Irregulars, Minutemen, militia or fencibles - whatever you wish to call them - there have been periods in history where the inclusion or assistance of citizen-soldiers has been both a boon or an annoyance to the more professional forces.
In the American Revolution, for example, it is known that the Continentals did not think much of their irregular comrades-in-arms. The Spartans looked down upon most other land-based Greek armies until their mirage was wafted away at the Battle of Leuktra. Had the Highland army committed to guerilla warfare, as opposed to facing the Government forces on the field of Culloden, then who knows what may have happened?
In short, all military forces begin somewhere, with the average person on the street, and this role-play is focused on exactly that!
Players will be taking the role of colonists, more recent or not, from one of several planets – these could be retired/invalided/veteran Guardsfolk, but I would prefer the simple man; think Boars from South Africa, or settlers in the Old West - blacksmiths, butchers and clerks and others – these are the sort of characters I'd like to see.
Interested? Want to know more? Then please read on...
Rogue Trader Einar Jafet, part of a prodigious Trader dynasty, discovered System 82/5-314-F quite by accident. He had been seeking a particular planet within the Ultima Segmentum, some light-years away from Hexos – as it was, this was not to be..
After what had seemed like quite a short trip through the Immaterium, he soon found himself in an unknown system closer to the Eastern Fringe than it was to any planets of Imperial origin and, as far as he could tell, the system was entirely uncharted by Imperial cartographers.
He named it the Novem Mundos system, or 'nine worlds', and the capital planet Jafetsport after himself, as well as making it the name of the primary spaceport and settlement on what he considered to be the most fertile world of the nine.
Encircled by the eight other worlds, all of them as devoid of humanoid life as the next, it was not long before the Mechanicus exploration teams were plotting a warp route and human transferral to the Nine Worlds, and with it colonisation.
Generations passed and, due to shortages caused by remoteness, or to simply being forgotten about by the Imperium at large, Jafetsport was the only planet to advance beyond what the Imperium classifies as a 'frontier world'. It took on the trappings of a civilised planet – post modern technology, the ability to produce its own farming tools and build its own cities, vessels capable of taking persons from one planet in the system to another yet no further.
Werner Jafet, direct descendant of Einar, even managed to build a space station for himself that orbits Jafetsport; from here he watches his people, having recruited a person army of Enforcers and mercenaries to enforce his will among the populace, at least on the capital planet.
The other eight planets began, and have remained, as centres of rough-and-ready civilisation, some nearly as advanced as Jafetsport, while others are more akin to wilderness dotted by shanty-towns, settled over the decades by entire hab-blocks off out-system Hivers, Guard veterans , and all manner of collected bodies from throughout the larger Imperium.
Trouble was brewing for Werner though, something happening on Jafetsport, something that grew so bad he was forces to send members of his own 'army' to settle things. Those unfortunate souls never returned.
Now, plagued by an unknown enemy, and needing fresh bodies to form at least some semblance of resistance to this threat– the nearest garrison of the Imperial Guard a good few months away at beast – he has sent a call out to muster all able-bodied men and women of fighting age, to gather at the spaceport of Jafetsport with all haste, and assuring them that help is coming.
Should the capital world fall, it will not be long before the others follow.
The hereditary ruler of the system has called, will you answer?
What does this mean for the RP?
It means that your character can hail from any other world that you like, or at least be descended from colonists from whatever world if you prefer, although they will be (or at least begin as) the lowest of the low! Lower even than your average PDF trooper, a scratch-force built more-or-less from civilians and those few with any experience of combat/killing/etc.
Do feel free to make up the state of the other eight worlds, just remember that they're Frontier Worlds in state, technology etc, and model your characters accordingly.
Eventually they may be moulded into an actual fighting force, but to do that they would actually need to survive first.
Personally I would like this roleplay to be an ode to the Everyman of 40k bought alive by the writers, an attempt to show the grimmest of grim darkness through the lens of what are for all intents and purposes conscripted citizens...for now; to this end there will be little to no contact with the Astartes, possible acts of the RP set in one place (not for too long though), and plenty of action against the foes of Mankind.
There will also be change - change of characters and character, possibly character deaths (especially if someone gets bored), change of equipment and so on - I'd like this to be an evolving RP rather than static one.
Oookay, so, if you've read all of the above then, firstly, thank you for doing so because I realise lots of text is not to everyone's taste, and secondly I hope that simply because the regiment is Praetorian-based will not put anyone off - I know they're nowhere near the most popular in the setting, but by making them lighter and less rigid this should sweep away some of the dustiness people see in them.
That's really all I've got to say, so if you're interested then please say so below, and if you've any questions/queries at all I shall be more than happy to answer!
The Emperor Protects.
