What worlds would be classified as Deathworlds in WH40k?

[The Grim Squeaker]

Deathworlds is considered the most hostile type of planet in 40k outside the warp, a good definition is somewhere you wouldn't want to live even if you were paid to do so.
The worlds tend to mean a death sentence for any humans without large amounts of equipment within days, not just simply due to a non breathable enviroment but due to horrific monsters or exceptionally hostile terrain (Alien acid rain, composed of lava, etc..).


My first choice would be Arrakis from Dune.
While it may only have one type of big beastie (Shai Halud) and an atomic bomb or massive quantity of explosions can be enough to dissasemble one, it doesn't change the fact that walking on most of Dune's surface is a death sentance, that the lack of water and heat will de-hydrate anyone within a day or two, that the storms will turn a space-craft into scrap metal, that without filters and still-suits you can't go outside except in large specialized mechanical vehicles and that the inhabitants give the most elite troopers in the Dune galaxy nightmares.

Another possible choice might be the ruined former homeworld of the Corrino's (Also from Dune) which is essentially a massive prison world with massive radiation storms, blasted radio-active terrain and any prisoners that survive are so inhumanly tough that the emperor uses them as his elite shock troops- the Sardukar.

The planet seen in "Pitch Black" might qualify during the eclipse since without light you die, natural sources of light not from the suns is almost non-existant and the natural monsters are numerous, fast, can fly and come up from underground.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Nah, Arakis is just a desert world. A Tallarn would laugh at it, and a Catachan Jungle Fighter would turn his nose up at a Fremen.

Catachan is the quintessential deathworld. If it doesn't have a 99% mortality rate, it's just not good enough.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Are you sure?
Without off-world supplies anyone without the Fremen's specialized over the centuries water collectors will run out of water within days, The Worms are big, nasty, fast and can sense anyone moving over kilometers, and only a tiny fraction of Dune's surface is rock as opposed to sand.
It definetly isn't as bad as the nastier deathworlds, but without large amounts of equipment a normal human will die ther.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Airless or otherwise inhospitable worlds aren't classified as deathworlds, and humans won't survive there naturally either. A deathworld has to be actively and utterly violently opposed to human or near-human life.

For example: You do not simply die of exposure or other environmental problems on Catachan. The planet literally kills you. Nearly every species of flora and fauna is capable of messily murdering any human that gets near. Or doesn't sleep with one eye open.

[Duckie]

Airless or otherwise inhospitable worlds aren't classified as deathworlds, and humans won't survive there naturally either. A deathworld has to be actively and utterly violently opposed to human or near-human life.

So why do people live there? I mean, why'd they colonize it in the first place?

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

In the case of the Catachans, it produces some damn fine jungle-fighting Guard units.

Often they're the result of a shipwreck or marooned individuals, exiles, criminals, etc. They'd have been rediscovered during or after the Great Crusade, and once shown the glorious light of the Emperor the Administratum can make use of whatever resources they might have - manpower or material or otherwise.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Airless or otherwise inhospitable worlds aren't classified as deathworlds, and humans won't survive there naturally either. A deathworld has to be actively and utterly violently opposed to human or near-human life.

So why do people live there? I mean, why'd they colonize it in the first place?

They didnt know.

The ship landed, cause from orbit, withoutreally checking, it looked like a lush forest world...they just didnt know teh forest was made up of plants that spit acid and can choke an elephant to death with killer vines, and populated by twenty foot centipedes that eat Rhino tanks for breakfast and shit Terminator armour afterwards.

[SAMAS]

Airless or otherwise inhospitable worlds aren't classified as deathworlds, and humans won't survive there naturally either. A deathworld has to be actively and utterly violently opposed to human or near-human life.

For example: You do not simply die of exposure or other environmental problems on Catachan. The planet literally kills you. Nearly every species of flora and fauna is capable of messily murdering any human that gets near. Or doesn't sleep with one eye open.

Prior infestation by ancient Tyranid advance scouts helps a lot.

[Grasscutter]

The ship landed, cause from orbit, withoutreally checking, it looked like a lush forest world...they just didnt know teh forest was made up of plants that spit acid and can choke an elephant to death with killer vines, and populated by twenty foot centipedes that eat Rhino tanks for breakfast and shit Terminator armour afterwards.

I think you'd actually have Space Marine chapters intentionally dropping Rhino tanks onto the planet if that were true .

[Lancer]

some deathworlds not listed:

Fenris (homeworld of the Space Wolves)
Medeusa (homeworld of the Iron Hands)
Baal (homeworld of the Blood Angels)

[Peregrin Toker]

Airless or otherwise inhospitable worlds aren't classified as deathworlds, and humans won't survive there naturally either. A deathworld has to be actively and utterly violently opposed to human or near-human life.

A planet which Albino and his exodites came across in the fourth or fifth volume of The Technopriests (cannot remember the name of the planet either) may qualify - all of the trees had their branches ending in carnivorous snake heads.


Kamino might also count if it had not allowed the inhabitants to build long-lasting oilrig-like structures like that.

[Stormbringer]

Nah, Arakis is just a desert world. A Tallarn would laugh at it, and a Catachan Jungle Fighter would turn his nose up at a Fremen.

If we're going by the Arrakis of the books, then it would definitely be a death world. The worms are just the least of things with various poisonous plants and animals, not to mention a super-arid climate for most of it's existance. It's got to have a murderous infant mortality rate to judge from the books and only modern tech has kept it from being worse.

[Master of Ossus]

Kamino might also count if it had not allowed the inhabitants to build long-lasting oilrig-like structures like that.

Kamino doesn't sound even close. We're probably talking a Mustafar-type planet, which is ridiculous. Nkllon, I imagine, would also be there, but the lack of fauna on either planet may hurt their application for status as a death world.

[Shortie]

Venus, as in David Drake's The Seas of Venus. It's not Catachan-level, but it's well on the way.

Living on land is downright dangerous even for heavily armed soldiers, and even military bases offshore need constant defence. Plants are at least as lethal as animals, and there are plenty of big fellas.

Plus there are cool battleships.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Pyrrus from Deathworld 1 comes to mind. The life of that world responds to mass hostility ( which 40k people will certainly indulge in ) by attacking the source; it also constantly evolves to better overcome it's enemy. If they were to land on it, it would seem normal at first; then, they'd do something like burn a forest or slaughter a herd of animals. The local life would retaliate; they would shoot back, which provokes greater retaliation; and the cycle is on. Note that all life on Pyrrus is empathic, even the plants; even hostility is enough to provoke a response.

Midworld from the Humanx universe is another example, especially if it doesn't like you.

[Typhonis 1]

lower levels of Kashhyyk The Wookie homeworld

[The Yosemite Bear]

yes but the Genetic Infantry (2000ad Comics), Warworlders (Warworld/Co-Dominion series), Terraformed Venusians (The Green Hell series) and Deathworlders (Harry Harrison's Deathworld)from their own series would probably call the Catchacans and Tallerans wimps.

you should read the originals before going to the 40k johnny's

[Imperial Overlord]

Warworlders (Warworld/Co-Dominion series).

Haven is not even close to a death world. It has some dangerous local fauna, scarce resources, and a thin atmosphere. That just makes a shit hole. It's the humans, augmented or otherwise, which are by far the most dangerous on Haven.

David Drake's Red Liners. Now that's a death world, probably the worst of the bunch.

[The Yosemite Bear]

true, except that under sci-fi definition Haven qualified as a deathworld. The whole fact that the flora/fauna of haven had left hand DNA problem.

the Drake took over Venus from DeCamp, and Redliners.

now the Mars that the GI's were fighting over, after years of NBC warfare, on a barely terraformed enviornment, yeah that definatly qualified as a deathworld. (check rain disolves people, enough Rads to cook your food)

Now Deathworld by harrison was the first world to be called that, and no one else really is quite so bad since then. First off take a 40k deathworld, now imagine that back in the dark ages of humanity some oneused the place as their military test ground. (that's right in addition to the local flora and fauna you have Von Neumann robots running around with weapons, trying to kill any tresspassers into their restricted area of their military test base)

[Imperial Overlord]

true, except that under sci-fi definition Haven qualified as a deathworld. The whole fact that the flora/fauna of haven had left hand DNA problem.

Haven doesn't count. Some of the local flora is edible (only some of the life is left-handed DNA), the fauna isn't any worse than Earth's, and our plants and animals adapt easily. Not a deathworld.

the Drake took over Venus from DeCamp, and Redliners.

It wasn't DeCamp, it was Harry Kuttner, C.L. Moore's husband. Red Liners was completely seperate story and as bad as Harrisons for similar reasons.

[Exonerate]

The planet seen in "Pitch Black" might qualify during the eclipse since without light you die, natural sources of light not from the suns is almost non-existant and the natural monsters are numerous, fast, can fly and come up from underground.

In a similar vein... What about Crematoria from Chronicles of Riddick? I forgot the exact statistics, but exposure to the sun is enough to burn you to dust in seconds. The surface is covered with crevices, lava, etc, and I do believe during the night it reaches temperatures below zero. There are predators (The lava hound), and the only inhabitable place seems to be underground.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Also I made a mistake on Pyrea the world from Harrison's "Deathworld" it doesn wasn't used as a military testing ground...

that was from a computer game I used to play (pilotting a smuggler tank through a deadly wasteland and running like hell from the machine sentries, after a few missions try and sneak back to your ship rondvous and hope you make it off the planet with enough stolen tech to make the run extremely profittable.)

[NecronLord]

Skaro. You will die from radiation poison if you're not on the right drugs, and it has cactus plants that turn you into more such plants if you get pricked.

Which is to say nothing of its sentient inhabitants.

[Murazor]

Not exactly a world, but rather a dimensional plane, but would the Deathgate Laberynth fit the definition?

[NecronLord]

Almost certainly. You needed formidable magic powers to survive there, as I recall.