepartmentos.) With regard to the psychic tithe demanded by the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, although the Black ships are administered by them, one would imagine they'd need some admin support, so maybe you'd have a Departmento or Subdepartmento census telepathica and a subdepartmento calculorum telepathica and so on...

Then you'd have to actually gather the tithe, so you'd need a Subdepartmento to arrange transporting it. A quick online latin translator tells me that "tax" in Latin is "Miseratio" (figures.) So you could have the Subdepartmento Imperialis Miseratio Transis responsible for actually transporting goods from planet to orbit...Then you could have re-assessors dockside, the Subdepartmento Imperialis Miseration Praetoris...and the same sort of oversight process at the other end as the goods are delivered, with even more complicated titles for everyone involved.

Then you've got the other big Adeptus Terra organisations, like the Adeptus Arbites: these are all sub-wings off the Administratum, so you'd presumably have something like a Departmento Arbites Administrates and so on, ad inifinitum...

Basically, the Administratum should always be massive and arcane enough to allow for hundreds of regional variations , titles, departments etc.

I do slightly take issue with your Departmento Medicae, because my personal take on the Imperium is that there is no real global healthcare standard, and that this sort of thing is very much in the hands of individual Planetary Governors. To me, it doesn't gel that a vast, uncaring galactic government would have a universal healthcare plan! That is very much a personal interpretation, though, and logically, if the local Administratum has enough staff, they may have a Subdepartmento devoted to reducing sick days....Just my own personal take on it, though!

Thank you for the ever valuable insights, Lightbringer! I hadn't thought of some of those departmento's or, sadly, including sub-departmentos. When all you have to work from is one departmento being written up, which makes it seem a bit overly omnipresent leaving the rest a touch barren, it becomes a bit more difficult to think outside of that one little box. That and when one of your players get's interested in an inter-departmento tiff enough for you to sit down and really figure out the whose and whys of it all, you realize that even with your home-made departmentos and titles, things start looking fairly barren and uncomplicated with a lot of the same titles being repeated. I just can't believe I didn't think of sub-departmentos...

On the Departmento Medicinae, they're not so much health care as they are health recording, poking, and boxing-up. Their main duties tend to revolve around recording general trends in physical and mental aptitudes and helth of a planets various populations to be latter taken into consideration by the other departmento's when reassessing tithing grades. Their second major function is acting as a very draconian CDC (US Center for Disease Control). It's all fine and good to let each planet take care of it's population how it will and string their governor up by his short-hairs if he should fail in delivering the tithe, but when you have over populated planets with grossly inadequate health care or even health understanding who prop an entire sector's production up with their tithe (I'm looking at you, Sepherus Secundus) in which a pandemic could mean planetary apocalypse for the work-force, entire planets devoted to feeding entire other planets who's nasty cough could be the end of the planet their tithe is bound for, you've got to have some kind of governmental oversight. I believe the universal health-care plan for the poor is administered by the minstorum in proper hospitler leper-colony style anyway ;-)

The Derpartmento Madicinae also exist to step on the toes of the Sisters Familios, agitate the magi of the planet's various Genetoriums, make a nuisance of themselves at ports and docs, and start minor skirmishes when one of their adepts gets a big head and tries to administer the mission hospitals and withering-houses of the minstorum...

I really like that idea, Graver! I was thinking you were using the Deprtmento Medicinae as a universal healthcare provider, but your CDC concept is genius! It completely makes sense for the Administratum to have such a body in place to monitor infectious disease, but purely from the strandpoint of maintaining production levels.

Plus you could use the Departmento Medicinae as a "gateway" to interesting adventures involving weird xeno-infections or Nurglish outbreaks....

Far as my GM notes have it as a generalised view of Administratum rank it went from top to bottom-

Master of the Administratum, Adeptus, Prefectus, Masters, Ordinates, Curators, Scribes, Ciphers, Subordinates and Menials.

There's sort of different officer levels and pay grades for each one in more or less a Pyramid type of heirachical structure inside each rank, how many, really depends on how many you want! But going on my experience of working in the public service 20 years ago, which is what I personally liked to base my administratum off- they're basically a bunch of lazy, a-political, dont talk to other departments unless ten forms are filled in, collect pass off the security guard after filing 2 months prior notice before entering the building, about and efficient and painful as a drunken dentist.... then arrive and find the person you're supposed to meet is off on the piss for a 3hr liquid lunch gambling away their wages.

PC's are gunning for a Prefectus of Malfi's Departmento Munitorium, so at some point I've got to figure out some of this stuff too...

Ah, the Codex Imperialis... and old yet still-trusty resource.

According to that ancient and musty tome, a selection of the immense and bewildering rank and title system of the Administratum is listed below. MKX has mentioned these already, but this is with a little more detail.

The Master of the Administratum: the head of the organisation, and the most powerful of the High Lords of Terra.

Adeptus: the title given to all true servants of the Emperor; it is an honour to serve the Emperor, and as such the title is well-respected. Space Marines and some Imperial Guard officers are entitled to use this honorific.

Prefectus or Prefect: A common rank of officer or official within the Administratum, divided into three basic levels (Prefect Primus, Prefect Secundus and Prefect Tertius, in order of seniority).

Master: Departmental heads, in charge of an entire office or division. Most Masters will have their own unique titles in addition to the more mundane "Master of _", such as Chancellor of the Estate Imperium or Historicus of the Historical Revision Unit.

Ordinates : minor officials, dealing with much of the routine work within the Administratum.

Scribes: functionaries of the lowest kind, Scribes are record keepers. Like most Administratum staff, Scribes are drawn from families of hereditary slave workers, many of whom can trace their service back to the dawn of the Imperium.

Ciphers: Messengers, ritually trained by their predecessors (typically their parents) to memorise their messages swiftly using a form of autohypnosis. They retain no knowledge of the information they have conveyed, mechanically chanting the messages when they reach their intended recipients.

Curators: scholars and historians responsible for maintaining the ancient records of the Imperium. Their role is an inherited one, passed down from generation to generation along with the arcane secrets and obscure languages necessary to perform their duties effectively.

Menials : non-specialised workers, including drivers, labourers, sanitation workers, and other non-skilled professions. Menials are moved from job to job as required, and while selected from amongst the masses of non-Adeptus citizens, they are granted the title of Adeptus themselves, which they bear with pride and will bear any burden or indignity to retain this honour.

Subordinates: specialist workers serving a specific part of the Administratum. They are hereditary slaves, passing on their titles and duties to their children. It is possible for an ambitious Subordinate to advance in status and become an Ordinate, rising through the ranks of the Administratum.

The Departmento Munitorum may well have a rank structure similar to the Imperial Guard. After all, the Munitorum are para-military. The only example of a ranked member I can think of anywhere was in the 3rd Soul Drinkers novel. Can't recall the exact title, but there was " something- Colonel" in charge of an artillery battalion who was a Munitorum official, and not Imperial Guard. The prefix had something to do with his Administratum/Munitorum ranking.

As to the overseeing of tithe collections, I figured that was more the purview of Inditors with supervision by Comptrollers and the like.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Brother Praetus said:

That's what io fiugured as well, Inditors (who i always viewed as some seriously scarry metter-readers) andn comptrollers acting as the main middle-manigment. However, there's still the issue as to which departmento said Inditors and comptrollers who oversee the tithe collections belong to ;-)

@N0_1 and MKX, thank you! That rough outline of the structure of the administartum is damned helpful and I really love the extra bit background included! It's good for reminding me again about the Imperial mindset, especially when it comes to the individuals place within it. I keep slowly slipping into a more modernistic mindset the less I see of those beautiful little nuggets talking about such things as slave-scribes and hereditary librarians -beautiful and useful!

Brother Praetus said:

The old chain of command used to run-

High Lords of Terra, who delegated down to-

Adeptus Terra, who delegate down to-

Ad-Mech (+Titan Legions) - Arbites - Custodes - Astronomica - Telepathica - Assassinorum - Adeptus Admin

Adeptus Administratum who delegate directly down to the following four-

Adeptus Astartes - Imperial Guard - Imperial Navy (+ Navigators) - Planetary Lords

I'm sort of inclined to think that Adepta-Munitorium probably figure in between the A-Admin and the other 4 below them as being your Dept of Guns, Grunts, Drugs, Food, Medicine etc, once the chain of command from Adeptus Terra send it from the Ad-Mech, down to the Ad-Admin who in turn pass into onto those sub-departments somewhere in its structure. Of course, that is quite an old structure as somewhere in there you could probably remove Planetary Lords and instead substitute Sector Lords and then Planetary Lords off them.

I am quietly amused there is no direct link between Ad-Mech and Ad-Admin almost as much as I'm seeing the Ad-Astartes suffer under the cruel bootheel of the Adeptus Administratum