Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Thoughts, comments, suggestions are welcome.

---

Force: Steigen Planetary Assault Force

Fluff: Steigen is a rocky agri-world, newly rediscovered and integrated into the Imperium. It is a relatively large moon, one of six, orbiting the massive gas giant Hesse, located in a binary star system known as Eron. Active tectonics make the planet very mountainous, while turbulent cold rainy seasons (Hesse’s eclipses can block out the sunlight for weeks at a time) necessitate the cultivation of diverse fungal crops as well as resilient animal herds to sustain the population and contribute to the planet’s tithes. The planet is very humid, and temperatures on the equator range from icy to sub tropical, several times throughout a single solar orbit. Steigen is a major producer of a variety of high quality medicines and narcotics derived from its unique crops. The trade in the fungi with more exotic side effects has created a flourishing black market. Addiction to the glomero spore is approaching epidemic levels, and many of the planet's newly appointed feudal lords feed and rely on that addiction to keep their peasants in line.

Steigen is notable for its very high incidence of psykers. Before reintegration with the Imperium, the planet held those with psychic powers in very high regard, drafting them into public service as biologists, doctors, and judges. These unsanctioned psykers were important religious figures dubbed "the Chosen", as they were believed to be the voices of their nature gods The Sister, which was Steigen herself, the Brother, which was Hesse, and the Mother and Father, the twin stars at the system’s center. Despite their revered status, their minds inevitably became polluted with time, succumbing to paranoia, hallucinations, and sensory loss ("the illness"). Long seen as the price paid for such blessed gifts, the Chosen were always accompanied by a single sworn servant (a "saburau"), trained to identify the symptoms of such degeneration, and easily identified by the tanto knife they carried. When the symptoms became plain, the servant would assist his master in ritual suicide, to preserve his soul from corruption. Nonetheless, there are Chosen, usually from the peasantry, who escape diagnosis. And it is not unknown for one to raise an army of violent creatures, bound to his will, requiring the quick and merciless dispatch of the PDF forces.

Upon making contact with the planet, Imperial agents organized a delegation of Steigen's elite psykers to negotiate the reintegration into the Imperium. Inquisitor Bithos accompanied the delegation. The ship never arrived, but sightings of Bithos alive in the sector have lent credence to all manner of conspiracy theories. Amongst the people it is agreed that the Chosen must have succumbed to the Illness en route, and the Inquisitor granted them their just release.

Imperial Missionaries successfully converted the population to the Imperial doctrine, calling the Emperor the Grandfather of Steigen, explaining that his care had protected them from attack by the aggressive, nearby Tau Empire. Despite their relatively advanced understanding of biology, and advanced psychic understandings, Steigen remained mostly invisible to xenos exploration, the strong solar winds of the Mother and Father stymies long-range radio communication, and the Tau are mostly blind to the telepathic messages issued to and from the planet.

Steigen was ruled by an elected parliamentary council called The Commune. Despite initial resistance, Imperial Missionaries established a planetary governor, nominated by The Commune membership. Though receptive to Imperial theology, Steigen has proven less adaptive to this political reorganization, and agents report that many among the nobility would see The Commune raised to power once again. Further consideration on this matter is required. The elimination of positions of power, once held by the Chosen, also poses a difficulty and a major point of contention between the Steigen and their Imperial masters, though there has been measured success through the use of local individuals raised within the Imperial doctrine when they are filled with the appropriate zeal for the Emperor's will.

While the nobility are well educated, the majority of Steigen’s population is uneducated, the planet’s demanding climate requires extreme diligence among its peasants who raise and tend to the crops and livestock. Many of the planet's crops are refined in the laboratories of the aristocracy, producing medical supplies, nutrients, and a broad cocktail of narcotic substances.

For its Imperial duties, Steigen raises a new class of planetary defense forces every Earth year. All second-born children serve in the police force from age fourteen to eighteen, after which they are nominated for permanent assignment among the police forces or they are nominated to join the ranks of the Imperial Guard for life. Nomination to the Imperial Guard is considered a great honor, and for many youths it is a welcome escape from their harsh planet. The planet’s noblemen also donate their children, for a period of ten years, though they are often granted positions in support roles as medics, artillerymen, or engineers, where their education can be put to good use, and where they are more likely to survive their tenure.

Children with psychic promise were traditionally sent to remote monasteries, where they would train, meditate, and prepare. These bastions of solitude have long since been handed over to the Adeptus Arbites who watch over these facilities while they await the Black Ships. In battle, it is rare for a Steigen regiment to fight without the aid of one of its home-born psykers, whose powers seem greatly enhanced by proximity to their brethren. Many xenos have fallen beneath the vengeful stare of one of Steigen’s legendary Primari.

I like it, but there's a bit of a stumbling block with the psychic stuff. As soon as a person manifests psychic ability they must immediately be turned over to the Adeptus Arbites, who hold them for the Black Ships, where they are sorted according to their usefulness and dropped off at one of a few different training facilities (the Scholastica Psykana, Inquisition facilities, probably some others I can't think of right now) or dumped directly into the maw of the Astronomican or the Golden Throne. If your planet maintained any training facilities, even if they handed them over to the first Black Ship to pass, they would get in serious trouble with the Inquisition.

Now, you could still work a natural talent and affinity with psykers into your fluff. You could say that the psykers born on the planet tend to be higher quality than average, so more of them end up getting trained and deployed rather than feeding the Emperor. The cultural history could mean that regiments raised from the planet are less distrustful of working with Sanctioned Psykers than the average IG. They could even arrange for the newly sanctioned graduates to be reunited with regiments from their homeworld since it would result in more efficient units.

On an unrelated note, I really like the idea that the noble scions end up serving in support roles to use their education, rather than the standard practice of nobles being officers by virtue of their heritage. It establishes your planet as a significantly less awful place than most parts of the Imperium.

In regards to your planet Steigen, I believe this can be fleshed out a bit more to incorporate how they mobilize militarily... Active tectonics denote acid rain at ;least sporadically and can even explain cold yet humid.. How do they move around despite this? how do civilians (non-nobility) deal with it..
In regards to mobility how do they move and store food-stuff for tithing.. (REMEMBER- tithe ships are sporadic in the realm of years at a time if not decades.. the only exception is sub-light speed travel to VERY nearby systems for agri-goods (which yours are) perhaps the PDF (Planetary Defence Force as termed by the Imperium... aka Police)

More Importantly I believe you need to wiki/ lexicanum more background on psychics... Astra Telepathica can only contact Astropaths at any distance greater than a moon or maybe the equivalence of Terra- mars if the psychic was over-powered or you sacrificed a choir... or two..
The importance of this is that Astropaths are linked to the Telepathicus ON TERRA, in front of the Golden Throne by the thousand to be specific and are blinded by the process.

It being a warp-obscured system it would be difficult (but very possible) to return Astropaths and Sanctioned Psychers in the numbers your talking about.. *yes Sanctioned Psychers are also taken to terra (though that has been retconed recently to sanctioned scholam pychariums via Blackship.)

You also need to flesh out your Missionaries.. contemporary schooled Imperium prechers would be shocked to the point of fury at unsanctioned psychers having any level of acceptance never-the-less power of common man... but this can work to your favour as they DO have standing training to use the 'backwater' beliefs of 'barbarian worlds' to their advantage whilst Illuminating the savages to the ways of Holy Emperor.. However they would take any chance they could to assassinate and disempower the current psyche tolerating council... up to and including civil war backed by the Inquisition..

In all honesty if the Imperial Missionaries had the man-power or even an Enclave of Battle Sisters drop by on the way to the Demacles War they would not hesitate to wiping out every last Witch lover on the planet...

Thanks for the input. I'll change it so they used to send their psykers to monasteries, but those have been taken over by Arbites agents. I'll add some initial purges with psykers taken for "reeducation training" but then "lost" en route to Imperial facilities (since they'd be too old for proper training).

I really like the idea of a planet that is embroiled in political unrest (think pre revolution France), too valuable for purging, but at the same time on the precipice of Tau colonization and with an ever present threat of Chaos taint.

 Inquisitor Bob wrote:


More Importantly I believe you need to wiki/ lexicanum more background on psychics... Astra Telepathica can only contact Astropaths at any distance greater than a moon or maybe the equivalence of Terra- mars if the psychic was over-powered or you sacrificed a choir... or two..
The importance of this is that Astropaths are linked to the Telepathicus ON TERRA, in front of the Golden Throne by the thousand to be specific and are blinded by the process.

Unless they changed the fluff with 7th Ed, Astropaths are all over the Imperium and can contact another astropath several systems away (sometimes further). The Astronomican is located on Earth, but that isn't the same thing as an Astropath. The Astronomican is a glorified psychic lighthouse; Astropaths are human psychic telegraph machines.

To the OP; you definately want to dial back the psyker-love on your planet. Having a lot of psykers in your population isn't bad, but that many in positions of power, without first undergoing Imperial Sanctioning, would pretty much warrant a full Imperial invasion to sort out. Plus, psykers need to be trained in methods of using their powers that won't lead to daemonic posession or warp incursions. Without that training (provided by the Astra Telepathica) psykers are a danger to everyone around them. Yes, your psykers were being trained in monasteries, but some psykers are never strong enough to resist the warp, and these are always a danger. The Inquisition usually kills them or feeds them to the Emperor. Your planet hasn't got an Emperor to feed them to (prior to re-joining the IoM) and you don't mention a home-grown Inquisition proxy that is willing to cull the dangerous psykers. What I'm saying is; the way you have written psykers into your world's society, without the bloody-handed safeguards the Imperium uses, makes it unlikely that your planet survived long enough for the IoM to find it. Just one unprotected or reckless psyker can doom an entire world in 40K.

I do like the environment of your world. Cold and wet with wierd orbits that plunge it into darkness for weeks at a time. Fungus agriculture. A religion based around the nearest planets. Very cool.

You're starting in the right direction, but it could use more grimdark. Soggy and sometimes dark and living off fungus is good, but not as far as it could go. Needs some fatally weak flaw, or imminent doom, or weird parochialism.

As for the psykers bit, you can always bend or even break fluff, but it's got to come at a cost, otherwise it's Mary Sue. Unsanctioned psykers are treated with respect and reverence, but because of this, the planet is constantly getting invaded by demons, only a secret device found in the maddening gravity depths of Hesse stops them from being completely overrun. Or Steigen was somehow cursed, and that's why there's so many psykers, and no one knows how the curse was started, or how to lift it, but the Mechanicum has taken a sudden, desperate interest in the planet, strictly controlling space traffic to the area and sending millions of tech-slaves probing through the fetid marshlands.

You know, something grimdarky. If there's anything you could say about the world of 40k, power always, ALWAYS comes with terrible risk of devastating unintended consequences. If you want to make your planet better somehow, then you should add something in to reflect this.

squidhills wrote:

Unless they changed the fluff with 7th Ed, Astropaths are all over the Imperium and can contact another astropath several systems away (sometimes further). The Astronomican is located on Earth, but that isn't the same thing as an Astropath.

Oops forgot to add they ship them back out...
I often thought the logistics of getting to the outer reaches from Terra itself within a lifetime was a silly fluff concept, but it was pretty clear in 5th and 6th ed. BRB

They haven't been specific yet (and I haven't read ALL the fluff of 7th BRB.. and apparently the new Storm Trooper Codex has some more fluff on Psycher schools) But the retconed Scholam Psycharis opens up a lot more sensible fluff on the subject.

Thanks for all the recommendations. I made some edits and additions to try and grimdark it up and fix inconsistencies with existing fluff. The planet's fungal cultures provide a lush supply for a black market in drugs. I made the aristocracy a bit more obviously exploitative of the peasantry. The initial contact with IoM ends with the execution of the psychic leadership. The previously unsanctioned psykers each had an inevitably gloomy death at the hands of their own trusted servants.

Maybe first few bits the impirium played nice, pretended to accept original leaders, let them in soft, but no outbound travel. Then once established a decent foot hold ...oh the purge begins new leaders, the inquisition, the black ships in orbit.

Kind of a bluff until ready to fully mount a kill order on them.

Now that's got to be the perfect amount of grim dark mate, well done in all honesty!

 TheSilo wrote:
Thanks for all the recommendations. I made some edits and additions to try and grimdark it up and fix inconsistencies with existing fluff. The planet's fungal cultures provide a lush supply for a black market in drugs. I made the aristocracy a bit more obviously exploitative of the peasantry. The initial contact with IoM ends with the execution of the psychic leadership. The previously unsanctioned psykers each had an inevitably gloomy death at the hands of their own trusted servants.

Late but wanted to say I really like it now that the changes have been implimented! Makes me want to re-edit my lore.

 Inquisitor Bob wrote:
Now that's got to be the perfect amount of grim dark mate, well done in all honesty!

Agreed, I like it a lot more now that you took the time to refine and adjust some points, well done and hoping to see more of this