My initial concept was "a hiveworld from 40k as seen in the original Rogue Trader '87" and the more I thought, the more wrinkles popped up that provided more fodder. Elements I wanted to tie in were the Knight Worlds with their dinosaur herding, more abhumans, and a general stronger alignment to the aesthetic in Rogue Trader '87.
Launch concept, that may get tweaked, is an abhuman-heavy hiveworld serving as a support to a small domain of Knight Worlds. They have a weird slate of technology due to the Knight World Sacristans having held onto an odd set of things. The place is metal poor but promethium rich. They continue to process the dwindling herds of megasaurs from the non-poluted hemisphere and spend a lot of effort on synthetics, ceramics and other work-arounds to make up for the metal shortage.
The large abhuman population has made this place a focus of Adeptus Ministorum attention with multiple factions with a range of views on whether or not abhumans can truly be brought to the light of the Emperor and whether it is worth the effort. Adeptus Mechanicus is present both prying into the odds and ends of Sacristan preserved technologies and using the place as a backwater test-bed for unorthodox ideas. Adeptus Munitorium bureaus continuously fight over whether it is acceptable for the tithe to be met by well-trained but ill-equiped abhuman regiments.
This is a better place than many for abhumans, though the relentless demands of the Imperial Tithe are getting no lighter and life is no garden of flowers. The somewhat odd status of being ruled over by a Knight House brings a range of unusual pressures and suspicions along with a scattered handful of small mercies.
Approach
We got this handy graphical guide from Pete of Garblag Games which gives the 'rhythm' of the weekly tasks of this challenge.
Infographic of City26 Challenge by Peter Lattimore
I rummaged through various hivecity posts about the web and found some good breakdowns of life in a Hive which gives me a rough breakdown of
2 x Spire wards (0.002% population)
5 x Upper wards (1.5% population)
12 x Upper Mid wards (9.8% population)
20 x Lower Mid wards (65.3% population)
13 x Lower wards (23.5% population)
Some unknown netizen did trojan work estimating the size/volume of Hive Primus from Necromunda - I will be using a smaller version of that (taking the ground layer at 5-volumes down, not seven). Assuming we are ~ 46% the size of Necromunda with equivalent population density, we have 4.7 billion Imperial citizens packed in here, ~90 millon per ward. Each ward, the population of Germany more or less.
From #hexcrawl25 I found one of the handiest things to have was a template for the repeated bits so I bashed together this weekly worksheet. I may tweak this as we go but for now, it will do to start.
Inspirations
Rogue Trader '87 and 'Imperial Army' contemporary illustrations with fighting abhumans.
Chapter Serf from Zedeck Siew and that study on what esoteric crafts support the elite fighting forces of the Imperium.
Imperial Knights as per White Dwarf #126.
Genestealers cultists for the industrial aesthetic - we will tap the new generation of models like the goliath truck because it gives an glimpse into the functioning Imperium.
Necromunda for the general deep-hive vibe - particularly the mercenaries and hangers-on - for the rot that festers in the abandoned bits of hivecities.
Killteam for the broader range of Imperial weirdness.
Rogue Trader (Owlcat Games) for that sense of the sheer scale of nonsense, politics and weirdness that is constantly churning even when things are not in eminent peril.
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