Nomen Ryne

"This past year upon Alactra I have trapped and excruciated the least-hereteks known as Children of Ryne, but not because I care one iota for the forbidden cogitation-devices that Magi call a plague upon the Malfian worlds. No, I hunt the beast Nomen Ryne himself, he who seeks to return the Iron Men to existence and thereby tear down the Imperium with terrors from the Dark Age. Those who adulate him are the fingers I must follow to find the arm, shoulder, chest---and thence, his beating, blackened heart."
–From the Journals of Inquisitor Felroth Gelt 3.582.710.M41
The arch-heretek Nomen Ryne has plagued tech-priests of
the Malfian and Golgenna sub-sectors since he issued his
Precepts Mechanicus in the 4th century M41. Originally a
Levelist, he taught a tech-focused form of that suppressed
creed of equality: that the God-Emperor provided mankind
with technology as weapon and shield against the darkness
and that it was His most ardent desire that all men be so
armed, equally and in brotherhood. Ryne declared the
Mechanicus to be slavemasters and sought to spread techknowledge
to all.
Nomen Ryne vanished into hiding some few years after
the issuance of his Precepts, declared heretek by Mechanicus
and heretic by Ministorum. The Cult of Sollex hunted
Ryne’s followers most zealously, as their number included
many known for their skill in constructing unsanctioned
cogitators. His influence has spread and many rumors of his work remain, including theories that he is responsible for the schismatical data-patterns in the deep infotombs of Lathe-Hadd, but no connection has been proven. A chance encounter with the Inquisitorial tech-adept Cyrrik Scayl turned the heretek-hunter into a heretek himself.
It is not known whether Ryne himself was the originator
of the unholy Thirteenth Pattern of Cogitation, a way to
construct cogitation cores that is reviled by the Calixian
Mechanicus. By the 9th century M41, such questions of
origin have become unimportant. The Thirteenth Pattern is
endemic amongst outlaws of Golgenna and Malfian hives;
devices and unsanctioned cogitators travel the black paths
of smugglers and pirates alongside vox-heresy and scofflaw
augmetic limbs.
The Mechanicus hatred of Ryne has not diminished, as
his name and influence have only grown over the centuries.
Cults arose with the spread of cogitation-heresy, such as
the Children of Ryne who worship the arch-heretek as an
Imperial saint. It was through these cults that the Mechanicus
and the Ordos first learned of the false-men of Nomen Ryne,
for the false-men are angels in the eyes of Ryneite hereteks.
Enough false-men have been dismantled by the Ordos for
their nature to be clear, albeit horrifying. The false-man is a
machine built to appear as a heavily augmented tech-priest,
incorporating all the traditional Mechanicus cybernetic
modifications, or at least the appearance thereof. A falseman
is capable of volition, speech, and planning---more
than enough to cast it as the forbidden Silica Animus, an
attempt to recreate the dread Men of Iron and so bring back
horrors of the Dark Age of Technology. But false-men are
paltry manikins by comparison to the Men of Iron. Their
speech is disjointed and often irrelevant, as though mad or
mind-rusted. Their reactions to circumstance are similarly
telling---unexpectedly violent, strange, or illogical. Their
movements are off-key and inhuman, exactly as though a
machine pretended to be a man. Yet they can construct techdevices,
plan ahead, and perform the functions of a fabricator
tech-adept.
False Machine Temples populated by false-men exist in
the Malfian subsector. The Children of Ryne believe falsemen
bring messages and new tech-patterns from Nomen
Ryne himself. Some false-men claim to be Nomen Ryne. It
is possible that insanity and a strange form of ascension to
life eternal in the embrace of the machine lies behind these
centuries of heresy---but both the Cult of Sollex and the
Ordos Calixis are set on destruction of the false-men and are
little interested in answering deeper questions.
==Murder-Cogitator==
A dark lore of data-violation and ravishment of cogitator
machine spirits has long existed in the Calixis Sector. It is
suppressed by the Mechanicus at every turn, but cogitation
heresy remains widespread; there are always more hereteks to
carry on their damnable toil in the shadows. Many influential
figures in the Imperium so greatly desire unfettered access to
secret data that they turn to forbidden cogitation lore, and the
careful heretek prospers by preying upon these illicit desires.
Tech-devices capable of despoiling data-vaults have
spread across the Calixis Sector through the black paths
of smugglers, alongside vox-heresy, unsanctioned psykers,
and a thousand prohibited substances. Crime barons of the
Golgenna hives call these devices “murder-cogitators.” They
allow the uninitiated to pillage a cogitation array of encrypted
secrets, slay the machine spirit within, and leave a steaming
ruin behind. This is anathema to the Mechanicus, and Cult of
Sollex hunter-cohorts show no mercy to anyone suspected of
involvement with these vile devices.
The dominant pattern of murder-cogitator is produced
by adorants of the arch-heretek Nomen Ryne, cultists who
spread forbidden cogitation lore in the Malfian hive worlds.
Many of their tainted works employ the Thirteenth Pattern of
Cogitation, a heretek design abhorred by the Omnissiah no
matter what purpose it is put to. A Ryneite murder-cogitator
appears to be a heavy, bronze-cased data-slate ornately
embossed with raised scrollwork and cherubim. Paeans
declaring Nomen Ryne a saint and verses of Ryne’s Precepts
Mechanicus are engraved upon the device.
A Challenging (+0) Tech-Use Test is required to
successfully use a murder-cogitator. The heretek device must
first be connected to the target cogitator or data-vault by a
data-conduit cable. Once activated, the murder-cogitator
retrieves and decrypts at least some data best matching
a formulaic description provided by the heretek, and then
destroys everything else. The target is rendered unusable: its
cogitation core charred; its machine spirit horribly slain; and
its data volatized.
The most imposing machine spirits, such as those of
voidships, Machine Cult temples, or archeotech devices,
are potent enough to be immune to the murder-cogitator’s
embrace. Vengeance will likely soon follow any attempt to
violate their sanctity, taking the form of enraged Tech-Priests
and Machine Cult militants.
Cost 9,000, WT 1.5kg, Rare
Data-Conduit Cable (5m): Cost 20, WT 1kg, Scarce