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(Basic) Adeptus Mechanicus – Novice

The tech-priests of Mars have no maximum age for a novice – anyone willing to worship the Machine God (as an aspect of the Emperor, of course) and continue with the holy quest to uncover lost technologies and scientific lore. Literature and art are deemed worthless to the survival and advancement of the species, only the practical applications of human thought are of any relevance to a tech-priest, and the Adeptus Mechanicus’s training and education system reinforces these attitudes. Novice Techpriests are generally humourless, impersonal people with more respect for a person’s knowledge or technical skills than for their wit or sociability. Already, although most novices are no more than a few decades of age, many feel the need to replace what they view to be weak flesh with machinery, taking them on their first steps to an approximation the Machine God’s own manifest form – man as a machine. Because they are unskilled in much of the art of machine-making, novices are generally assigned minor tasks that are not important enough for a Techpriest to do, but too complex for a technomat or servitor to take on, such as noting down the effects of a Techpriest’s experiments or preparing equipment for use by their masters.

Advance Scheme

WS

BS

S

T

I

Wp

Sg

Nv

Ld

Novice

-

-

-

1

1

1

2

1

-

Only humans, squats and ratlings may enter this career.

Arcane Language – Lingua Technis

Construction

Literacy – Advanced

Tools (count as improvised weapons)

White novice’s tunic

At least two average bionic parts

Skitarii – Tech Guard

Adeptus Mechanicus – Initiate

Menial – Factory Worker

Menial – Maintenance Worker

(Advanced) Adeptus Mechanicus – Initiate

More trusted and technically capable than the novices, initiates play a greater role in many of their masters’ experiments, assisting in the assembly of simple machines, mixing compounds and researching in the libraria. Even so, initiates rarely get the chance to try anything of their own volition, and this can lead the less committed to abandon their slow ascent through the priesthood in favour of serving the Machine God in some other manner, perhaps in the factories, or on the battlefield with the Skitarii. This is, of course, the deliberate methodology of the Adeptus Mechanicus, testing each candidate to ensure only the best become full Techpriests.

Advance Scheme

WS

BS

S

T

I

Wp

Sg

Nv

Ld

Initiate

-

-

-

1

2

2

3

2

-

Only humans, squats and ratlings may enter this career.

Arcane Language – High Imperial Gothic

Engineer – Basic

Metallurgy

Driver – Ground

Research

Use Cogitator

Tools (count as improvised weapons)

White initiate’s tunic

At least four average bionic parts

Skitarii – Tech Guard

Adeptus Mechanicus – Techpriest

Menial – Factory Worker

Menial – Logistician

Menial – Maintenance Worker

(Advanced) Adeptus Mechanicus – Techpriest

Techpriests are disturbing individuals when encountered by someone unfamiliar with the Machine Cult. They have absolutely no regard for the organic parts of their bodies, and will wilfully resculpt it to make way for oversized bionic parts, or will remove parts that they deem unnecessary – a common example being the mouth, in which liquid nutrients will be intravenously injected, and a speaker attached to the voice box provides speech. Their bionics are rarely designed with aesthetics in mind (sensory pleasure being a weakness of the flesh), and it is not uncommon to find Techpriests with inhumanly long mechanical fingers, tools or weapons replacing hands, tendril sensors and mechadendrites sprouting from their torsos and bulky, deforming bionic parts distorting the shape of the human body. Their flesh is generally a pale greyish colour, thanks to the lack of sunlight in most workshops and the neglect of personal hygiene – most Techpriests spend more time oiling their mechanical joints than they do washing grease and dirt out of their pores. Perversely, to those within the Machine Cult, a Techpriest is one of the most beautiful things that a devotee could ever lay eyes on, a paragon of interface between the mechanical and the fleshly, a walking avatar of the Machine God. Skitarii and lesser cultists will die in their hundreds to protect the life of a Techpriest.

Advance Scheme

WS

BS

S

T

I

Wp

Sg

Nv

Ld

Techpriest

1

1

1

1

3

3

4

4

2

Chemistry

Driver – Grav

Driver – Heavy

Engineer – Advanced

Leader

Manufacture Explosives

Medic

Secret Signs – Machine Cult

Specialist Weapon – Advanced

Specialist Weapon – Chain

Specialist Weapon – Launcher

Specialist Weapon – Melta

Specialist Weapon – Plasma

Strategist

Teacher

Use Respirator

Use Power Armour

Any civilian or military pistol, basic or specialist weapon with two clips of ammunition

One of the following:

- Axe

- Great axe

- Chain axe with a power pack

Dark red Techpriest’s robes, with a white tabard

Auspex (any type) with power pack

Tools (count as improvised weapons)

At least six average, advanced or highly advanced bionic parts

Up to two mechadendrites

Servo skull (any type)

Legio Titanicus – Ordinatus

Adeptus Mechanicus – Magos

Menial – Overseer

(Advanced) Adeptus Mechanicus – Magos

The highest-ranking Techpriests, the Magi, are incredibly long-lived, the order’s genetor-magi providing anti-agapic elixirs that prolong life for many centuries. By this time, however, the Magi’s constant information gathering, combined with the desire to become closer to the Machine God by replacing as much of the body as possible with bionics, tends to divorce them from earthly matters like morality and sanity. Even when this is the case, the respect granted to them by lesser Techpriests is unquestioning – the Magi are the leaders of the Machine Cult, and their word is law amongst the Adeptus Mechanicus. Currently worrying many Magi are the rumours of a schism amongst the lower ranking cultists. Various sub-sects of the Machine Cult are claiming that the Machine God either existed long before the Emperor was even born, or that the Machine God that was worshipped for several centuries before the Emperor came to Mars wasn’t actually an aspect of the Emperor at all, but something far more ancient and insurmountably evil. Although these heretics are few, some are popular figures amongst the cult, and it is difficult for the Magi to stamp down on them openly, and more discreet methods have had to be employed.

Advance Scheme

WS

BS

S

T

I

Wp

Sg

Nv

Ld

Magos

2

2

1

3

3

6

8

8

4

Fearless

Literacy – Advanced

Manufacture Psychic Technology

Specialist Weapon – Power

Surgeon

Super Numerate

Use Terminator Armour

Any civilian or military pistol, basic or specialist weapon with two clips of ammunition

Any digital weapon

Power axe

Full suit of power armour with backpack, harness and power pack

Closed power armour helmet with integral photochromatic visor, infra-vision and re-breather

Servo arm

At least two mechadendrites

Up to three servo-skulls (any type)

At least eight average, advanced or highly advanced bionics

Legio Titanicus – Princeps