Samech - The Way of the Iron Pit: Any appraisal of Samech would immediately reveal its origin as a Forge World. Every planet and planetoid in the system hosts extensive mining operations, with massive machines extracting ores and minerals to feed the forges. Mass freighters connect them all to Samech itself, a world enclosed in a perpetual blanket of dark grey clouds.Below the clouds is the source: stack after stack of vertical pipes rising even to the lower cloud decks and billowing thick smoke into the acrid air. No sign of the actual surface can be seen, for all is covered with layered factories, burning, creating, forging night and day (though there are few who can tell the two apart given the atmosphere). Robed figures wander without wasteful delay in their tasks, exposed cloth allowing glimpses of artful mechadendrites or metallic limbs.Closer examination reveals more of the real nature of Samech. Xenos vessels flit about the system, trading openly without retribution. Vast slave forces work the cruel machinery, crushed to ruined pulp should they fall. Obvious mutants walk the iron lanes connecting the complexes, undisturbed by biologis-proctors seeking righteous genetic purity.Automated multi-limbed mechanisms stalk across the girders connecting forge spires, with no Tech-overseer guiding their actions. And unhidden, clear to even a casual glance: the influence of the Ruinous Powers. Runes and glyphs of unholy meaning litter walls, declaring patronage to dark gods.Even the Tech-priests carry these marks upon their branded flesh, their allegiance to the Machine God burned away from their synapses. The forges themselves burn with the terrible smells of burning blood and scorched flesh, fed by souls as well as Promethium and steel. The blessed cogwheel is gone; instead there are leering metal skulls set in a circlet of spiked teeth.Possibly worse for any loyal servant of the Omnissiah though would be the sense of disorder. There is no proper, logical structure to the world. Forge-cities rise in random fashion, lurching towards the skies and deep into the planetary crust at the whim of their lord. Factories lie in ruins elsewhere, collapsed from internecine combat that would be unheard of on a true colony of Mars.For Samech is more than a simple fallen Forge World; it is a planet in constant tension between dozens of rival forge-cities, each fighting, scheming and struggling for dominance. Only the forge that can intimidate, bribe and irrefutably demonstrate its mastery of all technology is fit to rule Samech and its Dark Magos proclaim himself Furnace Lord.Such rule extends only so long as another forge-city does not topple it through their own exhibitions of more powerful weaponry, alliances with xenos and Chaos warhosts, or access to lost archeotech.At any given time there are perhaps a handful of forge-cities on Samech that count themselves as dominant powers, each perhaps leading factions of numerous minor furnaces. The standings of the forges are not set in iron though, and will rise and fall with the fortunes of their forge-lords. New exclusive rights for the discoveries made by xenos scavengers, armaments arrangements to Chaos warlords, revelations of new technological breakthroughs -- all of these could raise a lowly district to planetary power.Alternately, the failure of a new Warp-Drive configuration or the loss of a slave pen due to revolt could lower a forge-lord to casting Stubber shells to survive. Each forge-district is constantly striving to better themselves at the expense of others; none rise so fast as when they push everyone else down under them.Most of the forges have at least in some portion made dealings with the Ruinous Powers, supplying their forces with needed armaments and armours and gaining power at the expense of their souls (or ideally the souls of their slaves). Sabotage and spying are constant, and a forge is often only as prosperous as its own security forces are effective.The forge-cities are as varied as the myriads of raw materials they burn, chew, and remake into the weapons and vehicles for which Samech has become infamous. Some, such as Hexal, in many ways preserve their ancient ways of slow study and careful refinement, with their extensive (and closely guarded) collection of rare tech-patterns allowing them to retain valuable markets.While it in no way espouses retreating to the close-mindedness of the Adeptus Mechanicus, their Tech-priests still see the value of deliberation and caution. Their merchandise is always of the highest quality, such that many of their customers also supply tithed warriors to help defend the district and ensure regular delivery of their supplies.The majority though feel the opposite, frantic to extend their technological reach wherever it might lead in their pursuit of power. Forge Dimeris has constructed technological heresies that walk and perhaps even think like men. Delos Thuvial's district has produced prismatic engines that glow with unnatural lights and derive power through drained life energies.The Irradial Forge seems to have mastered infusing soul with machine to create daemonic engines of fury and steel. Even more reckless in their quest for knowledge is the Cambered Bridge, where Hereteks study the interactions of the tenuous membrane that bounds reality to the Empyrean. Their replications of Warp eruptions, the better to master the Sea of Souls, have destroyed several small asteroids and portions of one moon.Most have extensive Explorator fleets roaming the Jericho Reach for new xenos species to exploit, archeotech to loot, and civilisations to enslave, frequently clashing with Deathwatch teams acting to counter their aims and Rogue Traders seeking to do exactly the same but in the Emperor's name.There is a smattering of small manufactoria controlled by their own workers, the serfs and slaves having perhaps overthrown their masters, or else the Tech-priest functionaries decided it was more logical that their Magos-lords not interfere with their operations. As long as the contracts are filled there is little opposition, though such forges are always at risk from conquest by the more legitimate powers.The Underforge of Kith is literally underground, stealing resources and siphoning power where they can to keep their furnaces burning. They deal with all, no matter the established contracts, and are the bane of the other forges. Their factories regularly destroyed, they roam the ancient infrastructure that descends deep into the planet, rebuilding from forgotten old forges and mining operations.