u/Keanu-Potion-At-3AM

In 40k lore, it's stated that there are various human civilizations the Imperium has never discovered, planets that have rebelled with varying degrees of success, planets the Imperium has simply forgotten about, and an array of human pirate factions. However, other than vaguely alluding to their existence, these human factions mostly aren't explored in 40k at all. The only exceptions I know of are the Severan Dominate and the Votann.

If you were to make up a minor human faction, how would you do it in a way where they're interesting and filling a different niche that no other faction already fills?

In 40k lore, it's stated that there are various human civilizations the Imperium has never discovered, planets that have rebelled with varying degrees of success, planets the Imperium has simply forgotten about, and an array of human pirate factions. However, other than vaguely alluding to their existence, these human factions mostly aren't explored in 40k at all. The only exceptions I know of are the Severan Dominate and the Votann.

If you were to make up a minor human faction, how would you do it in a way where they're interesting and filling a different niche that no other faction already fills?

In 40k lore, it's stated that there are various human civilizations the Imperium has never discovered, planets that have rebelled with varying degrees of success, planets the Imperium has simply forgotten about, and an array of human pirate factions. However, other than vaguely alluding to their existence, these human factions mostly aren't explored in 40k at all. The only exceptions I know of are the Severan Dominate and the Votann.

If you were to make up a minor human faction, how would you do it in a way where they're interesting and filling a different niche that no other faction already fills?

I really made these mostly for my own fun, but I figured I might as well copy/paste my homebrew lore here just in case someone else finds it interesting and/or useful. If any of you guys like what I've written so far, I can write more later. Anyway, here goes:

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Name: Balta IV

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Segmentum:

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Sector:

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Subsector:

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System:

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Population: 80 Million

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Affiliation: Imperium

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Class: Frontier World, Desert World, Mining World

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Tithe Grade: Exactis Tertius

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Overview:

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Swirls of strikingly vibrant blue sand cover most of Balta IV’s surface. The planet owes its unusual coloration to abnormally high quantities of cobalt oxide in its soil content. 

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Local Religious Practices: 

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Baltans are considered hardy, gregarious, and, above all else, pious people. They are of the belief that, in the early days of the Great Crusade, the God-Emperor of Mankind, in His infinite magnanimity, Himself discovered Balta, a glistening sapphire jewel amongst the stars, and offered it to mankind as a gift. The Baltans have lived there ever since, or so they say.

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Certainly it is true that humans have inhabited Balta IV for millennia; ancient stone pillars, statues bearing the likenesses of long-forgotten saints, and richly pigmented ceramic pottery are sometimes unearthed as sand dunes shift in the winds. However, Balta IV was rediscovered by the Imperium relatively recently, only a few hundred Standard Terran Years ago; the slow-moving bureaucracy of the Ecclesiarchy has not yet had enough time to decide whether these local beliefs constitute sanctified piety or damnable heresy.

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When praying, Baltans mix a pinch of cobalt sand with water to make a vibrant blue paste. They dab their fingers in this paste, and with it they draw upon themselves the wings of the twin-headed eagle, one under each of their eyes. When leaving Balta IV, locals will bring a locket filled with sand, so they can carry out this ritual even far from home.

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Mining And Religious Tensions: 

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To the Baltan people, the planet of Balta IV itself is sacred, the God-Emperor’s gift to Mankind. As such, since their earliest days they have used its blessed sands to craft rosaries, statues, and monuments dedicated in His honor. Unfortunately for the locals, cobalt is as useful for making batteries, alloys, and Prometheum refining catalysts as it is for pigmenting ceramics. It was inevitable that Balta IV’s abnormally high concentration of resources would be noticed by the Adeptus Mechanicus. In recent decades, they have constructed vast strip mines that dot the world like angry pockmarks. Most of the population of Balta is now employed in one of these mines, working shoulder to shoulder with imported penal thralls and assorted hive scum.

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To native Baltans, these mines are not merely unsightly; they are very literal scars, wounds inflicted upon the Sapphire Jewel, the Emperor's sacred gift to Mankind. To mar Balta so is to spit in the face of the Emperor. It is sacrilege. Most Baltans work the mines anyway, however reluctantly; but there are rumors that some Baltans have decided that the AdMech's sacrilege cannot go unpunished. 

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Local Customs:

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If there is one thing Baltans are known for besides their piety, their hardiness, and the rowdy, boisterous demeanors they exhibit when not deep in prayer, it is their beloved, infamous drinking game. Cactus blossom amasec, Balta’s signature locally-produced liquor, is made from the thorny flowers and paddles of the azuaro cactus. Though the drink can be strained to remove the wickedly sharp cactus thorns, it is a common sight across local pubs to see Baltans daring each other to drink an entire bottle of the stuff, unfiltered. Every Baltan worth his or her salt knows how to tip the bottle just right to polish it off without accidentally swallowing one of the thorns settled at the bottom. Should you ever encounter a Baltan with a prosthetic jaw or throat augmetic, you can safely assume they botched such a dare back in their partygoing teenage years.

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For the DM:

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Example plot hooks:

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A group of especially devout Baltan natives approach the party, their pants and boots stained blue from traipsing through the desert. They want the Rogue Trader to convince a visiting Ecclesiarchy official to re-classify Balta IV from a Frontier Mining World to an officially-sanctioned Shrine World, in order to protect the planet from further strip mining and environmental destruction. 

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A forge world prince wants the party to find any excuse to declare Balta’s local religious customs heretical so he can send his skitarii to clear out the native inhabitants and accelerate his mining operations.

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Religiously devout desert nomads have sabotaged a nearby strip mine, killing tech priests and destroying servitors with mining trucks hastily converted into improvised artillery vehicles. Side with the nomads or the tech priests, or simply loot the mine while no one is looking.

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 Name: Klakton Pier, Klakton-C

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Segmentum:

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Sector:

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Subsector: Tendrinex Peninsula

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System: Klakton

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Population: 530,200,000

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Affiliation: Imperium

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Class: Orbital Garrison, Resort World

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Tithe Grade: Solutio Secundus

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Overview:

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Klakton Pier is a massive orbital station that serves as the subsector naval base for Battlegroup Arnelli, led by Lord Admiral Jaywick Calais. Normally, the Battlegroup would be running light patrols around the surrounding subsectors, but Jaywick's ships have found themselves unable to safely leave the Tendrinex Peninsula due to severe Warp turbulence.

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Klakton-C itself is a relatively pedestrian planet; it is a coastal world of fishing piers and seaside resorts. Unfortunately, due to the recent Warp storms on the borders of the subsector, getting to and from the Tendrinex Peninsula has become difficult, and as a result tourism has largely dried up, causing widespread joblessness and poverty across the planet.

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Fun Fact: It is said that, when the infamous pirate captain Corvan Redstav’s capital ship, a Galaxy-Class Armed Freighter, was shot down by the garrison in orbit above Klakton-C, a fractured piece of it crash-landed on the shore of the seaside town of Hartelus. The local fishermen near the crash site found no survivors, save for a lone Eldar Corsair. Not wanting to abide any heresy, they strung the Eldar up by his neck, and ever since they have been known as Mon’Keigh Hangers

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I'm curious to hear the most out there, weird, and fun character ideas you've had. They could be either characters you want to play as someday or NPC ideas you've thought up.

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I'll list some goofy character ideas I've thought up to start:

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- A Sister Dialogous who specializes in studying Ork language and culture. She takes her job very seriously. (A Sister Dialogous is a mostly non-combatant Sister who specializes in deciphering languages)

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- a Gue'Vesa, born in the Tau Empire, who defected to the Imperium because he thinks cathedrals look cool. (A Gue'Vesa is a human living in the Tau Empire)

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- A red Ork. He's identical to a normal Ork, he's just red instead of green. He's meant to be a parody of Red Hulk, possibly the lowest-effort Marvel character design ever.

... are they Men or Mer?

Please cite canon sources to support your claim.