Dark Mechanicum Lore

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Dark Mechanicum
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"The path of the Omnissiah has left humanity dithering in the darkness,
incapable of advancing on the paths of knowledge. Embracing the warp
reveals technology that the primitives on Mars could never dream of
wielding."
— Magos Caine of the Five-Fold Path
Dark Mechanicus Icon
The Dark Mechanicum, also sometimes referred to incorrectly as the Dark

Mechanicus, is a sect of traitorous Tech-priests and members of the Collegia
Titanica of the ancient Mechanicum who willingly swore their loyalty to the
Warmaster Horus and the Chaos Gods as the Great Crusade came to a close and the
terrible galactic conflict known as the Horus Heresy erupted in the early 31st
Millennium.
After the Horus Heresy ended in a pyrrhic victory for the Imperium, the traitorous
Forces of Chaos that had served the Warmaster were driven towards the Eye of Terror
during the brutal military campaigns remembered as the Great Scouring. The
Renegade Tech-priests of the so-called Dark Mechanicum were also driven from Mars
by the resurgent Loyalists amongst the newborn Loyalist Adeptus Mechanicus.
These Renegades fled the Imperium into the far corners of the galaxy and some also
took refuge in the Eye of Terror. Over the centuries, their ranks have been swelled by
those Hereteks of the Mechanicus who choose to follow their foul path into forbidden
tech-heresy. In exile, the Dark Mechanicum became even more enthralled to the
power of the Warp and heretical technologies.
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History
A God Incarnate
When the Age of Strife came to an end in the 30th Millennium, the Emperor of
Mankind was determined to bring to fruition His future plans for human unity in a
very hostile galaxy. He knew the time had come to unite all of humanity under one
banner after the destructive birth of the Chaos God Slaanesh in the 30th Millennium
reopened the galaxy to Warp travel and communication .
With the use of genetically-modified warriors who presaged the development of the
first Space Marines, He quickly rose to dominance on Old Earth, uniting the once-
divided nations of Mankind's birthplace during the Unification Wars. He then set His
sights on the wider galaxy, and with His newly-created Space Marine Legions at the
forefront of His great expeditionary fleets, the Emperor launched His Great Crusade
out into the void.
When the Emperor had first come to Mars seeking an alliance between His regime
and the powerful Cult Mechanicus, the Tech-priests had recognised a kindred spirit; a
man of science who valued the power of machines and technological advancement. As
word of the "technological divinity" of this strange golden warrior reached the wider
populace of Mars after the Emperor's first arrival at the Red Planet atop the mountain
of Olympus Mons, some Tech-priests even began to equate the Emperor with the
physical embodiment within the universe of their own Machine God -- the
Omnissiah.
The Emperor forged an alliance with the ancient Mechanicum through the Treaty of
Mars -- an alliance of two empires that marked the true foundation of the Imperium
of Man. In return for supplying the needed materiel for His armies and building a
mighty warfleet in the orbital shipyards of Mars' Ring of Iron for His crusade to
reunite the stars, the Emperor promised to protect the Tech-priests and respect the
autonomy of their Forge Worlds and their freedom to continue to practice their faith.
This was a protection offered despite the official atheism of the Imperial Truth that
the Emperor intended to promulgate across all the other worlds of the newborn
Imperium.
Dissension in the Ranks

For the masses of Mars, the Omnissiah was now a tangible being, a golden figure who
had trod the red surface of Mars. But a small minority believed that the Emperor was
nothing more than a False God who had enslaved the Martian Priesthood to His will
with lies. This bitter resentment, harboured over the next two Terran centuries,
would fester below the surface, until such time when this rancorous hatred would boil
over into a terrible rebellion against the authority of this False God.
This small sect of dissenters believed the Emperor purposely came to Mars in the
guise of the Omnissiah, albeit a false god who came at the head of an army of
conquest. The peace that the Emperor had offered the Mechanicum was illusory, a
conceit designed to conceal a darker truth. These dissenters believed that the
Emperor offered peace with one hand whilst keeping a dagger behind His back with
the other.
In reality, the Emperor's offer was an ultimatum, "Join with me or I will simply take
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what I need from you." Faced with a choice that was no choice at all, the Tech-priests
had been forced to bargain away the autonomy of Mars and see the sacred Red Planet
become little better than a vassal world of Terra, Mars' ancient rival for leadership
among Mankind during the Age of Technology.
Imminent War
Two Terran centuries passed after the signing of the Treaty of Mars, and the
individual known as Kelbor-Hal rose to a position of much prominence within the
Mechanicum. He had become the Fabricator-General of Mars, the master of the Red
Planet's mightiest forge city, Olympus Mons.
The fact that such an ambitious and duplicitous individual ever rose to prominence
and the eventual leadership of the Adeptus Mechanicus is one of the great tragedies of
Imperial history. It is remarkable to Imperial scholars of today that an individual as
extraordinarily gifted as Kelbor-Hal could be so wrong-headed as to bring so mighty
and august a body as the Mechanicus over to the service of heresy and rebellion.
The Fabricator-General knew he should be proud of his accomplishments, for he had

uncovered more of the secrets of technology than any before him and had overseen
the longest reign of increasing production quotas in the Mechanicum’s history. But
pride, like many other emotional responses, had all but vanished as the organic
Cogitator once housed in his skull had been gradually replaced with synthetic
synapses and efficient conduits for logical thought.
The climate on Mars was full of discontent during this tumultuous time in the days
just before Horus openly declared his rebellion against the Emperor. There were
tense relations between the various Mechanicus Magi who governed Mars, with
sporadic outbreaks of espionage and violence being committed against the various
forges that represented the primary sociopolitical units of Mars. There were even
unconfirmed suspicions that the various Titan Legions of the Collegia Titanica, the
most potent military forces available to the Mechanicus, had already secretly chosen
sides in case of a potential conflict.
Rise of the Dark Mechanicum
At the outset of the Horus Heresy, the Warmaster Horus sent Regulus, an Adeptus
Mechanicus representative who had already thrown in his lot with the Warmaster, to
Mars to secure the tentative support of the Fabricator-General of the Mechanicum for
his dreams of rebellion. Kelbor-Hal was skeptical at first, for the Emperor had been
brought to his forge over two centuries earlier, and Kelbor-Hal had been forced to
bend the knee to Him.
The ruler of the once-lowly Terran techno-barbarian tribes had made empty promises
of an equal role in His grand crusade of conquest, but that vaunted equality had never
materialised in the Fabricator-General's view. The Mechanicum continued to toil in
its myriad manufactoria and orbital shipyards across the galaxy's Forge Worlds to
provide the Emperor's armies with the needed weapons of war, but received nothing
for their efforts but platitudes. Kelbor-Hal knew Horus Lupercal was a warrior of
vision, but Kelbor-Hal wanted to know what he could offer in addition to platitudes.
Regulus explained to the Fabricator-General that much had happened since the
Emperor took His leave of the expeditionary forces after the success of the Ullanor
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Crusade and the installation of his favorite son Horus as the Warmaster and his proxy
in command of the Great Crusade. He assured Kelbor-Hal that alignments had
shifted and that new powers emerged from the shadows, offering their aid to those
with the strength of vision to heed them. Horus Lupercal was one such individual,
and he was now assuredly a friend of the Mechanicus.
When it came time to strike at the Emperor and His Imperium, Horus guaranteed to
be a friend to Mars as long as the Fabricator-General gave his loyalty--and his
manufacturing capabilities--over to the cause of the Traitors. Horus also required the
Fabricator-General to quash any dissent amongst his own Tech-priests so that the
forces of the Warmaster would be able to launch their bid for supremacy within the
Sol System without fear of counterattack. Any factions loyal to Terra must be brought
to heel or destroyed before the Warmaster's forces reached the Sol System.
The Fabricator-General informed Regulus that the Warmaster had asked much of
him and the Mechanicus already. They had already delivered, for they had already
ensured that materials and weapons were priority-tasked to those expeditionary fleets
of the Great Crusade that the Warmaster favoured and had delayed shipments to
those not aligned with him. But the Mechanicus had no desire to trade one autocrat
for another.
Regulus assured Kelbor-Hal that the Warmaster pledged to return the Martian
Empire to its former glory, and furthermore, he swore to withdraw any non-
Mechanicum forces from all of the Forge Worlds after the Emperor had been
overthrown. To allay the Fabricator-General's misgivings, the Warmaster promised to
provide the Mechanicum the lost secrets of ancient Standard Template Construct
(STC) technology that had been recovered from the worlds of the recently subjugated
Auretian Technocracy by the Warmaster's Sons of Horus Legion.
The Fabricator-General was impressed with the Warmaster's gift, and admitted that it
was a valuable STC database, but he wanted more. Regulus had anticipated this
demand, and told Kelbor-Hal that the Warmaster promised to lift all restrictions on
research into those technologies like Abominable Intelligence (A.I.) that the Emperor
had declared forbidden. To cement the alliance between the Mechanicum and the
Warmaster and display the Traitors' seriousness about their cause, Horus had
provided Regulus with the protocols required to unlock the infamous Vaults of
Moravec.
The Vaults of Moravec were a repository of forbidden knowledge that the Emperor
had ordered sealed two centuries earlier after the signing of the Treaty of Mars, for
the vaults contained innumerable artefacts of technology that had been fashioned or
corrupted by the malign power of Chaos or were in themselves incredibly dangerous,
such as Warp-based weapons and ancient artificial intelligences. Greedily, the
Fabricator-General struck the dark bargain, accepting Horus' proposal and willingly
joined forces with the Warmaster, assisting the Traitors with all of the technology of
Mankind at his disposal.
Schism of Mars
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Dark Mechanicum forces wage open warfare against the Loyalist Techno-
Magi Koriel Zeth, the Mistress of Magma City
When this repository was reopened, there was all manner of forbidden arcane
knowledge and weaponry that had obviously been tainted by the corrupting influence
of Chaos stored within. Soon the corruption spread throughout the forges and
temples to the Machine God across the Red Planet as scrap code -- Chaos-
contaminated digital source code that was infected with an arcane computer virus --
infested the logi-stacks and Cogitator (computer) archives of the Mechanicum,
causing literal Chaos to emerge in any Cogitator system that was networked to one of
its infected counterparts.
The opening acts of treachery had already occurred, yet the Fabricator-General could
not openly march to war against the Emperor without the appropriate pretense,
providing the excuse to silence his detractors and eliminate his rivals. The Fabricator-
General and his allies amongst what would later be called the "Dark Mechanicum"
used the disruption unleashed by the scrap code attack to bide their time and marshal
the strength of their forces. Kelbor-Hal and his allies also used the tactics of sabotage
and assassination in an attempt to eliminate those who were unwilling to join their
cause.
But the opportunity to go openly to war eventually presented itself when the Techno-
Magi Koriel Zeth, the Mistress of Magma City, declared that she did not believe the
Omnissiah actually existed. This open apostasy from the sacred doctrines of the Cult
Mechanicus was the excuse the forces of the Dark Mechanicum needed to finally wage
open warfare against their enemies, declaring them to be heretics and apostates to the
faith that had been sacred on Mars for millennia.
Magma City would soon become a focal point in the struggle for those amongst the
Mechanicum who remained Loyal to the Imperium. Open warfare eventually erupted
across the Red Planet as Martian forces, both civilian and military, fought one
another in a deadly and escalating civil war known as the Schism of Mars whose
destructiveness mirrored that unfolding in the wider galaxy between Loyalist and
Traitor forces.
Acts of Treachery
To help the Warmaster achieve his goals, Kelbor-Hal oversaw the construction of the
mighty Battleship Furious Abyss in the orbital shipyard of Thule, a former asteroid,
which had been towed by the Mechanicum into orbit of the gas giant of Jupiter in the
Sol System, far beyond prying eyes and questions. This formidable warship was
unlike any other of its kind. It was so heavily armoured that it could withstand even a
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concerted assault from a planetary laser defence battery. It was the greatest and
largest vessel ever assembled by Mankind, unique in every way and powerful beyond
reckoning.
Kelbor-Hal had sanctioned the construction of such a vessel because it suited his
great purpose, namely the burgeoning desire, or rather intrinsic programming, within
the servants of the Machine God to gradually become one with their slumbering deity.
The Emperor had sought to place restrictions upon the Mechanicum's ability to
explore every avenue of knowledge that might lead to a closer unity with the Machine
God.
Horus had promised to remove all of those restrictions and perhaps even open new
vistas of knowledge for the Mechanicus to explore in the form of his allies amongst
the entities of the Warp. Faced with such a choice, the question of Kelbor-Hal's
allegiance and that of the Mechanicus factions loyal to him had required mere
nanoseconds of computation.
The Furious Abyss had been intended to become the new flagship of the traitorous
Word Bearers Space Marine Legion. None could know of the vessel's existence until it
was too late. Steps had been taken to ensure that remained the case. The massive
Battleship had been created with one deliberate mission in mind: the annihilation of
an entire Space Marine Legion. The Word Bearers' ultimate aim as part of the
Warmaster's larger plan of conquest was to infiltrate the Realm of Ultramar in the
Eastern Fringes of the galaxy and attempt to destroy the Ultramarines Legion and
their homeworld of Macragge.
In a final act of treachery, Kelbor-Hal had the Jovian shipyards destroyed once the
Furious Abyss was complete. For the workers at the yards there was no time to flee to
safety, and there were no survivors. Every Tech-priest, Servitor and menial present at
the yards was burned to ash. None would discover the massive starship that had been
fabricated upon the asteroid’s surface until it was much, much too late.
A great deal of precious technology was lost during Thule's destruction and so it
proved to be a steep price for the Traitor elements within the Mechanicum to pay for
the absolute and certain secrecy required to bring to fruition the Warmaster's plan to
destroy the Ultramarines. But in the end, the Fabricator-General's will had been
carried out and the Dark Mechanicum played its part in the tragedy that would
ultimately unfold on a world called Calth.
Horus Heresy
Aside from the human component in the Traitors' ranks, the powers of the
Mechanicum and their kin were also of great importance to the war. Within the ranks
of the burgeoning "Dark Mechanicum," as they became known, could be found
powerful elements of the Martian Priesthood, the Ordo Reductor and the Legio
Cybernetica, along with many of the feared Myrmidon Destructor Cults and a
number of sub-cults which had operated for long years on the edge of tech-heresy, all
drawn together by Kelbor-Hal of Mars.
With them had come the support of more than half of the legions of the Legio
Titanicus as well as dozens of allied Knight Houses, and for much of the Heresy Mars
itself was lost to the Loyalists, while the output and military power of Forge Worlds
such as Sarum, Voss, Cyclothrathe and Stygies VIII had declared for the Traitors, with
others such as Anvilus, Incaladion and Ryza paralysed by civil war.
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Much as with Sarum and Cyclothrathe, other "Renegade" Forge Worlds distrustful of
Mars that the Warmaster Horus had enticed into his cause with the lure of petty
empire-building and freedom of experimentation, Horus offered new treaties of
alliance whose accords the varying ruling Forge Worlds' Mechanicum Synods would
find more to their liking than the old.
By this pact these Forge Worlds would serve the Warmaster's "new Imperium" just as
it had the old, but where they had been used and bled dry callously in the past by a
master who cared nothing for their power or prosperity, under Horus they would
flourish and be rewarded. Gone would be the petty restrictions of the Emperor's
technological edicts -- blocks put in place to avert the spectre of the terrors of Old
Night -- and gone would be the dead hand of Machine Cult dogma, if they so desired,
so long as they offered up their weapons and war machines to the Traitors' cause with
abundance.
The details would prove more torturous and elaborate to finalise, but in secret an
agreement was reached, even while in false faith the lords of these Renegade Forge
Worlds continued to secretly deal with Malcador the Sigillite's emissaries to the
contrary. Many Archmagi sought to play one side against the other, right to the bitter
end.
The Dark Mechanicum wholeheartedly supported Horus during the start of the Horus
Heresy and they participated in the attacks against the Loyalist Space Marine Legions
on Istvaan V where they used dark and forbidden knowledge to help destroy the
Loyalist Astartes. Later, the Dark Mechanicum, led by Kelbor-Hal, unleashed the
terrible civil war upon the Mechanicum known as the Schism of Mars in a bid to
restore the autonomy of the Mechanicum from the Imperium of Man.
This effort ultimately failed when Horus was slain at the end of the Horus Heresy
during the epic Battle of Terra and the Loyalist elements of the Mechanicum
succeeded in driving their Chaos-corrupted brethren from the Red Planet. Many of
these so-called Hereteks of the Dark Mechanicum fled into the Eye of Terror
alongside the other Traitors after the Great Scouring, when the Imperium recovered
most of the territory across the galaxy that had been lost to Horus' Traitor forces.
Post-Heresy
At present, the Tech-priests and Dark Magi of what is now called the Dark
Mechanicum, who are considered Hereteks amongst their counterparts in the Cult
Mechanicus, have pledged their souls to the worship of the Dark Gods of Chaos.
Within the Eye of Terror they continue to service and maintain the war machines and
wargear of the Traitor Legions, the Traitor Titan Legions and the other Forces of
Chaos with equal fervour.
They plumb the depths of secret and forbidden knowledge kept hidden by the
Ruinous Powers. Still dedicated to the acquisition of all knowledge in the universe
much like their Loyalist counterparts, the Dark Mechanicum believes their
uncorrupted brothers and sisters in the Adeptus Mechanicus are fools, for they will
never be able to fully comprehend the divinity that is true knowledge if they cut
themselves off from the secrets offered by the Dark Gods.
The Tech-adepts of the Dark Mechanicum see the Omnissiah of the Cult of the
Machine as being embodied in the power of Chaos Undivided rather than the
Emperor of Mankind. As such, they pledge themselves to the destruction of the God-
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Emperor, who they believe is a false prophet who has led the rest of their fellows
astray.
The members of the Adeptus Mechanicus are horrified by what they view as their
Chaos counterparts' tech-heresy, and feel that the Dark Mechanicum's knowledge is a
blasphemous affront to the Machine God and His Omnissiah, even as they are always
curious to learn more about what their dark brethren are up to...
Beyond the Imperium

The Adeptus Mechanicus hold their darkest hatred for those Renegade forces of their
own brethren that turned on them during the Horus Heresy, Traitors who live on to
this day as the Dark Mechanicum. The forbidden histories of those terrible days show
that the destruction wrought by the Traitors on Mars and in a dozen other spheres of
war was unparalleled, and has left a stain on the soul of the Omnissiah's priesthood
that has never been cleansed.
In the aftermath of Horus' fall, many of the Dark Mechanicum who survived found
sanctuary with the various Traitor Legions and in dark corners of the Imperium
where their terrible arts have prospered and their undying hatred of the Imperium
has festered down through the millennia. The forbidden psycho-sonic weapons of the
Emperor's Children, the gene-atrocities of the hated Fabius Bile, the malign
perversion of the techno-viral technology used to create the terrible Obliterators -- all
have been laid at the Dark Mechanicum's door. Hellish Forge Worlds bestrode by
cyber-daemonic overlords deep within the Eye of Terror ceaselessly churn out the
weapons and munitions that arm the Forces of Chaos and fuel the dreaded Black
Crusades.
The Renegades of the Dark Mechanicum were amongst the first group of those the
Imperium branded as "Heretics," and they willingly fled to the Eye of Terror where
they could live forever beyond the Imperium's control. But the Eye of Terror was not
the only region of space where these Heretics fled to escape the Imperium's wrath.
Though the Imperium is vast, its authority stretching from rim to rim of the galaxy, in
reality there are vast swaths of space that remain hidden from the Emperor's light.
These regions have many names, including but by no means restricted to, the
"outlands," "wilderness space," and the "Halo Stars." Within them, whole civilisations
can rise, prosper, and fall, without once knowing of the wider Imperium that
surrounds them.
The Calixis Sector is one such region of space, lying along the edges of the galaxy, an
established bastion of Imperial control amongst the hazy borders. However, it is
surrounded by regions of space not under Imperial control. The most prominent is
the Koronus Expanse in the Halo Stars, linked to the Calixis Sector by a fluctuating
Warp passage. Beyond this passage, Imperial rule ends, and all manner of human and
xenos civilisations exist unknown and undiscovered. However, there are other
outlands around the Calixis Sector as well, including the Hazeroth Abyss, the fringes
of the Drusus Marches, and the nomad space between the Calixis Sector and the
bordering Ixaniad Sector. The Renegades of the Dark Mechanicum tend to be as
varied as the regions of space they occupy.
Frequently, Hereteks take the form of extended clans that share their knowledge only
through their blood relatives, maintaining a level of understanding about ancient
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technologies or local Warpspace conditions that astounds outsiders. The Adeptus

Mechanicus is particularly sensitive to the existence of such Hereteks (of which those
in the Meritech Clans are a particularly egregious example) and press other Imperial
authorities to mobilise and capture or kill them as a matter of priority. Individual
Renegades sometimes slip into Imperial space to pursue their trade, but they find it a
dangerous place to live. If caught and identified, they are tortured and executed by
the Inquisition with no hope of mercy.
Hell-Forges
"Silent in the Calixian extent are worlds from which the Omnissiah has
withdrawn His blessings. They trail their parent stars like errant
children struck dumb and bloodied. Their ruins are profound, their
catacombs endless, their savages sorrowful - for these wards of the
Imperium of Mankind have paid a great and terrible price for the tech-
heresy of their forbearers."
— Warrus the Secondmost, Indexus Astrae Calixis
Irradial Forge on a Hell-Forge world
There are those servants of Chaos who live beyond the normal ken of mortals within a
realm not entirely of the material universe and not entirely of the Warp: a Daemon
World where the laws of nature and reason have been completely usurped by the
whims of the Ruinous Powers.
Here daemons roam freely and are constantly nourished by the twisting winds of
sorcery as mortals become their playthings with a value only as Chaos Champions or
slaves. Daemon Worlds are a sanctuary for the worshippers of Chaos with the means
and courage to flee to them. The Inquisition never rests in its efforts to eliminate the
devotees of the Dark Gods, but a Daemon World defies even their shadowy reach.
A few Daemon Worlds are dominated by the remnants of the Dark Mechanicum that
once followed Horus. These Dark Mechanicum Hell-Forge worlds are wholly given
over to daemon-machines and infernal industries, where mills grind flesh and
suffering is the currency used to make the insane visions of their nightmarish masters
real. Countless millions are enslaved to work in a world-spanning network of
labyrinthine forges, churning out an endless supply of weapons and armaments for
the Traitor Legions' Long War against the Imperium.
The masters of these Dark Mechanicum Hell-Forge worlds, most now half-daemonic
machines themselves, have long since left the shreds of their humanity behind and
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are beholden to none -- be they mortal or Chaos God. They sell or barter their unholy
inventions and arms to the highest bidder, be they warlord, demagogue, Chaos
Sorcerer or Daemon Prince without favour, and their coin of exchange is always the
same -- new raw materials -- the flesh and souls of slaves for the Dark Forge World's
unquenchable hunger.
These fallen Forges Worlds are enclosed in a perpetual blanket of dark grey clouds.
Below the clouds is the source: stack after stack of vertical pipes rising even to the
lower cloud decks and billowing thick smoke into the acrid air. No sign of the actual
surface can be seen, for all is covered with layered factories, which are burning,
creating, and forging night and day (though there are few who can tell the two apart
given the atmosphere). Robed figures wander without wasteful delay in their tasks,
exposed cloth allowing glimpses of artful mechadendrites or metallic limbs.
Closer examination reveals more of the real nature of these dark worlds. Unhidden,
clear to even a casual glance, is the mark of the Ruinous Powers. Runes and glyphs of
unholy meaning litter walls, declaring patronage to the Dark Gods. Even the Hereteks
carry these marks upon their branded flesh, their allegiance to the Machine God
burned away from their synapses. The forges themselves burn with the terrible smells
of burning blood and scorched flesh, fed by souls as well as Promethium and low-grav
alloys of steel. The blessed Cog Mechanicum is gone, instead there are leering metal
skulls in a circlet of spiked teeth. But the worst thing is that there is no proper, logical
structure to the world. Forge cities rise in random fashion, lurching towards the skies
and deep into the planetary crust at the whims of their Dark Magos lords.
Tech-Heresy
Hereteks
A Heretek and her willing Dark Adept
Because of the nature of their split from the Imperium, these fallen Tech-priests lack
a central authority or consistent belief structure. As a result, their reigning ideology is
far more diverse than that of their former brethren within the Adeptus Mechanicus.
Hereteks may shun the Omnissiah entirely as a false god, worship him as an
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extension of Chaos, or simply ignore their former beliefs to focus solely on their
research.
Even among the unusually open-minded Explorators of the Adeptus Mechanicus,

there are subjects which must be avoided at all cost to remain true to the dictates of
the Machine God. A Heretek enthusiastically violates all such strictures, exploring
xenos technology, archeotech from the Dark Age of Technology, and dabbling in all
facets of technology related to the manipulation of the Warp. He may even be bold
enough to develop entirely new technologies, combining components in forbidden
manners to produce the ultimate tech-heresy for many in the Cult Mechanicus --
innovation.
He may go as far as sharing the tools of his trade and the secrets of its ways with those
who have not been trained in the mysteries of the Machine God. A Heretek actively
seeks out new technology and continuously experiments with new techniques in ways
that were once forbidden. He no longer believes that any information, experiment, or
device can be ignored. Rather, he deliberately focuses on those technologies that the
Mechanicus' teachings once taught him to avoid, with a particular interest in
developing Warp-based technologies.
Few inquiries concerning technology are beyond a Heretek's interest, though

inevitably many of his inventions and much of his research tend towards the
development of tools of destruction. As he builds these weapons for his fellow
devotees, the Heretek has also invariably rebuilt his own body. It may be that he has
few organic components left and those that remain are often marked by the
mutational "gifts" of the Chaos Gods. His cybernetic and sometimes biological
enhancements not only improve his technological acumen, they also grant him
additional abilities in combat. A Heretek is likely to be much physically hardier as
well as much more powerfully armed than even the highest-ranking Magos of the
Mechanicus.
Some in the Imperium think of those referred to as Hereteks to be a unified force, like
the Adeptus Mechanicus itself. This is not the case, as there is no galaxy-spanning
organisation dedicated to tech-heresy, including the Dark Mechanicum, which is
often treated erroneously as being a monolithic entity like the Adepta from which it
schismed. Rather, there are countless fiefdoms and Dark Forge Worlds, each ruled by
a fallen Magos (or several Magi) powerful enough to dominate cadres of their fellows
and enslave Mechanicus thralls and servants. Just like the warbands of the Traitor
Legions and almost all the other servants of Chaos, the corrupt Tech-priests war
amongst each other, or prefer to exist aloof from their fellow servants of the Dark
Gods.
Hereteks often follow a path of constant innovation. A Heretek may be capable of

drawing power for his devices directly from the Warp and controlling them with
summoned Warp entities. He might dabble with concepts of artificial intelligence,
memory transference, or even attempt to capture and preserve the souls of sentient
beings within his devices through his arcane knowledge of the Warp. Many of these
inventors mindlessly hew to the idea that the new and the novel is always preferable
for accomplishing a given end as established techniques. For them, the joy of a new
idea or the recovery of an unknown bit of knowledge is a triumph, even if that idea
has already been made obsolete. With each new advancement, his passion for further
such successes grows as does his appetite for ever more knowledge, regardless of its
source.
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The Heretek is often driven by his hunger for knowledge and is quite willing to use
the Ruinous Powers and their daemonic servants as a source. At other times, he seeks
out xenos technology and archeotech. He may even coordinate raids upon Imperial
strongholds for the sole purpose of recovering their records of where such devices can
be found. In many Hereteks’ minds, there is no greater purpose in life than serving
the cause of the advancement of technology and knowledge. Any sacrifice is justified
in the pursuit of this end.
It is relatively rare for a Heretek to be raised by the Dark Gods as a Daemon Prince.
All too often, Hereteks end up as a component of one of their own inventions, with
too little left of the original body or its personality to even receive such a reward from
the Dark Gods. However, those few who are granted this gift continue to spread their
Chaos-tainted technology across the galaxy.
Heretek Savants
"++No Secutor, you may not move++ Even now conduction filaments are
piercing your neural systems and unworthy flesh++ So they sent you to
find me, did they?++ To carry out the Omnissiah’s judgment on me? ++
Well you found me —or more accurately I found you, foolish puppet of
meat and iron ++ Well, now you will dance on my strings not theirs ++
Ah yes, your last paltry defences fall++ In a way I envy you; in a
moment you will experience the most exquisite of agonies as I rip apart
and overwrite your synapses one-by-one, it should be quite the
experience++ Now Secutor, open wide, Here…I… Am."
— Cognitive data-chain forensically recovered from Secutor

Rho–456-0, aftermath of the destruction of Forge-Control Lathe-
Het Delta-9
A Heretek Savant performing an illicit experiment upon an unfortunate
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victim.
The strictures and dictates of the Adeptus Mechanicus are many and harsh; they form
a labyrinthine and iron-clad code that defines every aspect of the lives of the
Omnissiah's priesthood, including their outlook and practices. Their purpose is as
simple as it is unwavering: to control and regulate knowledge and its use, stifle
blasphemous innovation, and above all maintain the Machine Cult's stranglehold on
the Imperium's technology.
To become a Heretek Savant by that phrase's purest definition is to abandon this

code, at least in the Tech-priest's private thoughts. It is to embrace individual
innovation, experimentation, and free will and stray from the path ordained by the
teachings of the Archmagos Doctrinal. For a Tech-priest to do so is every bit as rare,
as radical and heretical as a Confessor of the Adeptus Ministorum straying from the
Imperial Creed, and the consequences for those that do stray, should their deviation
be discovered, is every bit as harsh.
Although rather than a pyre, Heretek Savants can look forward to having their
cybernetic implants ripped bodily from them while alive and whatever meat that
remains useful recycled into Servitor components to pay for their sins against the
Machine God.
Heretek Savants can come to their Renegade position for a variety of reasons, the
most common of which includes the simple exercising of their free will away from the
structured environments of the Machine God's domains. Such tech-heresy is
particularly prevalent among those Tech-priests who serve in the Explorator cadres
or are assigned to the Inquisition's service.
The consequences of self-reliance and forced adaptation in the field away from help
can affirm the Omnissian faith for some Tech-priests, but for others it can lead them
increasingly to question and to innovate in order to overcome adversity and seek their
own answers. Others come to tech-heresy for darker reasons, such as personal
ambition and the obsessive quest for power and knowledge which will allow them no
respite and lead them to increasingly rail against the narrow confines of the Cult
Mechanicus' approved technologies and patterns.
Regardless, the path of tech-heresy is a dangerous one and as perilous in its own way
as tampering with the powers of the Warp. Exposure to the artefacts and lore of the
alien and the sins of humanity’s ancient past can be every bit as corrupting, both for
the body and the soul.
Secrecy is as vital for Heretek Savants as for any other whose knowledge and actions
would condemn them in the eyes of the Imperium because discovery will lead to
sanction and destruction by the power of the Cult Mechanicus. This usually leads to a
slow distancing of themselves from their fellows in the Mechanicus and a deep-seated
paranoia of discovery. As a result, Heretek Savants rapidly gain a merciless and
suspicious streak centred on their own self-preservation, increasingly favour
implanting (often heretical) weaponry and defensive systems into their own bodies,
and will stop at nothing in the service of the Quest for Knowledge.
Becoming a Heretek Savant is a matter of choice and opportunity rather than

induction into a secret cult or service to a master, and all that is needed is for the
Tech-priest to turn his back on the sacred doctrines of the Omnissiah and have the
will and capability to do so. From this point on, they risk censure and destruction by
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the Cult Mechanicus if their heresies are discovered, and while there is nothing to
stop them furthering their rank and position in the Adeptus Mechanicus, they are
forever more false of heart and must remain eternally vigilant.
Arch-Hereteks
"Those fools and their talk of spirits and rites; technology is cause and
consequence, mechanism and effect, and should not be so restrained and
mishandled as those red-robed simpletons would believe."
— Rephenesti Korvane, Heretek
An Arch-Heretek of the Dark Mechanicum
Within the Eye of Terror and many parts of the Halo Stars there exist those who defy
the dictates and traditions of the Adeptus Mechanicus, choosing to experiment with
technology and try to understand how it works without the sanction of the Cult
Mechanicus. Condemned as techno-heretics, or Hereteks, these individuals are
hunted for their blasphemous acts, and shown no mercy should they be caught.
Many of these individuals flock together for mutual protection and the benefits of
their illicit studies. Such groups often find that the employ of pirates and smugglers
grants them the freedom and mobility they need to survive, and the opportunity to
work with advanced machinery beyond the gaze of the Mechanicus.
Over the years, certain Hereteks have arisen in the Koronus Expanse accompanied by
tales of infamous actions. Their sinister reputations have generated a collective
moniker amongst the low-born populaces from Footfall to Damaris. Now in the
Expanse a fallen Tech-priest of sufficient skill and infamy is likely to be labelled an
Arch-Heretek by the populace. Though there are no set criteria for what makes an
Arch-Heretek, they are often a match for true Tech-priests and Explorators in terms
of their understanding and proficiency with machines. The greatest of them were
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once Tech-priests themselves, now turned from the worship of the Omnissiah. Arch-
Hereteks are highly valued by void-faring criminals, both for their expertise in all
things technical and their unique abilities.
Notable Hereteks
The traitorous Fabricator-General of Mars, Kelbor-Hal
Kelbor-Hal - Kelbor-Hal was once the Fabricator-General of Mars, the

political leader of the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Magos Mechanicus of the
Cult Mechanicus during the latter days of the Great Crusade and the Horus
Heresy in the early 31st Millennium. When the Horus Heresy began, he
willingly swore allegiance to the service of the Warmaster Horus and the Forces
of Chaos, becoming the first leader of the Dark Mechanicum. In the name of his
new allegiance, Kelbor-Hal would unleash the terrible civil war known as the
Schism of Mars upon the Red Planet, the sacred heart of the faith of the
Machine God. The ultimate fate of the traitorous Fabricator-General Kelbor-Hal
is not recorded in Imperial records.
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Master Adept Lukas Chrom
Lukas Chrom - Adept Lukas Chrom was the Forge Master of the mightiest
forge temple of Mondus Gamma on Mars during the Great Crusade and Horus
Heresy eras. He pledged his support for the Warmaster Horus alongside his
master, the Fabricator-General Kelbor-Hal. Chrom was quite large, his wide-
shouldered frame swathed in a deep crimson robe that did little to disguise the
many mechanised enhancements with which he had been blessed. Ribbed pipes
and cables looped around his limbs and linked into a hissing power pack that
rose like a set of wings at his back. His human face had long since been replaced
by an iron mask fashioned in the form of a grinning skull. Wires trailed from the
jaw and a pulsing red light filled both eye sockets. Besides his contemporary
Urtzi Malevolus, Adept Chrom was considered one of Kelbor-Hal's most trusted
followers, a Tech-adept who had followed the Fabricator-General's lead in all
things, and who had sworn the strength of his forge city to the Kelbor-Hal's
cause. An insufferable and arrogant individual, Chrom enjoyed the favour of the
Fabricator-General in return. Chrom secretly constructed a deadly war robot
known as the Kaban Machine which possessed the forbidden technology known
as A.I. (Abominable Intelligence). Despite his best attempts to keep the project
concealed from his contemporaries, there were rumours of the work that he was
pursuing in his forge -- experiments on war engines designed with artificial
sentience. Each time a rumour of this machine surfaced, the data conduits
whispered the name "Kaban," a play on the ancient Gyptian word for their "god"
Horus. This implied that the Kaban Machine had been built for Horus Lupercal.
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Eventually, Adept Chrom unleashed his creation upon the plasma reactors
controlled by the Loyalist Mechanicum Adept Maximal in the Gigas Fossae, in a
covert attack intended to test the Kaban Machine's abilities. Much of the
opposition the machine encountered was destroyed until it was sighted by one
of the Knights of Taranis, a Loyalist Knight House stationed on Mars. The
Kaban Machine was engaged by one of the Knights, but the Loyalist war engine
struggled against the formidable sentient machine. After the reactors of the
Gigas Fossae exploded, the Kaban Machine seemed to suddenly disappear
without a trace. But unfortunately, it would be discovered intact by an innocent
cargo hauler by the name of Quixus, who was in turn discovered by Forge
Master Chrom and his Skitarii forces. Chrom had his foul creation turn his
weapons on the lowly Menial and execute him. Chrom, after successfully testing
the Kaban Machine, commanded it to seek out and terminate one Dalia Cythera
-- a young Terran girl bestowed with the very unique psychic ability to
subconsciously tap into the total sum of knowledge housed within the
Immaterium. Cythera was saved from execution for altering a piece of
Mechanicum technology in violation of the Machine Cult's sacred proscription
against innovation and brought to Mars by High Adept Koriel Zeth, the Mistress
of Magma City, who sought to employ her skills in constructing a device that
could transcribe all knowledge from the Warp -- the Akashic Reader. Cythera
created the device, but to function it required vast quantities of psychic energy.
Such an amount could only be harvested from the Astronomican during Mars'
and Terra's mutual alignment. By pure coincidence, this alignment occurred at
the same time as Fabricator General Kelbor-Hal and the Adept Regulus opened
the Vaults of Moravec, an ancient repository of forbidden technology, thus
releasing viral Scrapcode upon the Red Planet. The Akashic Reader, however,
proved to be unable to channel such amounts of psychic energy due to a
miscalculation, and the Emperor's Warp-energy flooded Magma City, shielding
it from all attacks by the Chaos-spawned Scrapcode. The Dark Mechanicum on
Mars were puzzled and made afraid by this development, and when they
learned that Cythera was responsible for the protection of Magma City, they
decided that she must be terminated. The Kaban Machine, following one failed
attempt on her life, finally tracked the girl down near the entrance to the Noctis
Labirynthus. At that point, Cythera and her companions would have certainly
died, were it not for two Knights of House Taranis who had been tracking the
sentient machine ever since the destruction of Maximal's plasma reactor. The
Knights succeeded in overcoming the Traitor robot by outwitting its A.I., but
both of their own war engines were damaged in the fight.
Ancient Remembrancer sketch of the infamous Archmagos Yelav

Draykavac
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Yelav Draykavac - The infamous Dark Mechanicum Archmagos Yelav

Draykavac of the Cyclothrathe Mechanicum first rose to prominence in the
Horus Heresy during the wars of the Coronid Deeps, and would go on to
become one of the most accursed and hated figures of the Dark Mechanicum.
Declared Heretek Ultima by the Great Synod of Martian Unification, and held
responsible for, among other atrocities, the Genocide of Goth, the Lucine
Travesty and the death of the seventeen worlds of the Donia League, his long
war would extend far into the Great Scouring and beyond. His ultimate fate was
yet to be ascertained, though his warship the Sacra Astra's abandoned hulk was
discovered adrift in the Maelstrom. In its encrypted data-archive was be found
much of the extent knowledge of the Dark Mechanicum now possessed by the
Adeptus Terra. This dark archive contained many unexpurgated strategic
reports, personal analysis and djinn-data from Draykavac's many battles,
including a detailed account of the counter-invasion of the Agri-World of
Numinal.
Master Adept Urtzi Malevolus
Urtzi Malevolus - Adept Urtzi Malevolus was a Forge Master during the Great
Crusade and Horus Heresy eras who was loyal to the traitorous Fabricator-
General Kelbor-Hal and his Dark Mechanicum. Besides his contemporary Lukas
Chrom, Urtzi Malevolus was considered one of Kelbor-Hal's most trusted
followers, a Tech-adept who had followed the Fabricator-General's lead in all
things, and who had sworn the strength of his forge city to Kelbor-Hal's cause.
Master Adept Malevolus favoured dark bronze for his face mask, and a trio of
green augmetic eyes set into the metal illuminated the interior surfaces of his
red hood. Malevolus' red robes were fashioned from vulcanised rubber, thick
and hard-wearing, and a monstrously large power pack was affixed to his back,
its bulk held aloft by tiny anti-gravitic suspensor fields. Remote probe robots
darted back and forth from his body, kept in check by the coiled cables that
connected them to the senior Adept. He later openly supported the Dark
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Mechanicum forces during the Schism of Mars. Following the end of the
Heresy, his ultimate fate is unknown.
Regulus - Regulus was a high-ranking Tech-adept during the Great Crusade
and Horus Heresy era. He had granted his forge and all its holdings to the
Fabicator-General Kelbor-Hal when he had left to accompany the Warmaster
Horus and his 63rd Expeditionary Fleet to the furthest corners of the galaxy
during the Great Crusade. He had once served as an emissary for the Adeptus
Mechanicus to the emissaries of the new Imperial government established on
Terra, honing his diplomatic skills. Horus later sent Regulus, who had already
thrown in his lot with the Traitors, to Mars to secure the tentative support of the
Fabricator-General for the Warmaster's cause. Regulus convinced the
Fabricator-General of the Warmaster's resolve to support increased autonomy
for the Mechanicus against the autocratic rule of the Emperor. As a show of his
appreciation for the Fabricator-General's support, Horus provided information
to Kelbor-Hal through Regulus that allowed the Tech-priest to open a repository
of forbidden knowledge known as the Vaults of Moravec, which the Emperor
had ordered sealed two centuries earlier -- for they contained innumerable
artefacts of technology that had been fashioned or corrupted by the malign
power of Chaos. But their dark bargain was struck, and the Fabricator-General
accepted Horus' proposal and joined forces with the Warmaster, assisting the
Traitors with all of the technology of Mankind at his disposal. Regulus' ultimate
fate following the Horus Heresy is unknown.
Blind King - In 550.M37, during a dark period of history for the Imperium,
known as the Occlusiad War, the northwestern fringe of the galaxy was being
ravaged by the Heretek cult known as the Apostles of the Blind King. The Blind
King's cult viewed humanity's very existence as an affront to the Machine God.
The Apostles uncovered wondrous artefacts lost in the Dark Age of Technology
that allowed the creation of supernovae from the hearts of living suns.
Constellations were forever changed as the Apostles purged the outer
Segmentum Obscurus. War raged for a decade, until the Navigator Joyre
Macran discovered the palace-warship of the Blind King hidden in a fold of
Warpspace. Escaping with his knowledge, Macran guided the Emperor-class
Battleship Dominus Astra to the palace's location. The Blind King is killed when
the Dominus Astra's Lance batteries pierce the palace-warship's hull, and
without their leader's prescience the Apostles were swiftly overcome and
exterminated.
Decius Abraxas - Once a disciple of Paracelcus Thule, Abraxas became
convinced that the Omnissiah's greatest truths were hidden beyond the Calyx
Expanse, claiming that these mysteries were evident in the psycho-technology
of certain xenos races, notably the dreaded Yu'vath. Defying the tenets of the
Mechanicus, Abraxas sought to unlock the ultimate secrets of the universe by
awakening the psychic potential sleeping in the relics of dead empires. For more
than a century, Abraxas explored the Expanse, from the Heathen Stars to the
Accursed Demesne and beyond into the Unbeholden Reaches and Alenic
Depths, delving into the darkest recesses in search of artefacts resonant with
psychic power. Amassing a hoard of xeno-technology, Abraxas and his disciples
undertook some of the most heinous experiments imaginable (at least in the
eyes of the Mechanicus), integrating proscribed alien artefacts into their own
bodies and fusing the machine-spirits of their holy augmetics with these profane
xenos devices. Though unsubstantiated by any verifiable eye-witness accounts,
rumours abound that Abraxas and his acolytes were able to channel the psychic
energies of these artefacts through dormant areas of their minds and manifest
abilities akin to those of the most potent psykers in the Imperium. While
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Abraxas himself disappeared into the Rifts of Hecaton nearly seven decades
ago, several of his students still wander the Expanse, following in their master's
footsteps.
Heretek Etolph Cycerin
Etolph Cycerin - Tech-adept Etolph Cycerin was once a loyal servant of the
Adeptus Mechanicus. He was stationed on the Mechanicus Forge World of
Hydra Cordatus at the planet's single Imperial bastion -- a citadel and
manufactorum complex known as the Tor Christo, which secretly contained
stored tithes of Space Marine gene-seed. Sometime during the 13th Black
Crusade in 999.M41, an unnamed Warsmith of the Iron Warriors Traitor
Legion, under the orders of Abaddon the Despoiler, attacked Hydra Cordatus in
order to steal the hidden stores of Imperial Fists gene-seed that was kept there.
It was Adept Cycerin who commanded the outer defences of the Imperial
citadel. When a Chaos Dreadnought smashed its way into his strike-hardened
bunker, Cycerin prepared to sell his life dearly, but was spared due to the
unexpected intervention of the unnamed Warsmith. The Iron Warriors then
proceeded to infect their captive with a techno-virus that altered Cycerin's
organic and mechanical bio-components, leaving the Tech-adept hungry for
even further change. He later willingly turned to Chaos to satisfy these cravings,
serving the Iron Warriors and the Warsmith who attacked Hydra Cordatus'
successor, Honsou. As Cycerin continued to change, he all but gave up the rest
of his humanity as he became an amalgamation of Dark Mechanicum
machinery and mutated flesh suspended inside Chaos-tainted amniotic gel.
During the second attack on Calth against the Ultramarines, led by the
Warsmith Honsou and his large Chaos warband known as the Bloodborn,
Cycerin was able to interface and launch scrap-code (computer virus) attacks
from the Warsmith's command vehicle, known as the Black Basilica, that
overwhelmed and shut down the Ultramarines' defences. Cycerin was close to
overwhelming the Loyalist Magos Vianco Locard's defences and seizing control
of the Praetorian Gun Servitors deployed on the Ultramarines' side, but was
thwarted in his attempts by Raven Guard Captain Aethon Shaan, who had
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secretly infiltrated the command vehicle, killing Cycerin shortly before blowing
up the Black Basilica with demolition charges.
Exospectre - The Exospectre is the undisputed master of Forge Castir, self-
proclaimed heir to Hellwhisper, and -- for the present -- pre-eminent Arch-
Heretek of The Hollows. The Exospectre is a name that rings with dread and
glory in equal measure across many of the Gloaming Worlds. The Exospectre
has no other name that is known within the Screaming Vortex, but rumours and
conjecture of his origins are nearly ubiquitous throughout the Gloaming
Worlds. In appearance, he is a towering figure over two metres in height, his
bulky form concealed by layers of mouldering, ragged robes that swathe him
from head to toe. A host of slithering Mechadendrites are all the limbs he
requires, and the susurrus of oiled metallic scales accompanies his every move.
Eccentric even by the standards of Hereteks, the Exospectre does not normally
speak, preferring instead to plug one of his Mechadendrites into a number of
Servitors specially-modified to issue his commands. Some agents of the
Inquisition have claimed that the Exospectre possesses multiple bodies, each
kept in its own stasis chamber connected to a transmat altar. Despite his
formidable reputation, many Hereteks seek out the Hollows in order to
apprentice themselves to the Exospectre and learn what they can of his secrets.
The style of technology within Forge Castir is a product of the Exospectre's
genius intellect and desire for precision-crafted individual works; nearly all of
the technology he personally oversees requires vast amounts of resources and
time due to his search for perfection in every rivet, cog, and node. Amongst the
Exospectre's finest creations are the Aposticators, the Tech-Assassins and their
Velocireaper hunting packs, the Prophitects, and the Excrucimancers.
Furnace Lord - On the Dark Forge World of Samech located within the
Jericho Reach, the Magi of Samech create profane combinations of authorised
Imperial technologies, unconsecrated archeotech, unholy creations of Chaos,
and even the inhuman workings of the xenos. These abominations represent the
real nature of Samech -- a world where nothing is forbidden when it will garner
influence and stature, of technology and knowledge brokers willing to deal with
anyone or anything as long as payment is made, of agents ever searching for
undiscovered technologies to exploit. Samech is more than a simple fallen Forge
World, it is a planet in constant tension between dozens of rival forge cities,
each fighting, scheming, and struggling for dominance. Only the forge that can
intimidate, bribe, and irrefutably demonstrate its mastery of all technology is fit
to rule Samech and its Magos to proclaim himself the Furnace Lord. Such rule
extends only so long as another forge does not topple it through their own
exhibitions of more powerful weaponry, alliances with xenos and Chaos
warhosts, or access to lost archeotech. The current Furnace Lord keeps his
heavily augmented head above his rivals by ensuring his personal agents are the
first to uncover new technologies for the power of his forge. These agents scour
the Reach in their infamous spiderships, questing even into the Black Reef or
the devoured worlds far rimward of the Drift in search of technological riches
they can exploit.
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Heretek Illucis Grizvaldi
Illucis Grizvaldi - The notorious Heretek Illucis Grizvaldi and his Heretek
cult followers are known to prey upon Imperial fears in regards to the immortal
soul and its possible destruction. They do so by heavy-handed use of Oblivion
Volitors. These devices are a corrupted and clumsy pattern of neuroaugmetic;
when surgically implanted into the brain, an Oblivion Volitor turns a man into a
soulless "Obliviate." Obliviates are empty shells, living on after the soul is
consigned to nothingness. Hereteks further augment Obliviates with crudely
implanted blades and metal fangs, so as to use them like attack animals. They
debase the divine form of Mankind by whipping Obliviate packs to savage their
foes. But the true weapon is terror -- terror of oblivion brought to cherished
souls, terror that the God-Emperor’s protection is sundered. To the perception
of a psyker, there is little difference between an Obliviate and an aggressive
Combat Servitor. Illucis Grizvaldi held court for his Heretek vermin upon the
world of Scintilla at the opening of the 8th century of M41. Newly made
Obliviates were leashed and naked -- bloody, drooling, and empty-eyed. The
idea that those torn souls would never feel the God-Emperor’s embrace put
terror into Imperial hearts. The Arch-Heretek had destroyed for all to see the
essence of the faithful by means of the heavy, clacking augmetics embedded in
their skulls. It was through such tools of fear and death that Illucis Grizvaldi
held sway over his underhive domain on Scintilla before the Inquisition forced
him to flee. Grizvaldi still remains at large to this day, his current whereabouts
unknown.
Umbra Malygris - The infamous Renegade Magos Umbra Malygris, known to
Inquisitorial records as Malygris the Damned, led a widespread and insidious
Heretek cult that flourished in the Malfian Sub-sector of the Calixis Sector in
the 6th century of M41. Many great crimes against both Imperial Law and the
Cult Mechanicus’s own doctrines were laid against him, including the
fashioning of forbidden silica animus, corpse vivication and the unleashing of
experimental viral strains on unsuspecting populations to test their effects.
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Eventually the Renegade was tracked down and he and his followers destroyed
in bloody confrontation with a joint Inquisitorial-Mechanicus purgation. Since
then, his works and researches have been brutally, but not completely,
suppressed.
Magos Phayzarus, the Perjurer
Phayzarus - Magos Phayzarus, the Perjurer, is one of the most notorious of the
heretical Magi of the Dark Forge World of Samech in the Jericho Reach, whose
desecrations not only encompasses the machine, but also the Machine Cult's
sacred Quest for Knowledge. Once a respected scion of Forge Dimeris,
Phayzarus specialised in penetrating the datacrypts of human memory. Over
time he developed a vast network of Cogitators that could extract crude
meaning from the neuroelectrical readings of a subject’s brain. While the other
Magi of Dimeris were content to reap the secrets his discoveries revealed, it was
not enough for Phayzarus’ addiction to knowledge. In the seventh century of
M41 he obtained the corpse of a fallen Space Marine and extracted the warrior’s
Omophagea organ for study. After years of analysis, splicing, and self-
experimentation, Phayzarus succeeded in replicating the Omophagea’s
memory-absorbing abilities by grafting a sample of the organ into his own
spine. He did not long enjoy his success before the new tissue began to fail.
Without the divine interaction with the source of the Space Marines’ blessings,
the Progenoid Gland, his ill-gotten gift began to fade. In order to maintain his
covetous hold, Phayzarus reforged himself for a single, unimaginable purpose:
to hunt Space Marines. He turned all of Samech’s forbidden science to his
cause, re-making his body into a self-repairing amalgam of metal and artificial
flesh to rival a member of the Adeptus Astartes. Using subsumed knowledge, he
acquired powerful archeotech, and ruthlessly documented every scrap of
wisdom and every verse of battle doctrine he could absorb concerning the
Angels of Death.
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Arch-Heretek Nomen Ryne
Nomen Ryne - The Arch-Heretek Nomen Ryne has plagued Tech-priests of

the Malfian and Golgenna Sub-sectors of the Calixis Sector since he issued his
Precepts Mechanicus in the 4th century of M41. Originally a Levelist, he taught
a tech-focused form of that suppressed creed of equality: that the God-Emperor
provided Mankind with technology as weapon and shield against the darkness
and that it was His most ardent desire that all men be so armed, equally and in
brotherhood. Ryne declared the Mechanicus to be slavemasters and sought to
spread tech-knowledge to all. Nomen Ryne vanished into hiding several years
after the issuance of his Precepts, declared Heretek by the Mechanicus and
Heretic by the Adeptus Ministorum. The Cult of Sollex hunted Ryne’s followers
most zealously, as their number included many known for their skill in
constructing unsanctioned Cogitators. The Mechanicus' hatred of Ryne has not
diminished, as his name and influence have only grown over the centuries.
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Heretek Savant Cyyrik Scayl
Cyyrik Scayl - Cyyrik Scayl is a Tech-priest Magos of the Lathe Worlds, the
Forge Worlds of the Calixis Sector. Cyrrik Scayl left behind his homeworld of
Hadd to serve in the Ordo Hereticus in the 7th century of M41. During his time
with the Inquisition, Scayl became obsessed with tech-heresy, deeming it
endemic to the Calixis Sector. He became famous for his long-winded rants that
the Inquisition should take a deeper notice of blasphemies against the
Omnissiah occurring under its purview. When his clumsy attempts at oratory
failed, Scayl withdrew from the Ordo to pursue Hereteks personally. Once in the
field, Scayl found his perspective changing. An encounter with the Arch-Heretek
Nomen Ryne led to an epiphany for Scayl, and rather than hunting Hereteks, he
joined their number as an ardent convert.
Votheer Tark - Votheer Tark was a senior Tech-adept of the Dark
Mechanicum who joined the Warsmith Honsou's Bloodborn warband of Iron
Warriors and the Daemon Prince M'kar before the invasion of Ultramar in
999.M41. Tark's warband participated in the bloody contest known as the Skull
Harvest, hosted by the Renegade Chaos Lord Huron Blackheart on the world of
New Badab, located within the Maelstrom. When Honsou won the Skull
Harvest, Tark swore allegiance to the Warsmith after his victory. By the time of
the invasion of Ultramar, Votheer Tark had all but given up his organic body,
and was little more than scraps of tissue and brain matter, preserved in an
amniotic vat, suspended within a spider-like machine that appeared deceptively
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fragile. When Honsou dispersed his Bloodborn forces across several planets
within the Realm of Ultramar, Tark's forces deployed to the world of Quintarn.
There, he quickly planted a series of Dark Mechanicum forges across the planet.
With these Dark Forges, Tark was able to convert salvaged agricultural
machinery and the wreckage of destroyed war machines into refurbished war
engines. With this ability to replace his losses with impunity, Tark's forces soon
overran many of the cities and quickly began to outnumber the Ultramarines
forces deployed against them. Though Tark lacked strategic acumen and failed
to grasp essential military tactics, the overwhelming numbers of his forces and
his ability to replace his losses soon put the Ultramarines on the defensive.
Perceiving the threat that Tark's forges presented, Ultramarines Scout Sergeant
Torias Telion valiantly led a group of Scout Marines behind the Forces of Chaos'
lines. The Ultramarines were then able to infiltrate the Dark Forges and destroy
them from within. Losing his single advantage, Tark's forces were soon routed
by the wrathful Ultramarines. It is not known whether Votheer Tark survived
the Bloodborn's defeat. His current whereabouts are unknown.
Paracelsus Thule - Many standard centuries old, Archmagos Paracelsus
Thule's Explorator fleet disappeared out beyond the edge of Mankind's domain
for decades at a time. It is said to be vast, and many Explorator Tech-adepts and
Magi have served under his tutelage over the years, passing on his teachings to
their juniors in turn. Thule's instruction centres on identifying pre-Imperial
human technologies and sets the goal of finding the relics of Mankind's glorious
past above all other concerns and risks. This lack of caution makes Thule and
those following him something of a radical faction within the Cult Mechanicus,
but a powerful and influential one in the Calixis Sector. Thule's disciples centre
their pursuit of the Quest for Knowledge entirely on analysis and study, valuing
the acquisition of pure knowledge above all other concerns like engineering or
other applied sciences. They disdain physical confrontation and are often so
wrapped up in cogitation they fail to notice what is in front of them. Some
Inquisitors appreciate this curiosity in their Tech-priests, finding it preferable to
the narrow thinking and conservatism many others of their kind demonstrate,
even though curiosity almost always carries its own dangers. Thule's beliefs
formed the basis for the radical faction of the Adeptus Mechanicus within the
Calixis Sector, known as the Disciples of Thule.
Ammicus Tole - The Arch-Heretek Ammicus Tole controls the decaying world
of Sinophia and its corrupted Sinophian Machine Cult. He fled to Siophia to
hide there from the Inquisition. Tole’s followers include Tech-witches,
Hereteks, and lesser Chaos Sorcerers who clutch at words written by their
master. Their tech-knowledge is a mix of rote practicality and mysticism, gained
either from tortured Mechanicus Adepts or gleaned from Tole’s own writings.
The Tome of Ammicus Tole, while largely consisting solely of heretical
ramblings, hides true Warp-rituals and working device-patterns. Most Tech-
witches possess only a few pages or fragments within a failing dataslate. To all
but his inner circle, Ammicus Tole is a rumour -- a distant and hidden lord of
tech-heresy.
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The infamous Heretek Magos Vathek
Vathek - Little is known of Magos Vathek's career, before he was cast out from
the Adeptus Mechanicus and became a hunted Renegade. It is thought that he
was a student of Archmagos Thule before some incident or event drove him
mad, turning him into a Renegade hunted equally by the Inquisition and the
forces of the Machine Cult. Vathek is obsessed with acquiring and perfecting
dark technological lore. In particular, he desires the technological means to
restore full life to dead tissue, although he is also known to have created
forbidden weaponry, crafted flesh Gholams, and experimented with a variety of
prohibited alchemical and energy systems. His forbidden experiments are
already reckoned to have cost upwards of 3,000 lives. Aside from his drive for
dark scientific lore, Vathek appears to have no known goals or plans. He also
does not cooperate with or serve others, fashioning only unliving Servitors as
his needs arise. Some theorise that Vathak’s true obsession is somehow
discovering a means to restore biological life to his own decaying flesh. Vathek’s
current whereabouts and activities remain unknown.
Notable Heretek Cults
Apostles of the Blind King - In 550.M37, during a dark period for the
Imperium known as the Occlusiad War, the northwestern fringe of the galaxy
was ravaged by a Heretek cult of rogue Tech-priests known as the Apostles of
the Blind King. The Blind King and his followers viewed the very existence of
weak, organic humanity as an affront to the Machine God. The Apostles
uncovered wondrous artefacts lost in the Dark Age of Technology that allowed
the creation of supernovae from the hearts of living suns. Constellations were
forever changed as the Apostles purged the outer Segmentum Obscurus. War
raged for a decade, until the Navigator Joyre Macran discovered the palace-
warship of the Blind King hidden in a fold of Warpspace. Escaping with his
knowledge, Macran guided the Emperor-class Battleship Dominus Astra to the
palace's location. The Blind King was killed when the Dominus Astra's Lance
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batteries pierced the palace-warship's hull, and without their leader's Warp-
gifted prescience the Apostles were swiftly overcome and exterminated.
Children of Ryne - The Children of Ryne are a Heretek cult that arose with
the spread of the Levelist heresy of the notable Arch-Heretek Nomen Ryne, and
the Children now worship him as a saint. Through his creation of the constructs
known as False-Men (machines built to appear as heavily augmented Tech-
priests) the Children of Ryne believe the False-Men bring messages and new
tech-patterns from Nomen Ryne himself.
Empyric Engineers - The Heretek splinter of the Mechanicus known as the
Empyric Engineers operate within the Calixis Sector in the Segmentum
Obscurus. They are known to employ numerous device-patterns to turn the
Warp upon itself and annihilate daemons that transgress upon their labours.
Vast Warp-machines stand within hidden strongholds of the Engineers, used to
draw forth the essence of the Empyrean and imprison it within null-field
containments for study. Empyric Engineers who infuse the Warp into their
machinery are rarely insane -- at the outset of their labours at least. This
Heretek faction is also known for creating a foul device known as an Immateria
Ward -- a form of null-field projector and Machine Spirit cogitation core
intended for armour, portable shield-walls, and other similar devices. They
understand the need for protection from corrosive Warp-energies, and so turn
to Heretekal archeotech lore concerned with creating Machine Spirits that can
channel the Warp. The Empyric Engineers have long granted Immateria Wards
to their allies as a form of compact—in return for the loyalty of the Hereteks
their allies are expected to embrace Dark Tech. Thus the ward sigil has become
a reviled symbol of the outcast Empyric Engineers in the eyes of Loyalist
members of the Mechanicus like the militants of the Cult of Sollex, whose Magi
direct Auxilia Myrmidon hunter-cohorts far and wide across the Calixis Sector
to slay those who bear the sign of the Heretek Empyric Engineers. Mere
association with the owner of an Immateria Ward bears a risk of death at the
hands of the servants of the Machine Cult—or worse, a short life connected to
the interrogation machinery of a Magos-Militant.
Logicians - The Logicians are an alliance of Heretic factions who have long
been a thorn in the side of the Calixis and the nearby Ixaniad Sectors. Founded
not around a single charismatic figure or dark religion, they find their
inspiration in a forbidden heretical text called In Defence of the Future: A
Logical Discourse. Banned now for several millennia, the Logicians are a so-
called "progressive" cult, favouring the advancement of Mankind through
progress and the acquisition of technology, believing that they should cast off
the oppression of the Adeptus Ministorum, overthrow the High Lords of Terra
and put an end to the smothering constraints of the Adeptus Mechanicus.
Ultimately, the Logicians aim to bring about a return to the mythic power of the
Dark Age of Technology. Finding adherents through a secret network of ruthless
mercantile interests and power-hungry nobles, they are a haven for Hereteks
and rogue Tech-priests, and are highly organised and well resourced. Although
no daemonic force or apocalyptic agenda lies at their heart, the Logicians are
still a phenomenally dangerous group, utterly callous in their pursuit of power
and unceasing in the hunt for ever better weapons and tools by which to achieve
their ends.
Malygrisian Hereteks - This Heretek cult is comprised of the corrupt
followers of the infamous Renegade Magos Umbra Malygris, who led this
widespread and insidious cult that once flourished in the Malfian Sub-sector of
the Calixis Sector in the 6th century of M41. Eventually the Renegade was
tracked down and he and his followers destroyed in a bloody confrontation with
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a joint Inquisitorial-Mechanicus purgation force. Since then his works and

researches have been brutally, but not completely, suppressed. Despite the
sanctions against it, Malygris’s lore persists, kept alive in no small part by those
Tech-priests tasked to hunt down rebellious members of the Mechanicus itself,
much in the same way as the more Radical factions of the Inquisition seek to
turn the tools of the Archenemy against its own followers, risking destruction at
the hands of their own kind. Some Heretek Malygrisian Tech-priests, later
purged from the foundry wards of Port Wrath, practiced a form of mutational
bioforging upon their workers to both improve their quotas and control them,
body and soul. For all the dreadful consequences of the bioforging’s eventual
failure, the wealthy and powerful have since been tempted by the possibilities of
the body remade, both for their "chosen servants" and even for themselves, and
the secrets of this blasphemous technology have spread to several worlds across
the sector despite a ban by both the Inquisition and the servants of the Machine
Cult.
Tech-Witches of Ammicus Tole - This Heretek cult is made up of the
corrupt followers of the Arch-Heretek Ammicus Tole, who rules the decaying
and dying world of Sinophia in the Calixis Sector. To all but the inner circle,
Ammicus Tole is a rumour -- a distant and hidden lord of tech-heresy. The cult
of Ammicus Tole has made its mark upon Sinophia, its heresy overflowing to
taint the poor and the villainous. Sinophia is a decaying world, its civil
structures failing, its ancient grandeur rotted. Ruins of the past loom tall,
towering above squabbling noble courts and the half-hearted Imperial caste.
The Sinophian Machine Cult is as corroded as the manufactories and spires it
once diligently maintained. It has fallen into mind-rust -- a mix of disarrayed
beliefs and damage to neuroaugmetics that would horrify a Forge World Tech-
adept. Another of Umbra Malygris' countless abominations was the creation of
the Apostic Matrix -- electrostaves that can scourge the mind and soul with
occult energies, tearing down the foundations of faith and loyalty. Some Radical
Inquisitors have found the Apostasic Matrix to be a potent addition to an
interrogation chamber, and take great pleasure in setting this tool of the
Archenemy upon blackened the blackened souls of Heretics.
Forbidden Arts of Dark Technology

The fundamental tenet of Hereteks is the acquisition of power through unrestrained
technological advancement. The great arrogance and sin of this work is as obvious as
it is dangerous to anyone who believes in the Credo Omnissiah or the Imperial Creed,
and it would lead Mankind back to the terrors of the Age of Strife if it were allowed to
bear fruit. Here are but a few examples of the dark paths down which forbidden
technology might wander and the legends that cloak them:
Engines of Destructions - Weapons are the foremost goal and desire of

many tech-heretics, whether it is the discovery or theft of heavily restricted
designs -- such as atomics or the dread Life-eater Virus used as a tool of
Exterminatus, the acquisition of sophisticated relics like the secrets to creating
the induction coils used in Plasma Weapons, or the pursuit of alien designs of
terrible power.
Gholam and other Forbidden Fleshworks - A Gholam is an artificial
construct made primarily of flesh and synthetic tissue by the arts of a gene-
sculptor. Although a widespread technology within the Adeptus Mechanicus,
many branches of this lore are considered heretical and forbidden. These, in
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particular, include so-called "Murder Gholams" -- horrific organic fabrications

solely intended for violence, and homonculites -- bio-forms fashioned from
harvested human organs, alchemical serums, and vat-grown tissue in the shape
of a living thing with no natural origin. Rarer creations include "Chimerics" --
strange amalgam creatures that combine many sources of DNA to form twisted
monstrosities with utterly unpredictable results, forced psychic mutation, and
unspeakable “slaver parasites” -- artificial organic grafts that subvert the will
and the bodily functions of those unfortunates they are inflicted upon.
According to sacred legend, such fleshworks were forbidden by the word of the
Emperor during the days of the Great Crusade in response to the horrors that he
and his superhuman warriors encountered in the Unification Wars on Terra to
end the Age of Strife.
Transgenic Blasphemy - This field of research embodies the techno-heresy
of combining xenos gene-matter or surgical grafts with human organic matter.
It is an utterly forbidden practice, considered both a pollution of the divine
pattern of the human body by the Adeptus Mechanicus and outright blasphemy
against the will of the God-Emperor by the Imperial Cult.
The Silica Animus (Abominable Intelligence) - The creation of an
artificial machine mind (rather than a simple digital cogitator) using forbidden
technologies is considered perhaps the greatest sin in the Cult Mechanicus and
is a terrible crime under Imperial law. Tradition holds that such unholy
constructs are inherently evil and a perverted abomination in the sight of the
Omnissiah. Adeptus Mechanicus religious doctrine states that the Machine
Spirit of a Silica Animus, a true artificial intelligence capable of emanating all
the facets of the human mind, is a twisted mockery of the soul of man,
treacherous and insane. Ancient texts tell apocryphal stories, shrouded in
metaphor, of such murderous and powerful creations during the last days of the
Dark Age of Technology, and the legions of Iron Men that served them, blaming
them in part for many of the terrible wars that laid humanity low in that lost
time and brought on the Age of Strife.
Malifica - Perhaps the darkest and most arcane of all sciences is the
technology created to manipulate the energies of the Warp or psychic force. A
necessary evil for the Imperium and a cornerstone of its existence, it is a
dangerous and volatile field of study. At the outer regions of the accepted uses
and patterns of this little understood technology lie terrible devices and desires,
and the melding of daemonic spirits with machinery and the channelling of the
raw power of the Empyrean through technology has long been a thing forbidden
by the Mechanicus. For those reckless or insane enough, the temptation to
pursue such dark experiments is great, offering the possibility of creativity and
function unfettered by reason or the surly bonds of the universe's physical laws.
The Proteus Protocol (Biotransference) - Considered little more than a
myth by many but the ultimate goal of an obsessed few, the Proteus Protocol is
an ancient and heretical technology for transferring not only the engramatic
knowledge and memory of an organic human or xenos brain, but also the
personality and will, granting in effect complete mental and spiritual
immortality in an artificial physical form. Of the few legends that surround this
technology, some state that the abominations created are soulless beings with
dark desires and alien hungers that can never be satiated. However, these
warnings often fail to deter the Protocol's most ardent seekers. It was this
technology, first pioneered by the C'tan more than 60 million Terran years ago,
that created the undying Necrons. A cautionary tale indeed for any who would
seek immortality in the form of the machine.
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Dark Tech
"The Dark Age of Technology casts its echoes upon us, softened with
time, but foul yet. Beware the machine, for its lineage is unhallowed."
— The Cautions of Vessifus
Dark Tech is the tool of Hereteks, comprising forbidden techlore and machine-
patterns that defile the Omnissiah's gifts, imperil the soul, and taint the sacred form
of Mankind. Servants of the Inquisition recognise many forms of Dark Tech:
Warpmachines built by outcast Enginseers of the Machine Cult; perversions of
cogitation; tech-sorcery that corrupts worlds; the myriad sins of various Heretek
Renegades; and others.
Yet it is the rare and dedicated Monodominant Inquisitor who is willing to burn
errant device-patterns alongside the Hereteks who use them. The Inquisition must
understand its enemies, and so the lore of tech-heresy flows into the sealed vaults of
the Ordos.
There it lurks, a temptation for Radical Inquisitors -- for Dark Tech is imbued with
great power. At first it is power enough to reveal vital secrets, divine the right choice
in matters of life and death, or utterly destroy enemies of the Imperium. In the end it
is power enough to corrupt a Radical's soul, and make of him that which he once
hunted.
Ranged Weapons
Apostatic Matrix
Apostatic Matrix - The Apostasic Matrix is one of countless abominations

spawned by the Heretek followers of Umbra Malygris in the 8th Century of M41.
Neuro-augmetic lore and the study of the Omnissiah’s universal laws was
combined and tainted to produce an unholy technology—the Matrix scourges
mind and soul with occult energies, tearing down the foundations of the
individual's faith and loyalty to whatever he most holds dear. Apostasic
Matrices recovered by Ordo Hereticus Acolytes after the Cleansing of Tarycine
were embedded within electrostaves. Each metal staff blisters with cogitation
nodules, electro-sensors, and mottled field projection devices. As if in mockery
of its origins, devotional prayers inscribed in orthodox Machine Cant spiral
about its length—many Malygrisians remained convinced of their holiness, it
seems, even as they fell into the vilest tech-heresy. A victim so much as grazed
by the electrostave is scarred by its power. The Apostatic Matrix reaches into the
very mechanisms of the soul, pouring toxins and pain upon the roots of faith,
and burning away memories of worship with agonising darts of electro-essence.
The immediate anguish is terrible, but the true horror is that the Matrix causes
the flower of faith in the God-Emperor to wither and die thereafter. Some
Radicals have found the Apostasic Matrix to be a potent addition to an
interrogation chamber, and take great pleasure in setting this tool of the
Archenemy upon blackened Heretic souls. In the same way that loyal Imperial
citizens collapse into tormented apostasy, even the strongest devotees of the
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Ruinous Powers are given to babbling despair under the Matrix’s ministrations.
Istvaanians in the Calixian Conclave of the Inquisition have more ambitious
aims: to replicate the Plague of Apostasy engineered by Malygrisians upon the
Hive World of Piety, where colossal Matrix devices infused the very air with
faithlessness and madness. Istvaanian covens study the electrostaves for hidden
signs of this greater tech-lore.
Callophean Psy-Engine
Callophean Psy-Engine - A Psy-Engine is a dread weapon: barely controlled,

living psyker brains set within a weapon-housing and goaded by neuro-implants
to blast foes with the power of the Warp. The Callophean Pattern of this device
consists of a lozenge-shaped central body and metre-long insulated director
wand connected by flexible cabling. The Psy-Engine’s centre is a transparent
housing just large enough to hold four psyker brains suspended in pink-tinged
gel, pierced by mechanisms and linked by fluid-tubes. The narrow edges of the
Psy-Engine consist of clustered psyamplifiers, null-wards, and fluid support
devices joined to the tormented brains within. The psyker is a resource to be
expended—this is an Imperial truth. But Heretek Magi-Psykana go too far:
forbidden gene-manipulation; neuro-active implants to induce and control
psyker manifestation; and holding back psykers from the Imperial Tithe.
Archmagos Callophe, incinerated in 583.M41 by Ordo Malleus forces, sought to
eliminate the troublesome human element in her psyker resources. Her coven
tended vats of pulsing, device-ridden psyker brains, all other flesh cut away and
the minds within afflicted by a controllable form of blind insanity. Callophe was
not the originator of this vile lore, but her name now attends it. Other Hereteks
practice it yet, harvesting the living brains of psykers to consign them to lives of
sightless horror and madness. A militant warded against psychic overspill
carries the director wand, whilst a Servitor or expendable menial bears the
weight of the Psy-Engine. When the militant triggers the Psy-Engine to attack,
the maddened psykers within it are goaded to strike at the closest target
indicated by the wand (note that the Psy-Engine effectively never runs out of
ammunition and never needs to be “reloaded”). A Psy-Engine presents a
continual danger to soul and sanity unless it is stored within a stasis field, the
heavy psy-barriers of an Adeptus Astropathica facility, or the like. The foaming,
blind madness of the psykers within constantly seeps through the Psy-Engine’s
null-wards, and anyone within 100 metres is afflicted by half-heard whispers,
fleeting visions of horror, phantom pains, and strange urges.
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Empyric Conduit-Blade
Empyric Conduit-Blade - The Heretek Mechanicus faction known as the

Empyric Engineers employs numerous device-patterns to turn the Warp upon
itself and annihilate daemons that transgress upon their labours. The oldest and
most revered is the Empyric Conduit-Blade, a sacred standard for these
Machine Cult Hereteks. An Adamantine mono-edged Conduit-Blade is a
centrepiece in every Empyric Engineer shrine: inset field-guides of gold run the
length of the blade, the hilt is a Warp-mechanism, and at the base of the blade is
a socket for a small null-field generator. Vast Warp-machines stand within
hidden strongholds of the Engineers, used to draw forth the essence of the
Empyrean and imprison it within null-field containments for study. Much
smaller null-field generators are constructed for attachment to a Conduit-Blade;
they look like glittering gems laced with circuitry, belying the danger of their
contents. Inside, raging and incoherent, is raw Warp-matter—without this
imprisoned Empryic energy, a conduit-blade is no more than a symbol.
Heretek Technologies
"The heretic's weapons are lies and deceipt. What are they, against faith
in the Emperor?"
— Anonymous Imperial Adept
Berserker Thorn - A very unusual device, this arcane-looking heavy-pronged

dart is laced with circuitry and power coils and contains a strange and baleful
technology little understood even by the Logicians. When breaching a Servitor
or similar mechanism's control system, the penetrating barbs release a
cascading pulse of electromagnetic force and poisonous Machine Spirits that
can overload and burn out the imprinted command functions and drive such a
machine into an uncontrolled murderous rage.
Cerebral Annihilator - Used to conduct covert murder and dispose of test
subjects, this easily concealed palm unit uses a focused electromagnetic field
designed specifically to destroy the delicate neural synapses in a living brain.
The unit must be held within a few centimetres of the skull for at least one full
round to function and is too precise and delicate to use as a weapon against any
target that is not unconscious or completely immobile.
Immateria Ward
Immateria Ward - An Immateria Ward is a form of null-field projector and
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Machine Spirit cogitation core intended for use in armour, portable shield-
walls, and similar devices. Empyric Engineers who infuse the Warp into their
machinery are rarely insane—at the outset at least. They understand the need
for protection from corrosive Warp-energies, and so turn to Heretekal
archeotech lore concerned with creating Machine Spirits that can channel the
power of the Warp. Placed upon armour (to the accompaniment of long ritual
and forging of the Machine Spirit) an Immateria Ward appears as a sigil within
a circle, both shapes outlined by thin silver cables set into shallow channels. The
null-field projector and cogitation core are hidden beneath the centre of the
sigil. The potent Machine Spirit within slumbers until it senses the presence of
the Warp; when it wakes to action, the silver cables smoke and glow with a
purple mist of dissipated Empyric energies. The Empyric Engineers have long
granted Immateria Wards to allies as a form of compact—loyalty is given by the
Hereteks in return for a willingness to embrace Dark Tech from the ally. Thus
the ward sigil has become a reviled symbol of the outcast Empyric Engineers in
the eyes of the Loyalist Mechanicus Tech-priests like the militants of the Cult of
Sollex, whose Magi direct Auxilia Myrmidon hunter-cohorts far and wide across
the Calixis Sector to slay those who bear the sign of the Heretek Empyric
Engineers. Mere association with the owner of an Immateria Ward bears a risk
of death at the hands of the servants of the Machine Cult—or worse, a short life
connected to the interrogation machinery of a Magos-Militant.
Irradial Cogitator
Irradial Cogitator - An Irradial Cogitator is a malefic piece of technology

which fues a daemonic spirit with a highly advanced Cogitator created by the
damned Magi of the Dark Forge World of Samech in the Jericho Reach. The
brilliance of Samech’s Cogitators was legendary long before their fall from the
Omnissiah's grace. And while the Iron Pit’s Magi have turned to the forbidden
and blasphemous across the ages, their craft with these calculating machines
has only grown. An Irradial Cogitator is often a bargain too good to pass up, a
miraculously efficient machine whose price appears remarkably low. In their
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nascent stages, an Irradial Cogitator’s intellect can answer a struggling hive

city's prayers. Disease, hunger, and pollution are some of the most common
problems the beneficent machine seems to cure for its new masters. While the
Cogitator’s miracles are still endearing it to the local population, it seeks its first
apostle. This person will be the seed of fear and worship. He serves as an
innocuous voice for the infused Cogitator’s true wishes, a disciple to spread the
knowledge of its impending divinity. Tech-priests are the obvious choice, but
anyone in a position to maintain the Cogitator’s physical housing, who holds
substantial regard for the device’s miracles, is a candidate. While the first
apostle cultivates the population’s reverence for the Cogitator, it begins to
spread its sphere of direct influence as well. An Irradial Cogitator spreads the
tendrils of its neural pattern out into technology connected to its location. An
Irradial Cogitator’s "body" is an inanimate machine, easily destroyed if it can be
located and reached. However, the daemonic spirit within is possessed of
malevolent brilliance, and has many abilities that allow it to indirectly influence
its surrounding to protect itself.
Malygrisian Bioforging - Heretek Malygrisian Tech-priests—later purged
from the foundry wards of Port Wrath -- practiced a form of mutational bio-
forging upon their workers to both improve their quotas and control them, body
and soul. As the bioforging took hold, the workers grew addicted to the addition
of a rare and synthesized Promethium extract called Nephium that was added to
their food rations by their masters. Over time, unnatural bio-motes grew within
their bodies and began their dreadful work of twisting the sacred human form.
An irregular, lumpy rind of organic plasteen developed beneath the skin, and
their flesh became laced with filaments of that tough material. Eyes and mucus
membranes also became plasteen-saturated. Within a few weeks, menials could
enter the void unclothed, shrug off heavy blows, and survive terrible injuries.
Over time, however, the bio-motes and plasteen growth reshaped the flesh to
give the appearance of horrific mutation and went out of control, turning the
body on itself with appalling consequences. The tainted workers died in
drooling agony as plasteen formed in the brain, crushed vital organs, or broke
through the skin in ridges, horns, and fronds. Before long, the Hereteks'
blasphemies could not be hidden from their just punishment. For all the
dreadful consequences of the bioforging’s eventual failure, the wealthy and
powerful have since been tempted by the possibilities of the body remade, both
for their "chosen servants" and even for themselves, and the secrets of the
blasphemous technology has spread to several worlds despite a ban by both the
Inquisition and the Machine Cult. For its proponents, the bioforging is a
glorious opportunity; flesh is sculpted and changed in its constituent material,
potent new organs grown within, and the mind is warped to grant unnatural
focus and clarity. Proponents of the procedure believe that it is noble to attempt
to ascend beyond the limits of one's birth-genes. To the Imperium, however,
such thoughts pave the road to tech-heresy and mortal sin.
Murder-Cogitator - A dark lore of data-violation and ravishment of Cogitator
Machine Spirits has long existed in the Calixis Sector. It is suppressed by the
Mechanicus at every turn, but cogitation heresy remains widespread; there are
always more Hereteks willing to carry on their damnable toil in the shadows.
Many influential figures in the Imperium so greatly desire unfettered access to
secret data that they turn to forbidden cogitation lore, and the careful Heretek
prospers by preying upon these illicit desires. Tech-devices capable of
despoiling data-vaults have spread across the Calixis Sector through the black
paths of smugglers, alongside Vox-heresy, unsanctioned psykers, and a
thousand prohibited substances. Crime barons of the Golgenna hives call these
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devices "Murder-Cogitators." They allow the uninitiated to pillage a cogitation

array of encrypted secrets, slay the Machine Spirit within, and leave a steaming
ruin behind. This is anathema to the Mechanicus, and Cult of Sollex hunter-
cohorts show no mercy to anyone suspected of involvement with these vile
devices. The dominant pattern of Murder-Cogitator is produced by adorants of
the Arch-Heretek Nomen Ryne, cultists who spread forbidden cogitation lore in
the Malfian Sub-sector Hive Worlds of the Calixis Sector. Many of their tainted
works employ the Thirteenth Pattern of Cogitation, a Heretek design abhorred
by the Omnissiah no matter what purpose it is put to. A Ryneite Murder-
Cogitator appears to be a heavy, bronze-cased data-slate ornately embossed
with raised scrollwork and Cherubim. Paeans declaring Nomen Ryne a saint
and verses of Ryne’s Precepts Mechanicus are engraved upon the device.
Oblivion Volitors - The notorious Heretek Illucis Grizvaldi and his Heretek
cult followers are known to prey upon Imperial fears in regards to the immortal
soul and its possible destruction. They do so by heavy-handed use of Oblivion
Volitors. These tech-devices are a corrupted and clumsy pattern of
neuroaugmetic; when surgically implanted into the brain, an Oblivion Volitor
turns a man into a soulless "Obliviate." Obliviates are empty shells, living on
after the soul is consigned to nothingness. Hereteks further augment Obliviates
with crudely implanted blades and metal fangs, so as to use them like attack
animals. They debase the divine form of Mankind by whipping Obliviate packs
to savage their foes. But the true weapon is terror -- terror of theoblivion
brought to cherished souls, terror that the God-Emperor’s protection within the
Warp for the soul is sundered. To the perceptions of the psyker, there is little
difference between an Obliviate and an aggressive Combat Servitor.
Prognosticaon - Amongst the many tech-perversions bestowed upon the
Calixis Sector by the Arch-Heretek and former Logician Ammicus Tole is the
foretelling device known as a Prognosticaon. It is an inverted iron pendulum
suspended within an enclosure of circular hoops and surrounded by a hedge of
seemingly meaningless mechanisms. The construct is usually small enough to
carry in one hand and may be etched with profane symbols or Heretekal texts.
The pendulum bobs and oscillates in response to changes in its surroundings—it
is very sensitive, particularly to tides in the near Empyrean. Patterns for the
Prognosticaon are ciphered within rare fragments of Ammicus Tole’s tome of
rituals and chants: the cipher-keys reveal attendant scrawling as debased rituals
of operation. The secret of the Prognosticaon lies in perturbing the near Warp in
a way that steers the pendulum towards desired revelations about the future.
Wizened tech-witches of Cyclopea, devotees of Ammicus Tole, accomplish this
through blood sacrifice and wild ritual taught by their master’s Tome. A Heretek
Tech-priest of the suppressed faction of Empyric Engineers might find other
ways of achieving the same end, but the Prognosticaon is, at its core, a tool
enabled by death and suffering. Tole’s ritual requires eight human sacrifices,
achieved in a variety of unpleasant and carefully specified ways, and rousing
excitement amongst eight more participants. Blood is strewn about and painted
upon the Prognosticaon device, and prayers offered to false gods. The tech-
witch who seeks a foretelling sets Signifiers—disturbing sigils daubed in
sacrificial blood at cardinal points about the device. The meaning of each
Signifier is determined by the tech-witch and pertains to eight questions
permitted by this tech-sorcery. With the ritual at its height, movement of the
Diviner’s pendulum to one Signifier or another reveals true answers.
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Samech Redemption Servitor
Samech Redemption Servitor - A Samech Redemption Servitor is a type of

Servitor whose creation is used as a punishment reserved for criminals and
unruly serfs. To become a Redemption Servitor is therefore a fate reserved for
traitors, weaklings, and hated enemies of those in power. Many say that the
feral intelligence of these drones still bears the tormented, malicious echoes of
those now trapped in servitude. Scholars suspect the Redemption Pattern
Servitor originated in the Lest District, where it remains extremely popular.
However, the model can be found in use throughout the Dark Forge World of
Samech in the Jericho Reach. The pattern involves heavy replacement of the
organic neck, arm, and leg joints with pivots that provide almost 360 degree
rotation. The torso is then augmented with four additional limbs, creating a
squat, arachnid profile. Most models also use epidermal armour plating,
although its design varies with the forge city of manufacture. The Redemption
Servitor incorporates several pieces of Samech’s electromagnetic wargear,
although it is of substantially poorer quality than devices used by the world's
Dark Magi. The standard configuration includes a Techxorcism Cannon
—usually installed in the chest and fired through the gullet— for neutralising
other technological enemies and scavenging machines that may not be
completely inert. In order to reach and disassemble precarious wreckage, the
Redemption Servitor contains an auxiliary magnetic repulsion system that
allows them to traverse unstable structures, and its spindly limbs are capable of
puncturing steel. These limbs also double as dangerous weapons, which the
savage Servitor needs little provocation to use. The Redemption Pattern’s
principal drawback is that its programming works as intended. In order to
scavenge Samech’s wastes effectively, they must be relatively autonomous, with
the capacity for self-repair and an instinct to seek out valuable technology. Not
only does this cause the automatons to kill for the smallest scrap of tech, it has
led to a high incidence of the Servitors infesting starships bound offworld,
spreading these dangerous cyborgs across the galaxy.
Scrapcode - Also called Scrap Code or Scrap-code, this is actually a simple
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form of computer virus, often used by the servants of the Dark Mechanicum
against their more technologically advanced opponents. When this weapon is
employed, blocks of self-replicating machine-code are constantly being
broadcast on every possible Vox frequency, and when picked up, if the other
Cogitator fails to identify the transmission as Scrapcode, the virus will quickly
flood it by self-replicating, either forcing the machine to shut down or severely
impair its functioning. Scrapcode is rather inefficient, and is considered more of
a general nuisance than a real weapon by the Loyalist Tech-priests of the
Mechanicus. Scrapcode infection can be prevented simply by securing one's
communication channels, and even then Cogitator system incompatibility can
prevent the Scrapcode's self-replication, but Scrapcode has the advantage of
being a completely passive assault. More advanced forms of computer virus
which would allow a Heretek to actually take control of an enemy computer
system, do exist, but those must be tailor-made for their target, and cannot be
used in this way. Scrapcode was first used on a large scale as a weapon by the
Dark Mechanicum during the Battle of Calth in the Horus Heresy when the
Word Bearers Traitor Legion launched a massive surprise assault upon the
Ultramarines Legion.
Speculum Umbrae - A Speculum Umbrae is an intricate crystalline device
formed of layer upon layer of circuitry arrayed like the petals of a flower—a
piece of barely understood archeotech infused with Warp-knowledge of the
Heretek Mechanicus Calixis faction of the Empyric Engineers. A handbreadth
wide, it is much heavier than it looks and consumes power prodigiously. The
dead keep their secrets, but sometimes a Radical Inquisitor must have those
secrets. At great risk to the soul, it is possible to summon shades of the dead via
the dark arts of the Anima Mori; Hereteks of the Empyric Engineers who use
the Speculum Umbrae device to achieve this end. When active, the Speculum
crackles with energy as it draws forth visions of madness and dead souls formed
from particles of Warp-matter. The sane Heretek employs Immateria Wards
and Servitor labour-proxies to avoid direct exposure. Commoners upon most
Calixian worlds believe in ghosts: that the dead sometimes linger where they
died, seeking vengeance or trapped by unfilled desires. Hive World Ecclesiarchs
preach against these beliefs and call ghosts the evidence of foul witchcraft. It is
Adeptus Ministorum orthodoxy that all souls go before the God-Emperor—He
protects, and no-one is overlooked. In contrast, Empyric Engineers assert that
the Empyrean records echoes of tormented death-throes and the mind that
made them, ripples in the Warp that drift across time to exert their influence
upon the Materium. Regardless, ghosts raised by the Speculum Umbrae are not
who they were; they are hollow shells of souls, indistinctly formed of glowing
Warp-motes and filled out by the tides and evils of the Empyrean. They may
have the answer that a Radical seeks, or they may be screaming, glowing
phantasms that try to possess the living. Only the strong-willed can stand before
moaning Warp-ghosts and compel answers to their questions.
Vore-Weapons - Vore-Weapons are genetically engineered beasts, a living
assassin’s tool crafted by Heretek Genetor and Xenobiologis Tech-adepts from
raw xenos breeding material. This crafting is a dangerous practice for a
Mechanicus Tech-priest. While the Omnissiah blesses the toil that created the
Grox, Beremoth, and a dozen other worthy Imperial agri–breeds, the creation of
new xenos beasts from breeds declared corrupt or vile is tech–heresy. The line
between the sacred and the Heretek Xenobiologis is smudged and often
redefined, but the creation and use of Vore-Weapons are emphatically tech–
heresy in the Calixis Sector. No faithful servant of the God–Emperor would
create or employ such obviously corrupt xenos life, and those who do must be
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hunted down and burned.
Dark Mechanicum Rituals

Maltek Incarna
Not all Chaos rituals are matters of what might be considered "pure Warpcraft."
There also exists a dark and forbidden strain of technological lore which deals in the
manipulation of the Warp long proscribed by the Adeptus Mechanicus.
This corrupted science lurks as a nightmarish shadow that perverts the empirical
understanding of the universe with the insane Maltek Incarna of the Dark
Mechanicum. Such Incarna, though blessedly rare, are every bit as dangerous as a
Chaos Sorcerer's summonings and often far more insidious, able to corrupt signals,
possess circuits, mutate metal, and sunder physical laws in terrifying patterns.
A Goleph
Goleph - The Golephic Heresy was discovered by the Ordos Calixis in 419.M41
when the forces of Inquisitor Embuleos, prosecuting Mechanicus renegades,
were ravaged by faceless machine assassins built in the form of men. Inhumanly
clever, fast, and silent, the machines stalked their victims by sound and heat-
radiance before slaughtering them with ancient Power Weapons. Though at
great cost, Embuleos was ultimately triumphant and discovered enough in the
heretek ruins to put a name to these echoes of the Dark Age of Technology:
Golephs. The Mechanicus Calixis are nothing if not secretive, and the iron wall
of silence hides much from the greater Imperium. Golephic Heresy has a long
history within the Calixian Machine Cult; it seduces those who seek a path to
the Silica Animus, the Man-Machine that stands one step closer to the
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Omnissiah’s glory. Heretek-hunters of the Divine Light of Sollex Cult have

destroyed Golephs and the Magi who created them uncounted times in the
millennia since the Angevinian era—but Golephic patterns and forbidden lore
persist in labyrinthine Mechanicus data-repositories. All of this is hidden from
the uninitiated, but some few in the Holy Ordos understand. One Radical coven
believes Golephs to be children of the lost machine-men of Amun’an Morrus,
birthed from decaying mind patterns and unhallowed tech-designs obtained
during the Angevin Crusade. Amun’an Morrus is a cursed world -- its
inhabitants sold their souls and their humanity to the machine, discarding flesh
for armour and minds for cogitators. They were put to the sword by the Lord-
Militant Angevin in 540.M39, and Amun’an Morrus was burned in the
Emperor’s Fire and stricken from the star-charts, such was the abhorrence its
machine civilization inspired. Certainly, the Goleph frame looks little like an
Imperial tech-pattern. A Goleph's limbs are smooth and long, the human-sized
body sleek and the head featureless; its outer shell betrays no sign or noise of
the mechanisms within. Even Golephic hereteks have little knowledge of the
origins of their forbidden lore. They toil in ignorance upon Goleph mind-
pattern devices, seeking secrets of the Man-Machine within this dangerous
archeotech. A Goleph machine is cast in the pattern of a man, is cunning as a
man, and can hate as only a man can -- an active Goleph is an unrestrained
murderer. To establish control, early hereteks crafted Golephic Keys, devices
designed to communicate crude sigils of instruction and castigate disobedience
by disruption of mind-pathways. A punished Goleph gives every appearance of
torment—thrashing and writhing in silence, and then moved to sullen
obedience or careful misinterpretation of sigils. A Goleph newly raised from safe
storage in a stasis field is malevolent in aspect, pausing to weigh obedience to
sigil-instructions against an attempt to slaughter its masters and destroy its
Key.
Slinnar War Machine, and its unfortunate victim
Slinnar War Machine - Speculation and false information surrounds the

plasma-driven constructs dubbed Slinnar War Machines. As their name implies,
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their origins appear to lie at the spinward edge of the Jericho Reach, in the
stellar body known as the Slinnar Drift. Even their link to this proto-star cluster
is tenuous, based on little more than whispered stories and an observation that
the emission frequency of the War Machines’ cores resembles that of celestial
bodies in the Slinnar Drift. What is unerringly agreed upon is that a Slinnar War
Machine is an engine of destruction, given life through the sacrifice of a human
soul. Although a War Machine is similar in size and shape to a Stealth Suit or
power armour, they hold no living pilot. Instead, ancient transference rites must
be used to imbue the machine with the soul that becomes its pilot. While
operational, a Slinnar War Machine pulses with the light and heat of a star
captured in an obsidian cage. This energy can be unleashed in short but
incredibly potent bursts. These blasts appear similar to the discharge of a
plasma weapon, but contain enough energy to breach nearly any material with
minimal diminishment of the beam. The exact amount of time a transferred life
can power the construct is unknown. Speculation ranges from a few years, to a
normal human lifespan and beyond. It is certain that War Machines expire
eventually, as the possession rituals necessary to activate one have an easily
documented aftermath. Many die attempting this dangerous ritual, although the
aid of a practitioner versed in both the technological and the arcane can
improve the chances of success and survival. Even beyond this risk, the nature
of Slinnar War Machines is a matter of some debate within the Inquisition and
fringe groups of Explorators. Many argue that in order to function, the soul
transfer must involve some manner of forbidden warp-circuitry, but others
counter with force swords as an example of an orthodox parallel. This camp—
which includes the Crucible Resolviate— is not so eager to condemn the Slinnar
War Machines, and would greatly like to acquire one for study. They dismiss as
unfounded rumours claims that the War Machine’s own alien spirit eventually
overtakes that of the possessor. The War Machine’s reputation is little improved
by the desperate and ruthless individuals usually driven to occupy one. Most
often these devices are acquired by zealous rebels or powerhungry criminals.
Few sane men would ever choose to undergo the possession rites. Although a
Slinnar War Machine does offer immense power, it comes only at the high price
of one’s humanity. War Machines have no voice, and anyone or anything the
possessor ever loved is now beyond its burning touch.
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A Bronze Malifect
Bronze Malifect - A Bronze Malifect is a profane device that appears as an

ugly arrangement of bronze augmetic limbs infused with a murderous spirit of
the Warp. This malefic machine was the result of a strange tech-heresy that
gripped the Josian Reach Sub-sector of the Calixis Sector in the latter half of the
8th Century of the 41st Millennium. The Augmetic Scholae, Tech-priests who
built and maintained cybernetic devices, became Warp-tainted in many diverse
locations. The Hereteks built malformed machine altars and conducted
corruptions of Mechanicus rituals. They succumbed to madness and mind-rust,
engraved screeds of Warp-nonsense across every surface, and toiled upon
twisted devices. The bronze autolimbs are plasma-welded together such that the
mass is joined into one large device, capable of articulation and movement.
When active and infused with the power of the Warp, a Malifect moves rapidly
with purpose and malignant intent. The daemon-spirit within guides the
machine beast and senses terrified victims through unknown means—the
malifect incorporates no ocular components or processing devices capable of
initiating movement. It is the Warp alone, clothed in metal, hungry for death
and pain, that motivates the device.
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A Maletek Stalker
Maletek Stalker - A Maletek Stalker is the chosen assassin and favoured agent
of the outlawed and malign Phaenonite faction of the Inquisition. The Maletek
Stalker is a living fusion of murderous skill, profane technology and the power
of the Warp. These dark weapons given form are nightmarish shadows that
serve only the Phaenonite cause, sowing terror and death among the faction’s
enemies, and by their very diabolic nature epitomise the horror and malice of
the Phaenonite doctrine. Maletek Stalkers are built rather than made. First, the
Phaenonites select a trained killer of consummate ability from the ranks of their
tried and tested servants. This candidate must also be of considerable mental
and physical fortitude to stand a chance of surviving the process, and the
Phaenonites have long known that a body and soul that has already felt the
touch of Chaos is likely to yield the best results. The candidate is then taken by
the sect’s Dark Magos and Hereteks and subjected to a series of nightmarish
occult rituals and a grueling series of cybernetic and bionic implants. Not all
those chosen survive the Hereteks' attentions, but those that do are profoundly
transformed, their killing powers drastically augmented and possessed of a
daemon’s taste for slaughter. The Potentia Coil powering the Maletek Stalker's
implants is known as a Maltek Warp Coil, a dark fusion of ancient technology
and occult science, engraved with dark runes and suffused with the energies of
the Warp. As a result, a Stalker's implants may "heal" on their own if damaged
just as normal flesh would, slowly re-knitting and repairing themselves (he may
not be healed by first aid, only by the Stalker’s natural healing and talents). The
Stalker's augmetics are twisted mockeries of those gifted to the Machine Cult’s
priesthood, attuned and powered by the malefic energies of the Warp, which
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suffuse the Stalker’s body with unnatural vigour. These systems react more like
flesh than metal, and thanks to the malign power that courses through them can
even heal when damaged, and have been seen to scar and weep steaming blood,
and may even "evolve" as time progresses to better reflect the dark soul within.
The most potent and terrible effect of the Stalker's Maltek implants, however, is
to allow the assassin to feed on the lives taken to bolster his own, ultimately
acquiring an unnatural hunger for murder even the Phaenonites find hard to
control.
An unfortunate Tech-adept falls victim to a Schismatical
Schismaticals - Within the depths of ancient Cogitator cores of the infotombs

of the mighty infotemples of the Lathe Mechanicus world of Hadd, lurk malign
data spirits (artificial intelligence routines) known as Schismaticals. A
Schismatical is a memory–cloud of suppressed ideas, an archive of heretical
data that should have been destroyed, a folio of vile plans and whispers that has
acquired forbidden volitional urges. It incorporates data–patterns by which
other Machine Spirits can be rapidly corrupted into echoes of itself, and so the
predatory Schismatical awaits the one unlucky Machine Spirit trespasser that it
consumes and supplants so as to bear it to the Forge World above. Once free, a
Schismatical rampantly converts an army of Machine Spirits to its cause. It
creates machine covens populated by its echoes, each of which is an
independent Schismatical in its own right.
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Occult Artefacts
Animus Skull - Servo-skulls are a common sight across the Imperium,
unnoticed and unremarked, except when a citizen offers a brief respectful
moment to the honoured servant whose mortal remains host the installed
mechanisms. Within the Askellon Sector, though, there are tales of a servo-skull
that became possessed during a turbulent Warp translation, one that now hosts
a daemonic entity. Though the Askellian Mechanicum insists there is no
possibility of its existence, hereteks and techno-cults across the sector have
never stopped striving to locate and harness its baleful spirit. That the entity
within might only be toying with its supposed masters is rarely suspected.
Bone Flute - At first glance, this artefact appears to be little more than a
simple flute, such as is found on feudal worlds across the Sector. Closer
inspection shows that it has been carved from a length of bone, specifically a
human femur. Roughly 55 centimetres in length, it has been carefully shaped
and polished. Both ends of the flute are decorated with thin bands of silver, into
which are inscribed various sigils and symbols. The origins of the Bone Flute are
unclear, although the name Mateus is often associated with its history. If the
stories are true, Mateus, a popular musician from the hives of Fenksworld,
created the flute in an effort to, as he put it, "play the music of the cosmos." It’s
unknown if he succeeded in his quest, as Mateus committed suicide soon after
crafting the flute -- although some say his death wasn't by his own hand, and
investigators found his dismembered body scattered about his squalid quarters.
This has resulted in the Bone Flute developing a reputation as an ‘unlucky’
instrument. Whilst it is possible to produce haunting and unworldly melodies
with it, sooner or later, the musician using it will come to a terrible end.
Forge of Nightmares - The Forge of Nightmares is a huge bio-mechanical
construct comprised of an oily black lattice of supports, struts, and braces. This
outer shell only barely restrains the bulging, reddish, fleshy masses that expand
and contract at a regular rate, akin to a monstrous pulsing heart. The Forge
consists of four greater and four lesser furnaces radiating equidistantly out from
a central vent; each furnace ends in an opening resembling a distended mouth.
The furnaces are two to three metres in height, whilst the central stack is well
over 10 metres tall. Even when supposedly quiescent, the furnaces draw in air,
with various foul vapours being expelled from the towering vent. Those who
have viewed a Forge in this state find it uncomfortably similar to the act of
respiration. Supposedly, these monstrosities are shaped in order to hold a great
and terrible daemon of unimaginable power, although some swear a Forge is
actually the daemon itself assuming physical form in our world. In either case,
even the merest hint of a Forge of Nightmare’s existence will bring the full force
of the Ordo Malleus to bear, as an unchecked Forge brought to full operation
can render an entire world over to the Forces of Chaos. Once lost to the
Imperium in such a manner, the only recourse to save the doomed world is
Exterminatus. Certain documents and numerous Inquisitors link Forges with
the appearance of the Tyrant Star of the Calixis Sector. The prevailing opinion is
that a Forge is meant to draw a daemonic entity known as Komus to it,
weakening the fabric of realspace so the Immaterium can leak through. Whilst
others dispute this theory, no one can deny that an operating Forge of
Nightmares lives up to its name, bringing forth madness and violence over a
wide area and leaving only ruin and despair in its wake. Activating the Forge of
Nightmares requires at least eight malefic cultists—one to stand at the opening
to each furnace—and as many sacrifices as deemed necessary. The forge is
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fueled by human souls and will greedily consume any and all that are forced
screaming into each of its furnaces. Once the first sacrifices have been fed to the
Forge, it will start to shudder, the furnaces appearing to swallow each victim as
blood and other unnamable fluids begin to seep from various small orifices
scattered over the forge’s surface. As the forge consumes souls, a Chaos Sorcerer
can attempt the ritual that activates it fully. Once activated, the air above the
Forges vent will start to shimmer and ripple as the fearsome construct starts to
moan. Soon, strange scintillating colours will pour forth from the Forge’s vents,
accompanied by shrieks and howls as the barriers between this world and the
Warp begin to break down. As these barriers fray, a full-scale psychic Warp
Storm will begin to rage about the Forge of Nightmares: the sky will roil with
dark clouds, showers of flesh and blood will fall from above, lightning will strike
not in bolts but in sheets, foul spirits will walk freely, technological devices will
suffer from a myriad of problems before failing outright, and weak men will go
hopelessly mad.
Glory of the Emperor in the Light of Dawn - This blasphemous abstract
painting, reputed to show the God-Emperor greeting the rising sun over Holy
Terra, is both surreal and unsettling. Mostly painted in various shades of yellow,
gold, blue, and white, the painting has the unsettling ability to cause feelings of
vertigo and unease, as if someone was looking back at the viewer, when viewed
for any length of time. Close examination of the frame shows it to be composed
of thousands of human shapes wrought out of solid silver. The human figures,
perfect in every detail, are entwined about one another in positions of either
ecstasy or anguish. The painting has a number of additional disturbing traits
which only become apparent over time: the painting and its frame always feel
warm to the touch; the figures making up the frame slowly move and twist,
endlessly orbiting the painting itself; the colours making up the painting
gradually shift, creeping over so slowly across the canvas. Although unnerving,
the painting is effectively quiescent unless properly treated with a new layer of
varnish. A thin line of black crust where the canvas meets the frame reveals the
true nature of this varnish -- human blood. It’s unknown who exactly created
the painting, as records indicate The Glory of the Emperor to at least a
thousand years old. Certain scholars among the Ordo Malleus believe The Glory
of the Emperor was painted aboard a a spaceship during a particularly violent
warp storm. Others have declared the painting to be erroneously named, as not
even the Immaterium is capable of corrupting the visage of the God-Emperor
Himself.
Lens of Seeing - This artefact appears as nothing more than a simple
monocle, similar to those worn by the aristocracy across the Imperium. Close
inspection will show the lens itself is made from the finest crystal, with none of
the usual marks left by mechanical polishers. The frame is gold wire, engraved
with tiny symbols and sigils, and comes with a length of fine chain so the lens
can easily be attached to one’s clothing. A curious and almost benign artefact
—unlike many creations of the malefic arts—the Lens of Seeing was in fact
shaped by the Radical Inquisitor Immel Amud. He sought to use it for the
Imperium’s benefit, seeking a way to decipher the oft-encoded tomes found in
the possession of cultists and sorcerers. For a time, the Lens proved to be a
valued tool in his crusade against the forces of Chaos, allowing Amud to clearly
read even the most minor of notes, thus laying the cultists’ plans out in the open
to be countered. But eventually, the fickle nature of the warp made itself known,
and Amud discovered far too late the price the Lens asks for its services. Driven
to near madness by his obsession with secrets the Lens revealed, Amud met his
end when a supposedly minor gathering of cultists proved to have ten times that
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number. Slain in the ensuing battle, Amud’s body was eventually recovered, but
the Lens was not to be found.
Libellus Appello (The Book of Names) - This small booklet, scarcely larger
than an Imperial Infantryman’s Uplifting Primer, has a cover made from
wooden plates covered in carefully prepared human skin. It opens via a single
iron hinge, which has been fashioned to resemble the eight-pointed star of
Chaos. A brass hasp locks the booklet closed. If opened, the pages revealed are
shown to be made of fine vellum. Though of nominally human origin, the exact
nature of these well-dressed sheets is far too monstrous for most Acolytes to
dare contemplate. Each leaf of the Libellus Appello is covered in mathematical
formulae, alchemical symbols, star charts, and dense blocks of text written in an
obscure tongue. Written by the disgraced and heretical Adept Hetoun Parang
Levon, the Libellus Appello’s passages must be translated before a person can
properly use the book. One this has been done, the Libellus Appello is revealed
to be a guide to the true names of daemons, as well as how to divine them
through thorough examination of certain astronomical phenomena. A number
of daemonic names are included in the book—some added by hands other than
Levon’s—along with scattered comments in the margins detailing the
requirements of summoning any of the daemons mentioned in the main text
(but not the summoning rituals themselves). Levon was executed for heresy
soon after the completion of his blasphemous masterpiece, and the book
vanished for a time, only to reappear in the hands of various malefic cultists.
Supposedly, at least one sorcerer used it to predict the next appearance of
Komus, the Tyrant Star. Finally captured by Amalathian Inquisitors, the
Libellus Appello currently resides deep in the vaults of the Tricorn Palace,
located in Hive Sibellus on Scintilla.
Madani's Music Box - This apocryphal item originates, according to most
legends, from the private workshops of amateur metalsmith Baron Michellius
Madani of Vouxis Prime. Roughly the size of a fat dataslate, its baroque exterior
hides an impossible number of gears and levers that whirr frantically when the
brass crank is operated. Tales claim that it only plays a single piece of music—
“Nuella’s Lament to the Fallen of Juno”—although no records remain of who
Nuella was, or who the “Fallen of Juno” were. The sad tales relate that those
hearing the song were enraptured, ignoring everything else and swaying oddly
to the ringing tune. Some scholars believe reports of mass disturbances linked
to the item; these describe a cacophony of discordant noise emerging from a
main harmony that grows louder to eventually drown out the original tune.
When the tune ceased, listeners fell to the ground as their skin erupted with
lesions and unusual scars. Driven mad without it, these wretched sufferers
would thrash uncontrollably, pleading to hear the music once again. Dark tales
speak of entire hab-blocks or cities going into riotous frenzies, tearing apart
everything and everyone around them in their frantic desire to recapture the
song. Mere recordings, it is said, would not suffice, and only broadcast a dry
recitation that enraptures no one—a worrisome note that many Inquisitors
believe can only indicate the device has psychic effects or Warp based
components.
Mech Spider - This object consists of a human head, fashioned from brass,
mounted on a small eight-legged chassis. The head is fashioned to be an almost
exact replica of a human’s, except it is missing the eyes, ears, lips, and tongue.
Inside the head is a mechanism that operates the legs, eyes, and mouth—if there
was anything mounted there for it to control. Created as a mockery of a Tech-
Priest's Servitor, Mech Spiders are often used by sorcerers and witches to spy
upon the unsuspecting or to communicate with remote cells of cultists and the
47 of 49 3/15/2020, 1:52 PM
like. They require no small skill to create, and are usually only found on hive
and forge worlds, as other planets normally lack the resources needed to make
one.
See Also
Chaos Titan
Chaos Titans (List)
Traitor Titan Legions
Questor Traitoris
Hell-Forge
Sources
Black Crusade: Core Rulebook (RPG), pp. 44-46
Black Crusade: Tome of Fate (RPG), pp. 36-41, 84-92
Dark Heresy: Enemies Without (2nd Edition) (RPG), pp. 12, 21, 25, 32-33,
70-71, 75, 141
Dark Heresy: Ascension (RPG), pp. 201-202
Dark Heresy: Creatures Anathema (RPG), pp. 16-17, 21-22, 26-28, 32-36
Dark Heresy: Disciples of the Dark Gods (RPG), pp. 40-51, 62, 192
Dark Heresy: Edge of Darkness (RPG), pg. 28
Dark Heresy: Enemies Within (2nd Edition) (RPG), pp. 52, 56
Dark Heresy: The Inquisitor's Handbook (RPG), pg. 38
Dark Heresy: The Radical's Handbook (RPG), pp. 44-47, 52-53, 120-122, 162,
175-178, 189-196
Deathwatch: Mark of the Xenos (RPG), pp. 85-93
Deathwatch: The Achilus Assault (RPG), pp. 89-94
Deathwatch: The Emperor Protects (RPG), pp. 104-131
Horus Heresy: Collected Visions
Imperial Armour Volume Six - The Siege of Vraks - Part Two, pg. 163
Rogue Trader: The Navis Primer (RPG), pg. 65
Rogue Trader: Hostile Acquisitions (RPG), pp. 32-33
The Horus Heresy - Book One: Betrayal (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pg.
55, 248
The Horus Heresy - Book Two: Massacre (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh,
pg. 42
The Horus Heresy - Book Three: Extermination (Forge World Series) by Alan
Bligh, pg. 157
The Horus Heresy - Book Four: Conquest (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh,
pp. 54-55, 57, 99, 147, 150, 162, 205
The Horus Heresy - Book Six: Retribution (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh,
pp. 71, 272-273
Warhammer 40,000: Rulebook (5th Edition), pg. 125
Know No Fear (Novel) by Dan Abnett
Fulgrim (Novel) by Graham McNeill
Mechanicum (Novel) by Graham McNeill
Battle for the Abyss (Novel) by Ben Counter
First and Only (Novel) by Dan Abnett
Storm of Iron (Novel) by Graham McNeill
Iron Warrior (Novella) by Graham McNeill
The Chapter's Due (Novel) by Graham McNeill
48 of 49 3/15/2020, 1:52 PM
Heroes of the Space Marines (Anthology), "Skull Harvest" by Graham McNeill

Eye of Vengeance (Audio Book) by Graham McNeill
Titanicus (Novel) by Dan Abnett
Gallery
The treacherous Cyclothrathe heretek, Archmagos Draykavac, during the Horus

Heresy
A Heretek Chirurgeon.
A Heretek of the Dark Mechanicus, showing the beginning of extensive cybernetic

modifications.
Las Taol, Dark Mechanicus Defiler
Telemort the Heretek, Abomination of Tzeentch
Primarch Corax Corvus of the Raven Guard, battling the Dark Mechanicum during
the Horus Heresy
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Dark Mechanicum https://web.archive.org/web/20191210072104/https://warhammer40k.fa...

— Magos Caine of the Five-Fold Path

Dark Mechanicus Icon

The Dark Mechanicum, also sometimes referred to incorrectly as the Dark

Dissension in the Ranks

The Fabricator-General knew he should be proud of his accomplishments, for he had

Rise of the Dark Mechanicum

Beyond the Imperium

technologies or local Warpspace conditions that astounds outsiders. The Adeptus

— Warrus the Secondmost, Indexus Astrae Calixis

Irradial Forge on a Hell-Forge world

A Heretek and her willing Dark Adept

Even among the unusually open-minded Explorators of the Adeptus Mechanicus,

Few inquiries concerning technology are beyond a Heretek's interest, though

Hereteks often follow a path of constant innovation. A Heretek may be capable of

— Cognitive data-chain forensically recovered from Secutor

A Heretek Savant performing an illicit experiment upon an unfortunate

To become a Heretek Savant by that phrase's purest definition is to abandon this

Becoming a Heretek Savant is a matter of choice and opportunity rather than

— Rephenesti Korvane, Heretek

An Arch-Heretek of the Dark Mechanicum

The traitorous Fabricator-General of Mars, Kelbor-Hal

Kelbor-Hal - Kelbor-Hal was once the Fabricator-General of Mars, the

Master Adept Lukas Chrom

Ancient Remembrancer sketch of the infamous Archmagos Yelav

Yelav Draykavac - The infamous Dark Mechanicum Archmagos Yelav

Master Adept Urtzi Malevolus

Heretek Etolph Cycerin

Heretek Illucis Grizvaldi

Magos Phayzarus, the Perjurer

Arch-Heretek Nomen Ryne

Nomen Ryne - The Arch-Heretek Nomen Ryne has plagued Tech-priests of

Heretek Savant Cyyrik Scayl

The infamous Heretek Magos Vathek

Notable Heretek Cults

a joint Inquisitorial-Mechanicus purgation force. Since then his works and

Forbidden Arts of Dark Technology

Engines of Destructions - Weapons are the foremost goal and desire of

particular, include so-called "Murder Gholams" -- horrific organic fabrications

— The Cautions of Vessifus

Apostatic Matrix - The Apostasic Matrix is one of countless abominations

Callophean Psy-Engine - A Psy-Engine is a dread weapon: barely controlled,

Empyric Conduit-Blade - The Heretek Mechanicus faction known as the

— Anonymous Imperial Adept

Berserker Thorn - A very unusual device, this arcane-looking heavy-pronged

Immateria Ward - An Immateria Ward is a form of null-field projector and

Irradial Cogitator - An Irradial Cogitator is a malefic piece of technology

nascent stages, an Irradial Cogitator’s intellect can answer a struggling hive

devices "Murder-Cogitators." They allow the uninitiated to pillage a cogitation

Samech Redemption Servitor

Samech Redemption Servitor - A Samech Redemption Servitor is a type of

hunted down and burned.

Dark Mechanicum Rituals

Omnissiah’s glory. Heretek-hunters of the Divine Light of Sollex Cult have

Slinnar War Machine, and its unfortunate victim

Slinnar War Machine - Speculation and false information surrounds the

Bronze Malifect - A Bronze Malifect is a profane device that appears as an

An unfortunate Tech-adept falls victim to a Schismatical

Schismaticals - Within the depths of ancient Cogitator cores of the infotombs

Heroes of the Space Marines (Anthology), "Skull Harvest" by Graham McNeill

The treacherous Cyclothrathe heretek, Archmagos Draykavac, during the Horus

A Heretek of the Dark Mechanicus, showing the beginning of extensive cybernetic

Las Taol, Dark Mechanicus Defiler

Telemort the Heretek, Abomination of Tzeentch