The Mandragora Sector: variously prefixed with adjectives such as 'dread', 'troubled' and 'infamous'. A place so horrific that just tracing your ancestry back there might blight an otherwise shining career.

But just what is it about Mandragora that makes it so terrible? I may be missing something fundamental, but its position (as far as I've heard it) coreward of Calixis doesn't seem to put it anywhere of cosmic significance (I could well be wrong about this) and I can't find anything that explains why it's in such a state.

Or, indeed, what sort of state it's in.

I was wondering if anyone knows? Otherwise, it will be incumbent upon my GM to make something up to satisfy my curiosity, I suspect...

Perhaps it's some sort of massive pleasure sector that offers the most stunning women, beaches and cuisine imaginable, and its inhabitants live in fear of being overrun by noble playboys and good-for-nothing Rogue Traders, so whenever they do leave, they always prefix their beloved sector with some vague and terrifying adjective?

I've often wondered this, too.

Plus, I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but upon looking at the Dark Heresy map which shows the Galactic Location of the Calixis Sector, there is a little panel showing three regional sectors: the Calixis Sector, the Ixaniad Sector and the Scarus Sector. But there is also a FOURTH sector hidden under the Inquisitorial seal...you can just see its little green box peeking out from under the Inquisitorial seal.

I wonder if this is the Mandragora Sector?

In terms of what's up with it, perhaps it's a "fallen" sector like the Jericho Reach or the Sabbat worlds...a region of space that consists of a handful of Imperial worlds surrounded by dozens of xeno empires, chaos warp portals etc. A formerly great sector fallen on hard times with little or no government.

Having a troubled Sector nearby Calixis would partially explain the number of chaos cults and the need for a high Inquisitorial presence...

I suspect that hidden sector may well be Mandragora, from what little we have been told. On the other hand, the last I saw of it, it was being described as "the far and dread Mandragora Sector", and whilst these things are relative, calling it "far" if it borders Calixis seems a little misleading.

It being fallen would make a great deal of sense. If someone turned up on your doorstep and said "Hello, I'm from that chaos-infested sector down the way, but please don't hold that against me," you could be forgiven a degree of caution, or indeed the desire to put said person on someone else's doorstep at the soonest possible opportunity.

I suppose all this explains why my character's attempt to dredge some facts about it from his long-neglected Astromancy studies produced naught. So he just nodded and smiled and said, "Mandragora, eh? Lovely." And no doubt our Mandragoran friend was much relieved.

I do hope more information about it will emerge at some juncture. I really am quite curious now.

Well "far" is a relative term, I guess! If each Sector is (I seem to recall) about 200 light years per side, then the "mystery" sector on the map would be 300+ light years away from the edge of the Calixis Sector. That's about 2,850 trillion kilometers... Doesn't necessarily rule it out...

You're quite right. I suppose the fact that it's nearer to the Calixis Sector than most other sectors doesn't automatically make it "near" in a physical sense, and "far and dread" is more succinct than "quite distant, though closer than many sectors, but definitely dread".

Until something more detailed crops up in one of the games, I suppose we shall just have to use our imaginations. And I know darn well that's not why I buy roleplay games.

Wait.

The status of Mandragora has been niggling me as well. There have been hints dropped in previous DH books that have been revealed to be part of future supplements. I wouldn't be surprised to see a piece on Mandragora at some stage.

Mandragora you say? Who knew GW had sort of already had links on a major tv show about it...

Decessor said:

Well, as a wild theory, perhaps some Ascension-level play will take place there. A whole new sector would be a fascinating setting for higher-level play, especially if you've tumbled through all the Haarlock adventures and somehow come out alive. You might just have seen all you want to of the Calixis Sector for a while.

On a personal note, it would fit in pretty well in our game. I wouldn't be surprised if my Nearly-Interrogator headed for Mandragora at some point during downtime between DH and Ascension. It would be nice to know what he might find there!

I've wanted more information about the Mandragora Sector since it came up in Fihad's description in Damned Cities and I started noticing all the other mentions of it. Right now we've got no real information about it other that Imperial power isn't exactly established there anymore. Mark my words, it will come up more. They had to have made those mentions for a reason, like the Herrod mentions implying what happened to him that come up in Dead Stars .

I like the Ascension idea. A fallen Imperial Sector, or at least one teetering on the brink of complete anarchy would be a really interesting playground of sorts.

Just a bit of forum archaeology on the topic of Mandragora...I was reading the new White Dwardf last night, and there's a lot of mentions of one of the major new Necron characters being "the scourge of Mandragora" or some such. Which suggests that Mandragora's big problem was Necron related...

Indeed, Imotekh is the Regent of Mandragora, that being the Crownworld of the Sautekh Dynasty. The codex places this on the Imperium's eastern rim.

The Calixis Sector is more north-westerly, so if our previous supposition about the Mandragora Sector's position is correct, that would put the world in the wrong place. Also, in the Dark Heresy timeline, the Necrons have not yet awakened in significant numbers.

I suspect this is just coincidence, because Mandragora is a cool name.

A pity. I got excited when I first saw it, too.

It wouldn't surprise me if no-one noticed the co-incidence. The maps in 5th edition 40K books in general appear to have been rather poorly researched - as I recall, in the core rulebook several Gothic Sector worlds are placed in completely the wrong place on the galaxy map - Schindlegiest being one, as memory serves. Don't even get me started on "Chogoris" ...

Niqvah said:

I somehow remember that when I recently read the Black Crusade, that either the Calixis Sector or the Koronous Reach was described as being in the north-east of the galaxy. That made me wonder looking at the galactical maps in all the rulebooks...

Niqvah said:

Having read the new Necron codex, I can refute this - as of 815.M41, the Necrons had not been openly acknowledged as a single, coherent and identifiable threat to the Imperium, and wouldn't be so acknowledged until the aftermath of the Sanctuary 101 Massacre in 897.M41, some 82 years later.

However, Necron activity in significant numbers has been taking place for centuries by the present day in Dark Heresy; for example, Imotekh claimed the Crownworld of Mandragora and became Phaeron of the Sautekh Dynasty some decades before the Dark Heresy 'present day' of 815.M41.

It feels like the Necrons are GW's "next big thing" they made a pretty impressive entrance in that art book Xenology and now they're really being fleshed out in the codex. It wouldn't surprise me if the name was no coincidence...

Void Born said:

The only alternative suggestion to the "no coincidence" theory is that the author of the Necron Codex wasn't actually aware that FFG have spent some years building up history on the Mandragora Sector.

EDIT: Actually, that's a little mean of me. FFG have deliberately left the Mandragora Sector wide open, so there could be some deliberate intentional link between FFG's Mandragora and Matt Ward's.

However the "no coincidence" theory doesn't make much sense to me...

The PLANET Mandragora sounds like it's on the Eastern rim. We don't know where the Mandragora SECTOR is, so it could be on the Eastern rim too, but I personally have always felt that it's the sector peeking out from under the Inquisitorial "access denied" symbol on the map graphic in the DH core rulebook.

The amount of references to Mandragora within the FFG stuff all suggests that it's a sector that bears some relationship to the Calixis Sector (North Western Galactic rim)...a geographical relationship is the one that makes the most sense, by which I mean the two are probably physically relatively close, in Galactic terms.

I suspect the whole issue will get retconned to make more sense in due course.

The Imperium is a big place, we all agree, and the Administratum an exercise in byzantine complexity, so I see no reason why there couldn't be two Mandragora sectors. Just look around you own city (if you're in one) to see how many times the same names get used for streets. Given that the two Mandragoras posited here are at almost opposite ends of the Imperium I don't see this as an issue. (Although I doubt GW is that subtle, it could even be a deliberate duplication to highlight just what a mess the Imperium is in).

Zakalwe said:

It could also be that there is a Mandragora sector hidden under the seal and a world called Mandragora on the other side of the galaxy in an entirely different sector.