#irl techpriest

[coyote0101]

I called the Avation mechanic school today and made the appointment to talk a financial officer. Along with a chance to tour the school again. Fingers crossed, I'll be working on airplanes in a few years, being an irl techpriestess. I hope i get work on Airbus planes or some cute private jets.

[two-reflections]

Double cheeked up on a WIP Wednesday!?

Got some painting done during an Imperium Maledictum session ✨

Other WIP updates below, including a TTRPG game summary!

TTRPG ✨

In my new Imperium Maledictum game, the team were spontaneously recruited by the inquisition when a void ship that transported pilgrims between certain shrine worlds ran into a Space Hulk. We captured a witch, commandeered a shuttle, and managed to make it out of the Warp!

I'm playing ex-Genetor techpriest Rassik Kindara, who left their forgeworld under suspicious circumstances involving the fabrication of potentially heretekal augmetics and the repeated accessing of xenobiological records without permission. Other members of the party include an ex-guardsman reminiscent of a space Landsknechte, a death cult assassin who ran away to try to be a preacher, an immensely charismatic young bureaucrat, and a sanctioned diviner and her witchhunter handler. Our patron is Grace, a blank Interrogator. We had a lot of weird ghost moments in this session; very excited to see where this goes!

Writing ✨

...not feeling it at the moment. I have a lot going on IRL, and those things plus a mild crisis of confidence have sapped my keen for writing. Hopefully this is just temporary, and I'll be back on my usual bullshit soon.

To get me back in the groove, I'm considering joining the Salamanders Discord Server's Halloween competition. It feels a bit pointless, since very few people read what I write for those, but it is a good way to stay in practice...

I'm also still not sure if I'll join Secret Sanguinala this year or not, though I have sent in nominations. Idk, I'm not feeling confident in my ability to deliver something my giftee would enjoy. But that's just the crisis of confidence talking. I probably will end up joining.

[fishfacedterror]

🍒 [CHERRY] Who is your OC's perfect companion?

🍓 [STRAWBERRY] How do they feel about 'cute' things?

🍅 [TOMATO] How misunderstood is your OC? In-universe or IRL.

I will be answering these with my Techpriest Manipulus Hashtur today!

🍒 Cherry

For thing like professional relations, friendships and brief flings, Hashtur would not describe himself as overly picky, as you have to get allies where you can in the grimdark future. Ideally they share a passion for the Motive Force and serving the Machine God like he does, is clear with what they want and expect, and can respect that his duties come before most else. Aside from that he has a slight preference towards other members of the cult mechanicus, as he may chat in techna linguis best with them, and those who maintain a decent hygiene since he finds it more respectable.

As for romantic companionship he is considerably much more closed off. Its not that he is not able to have romantic feelings, but he has been heartbroken quite messily before, and finds it much tidier to keep any amourous inclinations to himself.

🍓 Strawberry

Cute things are cute! Aesthetically pleasing, marketable, often easily edible. He finds the appeal of cuteness to be a great manipulation tactic; even if some avenues of it are cut off to him by his size and mechanicus nature he can appreciate their use in other people and creatures.

🍅 Tomato

Hashtur is a relatively new OC, so I cant be quite certain on what people’s opinions and misgivings thereof on him are IRL. In universe, however, he will actively let most people think he is cuter and dumber than he actually is in order to get to a more advantageous positioning, the emotive LEDs in his lenses and sillier mannerisms helping somewhat with this. For example he might pretend to be convinced by a xenos disguise that they are too truly another faithful of the machine god, to divert their machinations away from a system’s structure and instead into a skitariius kill team he has set up just right down this dark alley, if you’d be so kind.

[inkary]

Today’s my little pogchamp, my cute squighog, my cowboy techpriest IRL @baronofcaring‘s birthday and I wish him a very nice evening

[acornminiatureslog]

I wanna talk a bit more about my marines and the chaos marines I’m now working on after I got hit with a couple fun ideas while waiting on replacement printer parts.

For background, my space marine chapter, The Hounds of Terra, are something I came up with to spice up how Primaris marines work in the lore, and give me a chance to make badass ladies in space.

Intro

When Abaddon destroyed Cadia and the great rift split the galaxy in twain, one of the many hidden caches of Cawl’s primaris marines came under siege by the forces of chaos, and the attending techpriests were forced to activate the marines they had in stasis.

The siege went on for decades, with the attrition wearing on the loyalists. Specifically, the traitors quickly adopted tactics that made it more and more difficult for the apothecaries to recover the geneseed of fallen primaris marines. As the number of astartes shrunk, the tech priests took desperate action, pulling a batch of flawed geneseed from stasis. This geneseed was previously abandoned due to its mutations, but was preserved due to an interesting characteristic: it would only take hold and develop in female aspirants. In need of the aid, the tech priests began creating astartes with this geneseed and youths from civilian population. These new marines were effective, but looked upon with disdain by the other marines present, who referred to them as dogs, or hounds. They were given the most dangerous assignments and little support holding the line, but they found success, often out of spite, but more often because they new the fear the civilians they protected had to endure.

By the time relief finally arrived and broke the siege, the only marines left standing were these women. When the acting leader, Resia Avidon, went to meet with the envoys of the Indomitus Crusade with full intent of hiding her and her sisters’ oddities. The attending tech priests, eager to see how this project of theirs would develop, agreed to aid in the ruse.

The result was the Crusade designating the beleaguered marines as a full ultima founding chapter, gifting them a Battle Barge, Beneficia in Terra, and granting them time to gather their forces before joining in the war to beat back chaos in service of the Imperium. The chapter chose the name The Hounds of Terra, firmly declaring their loyalty and turning the insult hurled at them into a badge of honor.

Silver Cog

This was only a stopgap measure though, as despite their official induction as a chapter, they had no acceptable geneseed they could send to the vaults on Mars. This issue was solved when The Hounds of Terra had a chance encounter with a drifting strike cruiser. On board, they found the remnants of a chapter known as the Silver Cog, a firstborn chapter that had been reported missing two millennia ago. Their leader, Captain Valos Tetys, shared a tale in which their chapter had been lured into a trap, allies turning on them, only his strike cruiser escaping, their navigator sending them on a blind jump through the warp. Tetys feared that the hidden traitors within the imperium might still seek his chapter’s destruction, and wished to hide their true identity. Sensing he was a fair and reasonable man in a tough spot, Chapter Founder Avidon proposed an idea to Tetys: to integrate their chapters under the banner of The Hounds of Terra, the Silver Cog gaining the fresh start they desired, and The Hounds of Terra gaining a source of geneseed that would pass muster on Mars.

(Irl, this is my reason for lady primaris marines coexisting with my love of HH relic units. It is convoluted as fuck, but I kinda cobbled all of this together over time, and I like it. All the convolution gives me a couple different angles to work with when it comes to justifying matches against other Imperial armies.)

Potassiar

It was in the following decades when The Hounds of Terra established their working relationship with other imperial elements in the sector, and their reputation as steadfast hoarders. The chapter adopted a policy of gathering up any arms, armor, or relics they found, and if they were unable to reach the original owners, simply incorporating it into their own stores. In particular, this practice is how they have built up their terminator units, of which the chapter has four full squads. This practice also extends to spacecraft, with the ships of the Hounds of Terra often returning from naval engagements and long range patrols towing the hulls of lost and damaged naval ships. In return for the many hulks they have kept in circulation over the years, they have been gifted a handful of additional strike cruisers, and several escort vessels, which in turn, aid in the return of more lost hulls.

Of special note is the relationship The Hounds of Terra built with the minor forgeworld of Potassiar. This was the nearest base of the Adeptus Mechanicus to the cache-world The Hounds of Terra were birthed upon, and many of the surviving tech priests transferred to Potassiar after the chapter’s founding. The presence of respectable orbital facilities and these familiar faces within the priesthood led to Potassiar being a frequent resupply point for The Hounds of Terra as they warred against the great enemy. It was here that they dropped off many naval hulls and any arms and armor they recovered, yet could not return or fit into their own armory. The greatest collaboration came when a space hulk of respectable size materialized within the outer reaches of the Potassiar system. The tech priests immediately sent word, and captain Tetys himself led the full force of the chapter’s terminators to claer the hulk ahead of the mechanicus’ work prying loose ancient hulls. This aid was lent for the favor of the mechanicus in constructing a proper flagship for The Hounds of Terra, with a suitable hull being selected from the hulk by Captain Tetys.

At the hip’s completion, it was slightly larger than a standard battle barge, but only truly differing in the addition of expansive manufacturing and repair facilities, as well as a set of main engines salvaged from a battleship. Chapter Founder Avidon and her honor guard were brought to the dockyards for the final blessings, and named the ship Avidon’s Might. It was at this moment that the chapter was betrayed.

The skitari forces of the Potassiar tech priests ambushed the chapter founder, alongside a force of nurgle-blessed heretic astartes. Between a small force of loyal mechanicus elements, the chapter founder’s honor guard, and the terminator forces of the first company, The Hounds of Terra were able to hold off the traitors until the Beneficia in Terra was able to arrive and escort Avidon’s Might out of the system. Unfortunately, the traitors succeeded in assassinating the Chapter Founder, sending shock waves throughout the chapter.

Promotions

After the death of Resia Avidon, Captain of the third company, Olympia Vilaris, was elected by the gathered captains of the chapter to bear the mantle of chapter master. This led to Sergeant Vylane Zaporozia getting promoted to captain of the third company in recognition for her actions in the recovery of Avidon’s Might.

Aaaand that’s almost all the main skeleton of my Space Marine lore. There’s details from the various campaigns I’ve played them through, and still a bit more until where they’re currently sitting, but this is already getting way too long for one post. Feel free to send in asks if you’ve got questions on my giant space ladies!

[c-rowlesdraws]

Now I want to make a techpriest who constantly talks to his weapons, the best way to prevent jamming is to make sure the machine spirit is properly calmed and refined into a tool to purge filthy heretics and xenos with

that sounds fun-- I think that would be a trait shared by most techpriests, honestly! And plenty of other people, too. Lots of people IRL talk to technology already, even if they don’t know they’re communing with the machine spirits.

on a related note, I actually really like the animism of the Mechanicus cult in 40k. I don’t see it as ignorance, but as something very natural and sensible to practice in a universe where demons and possession are very real. Of course machines have spirits-- and furthermore, who would want to run the risk of upsetting one by assuming otherwise?