1. The latter is higher up in the ranks, in therms of political clout and skill, need not be skills that have practical use.
2. Those machine spirits, Venerate them. Explorators find NEW SPIRITS to venerate. They also are/go slightly nuts in this area.
3. You got a new servo-skull/servitor. And you did not even have to look far for it..

Protip: STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM ANY METAL THAT IS DESCRIBED AS ODD, LIVING, OR GIVING OFF A GREENISH GLOW!

Explorators are always looking to learn more. Where most Tech priest see Xeno tech as useless and blasphemous an Explorator wouldn't be likely to have nearly the same dislike of it. Of course a Xeno Machine cannot have a blessed Machine spirit, but it is possible to sometimes glean some bits of lost knowledge from the study of them so you may improve the weapons of mankind.

Overall as an explorator You're given a lot of leeway in the hopes of retrieve Archeotech to bring back to the Forge worlds. It's religious law that you must protect all forms of Human Archeotech for their venerable Machine spirits once guide the hand of mankind and shall once again.

>) How does the stereotypical Mars or Imperium-based techpriest differ from an Explorator?

I would imagine less held back by dogma and having a willingness to try different things.

>2) ) What key information should any techpriest be aware of, so I can properly research my role. What would an average Explorator have knowledge of by comparison?

Machines have spirits, some are more complicated than others. Alien tech is pretty heretical, but does have some tools to be implemented in Imperial tech (so long as the Missionary isn't looking). If you find cool new/old tech, it is property of the Adeptus Mechanicus and if the Rogue Trader has a problem with it then he can fix his own damn ship.

>3) 3) One of the other players I know will be playing is going to be taking the Wanted Fugitive trait. Who is he wanted by? The Cult Mechanicum. If an Explorator were to discover this fact, would they be beholden to do something about it?

Kinda, yeah. But mileage may vary depending on what was done. Stole some tech but the Adaptus got it back? That's cool. Stole valuable tech and never gave it back? Kill the fucker and leak oil into his skull.

>>14604042
>>14604044
>>14604047

Thanks for the quick input! Thankfully I know at least that much, about the spirits techpriests believe to be inherent in all human technology. Are there canonically established rituals when obtaining or performing diagnostics on such technology, or am I basically free to bullshit a lot of techno-religious babble to placate the fleshies while I get some actual work done?

I saw a great thread this morning that basically explained all their holy-talk as belief-infused euphemisms for simple mechanic work and engineering that I think I'll be taking to heart.

>You got a new servo-skull/servitor.
>Stole valuable tech and never gave it back? Kill the fucker and leak oil into his skull.

Hoo boy, that's what I was afraid of. We'll just have to hope the player's smart enough to keep his trap shut about it. Did I mention he's going to be an Arch-Militant? Should I be worried about that?

It's also good to hear that Explorators are, in general, a bit more open to dissecting xeno tech, because the DM has stated we'll probably be running up against the Dark Eldar in force eventually.

>>14604101
You are logical, or at least are supposedly trying to be. If you don't think you can take him, pretend you missed it or are ignoring it, and plot vengeance in the dark. You're the ship's head engineer, if anyone can look up a map of ventilation ducts and sneak into his compartment while he's sleeping....

>>14604101
Normally Techpriest performing Diagnositcs and such will recite litanies to placate the Machine spirit for their trespass. Normally giving offerings of Oil and the like.

>>14604159

I like the way you think, sir! I'm not one to let traitors or heretics slide on by without punishment, and neither is any character of mine. Usually, anyway.

Now for a bit of a curveball question. Is there anything that a Techpriest should -never- do, regardless of their standing in the AdMech? An action or a personality trait that would defy everything that defines what a Techpriest is?

Also, I'd really appreciate if anyone who has AdMech-related pictures would post them here. My own folders are sadly quite sparse.

>>14604209

An addendum to this, moving away from the fluff side of things.

Do any of you have any advice for building an Explorator, perhaps from personal experience or observation? I'm still ironing out the Origin Path, so I'm talking more along the lines of what equipment or modifications to take over others.

>>14604209
Never get caught? By either fellow mechanicus, or scrapcode.

>>14604209
Never commit heresy.

Venerate the Machine Spirits and the Omnissiah(The Emprah)

The Dark Mechanicus doesn't beleive the Omnissiah is the Emprah and that's actually the point that the split on.

Also, got a few more pics I'll post them all.

>>14604042
>You got a new servo-skull/servitor. And you did not even have to look far for it
>making a servo-scull from the scull of a traitor/heretic
Sounds like a tech-heresy to me

Also, most explorators(Or high ranking member of the mechanicus in general) have undergone extensive blessings(Modifacations) including the removal of Human Emotions to become closer to the mechanical Precision of the machine.

Since I'm just bursting with more questions than a bratty kid anyway, here's another one to toss onto the pile!

Say that the DM was of a particular sentiment that made him willing to allow a xeno to join the crew under the Rogue Trader, albeit not under any official sanction from the Imperium. Clearly I should be immediately suspicious of this xeno's intentions and study them constantly for any signs of weakness, but would I necessarily be honorbound to kill them when my own safety is assured, or is the KILL ALL XENOS IMMEDIATELY AND WITHOUT HESITATION shtick more of a Spess Muhreen code? I believe the DM has said that no marines will be a part of the crew, which is probably why the addition of xenos is even being considered to begin with.

-The Mysteries-

01. Life is directed motion.
02. The spirit is the spark of life.
03. Sentience is the ability to learn the value of knowledge.
04. Intellect is the understanding of knowledge.
05. Sentience is the basest form of Intellect.
06. Understanding is the True Path to Comprehension.
07. Comprehension is the key to all things.
08. The Omnissiah knows all, comprehends all.


-The Warnings-

09. The alien mechanism is a perversion of the true path.
10. The soul is the conscience of sentience.
11. A soul can be bestowed only by the Omnissiah.
12. The Soulless sentience is the enemy of all.
13. The knowledge of the ancients stands beyond question.
14. The Spirit of the Machine guards the knowledge of the ancients.
15. Flesh is fallible, but ritual honours the Spirit of the Machine.
16. To break with ritual is to break with faith.

>>14604284

Am I to assume that these "Blessings" can all be found right in the Rogue Trader rulebook? That includes things like Mechadendrites, correct?

>>14604322
>Clearly I should be immediately suspicious of this xeno's intentions and study them constantly for any signs of weakness, but would I necessarily be honorbound to kill them when my own safety is assured
Nope. Study, monitor yes- instakill, no. If the xeno aids servants of the god-emperor, it can be tolerated. Its species must die in the fullness of time for it is man and man alone's manifest destiny to conquer the galaxy, but until then if they do not work against that goal or act as an impediment...

>>14604209

I don't know nothing about building an Explorator, but as for something to never ever do, DON'T GIVE AWAY SECRETS OF THE ADAPTUS MECHANICUS! Like, don't tell people how to fix the ship, don't let them watch you appease the machine spirits of the primary weapons, and kill the man who tries to claim ancient tech as his own, that shit belongs to the Adaptus.

One thing to keep in mind, in my humble opinion:

The Imperium of Man is comprised of a million settled worlds, each one home to potentially multiple billions of individuals. The people in this thread are telling you how techpriests SHOULD act, but not how any individual WOULD act.

There is no clear line between a faithful techpriest and a heretek. Just like with the cult of the Emperor, those with a more conservative bent will place the heresy line further in one direction, while those with a more liberal bent will place it elsewhere. What any individual can actually get away with depends on his personal views, his personal power, and the power of his close friends and allies.

Protip:

Eschew the Flesh. It is Weak.
Embrace the Steel. It is Pure.
Venerate the Machine. It is Perfection.

>>14604323

This is an absolutely excellent guideline, thank you!

>>14604358

That's very good to know. I'm sure the DM isn't the sort to introduce -too- much heresy onto our ship, but I just wanted to be sure in advance.

Now, if I may ask, exactly where does a techpriest rank on the average power scale of a rogue trader crew, compared to the other classes? In other words, while a surprise attack after significant preparations and research seems to be the key to playing any member of the Adeptus Mechanicus, which classes should be avoided when possible and which are closer to my playing field?

I do hope nobody takes him up on that offer to finagle in a Kill-Marine...

>>14604397

>DON'T GIVE AWAY SECRETS OF THE ADAPTUS MECHANICUS!

Of course! Knowledge is quite literally power to this caste, so it stands to reason that they would be zealously secretive of such rituals. I'll be sure to keep several pairs of eyes out to make sure no unwanted ones are prying into business that doesn't concern them.

>>14604403

>What any individual can actually get away with depends on his personal views, his personal power, and the power of his close friends and allies.

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten that. What initially drew me to a Techpriest before any other class was the intrinsic conflict between a former human, with primarily human experiences, suddenly coming to some epiphany that drives them to seek perfection by stripping away the very thing that made them human to begin with.

I'm probably not going to make someone who has already wrenched the individuality out of their skulls from the very start. It might be closer to what the typical Techpriest is, but ultimately I want to have fun playing this guy as well.

>>14604407
I see the Explorator as someone outside the normal command structure. The AdMech in general is it's own, they make the decisions.

An Imperial regiment cannot command titan support, only request and it is up to the AdMech and the Legio Titanicus rather to answer that request.

I see the Explorator as taking a similar role. His ultimate loyalty is to the AdMech and the Machine spirit of the ship.

>>14604407
>Now, if I may ask, exactly where does a techpriest rank on the average power scale of a rogue trader crew, compared to the other classes?
That's a difficult one. Techpriests usually benefit from being bastard fucking hard and often hitting like a truck (easy toughness upgrades, lots of +armour bionics and access to the Machine trait, Vat-Grafted Muscle giving Unnatural Strength, Mechadendrites and Weapon MIUs giving extra attacks). However, they're slow and terrible in social events. In terms of raw combat potential they're near the top along with Third Eye spamming Navigators and tricked-out Arch-Militants.

Actually figuring out a class-v-class ranking isn't really meaningful though as you won't be getting into fights with other PC classes. NPCs are very rarely built that way.

Not OP but I also have a question about the AdMech.
What was the Moirae Schism to do with?

Coming back to the conundrum of Xeno-Tech:

All archeotech with human origins is rightfully the property of the Adeptus Mechanicus, to be granted to my character (or another techpriest if applicable) to study before sending it back to the nearest Craftworld with preliminary reports and findings.

But what about Xeno tech? Should I choose to request access to such findings for study, would this be something kept strictly aboard the Rogue Trader ship, then eventually disposed of once any potential secrets or improvements have been gleaned from it, if any?

>>14604533
Unless you're from a fairly divergent sect of the Ad-Mech, you won't want to use or research Xenotech, and you'll be against its use. However, whilst it is tech-heresy it's Least tech heresy and not really a huge deal if it's effective. If the RT goes out of his way to get and use lots of alien technology, and fits it to his ship for example, then you might start having a problem- relying too heavily on the works of the alien shows you risk sympathising with them.

Of course, as an Explorator you're much less likely to be bothered by xenotech than an orthodox tech-priest, and some tech-priests become Explorators to investigate it.

>>14604476

>(easy toughness upgrades, lots of +armour bionics and access to the Machine trait, Vat-Grafted Muscle giving Unnatural Strength, Mechadendrites and Weapon MIUs giving extra attacks)

This actually helps quite a bit. I'm not exactly so sure what I should be focusing on for my first character, let alone a techpriest, so a bit of guidance in this regard is a godsend.

>>14604529

<---

>>14604587
>cont
N.B.- If you don't understand half the gibberish in that thing (or any 40k stuff like this <-), don't worry- it's intentionally mystical and thematic rather than descriptive.

>>14604587

>Of course, as an Explorator you're much less likely to be bothered by xenotech than an orthodox tech-priest, and some tech-priests become Explorators to investigate it.

The technology of xeno filth is a soulless abomination, but even in such vile creations there is a kernel of knowledge to be extracted. If I cannot understand its weapons, then I am blind to their wrath. If I cannot ascertain the nature of their blighted machines, then I am deafened to continued understanding. If I cannot speak of the science behind their devilry, then my knowledge is muted to all. If I cannot know what they know, then I am stricken dumb and ignorant.

And if this makes me a heretic, then may I sacrifice my own soul so that others might learn in my stead without fear of tainting themselves.

>>14604640

No no, this is excellent! If anything I was in dire need of some of the diction that a Techpriest might be likely to use, and these pages really help me to get an understanding of how one might think and talk.

>>14604640

In fact, I don't suppose you have anything more like it? Might come in handy down the road.

Anyone else can feel free to weigh in on any questions in the thread, or with advice or pictures! Regardless, thank you all for your help thus far.

>>14604714
agreed. and besides that you could potentiall use the logic that.

Human's are meant to rule the galaxy. Xenos must recognize that you are strong and wish to stop us. As such they would steal our tech so work for them.

We must retrieve what was once are tech that has been warped by the Xenos heresy.

GM with a Rogue Trader question for people, if this thread is still live;

How easy should access to implants and cybernetics be? For the explorator in my group, well, that's their thing, and it seems like he should get it nearly for free. On the other hand, what about other players, can he 'acquire' them for his compatriots?

How much pull does explorator status give him?

The way i see it, Martians would consider it a duty and a pleasure to liberate xenotech from alien control. The machine spirits of such machines and devices are suffering, crying out in anguish from their constant maltreatment from ignorant aliens whose idiocy prevents them from doing them proper homage. Recovering and understanding xenotech isn't just advancing science, it's positively humanitarian (for want of a better word), freeing machine spirits from alien oppression and showing them that their essential ensouling of technology is acknowledged and appreciated.

>>14605343
if the explorator is pulling his weight for acquisitions, considers that he is helping the player doing the Commerce roll before the acquisition test (instead of reducing the difficulty by one step, as it is an opposed tests, give +10 to the player, +20 & +30 respectively if the Explorator has Peer (Mechanicus) or Good Reputation (Mechanicus) respectively).

>>14605416
>The way i see it, Martians would consider it a duty and a pleasure to liberate xenotech from alien control.
Yes, but that's not the way the Ad Mech see it. Much as some spirits are evil and corrupt, some machine spirits are evil and corrupt; xenotech is a perversion of the Machine God's gift, it does not conform to his divine plan as laid down in STC.

>>14605416
>>14605458

Both are pretty valid for Explorators though; some will be orthodox, others will be radical.

>>14605458
I once had an explorator declare that Xeno tech could only be so advanced as a result of copying superior human science, as an alien can never be so creative. As such, it was his duty to study their technology to devise the human secrets behind their workings

>>14605504
>>14605554
Yeah, he specified Martians though. It's a view held, it's just by no means a Doctrine of the Machine Cult of Mars.

>>14605629
Actually, it is. The Universal Laws of the AdMech state as much:

The Admonitions
    * 09. The alien mechanism is a perversion of the True Path.

>http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Quotes_Adeptus_Mechanicus
Magog Biologis here, enjoy your scripture.

>>14605770
Uh, yes? That's what I was arguing. Liberating alien machine spirits isn't acceptable Martian doctrine, unlike what:
>>14605416
Implied.

Anybody know where I can look up the sects of the machine cult?

>>14604016

1) Most of the Adeptus Mechanicus is very rigid and dogmatic - lots of procedure, lots of hierarchy. Imagine a university faculty in which the senior professors are centuries old, and believe in doing things a certain way because that's how it's always been done. Tradition and precedent are king. Explorators, meanwhile, are more freewheeling, curious and independent souls who don't really fit into that kind of environment. So rather than waste their skills by servitorising them, they get put on a ship and sent out among the stars to recover long-lost technology. Indiana Jones is a fair comparison.

2) Forge-bound Techpriests know a lot about their chosen field of research - metallurgy, manufacturing, genetics, whatever. They are research scientists. Explorators have a lot more applied knowledge to do with their role as Action Archeologists - recognising various types of archaeotech or xenotech devices, techniques for recovering, preserving and analysing technology, traversing the Void, maintaining shipboard systems, that kind of thing.

3) Depends on his crime, and on the attitude of the Explorator in question. If the crime is minor tech-heresy (performing unsanctioned repairs or field modifications of technology, stealing tech-relics, etc) then if the individual is of use the Explorator might turn a blind eye. If it's more serious stuff like wilfully destroying valuable machinery or dabbling with deeper heresy like AIs, human-xeno hybridisation or combining technology and the Warp, any right-thinking AdMech would see the culprit servitorised at the very least, or ritually vivisected as a warning to others if his crime was especially vile.

>>14606217

Search /rs/ for "mechanicus". First result is a zip file of AdMech fluff written for the Inquisitor skirmish game.

OY! LOOKS WUT WE GOT HERE!

As for tech-heresy, now copy-pasting a selection of stuff that will have the AdMech fucking up your shit in short order.

--

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 particular, include so-called "Murder Gholam"—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 in often 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 wars to end the Age of Strife.

>>14606444

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 by the Adeptus Mechanicus and outright blasphemy by the Imperial Cult.

The Silica Animus: An artificial mind (rather than a simple cogitator) created from forbidden technologies, tradition holds that such unholy constructs are inherently evil and a perverted abomination in the sight of Omnissiah. Mechanicus doctrine states that the machine spirit of a Silica Animus 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 Dark Age, and the legions of ‘iron children' that served them, blaming them in part for many of the terrible wars that laid humanity low in that lost time.

>>14606451

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 excepted uses and patterns of this tech 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 experiements 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: 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 brain, but also the personality and will, granting in effect complete mental and spiritual immortality in a artificial physical form. Of the few legends that surround this tech, some state that the abominations created are soulless beings with dark desires and alien hungers that can never be satiated. These warnings however, often fail to deter the Protocol's most ardent seekers.

From the weakness of the mind, Omnissiah save us.
From the lies of the Antipath, circuit preserve us.
From the rage of the Beast, iron protect us.
From the temptations of the Fleshlord, silica cleanse us.
From the ravages of the Destroyer, anima shield us.
From this rotting cage of biomatter, Machine God set us free.

There is no truth in flesh, only betrayal.
There is no strength in flesh, only weakness.
There is no constancy in flesh, only decay.
There is no certainty in flesh but death.

>>14606564
Chants of the Journeyman, then the Credo Omnissiah?
Odd choice.

>>14606564
Everything organic we know of is simply machinery, in one form or another. Tendons replace pistons; flesh in the place of steel; blood is simply biological coolant. To deny this and shun it is more than just Mechanicus orthodoxy – it is idiocy.

Not OP here
Can an Explorator talk to and actually get real response/intelligent responses from guns? Cars? Ships?
If a ship or anything of the sort could the Tech Priestess ask for it to open/close doors or vent air without doing anything further?

>>14607029
Oh wow, only a genius could point out flaws in the logic of WH40K factions!

Out of curiosity, does anyone know anything about AdMech iconography?

The Imperium has skulls, laurels, wings, the Aquila, images of saints, gothic arches, calligraphic passages from scripture, etc.

Beyond skulls and cogs I'm having a hard time finding details with which to adorn my Techpriest's robes and armour.

>>14607149
Jacob's ladders! Lightning arcs! Steam engines!

>>14607055

Intelligent responses? No, not really. Any technology with which one could hold a meaningful two-way conversation would be viewed as Abominable Intelligence, and destroyed with all haste.

When a Techpriest "asks" a complex machine like a starship to do something he is generally using blurts of binary code which nudge the systems into action. When a Techpriest "persuades" a machine he is most likely trying a series of common activation commands to find one that works, mixed in with ritualised entreaties that don't do anything but have become mixed in with the code stuff through long years of half-understood tradition. Maybe someone said a particular prayer immediately before stumbling upon the correct activation code - no distinction is made between the prayer and the code, so they're recorded together as being the proper way to get that particular machine to function.

>>14607055
>Can an Explorator talk to and actually get real response/intelligent responses from guns? Cars? Ships?
No. The idea that everything has Machine Spirit is largely a lens through which technology is viewed. If you perform a maintainance routine, that's a ritual to appease the machine spirit. If you enter 'sexy techpriest boobs' into a Cogitator and press Search, you're beseeching its machine spirit to find you what you desire. If you send a binary task code to a servitor and it obeys, you have commanded its machine spirit. If you ask the organic semi-sentient core computer in a titan to laser a guy in High Gothic and it does, well, you've communed with its machine spirit.

Although there's nothing to stop you believing that you can hold a conversation with an electric whisk.

>>14607055

You mean like "Hey, Land Raider, could you up the temperature in here? It's a bit chilly." than I'm not sure.

I think what they usually do in that situation is enact a ritual to the same effect. In that earlier thread that was what was basically concluded. What the Mechanicus and the Imperium see has holy ritual the people of the Dark Age would see as simple maintenance and pressing the right button and pulling the right lever to make the machine do what you want it to do.

>>14607219
This is important to keep in mind about the AM. At the lower levels, they learn how to use technology by rote. They may know HOW to fix something, but they won't know WHY it works. So, to use a modern example, they'll know that clearing out a computer's "cookies" will make it run better, but they won't know WHY it makes it run better, which is really needed for any independant discoveries or developments.

Of course, an Explorator would be of high enough rank to understand a lot of the underlying principles behind a lot of tech.

>>14607286
Land raiders have simple Machine Minds with some organic brain tissue - they can navigate, engage targets and have a certain amount of decision making power - on Rynn's world a Land Raider drove about by itself killing orks until it was immobilised and disarmed. Then it overloaded it's own reactors to take down the orks looting it. Titans, Starships and more complicated technology has increasingly able Machine Spirits - Titans have a weird fusing of the Princeps and their own programmed instincts, and presumably Starships have more capable computers, although lacking the MIU controls are probably less likely to be chatty

>>14607219
>>14607219
>>14606458
>>14606451
>>14606564
>>14606444
>>14606424
>>14606361

OP here, glad I decided to come back and check in to see if anyone else responded! These are all great replies that will probably come in immensely handy. I've saved just about every worthwhile post from this thread for reference material. You guys rock!

>>14607149

Check patterns and chevrons are always good, as are embroidered lines of binary, machine codes, mathematical theorems or anything you like really. Depending on the order you belong to, you could have patterns based on your area of expertise or allow more colours into the general red scheme - a Biologis might primarily wear white and red with an embroidered DNA helix, whereas a secutor might have more shiny black and threatening symbols. Invent something! There are just as many sub-factions of the Mechanicum as there are the Ecclesiarchy, they just tend to be less vocal about their differences in front of outsiders. You could say your techpriest is a follower of Omnissiah as the Holy Lumen, and decorate your robes with leds, conducting rods and textured lightning bolts. Use your imagination - you're a mad engineer / archeologist / prophet of the machine god!

>>14604735
>LEGO 40k

My god man, post more!

>>14607055

Depends on the machine. Ships and titans have an intelligence you can commune with, but talking to them would be a stretch. Its like talking to an animal. Sure you can do it and maybe something crosses the barrier but its unlikely. Human technology uses a lot of organic parts to circumvent the whole "no A.I." thing. Complex machines will often ave little bits of grey matter for processing which is why Titans and Ships are "intelligent". Titans are also intelligent because their pilots actually have a means of linking their mind to the machine and little bits and pieces of thought are copied and left in the machine.

You can go by the rule that the bigger the thing is, the more likely it has a "real" machine spirit. Also things that are obviously with biological bits. Servitors, Servo-Skulls, Cyber-Familiars and the like. There's also "Acts of Faith" Machine Spirits but those are a lot harder to quantify. Just know that sometimes the faith of the Mechanicus does sometimes bestow an actual soul onto what otherwise would be a lifeless machine.

>>14607353

Explorator, Disciple of Thule, recently signed up with the Divine Light of Sollex.

Oh, and also a minor scion of Haarlock who has decided that he's sick of nearly getting caught in Crazy Uncle Erasmus' deathtraps (just finished Tattered Fates), and (overambitiously) intends to take the sonofabitch down and pry the Haarlock Warrant from his cold dead fingers. So maybe including some Tyrant Star imagery in his personal iconography could work.

>>14607486

Would you accept some Orks, good sir?

>>14604735
>>14607557
mfw these are much better than real miniatures.

shockedface.jpg

>>14607353
This is the most important part of all! Pick a Divisio- any science, ANY SCIENCE or math and crank that shit up to 11.

Like making guns? Divisio Munitorum, sub-div Ballistica. Sound? Vox. Computers- Lexmechanics. Psyker-lickers have Psykana, psychologists have Psychologica, there's your Sociology asshole fetials for those guys who roll 40 Fel, EVERYTHING.

Like plants? Bontanicus!

>>14607557
I would spend so much money if LEGO came out with these.

And it would be even better if they could be used for tabletop purposes.

>>14607644
If I saw a dude walk in with those I'd play him.

>>14607644
Think about how customizable they would be. Wouldn't have to buy new minis if you wanted to give a squad new weapons, just swap out what guns/bits they currently have.

>>14607644
>>14607671

And drive Games Workshop promptly into bankruptcy. People would have more fun putting the armies together then they would playing with them, if my Lego-infused childhood is any indication.

Don't forget that any sort of circuit pattern will always be appropriate, embroidered or woven into robes and tattooed on what little flesh remains.

>>14609215
Off topic, but this picture is everything I love about 40k, the familiar woven with the grimdark.The 3 in front could be from any cheesy adventure action movie, then SERVOSKULL and TECHPRIEST.
It is truly glorious.
Have a Servitor.

>>14609392
Oh, and a pirate with a two-headed bird. Almost forgot about that.

Commencing AdMech rationale copypasta.

--

The Mechanicus does NOT have the technology. They haven't been living on some fancy paradise planet since pre-Fall. Mars is an anarchic nightmare shithole the moment you leave the safe zones into the kilometres of labyrinthine corridors beneath it full of rogue machinery, self-aware and malevolent AI from before the Fall, and the daemon programs of the Heresy. EVERYTHING in the databases is fucked. The databases are fragmented over the entire surface to the extent that it would be impossible to see one tenth of the total files in the ludicrously extended life of a Magos even assuming that they are completely safe to visit. And they are not.

The files have been corrupted into madness by the Fall, and the unleashing of the most potent informational warfare systems ever to exist to defeat the Iron Men. Nearly all of Mars was rendered uninhabitable, what they live in now is built on the top of the ruins. They send archeotech expeditions in to find shit, nearly all of them never come back. The sheer number of rogue war machine running around in there is sufficient to rape the mind. Then came the Heresy, which was not earth-exclusive. Mars as the second most critical planet in the Imperium was the site of fighting nearly as ferocious as on Terra, with Mechanicus loyalists and Hereteks fighting tooth, nail, and mechadendrite everywhere. Ancient machines were unleashed, viruses both normal and daemonic unleashed into all the computer systems. Nearly every single stored record on Mars was rendered unusable, and those that survived are half the time self-aware and don't like you, or daemonic and actively try to kill you.

>>14610801

If you come back with a schematic, it is almost certainly gibberish, and if it isn't, it's probably corrupted into uselessness. If it does come back whole it was probably malevolently fucked with so that instead of a Lasgun power cell it's a fucking grenade set to detonate the second you finish building it. Why do you think they want off-world STCs so damned much if they had them all here? The fucking Heresy is why. Off-world they only have to contend with the Fall's war and its effects on the machinery plus twenty thousand years of degradation with no maintenance. But at least off-world it'll probably just not work instead of actively seek to kill you.

Why do you think they seek to placate the Machine Spirit? It's because it exists. The fragments of trillions of self-aware programs, flourishing during the Dark Age of Technology and shattered by Man in his war with the Iron men, imprisoning the few who had not set themselves irrevocably into the machinery, a prison smashed wide open by the Heresy. Everything that can hold programming in the Imperium has a shard of a program in it. EVERYTHING. And you'd better fucking please it or it will do everything in its power to make your day shit. Sure, if it's a Lasgun it'll just not work or start shooting off rounds by itself, but if you piss off a Land Raider you can say bye-bye to half a continent. They apply these principles to things without spirits by habit, since they're so used to dealing with tanks that if not talked to just right might go rogue and annihilate the Manufactorum before they can be killed.

>>14610804

This is why they do not like ANYONE fucking with technology, because it is so rare to find anything that just works it is critical it not be compromised. That, and they do not have the actual knowledge to fuck with it intelligently, just through experimentation, which inevitably leads to slaughter. Pressing buttons to see what works is fine in a 21st century computer, but it is a very stupid thing to do at the helm of a 410th century starship with the destructive power to end solar systems. The entire knowledge base of humanity was lost. Not forgotten, but outright lost. Everything at all, poof. Nobody knows anything because the Fall fucked everything up and the Heresy double-fucked it. To rebuild the theoretical framework needed to design new technologies that don't kill everyone near them would require starting from the ground up. They don't have the time, and they never have.

This gets on to the point of war and what it does to technology. Someone will parrot that it makes it go much faster. Yes, it makes practical applications of technology go much faster. It also utterly stops all research on the scientific theories behind those technologies. This means that when war chugs along for a decade or two things get done. It means when it goes on too long you run out of theories to turn into technologies, and then you run out of technologies to apply. You stagnate. When you have been fighting in a war for survival in a drastically overextended empire, this is what happens. You are desperate for any extra materiel that can possibly be produced. Half your entire fucking military might went rogue, smashed the half that stayed, leaving you with the tattered shreds of a war machine to keep hold of an empire that was reaching straining point with an army far larger. There is no time for the sort of applied research programs that took Man twenty five thousand years to develop, in a time of unprecedented growth and prosperity.

>>14610805

This is also why the Adeptus Mechanicus insists on cargo cultism. It's because when you are dealing with things you barely understand because everything you knew about them was destroyed it is the safest and most reliable option. The rituals do not exists for mysticism, they exist because they are the most practical means of building, repairing and maintaining the equipment they have with the knowledge surviving. You don't understand why pressing that button makes it go, because the manual tried to take over your brain and the copies are all unreadable and the research base that would let you reverse-engineer it does not exist and cannot be built.

Why are the Tau doing so well with their technology? Because they had peace. Eight thousand years unmolested by any enemy and they were helped the entire time by the most advanced biological race in the galaxy. Give the Imperium eight thousand years of peace and I can guarantee you it will be harder than it was during the Great Crusade.

>>14610809

Since some still don't get the idea, try this.

Build a library, fill it with all human knowledge. You take it elsewhere when you need a book from it, but the book is only a simplified copy. You don't understand the real book, and you don't need to. Nobody takes the real books anywhere because why would you, when there's a whole library there?

Now that library goes rogue and the maintenance machinery starts killing everyone any-fucking-where near it. Where the fuck did they all come from, you swear to god there weren't this many, and there weren't because they're using the library's information to fight their war. The government fights a battle that destroys the planet against these robots and tears apart the library to stop them using it, only to be destroyed in the process. The library is leveled, cast into flames, every book burned and every computer virus-laden.

Then comes a man who worked there. He talks to the few surviving library workers, assembles their information, and starts rebuilding a city around the library and expanding it as the librarians find little scraps of paper and fragmented bits of files that stuck together just right to read something. They rebuild a library from scrap on the ashes of the old. It isn't a shadow on the glory of the old, but it is all they have.

Then the city turns on itself, kills its master, and the librarians turn to rage. Half of them kill the other half and destroy the remnants of the library because where they're going they won't need science. Everything burns, and the city is left to a scattered few survivors, walls open to the world, with the hungry predators circling.

The Adeptus Mechanicus is the sole surviving librarian, desperately scrabbling through the ashes of paper and splinters of hard drives for anything to help him and the city he needs to survive just a second longer.

>>14610809

The Imperium isn't grim because things suck by choice and could be fine if a sensible person came along. That sensible person wouldn't survive fifty seconds of the reality. The Imperium is grim because every single shit decision, every single sacrifice, every single death, every single man woman and child suffering a shit life in the worst conditions imaginable, is the absolute best that can be done. It is a study of the worst happening to everyone and what part of your humanity must be sacrificed today just to stand a chance of survival, and all it asks is whether or not it would have perhaps been better to die.

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++END COPYPASTA++

>>14610819
>is the absolute best that can be done.

As said before, Imperium are indeed the good guys, as proven by the above pasta. The good guys also always win, which is why Chaos is pathetic Saturday Morning Cartoon villains, and Imperial codices are best in-game too.

Pic related, it's what the Chaos codex contains.

>>14610819
Bullshit. Half of what the Imperium does worsens humanity's chance of survival, rather than improving it. From all the viable human factions the Emperor genocided from existence just for ego to the sheer unadulterated randumb of tech heresy declaring all sorts of shit that is in one sector to be verboten and vice versa to of course Inquisition witness-killing protocols, the Imperium's grimdark nature is based vastly more on ignorance, superstition, and mental retardation than a GRIM NECESSITY. Of course they see it like that.

>>14610866

I don't really understand what you just wrote, but there was, you know, the Heresy. That fucked everything right up the pooper. After that, everyone was screwed.

>>14610866

You can see it however you like, but that doesn't stop you from being the closest thing to wrong you can be in a 'myth and propaganda' setting.

>>14610885
What a classy way to say "you are dumb and what you said is wrong". I am impressed

>>14610885

No, he's right.

The Imperium is a study on everything that has gone wrong. It's good and fine if someone supports Imperium in-character but actually falling to hamfisted in-setting propaganda that says it's the only chance for mankids survival or something similar is just stupid.

>>14610905

>>I know the setting, because of the fluff. What I say is the true fluff and not just propaganda is, because I know the setting.

You've not said anything that can't be said by anyone, anywhere, about whatever they feel like saying. 40K has no 'canon'. What it has are interpretations, and the only one that has any more weight than any other is the one that the guys who write the setting say they wanted to get across. What they say is not what you are saying.

You're not wrong, because you can't be wrong in 40K. But you are most certainly not right.

>>14610943

40k isn't some mystic concept that has transcended the creators of IP (GW). The underpinning concepts and creator ideas are the same as they were in old Rogue Trader rulebook.

>>14610943

The Imperium is vastly incompetent and corrupt, even if one accepts that the extremes they go to are needed, those extremes are often employed unnessecarily or employed too late or too fast.

And the fluff makes no secret of that, in fact the fluff often revels in the clusterfuck that the Imperium is.

Sure the Imperium dont reach the cartoonish heights of villainious ineptnes that Chaos reaches, but that does not make the Imperium good or competent it merely renders them less bad than Chaos, something which indeed is damning them with faint praise.

>>14610962

And those concepts are WHATEVER YOU WANT THEM TO BE. That is the only explicit rule of 'reading' 40K. You are presented this information and all of it, plus the concepts behind it, are both entirely factual and arrant bullshit. Interpeting it as the dark universe of man's last stand or the hellish shithole where everyoen is a faggot are equally valid. Making it the land of the Space Marine where they save everyone from everything is valid. Making it so that the only faction that actually exists is Chaos and that the entirety of realspace is just an elaborate joke Tzeentch is playing on everyone else is valid. That doesn't mean they are good or interesting, but it does mean you can't say that that is wrong.

Whether the 'myth and propaganda' rule is actually good for the setting is most certainly up for debate, but that it is the only explicit and incontestable rule of the 40K lore is not.

Not so long ago I player asked me for references he could use for play an Explorator in a upcoming RT game.
He was mostly a traditional Space Opera player, used to Traveller, Star Trek, Star Wars and other RPG franchise and didn't touched W40K much.
So, instead of telling him of reading Mechanicum or Titanicus I told him about reading The name of the rose, the first Foundation trilogy and Canticle for Leibowitz.
Three weeks later he told me he wasn't interested, because the setting made less sense than before if the faction what controls science behaves like the catholic monks of the late Middle ages.

40K is really just big post-apocalyptic setting. An entire galatic civilisation, wiped out and then the Imperium comes along desperately trying to dig up the old tech that was mostly destroyed because it needs it to live.

>1) How does the stereotypical Mars or Imperium-based techpriest differ from an Explorator?
well, explorators are given a lot more freedom. both in how they operate and how they acomplish a mission. and are a lot less likely to let tradition and their teachings get in the way of SCIENCE!, and knowlege.

>2) What key information should any techpriest be aware of, so I can properly research my role. What would an average Explorator have knowledge of by comparison?
well, machines have "spirits", and some are more advanced than others. alien tech is heretical. but if you reverse-engineer it and make a machine/weapon which does the same thing while using imperial tech and materials its ok.

>3) One of the other players I know will be playing is going to be taking the Wanted Fugitive trait. Who is he wanted by? The Cult Mechanicum. If an Explorator were to discover this fact, would they be beholden to do something about it?
new servoskull/servitor bitz

>>14610819
>>14610814
>>14610809
>>14610805
>>14610804
>>14610801

>Come back the next day
>My thread is still here and has new content.

I love you /tg/.

>>14611020
Foundation is an excellent example because the Mechanicus are almost ripped wholesale from it. And in foundation, the appearance of religion keeps the Foundations technology secret, because tinkering is heresy. So it's a perfectly rational reason for technologists to behave like middle age monks

++BEGIN TRANSCRIPT++

When the creature first came to me it was a pitiful wretch, dragged into my workshop-shrine and cast sprawling upon the stone floor. It had come to my attention in reports of an unsanctioned technomat and least-heretek operating in the underhive, and I had ordered it brought before me. It was as one fallen into mind-rust or struck with palsy; it huddled deep in filthy red robes, stinking of sump-oil and bio-waste; a tatterdemalion of scraps and rags and crude augmetics that squealed and chattered with every tic and twitch. Its vox-unit hissed and crackled as it spoke, its tone plaintive and abject for all that the words were jumbled and meaningless. I almost pitied it. Almost.

Those garments were the first layer to be peeled away to reveal the sins beneath. How curious, I thought, that it should understand the nearness of its unmaking there in my laboratorium. How like a man, that it begged for mercy even as I went to work upon it. How close to human, that it should plead with me to halt in my examination, a convulsive torrent of gutter-Gothic and degraded binary between shrieks of apparent agony; desperate, mangled exhortations that only firmed my resolve to see its miserable existence ended. The nearness of its mimickry made it only more unsettling, more repulsive.

It is a travesty, a vile mockery of the blessed human form. To pose as an initiate of the Mechanicum, to perform the holy rites of a Tech-Priest without proper sanction, that is transgression enough to see the perpetrator rendered down into servitor components. But for this creature, this thing, to pose as a man, as a being possessed of volition, autonomous thought, a soul? It is perversion, abomination, and the arch-heretic Ryne will be brought to account for the horrors he has spawned.

>>14615856

The Silica Animus. I should have destroyed it - I should have dismantled it utterly, its components fed to the reclamation furnaces, to be cleansed in fire and forged anew. And yet I hesitated. I was intrigued. I hungered to understand this forsaken machine.

I dismantled it by increments - one system at a time, carefully recording each step. I took the proper precautions, ensured that its chamber was shielded against vox-signal and auspex scan, that it was supplied with only enough power to keep it from lapsing into dormancy. Its servo-volitors were disengaged, trapping its blasphemous intellect in a body of unresponsive metal, a prison within a prison. With electro-augurs I studied the patterns of its thoughts, the pulse of forbidden algorithms within its desecrated cogitation core. I listened as it spoke, at times with what seemed to approach lucidity.

The creature became an obsession, of sorts. The principles of its physical function were elementary enough - near-indistinguishable from the augmetic systems employed across the Mechanicum, albeit turned to forbidden ends. But its mind! This remained a mystery to me, and I sought out proscribed texts that I might learn more, that I might better understand. I spread my net wider, inloading treatises by those medicae who tend to morbidities of the mind, familiarising myself with lore I had previously discounted as irrelevant to my field.

>>14615865

I took this new knowledge and applied it to my study of the false-man. I learned how a soulless sentience might thwart itself, robbed of the stabilising foundation of biology. How a mind unanchored might thrash and flail, becoming caught in snares of its own making as it modifies and amends its structure and nature. I unravelled its psyche, thread by tangled thread. I stripped back layer upon layer of degraded subroutines and twisted algorithms, snarled fragments of self-perpetuating scrapcode that roiled and churned in its cogitation core. As I did so, it grew... calmer. Clearer. More rational.

More like a man.

I shall continue my work on its mind, such as remains. I will purge it of every last fragment of what it was, the corrupt thought-processes that rendered it a broken, irrational intelligence.

I will heal it.

>>14615877

Cleansed of the depraved touch of the Children of Ryne, purified and sanctified by proper Omnissian rites, I will rebuild this false-man anew. It will receive no input that is not in keeping with Mechanicus doctrine, no data that has not been thrice-blessed and sanctified. Onto this blank slate I shall inscribe the orthodoxy of the Machine God. I will teach it the Mysteries and the Warnings; the holy triumvirate of Matter, Energy and Form; the prayers and hymns that most please the Deus In Machina.

This, then, is my great experiment, and though I be damned in the attempt I must know the answer. Remade in this way, receiving an education as rigorous as that of any tech-initiate, can this thing - this profane mockery, this hollow travesty - can it begin to grasp the glory of the Omnissiah? It knows pain and fear - can it know wonder? Can it know awe?

Can it know faith?

++END TRANSCRIPT++

Thiswillendwell.jpg

>>14604101
Non fat version

>>14618359

OP here, that ain't fat. That's called "Healthy and Voluptuous".

What you have there is "Holy crap her spine must be augmented to keep her from snapping in two".

>>14618495
>>must be augmented

Talking about a tech priest.

>>14618495
I bet you are fat.

>>14610819

Anyone who honestly thinks the Imperium is a good idea, or that their methods are ok, is an idiot and a tool and are the exact reason why shit like the holocaust happens. I'm sick of closet nazis and communists fagging up 40k.

>>14618585
Being a Heretek is the way, brother.

>>14618609

>>14604261
Oh my god. The dark mechanicus are jews.
They might think the emprah was good, but he's no (omni)messiah.

>>14618585

Taking a fantasy world a little too seriously now are we?

>>14618646
No, they believe that the Emprah was a false messiah and that the Omnissiah is the four chaos gods united (Or Chaos Undivided, however you want to phrase it), with the big four as aspects of his genius, like a warped Christian Holy Trinity.

>>14618646
The Mechanicus are the ones with a Jesus figure, not the Imperium.

>>14618495
Not him, but with how food rationing and things are treated on Forge Worlds, I doubt anyone coming from there is "healthy and voluptuous". If a forge world somehow has nobles that might be the exception, or the bio-tech priests needing more room to cram things.

>>14618585
>closet nazis and communists fagging up 40k

My mind is full-of-fuck.jpg

Nazism and Communism is pretty much the meat and bread of Warhammer. What would you have us do? Make Warhammer gay and pretty and colorful?

Goddamn moralfags mucking up my Warhammers.

>>14618831
I thought many forge worlds were like 60% servitors, 20% techpriests, 20% actual, (relatively) unaugmented people. That would imply something of a food surplus.

>>14618865
That's because they treat people like machines. People are worked as hard as they can and only those who survive rigorous testing manage to not become servitors by the time they reach adulthood. By how hard they work normal people and how they treat everyone with the bare necessities to get by I don't see them overfeeding their priests.


Especially since that seems sort of like giving in to the flesh.

>>14618895

Don't have a source, but I was under the impression that much of a techpriest's digestive tract is removed to make room for all that stuff like potentia coils, respirator units, etc. Plus the fact that a lot of those respirator masks seem to involve removal or replacement of the lower jaw.

Instead the techpriest has an intake port and subsists on high-density nutrient bars which cater to the requirements of his organic components alive. This intake port also contains a macerator which allows the techpriest to partake of normal food, though the experience is purely one of refuelling and he derives no enjoyment from the taste or texture of whatever is fed into the port. It just gets blended up into a smoothie and passed on to whatever remains of his digestive tract for absorption.

Basically, don't invite a devotee of the Omnissiah to dinner. He'll be bored watching the meatbags eat, they'll be disgusted at the blending and slurping noises of his nutrient processing systems as he internally renders the exquisitely-prepared meal into slurry.

>>14618845

>Make Warhammer gay
>Implying that homosexuality isn't just as big a part of 40k as Nazism and Communism

>>14618865

Not necessarily. Servitors still need nutrients for their organic components, and forgeworlds aren't going to have much by way of farmland.

>Implying that homosexuality isn't just as big a part of 40k as Nazism and Communism

You niggers infest this board as well?

are there any books about the dark mechanicus?