This will guide you through all the choices you need to make in order to create a Dark Heresy 2nd Edition character.

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Feral worlds are planets where the dominant culture is trapped in a primitive state, often much lower technologically than that of other Imperial worlds. This makes feral worlders hardy, strong, tough, and able to survive in the worst of conditions.

Forge worlds are the main armouries and assembly lines of the Imperium. The denizens are likely to have been born to do a specific task, like their parents before them and their children that will come after, focusing their entire lives on a single job.

Highborn are the elite of Imperial worlds, the nobles, princes, and lords of cities, systems, and worlds who rule over boundless populations alongside other equally-privileged scions. They are content in the knowledge that they are the instruments of Imperial dominance on their world and the voice of the Emperor to their people.

Hive worlders exist in cities that reach kilometres into the sky from the wasted surface of toxic, hostile environments, ruined through many centuries of industry. For a hive worlder, his life is but one cog in a gigantic city-machine, living and dying in the same few cubic kilometres in which he was born.

Shrine worlders grow up on worlds that the Imperium has deemed holy places, where the Cult of the Emperor’s power is omnipresent. While all citizens of the Imperium are taught to venerate the glory of the Emperor, it is the shrine worlders who perhaps have the greatest understanding of the teachings of the Imperial Cult.

Voidborn spend their lives in the expanses of space, growing up on ancient orbital stations, generation vessels, merchant freighters, or remote asteroid outposts. This makes them exceptionally skilled when it comes to living on voidships and space stations, more so than any who have spent their lives crawling around in the dirt of a world.

Those who toil on agri-worlds provide the Imperium’s countless billions of subjects one of their essential resources: food. The Adeptus Administratum classiies planets to this task often based on the desirable climates, native livestock, or other natural factors. Even the slightest crop failure or livestock plague can doom other worlds to horriic starvation or collapse an Imperial warfront, thus making their often-overlooked eforts vital for humanity’s survival.

Feudal worlders live on planets defined by two pronounced aspects, the first and most dominant being a technological level suspended far below many other Imperial societies. On many of these worlds, gunpowder-based devices represent the extent of advancement. The other defining aspect of feudal worlds is how their natives live, all part of networks of obligations and allegiances throughout a tribe or other societal grouping.

Frontier worlds occupy the desperate, lawless fringes of the Imperium. Inhabitants quickly learn self-reliance by necessity, knowing that they cannot expect outside aid against marauding humans or ravenous aliens. As always, where there is little Imperial attention, heresy and mutation festers unchecked. Frontier worlds swarm with the violent dregs of humanity, with pirates, bandits, outlaws, and worse ruling many areas.

Death worlds represent the harshest environments the Imperium has to offer that nevertheless require human occupation. Though the kinds of threats to the natives vary greatly, all of these planets share one important characteristic: human life is often short. Those who live on and survive these planets are some of the grittiest and, in some cases, battle-hardened citizens of the Imperium.

Garden worlds hold a unique position within the Imperium, in that they are one of the few kinds of planets with minimal technological development. Tithes from these planets are often lower than usual or are entirely non-existent, as many are lightly populated and may have no readily available resources. Instead, garden worlds offer the Imperium a multitude of idyllic settings, ranging from recuperative locales to private estates, in exchange for protection.

The Imperium and the Adeptus Mechanicus have many research stations across the stars to collect data in an often vain attempt to better control Mankind’s surroundings. Most researchers never live to see any conclusive results. Once committed to a station, few ever leave, and their tasks are passed on through generations without end. Useful results might never occur, or be lost in the impossible depths of Imperial bureaucracies.

Citizens of the Imperium hail from all manner of dangerous planets and locations, but none rival the horrors of Daemon worlds. Chaos rules in these locations, and creatures of the Warp roam twisted landscapes made of nightmare and insanity. Daemon worlds require investigation to seek the seeds of the Ruinous Powers’ evil harvest, so that it can be prevented elsewhere—for once a world has been steeped in the stuff of Chaos, it is never the same again.

Where most world classifications stem from the types of terrain or lifeforms found there, penal colonies are defined by strict Imperial Law. In every expansion, there are recidivists, looters, murderers, and thieves who appear in its wake. The most violent or persistent offenders, if not granted summary execution at the time of apprehension, may be shipped off-world to facilities designed to house them permanently. It is here that the lawbreakers are left to wither and die—though some survive to escape their sentence, and fight for the Emperor on other fronts.

Such is the size and scope of the Imperium that it takes an innumerable legion of scribes, officials, and bureaucrats to maintain it. Connected across the stars on a web of scribbled notes and secret data caches, the Administratum is a lumbering behemoth, churning at a speed only slightly higher than deathly rest.

Only through constant vigilance and the execution of brutal law can the Imperium survive, and the Adeptus Arbites carries out this function. Remorseless and single-minded, they do not forgive or forget any crime, and pursue their quarry relentlessly until the Emperor’s Justice has been served.

Psykers are a vital part of the Imperium, linking its worlds together, aiding its soldiers in battle, and guiding its ships across the stars. They are also dangerous, for the very gift that allows them to draw power from the Warp, that otherworldly realm that exists beneath reality, can also make them conduits for its unholy power and gateways for Daemons. An untrained psyker can bring doom upon an entire world if his abilities are not kept in check.

Much of Mankind’s mastery over technology has been forgotten, and what remains are closely guarded secrets, held in jealous hands of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Wrapped up in superstitious beliefs and rites, the knowledge of how to operate the Imperium’s most advanced devices falls to these followers of the Machine God. The Adeptus Mechanicus guards and oversees the ancient knowledge and the mysteries of making technology function.

The Adeptus Ministorum, also known as the Ecclesiarchy, is the religion that venerates the Emperor of Mankind. Its members are devoted servants of the Emperor, dedicated to bringing His word to the faithful, and rooting out any which would stand against Him. Even should he fall from grace, the teachings of the church remain branded upon his soul, and the fire of the Emperor’s faith still burns strong in his belly.

To protect the Imperium from its many enemies, the Imperium maintains a massive fighting force known as the Imperial Guard. Tithed from the worlds across the galaxy, the Imperial Guard is an immense force of countless billions, always at constant war, and always recruiting more soldiers to replace the fallen. Many Guardsmen do not live even a full day after entering battle, but those who survive become hardened combat veterans skilled in the bringing of death and facing the worst foes the galaxy has to offer.

Even within the Imperium, where most are born into the same position for life, there are those that work their way free to make a life on their own terms. Some may have deliberately forsaken the role they were given, or slipped between the cracks of their ossified civilisation. They exist as criminals, vagabonds, and renegades on the fringes of Imperial life. These Outcasts live in the shadows of society, living by their wits and charm. They are able thieves, assassins, and bounty hunters; suspicion and fear often dogs their steps, as others know that where they tread, crime follows.

Legends say that in the inal moments of the Reign of Blood, Alicia Dominica, leader of the warrior Daughters of the Emperor, stood before the Golden Throne with a select few trusted of her order. There they received the Light of the Emperor, illing them with terrible purpose to defy the tyrant who had taken control of the Ecclesiarchy and instigated the worst civil war since the Horus Heresy. When they emerged from that most holy chamber, they carried His righteous ire within them. Dominica descended upon the treacherous High Lord Vandire and ended his terrible Reign along with his life.

For all but the most privileged of Imperial citizens, there is little hope for anything but lives of misery and death. The diiculties presented by the insurmountable constraints of station and birthplace, and the punishing cruelties of disease, xenos raiders, and endless war are enough to sap the will of most men, but there are wretches who have been pushed deeper into the well of hopelessness. Alicted by abhorrent deformities of the lesh, mutants are denied even the comparative paradise of drudgery as forge workers or faceless soldiers. Marked by inhuman deformity, they are shunned by those around them at best, branded as living vessels of corruption and destroyed at worst.

Not all roads to knowledge are illuminated by the Emperor’s Light or constructed by the Tech-Priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Despite the many laws that forbid it, there are those who travel alternate avenues to enlightenment. They do not heed the warnings that faith and obedience, not alien knowledge or foreign technology, can save them from doom. For Hereteks, the potential rewards of fashioning unconsecrated technologies, reading from ancient and forbidden texts, of tracing the secret designs of older races, and of studying the bizarre creations of alien minds far outweigh any risks. Their galaxy is a series of treasure chests, and they eagerly seek to pick locks and lift lids to discover the marvels and terrors found within.

The Imperium is made of untold of worlds across a vast galaxy, each separated by more space than it would seem possible to defend; in truth, it is impossible. It is the job of the Imperial Navy to fly in the face of this impossibility and carry the Emperor’s Truth, and His troops, to where they are needed most. For all living aboard the vessels of the Navy, life is a neverending series of wars, broken up only by the horrors of travelling through the Warp to the next battlezone. Though brutal, it is a life of duty, filled with a sense of purpose that comparatively few humans in the galaxy ever have the privilege to know.

Armed with their prized Warrant of Trade, Rogue Traders command starships throughout the Imperium and—most importantly—outside its borders into Wilderness Space. Those serving aboard these fleets have lives unimaginable for even those who also travel the void. Where others might crave the comforting drudgery of forging munitions or assembling ration packs, these men and women journey to distant and unexplored worlds with no protection or law other than what they bring with them. Some might desire only to spread the Emperor’s Light into these dark reaches, or are obsessed over the violent extermination of alien races wherever they may be found, but for most, exploiting the riches from newly discovered planets and ancient civilisations dominates all else.

Even in a universe saturated with blood and death, there are those which turn murder into a sublime art form. The Assassin is such a being, spending their lives perfecting talents in the kill. While many who serve the Emperor are proficient in battle, Assassins revel only in the act of killing and often care little for commonplace combat. It is the desire to take life and develop the skills of doing so which defines the Assassin, a journey which will end only when they themselves succumb to death.

The secrets of the flesh are closely-guarded lore within the Imperium. Just as the Adeptus Mechanicus jealously protects the rites and rituals governing its technology, so too do others hoard knowledge about the human form. Chirurgeons have been ushered into these hidden ways, peeling back the skin of biological science to gaze upon its wet, raw, beating organs. It is an obsessive drive that can lead to great discovery and triumph, but also to the creation of abominations which were never meant to be.

Every world has men and women that live out on its fringes or survive by their skills with a gun, selling their talents to those in need of a bit more muscle with no questions asked. Desperados are a motley group, comprising scum, bounty hunters, slavers, pirates, and renegades, all people who exist on the border or beyond the law. Desperados are defined by their selfish natures and scorn for authority, choosing the path of the outlaw if it means living free and getting a quick score to see them though another day.

The Cult of the Emperor exists throughout the Imperium. The glory of the master of Mankind is found in the teachings of the Ministorum, the ancient secrets of the Machine God, and a million more faiths all linked to the veneration of the blessed Emperor. Hierophants are those dedicated to the Imperial Creed, as priests and confessors, clerics and wise men, or as orators and demagogues spreading His word and enforcing the tenets of the faith upon the teeming masses of humanity.

Millennia of human evolution have given rise to whole generations of psykers within the Imperium, gifted souls with a talent for manipulating potent yet unpredictable power. Mystics are those the Warp has touched in some way, gaining a measure of control over its unnatural tides and a glimmer of insight into its use. All Mystics must live with the knowledge that for all the power their gifts might bring and the position it might grant them, eventually it will likely destroy them.

Such is the unimaginable depth of information the Imperium deals with that only Acolytes specially trained or augmented to understand can hope to use it with any degree of skill. Sages are talented individuals known by many names, such as Autosavants, Lexmechanics, and Calculus Logi. They are often members of the Adeptus Administratum or Adeptus Mechanicus, and trusted with the storing and cataloguing of huge amounts of data. Sages have the ability to access the thousands of years of sorted Imperial data to find missing secrets, or making leaps of logic to identify them when they remain elusive.

An Acolyte that treads the path of the Seeker is driven by the hunt, relentless in his investigations. Where others might choose easy violence or give up the pursuit, the Seeker sees signs and clues to the passage of the prey, whether it is an individual fleeing from Imperial justice, or a secret hidden behind a web of lies. It is this attention and obsession with detail which defines the Seeker, and whether or not he uses it to become a hunter or investigator, it continually haunts him, pushing him on to uncover the next truth, unravel the next lie, and catch the most elusive of prey.

The one constant of life in the 41st Millennium is war. Ravenous xenos and hostile powers besiege the Imperium on all sides, and every facet of industry is turned to supporting armed combat. A Warrior is the result of this constant conflict, either drawn from the frontlines or worlds racked with violence. A Warrior has a talent for combat, and finds it his most effective means of resolving matters. He leaves a battle ragged but alive, his foes lying in pools of blood. As few targets of Inquisitorial investigation shy away from violent confrontation, a Warrior makes for an invaluable Acolyte, even though he can rarely guarantee anyone’s survival but his own.

The Imperium thrives on belief. Belief drives the Adeptus Ministorum in its eforts to unite Mankind in worship of the Emperor. For most citizens, belief might be as simple as the forlorn idea that tomorrow might be a better day, or that they can expect a tomorrow at all. For a Fanatic, though, belief is all. It consumes his life, and the depth of his conviction creates the purity of utter certainty in his actions and utter obsessiveness towards his goals. Death holds no fear, and any setbacks only make him redouble his eforts. Convinced in the righteousness of his beliefs, no matter what they are, he strides fearlessly against his foes as an unstoppable force, and woe unto anyone or anything that dares bar his way.

Most heretics end their deluded lives burnt on righteous pyres, devoured by Daemons, or torn apart by loyal citizens, but for a small portion there are fates perhaps worse. A Penitent must continue living, both knowing his damnable transgressions against his fellow humans and denying himself cleansing death until he redeems his soul. Even this mental sufering is not enough—for many, similar punishment of the lesh is also necessary. He might obsessively lacerate his own skin with a small whip he carries in one hand, or he—humble even in his sufering—might employ such devices as an inner waistcoat of tiny barbed chainmail or gloves lined with burning chems.

In the Imperium, vehicles—like all machines—are much more than simple utilitarian devices to serve humans. Each is a sacred artefact of the Machine God, imbued with a spirit and a purpose. Those who excel in the operation of vehicles must understand this. To obtain the best results from any vehicle, the operator must honour and placate its spirit, and always treat it with the due respect. The difference between a merely skilled driver and a true Ace is a nigh-preternatural ability to commune with the spirit of a vehicle, allowing it to almost predict his actions, rather than respond to them.

Against the predations of the Daemon, faith is the ultimate bulwark. Crusaders are stalwart defenders against the denizens of the Warp, righteous warriors who battle against the unholy with sword and shield. Skilled as they are with a blade or hammer, it is their strength of will that allows Crusaders to stand against the Daemon where others falter. While hell-forged blades and wicked claws can rend flesh and end lives, the greatest threat the Daemon poses is to the soul. To enter the fray against the denizens of the Warp, Crusaders must have faith as unyielding as adamantium.