New Warhammer 40K tabletop RPG is about mundane (hellish) Imperium life

Warhammer 40,000’s closest analog is The Imperium of Man. However, they are not necessarily the best guys. Humanity rules the stars, and the galaxy in this far future isn’t exactly better for it. It’s all about living. Awful, but at least humanity hasn’t been devoured by bugs or subsumed by the eldritch forces of Chaos. In Imperium Maledictum, a tabletop RPG from Cubicle 7 games, it’s your job to keep things that way. Polygon sat down with the game’s senior producer to talk about the setting, factions, and hitting the right level of grimdark.

The world of Imperium MaledictumThe Imperium is a fascist government that holds quadrillions of people together, making their lives a grist for the endless war machine. This vast human capacity has resulted in dense hive communities, full of criminal organizations, cartels, highborn courts and cultist lairs. MaledictumIn particular, the Macharian Sector is where you will find worlds not as severely damaged by the Great Rift.

Fatshark

“Imperium MaledictumWe wanted to tell a specific type of story, and it was from an Imperium-side perspective. It’s very heavily war inspired — lots of intrigue and investigations and betrayals. It’s a grim and treacherous adventure,” says Pádraig Murphy, senior producer on the Warhammer role-playing games at Cubicle 7, in a call with Polygon. The game is similar in vibe to Dan Abnett’s Inquisitor novels, the Warhammer Crime novel line, and the environments depicted in co-op shooter Warhammer 40,000: Darktide.

People think about Warhammer 40K when they mention it as a setting. They picture Space Marines, boltguns, and huge voidships that traverse the Warp, an extradimensional nightmare known for its savagery. Imperium MaledictumIt goes the other direction and focuses on the Imperium’s factions as well as the tension that exists between them. Cubicle 7, another game. Warhammer: Wrath & GloryTo allow more power fantasies, the scales can be increased.

Imperium MaledictumPlayers could be employed by an Inquisitor. They might also be playing the humble role of AdeptusMechanicus servant cult sanctioned under the Astra Telepathica. All of these characters are downright squishy compared to your average Space Marine or Sister of Battle — a laspistol shot or a sharp shiv is enough to take a player out.

It’s a side of the galaxy that we don’t often get to see, especially around big events like the upcoming 10th edition and fourth Tyrannic war, the return of a primarch, or the lore relaunch of the cybernetic Necrons. “We go into real detail about the factions that make up the Imperium,” says Murphy.

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Each Adeptus faction that makes up the Imperial society has its own goals and priorities. Inquisitors are the best-known patrons, but they’re not the only people pulling the strings and investigating issues in the Imperium. Thanks to codexes, novels and information about life in Imperial Guard, the addition of the Astra Militarum was easy. Murphy said that other factions proved more difficult to develop.

“If you want to give a similar treatment to the Administratum, it’s — despite them being baked-in as part of the setting — difficult and challenging to come at that from a role-play point of view,” says Murphy. “Like, what are the interesting administrative stories? But what surprised us is, the more we dug, the more we came up with reasons for any patron from any faction to get wrapped up in adventure and intrigue and drama.”

Murphy discusses Murphy’s case of an administrative assistant who managed to get into backrooms, and then intimidate other clerks into giving her information. The Imperium is a brutal dystopia where the seal and the document can make you look as scary as threatening. High-powered and transhumanist bureaucrats are the glue that holds everything together. In the Imperium, corruption and criminality can thrive in seemingly mundane areas.

“When the odds are that stacked against you, overcoming them is a thrill. The fact that it’s so overwhelming means whatever little bits of victory you earn should be valued, and are worth celebrating,” says Murphy. Warhammer 40K’s meta-narrative explicitly names the Imperium as the most cruel and brutal dictatorship ever created. Imperium MaledictumUses this to inspire stories. “The Imperium would be a terrible place to live. But it’s a fun place to pretend to live.”

Imperium MaledictumIt was available on DriveThruRPG as a PDF for $29.99 on 23 March. The Cubicle 7 website allows players to pre-order printed copies of the core rulesbook. These will be delivered in the latter half of 2023.