Greetings, fellow acolytes!

As a longterm GM who has led his gaming group around some of the rather unpleasant regions of the sector, I've always been confronted with the problem how to present differences in setting, style etc. between the more 'civilised' worlds of the Calixis Sector to my players. One of the most obvious fields of variety would of cource be the appearance of planetary officials, the military, enforcers and the like.

So for all the 40k-fashionistas out there: What do you imagine certain regiments, household guards, enforcer organisations etc to look like? Maybe we could compile a small list that could serve to inspire each other...

I'd like to start of with a small contribution concerning Malfi. I've always seen Malfi as an amalgam between the merchant towns of renaissance italy and modern-day megacities like Rio de Janeiro. That means a rather baroque outfit for the nobility and their guards, while other aspects of everyday life would appear rather 'modern'.

To play along that theme, I've leaned heavily towards the look of the Sardaukar from the Dune TV-miniseries when describing household guards: Broad velvet berets, puffy sleeves, breastplates... All fitted out in the respective house's colours and equipped with high-technology weaponry (hellguns and the like).

The enforcers and PDF in comparison would appear rather mundane and toned down. I picture certain regiments to be loyal to certain noble houses, stating their allegiance by wearing scarfs or sashes in the house's colours, combined with a plain uniform in brown or olive colours. Berets and caps would be favoured over helmets because of the hotter climate and for aesthetic reasons.

I go with the high-tech sci-fi version of WH40K just because that's how I like it. Almost everyone has micro-beads, people know how to use them and it's just general knowledge how to use a civilian vox (telephone) and people have mobile voxes and whatnot. I try to further myself from the "oh-it's-so-dark-and-no-technology"-way of doing things. Of course, low-hive or even sub-hive things are as sh*tty as they should be, pardon my language. People don't have running water and whatnot. I also play people as more intellectual than they are in most canon, just because it's an enlightened galaxy as much as it is huddled under a religious whip - which in itself does NOT make people more stupid.

So my uniforms are very modern in the way that they have uniforms and helmets much like SWAT-teams or military personnel in general have today, because that gives ME and my group the most "oh-wow-these-people-are-awesome"-feeling. When they arrive at feudal words and such (say black powder weapons and the like) that's when I go with that baroque style of play.

So in general I use glass sky-scrapers, huge, sprawling cities and metre-thick walls with heavy batteries ontop with flying vehicles and a general buzz to rival that of a beehive. That's how I like it and that's what makes me feel like it's real, I don't know why.

Basically, I use the Daniverse more than the Lore-verse where people actually have a fire within them unless something is keeping it down, much like in the real world.

Bright colors and vivid clothing is of course a thing that the noble use, much like almost any sci-fi game with huge wigs and weird moustaches and whatnot.

The idea that the PDF have scarfs of their respective noble house is something I will incorporate, or maybe a badge on their body armor the shape of their noble house insignia.

That's how I roll, heh.

Regards,
Ticonius.