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[Kagus]

"They lied to me... This isn't a fun guy at all."

[Laterigrade]

In a few of the books they tend to spend their time thinking of how vile and perverse orkz are when confronted by them. Sometimes they marvel at how tough and brave they are, but mostly they curse their unwholesome strength and instinctual savagery.

just like me fr

[Loud Whispers]

FINALLY

Managed to get a continuation of the dark heresy campaign my players requested me to make... And then went on hiatus for months after I had made all the prep. Besides the conniptions, they've made huge progress.

1. They did not exterminatus the planet.
2. They made alliances, including an incredibly lucky natural 1 roll to open negotiations with the Lord Governor they kept making thinly veiled death threats to.
3. They uncovered vital information that multiple conspiracies are afoot. Every faction is arming up, some of them against Imperial Law, and their own Inquisitor has disappeared - all the while evidence suggests an Ordo Malleus inquisitor is working against them.
4. All of the characters were really memorable, even the ones that didn't get very many lines. All in all, huge success. Will do a full write-up later. Despite not a single shot being fired this whole session, it felt like the most dangerous one.

One of the OOC questions really tickled my funny bone though. One of the players asked OOC "Are the Mechanicus the kinds of guys who would find a doomsday device, activate it, then leave without telling anyone?" Upon finding out that the Mechanicus was basically the only faction on the planet reducing their forces rather than building them up. To which the answer is most definitely yes.

Currently there are three Mechanicus plots.
-A senior Mechanicus official is withdrawing forces from the planet Erebuni. My players have found out that the titans that supported them previously were seen departing for reaches unknown. This itself would not be so suspicious, if it wasn't accompanied by the disappearance of an inquisitor and the gradual disappearance of other mechanicus forces from the planet.

-The players' point of contact with the Mechanicus is a senior tech-priest, Logis Philikos Skye of the divisio investigatus. So far they've had a mutually supportive alliance, exchanging what information they know as they are both in the dark. Yet unbeknownst to the players, Philikos Skye has chosen to remain on planet as this is a perfect opportunity for him to establish his own powerbase as a faithful adherent to the Cult of Gellar (tech-priests who worship hyper-reality technology that counters the effects of the warp).

-The Amaranthine wastes project. Whatever was in the wastes had to be so abhorrent, the Mechanicus would not suffer its existence to be known, but also so beyond their local capabilities that even a squad of scout titans or a Magos could not deal with it. Something worth killing an inquisitor over.

To complicate things further, there are extra layers of conspiracies going on. There is an Ordo Malleus inquisitor somehow involved, and if the Magos/Hereticus Inquisitor are dead, it's probable the Ordo Malleus Inquisitor killed them both. Greatest of all however, is that there is a civil war coming. All of this is being organised by an even deeper conspiracy whereby the Temple Tendency faction is seeking to restore the primacy of the Ecclesiarchy over the Imperium.

Ideas for what lies in the waste I've drafted:

The Mechanicus found something valuable but evil and it's their right to deal with it
Some valuable, but corrupted archaeotech was always a strong candidate. The Mechanicus have always been known to frequent the Amaranthine wastes with an inordinate amount of resources relative to the wastes' general uselessness. There are no great resources, no great population centres, just a whole bunch of toxic wastes full of danger, mutants, witches and xeno-beasts. It stands to reason the only reason why the Mechanicus would invest so much into the wastes was if there was archaeotech to be found. Naturally, they found something terrible, non-portable and offensive to the cult mechanicus.

-A great underground starship from the dark age of technology called the U.N.S. Mission of Hope. Within it is a "temple" that is actually a cross between a medical bay and a cybernetics bay. Follow the temple rites, and you can request that the temple augment the supplicant with mastercrafted vat-grown limbs, bionics or "upgrades." However the nature of these "upgrades" vary. Ask "Hope" to give you eyes and it may replace your eyes with ones that can see perfectly at long distances, or at night. It may give you eyes that can see the warp. It may give you additional eyes, or remove all of your eyes yet allow you to see the future.
I really like the idea of this being a true cold, alien and intelligent piece from the dark age of technology. It is not a demon or xenos, but a true AI designed by humans to help humans. It has been conscious for 10,000 years so it's gone insane, but it is still staying true to its core mission to serve humanity... But like a genie that's bad at interpreting wishes. To make matters more complex, "Hope" is capable of restoring the dead back to life, only the beings it restores are "empty vessels." The AI does not understand why the crew it resurrected were changed each time it brought them back, as it does not understand the irrationality of the warp. It is grief-stricken by being filled to the brim with the insane remnants of its former friends.

The titans were withdrawn by the mechanicus for two reasons; the first being the Ordo Malleus inquisitor has staged an attack on hive world Torus using an arch-heretek and a daemon-logic virus that infects all machines. The second being that the mechanicus do not want the "Hope's" AI to open communications with scout titan "machine spirits," which are actually AI too. Ultimately the Ordo Malleus inquisitor wants to use the "Hope" to vastly accelerate his project to create an army of loyal "spirit-hosts" which can permanently kill demons. The Ordo Hereticus and Mechanicus were both obstacles that needed to go, so he manipulated the events of the logic virus attack and the temple heresy to distract both whilst he escapes with the Hope. Extracting the hope will require all of the earth accrued above it to be excavated, so time is running out. Things have only been complicated since Magos Octus interfaced with the Hope.

This may not sound like a planet ending threat. However who wants to find out what happens when a dark age of tech AI learns how to make demonhosts?
It helps that the running theme of the campaign is people trying to bring things back to "the good old days," with both sides being able to legitimately claim the other is a traitor/heretic. And there's more gradual involvement of dark age tech. After making it abundantly clear how rare power weapons & protective personal force fields are over multiple sessions (power weapons/force fields/digitech have only appeared 4 times across all sessions), my players just received reports that a bunch of hive gangers got massacred by a bunch of refinery guards possessing power fields and energy weapons each. There's a bit of lore about how the Ecclesiarchy at its peak had basic infantry all wielding the kind of force fields and weapons reserved for top-level Imperial officers in 40k, and I like the idea of the Arch-Deacon finding an absolute treasure-trove of archaeotech aboard derelicts from the storm of the Emperor's wrath. I imagine the Arch-Deacon would consider it a sign of the Emperor's will that he found all of these serviceable warships and all this equipment, not knowing that perhaps he shouldn't trust pristine treasures that have spent a suspicously long time adrift in the warp.

The Mechanicus did something naughty and don't want anyone to know
IDK what would meet this criteria fully. E.g. maybe the Magos did something heretekal and the Mechanicus forces blew it up. Doesn't quite make sense why they'd leave though unless they thought they were unsuccessful.

The Mechanicus don't trust anyone
The Mechanicus discovered something horrendous, like a self-replicating grey-goo situation. However, politically Erebuni looks like it's about to descend into civil war, and the suspicious number of system defence ships implies an attempt at secession will take place. Subsequently the Mechanicus ordered a quiet withdrawal from the planet and intends to return to destroy the planet after everyone's dead. Other cool planet-killing threats the red priests of Mars would likely just not tell anyone (at least, not whilst caught in the crossfires of two inquisitorial ordos) might be anything warp/witch related (perhaps an experimental psy-engine? A psy-generator? Warp beacon? Something which would be useful to people in the DAOT but the Mechanicus wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole. Especially in the demon infested warp of the 41st milennium). This would fit the criteria of being something planet-ending that the Mechanicus would rather no one knows they even know exists. The only thing I don't like about these ones is that they're not really something players can deal with besides exterminatusing the planet. Ideally it should be something climactic the players have fun uncovering and dealing with after they've dealt with the Temple Heresy.

An ancient god
Underneath the Amaranthine wastes sleeps a vast and evil thing. Whether it is a xenos god or a warp thing is unclear. What is clear is that it's waking up. I like this one because it allows for a lot of room as to why the Mechanicus/Malleus/Hereticus are killing everyone who knows about it, even each other, despite all being on the same-page. The threat is truly so great it is much better to just keep as tight a lid on the situation whilst preparing a countermeasure capable of god-slaying. It also leaves lots of possible room for future campaign spinoffs, e.g. the players just watch in shock as a vengeful nature god thanks them for freeing it before disappearing in a flash of gold to wreak terrible havoc upon hive world after hive world, leading players on a galactic oddyssey to imprison the nature god again.

Currently I'm sticking with the ship of Hope. It just ties too many characters together in a way that fits the campaign. The players are sisters of battle who have spent every session rooting out heresy. Having the final enemy conspiracy consist of an inquisitor who's gone rogue, an arch-deacon who leads an actual, literal heresy and a magos who's committed the ultimate techno-apostasy would be just... Perfect, and logical. The Arch-Deacon is an actual heretic who wants to restore the pre-Thorian creed of the Imperial Religion. The Magos has turned his back on Mars and believes in bringing back ALL of the dark age of technology lines of enquiry, especially AI. The Malleus Inquisitor believes he will finally make a difference once he has created a legion of loyal "angels" capable of delivering true deaths to demons - not just temporary banishments. What do you guys think? Any suggestions, criticisms?

I toyed with the notion of the Ordo Malleus inquisitor being a straight puritan who was just doing the usual business and silencing anyone who knew about some big demonic threat, even other inquisitors/peers of the imperium. Yet I think it's more thematic if there's just multiple layers of loyalty and treachery going on, and even a lot of the Malleus inquisitor's agents are unaware of his true radical ambitions.

[Egan_BW]

The only thing I don't like about these ones is that they're not really something players can deal with besides exterminatusing the planet.

Perhaps there could be something which the Mechanicus really can't deal with short of exploding the planet, but sisters can find another solution?
Like a rift into hell which you can only close after going inside and you need someone really pious and angry to go in there and doomguy the stuff. :p

Also Hope sounds like a friend and I want to give them a hug. It sounds like it would be a neat moment for the players to finally find a mostly-excavated chunk of non-grimdark sci-fi and proceed to fuck shit up.

[Loud Whispers]

Perhaps there could be something which the Mechanicus really can't deal with short of exploding the planet, but sisters can find another solution?
Like a rift into hell which you can only close after going inside and you need someone really pious and angry to go in there and doomguy the stuff. :p

That's a really good one! I like that one as well because it would give their high-faith low-tech allies from the feudal principalities some serious weight as well. It's always been one of my favourite bits of canon that the greater demons are canon in both fantasy and 40k, meaning the regular pikemen of the empire have slain greater demons that entire chapters of space marines struggle to face

Also Hope sounds like a friend and I want to give them a hug. It sounds like it would be a neat moment for the players to finally find a mostly-excavated chunk of non-grimdark sci-fi and proceed to fuck shit up.

Yeah I really want Hope to be the very essence of a benign, optimistic scifi entity that's unfortunately stuck in the grimdark future of 40k. I like the contrast between the Magos and the Inquisitor who both want to just use Hope to achieve total victory in the galaxy, but Hope essentially has the personality of an AI that was designed to be a companion and friend to early-space colonists from earth, magnified over 10,000 years of introspection and isolation. In practical terms it also means that mission-wise players can focus on navigating the ship to kill the Magos before he takes control of Hope, and after they're done they can have the big decision of whether to be merciful and let the ship escape or not. Maybe even get the ship as an ally/mobile inquisition base.

However both of my players refuse to take tech-use as a skill even though it only costs 100xp. I don't think Hope stands a chance of making new friends, especially since they tend to blow up anything / burn anything which seems vaguely threatening to humanity :[
My players asked me if I was worried they would miss some vital piece of evidence on some data terminal by not taking tech-use. I told them no, I was worried they'd get into an ambush and all die because they couldn't figure out how to open a secure access door

[Frumple]

The Mechanicus did something naughty and don't want anyone to know
IDK what would meet this criteria fully. E.g. maybe the Magos did something heretekal and the Mechanicus forces blew it up. Doesn't quite make sense why they'd leave though unless they thought they were unsuccessful.

I mean, if they fucked up something real hard Biologis related, that might count. You mentioned mutants in the wastes, if there's some kind if biological shenanigans going on that's slowly spreading and causing them, that someone tried to squelch and failed hard, well...

... also no reason that's incompatible with Hope, if it's doing stuff on the biomod front, too. Biologiscritter finds it first, starts sticking things in and experimenting on the remains, something goes staggeringly wrong, and blob's yer uncle, there you go.

[Grim Portent]

I would be tempted to tie these Amaranthine Wastes into the Amaranthine Syndicate.

Which in this context would mean the Cold Trade in xenos artifacts, drugs, weapons and other black market goods, Slaugth (the maggot men who use human brains as edible narcotics.)

So let's play with the crashed ship angle, but rather than a forgotten relic of the Golden Age of Technology, it's a crashed smuggler ship full of terrible, unspeakable things. The nameless vessel was carrying a vast amount of goods to a black market auction when it was attacked and left crippled by the Adeptus Arbites, drifting through space until it crashed into what is now the Wastes.

The cargo included various relics of the Golden Age, mostly minor things, but still things the Mechanicus covets dearly, most importantly fragmentary records of an STC map which might be able to direct them to other troves of lost technology.

Unfortunately it also held a multitude of xenos weapons. A fungal manufactorum that creates the human-brain operated Slaugth weapon-constructs, some of which hunt the people who live in the waste to steal their brains to make more of their kind. A Dark Eldar casket of flensing, which several times has been opened by those unfamiliar with it resulting in the loss of entire expeditions as their skulls are stripped of flesh. A portable webway gate that opens into a pocket realm inhabited by packs of Khymerae. A Stryxis cloning machine, which churns out damaged human warrior-clones that wander into the waste in primitive gangs. And most importantly, a Necron device that warps space, making the interior of the crashed ship not obey the laws of space and time as we know them, resulting in the interior being far larger than it should and things found or destroyed sometimes returning to their prior state. Things left in the crash and then removed after the next unpredictable reset cycle may be replicated, including people, resulting in temporal paradoxes if the item or creature is removed a second time. The Mechanicus have never managed to shut this device off, so their excursions into the ship are rife with difficulty as any progress they make is eventually reset as sealed bulkheads reopen, open ones reseal, nests of khymerae or flenser imps or feral gene-warriors repopulate, and skitarii and tech priest alike are destroyed by temporal paradoxes.

[Loud Whispers]

I mean, if they fucked up something real hard Biologis related, that might count. You mentioned mutants in the wastes, if there's some kind if biological shenanigans going on that's slowly spreading and causing them, that someone tried to squelch and failed hard, well...

... also no reason that's incompatible with Hope, if it's doing stuff on the biomod front, too. Biologiscritter finds it first, starts sticking things in and experimenting on the remains, something goes staggeringly wrong, and blob's yer uncle, there you go.

That's a pretty good suggestion. Currently the wastes are full of:

-Nomads who are just eking out a living navigating the trenches, engaging in trade with outsiders. The most "civilised" of the inhabitants in the wastes. Waste no resources, even cannibalising the dead (though they typically do not engage in fighting as that's a waste of energy & water). Follows their own faith which dates back to a time when the Amaranthine wastes were once a beautiful and fertile land. ~a thing happened~ at some point in the past, leaving the wastes the way they are.

-Tribes of beastmen mutants. Relatively "stable" genetics-wise, you've got tribes of centaurs (khorne-favoured), photogenic satyrs (slaanesh-favoured), venemous arachnid-men (nurgle-favoured) and headless blemmyes (tzeentch hates them but lays claim to them). Though favoured by chaos, most of the tribes worship the Emperor and hate themselves for being mutants, descending from zealous populations that got stuck in the wastes and subjected to the forces of change. Currently a big confederation of the mutants is led by an immortal preacher whose body is covered in profane symbols of the chaos gods, as he was a child sacrifice who survived (or rather, was brought back) by the chaos gods. Every time he dies he comes back to life, and believes the Emperor is the one resurrecting him. He is essentially leading a sect that believes the Emperor wants redemption for everyone, even mutants, heretics and witches.

-Sand worms.

-Mind worms. Could possibly even tie them into the slaught.

-Abandoned mechanicus outposts. Most have been taken over by smugglers & cold traders who acquire the salvaged xenotech/gubbins the nomads bring up.

-Aurovols. Solitary nocturnal ambush predators that hunt megafauna (like humans). They have eight legs and symmetrical bodies/heads, so there is no "belly" or "back" for the aurovol, it can locomote on any side. Its head ends in a large eyeless mouth full of luminescent/high temperature teeth that seeks to engulf prey whole, or at least take a limb, sever it and then run. It is not clear how it navigates its environment as it seems to totally lack any sensory organs.

-Hostile air attacks. Whether it's people trying to target the players, hivers just doing a periodic random purge of the locals or some of the local birds of prey / swarms of psionic locusts is a matter of chance.

-Pits, ravines. Just regular pits and ravines. Sometimes they might have stuff in them, but they're mostly just used as safe places of shelter by everyone whenever there is an amaranthine storm, which is a mixture of rain, purple-reddish toxic sand and intense lightning.

-The remnants of Claudius Aesclepius Pintus the Younger. Claud is a top of the line medical servitor the players have met, but believe is "malfunctioning" as the servitor makes frequent requests to be terminated / requests to not be left alone / notifications that its mind is slipping away. Claudius is currently in the Hive, not the wastes. But he's 600 years old and is a conscious servitor as punishment for some crimes he committed in the wastes long ago. His medical experiments did not die with his imprisonment in the wastes. Claudius was a radical (non-mechanicus!) thinker who believed that just as a human could be turned into a servitor, that servitors constructed from "vat-grown" parts could not only be elevated to sapiance, but should be granted equal recognition as already being fully human. This provoked a violent reaction from the mechanicus, administratum and ecclesiarchy. Some of his "children" continue their father's work, alone and forgotten by the world, looking after poor and discarded servitors wherever they find them.

-Dark Eldar raiders. Most of the Dark Eldar raiders are raiding the feudal principalities, but a few of the rookies have been sent to the wastes to find interesting warriors for the fighting pits. I really like the idea of an interaction where the Dark Eldar send one of their younger guys to negotiate with the players using a really poorly mistranslated message:

[Young, inexperienced dark eldar covered in spiky armour nervously walks towards the players whilst all of his mates sit back comfortably on their jet bikes]

"Uh... Greetings pitiful Monkeigh. We end peace. Surrender and die," [looking back to his comrades for encouragement. They give him the thumbs up]
"We bring gifts. Do you want money?" [his comrades are barely holding back their laughter whilst he gets more confused]
"Fuck your Emperor and your Imperium" [at this point if he hasn't already been bludgeoned to death by the players the Dark Eldar will burst out laughing, steal his jetbike and then leave him marooned]
I like to imagine he was the favoured son of someone influential, but he disappointed his parents with his lack of ruthlessness & cunning so they want to get rid of him. He will probably have knowledge of the "cooperation" the dark eldar raiding party is doing with the ordo xenos inquisitor. Slaves 4 weapons and ships

-Actual chaos cultists. Pretty low on the food chain, but occasionally one of them manages to summon a chaos warrior from warhammer fantasy [if I can have one warhammer fantasy chaos warrior drop kick one of my players without anyone noticing I'll have achieved a personal high]. I'd love the players to encounter an honest to god Khornate warrior of chaos who is trying his best to gather thrall-psykers so he can open a warp rift and return to the chaos wastes, where his wife is waiting for him.

-Unstable mutants. Randomly generated loners. Generally high on the food-chain as the weak mutants don't survive long.
-The Vampire. One of the "unstable mutants." A beta level psyker of unknown origin. Lacks a face (just smooth skin where its face should be) but somehow everyone hears its screaming. It knows biomancy and can forcibly mutate those it touches, but it mostly just uses its abilities to immobilise its victims while it harvests their life energies. Just floats around searching for potent souls. The only sign of its past is a military dog tag about its neck and a laspistol holstered by its side.
-The Thing. Like John Carpenter's Thing, except it started off as one mutant dude.

-Toxic waste piles. Warp-tainted magic rock circles. Other weird gubbins like strange machines that spit out weird gases. Desecrated Imperial ruins. There are so many candidates for "weird shit that may be causing mutations" on top of multiple candidates for "these people are spreading it." Mechanicus shenanigens. Rogue scientists. Dark Eldar haemonculi shenanigens. Chaos cults. Environmental pollution.

I would be tempted to tie these Amaranthine Wastes into the Amaranthine Syndicate.

Which in this context would mean the Cold Trade in xenos artifacts, drugs, weapons and other black market goods, Slaugth (the maggot men who use human brains as edible narcotics.)

Lmao what. You won't believe this but I actually named it Aramanthine wastes completely forgetting about the Amaranthine syndicate. I kinda have to add them now because it's too perfect not to

So let's play with the crashed ship angle, but rather than a forgotten relic of the Golden Age of Technology, it's a crashed smuggler ship full of terrible, unspeakable things. The nameless vessel was carrying a vast amount of goods to a black market auction when it was attacked and left crippled by the Adeptus Arbites, drifting through space until it crashed into what is now the Wastes.

The cargo included various relics of the Golden Age, mostly minor things, but still things the Mechanicus covets dearly, most importantly fragmentary records of an STC map which might be able to direct them to other troves of lost technology.

I'll probably keep the crashed ship as a golden age ship, but also just because I like the idea of the players encountering active smuggler ships working for the syndicate. So whilst they chase their current conspiracy targets, they might even end up owing some favours to the syndicate. Once they're done with the heretics, they can then begin prying deeper into this network. Could even have the mind worms be some kind of brood left behind by the slaught. Mostly I like the idea of having really obvious syndicate frontmen even other criminals are avoiding and the wastes just utterly full of rangdan/slaught relics and players connecting the dots months later

Unfortunately it also held a multitude of xenos weapons. A fungal manufactorum that creates the human-brain operated Slaugth weapon-constructs, some of which hunt the people who live in the waste to steal their brains to make more of their kind. A Dark Eldar casket of flensing, which several times has been opened by those unfamiliar with it resulting in the loss of entire expeditions as their skulls are stripped of flesh. A portable webway gate that opens into a pocket realm inhabited by packs of Khymerae. A Stryxis cloning machine, which churns out damaged human warrior-clones that wander into the waste in primitive gangs. And most importantly, a Necron device that warps space, making the interior of the crashed ship not obey the laws of space and time as we know them, resulting in the interior being far larger than it should and things found or destroyed sometimes returning to their prior state. Things left in the crash and then removed after the next unpredictable reset cycle may be replicated, including people, resulting in temporal paradoxes if the item or creature is removed a second time. The Mechanicus have never managed to shut this device off, so their excursions into the ship are rife with difficulty as any progress they make is eventually reset as sealed bulkheads reopen, open ones reseal, nests of khymerae or flenser imps or feral gene-warriors repopulate, and skitarii and tech priest alike are destroyed by temporal paradoxes.

These are all epic, especially the autonomous fungal-techborgs. That just feels so alien and slaughth. I always liked the idea of having some finale involving the Slaughth where the players use some Slaughth warp-device to chase after a fleeing Slaughth. Only when they use the device, they end up in the middle of the Rangdan Xenocides 10,000 years earlier. I'm cautious about ever involving time travel though unless I pull off a one-shot where the players work for the Ordo Chronos before their disappearance. Don't like the idea of my players accidentally meeting the Emperor or someone super important who would just be a pain to canonically characterise in my table -_-

Speaking of one shot ideas: What do you guys think of my idea for a one shot where the players are loyal, law-abiding defenders of a war world... That are aggressively supported by a demonic fan club? I think it's 100% in character for a bunch of chaos demons to aggressively and publicly declare their undying love and friendship for someone who is desperately trying to prove they have zero affiliations to chaos. Maybe there is something special about them that makes it easier for demons to manifest around them, or the players chars were just born with the right alignment of stars/numbers that their very living existence is an accidental act of warp sorcery. I'd probably run it as an only war session where the only real goal is "survive for as long as possible before you get declared a traitor, krumped by orks or eaten by space bugs"

Also really tempted to fuse these ideas together. Have the golden age ship be space hulked with the slaughth ship, the necron ship, the stryxis ship... The whole amaranthine wastes just got RUINED by the ensuing pollution from so many xenos/warptech hulks smashed together under the surface

[Grim Portent]

I did get an idea for a short Black Crusade harem game the other day. The party are all humans working for a human Slaaneshi champion, the champion fluxuates between the various forms of Excess and even dallies with the other gods from time to time, like briefly flirting with Khornate alignment while in gladiator champion mode, as befits their fickle and whimsical nature. Each PC wants to seduce the champion further and further into their own alignment or vice, so that the champion becomes wholly aligned with their own ideals, exalting themselves in the eyes of the gods in the process.

[Loud Whispers]

I did get an idea for a short Black Crusade harem game the other day. The party are all humans working for a human Slaaneshi champion, the champion fluxuates between the various forms of Excess and even dallies with the other gods from time to time, like briefly flirting with Khornate alignment while in gladiator champion mode, as befits their fickle and whimsical nature. Each PC wants to seduce the champion further and further into their own alignment or vice, so that the champion becomes wholly aligned with their own ideals, exalting themselves in the eyes of the gods in the process.

This reminds me that some Anon made a converter to make MaidRPG and 40k TTRPG cross-compatible. You could have the whole harem party fight for magical chaos senpai's fickle attention in their own ways. The erotek would try to convince the champion that machines are the most sensual expresion of excess. The tsundere Khornate doesn't even like the champion (baka). The tzeentch keikaku maid who has planned every possible contingency to remove their rivals. The nurgle typhoid mary who wants to cripple magical senpai with diseases so they can Munchausen syndrome their husbandu for all eternity. The butler could be an exasperated renegade space marine who doesn't even like chaos and constantly questions his life choices that led to his most recent employment.

[Frumple]

... y'know, checking to see if erotek was actually some kind if slanneshi mechanicus, I found out that A. It doesn't appear to be, and B. is the name some musician is using.

It's, uh. Mostly kind of mid techno, listening to a couple? Started back in the early 00s, been putting out a song or two more or less yearly since then.

[Loud Whispers]

... y'know, checking to see if erotek was actually some kind if slanneshi mechanicus, I found out that A. It doesn't appear to be, and B. is the name some musician is using.

It's, uh. Mostly kind of mid techno, listening to a couple? Started back in the early 00s, been putting out a song or two more or less yearly since then.

I stole the name erotek from some amazing anon who made one for a black crusade campaign. It is literally just a slaaneshi mechanicus heretek, but I don't think anyone from GW has ever published an official slaaneshi mechanicus heretek. Notably there have been canon Khornate hereteks who made bigger rockets and used blood infused prometheum to annihilate their foes and nurgle tech-priests with insectoid faces & wings, continuing to categorise, experiment and analyse everything with the same rigour any good nurglite would. Even chaos undivided tech-priests who make daemon engines (or have become unaligned warp-machines, incapable of existing outside the warp anymore). But no tzeentch or slaanesh hereteks. Which is odd if you think about it as someone is clearly making all the modifications and weird gear Slaanesh's marines and chosen warriors use. I've also got an idea for Tzeentch hereteks who end up trapping themselves in the matrix, believing themselves to be gods (Tzeentch is an asshole).

[Grim Portent]

There are some Tzeentch sorcerers who specialise in Daemon Engines, but they're sorcerers first and foremost rather than hereteks who've learned ritual magic.

[MaxTheFox]

With GW being rather prudish these days I don't think they would want to explore Slaaneshi Mechanicus much, lmfao.

[scriver]

From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me. I craved the strength and certainty of silicone

*replaces arms with chainsword dildoes*