Wondering how many of you have set your campaigns outside of the Calixis sector, how now much work you put into fleshing out the worlds of the sector you campaign is set in?

Baradiel said:

While more recently, I've been running games in the official settings (specifically, Calixis and Koronus; as I'm writing for FFG now, I'm creating things for those settings anyway, so it seems a shame not to use them), I did use a setting of my own making during the early stages of the playtest. It wasn't fully fleshed-out - I only wrote up the single world they were investigating, but that seemed more than sufficient at the time, and I've made some minor changes since then in case I reuse it. The handout I gave to my players about the planet is copied below.

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: 118,000,000,000 (‘Baseline’ Human), 184,000,000 (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 120 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 10 and 20 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 planetary governor is an absolute ruler during his or her dominance (the local term, equating to ‘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. As an aside, 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. The Chief Justice – a position normally held by an Arbitor Majore or higher – is also in command of the entire Herus system High Precinct.

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 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 60 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 natural for a 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 current highest-ranking Ecclesiarchal official for the Gauntlet Expanse Diocese is Cardinal Theronius Maré.

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

Principle Imports: Foodstuffs, Textiles, Heavy Machinery.

Foodstuffs: Vast quantities of 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.. Each city has a population of somewhere between ten and twenty 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 twenty 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 fifteen 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 hundred-million-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 sixty 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 pressure and weight have 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 tried for 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 Hereticus Obviam Mechanica against the Machine God. 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 a minor Daemonic Incursion – 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 998.M41, the Tau Empire began a campaign intended to expand their territories, now apparently referred to as the ‘Third Phase Expansion’. 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.

Not too bad. I might have to borrow parts of it.

I am working actually on three linked campaigns centered around the Gorian sector. The Gorian Sector is located in the Ultima Segmentum, close to the Tau Empire and Ultramar. Bordering the Sector is a large expanse known as the Deliliah Sector, an area that has been cut off by the Imperium due to extreem warp activity for millenia.

My plan is to run a Dark Heresy campaign theamed around various cults trying to acquire xenos and warp tainted artifacts, culminating in the fall of a Space Marine Chapter, and the Traitor Legions invading from the Delilah Sector. Coinciding with that are invasions from the Tyranids, the Orks, and the Tau.

At this point, we move to Death Watch, where the team is moved from battle zone to battle zone, ending ultimately with the defeat of the Traitor Legions.

The various rituals performed by the traitors to summon demons were massively powerful, and actually dispersed the heavy warp activity in the Deliliah Sector, allowing warp travel into the Sector. This of course leads to the third campaign, Rogue Trader.

Also, depending on how all three of these campaigns go, and also depending on the interest of the players, I might have the players Ascend their DH characters so we can do a fourth campaign, centered around the Inquisition establishing itself in the Delilah Sector. And if FFG comes out with anything analogous to Ascension for Rogue Trader or Death Watch, we will go from there.

All our games are set within the Aquila Sector, an area of space in the Ultima Segmentum. It's a Sector I've been slowly developing for our 40K games since 2004, and currently sits at 122 planets in 7 Sub-Sectors. All of the planets have a category (Forge World, Agri-World), and quite a few of them have anywhere from a small bit of history to a significant bit of history. Even created a large map for it, using a fantastic photo of the Angel Wings Nebula that the Hubble took. That became the 'Aquila Warp Storm' in my fluff, and the sector was named after it.

Lots of them have been used for the basis of 40K games, and since we started playing Dark Heresy, I've fleshed out a lot of the planets that the players have been hopping back and forth between, as well as the history of the Aquila Sector itself, and a number of the organisations within.

It's more fun, IMO, to make up your own than use the already printed ones.

BYE

HMBC, that is really cool. Yeah, I have been fiddlig with a map using microsoft paint.

I might steal the Aquilla sector laters perhaps as a reference that someone might make.

I am using the Periphery. I like to create my own material so that works for me.

The world I am using now is only as complicated as it needs to be; a hostile ice desert. Nothing fancy but since most of the adventure will be claustrophobic and underground, it doesn't need to be. Suffice to say the PCs are a long way from help.

While I have not gone out of sector yet for my campaign, I did add a world that had been 'misplaced' by the Imperium, and as such is not on the charts.

It's called Hermeticvs II, and is fairly close to Sentinel, if I remember correctly (don't have my papers in front of me to check), near the halo stars. Hermeticvs II is a young hive world, and it's distinctive in being a planet that is low on ozone, so prolonged exposure outside the hives will cause severe sunburn and even death. It's a world that exists by supplying large quantities of fish to other nearby worlds. It had been inadverdantly left off the star charts, due to another world in another sector with a similar name. What no player has yet to think of, is exactly WHO they've been supplying all the food to for the last 40 years.

I wanted to have a world that I could use for my first foray into DH GMing, that I wouldn't have to worry about going against canon. In the players first action the players were sent there to apprehend (or kill if an arrest was not possible) a suspected Xenos arms dealer.

Remember, it's a big galaxy, not every planet or star is going to be on the charts, and carefully catalogued. See Red Cages.

Baradiel said:

I haven't invested any EXP into the Computer Program (Photoshop) (Int) Advanced Skill yet, so I've had to muddle everything through MS Paint (which is a basic skill). I like what I've done though.

If I knew how to attach files, I'd show you... but... come to think of it... it is in the Dakka Gallery.

Flippin' hell, that's quite an extensive map you got there. You should gather your typed-up stuff and post it over at Dark Reign.