Dark Mechanicum - Notable Heretek Cults: Apostles of the Blind King - In 550.M37, during a dark period for the Imperium known as the Occlusiad War, the northwestern fringe of the galaxy was ravaged by a Heretek cult of rogue Tech-priests known as the Apostles of the Blind King. The Blind King and his followers viewed the very existence of weak, organic humanity as an affront to the Machine God. The Apostles uncovered wondrous artefacts lost in the Dark Age of Technology that allowed the creation of supernovae from the hearts of living suns. Constellations were forever changed as the Apostles purged the outer Segmentum Obscurus. War raged for a decade, until the Navigator Joyre Macran discovered the palace-warship of the Blind King hidden in a fold of Warpspace. Escaping with his knowledge, Macran guided the Emperor-class Battleship Dominus Astra to the palace's location. The Blind King was killed when the Dominus Astra's Lance batteries pierced the palace-warship's hull, and without their leader's Warp-gifted prescience the Apostles were swiftly overcome and exterminated.Children of Ryne - The Children of Ryne are a Heretek cult that arose with the spread of the Levelist heresy of the notable Arch-Heretek Nomen Ryne, and the Children now worship him as a saint. Through his creation of the constructs known as False-Men (machines built to appear as heavily augmented Tech-priests) the Children of Ryne believe the False-Men bring messages and new tech-patterns from Nomen Ryne himself.Empyric Engineers - The Heretek splinter of the Mechanicus known as the Empyric Engineers operate within the Calixis Sector in the Segmentum Obscurus. They are known to employ numerous device-patterns to turn the Warp upon itself and annihilate daemons that transgress upon their labours. 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. Empyric Engineers who infuse the Warp into their machinery are rarely insane -- at the outset of their labours at least. This Heretek faction is also known for creating a foul device known as an Immateria Ward -- a form of null-field projector and Machine Spirit cogitation core intended for armour, portable shield-walls, and other similar devices. 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. The Empyric Engineers have long granted Immateria Wards to their allies as a form of compact—in return for the loyalty of the Hereteks their allies are expected to embrace Dark Tech. Thus the ward sigil has become a reviled symbol of the outcast Empyric Engineers in the eyes of Loyalist members of the Mechanicus like the 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 servants of the Machine Cult—or worse, a short life connected to the interrogation machinery of a Magos-Militant.Logicians - The Logicians are an alliance of Heretic factions who have long been a thorn in the side of the Calixis and the nearby Ixaniad Sectors. Founded not around a single charismatic figure or dark religion, they find their inspiration in a forbidden heretical text called In Defence of the Future: A Logical Discourse. Banned now for several millennia, the Logicians are a so-called "progressive" cult, favouring the advancement of Mankind through progress and the acquisition of technology, believing that they should cast off the oppression of the Adeptus Ministorum, overthrow the High Lords of Terra and put an end to the smothering constraints of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Ultimately, the Logicians aim to bring about a return to the mythic power of the Dark Age of Technology. Finding adherents through a secret network of ruthless mercantile interests and power-hungry nobles, they are a haven for Hereteks and rogue Tech-priests, and are highly organised and well resourced. Although no daemonic force or apocalyptic agenda lies at their heart, the Logicians are still a phenomenally dangerous group, utterly callous in their pursuit of power and unceasing in the hunt for ever better weapons and tools by which to achieve their ends.Malygrisian Hereteks - This Heretek cult is comprised of the corrupt followers of the infamous Renegade Magos Umbra Malygris, who led this widespread and insidious cult that once flourished in the Malfian Sub-sector of the Calixis Sector in the 6th century of M41. Eventually the Renegade was tracked down and he and his followers destroyed in a bloody confrontation with a joint Inquisitorial-Mechanicus purgation force. Since then his works and researches have been brutally, but not completely, suppressed. Despite the sanctions against it, Malygris’s lore persists, kept alive in no small part by those Tech-priests tasked to hunt down rebellious members of the Mechanicus itself, much in the same way as the more Radical factions of the Inquisition seek to turn the tools of the Archenemy against its own followers, risking destruction at the hands of their own kind. Some Heretek Malygrisian Tech-priests, later purged from the foundry wards of Port Wrath, practiced a form of mutational bioforging upon their workers to both improve their quotas and control them, body and soul. For all the dreadful consequences of the bioforging’s eventual failure, the wealthy and powerful have since been tempted by the possibilities of the body remade, both for their "chosen servants" and even for themselves, and the secrets of this blasphemous technology have spread to several worlds across the sector despite a ban by both the Inquisition and the servants of the Machine Cult.Tech-Witches of Ammicus Tole - This Heretek cult is made up of the corrupt followers of the Arch-Heretek Ammicus Tole, who rules the decaying and dying world of Sinophia in the Calixis Sector. To all but the inner circle, Ammicus Tole is a rumour -- a distant and hidden lord of tech-heresy. The cult of Ammicus Tole has made its mark upon Sinophia, its heresy overflowing to taint the poor and the villainous. Sinophia is a decaying world, its civil structures failing, its ancient grandeur rotted. Ruins of the past loom tall, towering above squabbling noble courts and the half-hearted Imperial caste. The Sinophian Machine Cult is as corroded as the manufactories and spires it once diligently maintained. It has fallen into mind-rust -- a mix of disarrayed beliefs and damage to neuroaugmetics that would horrify a Forge World Tech-adept. Another of Umbra Malygris' countless abominations was the creation of the Apostic Matrix -- electrostaves that can scourge the mind and soul with occult energies, tearing down the foundations of faith and loyalty. Some Radical Inquisitors have found the Apostasic Matrix to be a potent addition to an interrogation chamber, and take great pleasure in setting this tool of the Archenemy upon blackened the blackened souls of Heretics.