Editing The Volunteers Main Page

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000‏‎]]

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This is a wiki for The Volunteers, an Only War play by post campaign about a WH40k Imperial Guard regiment.

==Campaign premise==

One-sentence pitch: “What if soldiers from our world volunteered for the Imperial Guard?”

And to provide the right mood and atmosphere for what that means, here are a couple of music videos.

Imperial Guard (not linked yet)

The Volunteers (not linked yet)


The idea would not work with a world exactly like ours, of course, but it would with something that is almost like our world, but with Imperial trappings. So that is what we go with.

Imagine a world much like our own when it comes to technology level, standard of living and form of government. There are multiple nation states. Some are more developed than others. They have different forms of government from democracies to dictatorships. They trade, send diplomats, and occasionally go to war with each other. In WH40k terms, it would be a particularly pleasant Imperial World.

An Imperial World has Imperial trappings, of course, and this world is no exception. While there are multiple accepted religions, they all conform to the Imperial Creed. Any domestic figures of religious mythology are considered to be Saints subservient to the God-Emperor on Holy Terra. And whether Holy Terra is an actual physical place or a higher spiritual domain has been a subject of heated debate and occasional religious wars.

There is also central authority. And it is a strong one. Imperial Governor with his Administratum staff and army of Adeptus Arbites resides in the Governor’s Palace on the world’s moon. The palace is a city-sized complex of offices, barracks, maufactoriums and warehouses. From there the Governor observes the world and ensures that Imperial laws are followed. All nations are subject to Imperial tithe. All religions must conform to the creed. Should any nation step out of the line, they will first receive a stern warning, and if it is not followed, orbital bombardment will commence, followed by the landing of Arbites to collect amy surviving members of the recalcitrant government.

But as long as the rules are followed, the Governor has a hands-off policy to ruling. The nations are allowed their autonomy. They can select their own governments, handle their own affairs and mutual relations, and even war with each other. The Governor will only interfere in wars if the Imperial tithe is threatened or there is excessive use of weapons of mass destruction.

Therefore, to most people the Governor is a distant figure that has little direct influence in their lives. Everyone knows that the world belongs to a larger Imperium and that out in the stars there are many more worlds. But the homeworld has little contact with any of that. It is remote, at the end of an obscure chartist route, and rarely has visitors. When it does, those visitors only visit the orbital docks around the moon. Moon is where the rarely occurring psykers are sent, to be either trained to harness their powers or loaded to the regularly visiting Black Ships. Moon is where the chartist captains stop to trade, and their off-world products rarely make their way to the surface. The world is almost completely self-sufficient.

But self-sufficiency is not enough. Every Imperial World is expected to contribute with a tithe. And the world has little to offer. It has mineral resources and manufacture, but only just enough for its own needs. It has agriculture, but not enough for surplus production. So what form does the world’s tithe take.

Imperial Guard regiments. Every world is expected to send soldiers for the guard, but this one does so in numbers, quality and regularity exceeding the usual, combining its tithe requirement with the troop requirement.

While many regions of the world have experienced peace for generations, there is never a time when there wouldn’t be a conflict happening somewhere. Individual nations or entire coalitions occasionally war against each other for religious, nationalistic or economical reasons. In addition to that, various armed groups cause threats that cross national borders, sometimes threatening to destabilize entire regions, forcing the intervention by a multinational task force. In that fashion, even troops from countries that are at peace may enter conflict when their nations seek to ensure continued stability by participating in peacekeeping operations abroad.

The constant conflicts are seen as a desirable feature by the Imperial Governor, and that is a major reason for the Governor’s distant rule. The conflicts force every nation to maintain a standing army and military readiness, and they provide battlefield experience to the troops.

And when the time to collect the tithe comes, every nation is expected to provide the best of its young soldiers as recruits for a new Imperial Guard regiment. With the added demand that every recruit must be a volunteer. Because that is the world’s tithe. Well equipped, highly trained and highly motivated Imperial Guard regiments for the meatgrinder of Imperium’s wars offworld.

There are many incentives to volunteer. Both the Governor and individual nations offer various perks and privileges for the families of accepted volunteers. Depending on where they are from, this can mean better housing and rations, stipends at prestigious centers of education, or desirable work opportunities. To be accepted into the Imperial Guard is also seen as a great honor and accomplishment, something for the family to be proud of. Military training also emphasizes that while serving your nation is important, truly important service happens in the Imperial Guard, which is only for the best of the best, and aiming to be good enough for that is what every soldier should strive for.

There is also massive propaganda. The remote world has never been the target of a Xenos raid or Chaos incursion. Schools teach that the reason for that lies in the stalwart efforts of the homeworld regiments fighting in distant worlds to ensure that the war remains out there and the distant horrors never set foot on the soil of the homeworld. Numerous public entertainment vids depict the heroism of Imperial Guard and feature either glorious battles at exotic locations or desperate struggles in literal hellscapes.

Without exception, there are always more volunteers than there are places in a newly founded regiment, and the world has never had a problem with filling its quota.

The individual reasons to volunteer may wary. Someone with a not very well off background may do so for the knowledge that his family will be better off and perhaps even thrive because of it. Someone may see it as an accomplishment, to be one of the best. Someone wants to keep the homeworld safe from offworld menaces. Someone wants to see what lies beyond their world, in the rest of the galaxy, and Imperial Guard is for the vast majority the only way to get to travel the stars.



I haven’t fleshed out the homeworld further than that, because my idea is that we name and create it together, using the regiment creation rules of Only War. What shape the regiment takes will also influence what direction the game will take. A heavy armor regiment will see very different missions than a drop trooper regiment.

I am also open to suggestions as to where the regiment will be sent. There are plenty of opportunities in the official books. Jericho Reach. Spinward Front from Only War. Something entirely unique and GM-created. I do have some plans about what the regiment might experience and what the overarching plot might be, but they can easily be adjusted to different fronts and opponents. There is also the option that the regiment will not be assigned to any particular front or crusade. They could be requisitioned and placed under the command of a Roque Trader. It would remove a bit of the strategic aspect and sense of ongoing war, but would allow for a bit more variety and flexibility – and uncertainty – in the missions the regiment would undertake. It would also mean that much of the downtime will happen in the barracks complement of a voidship. With a Roque Trader as an overall commander, the regiment would in all likelihood face much more individual missions not connected to each other rather than am ongoing military campaign. Boarding actions. Dethroning a seditious planetary governor (and confiscating his personal assets). Claiming a new world for the imperium by defeating the natives or xenos already there. And so on.

In fact, I am thinking of giving the players some choice in where the regiment will be sent and what enemies they will face. The regular guardspeople have little choice in that, of course, so I am thinking of having pre-mission interludes where the players get to play as members of the Crusade’s command staff or Roque Trader bridge crew. Aides and advisors to the Warmaster or Roque Trader. Imperial Tacticians, Astropaths, high ranking officers and such. They have data of the bigger picture the Crusade is facing and can debate and decide where the regiment gets deployed. That would mean a secondary group of characters that do not need to be statted out.

As for characters, every option is available. A world like the one in question would not have an abhuman population, but if someone has a great character idea about a Ratling or an Ogryn, I am not forbidding them. Any unusual characters could be from the world’s moon, having lived there in Governor’s service. Such characters would still be influenced by the world’s culture. And since the new regiment would spend some time on the moon for final training in Imperial equipment and tactics before getting shipped offworld, the characters would have had time to meet and get accustomed to each other.


==Homeworld==

To be developed

==Regiment==

To be developed

==Player Characters==

To be developed

==Non Player Characters==

To be developed

==Campaign Journal==

Battles that the regiment has taken part in.

To be developed