Arch Mechanicum Ordo Templar

The **Ordo Templar**, also known as the **Machine-Guard** and the ***Legiones Mechanicum***, are the cybernetic military forces of the United Martian Mechanicus Empire. Their origin can be traced back to the United defense of Mars during the Venusian Jihad.

Since that time, the Templar Ordos have been on an ever present Crusade to expand the reaches of the United Mechanicus and prove their undying loyalty to the Machine God. To a man, the Ordo Templar are warriors born. They take pride in their holy work, glorying in the power of the Machine God as He drives them to ever greater feats. Their augmented Reticles and calibrators pick out targets with uncanny accuracy, Galvanic Rifles bark and servitor-bullets find the skulls of the foe.

Rad Weapons borne with martyr's strength turn the battlefield ever more toxic until it is as befouled as the Red Planet's own wastes. On titanium limbs the Ordo Templar stalk the war zones of the galaxy, looking from above like the columns of rust-mites that haunt the dunes of Mars.

Their boundless faith in the Machine God and His physical incarnation, the Logossiah, drives them on without the need of petty sleep. For their meditations on divinity are rest enough.

Once contact is made with the enemy their pace does not slacken, yet neither does it increase. With the barest of shivers the Skitarii receive doctrina imperatives from their Marshals in orbit. Rifles and carbines are raised to shoulders in perfect unison, and bloody war begins.

Templar Orders are used to defend United Mechanicus Forge Worlds, manufacturing installations elsewhere in the Machine Empire and often accompany high-ranking Tech-priests and Cardilogos as their bodyguards.

But once eschewing the establishment of a true homeworld, the Templar Orders took to the stars in their mighty war fleets. Rather than constructing a single fortress-monastery, the Templar Orders determined to establish a Legion keep upon each world they conquered, to keep watch for treachery, to stage future crusades, and to recruit new blade-brothers.

The subsequent High Marshals of the Chapter have followed the example of their founder and taken the fight to the realms of the xeno, the Heretic, and the witch. The Ordo Templar are crusaders, holy warriors battling to bring the truth and light of the Machine God to the unconquered worlds of the galaxy.

With Galvanic Rifle and Force Sword, the Templar Orders convert the benighted to the light of the true Master of Mankind and destroy those who refuse to welcome His truth. Each crusade is directed by the will of the Marshal in command, and each is dispatched by the decree of the Grand Marshal Dominus Superior of his Templar Order to fulfill their prime mission to cleanse the stars.

Each crusade force is raised from available fighting companies in order to prosecute a particular foe, purge a specific region of space or attain a definite goal. Many of these wars are planned and undertaken by the Chapter itself, according to the wisdom of its current High Marshal and other highly ranked Chapter officers, but others are undertaken as a result of petitions from other institutions within the Imperium.

By a combination of raw zeal, augmetic enhancement, relentless psycho-conditioning and the continuous reinforcement of the Orders histories and battle honors, each blade-brother is an exemplar of the crusading warrior-knight, fired with righteous anger and driven to avenge every wrong ever done to the United Mechanicus by every Traitor, fiend, and alien to have ever commited the sin of existence.

A number of Mechanicus Titan Legions have maintained their own Templar detachments, colloquially known as Shield-Brethren, and if they do not, their Cardilogos masters will provide ample forces to protect the Reverent God-machines.

## History

### Blades of the Machine-God

The Ordo Templar are the bionic heart of the United Mechanicums infantry legions. Their tireless ranks defend the Forge Worlds of the Machine Empire, and annihilate the enemies of the Cardilogos, and fight at the vanguard of the Quest for Knowledge. As the technocracy of the United Mechanicus extends its reach into the stars, these cybernetic Templars are always at the fore.

Underneath their augmentic battlewear, the warriors of the Legions Mechanicus are still technically human, yet each has been heavily mutilated, dismembered and extensively rebuilt to better serve the Logossiah's will. Their manifold augmentation ensure not only their lethality, but also their utmost obedience. Neurosync implants allow the strictly-ordered Templar cohorts to fight in perfect concert, each maniple permanently uplinked to their masters via invisible streams of information.

To compare a Templar Maniple to a platoon of Imperial Troopers is to compare a well-oiled Arc Turret to a simple iron hammer. The Templars do not simply crush their hated foes, but instead pitilessly blast them into bloody chunks of flesh. Even as they do so they record every tiny screed of data for later analysis.

Just as the Templars upload the martial capabilities of the foe to their masters, the Marshals download their own programs into the Templars. It is usual practice for a legion's overseer Tech-priests to monitor each battle from a scryer-ship high above. Floating in a sea of data, each Adept sends battlefield commands down via data-tethers to the Templars on the planet below.

In this way their soldiers can be remotely augmented, used as eyepieces, forced into suicidal engagements, or even possessed entirely. The ever-devout Templar Brethren see these incidents as the divine spirit of the Logossiah entering them and acting through them to the betterment of the Machine Empire. To the Tech-priests, their minions are little more than electric puppets jerking upon strings of pre-programmed impulse.

The Ordo Templar Legions do not fight alone, for they escort the vast goliaths of the Titan Centurio Ordinatus to war, and even march in the shadow of the god-machines of the Titan Legions. It is the Templar Orders that bolster the battle robots of the *Legio Cybernetica* and they act as bodyguards for Cardilogos brave enough to take the field.

The United Mechanicus never deletes anything, and its appetite for knowledge knows no bounds. A Templar Order's sacred duty to protect its Forge World is second only to its quest for hard data -- information for their masters to digest, or to archive away unheeded to gather the dust of aeons.

## Templar Command Structure:

* **Grand Marshal Dominus Superior:** The Grand Master of his/her Templar Mechanicus Order. The Grand Marshal is the senior ranking Sword-Brother, and is equivalent to the Luminarchs/Legion Masters seen in Imperial Marine Legions. The fighting skills of a Grand Marshal are unsurpassed with Galvanic and Plasmor weaponry, blades or even their bare augmented hands, as his rank speaks of a bloody past littered with the devastated enemies of the most terrifying and inhuman sort. However, it is not enough for the Grand Marshal to be the Orders foremost warrior, for he must also be a superb tactician and strategist, grounded in the teachings of those who have gone before him and honed through countless decisions made in the heat of battle. He is also steeped in the lore of the Arch Mechanicus, privy to all of his Orders secrets. A Grand Marshal is a supreme commander of the Mechanicums ongoing crusades, keeping track of their overall progress and making tactical decisions in regards to the deployment of the Orders forces and occasionally blessing individual crusades with his inspirational presence. The Grand Marshal is one of the most autonomous military commanders in the United Mechanicum, decreeing by his own designs where his warriors will fight and without recourse to the dictates of the High Lords of Mars.
	+ **Seneschalus Dominus Major:** A Seneschalus is an official of a Templar Order who manages all the various logistics required to keep the Order functioning and profitable -- as well as matters of a darker but equally vital nature. The **Master of ceremonies**, master of coin and commerce, master of logistics, master of emissaries, master of whispers and spies: the Seneschalus is the quietly spoken individual in every Templar Order who is looked upon with trepidation by those who fear they have earned his suspicion. The mechanisms of trade and Templar affairs can not run themselves, and it is the Seneschalus whose hands are upon the blessed gears -- ever adjusting, ever careful, and ever vigilant.

* **High Marshal Minor:** High Marshals are the great warriors who lead the individual crusades of the Templar Orders. These ferocious warriors possess superb tactical abilities, second in experience to only the Grand Marshal themselves. The purity and ultimate success of a crusade is entrusted unto the High Marshal and such a duty is a sacred and glorious responsibility. A High Marshal is not only a warrior so deadly that he will rarely meet his match on the field of battle, but one whose expertise includes concerns beyond the battlefield, for the leading of a crusade is a mighty task indeed. As a result, only the most inspirational and determined warriors may rise to become a High Marshal, having long proved their courage and determination within the ranks of the Templar Tech Knights or as a Castellan leading a fighting company. The High Marshals are able to coordinate the Warriors under their command and lead them and their crusades to ultimate victory, whatever the opposition.

* **Castellan Commander:** A Castellan Commander is responsible for leading an entire fighting company of his Order on the field of battle during the numerous ongoing crusades conducted by the Templar Orders. Larger Crusades Fleets often comprise a number of the Orders fighting companies, each led by a Tech Knight(Veteran) raised to the rank of Castellan Commander. Only those Tech Knights who have proven themselves as devotional warriors and inspirational leaders may rise to this esteemed rank. These hardened Veterans have earned their ascension to command rank through their bloody and zealous dedication to the Mechanicums cause. As masters of the battlefield, Castellans are able to read its ebb and flow, and adjust their tactical formations accordingly. Leading from the front by example, a Castellan's warriors know what it is to be a Templar and a dedicated warrior of The Machine God and his Logossiah, and from his leadership they learn the trade of battle and the craft of death.

* **Tech Knight:** Senior members of the Templar Orders, and more machines than Men. The Knights of the Orders are valuable elite troops. The greatest warriors of a Templar crusade are inducted into the High Marshal's household. Known as the Tech Knights, they are no longer required to train Postulants and they will receive additional training, particularly in the use of the highly revered AAD(Alpha Assault Dominus) War Harness. After completion of this training, Tech Knights can use War Harnesses whenever available, usually selecting melee weapons to use with it, an area of combat where all Templar excel. Like most Templar, Tech Knights will fight with others out of familiarity rather than in organised squads, and they will always be found in the thickest of the fighting. If the High Marshal of a crusade is either killed or promoted to the position of Grand Marshal of the Order, one of the Tech Knights will be elevated to take his place. The Sword Brethren of a crusade who receives this honor is decided by ritual combat. The winner of the melee earns the right to become a High Marshal upon the approval of the Grand Marshal. The Tech Knights of the Templar Orders often wear a cream-colored cloak and have black trim on their crimson pauldrons to signify their elite status, and connection to mother Mars.

* **Blade Squire:** Augmented with Iron-Forged enhancements and greater weapons and armor. The Blade Squires, unlike their brethren of the lesser Postulants, are actively seen as true members of Their Orders. Blade Squire is the rank held by the majority of Templars until they have served long enough to be promoted to the Veteran status of a member of the Tech Knights. Squires serve in most of the standard tactical roles seen within the Templar Order and are also each responsible for adopting and training a set of Postulants until they has earned Squire status.

* **Postulant:** The Vat-Born, or conscripted grunts of the Templar Orders, Postulants are unaugmented Warriors armed with feeble, easily manufactured armor and armaments. Every Postulant, after they has been deemed worthy by the Orders Tech Chaplains and Technicians, is assigned to an apprenticeship with a full Initiate of the Order. When the Postulant's Squire feels that his student has gained the experience and wisdom necessary to make him an asset to the Order, he is raised to become a Squire himself. The new Squire is then required to begin the personal training of his own Postulants, and so the process repeats itself.

## Creation of a Templar

The Templars, like all other servants to his Glory, seek to grow ever closer to the Machine God by augmenting their bodies with the undefiled strength of metal. Each new wound is a chance for bionic revelation, and salvation. Such is their fanaticism that even healthy organs and body parts are cut away and replaced.

To face a Mechanicus Templar Order is to fight against warriors that are less than human, and yet far more deadly. As with so much of the United Mechanicums business, the truths of Templar creation are kept a close secret. Most Templars are born into the service of their Orders either as natural-born human menials of the Mechanicum who are then cybernetically-enhanced specifically to serve as the Templars or they are genetically-engineered clones or vat-born humans who are cybernetically enhanced from the moment of their accelerated "birth," much like certain types of Servus Ferrei. Others are repurposed from mind-wiped convicts or warriors handed over as punishment for failure or desertion.

Regardless of origin, all find a fanatical faith in the Logossiah soon after their inception as Postulants. It is then that their true transformation begins.

Without exception the warriors of the Orders have pallid bodies of puckered flesh and sutured cybernetics. Ceramic valves and adamantine sockets stud hard knots of pallid, translucent muscle. Even the brains of these warriors are grotesque hybrids of grey matter and twisting neurocircuitry.

The most blessed pass a point often revered as the "Mechana Dominus," their body more machine than flesh. Those that reach this stage of mechamorphosis are therefore known as Blade Squires, and some go on to later attain the rank of the Tech Knight -- veteran warriors who can operate independently for standard years if necessary, as solid and reliable as the titanium that replaces their flesh.

One who looked for technological consistency in Mechanicus augmentations would be sorely disappointed. A Templar of the Order may have a punchcard skullslot and leather bellows for lungs, whilst at the same time housing quantum bioware in his brain.

It is often said that were one of these enhanced warriors to be rendered down, traces of nearly every element known to man could be found somewhere in the remains. The Machine-priests know this to be no exaggeration, for dissection is but one of the dark fates a Templar might undergo in order to satisfy his Cardilogos masters' predatory curiosity.

The Templars train with their integrated cybernetic weaponry until they are of the appropriate age to be sent into a war zone. To guarantee their undying loyalty to the High Lords of Mars, all Templars undergo various forms of psychosurgery. Some have their minds wiped of both emotion and personality and are implanted with mental directives designed to ensure that they follow the orders of their commanding Machine-priest or Cardilogos without question, even to the point of being essentially remotely controlled.

But most Templars are allowed to retain a large degree of their personality, although their defining traits will always be belligerence and the desire to fight for their Machine God. Templar Postulants often undergo genetic enhancement programs that develop strength and aggression, and are physically and cybernetically augmented to further these traits.

During combat the Machine-Guard go into a hormone-induced rage, and it is often likely that a number of Warriors become addicted to the adrenal high that close combat delivers. Despite this, however, the Templars, particularly their commanders, are neurally modified so that the analytical parts of their brains remain a bastion of calm amidst a storm of wrath, allowing them to quickly evaluate the tactical and strategic situation and then act accordingly.

Along with their ability to understand binary code which can be nearly instantaneously sent, received and understood by the Templars augmented cerebral cortices, this allows them to operate with a remarkable degree of cooperation -- something all the more stunning to be seen in a seemingly ragtag, raging horde.

Like all of the adepts of the United Mechanicum, Warriors of the Templar Orders are experts at multitasking, and a Machine-Guard Marshal can, for example, effortlessly engage in vicious close combat, direct the forces under his command, whilst overseeing the tactical situation of the battle and provide coordinates for Titan artillery detachments, all at the same time.

As mentioned above, however, not all members of the Machine-Guard are so skilled, and some are merely remotely controlled or pre-programmed cybernetic weapon platforms, though these variants are primarily used to guard static locations. The level of cybernetic enhancement may vary between each Templar. Some may have very few genetic or even bionic enhancements, while others may have replaced whole organ systems with advanced technology.

Due to their extensive modification, the Templars can excel in almost any environment. Each Order often hailing from a hyper-industrialized Forge World -- and extreme doses of radiation are nothing to those who have trodden the toxic wastes of Mars. Even in the war-ravaged fringes of the Austral Proximitate the Templar Orders march onward. They have painstakingly conquered worlds across the breadth of the galaxy, and whatever perils they face, their march falters not.

#### Composition of a Templar

* **Eternal Vigil of Mars** - The Templars have their eyelids removed upon inception, for they must harvest data for their masters at all times. To prevent them from losing their sight to the hot grit of their Forge Worlds, goggle-like augments filled with blessed salves are sealed into place. The targeter arrays inside them are seen as miracles of the Logossiah, their sophistication the bane of the Mechanicums foes.
* **The Martian Breath of Life** - The Templars filter air into their augmented lungs via cognis rebreather tubes that plunge deep into the chest. When necessary they can draw upon a reservoir of polluted gases harvested from their homeworld of Mars.
* **Blessed Raiments** - The heavy crimson robes that the Templars wear to battle are lined with tiny leaden leech-spheres that absorb harmful energies. Branded above the hem is the squad number and the symbol of the Order to which he belongs.
* **Rad-Sensor** - This pitted bronze sphere is linked to a mechanalysis pack which connects the Templar to the digital imperatives of his masters. Its chimes inform the bearer when ambient radiation is at critical levels.
* **The Martian Tithe** - In imitation of the ancestor cohorts that first ground their limbs to bloody stumps upon the waste dunes of Mars, the Templar Postulants cut off their lower legs and replace them with prostheses of undefiled alloy.
* **Tools of the Logossiahs Conquest** - The weapons of the Templar are ancient and revered in form. They are all modified either to fire advanced ammunition types, or to harness the most baleful power sources yet discovered.

## Order Organisation

> "*To the darkness I bring fire! To the ignorant I bring faith! Those who welcome these gifts may live in HIS LIGHT, but I will visit naught but death on those who refuse them!*"
>
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### The Iron Crusades

The Templar Orders have no True homeworld, instead opting to live within their crusade fleets, or sparsely orbiting Mechanicus Forge Worlds. They are ever-vigilant, and are always ready for battle. They do establish keeps on every world they conquer or reclaim for the Mechanicus, both to provide a source for new recruits and to act as staging posts for crusade fleets operating across the Austral Proximitate.

They have been known to abandon these keeps, only to return and reclaim them later, usually exterminating anything foolish or unlucky enough to have taken up residence in their absence.

Each crusade fleet is overseen by a High Marshal, while the Grand Marshal of a Templar Order traveling between crusades on his/her own personal starship.

There are usually at least four Templar crusades operating at any one time, although at one stage there were 14 known to the Mechanicus, with each crusade ranging in size from the deployment of a hundred Templars and their fleet support to crusades containing several hundred thousand Blade-brethren.

It is said that only the Grand Marshal of his/her own Order has any idea of the total number of Templars, but it is rumored that they actually number close to almost a million Blade-brethren per Order. Meaning that such a force fully united would be nigh unstoppable.

The Chapter's history of zealous loyalty to the United Mechanicum and the inability of any Inquisitor to find evidence supporting the claims of unusually high standing troop numbers has spared the Black Templars from further revelation of their true numbers. However, this has not prevented the Inquisition from trying to reveal the hidden size of the Black Templars.

The larger Black Templar crusades contain multiple fighting companies, each led by a Sword Brethren of the Chapter who has been raised to the rank of Castellan. The largest crusades will be personally led by the High Marshal (as High Marshal Helbrecht did during the Armageddon Crusade called during the Third War for Armageddon).

Since the individual squads of each fighting company tend to form and disband on an *ad-hoc* basis, most fight together out of familiarity and comradeship more than any imposed organisation. Rough squads form with 5 to 10 Initiates (fully-fledged Black Templars) with no more than an equal number of Neophytes (Black Templars-in-training).

These squads have no sergeants, because the experienced members are quickly elevated to the rank of Sword Brethren, who take on the role of non-commissioned officers.

Due to their preference for engaging their foes in close combat, few Black Templars are willing to use heavy ranged weapons. As a result, Devastator Squads are unusually rare amongst the Astartes of this Chapter.

The Black Templars deviate from *Codex*-compliant Chapters, including the Imperial Fists, in one primary way. The Chapter's zealous hatred for mutants and inherent distrust of the Warp and anything related to it means that the Chapter possesses no Librarians. The Grey Knights, known for their incorruptibility and closeness to the Emperor, represent the only Imperial psykers that the Black Templars will take as allies.

The Black Templar's extreme revulsion to fighting alongside any individuals tainted by the Empyrean would normally prevent them from being allied with anyone with such abilities. The Grey Knights are the exception as the Black Templars consider it an honour to fight alongside Astartes whose membership was originally chosen by the Emperor, who bear a portion of His direct genetic inheritance and have never once been corrupted by Chaos.

This attitude can prove to be challenging for those Black Templars who are chosen to serve in the Deathwatch and must learn to fight alongside the Librarians of other Chapters as part of a Kill-team.

### Black Templars Crusade Organisation

The Black Templars is a fleet-based Chapter, their companies scattered across the galaxy into numerous crusades. Each crusade is led by a Marshal, while a single High Marshal is responsible for the progress of all the current crusades.

Below is the disposition of the Arkron Crusade, launched into the Ghoul Stars during the closing years of the 38th Millennium. A typical crusade comprised of Firstborn Black Templars, it numbered hundreds of battle-brothers, war machines and support elements, allowing it to campaign far beyond the Imperium's borders.