Goonhammer’s running a global Crusade campaign for Warhammer 40k and this week we’re kicking off our previews and information about the event. Today we’re talking about the systems and planets that make up the locations players will fight over in the campaign.

The Vadinax Sector

Welcome to Vadinax, the setting of our global 2023 Crusade campaign for Warhammer 40,000. Vadinax is a sector on the edges of the galaxy, far from the light of the Astronomicon even before it was cast into the Imperium Nihilus – the dark half of the galaxy cut off by the malevolent warp storms of the Cicatrix Maledictus. The sector hosts four notable systems for players to fight over:

• Tychon
• Procyon
• Xenfar
• The Ultra Vernor Expanse

Each of these systems is filled with different planets and locations, each with their own traits, backstories, and narrative threads for players to pull on. Let’s take a look at these systems and a few key locations in each.

The Tychon System

If there’s a system that still qualifies as Imperium held in Vadinax, Tychon is it. The center of the system is dominated by several Imperium-held worlds which have managed to hold strong against the darkness of the Great Rift as other systems in the sector have slipped away.

Kyrene

The jewel of the Tychon System, Kyrene is a thriving world that plays home to more than 2 trillion people. Its vast spires are there for a reason – the planet yet claims valuable untapped mining deposits and a thriving starport and orbital shipyard that are ideal for launching fleets. Both the starport and the population are valuable assets for any who would try to claim them.

Steadfast Repentance

Kyrene’s largest moon has been converted into a penal colony harboring traitors, sinners, and the unruly form across the sector. The planet is a locked-down fortress, in part because it houses some key defense systems for Kyrene, and hosts mining operations for Kyrene’s orbital shipyards.

Hope’s Clarion Call

This Imperial Shrine World is the final resting place of St. Benedictine, a powerful living saint renowned for her martyrdom in the system’s wars against the orks. The planet is covered in shrines and places of holy worship. It’s a planet which has little to offer in terms of resources, but plenty of secrets buried far beneath its surface.

Varghast

With its red surface swept clean with scouring winds and radiation bursts from the system star, the people of Varghast live in great canyons that delve miles below the surface. Only the Sons of Ash dare travel out on to the surface for training and patrol and never for long. Their fortress monastery is located in the largest canyon at the northern pole, a masterwork of defense lines, anti orbital weapons and interlocking void shields. As part of every Sons’ of Ash training, they will be sent to guide and guard one of the great trade caravans that make the perilous journey between canyon cities during the brief gaps in the storms.

Other Worlds

• Attos, a Hive World of more than half a billion Imperial citizens.
• Astarix 377, a Forge World that produces weapons and armor for Imperial worlds throughout the sector and employs knight households in its defense.
• Cerus Gamma, a massive space station dedicated to the construction and repair of imperial ships built on a series of asteroids in the system’s belt.
• Olern, home to a group of knight households who lend their services to nearby Imperial worlds. They have a tradition of allowing the control of the world to fall to whichever knight wins a grand tournament known as “The Great Joust.”

The Procyon System

Once the seat of a mighty Necron dynasty, Procyon now plays host to a series of frontier worlds. Imperial control over the system has slipped away over the past few decades as multiple Chaos campaigns have made significant headway in establishing a foothold in the system, and the traitorous turn of two of its knight households have helped doom the system to strife.

Lenk

After the planet fell to Chaos following a series of bloody battles, Lenk has become a Chaos stronghold, a stronghold for heretic warbands dominated by the dread warlords of House Gloam and House Vykir, though much of the planet is home to Ork warbands, Aeldari raiders, and emergent Necron tomb world structures.

Paulus

The frontier world of Paulus is an icy planet just outside the Goldilocks zone of its star. The planet has several major cities but neither the agriculture nor the mining operations to sustain a full hive ecosystem. The planet came under siege shortly before the opening of the Great Rift, and in the process was overrun by chaos daemons and has subsequently been conquered by Chaos forces, who have established a number of cults across the planet’s surface.

Siasa

Although long held by Imperial governors, Siasa’s fortunes shifted after the emergence of the Great Rift and it now finds itself on the verge of hosting its first democratic elections in over three millennia. Behind the scenes, various forces politick and jockey for position, hoping to shift the election in their favor and realign the planet’s resources to their needs.

Other Worlds

• Kolthor, a Mechanicus held Forge World existing far outside the Imperium’s light due to rare materials found on the planet.
• Keplon, with blackstone deposits and unique magnetic and warp phenomena which have made it a valuable research hub for scientists throughout the galaxy, and its secrets are highly sought after by the Mechanicus, Votann, and T’au.
• Drazris was once a thriving Imperial center but recently control has been seized by The Cult of Shadow’s Edge, a worker uprising that overthrew the planet’s governors.
• Etara, an agri-world which supplies food for the imperial worlds of the Procyon and Tychon systems.

The Xenfar System

The furthest of the systems from Imperial light, the pulses of the Astronomicon barely reached Xenfar in the days before the rift. It has always been a frontier system dominated by Xenos interests.

Astradus

The planet Astradus was a recent re-entrant into the galactic map, emerging from shifting warp storms after the opening of the great rift. In the wake of its reemergence it was immediately beset on all sides by Ork and Chaos attackers, and ultimately Ork warbands came to dominate the planet, overrunning its surface and turning it into one big junkyard Speedwaaagh.

Scintrost

Scintrost provides agricultural support for the fringe imperial worlds of the Xenfar system. While mostly an unassuming rural planet, long buried secrets hide below the surface. Underground esoteric societies meet in secret to worship the four armed emperor, and deeper still ancient alien machineries thrum idly waiting for someone to activate them.

Nal’Shara, the Maiden World

This world has remained hidden from Imperial scans, secreted away by Aeldari technology for millennia, though those ancient wards have failed in the wake of the Cicatrix Maledictum, exposing Nal’Shara for the first time. This planet of pristine beauty and lush jungles has been cultivated and kept free of ruinous hands, but now multiple forces seek to lay claim on her bounty.

Other Worlds

• Skaadthi, a frozen world on the edge of the Xenfar system is covered in thick layers of ice, below which lie vast oceans heated by thermal vents. 
• Cyrillon, a hostile, desert world home to several small mining colonies, roving Ork warbands, and wasteland nomads who patrol its surface.
• Brumion, a frontier world which plays host to a major trading outpost that has served as a haven for ne’er-do-wells, mercenaries, and rogue traders for centuries, always acting as a massive neutral gray- and black-market trading hub for various factions.
• Wura’Osh, the Tau Empire’s biggest presence in the sector, acting as both a trading hub and bastion for diplomacy. Both Votann and Aeldari have a significant presence on the world, with settlements acting as homes to merchants and ambassadors, as well as some genestealer cult presence in the slums of the world.
• Lothept, an active Necron world used as a forward operating base for vassals of the Silent King. With this world’s dynasty fully awakened, the planet is bustling with activity. 
• Kaiiak, an exodite world Kaiiak is home to a large number of Aeldari settlements, each armed and prepared to defend their planet.
• Fyrkat, a massive mining outpost held by the Greater Thurian League.

The Ultra Vernor Expanse

The Ultra Vernor Expanse is home to the local store planets – each of these planets is a separate campaign run by a store participating in the campaign. Each of these, while part of the overall Vadinax campaign, is its own separate campaign with a planet which can only be affected by those local players.

Perplior

Ashburn, VA

The planet Perplior is an armory world situated in the Ultra Vernor expanse. Otherwise relatively unremarkable, the planet holds a unique prize – a geosynchronous space station in orbit, the size of a continent. Orbital Station Pumilan is an enigma. In truth, it was a Votann generation ship that was discovered and repaired by early colonists, whose crew were never found, and its details and origin lost to time. Within its bulkheads, poorly-lit and coolant-dampened halls host a diverse population of hangers-on, desperados, and strangely, those of mercantile intent.

Parasbine Secundus

Houston, TX

Parasbine Secundus is a desolate planet dedicated to smelting and processing the rare materials mined from the nearby asteroid belt of Espern’s Drift. A surprise assault by Chaos has succeeded in taking control of most of the planet, trapping the remaining Imperial defenders in the port city of Kephistrone. Should the planet fall, Parasbine Secundus’ forges will create a near inexhaustible supply of nightmarish daemon engines for the Despoiler.

Agrippa IV

Kingwood, TX

A penal colony on a world rich with resources, Agrippa IV is a supplier of Promethium and Granite for the Vadinax sector, with a prison work force the profits are nearly endless. Deep within the mines, a small sect of Genestealer Cults have cropped up, and remnants of Chaos Cults from a previous invasion of Word Bearers have kept the planets security busy. Should the Tyranid forces devour the world, or Chaos take it for themselves, would be a massive blow to Imperial forces this side of the rift.

Tern’s Endeavor

Bellevue, Washington

A world of storm-ravaged mountains and crags, the valleys and aeries of Tern’s Endeavor are dotted with independent trading settlements, the only central planetary “authority” held at the largest of the world’s shabby orbital sub-plates. A stop-over hub for trade within the Ultra Vernor Expanse, latest Imperial surveys indicate a recalcitrant population heavily involved in trade with multiple Xenos species and considered highly vulnerable to infiltration and subversion from the Ruinous Powers.

Nox Veritas

New York, New York

An Imperial world that fell to ruin when the Great Rift opened, local forces have gathered in an attempt to retake the planet and wrest back control from the Xenos and Chaos invaders.

Next Time: The Dramatis Personae

That’s it for the planets but join us tomorrow when we look at the Dramatis Personae and examine some of the key characters who will be influencing in and taking part in the stories players participate in.

Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com.