Gunmetal City

“Welcome lords and ladies, saints and sinners, young and old, child and grandsire! Welcome to the thunder of the guns, the trail of life, the judgment of the swift and the dead! Welcome to the Sands of Blood: the greatest show in Gunmetal City! Just a few more minutes and you’ll see the bullets fly!”
— The Crooked Man, Master of Ceremonies at the Sands of Blood
Gunmetal City is a huge industrial mass, built into the crater of an immense volcano, Mount Thollos, that rises from the smoldering lava fields of the northern coast. A mere megapolis compared to the planet’s two great hives, Gunmetal City’s spires tower high above the volcano’s peak, while its lowest districts delve right down into Scintilla’s crust.
==Metallican Society==
Gunmetal City is a place of soaring steel, with towers like great, tarnished silver needles piercing the sky. The volcano’s crater limits the size of the city’s foundation, so nobles have built upwards, the most prestigious locations being perched precariously on slender columns of steel hundreds of meters high. The city is frequently bathed in smoke from the foundries of the middle city below and the houses employ small armies of menials whose job is to scour the surfaces of the skybound mansions until they gleam. Clean air is a valued commodity, with every mansion having powerful filtration systems to cut out the smoke, while the most ostentatious hosts pipe air imported from cleaner worlds into their magnificent homes.
The middle level of the city is dominated by immense foundries powered by the heat from the heart of Mount Thollos. Almost all of Gunmetal City’s middle classers work in these foundries over cauldrons of molten metal or blazing furnaces the size of tenement blocks. Gunmetal City’s main export is munitions, and endless crates of weapons emerge from its foundries, forming an important part of Scintilla’s tithe to the Imperium as well as arming many of the Calixis Sector’s own planetary defense force troops. The foundries are sweltering, filthy places where accidents are common and even a fortunate worker’s life is shortened by decades thanks to the choking air and cruel environment.
The middle classers’ homes are clustered around the foundries and often fashioned from cargo containers. People are an afterthought in Gunmetal City. The foundries and the weapons they produce form the real purpose behind the place. The Infernis is a region formed by the lowest levels of factories that have collapsed or become uninhabitable. This far down, the city is unbearably hot and prone to floods of lava or toxic gas from Mount Thollos’s occasional lurches out of dormancy. The gangs of the Infernis are the toughest and best-armed on Scintilla and almost no one else lives there save hardbitten killers toting weapons extorted from the middle hivers. There is nothing to live for in the Infernis save superiority over enemy gangs, and so gang warfare is literally a way of life. 
In Gunmetal, bullets are often used as currency.
==The Lawless City==
In truth, Gunmetal City is an upstart. Younger and far, far smaller than the dominant hives, Gunmetal is a feral community that thrives simply because of what it produces. Hives Sibellus and Tarsus tolerate it because of its export materials. It is a jumped-up, uncivilized boomtown in the Wilderness, a city that got too big for itself. One day, in a thousand years’ time, it might become powerful enough to challenge for the dominance of Scintilla. For now, it is a four billion strong foundry station where law is slack and noble houses fight, literally, for ownership of lucrative mercantile output.
Of all the main population centers on Scintilla, Gunmetal City is the most dangerous and lawless. The gun is everywhere in Gunmetal City, from the weapons churned out by its foundries, to the symbols of the city’s noble houses and the guns carried by almost every citizen. Gunfighting is a leisure activity, with designated areas throughout the city set aside for shoot-outs. Duels in Gunmetal are fought with pistols, and a great many people, especially from the middle hives where life is quite short anyway, seek out brief but glorious careers as gunfighters.
Shots ring around the foundries of the middle city incessantly and the nobles often hire prestigious gunslingers to battle in elaborate arenas while the audience watches from behind bulletproof screens. Some of the best gunslingers come from Infernis, and it is little wonder that the gangers adore their guns so much when expertise in their use brings such wealth and status.
Gunmetal City has recently seen a rise in cutter-gangs, groups of skilled individuals who turn a profit kidnapping
and disassemble the victim to sell the augmetics. Many nobles go to great length to prevent their abduction, as
the captors are nearly impossible to bargain with for release, as the subject is literally worth more dead than alive.
Because of the high profile of these crimes, these cutter-gangs don’t usually stay together for long.
==Arbites in Gunmetal==
The cramped furnace-warrens of Gunmetal City have an
infamous reputation for violence and lawlessness, and a common
wisecrack elsewhere on Scintilla is that Gunmetallicans don’t
even know what a Magistratum uniform looks like. Be that
as it may for the Scintillan Enforcers, Gunmetal City knows
all too well the grim sight of the Arbitrators, and the Arbites
themselves make a point of keeping it that way.
The Imperial Adeptus presence in Gunmetal revolves around
the city’s industrial output, the endless stream of weapons and
munitions that are so vital to Scintilla’s Imperial tithe and to the
Emperor’s ever-hungry war machine. Administratum adepts
ensure that the foundries are running smoothly and their Imperial
commissions are being fulfilled, while the Adeptus Mechanicus
oversees the quality and purity of the manufacturing processes
themselves, and police the sacred knowledge that underpins
them. The Arbites garrison is there to ensure that these Adepta are
discharging their functions as they should, free of corruption and
from the feral lawlessness of the rest of the city.
The noble families of Gunmetal are in constant competition
for the fattest trade deals, and routinely sign lucrative contracts
with private concerns---notable buyers include the armorers
for the Lord Governor’s palace guard and the household militias
of Rogue Trader Aspyce Chorda. A single contract would be the
making of a noble house on many worlds, but in Gunmetal they
are almost a diversion from the real prize: a commission from
the Adeptus Terra. Some of these are similar to the mercantile
contracts, as an Adeptus makes a direct purchase of weapons
for its members. Battlefleet Calixis and the Departmento Munitorium both commission weapons shipments to meet
needs for troop raisings or warzones elsewhere. The biggest
commissions, however, are for consignments to be rendered up
to the Administratum as part of Scintilla’s planetary tithe.
Families who land these commissions work their foundries
day and night under the watchful eye of Adeptus scrutineers
to meet the rigorous tithing quotas. Once a consignment
is completed the house hands it directly to the Adeptus on
behalf of the Lord Governor, and is reimbursed handsomely
from the Governor’s coffers in turn. As the tithing cycle ends
the intrigues among the nobility reach white heat, as they
wait for the Administratum “Exactors” (called mockingly such
for the suspect precision of their numbers) to publish the next
round of quotas and scramble to make their bids.
Crime is a natural byproduct of the wealth and power at stake
in these commissions, and the razor-thin margins for success
and survival. Corrupt Exactors distort the bidding rounds for
their own personal ends, or accept bribes and favors to ignore
cut corners and falsified production tallies. Noble houses offer
illegal inducements or simple threats to try to strengthen bids
or conceal production failures. Nobles get carried away by the
buccaneering culture of Gunmetal City and, through arrogance
or desperation, allow a gambit of sabotage or assassination to
endanger the production of a commissioned tithe or the Adeptus
officers presiding over it. While the Arbites are indifferent to
the families’ everyday crimes against one another, anything that
threatens or compromises the tithe is a profound crime against
the Imperium and invites the full and merciless force of the law.
The start of the most recent tithing cycle has been particularly
contentious, with clashes between the Fochtmont and Lempaeda
families almost leading to open war. A string of highly suspicious
gun-duels picked off the Fochtmonts’ intended envoys to the
Exactors’ bidding meets. The family has had to suppress violent
unrest among its labor force and spend more resources than
it can afford on forcibly stopping the defection of two retainer
families once the news of the deaths leaked out. The Lempaeda,
for their part, are trying to contain the damage after one of their
elders brought down the wrath of the Mechanicus by declaring
the family should have permanent rights to the melta archprints
they had been entrusted with the previous cycle. Each family saw
the other’s moment of weakness as the chance to make a move
to shore up its fortunes and credibility, and the border between
their two holdings, along the great ridge of magmafractal towers
known as the Lateral Vent, has seen a rash of duels, sniper
exchanges, and two major engagements involving heavily-armed
family militias and gangs hired wholesale out of Infernis.
The Arbites have been keeping a close watch against several
eventualities---the violence damaging the production capacity
of either house’s foundries, the Fochtmonts resorting to illegal
means to try to win standing with the Exactors, or the Lempaeda
showing any further defiance of Mechanicus authority over their
tech-lore. Arbitrator squads have already intervened with lethal
force when one running battle came dangerously close to a vital
cluster of orbital-loader platforms, and armored patrols along
the Vent are under instruction to make an example of any gang
gunslingers who show their faces in the open air. The Arbites are
also carefully observing the Magistratum’s handling of the lesser
battles in this miniature war, laying the groundwork should they
ever need to make a case for incompetence by the authorities.
The Arbites of Gunmetal City make no attempt to correct these
crimes with secrecy or discretion. Long-standing custom sees
them prosecute their targets with maximum force and visibility,
and Garrison Provost Tolan Eress has continued this practice with
gusto. Corrupt adepts and overambitious nobles alike are arrested
and dragged away while in public company; whole levels and
sometimes whole spires are ransacked with overwhelming force
in search of evidence. Executions are public and performed with
full pomp and ceremony. As a way of cowing the city’s population
and taking some of the outlaw swagger out of its collective step,
these methods are only barely effective, but at the very least Eress
wants to provide Gunmetal City with regular reminders that there
is a higher, harsher gaze on them than the weakling Magistratum.
Eress has even been pushing for an old-fashioned underhive-style
cull on the Infernis gangs, but to date cooler heads in the senior
planetary commands have prevailed. The benefits from such a cull
seem too small to justify the dangers of such an operation, both the
dangers to the Arbites force undertaking it and the danger that the
violence would spread far enough to damage the skill base of the
workforce higher in the city.
Gunmetal City makes for bloody work even by an Arbitrator’s
standards. In Gunmetal a brawl becomes a shootout, a riot
becomes a pitched battle, and a simple suppression deployment
that another garrison might take on with shock-mauls and choke
gas almost becomes a military engagement. Eress drills his garrison
relentlessly on their marksmanship and urban firefight tactics,
and insists that even his second-line Verispex and Detective units
maintain their shooting skills. Arbitrators coming off a posting at
Gunmetal City often find themselves promoted as gun instructors
or to specialist fire-support teams---that is if they aren’t being put
through remedial drills for their rusty close-combat skills.
The Gunmetal precinct also has the more difficult task of
policing the Adeptus Mechanicus. Enginseers attend upon the
machines in every foundry of Gunmetal, and a precious part of a
tithe commission is the dispensation to utilize holy archprints and
rites of forging. The Tech-Priests make these available in strictly
controlled ways, and attempting to steal or misuse such knowledge
is a crime against the Adeptus. The whole matter is complicated
further by the inscrutable and often bizarre behavior of the
Mechanicus themselves, interfering in Gunmetal’s industrial works
as though blithely unaware of the law. The precinct’s Verispex
teams are currently convinced that the Mechanicus has some
kind of heavily modified and brutally effective techno-assassin
hidden away in one of the sealed machine-shrines that dot the city,
which they are using to terrorize a number of foundry houses in
defiance of Adeptus law. However, the Mechanicus have enough
privilege and sovereignty over their secret business to deflect any
investigation so far, and the Verispex and Detectives continue to
hunt for clues to the real nature (and motive) of this killer.
==Guns of Gunmetal==
A few of the guns produced by Gunmetal City are famous, either through their iconic nature or exceptional performance. These guns are status symbols, especially for the Infernis gangers, and are carried by officers of the Scintillan army as side arms. The Thollos Service Autopistol, or the “Tholl ”, is an autopistol that sacrifices capacity for stopping power and is much coveted by Magistratum officers in particular. The "Scalptaker" of Fane Westinkrup on the other hand, is a very solidly built and extremely uncomplicated slug pistol designed for use by just about anyone. It is such a common weapon that any self-respecting ganger will try to upgrade his Scalptaker, even though it is a very easily maintained weapon designed to survive the rigors of the Infernis.
The Fykos Forge Nomad Hunting Instrument is one of the most precise and well-calibrated weapons produced in Gunmetal City, and is the rifle of choice for hunters who stalk big game in Scintilla’s wastelands. Procuring a “Nomad” costs an enormous amount of money and involves a five-year waiting list. Finally, the Blackhammer Defence Shotgun is a brutal, massive-bore shotgun that can blast holes in doors and shred opponents. Its limited range and single-shot capacity do little to diminish its value as a weapon of intimidation in the hands of hardened criminals and enforcers.
==Metallican Gunslingers==
The Gunslingers of Gunmetal City on Scintilla are the finest
in the sector, the most infamous and the most lethal. In action,
they are a blazing whirl of muzzle flashes, their hands so fast
that their pistols seem mere extensions of their murderous
will, and all around them people die. This is the craft of the
Gunslinger, be they gang enforcers, famed arena champions or
grim wanderers, a Metallican Gunslinger is worth the price if
killing is involved. The Scintillan hive of Gunmetal adores the
gun and honors above all others those who forge or wield
them with great skill. With every man, woman or child packing
at least one piece of cold iron, when a Metallican is said to be
a skilled gunman, it is a stone cold truth, as they have managed
to elevate themselves above a thousand others to be so named.
Among the ferocious gangs of the lower Infernis regions
of the hive, one’s choice of weapon, and skill with it, is a
matter of gang honor, pride and renown and there are
bewildering array of gunmen. Some consider a single shot
kill the most sublime, honing their skills to become snipers
the equal of any Guard veteran, while others prefer to be
bedecked in weapons, spraying shells with wild abandon,
knowing that they always have a backup piece should they
hear that dreadful empty click. Others pay for crude grafts of
slab muscle so they can heft the heaviest weapons crafted in
the hive’s fanes and forges. But above all in underworld status
and popular myth are the Gunslingers, the duelists, the pistol
fighters---they are the true embodiment of Gunmetal in all
its deadly glory.
Most fine Gunslingers are undoubtedly from the gangs of
the Infernis. In the scalding hot deeps, duels between gangs’
finest pistol wielders are used to settle matters of reproach or
insult between rivals (short of a full-blown gang war), and
anyone who even thinks about using their pistol around an
Infernis gang had better know how to use it. It is in this deadly
crucible that the Gunslinger is made. While most Gunslingers
find employ with the gangs, not an inconsiderable number
find more legal employment as “Regulators”, hired muscle for
the fanes and forges that are the true power in Gunmetal City.
Some may take employ as high-priced bodyguards and others
(often short-lived) as attractions seeking fame and fortune in
the mid-hive arenas, depending on their skills to keep them
alive before the baying crowd. The hivers and underhivers
of Gunmetal City are not alone in their reverence of the
Gunslinger’s art. Noble-born duelists, so called “gunrakes”,
prowl the upper hive reaches in search of slights against their
honor so they may exercise their skill on a living target. A
few of the boldest gunrakes venture into the Infernis to test
the true extent of their skill. A few even survive.
Though they all are dedicated to the deadly way of the
pistol, Gunslingers are as different as the finely crafted weapons
they wield. Some crave the renown and respect granted to
the most infamous of their kind. The precision-crafted pistols
gifted by a famous fane, the tremor and awe their name
inspires, and the hush that descends on a room when they
walk in are the finest things life can offer to them. Others
are products of a freakish fusing of madness, flamboyance
and skill, deadly strutting peacocks festooned with holstered
weapons, as quick to flash a smile and make a mocking aside
as they are to slaughter a room full of people. If, however, you
ask an Infernis ganger what is the most dangerous breed of
Gunslinger, they are sure to tell you it is those who have seen
too much, lived too long, killed too many, haunted, empty
men and women with dead eyes, who say little, seem to drift
aimless and alone, and can kill you before you even see them
move. This cold breed of wanderers are the fear of even the
deadliest ganger, and the most prized, if quixotic, of hired
guns. They are the pale death, patient and inevitable waiting
for all who follow the way of the gun.
==The Fanes and Forges of Gunmetal==
Gunmetal City on Scintilla is justly the most famed, respected and commercially powerful provider of arms and munitions
in the entire Calixis Sector. The city’s industry and culture revolves around weapons at all levels and the city’s lawless and
violent reputation is largely the result of the fact that any man or woman’s worth in Gunmetal is largely decided by whether
they are wiling to defend what’s theirs with blood and bullets.
Most of Gunmetal’s famous weapons are produced and controlled under the auspices of loose manufacturing cartelcombines
known as “fanes”, with membership of these fanes crossing all social strata from the highest armsmaster to
lowliest unskilled laborer, with only a rare few strong enough or desperate enough to court independence outside of
them. Being part of a fane is elective rather than an accident of birth (although familial and local tradition do hold great
sway), and a Metallican may shift their oath and their allegiance between fanes or even go independent, although these
matters are never taken lightly.
As well as being a territorial structure and a commercial power, the fane also has a spiritual
and techno-arcane dimension, and each has, at its heart, a great temple of arms at the center of which is the high altar on
which the fane’s master-archetypes and weapons of legend are laid in reliquaries exalting the power of the gun. The fanes
paradoxically offer some small measure of stability and protection for their members, and at the same time drive much of
the city’s conflict with their rivalries and trade-wars. Some fanes even act as covert backers of the infamously savage and
well-armed gangs and gun-clans of the Infernis---Gunmetal’s notoriously deadly underhive.
There are scores of different fanes and smaller independent “forges” on Gunmetal, all vying for prestige, money and
power in a shifting quagmire of loose alliances and bloody feuds. Here is a sampling:
*Fane Doru
*Fykos Forge
*Khayer-Addin Forge
*Fane Orthlack
*Fane Sulymann
*Fane Takara
*Fane Westinkrup
Other Producers:
*Clovis Munitorum
==The Tale of the Alley Reaper==
In Gunmetal City on Scintilla, dock laborers and
munition–menials alike whisper dark legends about
a foul spirit that haunts the winding streets after
dark. A gaunt figure swathed in tattered black robes
and bearing a huge set of industrial shears, the
Alley Reaper is said to hunt and slay any worker
who fails to meet his weekly quota. Offerings of
blood and bullets have been left at crossroads in the
poorer districts of Gunmetal City, sacrifices from the
superstitious population who seek to avoid being
culled by the Reaper’s blades. Nevertheless, citizens
continue to vanish, week by week, and even the
Arbites have been hard pressed to uncover any sign of
those who disappear. The Ordo Malleus has taken a
slight interest in this phenomenon, as the production
rates for Gunmetal City’s manufactorums have taken
a sharp decline over the last 10 years. One prominent
clue is tied to the last tithe of psykers sent to the Black Ships, an event that also took place 10 years prior. It is
likely that whatever psychic incident created the Alley
Reaper is somehow related.
==Power Groups==
•	DeVayne Incorporation - Owns the rights to millions of lives in the lower forges
•	Skaelen-Har Hegemony - Owns hundreds of factoria in Gunmetal City
•	House Verence - This noble house has significant holdings in Hive Tarsus and Gunmetal City
==Unique Equipment==
Volcanis Shroud
The shroud is the common name for an integrated suit of heavy
protective gear including a temperature-insulating under-suit
and a heavy, hooded blast coat of polymer and ceramite-alloy
weave. The shroud takes it name from the vast magma-fed
forges of Volcanis deep beneath the surface of Mars, and has
long been a staple of heavy industrial hives and forge world
gear, not least in Hive Magnagorsk on Fenksworld where it is the
universal garb of the foundry guilders, though it finds equal
use in the industrial vaults of Gunmetal City and Ambulon.
The protection provided by the shroud is doubled against fire,
acids and corrosives. Unfortunately, because of its substantial bulk,
the shroud also imposes a –10 penalty on Agility Tests while worn.
The suit also has a built-in rebreather and photo-visor.
Head, Arms, Body, Legs, AP 3 (6), WT 20kg, Cost 350, Average
Gunmetal Solid Mark III Frag Grenade
Gunmetal is known for producing a slightly heavier version
grenade, ideal where a larger blast is needed. These grenades
can be purchased to be used either by hand (thrown) or in
grenade or RPG launchers.
Thrown, SB×3m, S/–/–, 2d10, X, PEN 0, Clip 1, Blast (5), WT, 0.8kg, Cost 10, Scarce
Ius Automatic
Not even planetary lords can gainsay an Arbites Precinct
commander’s choice of the weapons issued to his officers.
Load-outs range from innocuous unpowered batons to
full blown military weapons like bolters or krak grenades.
However, there are certain weapons that are distributed to
the Arbites by Lord Marshal Goreman as a matter of course,
and the Ius pistol falls within this category. Normally used
as a backup weapon alongside the Arbites shotgun, the
Ius is ubiquitous amongst both the Calixian Arbites and
planetary enforcers of Scintilla. This weapon is a solid
and unspectacular yet utterly reliable pistol, crafted by the
gunsmiths of Gunmetal City to be as sturdy as possible.
Typically issued to junior ranks within both organizations,
this weapon is designed to be foolproof and to withstand
punishment that would damage other firearms. Many of these
humble weapons are thousands of years old, having served
generations of lawmen and women in some of the toughest
hives in the galaxy.
Pistol, 30m, S/3/-, 1d10+3, I, PEN 0, Clip 11, RLD Full, Reliable, WT 1.7kg, Cost 95, Average
Raffier 'Pax Factorem' Rifle
Both Assassins and the Enforcers in Gunmetal city make
use of sharpshooter teams, snipers who ensconce themselves
among the gargoyles, heating ducts, and gantries of the great
hives, the better to watch over every aspect of the lives of the
fearful citizens below, and, when needed, to bring death. A
variety of local-pattern sniper rifles are used for this purpose,
including long-las and needler weapons. However, many
skilled riflemen rely upon more traditional solid projectile
weapons, such as the Raffir ‘Pax Factorem’, a large caliber
semi-automatic rifle of sturdy construction common amongst
the weapons made in Gunmetal City.
Basic, 150m, S/2/-, 1d10+3, I, PEN 2, Clip 5, RLD Full, Accurate, WT 6.5kg, Cost 750, Rare
==Home World==
A Metallican is accustomed to the constant presence of gun violence and lawlessness on a level more profound than is usually found in even the most violent or militant of Imperial hives. To have a gun is to hold your life in your hands, and to go unarmed is to willingly surrender to death or slavery, whether your trade is as a mercenary or scholar. Because of the anarchic and precarious nature of their lives, Metallicans tend to be proud, sometimes self-absorbed, and highly sensitive to insult or slight. Conversely they are usually very respectful of any authority earned through knowledge or by skill at arms, and anyone willing to put their lives on the line for family, cause or creed.
Creating Metallican Characters
Use the Hive World Home World template, replacing the Accustomed to Crowds trait with those presented here:
Gunmetal Hiver Skills
You begin play with the Speak Language (Metallican Hive Dialect) (Int) skill.
Packing Iron
Metallicans put great store in their guns, be it the simple single shot snub that workers are allowed to carry or a stubjack’s custom duelling piece. They invest them both with their sense of self-worth and almost supernatural qualities of protection. If a Metallican swears an oath, it is on their iron.
Effect: If you are, for any reason without a usable gun, either because you have been disarmed, caught unawares, or run out of ammunition, you take a –5 penalty on all Tests.
Way of the Gun
All Metallicans know how to use a variety of firearms and most are better than average shots; it’s just in their blood.
Effect: Increase your Ballistic Skill by +5. You also begin play with the Pistol Training (SP) talent. You gain a +5 bonus on Tech Use Tests involving projectile firearms.
==Alternate Career Rank==
Becoming a Gunslinger from Gunmetal City is a matter of desire
and skill and is an excellent choice for a character seeking to be
the epitome of brutal Gunmetal City itself. You may start play
having already set on this course or come to it as your career
develops. Inquisitors are likely to find a Gunslinger’s destructive
skills useful, but do be warned you are not alone in your
adoration of the pistol’s dance, and your showy demonstrations
of skill may cause your master as many problems as it solves;
that and, if you survive to became truly skilled, others may
see you as a means to prove themselves. Infamy after all does
have a price. When you become a Metallican Gunslinger, you
automatically gain the Knave of Pistols trait, which imposes
limitations on your character.
Required Career: Assassin or Scum
Alternate Rank: Rank 1 or higher (0 XP) Note this means you may opt to specify this at character creation as your Advance Scheme. This does not affect your basic starting Skills and Talents, only how and on what you can spend your starting XP.
Other Requirements: BS 30 and you must also have Gunmetal City as your Home World.