I was planning on starting off my next rogue trader campaign with their ship being renovated in the Sol system, which means players wanting to stop of on Terra to take a look around. I'd like to hear how you would all handle including the capitol of the imperium in your games. How free would they be to move around? What dangers could they encounter on the most heavily defended system in the imperium.

My initial thoughts go something like this: There is a measure of power that is beyond the scope of the Rogue Trader game. This is the place where great masters of the imperium summon maddeningly gargantuan void ships and legions of planet destroying weapons to them at a whim. Just being within viewing distance of mankind's homeworld should tax a dynasty's resources as the billion eyes and ears serving the High Lords take notice of it's ship and requisition "small" amounts of funding and materials from the loyal servants to fuel it's vast industry.

Max level rogue trader crews with 150+ profit factor toast expensive drink over the burning remains of vast xenos empires as their fleet of ships burn them from the sky. Yet as they close to Holy Terra that feeling of overconfidence dwindles until they feel like nothing but another grain of sand ignored by legendary individuals a thousand times their betters.There should always be a feeling present that, even if they harbored traitorous thoughts and wanted to bring down mankind from it's capitol it would be near impossible to do so.

The further the RT gets from the Imperium, the more power he has. An RT on holy Terra? A singularity of powerlessness perhaps?

Terra would be a very extreme place. The centre of the Administratum and Ecclesiary. The astronomicon is right there. Mars is a destination in itself.

I'm guessing that the RT would feel like a common citizen there. Everyone is more important, and any wrong moves and you're in serious trouble.

While I'm sure it would be a breathtaking setting, I think it might be hard to run a game there. The security of the Adeptus Custodes is probably so extreme that no one would even think about so much as jaywalking! I see two possibilities: a highly political campaign with little combat but lots maneuvering & backstabbing, or a Dark Heresy style conspiracy playing up the theme of rot from within (a heresy brewing in the very heart of the Imperium, gasp). Both could be a nice change of pace from a typical Rouge Trader game, but they are not for everyone. You should talk to your players before running with these ideas, methinks.

In Ben Counters Soul Drinker, they describe the underworld of the Minestrium a bit.

There are gazillions of archive, monitored by old servotirs with wandering kill drones, destroction teams out there to "supress" knowledge. They will destroy servitors and kill drones to remove their own presence, etc...

There should be billions of humans trying to walk to the throne, each pilgrim should be waiting at their spot for decades, moving a few inches every days from cairo to NY where the throne is, etc.

Gangs trying to steal from them, lots of arbites, very heavy handed arbites, Adaptus Costudian should be like marble status but shoudl one trigger a responce they are blessed with a quick death, etc.

Mass suicides/sacrifices for the emperor, processions of sacrificial psyckers, precessions of flagelant, etc.

Any attempt to protray Holy Terra really should be all about the spectacle. The Imperial Palace itself covers the Entire Himalayan mountain range at the point of the Horus Heresy. I can't see it getting any smaller since.

I like the ideas about Billions of Pilgrims, Billions of adeptus, vast and terrifying scale should be the overwhelming aura.

I'd personally go easy on the Custodians, there were only ever 1000 of them and most of them defend the Emperors person and very near surroundings. Even the Palace gates shouldn't be guarded by Custodians.

Weapons should be banned, justice swift and deadly. Mutants, sorcerors, etc shouldn't be in with a whiff of getting close to Terra.

If you have them arrive by ship (especially their own) have the ship repeatedly stopped for inspections, when it enters the Sol system, passing Neptune, Jupiter, Heavy checks round Mars, Sisters of Silence checking round Luna and Inquisitorial/arbites/extreme elite troops around Terra itself. From there the checks become personal and are everywhere, entering buildings, leaving buildings, passing checkpoints in the street, etc. A theocractic polic state cranked up to 11.

It could be truly awesome though to get them involved in some Terran high jinks.

The palace itself is something like two thirds the size of the Earth, the Forbidden Fortress, where the psykers who fuel the astronomican are housed, is built over the Himalayas

The 4th edition of the 40k core book describes Terra as such:

"Terra itself is a sprawling hive world, its surface utterly infertile and covered with dark, towering spires or iron, colossal, gothic cathedrals, ancient ruins and masses of pilgrims come to the cradle of Mankind to pay homage to the God-Emperor. its oceans have long boiled away, and beneath the countless layers of metal and stone that have built up over the aeons, Terra is a lifeless ball of rock. Hissing verdigris-stained gargoyles vent steam into the polluted atmosphere and crumbling statues of angels stare blindly down on the teeming populace who mindlessly shuffle through the grinding business of simply exisiting. The object of these pilgrims quest, the Gothic majesty of the Imperial Palace, is a sight most will never see, having spent the majority of their lives journeying to Terra, only to be crushed by the mind-numbing scaleof the queues of their fellow pilgrims, even to tread the sacred surface of Terra is an honour most citizens of the Imperium can only dream of."

Given how ubiquitous weapons are, and how much they are a part of their culture I doubt that they would be forbidden. Maybe limited to a single sidearm, but not outright banned.

Don't forget the rest of the system as well. Mars is the home of the Mechanicus, and any tech priests in the group would probably be more in awe of Mars than Terra. Luna has been made into a Fortress Battlestation. Jupiter and its moons have been converted into a massive Forge system that produces the greatest ships in the Imperium. Saturn was home to a Naval organization during the age of strife, and probably still is. Titan is home to the Grey Knights. The rest of the system is probably as developed as any other world in the Imperium.

The areas of Terra that are open to the public are similar to a stereotypical European tour. Many holy sites, tourist traps, galleries, museums, relic displays, etc. Expect to wait in line to get anywhere and tipping service folk left and right.

Also, remember to note that Terra's oceans are gone, and there is no natural/wild vegetation.

It'd probably be easier to catch a pilgrim skiff from the shipyard to get on-planet than trying to find docking for their own ship.

If you can find it some of the first Inquisitor novel (by Ian Watson) takes place on Earth; it gives an ingenious way for getting on-world (undetected) and a nice view of some of the areas off the beaten track and of the citizens who call the planet home, living in its massive depths all their lives.

And of course there is even some detail of the Imperial Throne Room, and what it really contains...

DW

One of the Space Wolves novels has Ragnar assigned as a personal guard to Navigator house Belisarius on Terra:

www.amazon.com/Wolfblade-Warhammer-40-000-Novels/dp/1844160211/ref=sr_1_2

Gives some great insight into navigator houses too. I thought it was interesting that Space Marines were viewed rather negatively on Terra because the last time they were there (during the siege of Terra in the Horus Heresy) they did rather a good job of destroying the place.

Alpha Chaos 13 said:

It's also a hive world,as we all know, the security on a Hive World decreases the further down you go.