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Animus Ex Mechanus
Contributed by imperialus
Friday, 08 February 2008

The Animus Ex Mechanus, known commonly as simply The Animus or The

Manual is the holy book of the Tech Priests of Mars. It is unique
among the holy texts of the Imperium as it is not a single book. At
the most fundamental level there are two “version” of the Animus.

The first, designed for laypeople, is a simple primer used by those whose jobs bring them into frequent contact with
machines. It’s written in the vernacular of the locals, rarely runs more than a few hundred pages and contains
instructions for simple rites, prayers, and blessings. Some copies go further and include a basic explanation of what the
spirits that inhabit the machines are and even instructions on how to ascertain the most basic of the moods that might be
commonly encountered. It’s primarily concerned with maintenance instructions for simple machines, things like
basic engines, assembly lines, and data slates.

The Animus Ex Mechanus Totus is the book carried by the tech priests themselves. Typically bound in cold forged iron,
and several thousand pages long, a copy of the Totus is given to each newly ordained Tech Priest after receiving his first
mechanus implant and being accepted into the priesthood. The first third of the book sets out the laws that the Priests
are expected to live by and exalts the beneficence of the Machine God. It explains the Dark Age of Technology, though
like the Vulgate much of the original text has been altered to suit Imperial censors. The second third of the Animus
contains detailed technical drawings and instructions on the myriad of rites ranging from how to start a frozen engine to
how to spread Sacred Machine Oil onto a malfunctioning warp drive. Most interestingly however the remaining third of
the book is completely blank. Priests are expected to add to it themselves as they achieve closer unity with the Machine
Spirits. This means that no two copies of the Animus Totus are the same, as each priest will have spent decades making
it their own. When a priest fills his Animus, it is designed to be disassembled, allowing fresh pages to be added to the
back. Sometimes particularly venerable priests will have multiple volumes since a single book would have grown far
beyond any practical size.

Some priests jealously guard their Animus, writing in complex codes that only they know the key to, while others willingly
share their texts with other priests exchanging technical drawings, and sacred prayers. Most use a combination of the
two, sharing some of their discoveries while attempting to keep others secret. This can result in considerable rivalries
between the priests and even entire forge worlds, sometimes to the detriment of the Empire itself the most infamous are
the occasions when a forge world has fallen and the technology they had been guarding; even from their fellow priests
was lost forever.

Upon the death of a priest his Animus is handed over to the priesthood on Mars, where legions of servitor clerks
catalogue any new discoveries that he made. In the case of coded books dedicated servitors, their brains almost entirely
replaced with logic circuits endlessly search for patterns in the text that could be used to translate it.

Game Effects:

Animus: Reading the Animus allows a character to make a tech-use check on simple machines as though it was a basic
skill. GM's should use their discretion to determine what machines a character can try to repair.

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Animus Totus: Possessing an Animus Totus allows a character to reroll a failed Tech-Use check. The character will need
to spend at least 1-2 hours reading the Animus to find the relevant sections however. By adding a particularly interesting
piece of Archeotech to his Animus a Tech Priest can gain considerable acclaim from his fellows.

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