40K System – Najm Al-Khali

A campaign in miniature.

The star is marked as Najm Al-Khali, or The Hidden Place in the old tongue of the third ship of Rogue Trader Kastor’s exploration fleet. There are neither planets or interesting features. Just a vast network of asteroid belts orbiting a red dwarf. It attracts no attention, a location on the voidcharts to mark the long cycle of Charterist captains on their way to Nazgool and back.

Yet life thrives in the void. To the people who live among the emptiness, the star is simple Hidden, and the people are the Annajmites.

Annajmites are a people apart from the rest of the Imperium, the lowest form of human life. For not only are many mutants, nearly all of them are heretics. Hidden can support small void stations and asteroid habitats, extracting enough resources to resupply Charterist captains away from prying eyes. In return they receive a portion of the tainted food Nazgool produces.

Over time, the independent void stations have been joined by pirates searching for a place to lay low and even rogue Charterists families. They bring knowledge of unstable routes through the warp and ships bigger than anything the Annajmites can construct. Making Hidden the backdoor to all adjoining subsystems and far-away places.

These form an aristocracy of sorts, staking claims over settlements as nobles, due tithes. The warp routes from Hidden mean they are excellent smugglers and raiders and exchange those exotics for manufactured goods from the orthodox sub-sector, brought by the legitimate Charterists. Increasingly their wealth and lifestyles beyond what the Imperium would consider suitable for those bound to fly the same routes forever without pay. Thes nobles or habitat representatives meet in the great Centre Port to govern in a somewhat democratic fashion.

Each colony is tiny, usually no more than 10,000 people and frequently surrounded mining colonies of 100-1,000. Clamped like an unsanitary combination of limpet and leech onto the rocks. But they carry themselves like they are a planet unto themselves, developing radical dialects and cloistered inbreeding. Made even more florid by the mutations brought about by the void, refugees from Nazgool or their twisted religion. For most of the population are Chaos worshippers.

And here is the centre of the recent turmoil. As any human society in the 41^st millennia, enough genetic damage has been done that mutants will appear even among health families. And the times mean not a small number will be psykers. For survival and commerce, these psykers have been inducted into witch-cults since the early days.

The dominate witch-cult was the Will to Power. Long associated with Centre Port, they have served as the enforcers of authority. Freeing those unjustly bound, breaking the staid natures of the nobility and practising the disturbing relief rites of the four primal emotions, to relieve stress of the people.

But what they seers could not foresee was a hidden threat. Long ago, some members of the Witch-Cult had recanted, they had turned to order and embraced a time where those blessed by the warp ruled over the lesser. The Stark Side of Chaos. They were thought extinct, eliminated for being lapdogs of the Law-worshiping Corpse-God in his golden sarcophagus.

But Supreme Leader Shiver was one of them, honing his skills through the manipulation of Charterist trade families. He declared himself First Man and appoint Constables to rule over the sectors of the system. He purged the Witch-Cult and set his traitorous Judges upon them.

Now Hidden is much more open to trade. First Man Shivers has long cultivated a pro-Charterist policy, allowing them to increase their wealth at the expense of the inhabitants. In return the Charterists market share has grown. Those who have misgivings are encouraged to try their luck elsewhere with support of course. Tempting rewards and possible discovery and condemnation as if they were tin-plated rogue traders. The pirates are kept busy harassing distant systems for new wealth and order is kept by system boat. These gunships are mere toys compared to even a Rogue Trader, but a thousand stark-dressed troopers can easily cow a habitat.

The Annajmites persist in a state of hope. While brutal, the First Man’s rule is still better than what they know awaits them from the Imperium. Only slightly more crushing to the orally educated masses than before and there are always rumours of Rebellion. Ships flashing to and from isolated halo belts, fighting in the name of contradictory goods, daring raids and prophesied Witch-Cult chosen ones. The conflict is at a scale where a small band of heroes and a ship can tip it.