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NOTE: Please check the latest post as it is where I often leave the newest questions or updates about my fluff.

Edited: 03/02/12
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I've been working on fluff for my army, which is part of the Sturmkrieg and Rotstein sub sectors, which was created in the wake of the Sturmkrieg Empire by the Imperium. I'm in the process if revising and completely rewriting some parts of the basic fluff. There are some articles about the extra things that I have written about/created.

Here's a few things I've written about:

Story for my table top army. Not much unfortunately.

Growing up in the Sturmkrieg Sektor- Still needs work, but it's a start and advice for expanding it and suggestions are always welcome.

List of Planets in the Sturmkrieg and Rotstein sub sectors

Scharzenkommando Pariah Stormtroopers

Pictures:

http://en.sturmkrieg.com/images/4/4a/SturmkriegundVolianvanMap.jpg
http://en.sturmkrieg.com/images/9/90/Scharzenkommandoin1.jpg

The biggest thing I need to do right now is just work on writing my fluff, something I've been pretty terrible about doing. I will post more when I have more fluff written. Please provide feedback about canon consistency and any suggestions you have for it.

BTW, anyone is welcome to write about Sturmkrieg or create their own armies or worlds in it.

Why are they all nulls? My limited knowledge of this 'null' concept is that its pretty rare, i.e. rarer than being a psyker. So that alone is strange and doesn't make a lot of sense.

As for the rest of the fluff, its just not...grimdark. The whole equality and egalitarianism and fair testing to ensure competent commanders and being all super awesome stormtroopers just doesn't fit in the 40k universe. Also, what is the Sturmkrieg empire?

For me anyways, its seems to nice to really fit. Furthermore, stormtroopers are not trained by the local regiments, but rather by the Schola Progenium, which draws recruits from orphans of high ranking officials (or they sons/daughters I'd imagine as well).

The concept of rotating out soldiers once they hit a certain age also doesn't fit well. Planets are tithed a certain number of troops every x number of years. These soldiers are formed into regiments, trained, supplied, and shipped off to kill the Emperor's enemies. Cycling out those soliders (or the ones that survive anyways) would be a logistical nightmare and would likely never actually happen. Once they leave the planet, they will likely never return, often dying on the battlefield.

Sorry if I seem a little harsh, the whole concept just doesn't quite fit in the 40k universe.

I liked the psychic blank fluff, and so I decided to have a race that's similar to the opposite of psykers. The average people are similar to Tau, with little to no Warp or psychic presense. Instead of having psykers, they have nulls, which are still rare, but maybe about as common as psykers. Most of the population would be around Tau level psychic ability, with maybe around 1% being untouchables, and possibly <5% of those being significntly powerful. I decided to make it one awesome quality, also made a disadvantage by being limited to very slow Warp travel, similar to the Tau.

Re:Sturmkrieg Empire

The Sturmkrieg Empire was the old governing power of the Sturmkrieg and Rotstein sub sectors, before Sturmkrieg became part of the Imperium.

Re:Grimdark-

While the new Sternkampf regime which supports "equality" might seem like a really bright and hopeful age, it still has plenty of darkness to it, similar to how the Tau are actually really dark. I will attribute this to my lack of writing anything about Sturmkrieg.

While the military treats everyone and gives them an equal chance based on their abilities, it has a serious downside. On most worlds, most people are required to join the military and begin training at a young age. Additionally, parents who fail to send their children away to boarding schools and military training would be seen as sabotaging the military and possibly face arrest. This is an aspect of the fluff that will need expansion. Thanks for pointing this out. Please let me know if there are any other problems.

Information about Sternkampf and Sturmkrieg.

Re: Stormtroopers-

I just generically mean stormtroopers, not the Imperium stormtroopers. I'm aware of the fluff for the reguar guard stormtroopers.

Re:Army organization-

I wasn't currently having the same military organization for the Sturmkrieg subsector, since the regimetal system was a change not yet requested by the Imperium when they assisted Sternkampf in overthrowing the Sturmkrieg Empire as part of incorperation into the Imperium. Maybe they were planning to make the change later? Maybe they didn't think it was necessary? I was thinking about leaving that as one of the possibilities that are also present in the canon. Sturmkrieg is also on the eastern fringe, way on the edge, so there isn't going to be much involvement except with the nearby sectors. I was also thinking about having it be a sort of protectorate, being part of the Imperium and the Mechanicum.

Nothing is harsh, just constructive.

Okay, that clears up some stuff.

First, all of the Tau have no psychic abilities and barely register in the warp, and they have no nulls. So saying that your sector have the average psychic abilities of the Tau, is really just saying that they have the same psychic abilities of a normal person, i.e. none.

Also, they wouldn't have slow warp travel, because its the Imperial Navy's job to ferry people about, and they have normal warp travel. Your people's psychic abilities would have little to no bearing on that.

And remember that if your sector produces a higher quality of psychically active individuals, the vast majority will be transferred to Terra to either be sacrificied for the Astronomicon or trained in the Schola psykana. They would then be parcelled back out to all the regiments in various capacities.

The part about being forced to join the guard or local PDFs is actually normal on a lot of Imperial worlds. I'd look at the fluff for regiments like Krieg, Cadia, and Vostroya, as they all are forced into joining the Guard one way or another. Then make yours different from them.

I guess the stormtrooper thing is just a confusion in terminology. I'd name them something else just to be clear, like the way Krieg calls their veterans Grenadiers, which is essentially the same thing as your stormtroopers I'd imagine.

Though your sector is on the fringe, it may not have a lot of direct involvement, its regiments would still be ferried across the galaxy to wherever they are needed the most. Being a protectorate wouldn't work either, as the Imperium is very so a 'You're either with us or against us' philosophy. The exception, of course, being the Ad Mech, but that has its own long and well established fluff.

But I'd seriously remove the part about cycling people in and out of the regiments when they hit a certain age. It just plain and simple wouldn't happen. They'd either die, die some more, or be combined with other regiments when sufficient numbers of the original regiment have died.

I meant that they have very little Warp presense like the Tau. Even though normal people have no psychic abilities, they still have more Warp presense than the Tau. Or atleast that's what I was led to believe.

They would have normal speed Warp travel when being transported by ships and people from other regions, but not when being transported by people from their own sub sector, although that wouldn't happen every time. It would also be a problem for a navigator to get on a ship full of pariahs, in rare cases where that would happen.

Sturmkrieg doesn't have any psykers.

I'll work on methods of recruitment.

Ok, thanks. I'll probably call the stormtroopers either Scharzenkommandos, Grenadiers, or something else similar or specialized.

There will still be soldiers moved around the galaxy. I'm going to have Sturmkrieg work within the requirements for fielding armies across the Imperium, which of course would be transported by ships from other worlds and sectors.

I will alter that part of the fluff. Ending service at a specified age started to not make a lot of sense all the time. Maybe some of the army groups would eventually see an end to service, but that would be a minority, and probably not for the army groups sent around the Imperium.

With regards to the whole psychic aspect of your sector, I'd just simplify to "Due to strange warp anomalies in the subsector, there is a higher presence of psychically attuned individuals, and consequently, a higher proportion of psychic nulls, or blanks." No need to mention the normal people, just briefly mention the higher proportion of psychic people. Less is more, and the reader doesn't need to know about facts that have very little bearing on the character of your regiment/sector.

When being transported, being a null wouldn't have such an impact on warp travel as to actually hinder it. Honestly, I don't think that needs to be included as it raises more questions and problems than necessary, while adding very little.

In short, down drown the reader in useless, unnecessary bits of fact and trivia about your regiment. Discuss only what pertains to their character, and do so in a brief, concise manner. Your basic fluff overview does not need, and should not be, a grand opus of several thousand words. You can expand on the nature of the regiment by writing short stories and developing characters that can be played on the tabletop, but they do not belong in the fluff overview you're presenting.

Hope that helps.

You can expand on the nature of the regiment by writing short stories and developing characters that can be played on the tabletop, but they do not belong in the fluff overview you're presenting.

I think using stories as the primary way of getting people involved with the fluff is a good idea. Articles should be a secondary way of adding additional information, just like a canon encyclopedia.

Here's a rewritten version of the Sturmkrieg Sektor page:

http://en.sturmkrieg.com/Sturmkrieg_Sektor

It's subtle changes, but it should help the style a lot.

It's okay...
Take away the null thng from the stormtroopers though... it's ridiculous.

Was it in that particular article?

I have been thinking about changing the null thing, and making it so that only the people from the Ehrenberg Sektor are nulls.

Also, lowering the number of nulls would be good. I also haven't been real clear about the nulls.

Inquisitor Ehrenstein wrote:Was it in that particular article?

I have been thinking about changing the null thing, and making it so that only the people from the Ehrenberg Sektor are nulls.

Also, lowering the number of nulls would be good. I also haven't been real clear about the nulls.

It wasn't but i was reading it.
Nulls are insanely rare. A psyker may be 1 in a million a null probably wouldn't even be 1 in a billion...

I think the stat is something like 1 in 100,000 people is a psyker, 1 in 100,000 psykers is a blank. It's because the Imperium is so big that they can afford to make so many sacrifices of psykers.

The fluff for Sturmkrieg was that due to genetic anomalies, there is a much larger population of nulls. It's sort of like Eldar but in reverse. And they don't have a million other super powers like the elder do.

Reguarding the number of nulls, I plan to have it be about 1 in 500,000.

I advise against it.
It comes across as slightly Mary Sue...

I'll work on making sure I moderate it. Also, I can play up the disadvantages of having a lot of nulls and not being able to use the warp fully.

The advatages of having that many Nulls far exceed the disadvantages...
It's still Mary Sue...

I'll keep it under consideration.

Sturmkrieg doesn't have a lot of other things that a lot of other factions have, such as Space Marines, psychic powers, obviously advanced technology.

The Scharzenkommandos are also otherwise supposed to be regular soldiers.

double post as the result of an error. Please delete.

I'm planning to make Sternkampf (leadership of Sturmkrieg) be a puppet government of the Imperium, which used it to create the illusion of revolution and freedom.

I get that.
Though having SM makes no sense...
The stormtroopers will look Mary Sue if you make them all Nulls...

Not all the stormtroopers are nulls. Only a very small number of them are, which I might not have made clear. There's only a few thousand of them in a sector of 1.4 trillion people.

'With the main HQ on Aschknas, the Scharzkommando commands millions of specialized, psychically null stormtrooper squads throughout the empire.'
This is what it says...
Millions of Nulls. The Imperium numbers countless trillions and a single Null is treated as a person of rare significance.

Ok, thanks for that. I'll correct it.

Here's an article about null populations:

http://en.sturmkrieg.com/Psychic_nulls_in_the_Sturmkrieg_Sektor

Still far too many...
It might be out of 1.4 Trillion but it is still too many...

How common are psykers in the general population though? Sturmkrieg is just supposed to be like a reverse, and the Imperial Guard seems to have enough pskyers that it can just throw them onto the battlefield. (Not that I'm going to have that many nulls) They're still not common enough to the point that they would have an easy time fighting Eldar or Daemons or anything.

Inquisitor Ehrenstein wrote:How common are psykers in the general population though? Sturmkrieg is just supposed to be like a reverse, and the Imperial Guard seems to have enough pskyers that it can just throw them onto the battlefield. (Not that I'm going to have that many nulls) They're still not common enough to the point that they would have an easy time fighting Eldar or Daemons or anything.

Almost all of the psykers they pick up are useless...
Few have the strength of will to make use of their powers...
Nulls don't really 'use' their powers. They are passive.
If you really want a higher than the norm of Nulls then you can but it is far too high...
Maybe make it 1 in every 10 million...

I'll work on that. I also made it so that most of the common ones don't have much power.

I also knew about the untouchables and their power before, how it's not really something that's useable, which I tried to work into the fluff. A lot of what I've heard about them is inconsistent too. I know that they can only "use" their power with extensive training and augmentative devices.

Okay how about a compromise...
Certain parts of the population are descended from the products of a genetic alteration program that took pace during the Long Night. Some people were altered to become Nulls and their descendents, in order to help fight off the daemons and the warp sorcery of other races, however the program was only partially successful. These people are myths in the minds of most Sturmkrieg citizens.
They aren't Nulls in the traditional sense.
They have, with the right implants, the potential to become Nulls.
These implants however are incredibly hard to manufacture and even then individuals capable of surviving the procedure and then not having the implants rejected are incredibly rare.
Because of this the number of functioning Nulls has never risen over 1 in 10 million.

I wasn't looking to negotiate it as much as I was just checking canon consistency/what's good a reasonably believable.

Thanks for your suggestion though, I like it. I don't really like the idea of an old experiment as much as just a genetic anomaly, but it could easily work that some people create myths of ancient genetic experiments as a way of explaining it, and keeping the actual cause unknown, as a lot of parts of the canon are.