Well, after a short chat with Kage, it seems I had completely misunderstood his intentions with this thread. I think others may have too. Whilst I immediately thought that he was talking about how we should represent the information on the website, it seems Kage was actually talking about what kind of information we need from each world, in order for it to have value both from a wargame perspective and an RPG/ fictional perspective.
Potato, potatoe you say? Maybe. At any rate, here's my latest suggestion...
I've divided it into three parts. One general section, with name, class, etc, and one section with physical data from UWP, and a third section where the wordy descriptions of government, military and culture go.
-STANDARD REPRESENTATION- (Maybe call it Index Planetarium or something like that )
Planet name I hope this needs little explanation
World class Factory world, shrine world, hive world, feudal world... using GW's classification system, despite its shortcomings.
Population Fairly obvious.
Tech level The Tech level given by the UWP stats. A simple number will do.
Tithe Grade Exactis Extremis, and so forth..
+ + +
Orbital distance No explanation needed...
Equatorial diameterGravityOrbital period As in length of year, in standard terran days
Length of day In standard terran hours
Atmosphere Is there an atmosphere, is it breathable, is it tainted with helium, making everyone's voices really funny on this world, etc...
Surface atmospheric pressureSurface temperature Obviously, temperature will vary tremendously on most Imperial worlds. Min/Max and an average temperature should suffice for this representation though, but a Temperature sheet should be made too.
Hydrosphere Lifeforms A fairly short description, following the Guide's.. guidelines. Protocellullar, thriving ecosystem with sentient, space-faring race, etc.
Moons A short description of planets moons, if any. If these are populated beyond outposts and listening stations, they should probably have their own Representation.
+ + +
Planet descriptionIn lack of a better title... This would be the place where you write "Shitza is a beautiful, but deadly world, covered with blazing hot deserts, great canyons so deep that they can be seen from space, and stormy savannahs which are home to great Grox hordes. The world's sky is blue with a hint of mauve", etc...
GovernmentThis should be fairly obvious. Who is the world's Imperial Commander, how is he chosen, is he part of a council, etc...
ReligionEven if most worlds conform to the standard Imperial creed enforced by the Ministorum, there will be various differences. This is where to write about that.
Society and LawA rather broad category, I'm afraid. This is where you would write about the world's law level, customs, economy special conditions such as caste systems, etc.. I'm sure some of you will want to divide this into more narrow categories, but my thought was that not all worlds will have economy systems that are worth mentioning, nor any important customs other than farting after a good meal. Thus, we have this broad category where people can fill in anything of interest within Society and Law ;D
TechnologyAnother biggie, and yes, I know I wrote Tech level above. This is where you put a more accurate description however, such as medical technology, energy technology, transport technology, military technology, etc.
Trade and TithesAnother obvious one. Does the world do trade with other worlds, what does it import and export, how does it pay its tithes, etc.
PhysiologyThis was something I was originally not planning on, but something I got from Kage. Some of you might consider it rather unimportant, but in RPG and fiction, physical characteristics such as height, skin colour, hair colour, etc can be important.
Of course, this doesn't mean that all worlds have their own specific skin colour, eye colour or even height, but some worlds might. For those familiar with the Tanith, you'll recall that they were described as pale, often with dark hair and blue eyes.
Oh, and feel free to mention the physiology of different populations on one world, like how people on the southern continent are dark skinned with curly hair, whilst the people on the eastern continent are short, kind of yellow and have narrow eyes
PsychologyAnother category which might be rather difficult to fill in. After you've finished the guide though, you will have stumbled across subjects such as progressiveness, aggressiveness and extensiveness. Some world populations will typically be more xenophobic and aggressive, such as in the Castellan subsector, I imagine, whilst other will be more "Peaceable" and Friendly, such as the Meksumians.
Again, I'm not saying that entire world population would fit such stereotypes, but it would be interesting to try and characterize the psychology of world populations for RPG and fiction purposes.
Language and DialectNot all worlds speak the same dialect of Low Gothic, and some don't speak Low Gothic at all. Whether you want the citizens to sound like British royalty, immigrants from Pakistan or Scottish highlanders, this is your chance.
Again, not all worlds have their own dialect nor language.
Planetary Defense ForceOur favourite part, eh?
Pretty self-explanatory.
HistoryAlso very self-explanatory. Major incidents that have shaped the world.
So... what do you think?