Being essentially a "WH40K Roleplay", Dark Heresy is heavily inspired by all manner of cannon creatures - xenos, daemons, sorcerers and so on. It seems the most logical move - if we make a game about WH40K, there should be WH40K stuff in it. On the same side, we have lots of new xenos, the whole upcoming Creatures Anathema are not about eldar, okr ana tyranids only. It goes not only with xenos, but all other manner of thing. Even the Calixis Sector is brand new for DH. That is also quite easy to explain - making a game in a setting so huge and (at times) controversial in sourcebooks, it's better to start anew, especially if the game is played not only by Warhammer 40K fans, but by players new to the setting, who haven't read all that codi and fiction, don't have a 3000 point worth army in the closet and so on.

So, there is a mix of "good old things" like daemons, eldar, nurglings and the like, and new ones. Keeping in mind that the best is always in the middle, and extremes tend to get... well... extreme, I want to ask - what do you prefer? The old canon stuff or the new one?

I think its showing some promise, even with the change of company the consistancy is getting there which to some degree a lot of the old stuff doesnt have because its been an evolving universe with a lot of writers over a span of 20 or so years and in some ways forced to cut out things which where not economically popular... and endless nerd rage about what is 'canon'.

It is kind of frustrating that its set in some bumhole backwater of the imperium which doesnt really matter, rather than taking in the larger universe as a whole, but I suspect thats far too big a task for anyone to try and tackle without coming off as being very 'brisk' in its coverage, about the only company Ive seen in the RPG business that managed to do that with some competence was the old WEG Starwars stuff which provided a lot of stuff in little splat books for some set areas and gave you the mechanics to tool together your own areas- be they ranging from a planet to a an entire sector. Heck, back then we got so ambitious our campaign at the time basically involved creating an entire sector our rebels fought in over about two years run time.

About the only canon I really like is the older stuff personally around 1st-3rd editions where things are a little bit grittier, probably because I grew up with it then and dont really see the current stuff being made at least in the TT-game being such an artistic involvement with the majority of the fluff discarded so we cant really have any flights of fancy about our kooky ork army made up of mad-max extras and painted green, our Khornate army being about blood and honour in battle, Slaanesh was all about sex and drugs and they stole 90% of the cool stuff from Frank Herbet's Dune series etc... etc. It got cleaned up so parents would buy it for their dickhead brats without fear of them turning into psychopathic little monsters, loaded with rules that (mostly)worked and kind of boring really.

DH has bought back a bit of that colour to the genre which has faded out over the years, they sort of tried with the novels but for the most part they're pretty awful.

What is "canon"? If you take a close look, you will find that besides an "overall broad feeling" nothing is really established but the weapons and armies. The rest...well... try to pin down something! If it wouldn´t have been for the "Necromunda"-Gang-Fight-System, we probably wouldn´t even know what a "proper hive" would look like in detail.

The imperial creed? Vague at best. The emperor is god, but what else? Any defined virtuous? The Ten Commandments??
The imperial society? "Everything is possible, but make sure you hate the mutant and the xenos and obey the emporer!"
Technology? "All over the place & deep within the cracks"
History? The Horus Heresy (which should be unknown to the populace) is the most detailed thing of history we know about!
The psyker? We do not even know how they life their life outside the military or the =I= !
Imperial Law? (And I am talking IMPERIAL LAW, not the local law of the governeurs). HACK! We have the police in charge of it as a char, but we do not now for real about it!
Star travel? We neither know about time nor ship sizes nor everything else. Just that it is obscure and warp-based and dangerours

So, me thinks one will have a really hard time to tell away "new" thing from "canon"...because canon has never really been established!

In fact, GW immolates the imperium quiet well: we do not NOTHING but do not recognize our blindness and seldomly question.

To me as well, saying what is and what is not canon is a bit difficult to be honest. GW has at times changed canon on a whim (can you say Squats anyone), I swear the only other people to mess with canon more then GW is LucasArts. Authors are continously changing and adapting the 40k storyline, and half the times no two authors will agree on any point in the canon, something that GW allows to happen more regularly then not.

If Canon had been established, solidly, there wouldn't be so many discussions on half the points we argue about on a regular basis here in these forums. We could just point to canon and say "canon says this".

So like the poster above me there really ISN'T canon. Also, GW has never said there weren't other aliens out there except for the Eldar, Tau, Necrons, Orks, Tyranids. In fact they have mentioned it straight out that there were more, but that those were the really really big threats that threaten the universe, not just a sector. And the fact that GW has pretty much set canon on those of directions of attack, pretty much leaves large areas of the universe open for interpretation.

So in Dark Heresy I don't find anything non-canonical, if that answers your question. I think for the Calixis Sector, Dark Heresy is as Canonical as you can make it. I haven't found too much that is counter to GWs vision, and what I did occured in the original GW book, which pretty much makes it canonical to me. The Slaugth were a GW creation making them Canonical, and since Fantasy Flight was working with materials for their Dark Heresy books until recently, most of them follow GW guidelines as well.

I'm fairly certain that FFG has to run everything by GW. I can't imagine them letting FFG put out something that they didn't feel was "appropriate" for the setting. I think DH stays well within established guidelines, and does a great deal of expanding the universe without just making up wildly divergent things.

Smirnov said:

If you know where to look, the Calixis Sector isn't actually a new creation. It was mentioned way back in around 2003, or whenever the books in the Eisenhorn Trilogy were first written. It was spelt differently by Abnett, but the Calixes Sector (or something with a *very* similar spelling is mentioned as bordering the Scarus Sector around where the Calixis sector is.

I like the way the FFG have done things in terms of Xenos to be honest. Everyone familiar with the setting knows about Orks, Eldar, Tau and Tyranids, but DH focuses on the 'minor' Xenos that threaten the sector and possibly the galaxy that no one has heard of, and therefore wouldnt know immediately how to combat.

It's pretty much common sense that the more heavily hardcore 'war'-related creatures that we've coem to know from the books and tabletop games will be represented in Deathwatch and more 'intense' duties.

Otherwise a cadre of Acolytes would be salughtered and it's way out of the realm of what they delve in. So everything an inquisition cell faces is more to our level-ish and in the realm of playability. FFG is doing a great job presenting fresh options for this as well as common elements. DH is actually NOT WH40K as some may know it in all it's full glory (as in the fringes of space where it's life or death strugles war 24/7). We're only taking our first small steps into the larger universe with DH. So wait like the rest of us for the next steps in the WH40K RPG systems. The challenges in the creatures/xenos will be comensurate with the next stage of Imperium life/death.

user4574 said:

Which is hugely important when it comes to running games for people who've been playing 40k for years or decades and know the background inside and out. I like being able to shock and startle and wrong-foot my players with things they've never faced and never heard of. It's why I like the Slaugth so much... because my players literally had no idea what they were walking into or what these "worms-that-walk" were capable of. It also gives them a much greater sense of satisfaction when they learn something more about such an unknown threat, that may help to defeat them.

the 40k setting is such an unmitigated mess I just keep the parts I like and ignore the parts I don't (which is alot, unfortunately)

I have to agree with Action_Carl on this one. Go with what you like.

I might believe otherwise if there was a consistent cannon to refer to. Or maybe just kinda, sorta, just a little bit, occasionally consistent cannon to refer to.

About the only cannon I can find that is consistent is the one about planets being able to govern themselves in whatever maner they see fit so long as a few conditions are met.

1. Tithe your psykers to the black ships

2. Pay the other tithes assigned by the administratum. (food, minerals, people, etc)

3. Venerate the Immortal Emperor. Also know as the Imperial Creed. (this would include hating mutants, xenos, and chaos)

There is very little that I have a problem with in the newer stuff

re the Imperial Creed I tend to go with:

The Emperor is your God, Worship and adore Him, venerate Him for His sacrifice.There is no God but the Emperor......
(although perhaps his children, Saints, Angels (of death.........) and similar may be appropriate depending on the particular faith and how the Imperium brough it into the fold)
Seek to repay that which can not be repaid, give your worthless life in service as his gave His (that is beyond measure)
Render unto his servants your respect and obediance and (more importantly) tithes
Chaos is bad, OK?
Aliens are bad, OK?
Psykers are bad (but by sacrificing their freedom and or lives may attempt to redeem their tainted souls)
Mutants are bad, Ok (or as Psykers)
Work in the service of the Emperor is merely another form of worship.