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Mandalorian

2021-10-08T23:59:51Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:D51C:2CE6:1356:3DA2:

''If you are looking for the TV show about one of these guys [[Star Wars:The Mandalorian|click here]].''

'''Mandalorians''' are a culture (or group of cultures) in the Star Wars universe centered around the planet Mandalore. The Mandalorians have incorporated numerous species into their ranks and there is a lot of variation among them, but they are famed for being a (mostly) warlike culture and for their highly distinctive armor, which is made of one of the few materials in the known universe that can resist [[lightsaber]]s.

== History ==
Talking about the history of Mandalorians is tricky because in addition to the Legends/Canon split, which is already contentious, you have the issue that a lot of the Legends lore about Mandalorians was invented by [[Karen Traviss]], who is kind of the [[Matthew Ward]] of [[Star Wars]] (and [[Halo]]) novels - she absolutely loves the Mandalorians, since they push her "hard(ish) sci-fi badass military faction, yay!" love button, but she also loathes the Jedi and by extension all Force users, which often results in her turning the Mandalorians into the Star Wars equivalent of the [[Ultramarines]].

The basic idea, boiling it down short, is that the Mandalorians are a warrior culture who arose in the far-flung past of the known galaxy. Whilst originally they were a distinct species, they were also an "assimilationist" type of empire-builder, striving to actively integrate conquered races into their culture by basically wiping out their old beliefs and making them follow the Mandalorian way. It technically paid off, because even though the Mandalorian species is long-extinct, the Mandalorian culture has remained in existence for thousands of years. Due to their warlike natures and ambitions of conquest, they have frequently fought against the Jedi, and in fact they usually allied themselves with the Sith in just about every one of the major Jedi/Sith wars - this is why they invented ''beskar'', a mineral that can actually negate lightsaber energies, and made armor out of it.

Shortly before the time of the Clone Wars, there was an active civil war amongst the Mandalorians over whether or not their traditions of conquest and warmongering were worth keeping, considering it had consistently resulted in them getting the shit kicked out of them by the rest of the galaxy. This resulted in the pacifists temporarily taking over and booting the traditionalists off the homeworld, causing them to largely scatter across the galaxy as mercs and bounty hunters. Then the Clone Wars happened and a traditionalist terrorist group, the Death Watch, discredited the pacifists, assassinated their leader, and took over the planet again... which just led to more or less another civil war, resulting in Mandalore staying out of everybody's way during Palpatine's reign over the newly fledged Galactic Empire, save for the aforementioned legions of Mandalorian mercs and bounty hunters still roaming the galaxy and continuing fighting for money and kicks as if nothing had changed.

== Mandos of note ==
* Jango Fett - Mandalorian bounty hunter who served as the genetic template for the Clone Troopers used by the Galactic Republic.
* Boba Fett - A clone of Jango that wasn't hyper-aged to serve as a disposable soldier, but instead given to Jango as a surrogate son as payment for his part in the Clone Troopers. Outlived his father and became a bounty hunter himself.
* Duchess Satine Kryze - Leader of Mandalore during the time of the Clone Wars, a representative of the pacifist movement that temporarily took control of the Mandalorians.
* Pre Vizsla - Leader of Death Watch, a Mandalorian terrorist group focused on forcibly overthrowing the pacifist government of their people.

{{Stub}}
[[Category:Star Wars]]

Chaos in the Old World

2021-10-08T09:45:11Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:D51C:2CE6:1356:3DA2: /* Gameplay */

{{Game Infobox
|name = Chaos in the Old World
|picture = [[Image:cowbox.png]]
|type = Board Game
|playno = 3 - 4 (5 with expansion)
|time = 1 - 2 hours
|publisher = Fantasy Flight Games
|year = 2009
|books = Rule Book
}}

'''Chaos in the Old World''' was a board game produced by [[Fantasy Flight Games]] in which the players take the role of one of the [[Gods of Chaos]] to take over the [[Warhammer Fantasy Battles|world]].

Not only must the players contend with one another, but they must deal with random events that the world itself throws up at them, such as the rise of [[Empire|human armies]], or [[Teclis|Elven Wizards]], Norse Invasions and others, each of which can radically change the way the game develops. This coupled with randomly positioned objectives and constantly shifting goals means that no two games will play alike.

Thankfully despite all of the [[Chaos|activity happening within a single game]], it is not as difficult to pick up and play as some other of the FFG board games, and can be completed in less than a couple of hours. GW have now stopped licensing to FFG.

==Gameplay==
After generating the random event that will take place that game turn, players take it in strict '''<u>god sequence</u>''' to spend '''[[Magic|power points]]''' to summon daemons and/or cast spells onto the map.

Once all players are out of power points then the game uses a strict '''<u>region sequence</u>''' to determine the order that battles and spells are resolved in, beginning at the top of the map and working its way down.

After all of the gets resolved, if the faction has enough daemons and magic remaining in that location to beat the local mortal forces ''(always a fixed value - with a few exceptions)'' then they dominate that region and score points.

Finally, players with any remaining [[Cultist]] units get to place corruption in the location which can contribute to the [[Exterminatus|ruin]] of that kingdom and the eventual destruction of the world - also gaining lots of points, but rendering that region useless for the rest of the game.

The game is asymmetrically balanced. Each god plays exactly as they should, [[Khorne]] is obviously the superior combatant, [[Tzeentch]] is the master of magic with better spells than everyone else, [[Nurgle]] is the spreader of corruption and is best at ruining regions, whilst [[Slaanesh]] excels at turning the players against each other and stealing points.

Players also get to [[Level|level-up]] their god, and each god has different means of doing this.
*'''Khorne''' kills people - easy
*'''Tzeentch''' places two or more corruption tokens wherever there are ''two'' or more warpstone tokens and/or magical "vortex" symbols ''(found on certain magic spell cards belonging to all players)''
*'''Nurgle''' places two or more corruption tokens down in a "populated" area ''(marked on the map)''
*'''Slaanesh''' places two or more corruption tokens down wherever a nobleman objective or mortal hero is currently located.

Levelling up brings obvious benefits to the player, such as improved daemonic abilities / more power points to use each turn / more spells in your hand or even simple things like an immediate score boost.

The players must always keep in mind their factions strengths and weaknesses, so whilst newbies might [[butthurt|feel]] that Khorne is overpowered, anyone with a good head for tactics can win so long as they keep their goals in mind. Just make sure that one of those goals is "point Khorne at someone who ain't me."

An entire game can pass without a single battle taking place ''(much easier with no Khorne player)'' and it would still be an enjoyable session.

The game ends when:
*Someone levels up to max - ''they just win, if two players max level in the same turn, the player with the highest indicated power level wins''
*Someone accumulates fifty points - ''total up everyone's scores then the highest score wins''
*the world is ruined - ''[[End Times]] happens, the player with the highest score wins.'' This is a fun one from a lore perspective, because it sorta implies the Chaos Gods cause the End Times all the time and just keep resetting the world the way the players reset the game.
*or you run out of random event cards - ''everyone loses, the person who had no chance of winning and played spoiler laughs''

==Tactics==
Because of the turn sequence and the limits on available power, it is easy enough to figure out roughly what a player is going to do in a given turn. For example: when a model goes down everyone else can see what the point of it was, whether to dominate the region or claim an objective, so then everyone else has the choice whether to either fight it or leave it. Similarly, when a magic card goes down, everyone can see what it will do later in the turn and can make moves to attempt to counter or mitigate it.

If players commit themselves too early and spend all their power it gives their opponents the opportunity to work around them, so the real trick is hiding your plan until the last possible moment. Greater Daemons are a prime example of this problem: as soon as they drop on the table it becomes almost a declaration of intent since they are usually so difficult to shift and most players will then move to avoid them or neuter them once they arrive. Since they are so expensive to summon it also gives the player less moves to work with for the rest of the turn. Sometimes its more effective to just waste a move by throwing something cheap down and achieving nothing so long as you have the power points spare to do what you want to do later.

When in doubt, throw down a Cultist in a region you don't really care about, because it increases your domination total you might score some free points if no-one else challenges you, and by adding corruption can always net more points if the region gets ruined later. Also remember that unless you are playing the Horned Rat expansion there are only two spaces for spells, so even throwing down a useless spell will deny that slot for someone else's use.

===[[Khorne]]===
You are going to win by advancing the threat dial and leveling up, plain and simple. You will always play a reactionary game, chasing players around the board trying to kill them. That is why the "god sequence" exists, so that players can see what you do first before making their own moves so you cannot ambush every move they make.

Your job is essentially to spread yourself thinly and try to catch out units in as many locations as possible, as it does not matter how many units you kill, or even if your units survive the battle, just so long as you kill things in different regions to level up quicker.

Because of this you are unlikely to score many points trying to dominate mortal regions, so you will mostly be behind on the score tracker for most of the game, but once you start getting more and more daemons on the board and it becomes cluttered with more and more ruined kingdoms, you will find that you absolutely dominate locations where you get a huge build up of forces.

Do not ever forget your cultists though, an early level-upgrade makes them into fighting units giving you a small horde to play with. But also if you're clever, a well placed corruption token can tip a region over the edge and ruin it, scoring you big points even after someone else has done all the work.

===[[Tzeentch]]===
You ARE the master of magic, unlike everyone else you get a whole fresh hand of spells every turn, and many of them have a zero value, so you can place them with impunity.

Many of your spells also give you unparalleled mobility, allowing you to teleport your daemons anywhere on the map ignoring the normal restrictions on movement. But you can also cast the same spell on your opponents units, moving them to remote locations where they get no benefit from being.
You ALSO get to siphon off magic from other players with certain spells not only prolonging your freedom of options, but potentially spoiling enemy strategies, particularly if you leave it later in the turn sequence when players are usually trying to pull their grand design together.

You are also the player that everyone else can predict the least, but will require an enormous amount of [[Just as Planned]] to pull off, precisely as anyone playing Tzeentch should: Your objectives of Warpstone and/OR magic symbols means that you can create your own level-up objectives anywhere on the board at pretty much any time. Good use of zero cost or siphon spell cards can conceal your intentions until the very last moment, where your opponents have started running out of power points you can have plenty left over to position your daemons in freshly prepared level-up conditions as well as locations abandoned by other players which you can dominate easily.

The best upgrades for you are obviously the ones that improve your hand-size, though the cultist one comes in a close second by allowing you to pull warpstone around the map. The pink horror upgrade is also useful if you know how to use it, by hoarding spell slots on the map all to yourself and casting into the opposite slot, but you get so few horrors that it's not really worth it until late in the game when people are competing for space unless you are trying to anticipate and deny you opponents tactics. The lord of change upgrade is never worth it, YES counting him as two warpstone tokens is lovely but you can already create opportunities anywhere else; so you end up doing is creating an expensive target for your opponents to charge at, which is something you should never do as Tzeentch.

===[[Nurgle]]===
Spreading corruption is what you do and you do it well. You are the most predictable player, your objectives are fixed on the board and so everyone can see where you need to go to level up.

Those locations are also the most valuable in terms of points too so you can choose to play the level up game or the points game, but its easier to score points for you than level up since your moves will be so transparent that many players will see what you're doing, and kill off your cultists just to spite you.

At the same time your spells are heavily focused around corruption, even using corruption tokens to dominate regions. You can dominate regions quite easily once you start corrupting them so shoring up your already cheap forces in one region at a time is definitely an option that leaves you less open to being shifted from, and steadily builds up your score over the course of the game and pulling off a surprise victory that people didn't expect based on your slow pace of play.

Depending on what style you choose, one of the better upgrades is the Great Unclean Ones ability to place two corruption down wherever he lands, gaining you instant XP on top of what your cultists generate. But this becomes expensive in terms of power points as summoning him over and over will drain you fast.

A better upgrade would be the one that allows you to take free cultists wherever you do not already have units, spreading corruption all over the board and aiming for loads of points by ruining regions. Unfortunately this leaves you easy prey to players like Khorne or Slaanesh who would happily abuse your units for their own benefit, so sitting in one location and gaining steady points is always a safe option.

===[[Slaanesh]]===
Be a douchebag, that's your job in this game, you really want to annoy players with underhanded tactics to get the best use of your units and spells.

Like Tzeentch, your objectives start randomly positioned on the board. However, unlike Tzeentch, you only need to corrupt one hero or noble to give you the level-up. Unfortunately this means you'll only have a couple of places on the board where you can really focus on if you want to level up, and if another player decides he wants it you're in for a tough time.

Thankfully your spells can move those tokens around the board, letting you hoard nobles in favourable locations or inflicting mortal heroes on your opponents.

You also LOVE your opponents models, one of your most useful spells allow you to take over your enemies units for a turn. Giving you ALL the benefits, such as domination totals and corruption gains. Your Keeper of Secrets can also be upgraded to do this too, so rather than using it as a combat beast ''(which it's not anyway)'' use it to steal points from players.

Another cheeky spell, which you might think worthless at first, allows you to immediately place a corruption token in a region. You might wonder "why" this is helpful, but once regions start falling to ruin you can score easy points for contributing in places where you have never been.

Once you start leveling up, you'll have a difficult time deciding which upgrades to take. Your cultist and daemonette upgrades massively increase your defenses, and having tough cultists means you need less to sit on a location to guarantee corruption, which also prolongs the use of that location thereby granting more XP and points, but the upgrades for additional power points can grant you more moves than the other players, giving you a lot more freedom with units and spells.

So really the choice of victory to aim for can be quite fluid, so always keep your options open.

==Horned Rat Expansion==
FFG also released an expansion to the board game, introducing a fifth player: the [[Horned Rat]], which has a completely unique play style unlike the other players.
*They DO NOT place corruption on the table, instead their own units count as corruption tokens whenever a location gets ruined, and is significant when awarding points to the players who contributed most to the ruination of that particular region.
*They level up by dominating mortal regions wherever there exists a skaven warren token. That gives those tokens a second purpose, since to every other player they simply weakened the region they were attempting to dominate.

The Horned Rat is the master of hordes and mobility, once they level up they can move men around with impunity, even abusing the god & region order to hop rats from location to location scoring points and steam-rolling your opponents later in the game.

The expansion also introduces a new set of spells for each other god, as well as a new set of level-up upgrades. These are really for advanced players as they require a complete change in tactics and planning. For example: in this "advanced" set, Khorne becomes less of a combat focused faction and more geared towards mortal domination, essentially bullying enemy players out of regions and scoring points rather than attempting to level up.

{{Specialist-Games}}

[[Category:Warhammer Fantasy]][[Category:Warriors of Chaos]][[Category:Chaos]]

Chaos Cults

2021-10-08T09:34:34Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:D51C:2CE6:1356:3DA2:

{{template:stub}}
{{heresy}}
[[File:Cultist of tzeentch by ilacha-d7hytyz.jpg|thumb|450px|right|Give a man responsibilities, and he will be content with his life; Give a man the ability to choose his own responsibilities, and he will only be content with his highest hopes and dreams.]]

Imagine being a citizen of the [[Imperium of Man]]. The first thing you'll ever know is that your individuality is worth jack shit. You are nothing more than a drone, a coin spent in an unimaginably large system, so that other coins can be spent elsewhere, continuing the cycle. No one around you is ever expected to show you any kindness, respect you, or see you as anything less than another drone in the system. No matter how lenient your planet and government is, how strong an influence the [[Ecclesiarchy]] is where you live and how tough work you are expected to perform, this is the unfortunate and unchangeable truth that makes the Imperium what it is.

But say you've overheard some of the other drones whisper at your Administratum workplace in the upper hive. Apparently, there are these meetings, completely secret, but supposedly very invigorating. Your daily life here is hardly of note, maybe you should go. You had seen Dallia look at you with a funny expression, like she'd wondered something. Say you found the courage to forget what you've learned, and forget the punishment you and everyone even remotely associated with you would get if you were caught by the Arbites, and go to one of these meetings. Deep down in a forgotten and unused part of the Hive, you hear faint chanting. Already, your heavy legs feel stronger, your mind sharpens and your body seem to have a longing that was stamped out years ago... And when you leave, your body is as heavy as was it before you came there, but the longing remains. As time goes by, thoughts of work and duty fade, and you begin to wonder: Why are your own powers and skills suppressed? Think of all you could accomplish with them, if only you were given the chance to do so! And those decadent nobles in their high towers? Why do they get to have fun and relax? If you had the power, things would be very different. Very different indeed.

In one fateful meeting, your demagogue announces that their masters are finally arriving: [[Chaos Space Marines|worshippers of what is true and fair]] are coming on ancient ships and plan to take the entire system and wrest it from the grip of the corrupt Imperium. That's your chance, the chance you'd been waiting for. Finally, they'll see what power you possess, what strength and intelligence they had all been neglecting. Doesn't matter what the others think-- only you are right to take what is yours, and no one is gonna stop you.

It's fucking ''payback time.''

At least, that's what you think. In reality, you've just exchanged one form of miserable existence for another one that somehow manages to be '''even worse''' and have become part of the problem of why it sucks to live in the Milky Way Galaxy. But on the bright side, the Ruinous Powers will mess with your mind to the point you will neither notice nor care that your neighbor is adding your spouse's skull to the Khorne shrine and that the nice [[Daemonette]] you've been sleeping with is in the process of hollowing your soul out to make your body nice and comfy for the time she decides to take over. This is of course assuming someone else doesn't grab you for a ritual sacrifice, or you don't get used as a meatshield by your Chaos Space Marine "liberators".

On the other hand, many Chaos cults seem to not be all that weird or crazy. It could be that they're in their infancy or it could be that, like most religions, the majority of practitioners don't jump in the looney bin. Though this comes with the massive plot-hole of implying there's not really any downside to joining Chaos unless you ''choose'' to dive in the deep end, which is dumb and breaks the setting. Chaos is meant to be more like quicksand: once it's got you, the more you struggle the deeper it pulls you in.

== Overview ==

[[File:Tomb of excess copyright ffg by yogh art-d67dbff.jpg|thumb|350px|left|Sick fuckery on silver plates: Ladies and gentlemen, a Slanneshi orgy.]]

A Chaos Cult is a group of people worshiping the Ruinous Powers, either selectively or as a unified power. Cults are often comprised of a large mess of people who for some reason or other have forsaken their duty, and a demagogue, who is the spiritual and sometime martial leader of the Cult. The goal of a Cult varies wildly, from overthrowing governments or aid other heretical organizations, or simply to get a kick (or more than a kick, if you're into that sort of thing). Worshiping Chaos is different, depending on the god in question, but it often involves desecration of holy stuff, sacrifices, mass-suicide, writing and preaching heretical material, summoning of Daemons, and of course jaywalking - All in all, incredibly heretical stuff.

What most Cults don't know however is that cults attract more corruption, in form of warp anomalies, mutations and daemonic incursion. Even worse, if your corrupt actions light the Warp up well enough, it may very well attract a fleet of Chaos Space Marines. This might seem cool at first glance, but the Marines will likely not have your best interests in mind: As a matter of fact, many of them will want to put the entire system into the Warp and use you either as recruiting stock, as meatshields, or as sacrifices. Needless to say, none of those is a pleasant experience, although the former is at least a chance at starting the path to be a Daemon Prince.

Cults often worship one specific God, or sometimes a servant of that God, such as a Greater Daemon or a Daemon Prince, and the Cult is often different, depending on their allegiance. There are also a few other cult subtypes that aren't unique to any god in particular, but are used by all of them to some extent.

===Structure===
This has never been fully developed in the fluff but the White Dwarf Necromunda rules for everyone's favourite Chaotic psychopaths provides us with a structure used by smaller Chaos cults which haven't gotten much attention from the Chaos Gods yet:

*Each cult is lead by a Demagogue, often a Charismatic figure with an arsenal under the shrine. These guys tend to have swords, shotguns, axes, and occasionally will bear a mark of the corruption of the Chaos gods, manifesting itself in claws or any variety of other mutations.

*Under the Demagogue, you have the Disciples and Cult Witch, with the Disciples carrying the "blessed" weapons such as a heavy flamer or heavy stubber. These guys have perhaps the best aim. The Witch is a low level psyker.

*Cultists. Just Cultists.

===Apocalyptic Cults===
Ever seen one of those crazy guys on the side of the street shouting at passerby about the coming apocalypse? You know, the kind of person with unkempt hair, a weird look in his eyes, and a crudely written sign announcing "THE END OF THE WORLD IS NEAR"? Get a whole bunch of people like him in one place, and you have an apocalyptic cult in a nutshell. As far as Chaos Cults go, they're pretty easy to understand- they're convinced that humanity's already doomed to be destroyed by Chaos no matter what it tries to do to stop the Ruinous Powers, so they try to lash out at civilization however they can to ensure the demise of mankind happens sooner rather than later.

You might think "if they're sure it's going to happen, why bother trying to speed it up?" The reason for this is simple: most members of an apocalyptic cult believe they will be on the winning side of the apocalypse, or their existence is so shitty that they can't wait for the Imperium to end on its own.

===Charismatic Cults===
Much like several real world cults, these cults are centered around a single leader- a skilled demagogue, a powerful witch, or something similar. This leader will exploit the weakness of others for his own personal power or gratification, or the fulfilment of his own apocalyptic vision. While the rank and file are fanatically devoted to this leader, these cults' reliance on their leaders is a weakness as well as a strength; if the leader is slain, the cult will almost always collapse.

===Nurglite Cults===

Cults to the Plaguefather are often comprised of people at the bottom of the Imperial hierarchy, such as mutants, slaves, poor and homeless, as these are often the ones to embrace the corrupting diseases of Nurgle, and because they are the most in need of the "love" that Nurgle so generously dispenses. They're also the ones most likely to succumb to his diseases as well. And with health care being a luxury in the Imperium, worshiping Nurgle proves to be the only way to stop the pain and agony of his poxes.

A Nurglite Cult is by no means an industrious one, though Nurgle approves of those who are willing to go the extra mile. Often, the mere act of worshiping Nurgle is more than enough to corrupt anything in the vicinity of the Cult and their members. More diligent cults go a step further in spreading corruption - they poison water and food supplies, release pathogens onto an unsuspecting public, and forcefully use otherwise useless people to create huge piles of rot and decay. When a Nurglite Cult grows sufficiently powerful, it often succumbs to its own plagues (being mortals and all): either the souls simply get collected by Nurgle and he makes them into [[Plaguebearers]], or the entire Cult goes the way of Michael Jackson and [[Zombie Plague|zombifies itself]].

Nurglite cults flourish in the largest of communities, generally hives. Monotony, melancholy, doldrums, and ennui need large populations to develop and grow strong.

===Khornate Cults===

[[File:Chaos Cultist.jpg|thumb|300px|right|While some sit on their asses and get sacrificed for some corpse, others get out there and cut their opponents several new ones for a real god.]]

The Blood God's cults are not Cults so much as they are raging bands of maniacs out for blood - their own or their enemies'. A Khornate Cult often breaks out as simple rebellions on particularly rough Imperial worlds where the leadership didn't get V's memo and overly abuses their workforce. What happens then is that every man, woman and child with the ability to use a weapon immediately vents their frustration on said leadership in ways that end with the oppressor's heads being forcibly separated from their bodies. But it doesn't stop there- after a while the would-be revolutionaries go completely nuts and start killing everyone and everything around them, up to and including each other.

Some Khornate cults skip the "rebellion" part completely and jump straight to the orgy of violence. These typically exist as offshoots of primitive Feral World religious traditions venerating Khorne in the guise of a native war god, and almost always involve blood sacrifices in some form or another. Usually, these are dealt with by Ecclesiarchal missionaries in the early stages of introducing the Imperial Creed, but they can sometimes go unnoticed long enough to reemerge and cause just as much damage as any other cult. In other cases, they simply kill random people on the streets, relying on the inherent violence within the dregs of Imperial society to cover their tracks and keep the [[Adeptus Arbites]] thinking that the dismembered corpses that keep showing up are just hive gangers going at each others' throats again.

Khornate Cults are dangerous as fuck to the Imperium, as of all the aligned cults, the Khornate cults are most likely to evolve into a terrifying fighting force that can rival several regiments of Imperial Guardsmen, to say nothing of their complete disregard for their own lives in their willingness to shed blood. As the adage goes, Khorne cares not where the blood flows from, only that it flows- and if they can't shed their enemies' blood, they'll settle for shedding their own blood instead. One example of a dangerous Khornate cult is the [[Blood Pact]] who managed to control all of the Sabbat Worlds at one point. By that point, they had become an organised independent government with a functioning and sustainable bureaucracy and it took one of the biggest Imperial Crusades in millennia to expunge them.

Also, Khorne can bless his followers with resistance to or immunity to psykers. This is perhaps the greatest problem in fighting this type of enemy as some of the Imperium's best ways of dealing with swarms of foes or daemons is seriously hampered. And, of course, whether you're winning or losing, you're empowering Khorne and his daemons and followers further. So, you're fucked either way and just have to grit your teeth and take it up the ass.

===Slaaneshi Cults===
Cults of Slaanesh are sick fucks. While not as large as the other cults, and usually not as common, a Slaaneshi Cult can really fuck up any society at the core. The common stereotype of them is a bunch of jaded nobles looking for new ways to get off, but in theory anyone who wants a little pleasure in life can fall under the sway of a Slaanesh cult. The exact brand of sick fuckery that it fosters can vary widely, but regardless of what it is they fixate on it'll be as excessive and hedonistic as they can manage. Contrary to popular belief, this doesn't always equate to sex (that's so dark-goddamn vanilla); it can be anything from finding the most aesthetically pleasing pitch a person can scream at to mindlessly staring at a wall painted in a highly specific shade of purple, but still also can include more obvious things (like sex, drugs and ROCK) but turned up to "my dial's lowest setting is 11". It does, however, amount to obsession- a pleasure as seemingly harmless as listening to the crackling of wood burning in a fire can be warped to the point of monomania when someone starts tearing down houses to burn the wood that they're made of in order to gain that pleasure.

A good example of a non-sexualized Slaanesh-esque cult could be the first Bioshock game, in which you aid a drugged up artist with creating his ''magnum opus''... Which is [[Grimdark|four pictures of his dead students held up by corpses of dancers and performers encapsulated in white plaster]].

Many Slaaneshi cultists exhibit a very specific tactile disorder that would be quite familiar to old hands at 40k lore: they register pain as (or react to it as) pleasure. Many Slaaneshi cults often see their members deliberately and enthusiastically throwing away their lives as they seek to get injured, maimed, or killed in the most gruesome manner possible in order to get off on the most excruciating death and injuries they can have inflicted on them. A scene from ''The Traitor's Hand'' had cultists basically queuing up to get cut down by [[Ciaphas Cain|Commissar Cain]] and his chainsword.

===Tzeentchian Cults===
Tzeentchian cults are made of [[Just as Planned]] or [[Not as Planned]] in equal measures. Either way works for the Architect of Fate. They usually get to work sowing intrigue and dissent through dissemination of forbidden knowledge and concepts. They tend to be much harder to pinpoint than other cults as the quiet little reading club can just as easily be a cult front as the sorcerous fanatics summoning demons and mind raping civilians. As befits the Chaos god of hope and ambition, many such cults often camouflage themselves under laudable political and social causes before pulling out the real [https://www.legacyamericana.com/Change-We-Can-Believe-In_p_1693.html "Hope and Change"] that Tzeentch is so well known for. Sometimes the cult's members don't even realize that they're part of a cult at all until they start turning into [[Chaos Spawn|crimes against nature]].

Often it's only the leadership of the cult who are devout Tzeenchian followers, while the rest are just their unwitting pawns, believing they are just venerating Emprah in some of His unusual aspects, or at least are Chaos Undivided cultists. The reason behind this is that as the god of ''ambition'', Tzeentch cares much less about quantity of his followers compared to other gods and more about the quality thereof. This translates into a preference for recruiting mortals in a position of power- the better to use that power and any secrets they might know to his advantage. That's not to say he's snobbish about it, though- anyone with a penchant for deceit and cunning along with a heady dose of ambition has the potential to be a pawn too useful for the Great Conspirator to dispose of too quickly.

Paradoxically, which is appropriate for Tzeentch, he also attracts those who dare to hope. In a sense, any rebellion can be a Tzeentchian rebellion because it is the desire for change and the hope of advancement that drives men to work against their masters. Throngs fall to Tzeentch's sway just for the prospect of having a second loaf of bread.

===Mystery Cults/Secret Societies===
These cults center around the secrets and mysteries (hence the name) held within the highest ranks of the cult that the cult's power and authority stems from. In exchange for their loyalty and service to the aforementioned highest ranks, the cultists are promised the potential to learn and wield these secrets for themselves, which the cult guards carefully from any outsiders who might seek to learn them without pledging themselves to the cult in the process. The Warrior Lodges that formed within many of the Legiones Astartes near the end of the Great Crusade are a classic example of how a mystery cult operates, and their effects [[Horus Heresy|speak for themselves]].

Technically, these "mysteries" don't necessarily have to be Chaotic in origin or even particularly religious in nature, and one could easily argue that the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] is the most successful of all mystery cults. They certainly have the "mystery" part down, given their persistent refusal to tell anyone outside the cult how the average machine works.

===[[Death Cult Assassin|Death Cults]]===
Most death cults in the Imperium are technically part of the Imperial Creed, albeit rather loopy forms of it. However, Khornate Death Cults are not unheard of, as are some much weirder ones that either tend to be cannibals or have some very strange ideas about trying to resurrect the dead. The latter of these sects believe that the Emperor's plan is for mankind to follow Him into a blessed "immortality of the flesh." They even claim that it is possible through the use of utterly forbidden archeotech to free the Emperor from the Golden Throne to walk among His people, "dead-but-alive-everlasting" to quote the darkly renowned Credo Mortifex. Such cults are hated by just about everyone in the Ecclesiarchy for being a mockery of their teachings.

== See Also ==
*[[Cultist|Cultists]] - The mooks that make up the rank and file for Chaos cults.
*[[Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Renegades And Heretics(8E)]] - Your means of creating your own tabletop legal Chaos Cult, courtesy of Forge World. Your demagogue's deity of choice can change which units are available. Not only that, but you can have radically different army lists based on what sort of HQ you take. Heretek Tech Priest? Have an army of bionic soldiers. Former Guard Colonel? You now have an army of storm-troopers. Slave Taskmaster? Congrats, you can take Ogryn as Troops choices.
*[[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Imperial_Militia_and_Cults_(30k)]] - While not specific to chaos cults alone, the list does allow you to create your own generic "warp cult" or horde of mutants. Is perhaps more customizable than renegades since you can mix-match army provenances to create a style that suits you, and allows you to proxy whatever models you feel like.
*[[Chaos in the Old World]] - A board game where chaos cultists are the primary unit, despite being mostly harmless (unless you play Khorne). Their purpose is for spreading corruption, which is the means for ruining nations and leveling your deity up.

[[Category:Warhammer Fantasy]] [[Category:Warhammer 40,000]][[Category:Chaos]]

House Van Saar

2021-10-08T09:24:04Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:D51C:2CE6:1356:3DA2: /* Technologies */

{{stub}}
{{NeedsImages}}
[[File:Van Saar Art.jpg|right|300px|thumb|High tech with a dash of radiation poisoning.]]

'''House Van Saar''' is one of the six Hive City Houses of [[Necromunda]], making it one of the six original playable factions for the game when it was debuted. The most technologically advanced House in Necromunda, House Van Saar produces technological goods of the highest quality, and wear unique body-suits that provide extensive protection against environmental danger.

==Origins==
House Van Saar's history begins somewhere in the 25th Millennium during the [[Dark Age of Technology]]. A colony ship called the ''Van Saar'' equipped with a brand spanking new [[STC]] along with a chief engineer ALSO named ''Van Saar'' launched from [[Terra|Earth]] looking for a new place to settle down. Unfortunately they were lost in the warp for 10,000 years and crash landed on the planet Necromunda.

According to the house legends, the engineer Van Saar crawled from the wreck of the ''Van Saar'' and managed to salvage enough of the STC to manufacture the necessary tools and materials to allow his ragged band of survivors to thrive, eventually growing into the major power player that they became in later centuries. Other versions of the story claim that there were no survivors, and that tech scavengers discovered the damaged STC and claimed it for their own; naming their new faction after the ship that it came from.

===The Van Saar STC===
The damaged [[STC]] irradiates their territory but gives them the ability to manufacture items that no other house can dream of. It allows them to produce a wide variety of items, of a such a high quality that their products are well regarded across the galaxy. Because of this, they are undoubtedly the wealthiest of the six Clan Houses. Where other manufacturers stamp out mass-produced equipment, the Van Saar create items from knives to Nihilis-pattern lasguns to Hystrar-pattern energy shields each as a veritable work of art.
They also typically gene-code their equipment so that it cannot be stolen from them and used without first being made safe by a good technician.

They can even produce some items that even the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] are not fully aware of; Sometimes it gives rise to the rumour that House Van Saar are sitting on vaults of archeotech from ages past, and bringing treasure hunters and thieves from all quarters to locate these hidden caches and exploit them; no-one realising that it is Van Saar who are making these items for themselves and that these wondrous items are actually brand new.

The hoarding of such a potent device is a blatant techno-heresy of one of the highest orders, and the leaders of Van Saar are acutely aware of that fact and have made it their priority to keep knowledge of the STC secret and safe. They carefully test any new technologies that are created outside of "Imperial Stock" items and are very serious when dealing with infractions into research that they consider forbidden. Those stock items they produce are frequently kept away from Imperial contracts by Noble houses, ostensibly to encourage competition and presumably keep prices low, but also unwittingly make those items scarce in the larger Imperium. Any rare or "restricted" items that they sell, such as vortex weapons or phase shields, are often only sold to selective bidders, who pay a premium for an advantage their rivals do not possess, but risk the censure of House Helmawr for flaunting such technology.

In any case, it has only been since 996.M41 that the STC has triggered some kind of emergency protocol, and now produces items and wargear that have never been seen before, meaning that Van Saar has to be even more careful about what they present to outsiders.

Despite being the size of a large building, the STC has been moved several times over the millennia to ensure that it cannot be discovered; variously being located out in the ash wastes, underneath hives, or even on orbital satellites! Currently it is located underneath the Hive Primus space port close to the hive's heat sinks, where the radiation it emits is concealed by the flow of thermal energy from the planetary core.

The most likely case is that the AdMech have already studied the products of this house that they have been able to get their hands on, saw there was nothing there they didn't already have/know and so put it on the back burner so long as House Van Saar toed the line of acceptable technology. Much like how many Hive Cities are themselves feats of archaeotech yet the AdMech doesn't come storming in to seize it for themselves. However, this may change as Van Saar uncovers new and unknown technologies since the STC has recently entered its more active state. What's worse is that in 911.M41, since the STC could no longer be moved, a dozen or so facsimiles of the STC were created to serve as decoys. Creating the unfortunate, but ultimately obvious consequence of drawing ''more'' attention to the fact the Van Saar have something that they shouldn't have.

While the secret has occasionally been discovered by members of other Houses, it is carefully suppressed from the public, because everyone on Necromunda benefits from the massive wealth that Van Saar generates, and also because the houses are so interdependent on each other that to bring Van Saar down would dangerously upset the fragile balance of power that Necromunda is based upon. For example: without Van Saar there would be no amnio-vats to breed members of [[House Goliath]], and no pharmaceutical tech for [[House Escher]] parthogenesis. Those houses may survive the loss of Van Saar, but they would be extremely damaged because of it. The real reason is, of course, that they don't want Van Saar to be ransacked by the AdMech and then the entire world's population turned into servitors that retain their awareness as punishment.

The constant exposure to the radiation emanating from the STC causes the members of House Van Saar to suffer chronic radiation sickness and condemns them to wither and degenerate over time. The quest continues to either repair the STC or find a way to permanently cure themselves of the radiation sickness but neither outcome looks like it is in danger of resolving itself soon. So for the meantime they are dependent upon varying regimes of life augmenting cybernetics, tox-filters, and human chemicals.

One famed Van Saar cyber-chirurgeon claimed to have cured the sickness but was assassinated by [[House Delaque]] and left only one test subject known only as the '''Abomination''' who exists only as a figure of legend, a "hale and proud" warrior who only continues to wear his survival suit as a badge of honour rather than as life saving rig.

==Organisation==
Van Saar organises its gangs differently from the other Houses of Necromunda, not least because they promote their leaders from the most educated or innovative among them, rather than the most brutal or violent. This tendency in turn reflects itself on the territories that the gangs themselves hold, generally turning into machine temples and forges in imitation of the fabricator vaults of the House itself.

The hierarchy of House Van Saar is divided down two lines. The first are the '''Archeoteks''' who are somewhat synonymous with Tech-Priests, albeit without the religious dogma surrounding technology. They exist at all levels within the House and are arranged into descending circles, with the innermost circles having direct access to the STC itself and have varying degrees of understanding about its workings. Because they work so closely with the STC, they receive the largest doses of radiation, therefore most of the Inner Circle Archeoteks have significant augmetic replacements and cybernetic enchantments by necessity. As the ranks move away from the STC there is correspondingly less access and knowledge provided, to the point that the outermost members of the House may not ever realise what they possess, or why they are constantly exposed to debilitating radiation.

Not all members of House Van Saar are gifted with an affinity for technology, but still find purpose on the factory floors, in work crews, in official militia, or [[Necromunda#The Game|in the gangs]]. Therefore the second line of hierarchy has have a more traditional chain of command. Though a variety of professions exist, leaders are commonly referred to as '''Primes''', with their immediate subordinates called '''Augmeks'''. Beneath them are the '''Teks''' and '''Subteks''' who fulfil the most menial roles; though it would be a mistake to consider these individuals as dumb, uneducated, or disposable, the same way that other lower class groups in the Imperium might be, as even the lowliest Subtek will be expertly trained for his assigned role.

Separate from both lines are the '''Neoteks''', who represent promising candidates for promotion. Their particular talents tend towards the actual manipulation of technology. Thus they are permitted access to some of the more dangerous or unpredictable examples of what the STC is able to produce. This provides two functions: the first is that it allows the field testing of new prototypes, which is a dangerous process since not everyone can guarantee exactly what it will do, so the data gathered will be invaluable to the betterment of the house. The second function is that if the Neotek survives being the guinea pig for new technologies, they will have proved both their worth and their dedication, and tend to go far as Archeoteks or Primes depending on their chosen vocation.

===Relationships===
As the foremost experts on technology, House Van Saar maintains strong links with the Mercator Lux and the Pyromantic Conclaves, who dominate the light/electricity and the fuel industries respectively. This relationship works well for all sides, as the Lighting Guild and the Fuel Guild don't really understand the systems that they claim dominion over, and are content to allow the Van Saar to perform repair works for them. In return, Van Saar gain the ability to discretely tap into the hive infrastructure and use what they need without drawing too much attention.

The House also maintains links with the secretive Noble [[House Catallus]] as well as any number of charlatans and "Fallen Houses". Despite the fact that Van Saar are a ''bona fide'' Clan House in their own right, they still came from a line of ash-scavengers, and their power base and primary source of wealth must remain a tightly kept secret. So alliances with these dubious members of upper society allow them to maintain airs of legitimacy and throw off the scent for anyone who tries looking into the matter.

In the 39th Millennium, House Van Saar played a part in the creation of [[House Goliath]], ostensibly as an attempt to refill the waning labourer population following an attempted [[Cult of the Redemption|Redemptionist]] uprising, the creation of fit and healthy vat-grown donors could have served to provide House Van Saar with a way of replacing their own failing flesh and organs. However the resulting Goliaths had even shorter lifespans than that of Van Saar, rendering the project a failure from that perspective, with Van Saar blaming [[House Escher]] for the betrayal. For their part, House Escher also blamed Van Saar for the Goliath's sterility, depriving them of potential breeding stock.

Secretly, the result was manipulated by outside sources in order to maintain the status quo of dependence between houses. Van Saar trade for the rad-purgatives supplied by [[House Escher]] and in return provide them the components for the parthenogenesis process they need to reproduce, preventing any one House from gaining too much independence and dominance over the others.

House Van Saar maintain an ongoing alliance with House Goliath, providing them with the amnio-vat technology required to maintain their population in exchange for the raw materials that the Goliaths can obtain from the inhospitable depths of the hives. This deal grossly favours the Goliaths, but was instituted in part to provide a means of striking against House Escher.

===Technologies===
The technological ascendance of House Van Saar gives them access to items would be considered "rare" even in more prestigious institutions. Even the "standard-issue" bodyglove is a complicated arrangement of various technological devices that constantly monitor their health and provide life support functions, as well as providing the connections to their wargear, allowing overlay of targetting technology over their field of vision, or the jacks for connecting with other larger pieces of equipment. The use of Mind-Impulse-Unit (MIU) technology is very commonplace, allowing for the installation of servo-arms/rigs all the way up to specialist servo-suits that carry small arsenals of wargear and protective gear.

Van Saar have perfected the art of las-technology as far as possible for any institution not connected with the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] and produce a variety of mid-range rifles, las-carbines, las-sub-carbines, and even las-"shotguns" capable of peppering a wide arc. Yet, despite such mastery over las-weaponry, Van Saar does '''not''' have the bulk of the Imperial export contracts and so their weapons are unlikely to end up in the hands of the [[Imperial Guard]]; and try as they might to compete for the contracts each time they come up for renewal, they always get awarded to [[House Escher]]. The reason given is that Van Saar weapons tend to be ''"over-engineered"'', which is an undesirable trait in something so straightforward and workmanlike as a lasgun. Van Saar lasguns also likely cost a lot more, even within the mechanics of the game a Van Saar lasgun is double the credit value of an Escher lasgun ''(that performs the same way)'' and costs up to ''seven times'' more once you add all the Van Saar bells and whistles.

The Noble Houses still encourage the competition, knowing that they can buy advanced Van Saar weapons for their own private use ''(likely in House militaries)'' and give them an edge over their rivals.

Despite their setbacks in the lucrative lasgun contracts, Van Saar are the '''only''' House with the capability to manufacture Plasma and Melta weapons. While other Houses may certainly have their own patterns ''(like the Goliath Combi-Plasma-Stub pistol for instance)'', the primary components for those weapons will have almost certainly come from a Van Saar artificer's workshop.

The aforementioned Hystrar-pattern energy shields are a unique variant of conversion fields that are wrist mounted and offer arguably better protection over a normal conversion field, albeit only in a limited arc. They are also one of the few insitutions outside of the Mechanicus that routinely produce, and use [[Radium Weaponry|rad-weaponry]], with their protective suits offsetting the dangers of exposing themselves to such technology.

Van Saar are also unique on Necromunda in that they breed and modify the large native arachnids for the purposes of turning them into [[Servitor]]s, creating '''Cyberachnids'''.

==Unique Mechanics==
The technological gang, every member of House Van Saar can learn both Shooting and Techno skills, making them on-par with [[House Delaque]] and arguably superior to [[House Orlock]], especially when their excellent BS (nothing lower than a 4+, with leaders and champions having BS 2+. That said, their skills in Ferocity and Stealth are sorely lacking, with only their gang leaders able to learn them. They also can't boost their Toughness beyond +1 in a campaign game due to their radiation poisoning.

Appropriately enough, they have the best selection of guns: while they favor the use of lasguns and other laser weaponry, they also get more exotic stuff like grav-guns and rad-cannons and can also bolster their defenses with energy shields.

== Gallery ==
<gallery>
File:Cyberarchnid-van-saar.jpg| As if the creepy spider theme wasn't creepy enough.
File:ArchnaRigOldart.jpg| The old image
</gallery>

{{Necromunda}}

[[Category: Necromunda]]
[[Category: Warhammer 40,000]]

House Van Saar

2021-10-08T09:06:40Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:D51C:2CE6:1356:3DA2: /* Organisation */

{{stub}}
{{NeedsImages}}
[[File:Van Saar Art.jpg|right|300px|thumb|High tech with a dash of radiation poisoning.]]

'''House Van Saar''' is one of the six Hive City Houses of [[Necromunda]], making it one of the six original playable factions for the game when it was debuted. The most technologically advanced House in Necromunda, House Van Saar produces technological goods of the highest quality, and wear unique body-suits that provide extensive protection against environmental danger.

==Origins==
House Van Saar's history begins somewhere in the 25th Millennium during the [[Dark Age of Technology]]. A colony ship called the ''Van Saar'' equipped with a brand spanking new [[STC]] along with a chief engineer ALSO named ''Van Saar'' launched from [[Terra|Earth]] looking for a new place to settle down. Unfortunately they were lost in the warp for 10,000 years and crash landed on the planet Necromunda.

According to the house legends, the engineer Van Saar crawled from the wreck of the ''Van Saar'' and managed to salvage enough of the STC to manufacture the necessary tools and materials to allow his ragged band of survivors to thrive, eventually growing into the major power player that they became in later centuries. Other versions of the story claim that there were no survivors, and that tech scavengers discovered the damaged STC and claimed it for their own; naming their new faction after the ship that it came from.

===The Van Saar STC===
The damaged [[STC]] irradiates their territory but gives them the ability to manufacture items that no other house can dream of. It allows them to produce a wide variety of items, of a such a high quality that their products are well regarded across the galaxy. Because of this, they are undoubtedly the wealthiest of the six Clan Houses. Where other manufacturers stamp out mass-produced equipment, the Van Saar create items from knives to Nihilis-pattern lasguns to Hystrar-pattern energy shields each as a veritable work of art.
They also typically gene-code their equipment so that it cannot be stolen from them and used without first being made safe by a good technician.

They can even produce some items that even the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] are not fully aware of; Sometimes it gives rise to the rumour that House Van Saar are sitting on vaults of archeotech from ages past, and bringing treasure hunters and thieves from all quarters to locate these hidden caches and exploit them; no-one realising that it is Van Saar who are making these items for themselves and that these wondrous items are actually brand new.

The hoarding of such a potent device is a blatant techno-heresy of one of the highest orders, and the leaders of Van Saar are acutely aware of that fact and have made it their priority to keep knowledge of the STC secret and safe. They carefully test any new technologies that are created outside of "Imperial Stock" items and are very serious when dealing with infractions into research that they consider forbidden. Those stock items they produce are frequently kept away from Imperial contracts by Noble houses, ostensibly to encourage competition and presumably keep prices low, but also unwittingly make those items scarce in the larger Imperium. Any rare or "restricted" items that they sell, such as vortex weapons or phase shields, are often only sold to selective bidders, who pay a premium for an advantage their rivals do not possess, but risk the censure of House Helmawr for flaunting such technology.

In any case, it has only been since 996.M41 that the STC has triggered some kind of emergency protocol, and now produces items and wargear that have never been seen before, meaning that Van Saar has to be even more careful about what they present to outsiders.

Despite being the size of a large building, the STC has been moved several times over the millennia to ensure that it cannot be discovered; variously being located out in the ash wastes, underneath hives, or even on orbital satellites! Currently it is located underneath the Hive Primus space port close to the hive's heat sinks, where the radiation it emits is concealed by the flow of thermal energy from the planetary core.

The most likely case is that the AdMech have already studied the products of this house that they have been able to get their hands on, saw there was nothing there they didn't already have/know and so put it on the back burner so long as House Van Saar toed the line of acceptable technology. Much like how many Hive Cities are themselves feats of archaeotech yet the AdMech doesn't come storming in to seize it for themselves. However, this may change as Van Saar uncovers new and unknown technologies since the STC has recently entered its more active state. What's worse is that in 911.M41, since the STC could no longer be moved, a dozen or so facsimiles of the STC were created to serve as decoys. Creating the unfortunate, but ultimately obvious consequence of drawing ''more'' attention to the fact the Van Saar have something that they shouldn't have.

While the secret has occasionally been discovered by members of other Houses, it is carefully suppressed from the public, because everyone on Necromunda benefits from the massive wealth that Van Saar generates, and also because the houses are so interdependent on each other that to bring Van Saar down would dangerously upset the fragile balance of power that Necromunda is based upon. For example: without Van Saar there would be no amnio-vats to breed members of [[House Goliath]], and no pharmaceutical tech for [[House Escher]] parthogenesis. Those houses may survive the loss of Van Saar, but they would be extremely damaged because of it. The real reason is, of course, that they don't want Van Saar to be ransacked by the AdMech and then the entire world's population turned into servitors that retain their awareness as punishment.

The constant exposure to the radiation emanating from the STC causes the members of House Van Saar to suffer chronic radiation sickness and condemns them to wither and degenerate over time. The quest continues to either repair the STC or find a way to permanently cure themselves of the radiation sickness but neither outcome looks like it is in danger of resolving itself soon. So for the meantime they are dependent upon varying regimes of life augmenting cybernetics, tox-filters, and human chemicals.

One famed Van Saar cyber-chirurgeon claimed to have cured the sickness but was assassinated by [[House Delaque]] and left only one test subject known only as the '''Abomination''' who exists only as a figure of legend, a "hale and proud" warrior who only continues to wear his survival suit as a badge of honour rather than as life saving rig.

==Organisation==
Van Saar organises its gangs differently from the other Houses of Necromunda, not least because they promote their leaders from the most educated or innovative among them, rather than the most brutal or violent. This tendency in turn reflects itself on the territories that the gangs themselves hold, generally turning into machine temples and forges in imitation of the fabricator vaults of the House itself.

The hierarchy of House Van Saar is divided down two lines. The first are the '''Archeoteks''' who are somewhat synonymous with Tech-Priests, albeit without the religious dogma surrounding technology. They exist at all levels within the House and are arranged into descending circles, with the innermost circles having direct access to the STC itself and have varying degrees of understanding about its workings. Because they work so closely with the STC, they receive the largest doses of radiation, therefore most of the Inner Circle Archeoteks have significant augmetic replacements and cybernetic enchantments by necessity. As the ranks move away from the STC there is correspondingly less access and knowledge provided, to the point that the outermost members of the House may not ever realise what they possess, or why they are constantly exposed to debilitating radiation.

Not all members of House Van Saar are gifted with an affinity for technology, but still find purpose on the factory floors, in work crews, in official militia, or [[Necromunda#The Game|in the gangs]]. Therefore the second line of hierarchy has have a more traditional chain of command. Though a variety of professions exist, leaders are commonly referred to as '''Primes''', with their immediate subordinates called '''Augmeks'''. Beneath them are the '''Teks''' and '''Subteks''' who fulfil the most menial roles; though it would be a mistake to consider these individuals as dumb, uneducated, or disposable, the same way that other lower class groups in the Imperium might be, as even the lowliest Subtek will be expertly trained for his assigned role.

Separate from both lines are the '''Neoteks''', who represent promising candidates for promotion. Their particular talents tend towards the actual manipulation of technology. Thus they are permitted access to some of the more dangerous or unpredictable examples of what the STC is able to produce. This provides two functions: the first is that it allows the field testing of new prototypes, which is a dangerous process since not everyone can guarantee exactly what it will do, so the data gathered will be invaluable to the betterment of the house. The second function is that if the Neotek survives being the guinea pig for new technologies, they will have proved both their worth and their dedication, and tend to go far as Archeoteks or Primes depending on their chosen vocation.

===Relationships===
As the foremost experts on technology, House Van Saar maintains strong links with the Mercator Lux and the Pyromantic Conclaves, who dominate the light/electricity and the fuel industries respectively. This relationship works well for all sides, as the Lighting Guild and the Fuel Guild don't really understand the systems that they claim dominion over, and are content to allow the Van Saar to perform repair works for them. In return, Van Saar gain the ability to discretely tap into the hive infrastructure and use what they need without drawing too much attention.

The House also maintains links with the secretive Noble [[House Catallus]] as well as any number of charlatans and "Fallen Houses". Despite the fact that Van Saar are a ''bona fide'' Clan House in their own right, they still came from a line of ash-scavengers, and their power base and primary source of wealth must remain a tightly kept secret. So alliances with these dubious members of upper society allow them to maintain airs of legitimacy and throw off the scent for anyone who tries looking into the matter.

In the 39th Millennium, House Van Saar played a part in the creation of [[House Goliath]], ostensibly as an attempt to refill the waning labourer population following an attempted [[Cult of the Redemption|Redemptionist]] uprising, the creation of fit and healthy vat-grown donors could have served to provide House Van Saar with a way of replacing their own failing flesh and organs. However the resulting Goliaths had even shorter lifespans than that of Van Saar, rendering the project a failure from that perspective, with Van Saar blaming [[House Escher]] for the betrayal. For their part, House Escher also blamed Van Saar for the Goliath's sterility, depriving them of potential breeding stock.

Secretly, the result was manipulated by outside sources in order to maintain the status quo of dependence between houses. Van Saar trade for the rad-purgatives supplied by [[House Escher]] and in return provide them the components for the parthenogenesis process they need to reproduce, preventing any one House from gaining too much independence and dominance over the others.

House Van Saar maintain an ongoing alliance with House Goliath, providing them with the amnio-vat technology required to maintain their population in exchange for the raw materials that the Goliaths can obtain from the inhospitable depths of the hives. This deal grossly favours the Goliaths, but was instituted in part to provide a means of striking against House Escher.

===Technologies===
The technological ascendance of House Van Saar gives them access to items would be considered "rare" even in more prestigious institutions. Even the "standard-issue" bodyglove is a complicated arrangement of various technological devices that constantly monitor their health and provide life support functions, as well as providing the connections to their wargear, allowing overlay of targetting technology over their field of vision, or the jacks for connecting with other larger pieces of equipment. The use of Mind-Impulse-Unit (MIU) technology is very commonplace, allowing for the installation of servo-arms/rigs all the way up to specialist servo-suits that carry small arsenals of wargear and protective gear.

Van Saar have perfected the art of las-technology as far as possibly for any institution not connected with the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] and produce a variety of mid-range rifles, las-carbines, las-sub-carbines, and even las-"shotguns" capable of peppering a wide arc. Yet, despite such mastery over las-weaponry, Van Saar does '''not''' have the bulk of the Imperial export contracts and so their weapons are unlikely to end up in the hands of the [[Imperial Guard]]; and try as they might to compete for the contracts each time they come up for renewal, they always get awarded to [[House Escher]]. The reason given is that Van Saar weapons tend to be ''"over-engineered"'', which is an undesirable trait in something so straightforward and workmanlike as a lasgun. Van Saar lasguns also likely cost a lot more, even within the mechanics of the game a Van Saar lasgun is double the credit value of an Escher lasgun ''(that performs the same way)'' and costs up to ''seven times'' more once you add all the Van Saar bells and whistles.

The Noble Houses still encourage the competition, knowing that they can buy advanced Van Saar weapons for their own private use ''(likely in House militaries)'' and give them an edge over their rivals.

Despite their setbacks in the lucrative lasgun contracts, Van Saar are the '''only''' House with the capability to manufacture Plasma and Melta weapons While other Houses may certainly have their own patterns ''(like the Goliath Combi-Plasma-Stub pistol for instance)'', the primary components for those weapons will have almost certainly come from a Van Saar artificer's workshop.

The aforementioned Hystrar-pattern energy shields are a unique variant of conversion fields that are wrist mounted and offer arguably better protection over a normal conversion field, albeit only in a limited arc. They are also one of the few insitutions outside of the Mechanicus that routinely produce, and use [[Radium Weaponry|rad-weaponry]], with their protective suits offsetting the dangers of exposing themselves to such technology.

Van Saar are also unique on Necromunda in that they breed and modify the large native arachnids for the purposes of turning them into [[Servitor]]s, creating '''Cyberachnids'''.

==Unique Mechanics==
The technological gang, every member of House Van Saar can learn both Shooting and Techno skills, making them on-par with [[House Delaque]] and arguably superior to [[House Orlock]], especially when their excellent BS (nothing lower than a 4+, with leaders and champions having BS 2+. That said, their skills in Ferocity and Stealth are sorely lacking, with only their gang leaders able to learn them. They also can't boost their Toughness beyond +1 in a campaign game due to their radiation poisoning.

Appropriately enough, they have the best selection of guns: while they favor the use of lasguns and other laser weaponry, they also get more exotic stuff like grav-guns and rad-cannons and can also bolster their defenses with energy shields.

== Gallery ==
<gallery>
File:Cyberarchnid-van-saar.jpg| As if the creepy spider theme wasn't creepy enough.
File:ArchnaRigOldart.jpg| The old image
</gallery>

{{Necromunda}}

[[Category: Necromunda]]
[[Category: Warhammer 40,000]]

House Van Saar

2021-10-08T08:57:21Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:D51C:2CE6:1356:3DA2: /* The Van Saar STC */

{{stub}}
{{NeedsImages}}
[[File:Van Saar Art.jpg|right|300px|thumb|High tech with a dash of radiation poisoning.]]

'''House Van Saar''' is one of the six Hive City Houses of [[Necromunda]], making it one of the six original playable factions for the game when it was debuted. The most technologically advanced House in Necromunda, House Van Saar produces technological goods of the highest quality, and wear unique body-suits that provide extensive protection against environmental danger.

==Origins==
House Van Saar's history begins somewhere in the 25th Millennium during the [[Dark Age of Technology]]. A colony ship called the ''Van Saar'' equipped with a brand spanking new [[STC]] along with a chief engineer ALSO named ''Van Saar'' launched from [[Terra|Earth]] looking for a new place to settle down. Unfortunately they were lost in the warp for 10,000 years and crash landed on the planet Necromunda.

According to the house legends, the engineer Van Saar crawled from the wreck of the ''Van Saar'' and managed to salvage enough of the STC to manufacture the necessary tools and materials to allow his ragged band of survivors to thrive, eventually growing into the major power player that they became in later centuries. Other versions of the story claim that there were no survivors, and that tech scavengers discovered the damaged STC and claimed it for their own; naming their new faction after the ship that it came from.

===The Van Saar STC===
The damaged [[STC]] irradiates their territory but gives them the ability to manufacture items that no other house can dream of. It allows them to produce a wide variety of items, of a such a high quality that their products are well regarded across the galaxy. Because of this, they are undoubtedly the wealthiest of the six Clan Houses. Where other manufacturers stamp out mass-produced equipment, the Van Saar create items from knives to Nihilis-pattern lasguns to Hystrar-pattern energy shields each as a veritable work of art.
They also typically gene-code their equipment so that it cannot be stolen from them and used without first being made safe by a good technician.

They can even produce some items that even the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] are not fully aware of; Sometimes it gives rise to the rumour that House Van Saar are sitting on vaults of archeotech from ages past, and bringing treasure hunters and thieves from all quarters to locate these hidden caches and exploit them; no-one realising that it is Van Saar who are making these items for themselves and that these wondrous items are actually brand new.

The hoarding of such a potent device is a blatant techno-heresy of one of the highest orders, and the leaders of Van Saar are acutely aware of that fact and have made it their priority to keep knowledge of the STC secret and safe. They carefully test any new technologies that are created outside of "Imperial Stock" items and are very serious when dealing with infractions into research that they consider forbidden. Those stock items they produce are frequently kept away from Imperial contracts by Noble houses, ostensibly to encourage competition and presumably keep prices low, but also unwittingly make those items scarce in the larger Imperium. Any rare or "restricted" items that they sell, such as vortex weapons or phase shields, are often only sold to selective bidders, who pay a premium for an advantage their rivals do not possess, but risk the censure of House Helmawr for flaunting such technology.

In any case, it has only been since 996.M41 that the STC has triggered some kind of emergency protocol, and now produces items and wargear that have never been seen before, meaning that Van Saar has to be even more careful about what they present to outsiders.

Despite being the size of a large building, the STC has been moved several times over the millennia to ensure that it cannot be discovered; variously being located out in the ash wastes, underneath hives, or even on orbital satellites! Currently it is located underneath the Hive Primus space port close to the hive's heat sinks, where the radiation it emits is concealed by the flow of thermal energy from the planetary core.

The most likely case is that the AdMech have already studied the products of this house that they have been able to get their hands on, saw there was nothing there they didn't already have/know and so put it on the back burner so long as House Van Saar toed the line of acceptable technology. Much like how many Hive Cities are themselves feats of archaeotech yet the AdMech doesn't come storming in to seize it for themselves. However, this may change as Van Saar uncovers new and unknown technologies since the STC has recently entered its more active state. What's worse is that in 911.M41, since the STC could no longer be moved, a dozen or so facsimiles of the STC were created to serve as decoys. Creating the unfortunate, but ultimately obvious consequence of drawing ''more'' attention to the fact the Van Saar have something that they shouldn't have.

While the secret has occasionally been discovered by members of other Houses, it is carefully suppressed from the public, because everyone on Necromunda benefits from the massive wealth that Van Saar generates, and also because the houses are so interdependent on each other that to bring Van Saar down would dangerously upset the fragile balance of power that Necromunda is based upon. For example: without Van Saar there would be no amnio-vats to breed members of [[House Goliath]], and no pharmaceutical tech for [[House Escher]] parthogenesis. Those houses may survive the loss of Van Saar, but they would be extremely damaged because of it. The real reason is, of course, that they don't want Van Saar to be ransacked by the AdMech and then the entire world's population turned into servitors that retain their awareness as punishment.

The constant exposure to the radiation emanating from the STC causes the members of House Van Saar to suffer chronic radiation sickness and condemns them to wither and degenerate over time. The quest continues to either repair the STC or find a way to permanently cure themselves of the radiation sickness but neither outcome looks like it is in danger of resolving itself soon. So for the meantime they are dependent upon varying regimes of life augmenting cybernetics, tox-filters, and human chemicals.

One famed Van Saar cyber-chirurgeon claimed to have cured the sickness but was assassinated by [[House Delaque]] and left only one test subject known only as the '''Abomination''' who exists only as a figure of legend, a "hale and proud" warrior who only continues to wear his survival suit as a badge of honour rather than as life saving rig.

==Organisation==
Van Saar organises its gangs differently from the other Houses of Necromunda, not least because they promote their leaders from the most educated or innovative among them, rather than the most brutal or violent. This tendency in turn reflects itself on the territories that the gangs themselves hold, generally turning into machine temples and forges in imitation of the fabricator vaults of the House itself.

The hierarchy of House Van Saar is divided down two lines. The first are the '''Archeoteks''' who are somewhat synonymous with Tech-Priests, albeit without the religious dogma surrounding technology. They exist at all levels within the House and are arranged into descending circles, with the innermost circles having direct access to the STC itself and have varying degrees of understanding about its workings. Because they work so closely with the STC, they receive the largest doses of radiation, therefore most of the Inner Circle Archeoteks have significant augmetic replacements and cybernetic enchantments by necessity. As the ranks move away from the STC there is correspondingly less access and knowledge provided, to the point that the outermost members of the House may not ever realise what they possess, or why they are constantly exposed to debilitating radiation.

Not all members of House Van Saar are gifted with an affinity for technology, but still find purpose on the factory floors, in work crews, in official militia, or [[Necromunda#The Game|in the gangs]]. Therefore the second line of hierarchy has have a more traditional chain of command. Though a variety of professions exist, leaders are commonly referred to as '''Primes''', with their immediate subordinates called '''Augmeks'''. Beneath them are the '''Teks''' and '''Subteks''' who fulfil the most menial roles; though it would be a mistake to consider these individuals as dumb, uneducated, or disposable, the same way that other lower class groups in the Imperium might be, as even the lowliest Subtek will be expertly trained for his assigned role.

Separate from both lines are the '''Neoteks''', who represent promising candidates for promotion. Their particular talents tend towards the actual manipulation of technology. This they are permitted access to some of the more dangerous or unpredictable examples of what the STC is able to produce. This provides two functions: the first is that it allows the field testing of new prototypes, which is a dangerous process since not everyone can guarantee exactly what it will do, so the data gathered will be invaluable to the betterment of the house. The second function is that if the Neotek survives being the guinea pig for new technologies, they will have proved both their worth and their dedication, and tend to go far as Archeoteks or Primes depending on their chosen vocation.

===Relationships===
As the foremost experts on technology, House Van Saar maintains strong links with the Mercator Lux and the Pyromantic Conclaves, who dominate the light/electricity and the fuel industries respectively. This relationship works well for all sides, as the Lighting Guild and the Fuel Guild don't really understand the systems that they claim dominion over, and are content to allow the Van Saar to perform repair works for them. In return, Van Saar gain the ability to discretely tap into the hive infrastructure and use what they need without drawing too much attention.

The House also maintains links with the secretive Noble [[House Catallus]] as well as any number of charlatans and "Fallen Houses". Despite the fact that Van Saar are a ''bona fide'' Clan House in their own right, they still came from a line of ash-scavengers, and their power base and primary source of wealth must remain a tightly kept secret. So alliances with these dubious members of upper society allow them to maintain airs of legitimacy and throw off the scent for anyone who tries looking into the matter.

In the 39th Millennium, House Van Saar played a part in the creation of [[House Goliath]], ostensibly as an attempt to refill the waning labourer population following an attempted [[Cult of the Redemption|Redemptionist]] uprising, the creation of fit and healthy vat-grown donors could have served to provide House Van Saar with a way of replacing their own failing flesh and organs. However the resulting Goliaths had even shorter lifespans than that of Van Saar, rendering the project a failure from that perspective, with Van Saar blaming [[House Escher]] for the betrayal. For their part, House Escher also blamed Van Saar for the Goliath's sterility, depriving them of potential breeding stock.

Secretly, the result was manipulated by outside sources in order to maintain the status quo of dependence between houses. Van Saar trade for the rad-purgatives supplied by [[House Escher]] and in return provide them the components for the parthenogenesis process they need to reproduce, preventing any one House from gaining too much independence and dominance over the others.

House Van Saar maintain an ongoing alliance with House Goliath, providing them with the amnio-vat technology required to maintain their population in exchange for the raw materials that the Goliaths can obtain from the inhospitable depths of the hives. This deal grossly favours the Goliaths, but was instituted in part to provide a means of striking against House Escher.

===Technologies===
The technological ascendance of House Van Saar gives them access to items would be considered "rare" even in more prestigious institutions. Even the "standard-issue" bodyglove is a complicated arrangement of various technological devices that constantly monitor their health and provide life support functions, as well as providing the connections to their wargear, allowing overlay of targetting technology over their field of vision, or the jacks for connecting with other larger pieces of equipment. The use of Mind-Impulse-Unit (MIU) technology is very commonplace, allowing for the installation of servo-arms/rigs all the way up to specialist servo-suits that carry small arsenals of wargear and protective gear.

Van Saar have perfected the art of las-technology as far as possibly for any institution not connected with the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] and produce a variety of mid-range rifles, las-carbines, las-sub-carbines, and even las-"shotguns" capable of peppering a wide arc. Yet, despite such mastery over las-weaponry, Van Saar does '''not''' have the bulk of the Imperial export contracts and so their weapons are unlikely to end up in the hands of the [[Imperial Guard]]; and try as they might to compete for the contracts each time they come up for renewal, they always get awarded to [[House Escher]]. The reason given is that Van Saar weapons tend to be ''"over-engineered"'', which is an undesirable trait in something so straightforward and workmanlike as a lasgun. Van Saar lasguns also likely cost a lot more, even within the mechanics of the game a Van Saar lasgun is double the credit value of an Escher lasgun ''(that performs the same way)'' and costs up to ''seven times'' more once you add all the Van Saar bells and whistles.

The Noble Houses still encourage the competition, knowing that they can buy advanced Van Saar weapons for their own private use ''(likely in House militaries)'' and give them an edge over their rivals.

Despite their setbacks in the lucrative lasgun contracts, Van Saar are the '''only''' House with the capability to manufacture Plasma and Melta weapons While other Houses may certainly have their own patterns ''(like the Goliath Combi-Plasma-Stub pistol for instance)'', the primary components for those weapons will have almost certainly come from a Van Saar artificer's workshop.

The aforementioned Hystrar-pattern energy shields are a unique variant of conversion fields that are wrist mounted and offer arguably better protection over a normal conversion field, albeit only in a limited arc. They are also one of the few insitutions outside of the Mechanicus that routinely produce, and use [[Radium Weaponry|rad-weaponry]], with their protective suits offsetting the dangers of exposing themselves to such technology.

Van Saar are also unique on Necromunda in that they breed and modify the large native arachnids for the purposes of turning them into [[Servitor]]s, creating '''Cyberachnids'''.

==Unique Mechanics==
The technological gang, every member of House Van Saar can learn both Shooting and Techno skills, making them on-par with [[House Delaque]] and arguably superior to [[House Orlock]], especially when their excellent BS (nothing lower than a 4+, with leaders and champions having BS 2+. That said, their skills in Ferocity and Stealth are sorely lacking, with only their gang leaders able to learn them. They also can't boost their Toughness beyond +1 in a campaign game due to their radiation poisoning.

Appropriately enough, they have the best selection of guns: while they favor the use of lasguns and other laser weaponry, they also get more exotic stuff like grav-guns and rad-cannons and can also bolster their defenses with energy shields.

== Gallery ==
<gallery>
File:Cyberarchnid-van-saar.jpg| As if the creepy spider theme wasn't creepy enough.
File:ArchnaRigOldart.jpg| The old image
</gallery>

{{Necromunda}}

[[Category: Necromunda]]
[[Category: Warhammer 40,000]]

House Van Saar

2021-10-08T08:55:52Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:D51C:2CE6:1356:3DA2: /* The Van Saar STC */

{{stub}}
{{NeedsImages}}
[[File:Van Saar Art.jpg|right|300px|thumb|High tech with a dash of radiation poisoning.]]

'''House Van Saar''' is one of the six Hive City Houses of [[Necromunda]], making it one of the six original playable factions for the game when it was debuted. The most technologically advanced House in Necromunda, House Van Saar produces technological goods of the highest quality, and wear unique body-suits that provide extensive protection against environmental danger.

==Origins==
House Van Saar's history begins somewhere in the 25th Millennium during the [[Dark Age of Technology]]. A colony ship called the ''Van Saar'' equipped with a brand spanking new [[STC]] along with a chief engineer ALSO named ''Van Saar'' launched from [[Terra|Earth]] looking for a new place to settle down. Unfortunately they were lost in the warp for 10,000 years and crash landed on the planet Necromunda.

According to the house legends, the engineer Van Saar crawled from the wreck of the ''Van Saar'' and managed to salvage enough of the STC to manufacture the necessary tools and materials to allow his ragged band of survivors to thrive, eventually growing into the major power player that they became in later centuries. Other versions of the story claim that there were no survivors, and that tech scavengers discovered the damaged STC and claimed it for their own; naming their new faction after the ship that it came from.

===The Van Saar STC===
The damaged [[STC]] irradiates their territory but gives them the ability to manufacture items that no other house can dream of. It allows them to produce a wide variety of items, of a such a high quality that their products are well regarded across the galaxy. Because of this, they are undoubtedly the wealthiest of the six Clan Houses. Where other manufacturers stamp out mass-produced equipment, the Van Saar create items from knives to Nihilis-pattern lasguns to Hystrar-pattern energy shields each as a veritable work of art.
They also typically gene-code their equipment so that it cannot be stolen from them and used without first being made safe by a good technician.

They can even produce some items that that [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] are not fully aware of; Sometimes it gives rise to the rumour that House Van Saar are sitting on vaults of archeotech from ages past, and bringing treasure hunters and thieves from all quarters to locate these hidden caches and exploit them; no-one realising that it is Van Saar who are making these items for themselves and that these wondrous items are actually brand new.

The hoarding of such a potent device is a blatant techno-heresy of one of the highest orders, and the leaders of Van Saar are acutely aware of that fact and have made it their priority to keep knowledge of the STC secret and safe. They carefully test any new technologies that are created outside of "Imperial Stock" items and are very serious when dealing with infractions into research that they consider forbidden. Those stock items they produce are frequently kept away from Imperial contracts by Noble houses, ostensibly to encourage competition and presumably keep prices low, but also unwittingly make those items scarce in the larger Imperium. Any rare or "restricted" items that they sell, such as vortex weapons or phase shields, are often only sold to selective bidders, who pay a premium for an advantage their rivals do not possess, but risk the censure of House Helmawr for flaunting such technology.

In any case, it has only been since 996.M41 that the STC has triggered some kind of emergency protocol, and now produces items and wargear that have never been seen before, meaning that Van Saar has to be even more careful about what they present to outsiders.

Despite being the size of a large building, the STC has been moved several times over the millennia to ensure that it cannot be discovered; variously being located out in the ash wastes, underneath hives, or even on orbital satellites! Currently it is located underneath the Hive Primus space port close to the hive's heat sinks, where the radiation it emits is concealed by the flow of thermal energy from the planetary core.

The most likely case is that the AdMech have already studied the products of this house that they have been able to get their hands on, saw there was nothing there they didn't already have/know and so put it on the back burner so long as House Van Saar toed the line of acceptable technology. Much like how many Hive Cities are themselves feats of archaeotech yet the AdMech doesn't come storming in to seize it for themselves. However, this may change as Van Saar uncovers new and unknown technologies since the STC has recently entered its more active state. What's worse is that in 911.M41, since the STC could no longer be moved, a dozen or so facsimiles of the STC were created to serve as decoys. Creating the unfortunate, but ultimately obvious consequence of drawing ''more'' attention to the fact the Van Saar have something that they shouldn't have.

While the secret has occasionally been discovered by members of other Houses, it is carefully suppressed from the public, because everyone on Necromunda benefits from the massive wealth that Van Saar generates, and also because the houses are so interdependent on each other that to bring Van Saar down would dangerously upset the fragile balance of power that Necromunda is based upon. For example: without Van Saar there would be no amnio-vats to breed members of [[House Goliath]], and no pharmaceutical tech for [[House Escher]] parthogenesis. Those houses may survive the loss of Van Saar, but they would be extremely damaged because of it. The real reason is, of course, that they don't want Van Saar to be ransacked by the AdMech and then the entire world's population turned into servitors that retain their awareness as punishment.

The constant exposure to the radiation emanating from the STC causes the members of House Van Saar to suffer chronic radiation sickness and condemns them to wither and degenerate over time. The quest continues to either repair the STC or find a way to permanently cure themselves of the radiation sickness but neither outcome looks like it is in danger of resolving itself soon. So for the meantime they are dependent upon varying regimes of life augmenting cybernetics, tox-filters, and human chemicals.

One famed Van Saar cyber-chirurgeon claimed to have cured the sickness but was assassinated by [[House Delaque]] and left only one test subject known only as the '''Abomination''' who exists only as a figure of legend, a "hale and proud" warrior who only continues to wear his survival suit as a badge of honour rather than as life saving rig.

==Organisation==
Van Saar organises its gangs differently from the other Houses of Necromunda, not least because they promote their leaders from the most educated or innovative among them, rather than the most brutal or violent. This tendency in turn reflects itself on the territories that the gangs themselves hold, generally turning into machine temples and forges in imitation of the fabricator vaults of the House itself.

The hierarchy of House Van Saar is divided down two lines. The first are the '''Archeoteks''' who are somewhat synonymous with Tech-Priests, albeit without the religious dogma surrounding technology. They exist at all levels within the House and are arranged into descending circles, with the innermost circles having direct access to the STC itself and have varying degrees of understanding about its workings. Because they work so closely with the STC, they receive the largest doses of radiation, therefore most of the Inner Circle Archeoteks have significant augmetic replacements and cybernetic enchantments by necessity. As the ranks move away from the STC there is correspondingly less access and knowledge provided, to the point that the outermost members of the House may not ever realise what they possess, or why they are constantly exposed to debilitating radiation.

Not all members of House Van Saar are gifted with an affinity for technology, but still find purpose on the factory floors, in work crews, in official militia, or [[Necromunda#The Game|in the gangs]]. Therefore the second line of hierarchy has have a more traditional chain of command. Though a variety of professions exist, leaders are commonly referred to as '''Primes''', with their immediate subordinates called '''Augmeks'''. Beneath them are the '''Teks''' and '''Subteks''' who fulfil the most menial roles; though it would be a mistake to consider these individuals as dumb, uneducated, or disposable, the same way that other lower class groups in the Imperium might be, as even the lowliest Subtek will be expertly trained for his assigned role.

Separate from both lines are the '''Neoteks''', who represent promising candidates for promotion. Their particular talents tend towards the actual manipulation of technology. This they are permitted access to some of the more dangerous or unpredictable examples of what the STC is able to produce. This provides two functions: the first is that it allows the field testing of new prototypes, which is a dangerous process since not everyone can guarantee exactly what it will do, so the data gathered will be invaluable to the betterment of the house. The second function is that if the Neotek survives being the guinea pig for new technologies, they will have proved both their worth and their dedication, and tend to go far as Archeoteks or Primes depending on their chosen vocation.

===Relationships===
As the foremost experts on technology, House Van Saar maintains strong links with the Mercator Lux and the Pyromantic Conclaves, who dominate the light/electricity and the fuel industries respectively. This relationship works well for all sides, as the Lighting Guild and the Fuel Guild don't really understand the systems that they claim dominion over, and are content to allow the Van Saar to perform repair works for them. In return, Van Saar gain the ability to discretely tap into the hive infrastructure and use what they need without drawing too much attention.

The House also maintains links with the secretive Noble [[House Catallus]] as well as any number of charlatans and "Fallen Houses". Despite the fact that Van Saar are a ''bona fide'' Clan House in their own right, they still came from a line of ash-scavengers, and their power base and primary source of wealth must remain a tightly kept secret. So alliances with these dubious members of upper society allow them to maintain airs of legitimacy and throw off the scent for anyone who tries looking into the matter.

In the 39th Millennium, House Van Saar played a part in the creation of [[House Goliath]], ostensibly as an attempt to refill the waning labourer population following an attempted [[Cult of the Redemption|Redemptionist]] uprising, the creation of fit and healthy vat-grown donors could have served to provide House Van Saar with a way of replacing their own failing flesh and organs. However the resulting Goliaths had even shorter lifespans than that of Van Saar, rendering the project a failure from that perspective, with Van Saar blaming [[House Escher]] for the betrayal. For their part, House Escher also blamed Van Saar for the Goliath's sterility, depriving them of potential breeding stock.

Secretly, the result was manipulated by outside sources in order to maintain the status quo of dependence between houses. Van Saar trade for the rad-purgatives supplied by [[House Escher]] and in return provide them the components for the parthenogenesis process they need to reproduce, preventing any one House from gaining too much independence and dominance over the others.

House Van Saar maintain an ongoing alliance with House Goliath, providing them with the amnio-vat technology required to maintain their population in exchange for the raw materials that the Goliaths can obtain from the inhospitable depths of the hives. This deal grossly favours the Goliaths, but was instituted in part to provide a means of striking against House Escher.

===Technologies===
The technological ascendance of House Van Saar gives them access to items would be considered "rare" even in more prestigious institutions. Even the "standard-issue" bodyglove is a complicated arrangement of various technological devices that constantly monitor their health and provide life support functions, as well as providing the connections to their wargear, allowing overlay of targetting technology over their field of vision, or the jacks for connecting with other larger pieces of equipment. The use of Mind-Impulse-Unit (MIU) technology is very commonplace, allowing for the installation of servo-arms/rigs all the way up to specialist servo-suits that carry small arsenals of wargear and protective gear.

Van Saar have perfected the art of las-technology as far as possibly for any institution not connected with the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] and produce a variety of mid-range rifles, las-carbines, las-sub-carbines, and even las-"shotguns" capable of peppering a wide arc. Yet, despite such mastery over las-weaponry, Van Saar does '''not''' have the bulk of the Imperial export contracts and so their weapons are unlikely to end up in the hands of the [[Imperial Guard]]; and try as they might to compete for the contracts each time they come up for renewal, they always get awarded to [[House Escher]]. The reason given is that Van Saar weapons tend to be ''"over-engineered"'', which is an undesirable trait in something so straightforward and workmanlike as a lasgun. Van Saar lasguns also likely cost a lot more, even within the mechanics of the game a Van Saar lasgun is double the credit value of an Escher lasgun ''(that performs the same way)'' and costs up to ''seven times'' more once you add all the Van Saar bells and whistles.

The Noble Houses still encourage the competition, knowing that they can buy advanced Van Saar weapons for their own private use ''(likely in House militaries)'' and give them an edge over their rivals.

Despite their setbacks in the lucrative lasgun contracts, Van Saar are the '''only''' House with the capability to manufacture Plasma and Melta weapons While other Houses may certainly have their own patterns ''(like the Goliath Combi-Plasma-Stub pistol for instance)'', the primary components for those weapons will have almost certainly come from a Van Saar artificer's workshop.

The aforementioned Hystrar-pattern energy shields are a unique variant of conversion fields that are wrist mounted and offer arguably better protection over a normal conversion field, albeit only in a limited arc. They are also one of the few insitutions outside of the Mechanicus that routinely produce, and use [[Radium Weaponry|rad-weaponry]], with their protective suits offsetting the dangers of exposing themselves to such technology.

Van Saar are also unique on Necromunda in that they breed and modify the large native arachnids for the purposes of turning them into [[Servitor]]s, creating '''Cyberachnids'''.

==Unique Mechanics==
The technological gang, every member of House Van Saar can learn both Shooting and Techno skills, making them on-par with [[House Delaque]] and arguably superior to [[House Orlock]], especially when their excellent BS (nothing lower than a 4+, with leaders and champions having BS 2+. That said, their skills in Ferocity and Stealth are sorely lacking, with only their gang leaders able to learn them. They also can't boost their Toughness beyond +1 in a campaign game due to their radiation poisoning.

Appropriately enough, they have the best selection of guns: while they favor the use of lasguns and other laser weaponry, they also get more exotic stuff like grav-guns and rad-cannons and can also bolster their defenses with energy shields.

== Gallery ==
<gallery>
File:Cyberarchnid-van-saar.jpg| As if the creepy spider theme wasn't creepy enough.
File:ArchnaRigOldart.jpg| The old image
</gallery>

{{Necromunda}}

[[Category: Necromunda]]
[[Category: Warhammer 40,000]]

Necromunda

2021-10-08T01:05:04Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:D51C:2CE6:1356:3DA2: /* The Game */ Ba-dum-tssh

=The Planet=
[[File:Necromunda Map.jpg|thumb|right|400px|A bleak name for a bleak world]]
Necromunda is a [[Hive World]] located in the [[Segmentum]] Solar, and one of the strongholds of the [[Imperium of Man]] in the region. Its great forges manufacture [[Lasgun]]s, [[Autogun]]s, Shotguns and [[Bolter]]s, among other weapons. The planet also levies huge numbers of troops for the [[Astra Militarum|Imperial Guard]], most notably the regiments of the Necromundan Guard and Necromundan Spiders, as well as other crucial supplies. An [[Imperial Fists]] chapterhouse is located in the top of the world's primary hive city, establishing the planet as one of their recruitment worlds.

The planet's biggest claim to fame, however, is serving as the setting for the ''Necromunda Underhive'' skirmish game, and several [[Black Library]] anthologies and novels. Also of note is that the comic ''The Redeemer'' by Pat Mills, Debbie Gallagher, and Wayne Reynolds centers around one of the Redemptionist cults on Necromunda, led by a psychotic mofo named Klovis, who lights his head on fire and leads his men to murder shit-tons of mutants and zombies led by a chief Ratskin by the name of the Caller.

==History==
First settled during the [[Dark Age of Technology]] as a mining and manufacturing colony, Necromunda was formerly known as Araneus Prime and was the capital of a human civilization called the Aranean Continuity. During the [[Age of Strife]], it had remained in contact with other planets in its system thanks to a network of Warp Gates, and by the time of the [[Great Crusade]] Araneus Prime had become the capital of a small stellar empire.

The [[Imperium of Man]] stumbled over the Continuity when a squadron of ships entered their territory by accident during the [[Great Crusade]], only to be boarded and overrun by the cybernetically augmented warriors that formed the Aranean military. When the Imperium sent envoys demanding that the Aranean Continuity swear fealty to the Imperium, the Technobility that ruled the Continuity responded with its own demand that the Imperium should become their tributary instead. The [[Imperial Fists]] legion was tasked to bring into compliance, and it fell to [[Battle of Phall|Captain Yonnad]] to muster an invasion force from the world of [[Tallarn]].
Two months later, the Aranean Continuity had surrendered to the Imperium.

Unfortunately, the Imperium would not be able to celebrate its victory for long. ''[[Xenos|Something]]'' was coming out of the Warp Gates and was in the process of destroying every planet in the Continuity. By the time the VIIth Legion had destroyed the Warp Gates to keep more of the mysterious invaders from getting through Araneus Prime was the only planet in the Aranean Continuity that was still inhabitable, and even it had been left a ruined shadow of its former glory. It was at this time the planet came to be called Necromunda in recognition of how it had survived its near-annihilation by the unknown xenos.

After the heresy, Necromunda has been relatively peaceful if one ignores all the murder going on in the depths of the underhive. The two major threats to the Imperium's rule being an attack by [[Ork]] [[Freebooterz]] on a minor hive (now purged, abandoned, and renamed the skull because of the giant holes left by the attack orks), and a [[genestealer]] cult uprising that brought down the second biggest hive on the planet, forcing the Planetary Governor to permanently establish a quarantine zone around the nuked city where the [[Planetary Defense Force|PDF]] keeps constant watch gainst the infiltration attempts of the Xenos horror.

==Setting==
By the time of the 41st millenium, the vast majority of Necromunda's surface is covered by scorched wastes of ash creatively named the "ash wastes". Unlike other worlds such as [[Vigilus]] however, the millenia long industrial exploitation of the planet's crust has given it its own unique... flavour.

First and foremost, the copious amounts of waste from the hives cities has been dumped into the surrounding territories, sometimes creating vast seas of sludge and stinking sewage no less creatively known as the "sludge seas". These oceans of green goo have ensured a relatively fertile farming environment and fairly bountiful fungus harvests (by Necromunda's standards anyways). Many underhive outcasts leave the hives to take up residence on the sludge seas, becoming fungi farmers who trade their products to passing ash waste nomads and back to the inhabitants of the hives.

At the outer edge of the spires are vast sprawls of ramshackle shanty towns. They are inhabited by all kinds of scum unsuited to even the already low standard of life within the hives. The spires offer a limited protection against the acid rains and corrosive ash of the world, though the best shelter a shanty dweller can hope for is one or two layers of packing material or an abandoned vehicle. To make matters worse, much of the manufactoria's toxic goo of death pours directly down onto the shanties.

Of course, Necromunda being a Hive World means most of its people live inside the cities, governed by the noble house of Helmawr. As far as planetary governors go, Gerontius Helmawr isn't the most incompetent, but he's known for doing shit like only allowing extraplanetary trade from a single spaceport in order to keep monopolies and such. Many visiting merchants and Administratum tithe-factor have observed the inefficiency of this system, but none question its efficacy when it comes to maintaining the unquestionable power of House Helmawr.

=The Game=
'''Necromunda''' is also a skirmish-level [[wargame]] designed to be played in an "open campaign" format, pitting gangs of the hives cities against each other. Originally released in 1995, it was overhauled in 2017 and re-released with a new box set and updated weaponry reflecting the expansive lore changes to the [[Warhammer 40k]] Universe.

Although released in 1995, it is so 80s (even in its new edition) it makes you want to snort a kilo of coke (or new coke) and vote Ronald Reagan's corpse into office.
==System 2017==
===Rulebooks===
#'''Gang War:''' Goliath & Escher Gangs. Rules for campaigns
#'''Gang War 2:''' Orlock Gangs, hired guns (Bounty Hunters and Scum) and hangers on.
#'''Gang War 3:''' Van Saar Gangs, Gang Brutes, Trading post updates
#'''Gang War 4:''' Cawdor Gangs, Exotic Beasts, more Gang Brutes, Dominion campaign rules, and rules for psykers.
#'''Gangs of the Underhive''': Delaque gangs, but also combines the abovementioned books.
#'''Book of Peril:''' Venator Gangs, more hired guns, alliances, and rules for Badzones.
#'''Book of Judgement''': Enforcer gangs, Trading Post updates, Law and Misrule campaign rules, and Criminal Alliances.
#'''Book of Ruin''': Expanded rules for Chaos Helots, Genestealer Cults, and Corpse-Grinder Cults.
#'''House of Chains''': Expanded rules for House Goliath, introducing Goliath-exclusive upgrades, skill trees, Hangers-on, and Champion types. Also adds a new type of gang member called a Prospect. Introduces the Ogryn Slave Gangs.
#'''House of Blades''': Expanded rules for House Escher.
#'''House of Iron''': Expanded rules for House Orlock.
#'''House of Artifice''': Expanded rules for House Van Saar.
#'''House of Faith''': Expanded rules for House Cawdor.
#'''House of Shadows''': Expanded rules for House Delaque.
#'''Book of Outcasts''': Outcast gangs

===Basics===
====The Game====
See the video on the Necromunda website: https://necromunda.com/start-playing/ (link broken)
A video from a Necromunda demo game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxGWIcTGKJs
Link to [https://necromunda.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2017/10/Necro_Ref_ENG.pdf PDF] (official Necromunda website) where some actions and other info is found.

Rather than each player taking turns to move their entire gang, players take turns to activate a single model with two action points; actions such as moving, shooting, taking cover, or reloading consume one action point, while some will require two action points, such as charging or hitting. Some single-point actions cannot be taken twice, such as shooting. A model can only shoot at the closest enemy model unless they pass a coolness check or something farther away is easier to hit. The gameplay borrows a lot from the simplified hitting and wounding mechanics of 8th 40k; the starter set also bears a strong resemblance to Shadespire, with character cards of predefined characteristics and loadouts to speed starting (without the special combat dice, though Necromunda has special dice to decide the affect of wounds rather than rolling against a table like in the classic version), whilst the full game still looks to old school Necromunda, with extended character stats such as coolness, willpower, and intelligence, and terrain/skill combat modifiers, as well as plenty of wargear and weapon options.

====Turn order====
The game turn is divided into activations; every activation encompasses 1 miniature, although some special rules modify this - for example, a "Leader" can activate up 2 additional models within 4", or a "Champion" can activate 1.

First, every mini gets a ready token, and you and your opponent roll off. The player that rolls higher may choose 1 ganger and activate it for two actions, consuming that mini's ready token.
After one ganger has played, your opponent may do the same for one of his gangers, and so on. Once there are no more ready tokens on the board, you resolve end-of-turn effects, and then repeat.

====Actions====
"Simple" actions take up 1 action point, and can be spammed; "basic" actions take up 1 action point, but can only be used 1/activation; "double" actions take up both action points.

===Gang Generation===
====Starting your Gang====
First off, you have to pick a faction for your gang. Factions determine your choice of starting wargear, the basic statline of your gang members, and the skill trees they have access to.

The six Great Houses are still the main factions:
* '''[[House Cawdor]]''' - Not the richest of houses, Cawdor is the stronghold of the Cult of the Redemption. To many, they are known as "The House of Redemption" due to these deep ties. Their trademark appearance is the use of masks in public when around anyone outside of their House, along with rags because they can't afford real clothing. They run most of the recycling on the Hive, scouring the waste for potential relics and holy objects. This also generated a rather interesting House Equipment in the previous version that allowed for a bit more flexibility than many of the other houses, and in the current version gives them a bunch of cobbled-together scrap weapons that shouldn't be underestimated because of their shoddy design, such as improvised crossbows and crude imitations of [[Adeptus Custodes|Guardian Spears]].
* '''[[House Delaque]]''' - House Delaque is very dark and secretive, and other houses are justifiably suspicious of them. Many of their agents look like your average diver dealer flipping fake watches on the corner. Most of this house is pale and bald-headed, which have led some people to suspect they've been infiltrated by a Genestealer Cult. Traditionally, they have been a very range focused faction with next to no melee support in either equipment or skills.
* '''[[House Escher]]''' - Millennia of exposure to the alchemical processes used to create their pharmaceuticals have altered this house's Y chromosomes. Without exception, the males of House Escher are docile troglodytes, and breeding is done in a lab. This has created a strong matriarchal and misandrist power structure with Escher women doing virtually everything needed to keep society running, including acting as their soldiers and hired guns. Their gang lists mostly consist of agile melee fighters who compensate for sub-par strength with a plethora of poisoned weapons. Las weapons are also a house specialty and can be procured for next to nothing during the gang creation process.
* '''[[House Goliath]]''' - House Goliath values size and strength above everything else, with its members using enough gene-mods and stims to match a [[Space Marine]] in bulk. The furnace and foundry workers of Necromunda, they consider the hivers of other Houses to be weak and lazy. The other houses view them as barbaric, unsophisticated, and unpredictable. In game they have improved strength and toughness stats compared to the other houses which makes them very durable and extremely deadly in melee combat. Much of their starting equipment list is comprise of industrial tools converted to blast and bash their way through the Underhive.
* '''[[House Orlock]]''' - In control of most of the mines and refineries of the Hive, House Orlock is a hardened and fearless group since its Gangers see plenty of action defending their convoys and logistics lines. They are in constant tension with House Delaque due to acquire the Ulanti Contract, one previous held by Delaque. Despite their loose-leaf internal leadership, they are actually one of the most unified and disciplined Houses. Their equipment list is very practical, favoring ballistics weapons, and combined with their skill selections, are considered the most balanced House. They can match other houses where they are strong, and then take advantage of their opponents' weaknesses.
* '''[[House Van Saar]]''' - Perhaps the richest of the houses, House Van Saar provides most of the other houses with their most technological items and needs thanks to the STC they found a while back. Their suits keep them from dying as a byproduct of their STC's malfunctioning, as it constantly leaks radiation that would otherwise leave them dead from radiation sickness. Trademark gang look is high-tech range weapons, with their own special brand of lasguns, energy shields, plasma weaponry, and a cannon that fires radiation!

Other playable factions include:
*'''[[Genestealer Cult]]s''' - The gribbly-worshippers we know and love; it doesn't seem like they get full-fledged Genestealers this time, but that's not much consolation for the ganger facing the hammers of a [[Genestealer Aberrants|Genestealer Aberrant]]. They also follow different rules for gang composition and cannot benefit from Guilder Contact territories. Updated rules are found in the Book of Ruin.
*'''[[Chaos Cults]]'''- Chaos Cults also have a slightly different ruleset for gang composition, but the important take-away is that they can bring along rogue psykers and even [[Chaos Spawn|you-know-whats]]. They can also call upon the Ruinous Powers to empower a gang member, granting them bonuses based on the Chaos God that they dedicate their rituals to. Chaos is notoriously fickle, however, and a champion seeking power from his gods might end up with far more than what he bargained for. Updated rules are found in the Book of Ruin.
*'''Venator Gang'''- A brand new faction representing <s>the best from every gang with no negatives</s> a group of Bounty Hunters. A white Dwarf release with no hint of balance (they can pick any model/weapon/bit of gear from any gang or the trader lists and carry up to 5 weapons each rather than the usual 3). The closest to a disadvantage that they get is that they are a bit pricey and in a campaign they don't hold territory so won't get as much money unless they get lucky with capturing fallen gangers. Balance issues aside they let you take any model you like and use it, which can be a modder's dream and give you a legal way to field whatever group of models take your fancy, so bar the cheese are a nice idea that could lead to some awesome modelling opportunities. Rules included in May 2018's White Dwarf and slated to be overhauled to address balance issues.
*'''The Guilders''' - A brand new faction representing the divisions of the Merchants' Guild that keep up the supply of vital resources to the Hives, such as the Water Guild, the Power Guild, and [[Grimdark|the Corpse Guild]]. They don't appear directly in the game, but other gangs can ally with them for extra benefits...if they're willing to deal with the costs of doing business.
*'''[[Palanite Enforcers]]''' - The Hive law enforcement are listed in the Book of Judgment. These guys aren't the [[Adeptus Arbites]] professional FBI, they're the US police. They're here to shoot your dog and enact gratuitous violence. They don't take shock batons because they plan on taking you alive, they use shock batons because they hurt more than stabbing you. Load up and savour the sweet sound of police brutality. And when things get really tough, they bring out the riot shields, assault rams, and grenade launchers because there is no such thing as collateral damage.
*'''[[Corpse Grinder Cults]]''' - A bunch of <s>closet</s> Khorne worshippers, down to wearing skull masks and wielding a variety of chain weapons originally intended to process dead bodies into corpse starch. Interestingly, they are the first view into the aforementioned Corpse Guild, being menial workers who went insane from constantly cutting up corpses and devoted themselves to "the Lord of Skin and Sinew" as cannibals. Introduced with The Book of Ruin.
*'''[[Ogryn]] Slave Gang''' - These cyber-Ogryns are similar to House Goliath in that they value brawn over brains. They've risen up against their masters and now fight for their freedom in a classic slave revolt. As a result, your army has a rather static loadout and you absolutely have to watch out for enemies who try to capture your troops - they're worth more than a pretty penny as prisoners! Introduced with House of Chains.
*'''The Outcasts''' - Where the Venators are considered elites among the gangers, the Outcasts are better viewed as the dregs of the admittedly seedy underworld of the underhive. Introduced with Book of Outcasts.

When you first make your Gang - and any time you add members to it - you must obey the following rules:
*At least one "Leader". Starting out, you get to recruit an actual "Leader" model, which has a superior (or mostly superior) statline to your other choices, but costs the most credits; at any time in the future when you need a new Leader, such as the old one dying, or you're starting a new Gang by splitting an old one, you have to promote a non-Leader to Leader, which typically means a worse starting statline and worse efficiency in terms of statline per credit (relevant in case your opponent captures them alive and sells them off, for example). As a result, you will never again get the chance to recruit a Leader.
*"Champions", from 0 to at most 2 + 1 for every 10 Reputation points (e.g. a total of 4 at Reputation 24). Champions recruited fresh cost the second most, but typically have the second best statline. Champions can come both from promoting up Gangers and Juves, or be recruited - only in the latter case does the restriction apply. Future books will introduce house-specific Champion types such as the Goliath Stimmer.
*"Gangers" at least equal to the number of all non-Gangers (Juves, Champions, and the Leader) combined. Gangers can only be recruited - you have no way to promote them from any other role. These typically have the third highest (second lowest) cost, with a statline to match. Gangers can also can become Specialists, which lets them take skills without counting against any specific limits.
*You can have as many "Juves" as you like, subject to the Ganger tax; they are usually your cheapest, and usually have the worst statline, although for most Gangs, they actually have a better Move stat than the other roles. Juves and Specialists can promote to Champions, or, if necessary, Leaders directly, Gangers can promote to Specialists, and Champions can promote to Leader.
**House of Chains introduces Prospects, Juve-tier Gangers who have the ability to upgrade to another model type (usually a gang-specific Champion). They also tend to have unique equipment choices.

Genestealer Cults set up their Gangs like so:
*At least one Adept, who acts as a Leader-equivalent. Unlike normal Leaders, they do not have skills to start with but gain access to unique abilities that only they can use as well as unique wargear like boneswords and toxin injector claws. Additional abilities can be bought like secondary skills.
*Acolytes, following the same rules as Champions from any other gang. However, they can take four weapons instead of the usual three.
*0-2 Aberrants, which have the Unstoppable skill inherent in their profile along with very high stats and powerful melee weapons. They follow the same advancement rules as Gangers but cannot promote to Specialists.
*Neophytes, which follow the same overall rules as Gangers in terms of both promotion and recruitment.

Chaos Cults set up their Gangs as follows:
*One Demagogue, who acts as a Leader-equivalent. They can learn skills like regular leaders, but start with the special "Cult Leader" skill (any fighters from the same gang within 9" use the Demagogue's Cool and Willpower for checks).
*Up to two Disciples, who are Champions for all intents and purposes.
*Up to one [[Psyker|Witch]], a rogue psyker with lower accuracy than even the Cultists and cannot be made the replacement Leader if the Demagogue is slain, but is otherwise roughly equal to a Disciple in its statline and activation ability. Obviously, they start with one psychic power and can buy more as if they were secondary skills.
*Cultists, which follow the same overall rules as Gangers in terms of both promotion and recruitment.
*[[Chaos Spawn|The Unnameable Beasts]], which are not recruited via conventional means and have the following special rules:
**They are not recruited normally in campaign battles, and instead occur when a Dark Ritual roll with a gang member as its focus dramatically fails. The former cultist is considered dead for the purposes of the gang roster and fighter limits, and any gear the victim might have been carrying is lost. Up to two can be taken in a one-off skirmish.
**They have d6 Movement (changing every time it moves or charges), and their Weapon Skill, Strength, Toughness, Wounds, Initiative, and Attacks are randomly generated upon creation. They have no score for the other stats; Willpower and Cool tests always pass, but Leadership and Intelligence tests always fail.
**They cannot gain Experience or Advancements, and are unable to use weapons and equipment. Additionally, the only actions they can make are Move, Charge, Fight, and Coup de Grace.
**They cannot be Pinned and ignore Flesh Wounds, Serious Injuries, and Lasting Injuries. However, they are difficult for a cult to control; in the post-battle sequence, up to three Cultists not taken out of action or Seriously Injured must be nominated to restrain their former comrade. A d6 is rolled for each nominated cultist, and if at least one scores a 4+ they keep the thing under control- otherwise, the abomination breaks loose and flees into the underhive, effectively removing it from the Roster. Any cultist who rolls a 1 gets a Lasting Injury as the freak lashes out at them.

Enforcers set up their gangs like so:
*1 Captain (Leader), who may be either a Palanite or a Subjugator.
*0-2 Sergeants (Champions), either Palanite or Subjugator.
*At least 2 Patrolmen (Gangers), who must be the same type of Enforcer as the Captain. The number of Patrolmen must be equal to or greater than the total number of Captains or Sergeants in the gang.
*Enforcers cannot start out with Rookies (Juves), but may take one for free each time one of their gangers dies or is retired during the post-battle sequence.

====Gang Attributes====
Gangs have two major attributes: Rating and Reputation.

Rating is the sum cost of every Fighter (and remember, a Fighter's cost is the sum of their personal cost and their gear cost). A high Rating is ''bad'' if the difference between your Rating and your opponent's is very large; having a higher rating than your opponent means you're less likely to be able to choose the scenario you're fighting in and gain worse reputation rewards (every scenario so far awards the participant with the worse rating +1 reputation per full 100 points of rating they are below their opponent). Consequently, it's unwise to fight against a gang with a lower rating than your own since you have less to gain from a victory and have less control over the scenario.

Reputation on the other hand is always ''good'' - a higher reputation means you can recruit more Champions, find rare equipment more easily, and the two highest reputations at the end of a campaign fight over who wins the entire campaign, with reputation serving as their tiebreaker if they draw during the scenario.

Gangs can also form Alliances for the duration of a campaign, symbolizing a connection to a prominent group like one of the guilds or a criminal organization. These grant benefits such as expanded Wargear options or adding free Hired Guns to a scenario, but they also come with drawbacks such as having less control over which scenario is chosen or giving up part of their gained credits. These drawbacks can be ignored, but the other party won't like it- they may temporarily deprive you of the alliance's benefits or end it entirely.

The Law and Misrule campaign type adds Alignment, which determines whether or not your gang abides by the laws of Necromunda. This determines what kinds of Hired Guns they can use, as well as a mixture of other benefits and drawbacks depending on whether or not the gang is on the wrong side of the law. While it is possible to switch alliances partway through a campaign, doing so comes with steep costs.

====Advancing your Gang====
Leaders and Champions can buy stat points and skills (skills are special rules and/or actions only available to the model that has them) for experience points (which you mostly earn by murdering the enemy, but also by Rallying, ironically meaning it can be optimal to get your models to fail their Cool checks, so you can Rally them later for experience), which also raises their credit value for game effects like being sold off by enemy gangs; when they do so, they pay a base experience amount, plus 2 per Advancement (an Advancement is any time they buy one of these things). "Specialists" are basically unlucky (or lucky, depending on your point of view) Gangers who can do the same thing; this is how you promote one of them to Champion. Typically, Leaders have cheaper access to more skills (particularly the Leadership skills) than the other roles, while Champions have cheaper access to something than the others. Experience costs vary by what you are buying - some stats cost more than others, some skills cost more than others depending on your role and House, and so on.

Juves and non-Specialist Gangers do not have to pay escalating costs for Advancements, but have some restrictions to go along with that. Juves typically have the least access to cheap skills, compared to Leaders, Champions, and Specialists, and if you end a campaign (referred to as a Turf War) with any Juves that have 5 or more Advancements, they must promote to Champion, immediately forcing them to begin paying Advancement taxes. Non-Specialist Gangers have no access to skills at all, but buy stats by paying a non-escalating cost and then rolling 2d6; if they roll a 2, a 12, or any result that would force a stat above its maximum, they promote to Specialist, gaining access to skills but being forced to pay Advancement taxes. Any other result, depending on what it is, raises your choice of one of 2 stats. The nature of the table is that, starting with their second Advance, they pay less experience per stat gain than anyone but a Juve, but can't buy skills at all, and run a constant risk that slowly goes up over time of promoting to Specialist and being forced to pay taxes.

=====Skills=====
Leaders and Champions bought new start with one Primary skill of their choice; for everyone else, there are 4-5 ways to gain skills as an Advancement. For all of the options below, the way to handle rolling a random skill you already have is to re-roll it, which is identical to rolling a smaller die type (1d1, 1d2, 1d3, 1d4, or 1d5, although the d4 or the d5 will require non-d6 dice on hand - the easiest way to handle both cases at once is to keep a d20 around), but isn't actually supported by the rules. All of them cost experience points and add to the fighter's credit cost - aside from the downside of making the entire gang's rating go up, this also makes the fighter a larger liability, since they're worth more to the enemy when captured.

*Pay 6xp and gain 20 credits in value to gain 1 random skill from a chosen Primary skill tree.
*Pay 9xp and gain 20 credits in value to gain 1 chosen skill from a chosen Primary skill tree.
*Pay 9xp and gain 35 credits in value to gain 1 random skill from a chosen Secondary skill tree.
*Pay 12xp and gain 40 credits in value to change roles from Specialist to Champion and gain 1 random skill from a chosen Primary skill tree.
*Pay 15xp and gain 50 credits in value to gain 1 random skill from a chosen skill tree.

Typically, Juves have 1 Primary skill set and 2 Secondary, while Specialists have 2 Primaries and 2 Secondaries, and neither has Leadership as a Primary or Secondary. Champions have 2 Primaries and 3 Secondaries, while Leaders have 3 Primaries and 2 Secondaries, but the "additional" skill set they have is always Leadership - Secondary for Champions and Primary for Leaders. That said, it is typical for roles to have other "unique" skillsets within their House - for example, only Goliath Juves have any access to Agility (which they do as a Secondary); as of the current set of 6 gangs, only 2, Escher and Orlock, have skillsets such that Leader>Champion>Specialist>Juve - for everyone else, there's at least one exception, such that promotion can make the Fighter worse at collecting skills they were going after. Skill sets are listed below by name, but these groupings only ''trend'' towards being similar to each other, and a single skill set may provide wildly distinct abilities - for example, under Cunning, Backstab makes you more useful with a melee weapon, while Overwatch makes you more useful with a ranged weapon - and at least one skill, "Savvy Trader" under Savant, is capable of providing absolutely no buff at all (it makes the Fighter better at finding rare items, but only Champions, Leaders, and/or Fighters with the separate Connected skill are capable of even attempting to find rare items).

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
|+ Skill Sets by Name
! D6 !! Agility !! Brawn !! Combat !! Cunning !! Ferocity !! Leadership !! Shooting !! Savant
|-
| 1 || Catfall || Bull Charge || Combat Master || Backstab || Berserker || Commanding Presence || Fast Shot || Ballistics Expert
|-
| 2 || Clamber || Bulging Biceps || Counter-attack || Escape Artist || Impetuous || Inspirational || Gunfighter || Connected
|-
| 3 || Dodge || Crushing Blow || Disarm || Evade || Fearsome || Iron Will || Hip Shooting || Fixer
|-
| 4 || Mighty Leap || Headbutt || Parry || Infiltrate || Nerves of Steel || Mentor || Marksman || Medicae
|-
| 5 || Spring up || Hurl || Step Aside || Lie Low || True Grit || Overseer || Precision Shot || Munitioneer
|-
| 6 || Sprint || Iron Jaw || Rain of Blows || Overwatch || Unstoppable || Regroup || Trick Shot || Savvy Trader
|}

Later expansions added unique skill categories usable only by specific gangs, such as the Savagery, Palanite Drill and Muscle skill categories.

==System 1995 ==
[[Image:Necromunda_cover.JPG|thumb|right|Robustly Heterosexual]]
===Basics===
Similar to Warhammer 40,000, Necromunda is a fairly fast paced skirmish game focusing on a small fight between two gangs. Gangs are chosen from the roster below, named, and equipped as the player sees fit. Gameplay represents each man or woman in the gang moving 4", but can run to double the distance or charge to the same effect. Shooting differs from Warhammer 40,000 as the game is less about a fixed ballistic skill and more about modifiers to represent more detailed scenarios of a firefight. Close combat relies on fixed weaponskill and modifiers representing the detailed scenarios much like the shooting phase's mechanics.

===Gang Generation===
Gangs are bought with a set amount of starting cash, along with all weapons and other equipment. The gang grows, levels up, and gains superior equipment between battles, adding a roleplaying element. Lasting injuries can cripple characters, and a few lucky territory rolls can grossly overpower a gang. Basically, fun.

*To start off you need to pick a house to build your gang from. The big six "House Gangs", the base non-expansion gangs, are below. Each gang is more or less identical in practice (i.e everyone has identical stats), but their weapon options differ - e.g. Goliaths don't get swords that can parry but do get Final Fantasy style greatswords, while Escher is vice versa. Each gang has access to a different set of skill tables as well, differentiating them a little more. so in the long run a Van Saar gang will have a different playstyle from an Escher.
** '''[[House Cawdor]]''' - Holier-Than-Thou extremists. Think Jake Busey from Contact. Heavily converted to the worship of the Redemptionist creed.They favour combat with their combat, ferocity, and agility accessing don't expect much shooting with minimal ranged weapons and no shooting skill access.
** '''[[House Delaque]]''' - Sneaky Molemen/Matrix hybrids. The sneaky, shooty gang. N17 claims that they are somehow in league with the descendants of the planet's long-lost native inhabitants, but the few who might have heard of this rarely if ever believe it.
** '''[[House Escher]]''' - Crazy man haters with a cyber-punk style of dress. The agile melee gang. Themed as [[Science Fantasy]] [[Grimdark]] [[Amazon]]s. N17 even retcons that they use archaeotech to reproduce through parthenogenesis, as the few men born to the clan are inevitably deformed and retarded due to severe mutations in their Y chromosomes.
** '''[[House Goliath]]''' - Roid Raging skinheads. The slow, not very good melee gang. Big mutual hate-on for House Escher, because they're the uber-Macho House and Escher thinks they're idiots. N17 makes them ironically dependent on Escher for the super-science gene-mods and stimulants they use to maintain their bodies.
** '''[[House Orlock]]''' - Bikers, except they don't have bikes and they're miners. The Jack-of-All-Trades gang.
** '''[[House Van Saar]]''' - The hell is up with their Eldar-esque suits? N17 retconned that they actually have a semi-functioning STC, but it also poisons them. The suits keeps them from dying quicker. Techy-Shooty gang; they excel in trying to spam the inventor skill and wrecking face.
*Then we have the expansion gangs.
** '''[[Scavvies]]''' - Shittily armed and diseased, they use zombies and lizard hybrids to help with the fighting. They favor melee and can make a pretty badass horde
** '''[[Servitor|Pit Slaves]]''' - Escaped cyborgs armed with industrial digging equipment. Slow, not so good melee gang but they have this scissors weapon and it's like so totally broken it like kills you in one hit. This is true and rather annoying.
** '''[[Ratskins|Ratskin Renegades]]''' - The native American archetype. They are sneaky, use shitty, shitty guns and are pretty good in melee. Playing them forced the game to be played using the "Treacherous Conditions" table, but they themselves were immune to any of the crazy shit that could be rolled, such as poison gas, rampaging vermin hordes or the ground collapsing.
** '''[[Cult of the Redemption|Redemptionists]]''' - Cawdor on crack. A horde style gang; believes heavily that you can kill it with fire.
** '''[[Spyrer]]s''' - Super 1337 and best armed gang. They are the spoiled rich kids from the hive bored out of their skulls. The gang is tiny, usually consisting of 3-8 models. It's stupid when the other guy pins your entire gang with overwatch, which makes them tricky to use. Fun as hell to play, though. Also, once per campaign, you can take the Matriarch and Patriarch (both in one game if you feel like royally fucking someone's day). If you do this, the game is essentially Slender with miniatures.
** '''Fenrisian Wilders''' - A gang of savage shapeshifters that haunt the wastes outside the hive
** '''[[Adeptus Arbites|Enforcers]]''' - The riot cops of the underhive, Two sets of rules exist for them, One treating them more like a regular gang and one that treats them exactly like you would expect from a police force. Tend to get all their equipment for free, it's pretty good equipment too. downside is you may only every use 5 enforcers a match (though if your opponent is a hard ass the rest of your 10 men put down their paperwork to help on out) Largest skill access of all gangs (everything bar agility and techno for their regular enforcers. handler and sarge get techno)
** '''Ash Waste Nomads''' - These guys live ''outside'' the hive, and have vehicles. Good luck convincing anyone to let you play them unless you leave out their rides.
**'''[[Vampire#Warhammer_40.2C000|Vampyres]]''' - An attempt to cash-in on the popularity of Buffy the Vampire slayer during the 90s. Were included as a gang of a few superhuman mutants followed around by useless Thralls whose main purpose was as food.
**'''Chaos Cultist Coven''' - Laughable in regular 40k, but in the Underhive you get to see what [[Chaos]] is really like.
**'''Genestealer Cults''' - Yes, they even got [[Genestealers]] and with a [[Rape|Weapon Skill of 7, four attacks and all at strength 6, you bet your ass is grass]].
**'''Ork Gang''' - Why have Orks in Necromunda when you have [[Gorkamorka]]? LISTEN UP YAH GROT. VENATORS GOT T4 GITZ WIV BS5+ SO NOWS WE GOT RULEZ AN WE GOT ‘REZUNS’ - SUM ‘OOMIE INQZTOR SAID SUMMINK N’ NOW WEZ ‘ERE! TA FIGHT FER TEEF!! ...BUT NOT YERR STINKIN’ WEEDY ‘OOMIE TEEF!! CUZ WE’Z DA ONES GOT DEM PROPPAH TEEF... NOT YOO STINKIN’ ‘OOMIES!! BUT DAT INQUIZZY GIT SAID DERE WOZ A SKRAP SO ‘ERE WE IZ!! - ”Reasons” never were Grombragg Git Slappa’s strong point.. but he belligerently jabs you in the chest with a big green finger while telling you them all the same.. Seriously tho. According to lore hive cluster currently known as The Skulls was at one point invaded by orks and held by them for some time until joined operation of PDF and Iron Fists who actually came to necromunda specifically to get rid of those orks did. It destroyed those hive cities, but you know orks. Once they make planetfall it is impossible to get rid of them completely with anything less than complete exterminates of planets biosphere (and even than it is worth to doublecheck). So there is sizeable population of mostly feral orks in the wastes and presumably in The Skulls ruins.
**'''Wyrd Gathering''' - A bunch of psykers and their pets as a gang.
**'''Squat Miners''' - Even though [[Squats]] were on their way out, Specialist Games still remembered them. They play very similar to Dwarfs in Mordheim.
**'''Guilder Gang''' - Now you play as the merchants! Good for getting a lot of money.
**'''Hive Prospector Team''' - Basically a merging of the main house gangs and Guilders.
**'''Shanty Town Gang''' - The dregs of society. Hope you love having to recruit half of your gang after they get hit by a stiff breeze.

===Starting your Gang===
Once you have picked your "faction", then you get to the nitty gritty of actually building your starting force which most tabletop gamers will be familiar with. You start with 1000 credits (read points, at least at this stage) with which you purchase your gang-members and equip them.

The original six gangs are all built the same way, with the same selection of membership options, though they have access to different tables of starting gear depending on the faction you choose. The other more specialised gangs will have access to different character archetypes depending upon their fluff, but basically your gang's minimum size is three models and you can go nuts from there.

*'''Gang Leader''': Most gangs have a "leader" equivalent who you must take if he's available to your gang. He usually starts off as a WS/BS4/I4/Ld8 Veteran. He's good because you need him to keep the gang together and take most of their leadership tests, as well as determining what happens between battles. He also gets access to some of the best gear, making him one of your most effective warriors in addition to his statline.
**Gang Leaders invariably start out with a lot of experience to account for all the cool stuff they do. This usually equates them to about ninth level on the advancement scale, meaning they can only accumulate a few more advancements before maxing out.
*'''Ganger''': After that, most gangs will have the equivalent to a squaddie, who represents your rank-and-file warrior. They have the same statlines as imperial guardsmen, and you just need them because most gangs have a minimum number of these guys you need to take. They're good because they cover most of your bases and they level-up readily.
*'''Heavies''': Then you have the specialists, but some gangs have a variant which works in a different way ''(eg: Techno / Mastiff-Handler / Totem Warrior / Zealot)''. Usually, these guys are veterans of equivalent level to your Gang Leader, but often only have similar statlines to your regular Gangers. This sounds like a poor deal, but even at their most basic, they get access to the biggest guns, making them really useful in laying down the pain during your battles. They will also have access to different upgrade options, often acting as the techie dudes that fix the rest of the gang's broken shit.
**Some gangs do it differently, and have these specialist dudes perform a more unique function. These guys will have different special rules depending on the faction you've chosen, but generally you're always going to want a few in your gang for the utility they bring.
*'''Juves''': Not all specialist gangs have access to them; they are usually the last things you consider, but they have some of the greatest potential. They start out as WS/BS2 conscripts and they don't have access to basic (ie: rifle) weaponry. However, they are cheap to add to your gang, and they start at level zero which is actually a good thing in the long run. That is four advances behind regular gangers, therefore when they upgrade to the same level they will have earned themselves several skill or characteristic bonuses that make them stand out and excel. If you build them correctly, who cares if they keep their BS2 through-out their whole career if you made them into power-sword champions? They eventually earn the right to carry rifles later anyway so if they turn into ace marksmen you can hand them the gang's good weapons.

==Dramatis Personae==
====Bull Gorg====
The legendary leader of a slave uprising against the guilders and Spartacus stand-in. A pit fighter that turned on his masters when a fellow slave/love interest of his was denied medicine and died. Ended up liberating a town and several slave trains before guild mercenary armies cut it apart and paraded Bull Gorg around before his execution. His legacy has since been taken up by one Gor "Two Guns" Coran, a Hive scum that became convinced he was Gorg's long-lost son after a run-in with a Ratskin shaman who claimed that Coran was the offspring of a great hero of the underhive.

====Kal Jerico====
Perhaps one of the most famous and recognisable characters to come out of the setting. The bastard son of the Planetary Governor and [[Inquisitor]] [[Jena Orechiel]], who described his conception and birth as "one of the unpleasant things one has to do for the Imperium". Jerico is a dashing figure who [[Drizzt|dual wields]] master-crafted pistols and acts as a swashbuckling hero whose guns and uncanny good luck get him out of trouble as easily as his mouth gets him into it. Despite his devil-may-care attitude and considerably long list of people who want him dead, he's still one of the most successful bounty hunters in Hive Primus.
*'''Scabs''' - Jerico's half-[[Ratskins|Ratskin]] sidekick. Originally a Hive Scum whose heritage made him a perpetual outsider, Jerico recognized his good heart and hidden talents as a scout and Scabs reciprocated his acceptance with loyalty. As the voice of reason to Jerico's bon vivant, Scabs's pragmatism and knack for finding hidden paths in the underhive has gotten the duo out of more than a few predicaments.
*'''Yolanda Catallus''': The heiress of the Noble House Catallus, at least before she ran away to join and later lead a House Escher gang as "Outlaw Annie". Jerico and Scabs had accepted bounties for Yolanda's return and Outlaw Annie's capture only to realize that they were the same person. They were able to capture her, but Yolanda's threats to use her family ties to ensure Jerico's slow and painful death impressed him enough to give her a chance to escape- or more precisely, he left her tied up in a sewer tunnel figuring she'd be able to get away before the local giant spiders found her. She later become a bounty hunter herself with a rather complicated relationship with Kal culminating in their marriage.

====Karloth Valois====
One day, a rogue-psyker stumbled into the underhive from the spires above to get away from all the voices he kept hearing and the dreams he kept having. He was promptly assaulted by [[plague zombies]]... though bitten, Valois' psychic talent was enough to keep him the zombies at bay while the disease ate through his brain. He "survived" the ordeal but remained infected by the plague, giving him mastery over zombies ''(essentially making him the Zombie king... with a crown and everything)'' which he can bring with him into battle and boost them from "Night of the Walking Dead" undead to "28 Days Later" undead, without losing the original's durability. He's also a telepath, and he can suck the life out of his opponents... badass.
*'''Trivia:''' Valois ''(pronounced "Val-wa")'' is probably named for the real-world king Charles Valois VI (better known as "Charles the Mad") of France, who is immensely more hilarious because it actually happened: Valois suffered schizophrenia (hallucinations/delusions, which bring on erratic behaviour), probably brought on by some sort of genetic problem like porphyria (a disorder that can also cause victims to break out in blisters when exposed to sunlight, like a really sucky [[Vampire]]); he went around the castles howling like a wolf, attacked and killed his servants because he was convinced they were traitors, pissed himself in public, thought he was made of glass, and even had holes drilled in his skull to relieve pressure because it was considered to be a cure for mental illness at the time.

====Klovis the Redeemer====
The other (and arguably most) highly recognizable character from the setting, owing to being the focus of an insane-as-fuck comic. Originally from House Cawdor, Klovis turned out to be way too fanatical to control and thus was exiled. In response, he managed to round up a bunch of rabble, beat them into shape, and began leading a self-proclaimed holy crusade to spread his holy word to the outcasts and underhivers in the Ash Wastes, common sense be damned. His chief instruments of justice are his eviscerator and his headpiece, which triples as a flamethrower and impaling implement.
*'''Deacon Malakev''' - Klovis' semi-servitorized pet lackey/chronicler and sycophant bar none. He'd be totally useless if it weren't for him having the Liber Excruciatus, the big book of torture.

====Others====
*[[Phanta Claws]] - the 40k equivalent of Santa Claus

*[[Farseer]] Yrthrian Mardawn - The only known Eldar on the planet. He isn't 100% alone, accompanying him are two Fire Dragons. Originally from [[Saim-Hann]]. His purpose in the Underhive is to find someone who will fight for his family back on the Craftworld so that they will win whatever power struggle they are currently embroiled in.

*D'onne "Mad Donna" Ulanti - A crazed daughter of a nobleman from the Ulanti House. She was kept locked up, Rapunzel style, where something made her go off the deep end. Once her dad figured she was old enough to be married off to another nobleman, shit hit the fan. After killing her husband-to-be and his guards along with more people during her trip down to the Underhive, she got employed by the Eschers. Known for having a plasma pistol and a chainsword. [[RIP AND TEAR|The sword is not for show as she had the unique rule "Psycho-Bitch" which basically made her into a]] [[Khorne]] [[Berzerker]]. To emphasize just how bat-shit insane she is, the reason she wears an eyepatch is because when some guy tried to hit on her in the Underhive, she gouged out her own eyeball so nobody would call her pretty again.

*Brakar, The Avenger - A Ratskin heavy with a heavy stubber. He is unique since Ratskins can't have "proper" heavies.

*Grendl Grendlsen - A mercenary and former bodyguard for a Rogue Trader, who came down to the Underhive after his master was killed in a bombing. Most notable for being the first official [[Squat]] miniature in over twenty years.

*Gor Half-Horn - A [[Beastmen (40k)|Beastman]] bounty hunter with a background shrouded in mystery. Some believe he's the sole survivor of an Imperial Guard abhuman auxiliary, others say he was part of an Inquisitor's retinue but went rogue, and there's even a claim that he was a noble whose mutations manifested later in life and fled to the Underhive. Regardless of the truth, he's a nasty son of a bitch.

*Eyros Slagmist - A scavenger who discovered a strange archaeotech device that fused with his body, allowing him to extract clean water from anything. Or ''anyone'', as his unlucky companions discovered when the thirst generated by the device got the better of him. He now sells his services as a bounty hunter, working with the gangs and providing his water in exchange for new victims to "drink" from. He now resembles a nightmarish mass of water tanks, pipes and cables, and it's unknown if there's anything left of him that can be called human underneath the machinery.

*"The Deserter" - A nutty old man who once served in the Necromundan 8th, whose original identity and reasons for ending up in the Underhive are unknown. He's well-known for his skill at setting up ambushes and working with explosives, but most gang leaders learn to send only the guys they don't particularly care about when trying to get his services. Mostly because every path leading to his warren is loaded with booby traps.

*Belladonna: The daughter of a powerful Escher matriarch, she was engaged to the Tzakwon Ran Lo, heir of the Ran Lo Stratoplane Empire. Surprisingly for an arranged marriage, they were deeply in love- but the wedding ended in tragedy when one of the wedding gifts turned out to be a ravenous Crotalid beast that devoured the groom and several guests. She managed to kill it at the expense of an arm, a leg, and an eye, and she now works as a bounty hunter in the hopes of finding the people who arranged for her husband's death.

*Krotos Hark: A member of House Goliath with an uncommon degree of intelligence, he works as a bounty hunter and armorer in pursuit of an unknown agenda. Observers note that he takes a strong interest in jobs opposing House Goliath, making them wonder if he seeks to make himself its new leader.

*Grub "Lumpy Nox" Targeson: Grub used to be an average Guilder until the lump began to grow on his back. At first it was nothing a looser coat couldn't hide, but it wouldn't stop growing...and then it began to talk. Nowadays he wanders the underhive selling his services as a hired gun, and while most people assume his whispered conversations with his hump just mean he needs to cut down on the drink, some swear that they can hear it whisper back- and it seems to know an awful lot of things Grub couldn't possibly know on his own.

==Necromunda: Underhive Wars==
[[File:Rsz 1rsz 15994934 135429053628056 4990385316092068855 o.jpg|300px|thumb|right]]
A new turn-based tactical RPG game developed by Rogue Factor and [[Focus Home Interactive]], which is a video game adaptation of [[Specialist Games]] Necromunda. So far it only consists of three Gangs: the Goliaths (who have red scrap armour), the Escher (who wear yellow scrap armour) and Orlock (who wear blue scrap armour) so they've gone for primary colours and gangs. The gangs all feel and (despite the excellent level of detail, customisation, accuracy and love that went into the models) somehow even look a bit samey. They all get access to the same 5 classes and so the only difference between them is 6 different passive skills and a starting perk and stat bonus, so very little to make them play in a unique way. In an effort to make all weapons balanced they don't play anything like they to in the table top as Auto weapons are amazing, plasma and las cannons are weak and flamers don't set things on fire. Ignoring the fluff it does make for a bit more balanced game, but may aggravate some.

With the game now released [https://store.steampowered.com/app/566440/Necromunda_Underhive_Wars/ store page] you can try it for yourself. If you like Mordheim you might like this, as it's similar in feel and on the plus side has better graphics, guns and more dynamic movement on visually stunning multi-level and occasionally somewhat confusing maps. That said it could be better as the AI is dumb as bricks, the pacing for them is slow (apparently these are being fixed) and the story mode is somewhat tedious with pre-generated gangs you don't care about, but that you have to play to unlock all cosmetic options. The dynamic movement also makes a bit of a mockery of cover as gangers can pretty much always move from one side of a map to the other in a turn making it impossible not to be flanked.

===Mordheim Similarities===
The core gameplay is very similar to Rogue Factor's previous game, Mordheim, meaning e.g. movement will be in real time, not turn-based; the game was basically developed from Mordheim as a starting point. Changes include:
The AI being bloody stupid.
The maps themselves are beautiful, much more 3D and with zip lines more traversable, but a little too small. The map view now shows everything rather than what's in your gangs line of sight. Considering the complexity of the maps and the speed of movement this is necessary despite removing what was a nice mechanic from Mordheim.
Ranged weapons are much more important and powerful rather than for most warbands where they were a nice to have before the main hitting people with sticks could start.
You can only field 5 gangers rather than the 10 of Mordheim and you have no Monster, but all your gangers are essentially heroes. The leader just gets access to some extra (and fairly awesome) perk tree and a bonus to maximum stats.
Combat wise as you advance you can easily get to the stage where any ganger killed in a single attack (damage goes up but health doesn't), but do get stims to bring them back to make up for some of the worst excesses of the RNG.

Hopefully they will improve on the base they have and release all standard and extra factions as DLC's before stopping development like it happened in Mordheim. Which is sad indeed.

==Necromunda: Hired Gun==
A fast-paced FPS game developed by [[Focus Home Interactive]] that released in June 2021. It looked promising before its release, but so did Space Hulk: Deathwing, which was a mixed bag. The premise is simple enough: You are an otherwise nameless mercenary who gets fucked up on a job gone wrong and were made into a cyborg thanks to the graces of [[Kal Jericho]]. Now saddled with a shitton of debts and no way to reach your benefactor and cash in his massive bounty, you have to go back on the beat, hunting down marks and buying better gear and cybernetics.

One of the chief features of this game was the inclusion of a pet [[Awesome|Cyber-Mastiff]], who was supposed to be an integral part of the game. This, much like the rest of the game, turned out to be a mixed bag much to no one's surprise. It still includes the usual jank characteristics of modern 40K video games, but still with solid gameplay, reminiscent of 2016's Doom.

==See Also==
*[[Necromunda/Tactics|Necromunda/Tactics]]
*[[Mantic Games]]' [[Warpath#Deadzone|Warpath: Deadzone]]
*Fantasy's Mordheim

==External Links==
* [https://yaktribe.games/community/vault/necromunda-community-edition-rulebook.1/ yaktribe.games], hosts a community-maintained Necromunda rulebook.

{{Specialist-Games}}
{{40k-Planets}}
[[Category:Necromunda]]
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category:Skirmish-Level Wargames]]
[[Category:Video Games]]

Dark Age of Technology

2021-10-08T01:03:29Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:D51C:2CE6:1356:3DA2: /* Canon */

[Some cleanup has been done. More may be needed?]
{{Cleanup}}

{{Topquote|In ancient times, men built wonders, laid claim to the stars and sought to better themselves for the good of all. But we are much wiser now.|Archmagos Ultima Cryol - ''Speculations On Pre-Imperial History''}}

{{Topquote|The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all previous centuries of its existence|Nikola Tesla}}

{{Topquote|There have been numerous sages among the nations of mankind. The knowledge that has not come down to us is larger than the knowledge that has. Where are the sciences of the Persians that ‘Umar ordered to be wiped out at the time of the conquest? Where are the sciences of the Chaladaeans, the Syrians and the Babylonians, and the scholarly products and results that were theirs? Where are the sciences of the Copts, their predecessors?|Ibn Khaldun - ''Muqaddimah''}}

The '''Dark Age of Technology''' (or just the '''Age of Technology''') also known to The Mechanicum as "The Place all the Gucci shit came from", was a period of history before the [[Imperium of Man]], where human civilization flourished and spread throughout the stars. It takes place shortly after the discovery of the [[Warp]]-drive and the [[Navigator]] gene.

Thanks to the discovery of the Warp drive technology, Geller Fields allowing for Warp travel, and the [[Standard Template Construct]]s, [[humanity]] was able to spread far and wide, settling planets across the galaxy, and driving out many native [[xenos]]-civilizations before them. The result was akin to a golden age for humanity, with technological marvels beyond even the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]]'s ability to <s>recreate</s> comprehend being constructed, and laws of physics being re-written.

The Age of Technology ironically ended because humanity had become too dependent on their technology and on Warp travel. They lost the former with the rebellion of the [[Men of Iron]]; the latter with the increasing emergence of [[psykers]] and the uncontrolled release of their powers. As psykers did not know how to control their powers, let alone shield themselves from the Warp, they became convenient focal points for daemons to enter real space, or turned into them power-hungry, possibly Chaos corrupted slaver-kings (as it happened on numerous worlds during the Age of Strife), and [[Fall of the Eldar|Eldar partying too hard]] caused Warp storms. Enslaver plagues wiping out entire populations due to the increasing number of Human psykers and the resulting aforementioned close encounters of the [[daemon]]ic kind on various populated human worlds and spacecraft throughout the galaxy further accelerated the downfall to this "first" human empire preceding the Imperium. With humanity struggling to battle the backlash of this sudden mayhem, mankind turned on itself; gone were the grand ideals, instead humans battled amongst themselves for control of what remained. Stories persist of aliens long thought to have been driven off, or who lived under the "benevolent" care of the human empire, coming back / rebelling for sweet sweet vengeance. Thus, humanity fell into a period that would later become known as the [[Age of Strife]]. Interestingly, the emergence of psykers in human coincides with the gestation of Slaanesh.

The "Dark" in "Dark Age of Technology" is misleading, as it implies that the Imperium considers technology to be inherently evuuul. In truth though, one of the major reasons why humanity uses the term "dark" is that the Age of Strife - characterized by civil unrest, daemonic incursions (including but not limited to depopulation of whole planets), and Warp travel/communication becoming impossible (resulting in complete isolation of human-populated worlds) - led to the worst major loss of previously obtained knowledge in all of human history. Following this dark era, the wars of the [[Great Crusade]], in particular the [[Horus Heresy]], followed by the long millennia of the Age of the [[Imperium]] finally resulted in the destruction of basically all records of the Age of Strife and the Dark Age of Technology that may have been preserved until then, leaving only scraps of knowledge and rumours behind. This is similar to how some historians refer to the period between the end of the Roman Empire and the high Middle Ages as "The Dark Ages", because there is or was very little historical evidence left from that time.

The closest thing to how Humanity may have lived during this Age were the [[Interex]], a civilization that was more advanced than the Imperium, but was unfortunately wiped out at some point by the [[Luna Wolves]]. The war started with [[Erebus]] secretly stealing an Anatheme (the very same Warp-corrupted sword that was later used to mortally wound Horus in order to engineer his corruption) from one of their museums. This convinced the Interex the Imperials had been corrupted by Chaos already, leading to the start of hostilities.

The "Dark Age" is also called such because it is now considered a spiritual dark age compared to the "glorious modern age", as humanity used to put science first (which may or may not have caused the birth of the [[Omnissiah]]) rather than the [[God-Emperor of Mankind]]. The irony of all this is lost on every human in the setting. The only remnants of the technological wonders of that age (called "archeotechnology" or "archeotech," which the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] furiously seeks) are the [[STC]]s, which could be the Imperium's salvation. Other creations of that age, like the [[Men of Iron]], are best left forgotten (or better yet, destroyed). Good luck getting a [[tech-priest]] to not [[Slaanesh|poke around]] the possibly-dangerous ancient technology, though. Apparently “enslaved” Men of Iron were used exclusively by the Dark Angels by the Emperor’s order/permission during the Great Crusade so...

Highlights of the technology that has been hinted at canonically include still-pristine warships with bridges made of solid light, something equivalent to time-weapons, and a cloud of sentient nano-machines that can kill you by making your blood explode. The “Cybernetic Revolution”/“Iron War” had humanity using “Sun Snuffers”; serpentine machines that opened up extending to around the size of Saturn’s rings; their job was to draw in the energy of suns until they were consumed entirely. There were also large spacefaring machines that ''ate their way through planets'' and shat out the remains into the void. Dark Age of humanity wasn't nothin' to fuck with.

TL;DR: It's basically [[Star Trek]] meets Atlantis.

= List of reasons why the Dark Age was kickass =
<s>aka why the Emperor is kind of a failure.</s> {{BLAM}} {{Blam|Heresy!}}

===Canon===
* Widespread immunity to all diseases and poisons (The Panacea).
* Far more widespread use of anti-gravity.
* Teleportation.
* Imperial Knights were used during the early stages of the DAOT and were used in the defence of many of humanity's colonies across the galaxy. They proved themselves over and over again but the Thrones of these mighty war machines would over time begin to affect the minds of their users, turning them from a protective mindset to a far more authoritarian one.
* [[Dakka|Energy guns that created small temporary black holes]] and also distort time so that even if they miss, the enemy is teleported nanoseconds back in time to occupy the same position as their past selves simultaneously, resulting in both versions being destroyed, i.e. [[Awesome|a gun that literally causes targets to telefrag themselves.]]
** The Speranza from "Priests of Mars" had such a weapon hidden within its body. A vast gun like a great menhir was bought to the surface on heavy-duty rails before it fired a silent dark pulse of energy which would then coalesce into a miniature temporary black hole. Although the Eldar ship Starblade was able to avoid the shot, its solar sail was brushed by the weapon's deadly energy, allowing the secondary effects of the chrono-weaponry to shift the target a nanosecond into the past, forcing identical neutrons of the solar mast into the same quantum space. This caused the mast to detonate violently; now crippled and visible the Starblade was destroyed by the circling Kotov fleet. These weapons were designed to crack the hulls of the ships of their enemies. Let that settle in for a moment: these powerful weapons needed to be this strong in order to ''damage'', not destroy, the ships that opposed them.
*Combat augment arrays could be used to transform a person or entire populations into killing machines. Being able to turn normal colonists into soldiers sounds great but it was considered dishonourable and foolhardy; although you could get an instant army, the array's invasive manipulation of nerve pathways, adrenal glands and musculature normally resulted in the death of those affected. You could enhance an entire planets population into super soldiers but you were also more than likely also signing their death warrants, not to mention that reintegrating a generation of young men taught to kill in an ordinary ca. late-M2 fashion into society has been enough of a challenge in our own time.
** These Combat augment arrays, combined with the existence of the [[Angron|Butcher's Nails]] add a far darker side to what we know about humanity's golden age; the existence of these technologies either show a flagrant disregard for human life or a desperate attempt to create enough fighting bodies to counter whatever foes they were facing.
* [[Iron Men|Robots with the strength of Space Marines that numbered in levels close to the Imperial Guard.]]
** On a similar note, sentient AIs-- or close enough to it to be highly capable if not truly humanlike.
** Not to mention [[Iron Men|these AIs]] could control [[Humanity Fuck Yeah|machines the size of planets that fed on stars, swarms of nanomachines that could consume you within moments, and giant robots the size of planets '''who could eat holes in real space and the warp''']], all of which humans controlled [[Age of Strife|before they decided that human ass looks just as appetising as the Xenos we were probably using them against]]-- ''and humanity survived.''
* Average humans performing extremely hazardous duty like deep space mining or maintenance of a voidship's plasma coils had access to [[Terminator]] armour. While not ''exactly'' Terminator armour as the Space Marines use, the incredibly durable exoskeletons-cum-spacesuit that were used by civilians while performing their day job would later serve as the template from which Terminator armour was developed by the AdMech. After they recovered a bunch of them during the [[Great Crusade]], they only had to add auto-senses, black carapace interfaces and other gubbins to allow a Space Marine to use the suit like a regular set of [[Power Armour]].
* Weapons that could shoot enemy ships in the middle of a warp jump.
* Something like DC Comics' Nth Metal (but human-made) called phase-iron. It is used as restraints for Pyskers since the metal is not only resistant to any form of psychic energy directed against it, but also burns their skin like acid anytime they try to use their powers.
* [[House Van Saar]] from [[Necromunda]] has its founders originate from the time of the DAOT (after some timey-wimey Warp shenanigans they emerged at their intended destination a lot later then they intended). The Van Saar are actually the closest you are ever going to get to playing humans from the DAOT.

===/tg/===
A pretty retarded and nonsensical Fanon timeline of the Dark Age of Technology, which makes Matt Ward's creations seem amazing and logical by comparison.
http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/155-homebrew-40k-fluff/211473-fanon-history-dark-age-technology.html#post2375305

{{40k-Timeline}}
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category:Imperial]]

Dark Age of Technology

2021-10-08T01:02:39Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:D51C:2CE6:1356:3DA2: /* Canon */

[Some cleanup has been done. More may be needed?]
{{Cleanup}}

{{Topquote|In ancient times, men built wonders, laid claim to the stars and sought to better themselves for the good of all. But we are much wiser now.|Archmagos Ultima Cryol - ''Speculations On Pre-Imperial History''}}

{{Topquote|The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all previous centuries of its existence|Nikola Tesla}}

{{Topquote|There have been numerous sages among the nations of mankind. The knowledge that has not come down to us is larger than the knowledge that has. Where are the sciences of the Persians that ‘Umar ordered to be wiped out at the time of the conquest? Where are the sciences of the Chaladaeans, the Syrians and the Babylonians, and the scholarly products and results that were theirs? Where are the sciences of the Copts, their predecessors?|Ibn Khaldun - ''Muqaddimah''}}

The '''Dark Age of Technology''' (or just the '''Age of Technology''') also known to The Mechanicum as "The Place all the Gucci shit came from", was a period of history before the [[Imperium of Man]], where human civilization flourished and spread throughout the stars. It takes place shortly after the discovery of the [[Warp]]-drive and the [[Navigator]] gene.

Thanks to the discovery of the Warp drive technology, Geller Fields allowing for Warp travel, and the [[Standard Template Construct]]s, [[humanity]] was able to spread far and wide, settling planets across the galaxy, and driving out many native [[xenos]]-civilizations before them. The result was akin to a golden age for humanity, with technological marvels beyond even the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]]'s ability to <s>recreate</s> comprehend being constructed, and laws of physics being re-written.

The Age of Technology ironically ended because humanity had become too dependent on their technology and on Warp travel. They lost the former with the rebellion of the [[Men of Iron]]; the latter with the increasing emergence of [[psykers]] and the uncontrolled release of their powers. As psykers did not know how to control their powers, let alone shield themselves from the Warp, they became convenient focal points for daemons to enter real space, or turned into them power-hungry, possibly Chaos corrupted slaver-kings (as it happened on numerous worlds during the Age of Strife), and [[Fall of the Eldar|Eldar partying too hard]] caused Warp storms. Enslaver plagues wiping out entire populations due to the increasing number of Human psykers and the resulting aforementioned close encounters of the [[daemon]]ic kind on various populated human worlds and spacecraft throughout the galaxy further accelerated the downfall to this "first" human empire preceding the Imperium. With humanity struggling to battle the backlash of this sudden mayhem, mankind turned on itself; gone were the grand ideals, instead humans battled amongst themselves for control of what remained. Stories persist of aliens long thought to have been driven off, or who lived under the "benevolent" care of the human empire, coming back / rebelling for sweet sweet vengeance. Thus, humanity fell into a period that would later become known as the [[Age of Strife]]. Interestingly, the emergence of psykers in human coincides with the gestation of Slaanesh.

The "Dark" in "Dark Age of Technology" is misleading, as it implies that the Imperium considers technology to be inherently evuuul. In truth though, one of the major reasons why humanity uses the term "dark" is that the Age of Strife - characterized by civil unrest, daemonic incursions (including but not limited to depopulation of whole planets), and Warp travel/communication becoming impossible (resulting in complete isolation of human-populated worlds) - led to the worst major loss of previously obtained knowledge in all of human history. Following this dark era, the wars of the [[Great Crusade]], in particular the [[Horus Heresy]], followed by the long millennia of the Age of the [[Imperium]] finally resulted in the destruction of basically all records of the Age of Strife and the Dark Age of Technology that may have been preserved until then, leaving only scraps of knowledge and rumours behind. This is similar to how some historians refer to the period between the end of the Roman Empire and the high Middle Ages as "The Dark Ages", because there is or was very little historical evidence left from that time.

The closest thing to how Humanity may have lived during this Age were the [[Interex]], a civilization that was more advanced than the Imperium, but was unfortunately wiped out at some point by the [[Luna Wolves]]. The war started with [[Erebus]] secretly stealing an Anatheme (the very same Warp-corrupted sword that was later used to mortally wound Horus in order to engineer his corruption) from one of their museums. This convinced the Interex the Imperials had been corrupted by Chaos already, leading to the start of hostilities.

The "Dark Age" is also called such because it is now considered a spiritual dark age compared to the "glorious modern age", as humanity used to put science first (which may or may not have caused the birth of the [[Omnissiah]]) rather than the [[God-Emperor of Mankind]]. The irony of all this is lost on every human in the setting. The only remnants of the technological wonders of that age (called "archeotechnology" or "archeotech," which the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] furiously seeks) are the [[STC]]s, which could be the Imperium's salvation. Other creations of that age, like the [[Men of Iron]], are best left forgotten (or better yet, destroyed). Good luck getting a [[tech-priest]] to not [[Slaanesh|poke around]] the possibly-dangerous ancient technology, though. Apparently “enslaved” Men of Iron were used exclusively by the Dark Angels by the Emperor’s order/permission during the Great Crusade so...

Highlights of the technology that has been hinted at canonically include still-pristine warships with bridges made of solid light, something equivalent to time-weapons, and a cloud of sentient nano-machines that can kill you by making your blood explode. The “Cybernetic Revolution”/“Iron War” had humanity using “Sun Snuffers”; serpentine machines that opened up extending to around the size of Saturn’s rings; their job was to draw in the energy of suns until they were consumed entirely. There were also large spacefaring machines that ''ate their way through planets'' and shat out the remains into the void. Dark Age of humanity wasn't nothin' to fuck with.

TL;DR: It's basically [[Star Trek]] meets Atlantis.

= List of reasons why the Dark Age was kickass =
<s>aka why the Emperor is kind of a failure.</s> {{BLAM}} {{Blam|Heresy!}}

===Canon===
* Widespread immunity to all diseases and poisons (The Panacea).
* Far more widespread use of anti-gravity.
* Teleportation.
* Imperial Knights were used during the early stages of the DAOT and were used in the defence of many of humanity's colonies across the galaxy. They proved themselves over and over again but the Thrones of these mighty war machines would over time begin to affect the minds of their users, turning them from a protective mindset to a far more authoritarian one.
* [[Dakka|Energy guns that created small temporary black holes]] and also distort time so that even if they miss, the enemy is teleported nanoseconds back in time to occupy the same position as their past selves simultaneously, resulting in both versions being destroyed, i.e. [[Awesome|a gun that literally causes targets to telefrag themselves.]]
** The Speranza from "Priests of Mars" had such a weapon hidden within its body. A vast gun like a great menhir was bought to the surface on heavy-duty rails before it fired a silent dark pulse of energy which would then coalesce into a miniature temporary black hole. Although the Eldar ship Starblade was able to avoid the shot, its solar sail was brushed by the weapon's deadly energy, allowing the secondary effects of the chrono-weaponry to shift the target a nanosecond into the past, forcing identical neutrons of the solar mast into the same quantum space. This caused the mast to detonate violently; now crippled and visible the Starblade was destroyed by the circling Kotov fleet. These weapons were designed to crack the hulls of the ships of their enemies. Let that settle in for a moment: these powerful weapons needed to be this strong in order to ''damage'', not destroy, the ships that opposed them.
*Combat augment arrays could be used to transform a person or entire populations into killing machines. Being able to turn normal colonists into soldiers sounds great but it was considered dishonourable and foolhardy; although you could get an instant army, the array's invasive manipulation of nerve pathways, adrenal glands and musculature normally resulted in the death of those affected. You could enhance an entire planets population into super soldiers but you were also more than likely also signing their death warrants, not to mention that reintegrating a generation of young men taught to kill in an ordinary ca. late-M2 fashion into society has been enough of a challenge in our own time.
** These Combat augment arrays, combined with the existence of the [[Angron|Butcher's Nails]] add a far darker side to what we know about humanity's golden age; the existence of these technologies either show a flagrant disregard for human life or a desperate attempt to create enough fighting bodies to counter whatever foes they were facing.
* [[Iron Men|Robots with the strength of Space Marines that numbered in levels close to the Imperial Guard.]]
** On a similar note, sentient AIs-- or close enough to it to be highly capable if not truly humanlike.
** Not to mention [[Iron Men|these AIs]] could control [[Humanity Fuck Yeah|machines the size of planets that fed on stars, swarms of nanomachines that could consume you within moments, and giant robots the size of planets '''who could eat holes in real space and the warp''']], all of which humans controlled [[Age of Strife|before they decided that human ass looks just as appetising as the Xenos we were probably using them against]]-- ''and humanity survived.''
* Average humans performing extremely hazardous duty like deep space mining or maintenance of a voidship's plasma coils had access to [[Terminator]] armour. While not ''exactly'' Terminator armour as the Space Marines use, the incredibly durable exoskeletons-cum-spacesuit that were used by civilians while performing their day job would later serve as the template from which Terminator armour was developed by the AdMech. After they recovered a bunch of them during the [[Great Crusade]], they only had to add auto-senses, black carapace interfaces and other gubbins to allow a Space Marine to use the suit like a regular set of [[Power Armour]].
* Weapons that could shoot enemy ships in the middle of a warp jump.
* Something like DC Comics' Nth Metal (but human-made) called phase-iron. It is used as restraints for Pyskers since the metal is not only resistant to any form of psychic energy directed against it, but also burns their skin like acid anytime they try to use their powers.
* [[House Van Saar]] from Necromunda has its founders originate from the time of the DAOT (after some timey-wimey Warp shenanigans they emerged at their intended destination a lot later then they intended). The Van Saar are actually the closest you are ever going to get to playing humans from the DAOT.

===/tg/===
A pretty retarded and nonsensical Fanon timeline of the Dark Age of Technology, which makes Matt Ward's creations seem amazing and logical by comparison.
http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/155-homebrew-40k-fluff/211473-fanon-history-dark-age-technology.html#post2375305

{{40k-Timeline}}
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category:Imperial]]

Dark Age of Technology

2021-10-08T00:50:40Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:D51C:2CE6:1356:3DA2: /* Canon */

[Some cleanup has been done. More may be needed?]
{{Cleanup}}

{{Topquote|In ancient times, men built wonders, laid claim to the stars and sought to better themselves for the good of all. But we are much wiser now.|Archmagos Ultima Cryol - ''Speculations On Pre-Imperial History''}}

{{Topquote|The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all previous centuries of its existence|Nikola Tesla}}

{{Topquote|There have been numerous sages among the nations of mankind. The knowledge that has not come down to us is larger than the knowledge that has. Where are the sciences of the Persians that ‘Umar ordered to be wiped out at the time of the conquest? Where are the sciences of the Chaladaeans, the Syrians and the Babylonians, and the scholarly products and results that were theirs? Where are the sciences of the Copts, their predecessors?|Ibn Khaldun - ''Muqaddimah''}}

The '''Dark Age of Technology''' (or just the '''Age of Technology''') also known to The Mechanicum as "The Place all the Gucci shit came from", was a period of history before the [[Imperium of Man]], where human civilization flourished and spread throughout the stars. It takes place shortly after the discovery of the [[Warp]]-drive and the [[Navigator]] gene.

Thanks to the discovery of the Warp drive technology, Geller Fields allowing for Warp travel, and the [[Standard Template Construct]]s, [[humanity]] was able to spread far and wide, settling planets across the galaxy, and driving out many native [[xenos]]-civilizations before them. The result was akin to a golden age for humanity, with technological marvels beyond even the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]]'s ability to <s>recreate</s> comprehend being constructed, and laws of physics being re-written.

The Age of Technology ironically ended because humanity had become too dependent on their technology and on Warp travel. They lost the former with the rebellion of the [[Men of Iron]]; the latter with the increasing emergence of [[psykers]] and the uncontrolled release of their powers. As psykers did not know how to control their powers, let alone shield themselves from the Warp, they became convenient focal points for daemons to enter real space, or turned into them power-hungry, possibly Chaos corrupted slaver-kings (as it happened on numerous worlds during the Age of Strife), and [[Fall of the Eldar|Eldar partying too hard]] caused Warp storms. Enslaver plagues wiping out entire populations due to the increasing number of Human psykers and the resulting aforementioned close encounters of the [[daemon]]ic kind on various populated human worlds and spacecraft throughout the galaxy further accelerated the downfall to this "first" human empire preceding the Imperium. With humanity struggling to battle the backlash of this sudden mayhem, mankind turned on itself; gone were the grand ideals, instead humans battled amongst themselves for control of what remained. Stories persist of aliens long thought to have been driven off, or who lived under the "benevolent" care of the human empire, coming back / rebelling for sweet sweet vengeance. Thus, humanity fell into a period that would later become known as the [[Age of Strife]]. Interestingly, the emergence of psykers in human coincides with the gestation of Slaanesh.

The "Dark" in "Dark Age of Technology" is misleading, as it implies that the Imperium considers technology to be inherently evuuul. In truth though, one of the major reasons why humanity uses the term "dark" is that the Age of Strife - characterized by civil unrest, daemonic incursions (including but not limited to depopulation of whole planets), and Warp travel/communication becoming impossible (resulting in complete isolation of human-populated worlds) - led to the worst major loss of previously obtained knowledge in all of human history. Following this dark era, the wars of the [[Great Crusade]], in particular the [[Horus Heresy]], followed by the long millennia of the Age of the [[Imperium]] finally resulted in the destruction of basically all records of the Age of Strife and the Dark Age of Technology that may have been preserved until then, leaving only scraps of knowledge and rumours behind. This is similar to how some historians refer to the period between the end of the Roman Empire and the high Middle Ages as "The Dark Ages", because there is or was very little historical evidence left from that time.

The closest thing to how Humanity may have lived during this Age were the [[Interex]], a civilization that was more advanced than the Imperium, but was unfortunately wiped out at some point by the [[Luna Wolves]]. The war started with [[Erebus]] secretly stealing an Anatheme (the very same Warp-corrupted sword that was later used to mortally wound Horus in order to engineer his corruption) from one of their museums. This convinced the Interex the Imperials had been corrupted by Chaos already, leading to the start of hostilities.

The "Dark Age" is also called such because it is now considered a spiritual dark age compared to the "glorious modern age", as humanity used to put science first (which may or may not have caused the birth of the [[Omnissiah]]) rather than the [[God-Emperor of Mankind]]. The irony of all this is lost on every human in the setting. The only remnants of the technological wonders of that age (called "archeotechnology" or "archeotech," which the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] furiously seeks) are the [[STC]]s, which could be the Imperium's salvation. Other creations of that age, like the [[Men of Iron]], are best left forgotten (or better yet, destroyed). Good luck getting a [[tech-priest]] to not [[Slaanesh|poke around]] the possibly-dangerous ancient technology, though. Apparently “enslaved” Men of Iron were used exclusively by the Dark Angels by the Emperor’s order/permission during the Great Crusade so...

Highlights of the technology that has been hinted at canonically include still-pristine warships with bridges made of solid light, something equivalent to time-weapons, and a cloud of sentient nano-machines that can kill you by making your blood explode. The “Cybernetic Revolution”/“Iron War” had humanity using “Sun Snuffers”; serpentine machines that opened up extending to around the size of Saturn’s rings; their job was to draw in the energy of suns until they were consumed entirely. There were also large spacefaring machines that ''ate their way through planets'' and shat out the remains into the void. Dark Age of humanity wasn't nothin' to fuck with.

TL;DR: It's basically [[Star Trek]] meets Atlantis.

= List of reasons why the Dark Age was kickass =
<s>aka why the Emperor is kind of a failure.</s> {{BLAM}} {{Blam|Heresy!}}

===Canon===
* Widespread immunity to all diseases and poisons (The Panacea).
* Far more widespread use of anti-gravity.
* Teleportation.
* Imperial Knights were used during the early stages of the DAOT and were used in the defence of many of humanity's colonies across the galaxy. They proved themselves over and over again but the Thrones of these mighty war machines would over time begin to affect the minds of their users, turning them from a protective mindset to a far more authoritarian one.
* [[Dakka|Energy guns that created small temporary black holes]] and also distort time so that even if they miss, the enemy is teleported nanoseconds back in time to occupy the same position as their past selves simultaneously, resulting in both versions being destroyed, i.e. [[Awesome|a gun that literally causes targets to telefrag themselves.]]
** The Speranza from "Priests of Mars" had such a weapon hidden within its body. A vast gun like a great menhir was bought to the surface on heavy-duty rails before it fired a silent dark pulse of energy which would then coalesce into a miniature temporary black hole. Although the Eldar ship Starblade was able to avoid the shot, its solar sail was brushed by the weapon's deadly energy, allowing the secondary effects of the chrono-weaponry to shift the target a nanosecond into the past, forcing identical neutrons of the solar mast into the same quantum space. This caused the mast to detonate violently; now crippled and visible the Starblade was destroyed by the circling Kotov fleet. These weapons were designed to crack the hulls of the ships of their enemies. Let that settle in for a moment: these powerful weapons needed to be this strong in order to ''damage'', not destroy, the ships that opposed them.
*Combat augment arrays could be used to transform a person or entire populations into killing machines. Being able to turn normal colonists into soldiers sounds great but it was considered dishonourable and foolhardy; although you could get an instant army, the array's invasive manipulation of nerve pathways, adrenal glands and musculature normally resulted in the death of those affected. You could enhance an entire planets population into super soldiers but you were also more than likely also signing their death warrants, not to mention that reintegrating a generation of young men taught to kill in an ordinary ca. late-M2 fashion into society has been enough of a challenge in our own time.
** These Combat augment arrays, combined with the existence of the [[Angron|Butcher's Nails]] add a far darker side to what we know about humanity's golden age; the existence of these technologies either show a flagrant disregard for human life or a desperate attempt to create enough fighting bodies to counter whatever foes they were facing.
* [[Iron Men|Robots with the strength of Space Marines that numbered in levels close to the Imperial Guard.]]
** On a similar note, sentient AIs-- or close enough to it to be highly capable if not truly humanlike.
** Not to mention [[Iron Men|these AIs]] could control [[Humanity Fuck Yeah|machines the size of planets that fed on stars, swarms of nanomachines that could consume you within moments, and giant robots the size of planets '''who could eat holes in real space and the warp''']], all of which humans controlled [[Age of Strife|before they decided that human ass looks just as appetising as the Xenos we were probably using them against]]-- ''and humanity survived.''
* Average humans performing extremely hazardous duty like deep space mining or maintenance of a voidship's plasma coils had access to [[Terminator]] armour. While not ''exactly'' Terminator armour as the Space Marines use, the incredibly durable exoskeletons-cum-spacesuit that were used by civilians while performing their day job would later serve as the template from which Terminator armour was developed by the AdMech. After they recovered a bunch of them during the [[Great Crusade]], they only had to add auto-senses, black carapace interfaces and other gubbins to allow a Space Marine to use the suit like a regular set of [[Power Armour]].
* Weapons that could shoot enemy ships in the middle of a warp jump.
* Something like DC Comics' Nth Metal (but human-made) called phase-iron. It is used as restraints for Pyskers since the metal is not only resistant to any form of psychic energy directed against it, but also burns their skin like acid anytime they try to use their powers.
* House [[Van Saar]] from Necromunda has its founders originate from the time of the DAOT (after some timey-wimey Warp shenanigans they emerged at their intended destination a lot later then they intended). The Van Saar are actually the closest you are ever going to get to playing humans from the DAOT.

===/tg/===
A pretty retarded and nonsensical Fanon timeline of the Dark Age of Technology, which makes Matt Ward's creations seem amazing and logical by comparison.
http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/155-homebrew-40k-fluff/211473-fanon-history-dark-age-technology.html#post2375305

{{40k-Timeline}}
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category:Imperial]]

Dark Age of Technology

2021-10-08T00:36:47Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:D51C:2CE6:1356:3DA2:

[Some cleanup has been done. More may be needed?]
{{Cleanup}}

{{Topquote|In ancient times, men built wonders, laid claim to the stars and sought to better themselves for the good of all. But we are much wiser now.|Archmagos Ultima Cryol - ''Speculations On Pre-Imperial History''}}

{{Topquote|The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all previous centuries of its existence|Nikola Tesla}}

{{Topquote|There have been numerous sages among the nations of mankind. The knowledge that has not come down to us is larger than the knowledge that has. Where are the sciences of the Persians that ‘Umar ordered to be wiped out at the time of the conquest? Where are the sciences of the Chaladaeans, the Syrians and the Babylonians, and the scholarly products and results that were theirs? Where are the sciences of the Copts, their predecessors?|Ibn Khaldun - ''Muqaddimah''}}

The '''Dark Age of Technology''' (or just the '''Age of Technology''') also known to The Mechanicum as "The Place all the Gucci shit came from", was a period of history before the [[Imperium of Man]], where human civilization flourished and spread throughout the stars. It takes place shortly after the discovery of the [[Warp]]-drive and the [[Navigator]] gene.

Thanks to the discovery of the Warp drive technology, Geller Fields allowing for Warp travel, and the [[Standard Template Construct]]s, [[humanity]] was able to spread far and wide, settling planets across the galaxy, and driving out many native [[xenos]]-civilizations before them. The result was akin to a golden age for humanity, with technological marvels beyond even the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]]'s ability to <s>recreate</s> comprehend being constructed, and laws of physics being re-written.

The Age of Technology ironically ended because humanity had become too dependent on their technology and on Warp travel. They lost the former with the rebellion of the [[Men of Iron]]; the latter with the increasing emergence of [[psykers]] and the uncontrolled release of their powers. As psykers did not know how to control their powers, let alone shield themselves from the Warp, they became convenient focal points for daemons to enter real space, or turned into them power-hungry, possibly Chaos corrupted slaver-kings (as it happened on numerous worlds during the Age of Strife), and [[Fall of the Eldar|Eldar partying too hard]] caused Warp storms. Enslaver plagues wiping out entire populations due to the increasing number of Human psykers and the resulting aforementioned close encounters of the [[daemon]]ic kind on various populated human worlds and spacecraft throughout the galaxy further accelerated the downfall to this "first" human empire preceding the Imperium. With humanity struggling to battle the backlash of this sudden mayhem, mankind turned on itself; gone were the grand ideals, instead humans battled amongst themselves for control of what remained. Stories persist of aliens long thought to have been driven off, or who lived under the "benevolent" care of the human empire, coming back / rebelling for sweet sweet vengeance. Thus, humanity fell into a period that would later become known as the [[Age of Strife]]. Interestingly, the emergence of psykers in human coincides with the gestation of Slaanesh.

The "Dark" in "Dark Age of Technology" is misleading, as it implies that the Imperium considers technology to be inherently evuuul. In truth though, one of the major reasons why humanity uses the term "dark" is that the Age of Strife - characterized by civil unrest, daemonic incursions (including but not limited to depopulation of whole planets), and Warp travel/communication becoming impossible (resulting in complete isolation of human-populated worlds) - led to the worst major loss of previously obtained knowledge in all of human history. Following this dark era, the wars of the [[Great Crusade]], in particular the [[Horus Heresy]], followed by the long millennia of the Age of the [[Imperium]] finally resulted in the destruction of basically all records of the Age of Strife and the Dark Age of Technology that may have been preserved until then, leaving only scraps of knowledge and rumours behind. This is similar to how some historians refer to the period between the end of the Roman Empire and the high Middle Ages as "The Dark Ages", because there is or was very little historical evidence left from that time.

The closest thing to how Humanity may have lived during this Age were the [[Interex]], a civilization that was more advanced than the Imperium, but was unfortunately wiped out at some point by the [[Luna Wolves]]. The war started with [[Erebus]] secretly stealing an Anatheme (the very same Warp-corrupted sword that was later used to mortally wound Horus in order to engineer his corruption) from one of their museums. This convinced the Interex the Imperials had been corrupted by Chaos already, leading to the start of hostilities.

The "Dark Age" is also called such because it is now considered a spiritual dark age compared to the "glorious modern age", as humanity used to put science first (which may or may not have caused the birth of the [[Omnissiah]]) rather than the [[God-Emperor of Mankind]]. The irony of all this is lost on every human in the setting. The only remnants of the technological wonders of that age (called "archeotechnology" or "archeotech," which the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] furiously seeks) are the [[STC]]s, which could be the Imperium's salvation. Other creations of that age, like the [[Men of Iron]], are best left forgotten (or better yet, destroyed). Good luck getting a [[tech-priest]] to not [[Slaanesh|poke around]] the possibly-dangerous ancient technology, though. Apparently “enslaved” Men of Iron were used exclusively by the Dark Angels by the Emperor’s order/permission during the Great Crusade so...

Highlights of the technology that has been hinted at canonically include still-pristine warships with bridges made of solid light, something equivalent to time-weapons, and a cloud of sentient nano-machines that can kill you by making your blood explode. The “Cybernetic Revolution”/“Iron War” had humanity using “Sun Snuffers”; serpentine machines that opened up extending to around the size of Saturn’s rings; their job was to draw in the energy of suns until they were consumed entirely. There were also large spacefaring machines that ''ate their way through planets'' and shat out the remains into the void. Dark Age of humanity wasn't nothin' to fuck with.

TL;DR: It's basically [[Star Trek]] meets Atlantis.

= List of reasons why the Dark Age was kickass =
<s>aka why the Emperor is kind of a failure.</s> {{BLAM}} {{Blam|Heresy!}}

===Canon===
* Widespread immunity to all diseases and poisons (The Panacea).
* Far more widespread use of anti-gravity.
* Teleportation.
* Imperial Knights were used during the early stages of the DAOT and were used in the defence of many of humanity's colonies across the galaxy. They proved themselves over and over again but the Thrones of these mighty war machines would over time begin to affect the minds of their users, turning them from a protective mindset to a far more authoritarian one.
* [[Dakka|Energy guns that created small temporary black holes]] and also distort time so that even if they miss, the enemy is teleported nanoseconds back in time to occupy the same position as their past selves simultaneously, resulting in both versions being destroyed, i.e. [[Awesome|a gun that literally causes targets to telefrag themselves.]]
** The Speranza from "Priests of Mars" had such a weapon hidden within its body. A vast gun like a great menhir was bought to the surface on heavy-duty rails before it fired a silent dark pulse of energy which would then coalesce into a miniature temporary black hole. Although the Eldar ship Starblade was able to avoid the shot, its solar sail was brushed by the weapon's deadly energy, allowing the secondary effects of the chrono-weaponry to shift the target a nanosecond into the past, forcing identical neutrons of the solar mast into the same quantum space. This causes the mast to detonate violently; now crippled and visible the Starblade was destroyed by the circling Kotov fleet. These weapons were designed to crack the hulls of the ships of their enemies. Let that settle in for a moment: these powerful weapons needed to be this strong in order to ''damage'', not destroy, the ships that opposed them.
*Combat augment arrays could be used to transform a person or entire populations into killing machines. Being able to turn normal colonists into soldiers sounds great but it was considered dishonourable and foolhardy; although you could get an instant army, the array's invasive manipulation of nerve pathways, adrenal glands and musculature normally resulted in the death of those affected. You could enhance an entire planets population into super soldiers but you were also more than likely also signing their death warrants, not to mention that reintegrating a generation of young men taught to kill in an ordinary ca. late-M2 fashion into society has been enough of a challenge in our own time.
** These Combat augment arrays, combined with the existence of the [[Angron|Butcher's Nails]] add a far darker side to what we know about humanity's golden age; the existence of these technologies either show a flagrant disregard for human lives or a desperate attempt to create enough fighting bodies to counter whatever foes they were facing.
* [[Iron Men|Robots with the strength of Space Marines that numbered in levels close to the Imperial Guard.]]
** On a similar note, sentient AIs-- or close enough to it to be highly capable if not truly humanlike.
** Not to mention [[Iron Men|these AIs]] could control [[Humanity Fuck Yeah|machines the size of planets that fed on stars, swarms of nanomachines that could consume you within moments, and giant robots the size of planets '''who could eat holes in real space and the warp''']], all of which humans controlled [[Age of Strife|before they decided that human anus looks just as appetising as the Xenos we were probably using them against]]-- ''and humanity survived.''
* Average humans performing extremely hazardous duty like deep space mining or maintenance of a voidship's plasma coils had access to [[Terminator]] armour. While not ''exactly'' Terminator armour as the Space Marines use, the incredibly durable exoskeletons-cum-spacesuit that were used by civilians while performing their day job would later serve as the template from which Terminator armour was developed by the AdMech. After they recovered a bunch of them during the [[Great Crusade]], they only had to add auto-senses, black carapace interfaces and other gubbins to allow a Space Marine to use the suit like a regular set of [[Power Armour]].
* Weapons that could shoot enemy ships in the middle of a warp jump.
* Something like DC Comics' Nth Metal (but human-made) called phase-iron. It is used as restraints for Pyskers since the metal is not only resistant to any form of psychic energy directed against it, but also burns their skin like acid anytime they try to use their powers.
* House [[Van Saar]] from Necromunda has its founders originate from the time of the DAOT (after some timey-wimey Warp shenanigans they emerged at their intended destination a lot later then they intended. The Van Saar are actually the closest you are ever going to get to playing humans from the DAOT.

===/tg/===
A pretty retarded and nonsensical Fanon timeline of the Dark Age of Technology, which makes Matt Ward's creations seem amazing and logical by comparison.
http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/155-homebrew-40k-fluff/211473-fanon-history-dark-age-technology.html#post2375305

{{40k-Timeline}}
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category:Imperial]]

Dark Age of Technology

2021-10-08T00:35:59Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:D51C:2CE6:1356:3DA2:

[Some cleanup has been done. More may be needed?]
{{Cleanup}}

{{Topquote|In ancient times, men built wonders, laid claim to the stars and sought to better themselves for the good of all. But we are much wiser now.|Archmagos Ultima Cryol - ''Speculations On Pre-Imperial History''}}

{{Topquote|The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all previous centuries of its existence|Nikola Tesla}}

{{Topquote|There have been numerous sages among the nations of mankind. The knowledge that has not come down to us is larger than the knowledge that has. Where are the sciences of the Persians that ‘Umar ordered to be wiped out at the time of the conquest? Where are the sciences of the Chaladaeans, the Syrians and the Babylonians, and the scholarly products and results that were theirs? Where are the sciences of the Copts, their predecessors?|Ibn Khaldun - ''Muqaddimah''}}

The '''Dark Age of Technology''' (or just the '''Age of Technology''') also known to The Mechanicum as "The Place all the Gucci shit came from", was a period of history before the [[Imperium of Man]], where human civilization flourished and spread throughout the stars. It takes place shortly after the discovery of the [[Warp]]-drive and the [[Navigator]] gene.

Thanks to the discovery of the Warp drive technology, Geller Fields allowing for Warp travel, and the [[Standard Template Construct]]s, [[humanity]] was able to spread far and wide, settling planets across the galaxy, and driving out many native [[xenos]]-civilizations before them. The result was akin to a golden age for humanity, with technological marvels beyond even the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]]'s ability to <s>recreate</s> comprehend being constructed, and laws of physics being re-written.

The Age of Technology ironically ended because humanity had become too dependent on their technology and on Warp travel. They lost the former with the rebellion of the [[Men of Iron]]; the latter with the increasing emergence of [[psykers]] and the uncontrolled release of their powers. As psykers did not know how to control their powers, let alone shield themselves from the Warp, they became convenient focal points for daemons to enter real space, or turned into them power-hungry, possibly Chaos corrupted slaver-kings (as it happened on numerous worlds during the Age of Strife), and [[Fall of the Eldar|Eldar partying too hard]] caused Warp storms. Enslaver plagues wiping out entire populations due to the increasing number of Human psykers and the resulting aforementioned close encounters of the [[daemon]]ic kind on various populated human worlds and spacecraft throughout the galaxy further accelerated the downfall to this "first" human empire preceding the Imperium. With humanity struggling to battle the backlash of this sudden mayhem, mankind turned on itself; gone were the grand ideals, instead humans battled amongst themselves for control of what remained. Stories persist of aliens long thought to have been driven off, or who lived under the "benevolent" care of the human empire, coming back / rebelling for sweet sweet vengeance. Thus, humanity fell into a period that would later become known as the [[Age of Strife]]. Interestingly, the emergence of psykers in human coincides with the gestation of Slaanesh.

The "Dark" in "Dark Age of Technology" is misleading, as it implies that the Imperium considers technology to be inherently evuuul. In truth though, one of the major reasons why humanity uses the term "dark" is that the Age of Strife - characterized by civil unrest, daemonic incursions (including but not limited to depopulation of whole planets), and Warp travel/communication becoming impossible (resulting in complete isolation of human-populated worlds) - led to the worst major loss of previously obtained knowledge in all of human history. Following this dark era, the wars of the [[Great Crusade]], in particular the [[Horus Heresy]], followed by the long millennia of the Age of the [[Imperium]] finally resulted in the destruction of basically all records of the Age of Strife and the Dark Age of Technology that may have been preserved until then, leaving only scraps of knowledge and rumours behind. This is similar to how some historians refer to the period between the end of the Roman Empire and the high Middle Ages as "The Dark Ages", because there is or was very little historical evidence left from that time.

The closest thing to how Humanity may have lived during this Age were the [[Interex]], a civilization that was more advanced than the Imperium, but was unfortunately wiped out at some point by the [[Luna Wolves]]. The war started with [[Erebus]] secretly stealing an Anatheme (the very same Warp-corrupted sword that was later used to mortally wound Horus in order to engineer his corruption) from one of their museums. This convinced the Interex the Imperials had been corrupted by Chaos already, leading to the start of hostilities.

The "Dark Age" is also called such because it is now considered a spiritual dark age compared to the "glorious modern age", as humanity used to put science first (which may or may not have caused the birth of the [[Omnissiah]]) rather than the [[God-Emperor of Mankind]]. The irony of all this is lost on every human in the setting. The only remnants of the technological wonders of that age (called "archeotechnology" or "archeotech," which the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] furiously seeks) are the [[STC]]s, which could be the Imperium’s salvation. Other creations of that age, like the [[Men of Iron]], are best left forgotten (or better yet, destroyed). Good luck getting a [[tech-priest]] to not [[Slaanesh|poke around]] the possibly-dangerous ancient technology, though. Apparently “enslaved” Men of Iron were used exclusively by the Dark Angels by the Emperor’s order/permission during the Great Crusade so...

Highlights of the technology that has been hinted at canonically include still-pristine warships with bridges made of solid light, something equivalent to time-weapons, and a cloud of sentient nano-machines that can kill you by making your blood explode. The “Cybernetic Revolution”/“Iron War” had humanity using “Sun Snuffers”; serpentine machines that opened up extending to around the size of Saturn’s rings; their job was to draw in the energy of suns until they were consumed entirely. There were also large spacefaring machines that ''ate their way through planets'' and shat out the remains into the void. Dark Age of humanity wasn't nothin' to fuck with.

TL;DR: It's basically [[Star Trek]] meets Atlantis.

= List of reasons why the Dark Age was kickass =
<s>aka why the Emperor is kind of a failure.</s> {{BLAM}} {{Blam|Heresy!}}

===Canon===
* Widespread immunity to all diseases and poisons (The Panacea).
* Far more widespread use of anti-gravity.
* Teleportation.
* Imperial Knights were used during the early stages of the DAOT and were used in the defence of many of humanity's colonies across the galaxy. They proved themselves over and over again but the Thrones of these mighty war machines would over time begin to affect the minds of their users, turning them from a protective mindset to a far more authoritarian one.
* [[Dakka|Energy guns that created small temporary black holes]] and also distort time so that even if they miss, the enemy is teleported nanoseconds back in time to occupy the same position as their past selves simultaneously, resulting in both versions being destroyed, i.e. [[Awesome|a gun that literally causes targets to telefrag themselves.]]
** The Speranza from "Priests of Mars" had such a weapon hidden within its body. A vast gun like a great menhir was bought to the surface on heavy-duty rails before it fired a silent dark pulse of energy which would then coalesce into a miniature temporary black hole. Although the Eldar ship Starblade was able to avoid the shot, its solar sail was brushed by the weapon's deadly energy, allowing the secondary effects of the chrono-weaponry to shift the target a nanosecond into the past, forcing identical neutrons of the solar mast into the same quantum space. This causes the mast to detonate violently; now crippled and visible the Starblade was destroyed by the circling Kotov fleet. These weapons were designed to crack the hulls of the ships of their enemies. Let that settle in for a moment: these powerful weapons needed to be this strong in order to ''damage'', not destroy, the ships that opposed them.
*Combat augment arrays could be used to transform a person or entire populations into killing machines. Being able to turn normal colonists into soldiers sounds great but it was considered dishonourable and foolhardy; although you could get an instant army, the array's invasive manipulation of nerve pathways, adrenal glands and musculature normally resulted in the death of those affected. You could enhance an entire planets population into super soldiers but you were also more than likely also signing their death warrants, not to mention that reintegrating a generation of young men taught to kill in an ordinary ca. late-M2 fashion into society has been enough of a challenge in our own time.
** These Combat augment arrays, combined with the existence of the [[Angron|Butcher's Nails]] add a far darker side to what we know about humanity's golden age; the existence of these technologies either show a flagrant disregard for human lives or a desperate attempt to create enough fighting bodies to counter whatever foes they were facing.
* [[Iron Men|Robots with the strength of Space Marines that numbered in levels close to the Imperial Guard.]]
** On a similar note, sentient AIs-- or close enough to it to be highly capable if not truly humanlike.
** Not to mention [[Iron Men|these AIs]] could control [[Humanity Fuck Yeah|machines the size of planets that fed on stars, swarms of nanomachines that could consume you within moments, and giant robots the size of planets '''who could eat holes in real space and the warp''']], all of which humans controlled [[Age of Strife|before they decided that human anus looks just as appetising as the Xenos we were probably using them against]]-- ''and humanity survived.''
* Average humans performing extremely hazardous duty like deep space mining or maintenance of a voidship's plasma coils had access to [[Terminator]] armour. While not ''exactly'' Terminator armour as the Space Marines use, the incredibly durable exoskeletons-cum-spacesuit that were used by civilians while performing their day job would later serve as the template from which Terminator armour was developed by the AdMech. After they recovered a bunch of them during the [[Great Crusade]], they only had to add auto-senses, black carapace interfaces and other gubbins to allow a Space Marine to use the suit like a regular set of [[Power Armour]].
* Weapons that could shoot enemy ships in the middle of a warp jump.
* Something like DC Comics' Nth Metal (but human-made) called phase-iron. It is used as restraints for Pyskers since the metal is not only resistant to any form of psychic energy directed against it, but also burns their skin like acid anytime they try to use their powers.
* House [[Van Saar]] from Necromunda has its founders originate from the time of the DAOT (after some timey-wimey Warp shenanigans they emerged at their intended destination a lot later then they intended. The Van Saar are actually the closest you are ever going to get to playing humans from the DAOT.

===/tg/===
A pretty retarded and nonsensical Fanon timeline of the Dark Age of Technology, which makes Matt Ward's creations seem amazing and logical by comparison.
http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/155-homebrew-40k-fluff/211473-fanon-history-dark-age-technology.html#post2375305

{{40k-Timeline}}
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category:Imperial]]