Empyric Engineers

The Arch-Magos Callophe
once studied the effects of human
psykers upon the material world,
but her research violated
many of the Mechanicus’ most sacred precepts. In time, she was incinerated through
Inquisitorial edict, but she had left behind a staggering
number of empyric devices and an organized group of
hereteks known as the Empyric Engineers.
One of Callophe’s most well-known developments was
the psy-engine, a crude weapon capable of harnessing and
directing the power of a number of disembodied psyker brains.
Her followers also built ætheric resonators, weaponized frames
that channeled Warp energy into vicious, crackling blades.
==Callophean Psy-Engine==
A psy-engine is a dread weapon: barely controlled, living
psyker brains set within a weapon-housing and goaded by
neuro-implants to blast foes with the power of the warp. The
Callophean pattern consists of a lozenge-shaped central body
and metre-long insulated director wand connected by flexible
cabling. The psy-engine’s centre is a transparent housing just
large enough to hold four psyker brains suspended in pinktinged
gel, pierced by mechanisms and linked by fluid-tubes. The narrow edges of the psy-engine consist of clustered psyamplifiers,
null-wards, and fluid support devices joined to the
tormented brains within.
The psyker is a resource to be expended—this is an Imperial
truth. But heretek Magi-Psykana go too far: forbidden gene-manipulation;
neuro-active implants to induce and control
psyker manifestation; and holding back psykers from the
Imperial Tithe. Archmagos Callophe, incinerated in 583.M41
by Ordo Malleus forces, sought to eliminate the troublesome
human element in her psyker resources. Her coven tended
vats of pulsing, device-ridden psyker brains, all other flesh cut
away and the minds within afflicted by a controllable form
of blind insanity. Callophe was not the originator of this vile
lore, but her name now attends it. Other hereteks practice it
yet, harvesting the living brains of psykers to consign them
to lives of sightless horror and madness.
Using the Psy-Engine
A militant warded against psychic overspill carries the director
wand, whilst a servitor or expendable menial bears the weight
of the psy-engine. When the militant triggers the psy-engine
to attack, the maddened psykers within are goaded to strike
at the closest target indicated by the wand (note that the Psy-
Engine effectively never runs out of ammunition and never
needs to be “reloaded”). When the wielder activates the Psy-
Engine, roll on the following table:
*01-03
The psy-engine ruptures under the strain
and the tortured brains within expire in a
psychic death scream. Roll three times on
the Psychic Phenomena table.†
*04-06
One of the encased psykers dies in agony,
its protective null-wards burned out. Reduce
the damage of future effects by 1d10. If this
occurs for a second time, the psy-engine
can no longer be used. Roll on the Psychic
Phenomena table.†
*07-09
The director wand fails: every living being
and machine within 10 meters of the psyengine
is engulfed in witch-fire and suffers
2d10+5 Energy damage. Roll on the
Psychic Phenomena table.†
*10-15
The null-wards and goad-implants flicker in
their operation, and the psy-engine fails to
operate. Roll on the Psychic
Phenomena table.†
*16-20
The insane psykers attack the machinery
that torments them, but are restrained by the
null-wards. The psy-engine fails to operate.
*21-30
One target suffers 3d10+10 Energy damage
as warp-lightning arcs from the director
wand. Roll on the Psychic
Phenomena table.†
*31-40
Everything in a 10 meter sphere about the
target in engulfed in witch-fire and suffers
2d10+5 Energy damage. Roll on the
Psychic Phenomena table.†
*41-70
One target suffers 3d10+10 Energy damage
as warp-lightning arcs from the
director wand.
*71+
Everything in a 10 meter sphere about the
target in engulfed in witch-fire and suffers
2d10+5 Energy damage.
†The results of a roll on the Psychic Phenomena table are
applied to the person closest to the psy-engine—usually the
menial set to carry it—rather than the psyker brains inside.
Their suffering is not so easily ended.
Psychic Blight
A psy-engine presents a continual danger to soul and sanity
unless it is stored within a stasis field, the heavy psy-barriers
of an Astropathica facility, or the like. The foaming, blind
madness of the psykers within constantly seeps through the
psy-engine’s null-wards, and anyone within 100 meters is
afflicted by half-heard whispers, fleeting visions of horror,
phantom pains, and strange urges. A few hours spent
within 100 meters of an unshielded psy-engine requires a
Challenging (+0) Willpower Test—failure inflicts 1
Insanity Point and 1 Corruption Point. This Test is repeated
once per day for so long as the psy-engine remains nearby
and unshielded.
Dangerous Enhancements
Dangerous, unexplored ways exist to enhance a psy-engine.
For example:
*A psyker can strive to control the insane minds within the psy-engine, adding a +10 bonus to rolls on the Effect Table while touching the psy-engine. He cannot use Psychic Powers of his own while concentrating upon this effort. Psychic Phenomena rolls made as a result of using the psy-engine apply to this psyker. Afterwards, the psyker must make a Challenging (+0) Willpower Test or gain 1d5 Insanity Points.
*Adding the psy-drug Spook to the psy-engine nutrient fluids adds a +10 bonus to rolls on the Effect Table and +25 to consequent rolls on the Psychic Phenomena table for 1d5 hours.
Basic, 100m, Special, PEN 0, WT 15kg, Cost 41000, Very Rare
==Empyric Conduit-Blade==
The heretek Mechanicus faction known as the Empyric
Engineers employs numerous device-patterns to turn the warp
upon itself and annihilate daemons that transgress upon their
labors. The oldest and most revered is the Empyric conduitblade,
a sacred standard for these Machine Cult hereteks.
An adamantine mono-edged conduit-blade is a centerpiece
in every Engineer shrine: inset field-guides of gold run the
length of the blade, the hilt is a warp-mechanism, and at the
base of the blade is a socket for a small null-field generator.
Vast warp-machines stand within hidden strongholds of
the Engineers, used to draw forth the essence of the empyrean
and imprison it within null-field containments for study. Much
smaller null-field generators are constructed for attachment
to a conduit-blade; they look like glittering gems laced with
circuitry, belying the danger of their contents. Inside, raging
and incoherent, is raw warp-matter—without this imprisoned
Empryic energy, a conduit-blade is no more than a symbol.
Special:
Empyric Discharge: the wielder can choose to discharge
the null-field generator on a successful strike, allowing
warp-stuff to foam out through the conduit-blade and into
the target. This causes an additional 1d10 Energy Damage,
or 2d10+5 Energy Damage to targets with the Daemonic
Trait. Neither physical armour nor Daemonic toughness
protects against this Damage. A non-Daemonic target gains
2d10 Corruption Points and 2d10 Insanity Points and will
immediately mutate: roll once on the Major Mutations table
and once on the Minor Mutations table. The conduit-blade’s
wielder gains 1d5 Corruption Points, and everyone within
25m must make a Fear (2) Test as screaming visions of the
warp briefly radiate from the blade and its victim.
A small null-field generator contains sufficient warp-matter
for 1d10 Empyric Discharges. The generator is Very Rare,
costs 17,000 Thrones, and weighs 1kg.
Melee, 1d10, R, PEN 2, Balanced, WT 3kg, Cost 45,000, Very Rare
==Immateria Ward==
An immateria ward is a form of null-field projector and
machine spirit cogitation core intended for armor, portable
shield-walls, and similar devices. Empyric Engineers who
infuse the warp into their machinery are rarely insane---at the
outset at least. They understand the need for protection from
corrosive warp-energies, and so turn to heretekal archeotech
lore concerned with creating machine spirits that can channel
the warp.
Placed upon armour (to the accompaniment of long ritual
and forging of the machine spirit) an immateria ward appears
as a sigil within a circle, both shapes outlined by thin silver
cables set into shallow channels. The null-field projector and
cogitation core are hidden beneath the center of the sigil.
The potent machine spirit within slumbers until it senses the
presence of the warp; when it wakes to action, the silver cables
smoke and glow with a purple mist of dissipated Empyric
energies.
The Empyric Engineers have long granted immateria wards
to allies as a form of compact---loyalty from the hereteks, and
willingness to embrace Dark Tech from the ally. Thus the
ward sigil has become a reviled symbol of the outcast Empyric
Engineers in the eyes of loyal Mechanicus, such as militants
of the Cult of Sollex, whose Magi direct Auxilia Myrmidon
hunter-cohorts far and wide across the Calixis Sector to slay
those who bear the sign of the heretek Empyric Engineers.
Mere association with the owner of an immateria ward bears
a risk of death at the hands of the Machine Cult---or worse,
a short life connected to the interrogation machinery of a
Magos-militant.
Protections of an Immateria Ward
The machine spirit of an immateria ward protects its bearer
by blocking up to 6 Corruption Points gained from direct
exposure to warp material. This prevention occurs once for
each exposure, but the ward has no effect on other sources
of Corruption. Additionally, the ward blocks up to 6 points
of Damage caused by a psyker power. An armor location
set with an immateria ward provides an additional 6 Armor
Points versus daemonic attacks, force weapons, and the
Damage of pure warp-energies.
Cost 17,000, WT 1kg, Very Rare
==Speculum Umbrae==
A speculum umbrae is an intricate crystalline device formed
of layer upon layer of circuitry arrayed like the petals of a
flower---a piece of barely understood archeotech infused with
warp-knowledge of the heretek Mechanicus Calixis faction
of the Empyric Engineers. A handbreadth wide, it is much
heavier than it looks and consumes power prodigiously.
The dead keep their secrets, but sometimes a Radical must
have those secrets. At great risk to the soul, it is possible to
summon shades of the dead via the dark arts of the Anima
Mori; hereteks of the Empyric Engineers use the speculum
umbrae device to achieve this end. When active, the speculum
crackles with energy as it draws forth visions of madness and
dead souls formed from particles of warp-matter. The sane
heretek employs immateria wards and servitor labor-proxies
to avoid direct exposure.
Commoners upon most Calixian worlds believe in
ghosts: that the dead sometimes linger where they died,
seeking vengeance or trapped by unfilled desires. Hive-world
Ecclesiarchs preach against these beliefs and call ghosts the
evidence of foul witchcraft. It is Calixian orthodoxy that all
souls go before the God-Emperor---He protects, and no-one
is overlooked. In contrast, Empyric Engineers assert that the
empyrean records echoes of tormented death-throes and the
mind that made them, ripples in the warp that drift across
time to exert their influence upon the Materium.
Regardless, ghosts raised by the speculum umbrae are not
who they were; they are hollow shells of souls, indistinctly
formed of glowing warp-motes and filled out by the tides
and evils of the empyrean. They may have the answer that a
Radical seeks, or they may be screaming, glowing phantasms
that try to possess the living. Only the strong-willed can
stand before moaning warp-ghosts and compel answers to
their questions.
Calling Upon the Dead
Activating the speculum requires a great deal of power. A tech-priest’s
Luminen Charge is insufficient: more appropriate is
the dedicated output of a manufactory plasma generator or
orbital bulk-lifter’s enginarium. The Game Master should rule
on the time, cost, and materials required to ready the speculum
umbrae: bringing in power conduits, rerouting power flows,
or using industrial capacitance cells. If a large energy store---such as a capacitance cell stack---is used in place of a generator
or enginarium, then the speculum can only remain active for
2d10 Rounds before draining the store.
Once emplaced and powered, activating a speculum
requires either a Very Hard (–30) Tech-Use, Difficult (–10)
Forbidden Lore (Warp), or Ordinary (+10) Forbidden
Lore (Archeotech) Test. If the Test succeeds, roll on the table
below with a +10 bonus for every Degree of Success.
Summoned shades remain for a few minutes at most before
the Speculum’s hold over their substance fades. If shades
appear, everyone within 25 meters of the Speculum gains
1d10 Corruption points from exposure to warp-motes, and
the location becomes permanently warp-tainted---obviously
haunted and cursed even for non-psykers.
Cost 60,000, WT 10kg, Very Rare