Editing House Van Saar (section)

==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. Recently with the addition of the [[Leagues of Votann]] and their Necromundan kin the [[Ironhead Squat Prospectors]] to the lore some people have started to become suspicious that the latter story is true and the STC might be a damaged Votann Ancestor Core which the ancestors of the gang recovered from a crashed ship which they then named themselves after. It would certainly explain why the tech it produces is so advanced compared to everything else on the planet.

===The Van Saar STC===
[[File:Van Saar Art.jpg|right|300px|thumb|High tech with a dash of radiation poisoning.]]
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.

These goods are also sold in the Tech Bazaar a territory type that in lore is the stores where van saar associates sell "archeotech" as such the gang can earn credits in this area and haggle for either a rare or common piece of equipment.

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.