40K Lore: Who’s Who in the Ad-Mech
Today we look at the most luminary of luminaries, the who’s who of the Adeptus Mechanicus.
That’s right Loremasters, today we turn our gaze to a brighter, more perfect chapter in the Adpetus Mechanicus. Those noble leaders who have pulled humanity up out of its darkness and into the light of the Omnissiah, whose Motive Force is the only thing keeping our worthless flesh-husks from being consumed by Chaos. So, ready your mechahymnals and prepare your vocoders to sing the praises of these masters of the Mechanicum.
Let us look at the legendary Fabricator General whose strength of will held together the Adeptus Mechanicum in the face of its darker corruption. I speak of course of Zagreus Kane. Zagreus Kane was Forge Master of Mondus Occulam and Fabricator Locum of the Adeptus Mechanicus in the days before the Horus Heresy.
The subordinate to Fabricator-General Kelbor-Hal, Kane was loyal to Terra and the Emperor and as a result refused to submit to Hal’s new Dark Mechanicum that was pledging its allegiance to Warmaster Horus. Controlling a vast Forge Complex, Kane became one of the key leaders of the resistance to the Dark Mechanicum in the Schism of Mars, the devastating civil war that ripped through Mars. In the end however when it became clear that the traitor forces would emerge victorious, loyalist forces, including Kane, evacuated the planet with the aid of Captain Sigismund of the Imperial Fists.
Following the exile of the loyalist Mechanicum to Terra, Kane was named the new Fabricator-General of Mars but ruled in name only. Embittered, he became increasingly inhuman in his augmentations. By the late Heresy, he had few human features left and moved by tank threads in place of his legs. He had grown disdainful of many of his loyalist Mechanicum followers, casually shooting a thrall that attempted to pray to him while he was busy. During the War Within the Webway Kane was a loyalist commander but sought to work with Arkhan Land to find a way to reach Mars through the Webway.
Kane’s status during the Heresy was unstable. The Mechanicum considered the division of the Mechanicum with Hal and Kane both claiming the title of Fabricator General an unresolved equation, known as the “binary succession”. In an attempt to resolve this, Ambassador Vethorel, Fabricator General Kane’s representative on the Council of Terra, proposed to resolve this by the creation of a new Adeptus, the Adeptus Mechanicus. Despite the Mechanicum’s concerns for their independence and the council’s fears of a Martian power-grab, the resolution passed after the Collegia Titanica threatened to abandon the Solar War and the Imperator Titan Magnificum Incendius of the Legio Ignatummarched on the Great Chamber of the Senatorum Imperialis.
And then of course there’s the majestic workings of Magos Delphan Gruss. Magos Explorator Delphan Gruss is a member of the Adeptus Mechanicus who hails from the Forge World Arenxis Minoris in the Galactic South.
After reaching the rank of Magos he spent several decades amongst the Explorator fleets where he developed a deep knowledge of pre-Imperial technology from rediscovered worlds. His life’s quest is to find the Omnicopaeia, an artifact that he believes contains every Standard Template Construct (STC) blueprint created since the Dark Age of Technology. His search for the Omnicopaeia has often led him into conflicts with local authorities, members of the Inquisition, and unscrupulous treasure hunters.
Magos Gruss is heavily augmented with two bionic arms. His left arm has been replaced with a bionic attachment known as a Breacher, an implant designed to drill through slag piles and bulkheads (equally capable of boring straight through a person). Gruss also has a bionic head that houses a re-breather mask (which compliments his advanced bionic lungs) and two advanced bionic eyes incorporating a motion tracker, a bio-scanner and range-finder gunsights. Like most members of the Adeptus Mechanicus, he has mechadendrites implanted on his body.
Truly, the Explorator exemplifies the perfection of the machine over the weaknesses of the Flesh. But there are more! Allow me to load the files on Magos Felicia Tayber, a personal hero, in so much as any one individual is worth considering over the vast neural network of thinking machines that–surely does not exist anywhere within the Mechanicum. At all. Yes let us talk more of our flesh heroes.
Felicia Tayber is an Enginseer from the planet Perlia.
During the First Siege of Perlia, she met and formed a close friendship with Commissar Ciaphas Cain, who along with her brother, rescued her from Ork slavery[1a]. She fulfilled the role of mechanic and vox-operator during their escape to the Eastern continent, and from her custom Sentinel Powerlifter, also fulfilled weapons loading and defensive needs.
She also outfitted her Sentinel with a data recorder that captured Cain’s fateful duel with Warboss Gargash Korbul[1e]. These images – to Cain’s mortifaction – did a great deal to cement his reputation as the “Liberator” of Perlia.
Inquisitor Amberley Vail, while editing Cain’s memoirs, speculated on the exact nature of the relationship that developed between Cain and Felicia; Cain did not say, but Vail found it suggestive that he knew exactly where Felicia’s mechadendrite connected to her body and that the two were on first-name terms before the end of the campaign. Though she was renowned for her irreverent attitude and reluctance to be implanted with machine perfection–she eventually got better.
And finally we have Magos Paladius. Magos Paladius was a Tech Priest from Mars, tasked with studying a Titan Hellstorm Cannon sent to Kronus.
Magos Paladius, first mentioned in the great archives of Mars, was sent to the planet Kronus by the Fabricator General to oversee the study of the Hellstorm Cannon from the destroyed Imperator Titan: Aquila Ignis, soon after the Horus Heresy. In his studies, he feared that a daemon of Nurgle resided within the great cannon. In addition to studying the cannon, Paladius also studied the planet of Kronus, discovering several human installations built during the Dark Age of Technology. In the city of Pavonis, he discovered an Aeolis Orbital Control Post capable of tracking all planetary activity and plotting courses to evade siege formations. The Aeolis Orbital Control Post is a “more-efficient cousin of the Kyber Tracking Station” thought to have been lost and only available through the STC. In the Aceria Forest, Paladius discovered a Zeus-class Relay and Control Station capable of Orbital Artillery. Lastly, in the Hyperion Peaks, Paladius found several mining facilities build before the time of the Imperium. These automated mines had an output capacity and speed that exceeded any the Imperium had seen before. His discoveries were confirmed by Adeptus Mechanicus communiqués between Magos Explorator Gaius and Magos Explorator Cumin.
Bow in awe, rudimentary creatures of blood and flesh, perfection beyond your comprehension is before you. Learn it. Accept it. We are the future.
