Comrade's Wargames

I’m hoping that Caluphel, our homebrew 40k setting, develops and grows through blog posts and tabletop battles. To that end I’ve started sketching out a primer on the various abandoned waystations, ruined outposts, rusted factories and unexplored wilderlands that make up this lost colony.

When we begin our story, Imperial forces have begun landing advance forces at key sites across the narrow habitable crescent of this tidally locked planet. They will soon find the shattered and crumbling ruins of a once-thriving colony…

Kasomir Plateau

A broad geographic uplift that is marked by the most intensive urban development on Caluphel. Although initially forested, much of the woodland has been cut back in the face of urban sprawl. The region includes Jericho Station and Saint Scythia Starport: two urban areas that show evidence of large-scale settlement efforts, replete with hab-sectors, mass transit arterial and extensive industrial capacity. Clearly, Kasomir Plateau was the beating heart of the Imperial colonization effort on Caluphel. Until something went wrong…

Jericho Station

The primary settlement on Caluphel long ago outgrew the name “Jericho Station,” but the folksy terminology stuck nonetheless. At its height, Jericho Station was a city of nearly 10,000 colonists who lived and worked in the hinterlands of the Kasomir Plateau. Now, vacant for centuries and exposed to Caluphel’s harsh environment, Jericho Station is a crumbling shadow of its former self. Hab-units have been reduced to ruined outlines etched into vast concrete slabs. Factories have tumbled in on themselves, leaving rusted industrial machinery creaking in the wind. Regardless, the city is a natural starting point for the incoming Imperial explorator teams. In recent months, some of the sturdiest buildings have been identified and strengthened for use by Caluphel’s new guests, and prefab barracks are being delivered from orbit to provide quick accommodations for the vanguard of the Imperial expeditionary force.

Saint Scythia Starport

Calamity befell Saint Scythia Starport at some point in Caluphel’s past, when a huge bulk freighter apparently exploded shortly after takeoff and scattered toxic wreckage over most of the vast starport. Most of the starport was rendered unusable and uninhabitable, with only a small secondary landing site untouched. This facility is currently being used by Imperial forces as they set about the process of exploring and examining the fate of Caluphel.

Outpost Omicron

To the east of the Kasomir Plateau, hundreds of kilometers beyond the corroded and sand-scoured walls of Jericho Station, lies Outpost Omicron. Nominally designed as a fueling station for colonists and traders looking to push deeper into the Eastern Scrublands, Outpost Omicron quickly outgrew its initial design. Now the abandoned, windswept shantytown exists as a kind of frontier jumping-off point for the eastern wastes.

Turrido Fringe

This narrow, crescent-shaped woodland territory hugs the western perimeter of the Kasomir Plateau facing the Nightlands — those darkened swathes of land where Caluphel’s suns do not shine. The Turrido Fringe shows evidence of having been heavily fortified at some indeterminate point in the past. Extensive earthworks and bunkers dot the steeply wooded forest, and cast-off war machinery molders in ditches and overgrown riverbeds. The Turrido Fringe was intended as a last line of defense … against what?

Gamilon-B Refinery

Caluphel’s original colonists clearly understood the mineral and chemical riches of their adopted home. To wit: the hulking Gamilon-B Refinery, which dominates the horizon to the west of Jericho Station. The facility is a vast complex of pipes, holding tanks, cooling towers, outbuildings, assembly lines and power generators, all held together by ever-present scaffolding. Now the refinery is silent and dark, its workers gone and its factories idle. Documents recovered in Jericho Station’s archives speak of a sister facility (Gamilon-A) that was to be constructed deep within the Nightlands. Gamilon-A and Gamilon-B were to be linked by a subterranean network of transit corridors and waystations, though records are silent on whether or not this transportation artery was actually constructed.

That’s just a taste of some of the sites, sectors and territories that might feature into our upcoming games. There’s more to come!