How many active hive and forge worlds in the expanse officially?

I haven't read all of Faith and Coin yet, which appears to have added a lot of Imperial-converted planets to the Koronus Expanse.

I believe that prior to that however there was one Hive City - Damaris - and no "official" Forges, since the Expanse is still unclaimed by the Imperium, so any claims are tentative at best. The existence of Damaris does imply there might be others however.

As above, one Hive World (which is a shadow of a Hive compared to most others) and no official Forge Worlds.

Important point to remember, however, is that most of the Expanse is left purposely open so GM's can create their own worlds for the explorers to explore/exploit. Creating a true Hive or Forge World would be a bit of a stretch, but it could be done so long as you keep the scale down - i.e. it would make no sense to have a planet with 100B people on it in the expanse.

Otherwise, have at it.

Actually in the GM guide campaign, the main city Svard is listed as a Hive world.

Equally, both Svard and Damaris have Forges - i.e. Mechanicus town/city-sized industrial and research facilities on them, but there isn't anything I would claim to be a Forge World .

How many active hive and forge worlds in the expanse officially?

Well I don't know about officially, but in my opinion? None. The sheer level of infrastructure needed to support the needs of such planets does not exist in the Expanse.

And despite Damaris being offhandedly referenced as a hive world by some sources, with only 3 billion inhabitants it most assuredly is not.

zayth could be considered a hive world. it has several mobile hives. though they are trying to kill each other.

I'd disagree regarding Zayth. Little to no infrastructure other than the landships themselves, and once again the population is almost certainly quite low.

Naduesh has a couple of official full-sized hives as well. The fact that they are completely empty is probably not worrying to anyone.

If i recall correctly an earth sized planet needs at least 20 billion to be considered a hive.

Or was it 200 billion?

Any one Hive houses between 10 to 100 billion people, and any one Hive World usually have between 5 to 10 Hives. Eventually, these hives will probably grow together into a single Hive.

So I would say that to be considered a Hive World, you can have no less than 10 billion people in a single Hive - taking into account that not everyone may live in that specific Hive, 20 billion sounds about correct for the full population of a single, small Hive World.

Whereas very large Hive Worlds probably can have to upwards 100 billion, maybe even 200 billion - the largest one I know of having 500 billions, but that's probably quite far from the norm.

Hope that gives some perspective.


Edit: It is also important in this context to give an example that is relevant - the largest (..I think) Hive World in Sector Calixis is Scintilla, with approximately 25 billion. This is also the sector capital, and the most important (..arguably, of course) planet in the sector. Their greatest rival, Malfi, has approximately 23 billion citizens.

With that in mind, the proximity between the Koronus Expanse and the Calixis Sector, I would find it highly doubtful that you'd find any full-fledged hive worlds in the Koronus Expanse, simply because they would signify a very strong Imperial presence (assuming they're Imperials) or a dire threat to Calixian authority or Scintillan hegemony (if not Imperials).

It is my personal interpretation that it is very unlikely that you will find any world with an actual Hive exceeding 10 billions in the Koronus Expanse. With that in mind, however, a world need not be a Hive World to have big populations.

The way I've been treating Damaris regarding super hight tech weapons/gear is that it's really good for custom jobs like a very particular but individual thing and also very good for any starship component not required for warp travel but not good at all for mass producing high tech items. Me explanation for this being that Hadron Shard's acolytes are highly trained but relatively isolated badass craftsmen and that the guys at the Bullwark are used to having to throw together really effective work for the PDF flotilla and have generations of practice at it.

So when I'm running it really great place to buy any craftsmanship level of most starship parts (but definately not warp drives/geller fields) or get that really sweet boutique style bionic but not for instance a great place to buy two thousand suits of carapace armor or a thousand bolters.

The way I see it if the players want really high end **** in bulk they need to deal with actual Forge Worlds in the Imperium, where they can get disposition/commerce bonuses by bringing them things they need like Nephium/rare ores etc,

Regarding Damaris, what book is that in, again?

I was under the impression that Damaris was basically just a Frontier World that was treated as being part of the Imperium, despite not being part of an official Sector. But now when you people talk about it as a Hive World and Larry mentioned something about "super high tech", I'm getting confused.

Regarding Damaris, what book is that in, again?

I was under the impression that Damaris was basically just a Frontier World that was treated as being part of the Imperium, despite not being part of an official Sector. But now when you people talk about it as a Hive World and Larry mentioned something about "super high tech", I'm getting confused.

Regarding Damaris, what book is that in, again?

I was under the impression that Damaris was basically just a Frontier World that was treated as being part of the Imperium, despite not being part of an official Sector. But now when you people talk about it as a Hive World and Larry mentioned something about "super high tech", I'm getting confused.

From my reading of Frozen Reaches, I got that Damaris had a population of ~3billion and was a reasonably developed Imperial World in the Expanse. Damaris City was the capitol and primary center, but still a horizontal structure and not yet growing into a hive, with other cities across the surface of the planet serving the various industries of the population.

They'd be expected to have some knowledge of the secrets of technology, since they operate a few system defense vessels and have the Bulwark in orbit, but I didn't see them as having massive amounts of Adeptus Mechanicus support.

For the rest of the Expanse, I couldn't see them having a full Forge World either. There would just be too much logistic support required, along with the political aspects of running that kind of production (not to mention needing Titans...).

I came up with the idea of a Forge Annex. Essentially its like an Imperial World, but for the Mechanicus. The Annex would have political support from one or two larger Forge Worlds, and have been founded by Explorators in the expectation that it would grow to become a Forge World itself in a millenium or so. The Annex would produce things that Imperial forces would need to found new worlds and continue exploring. Any Explorators based there would be working to find the knowledge and lost secrets necessary to develop their own reputation and production capacity to rival their political backers.

From my reading of Frozen Reaches, I got that Damaris had a population of ~3billion and was a reasonably developed Imperial World in the Expanse. Damaris City was the capitol and primary center, but still a horizontal structure and not yet growing into a hive, with other cities across the surface of the planet serving the various industries of the population.

They'd be expected to have some knowledge of the secrets of technology, since they operate a few system defense vessels and have the Bulwark in orbit, but I didn't see them as having massive amounts of Adeptus Mechanicus support.

There's an enclave of tech priests who live on an island adjacent to the capital city, one of the other source books refers to it as "a small forge". They're led by a guy named Hadron Shard who is focused entirely on his own research, but I figure they need to make an income and so the typical Damaran economic model of sell things to Rogue Traders would apply to them as well. So seeing as they're skilled and run a good shop but it's small I figure they can make really high quality high tech items but only in very small quantities.

Exactly. As said above, Damaris has a Mechanicus forge, it's not a forge world . Svard (from the GM's kit adventure) is the same.

If you're looking for an outline of actual Forge Worlds you might want to hit up the Dark Heresy boards. I've never played Dark Heresy but I do know that it's set in the Calixis sector and has source material outlining it's notable spots.

Damaris produces Voidship Components, as well as system ships. It does not have the ability to make Warp Engines, therefore no Warp capable ships. It does have a reasonably high standard of living and level of technology. I consider it to be a Hive (Size 10) level colony. I classify it as an Imperial World (as per the main rulebook, page 22). I would also say that its normal tech level is Technological. It doesn't have the extensive underhives or slums of a Hive world, but is too developed to be a Frontier World. I would say that it has a Manufactorum (Voidship Components) and an Imperial Navy Base as Support Upgrades (using the Stars of Inequity rules). That gives it the ability to build system ships only.

There is nothing really close to a Forge World in the Koronus Expanse. The most you see is the equivalent of Manufactorum Support Upgrades or Mechanicum Station Support Upgrades. Developing a Forge World would require a lot of policital clout and a vast ammount of resources. With those a Forge World takes many decades to several centuries. The Lathe Worlds got their names due to how quickly they were developed, and they still took decades.