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TechpriestDominus

A Magos Dominus of the Adeptus Mechanicus

A Magos Dominus (fem: Magos Domina), known also as a Tech-priest Dominus, is a senior Tech-priest of the Adeptus Mechanicus who commands the Mechanicus' military forces and seek to advance the development of military technology.

The magi of the Priesthood of Mars are the masters of much of what remains of the vast and potent military secrets of the Age of Technology, particularly the ancient technology of combat robots, the Battle-Automata. To them the pursuit and preservation of the arcane mysteries of science and circuit are of far greater worth than petty wealth, worldly power or the lives of their fellow men.

A Tech-priest Dominus may live for many standard centuries or even millennia, prolonging their life through arcane science and progressive cybernetic conversion, willingly becoming something other than Human as they seek to fulfil the Omnissiah's will.

Shapers of destruction, masters of the Cult Mechanicus, the Tech-priests Dominus can reduce entire worlds to ruin. They can command a city to be broken down until not a single rockcrete brick rests upon another, or order an entire intelligent species eradicated and expunged from the history books. These feats they accomplish not through diplomacy, but via the relentless, merciless application of firepower, for it is they that command the Mechanicus' Skitarii Legions, Electro-priesthood and Legio Cybernetica.

The vaunted rank of Dominus is bestowed only on those of the Cult Mechanicus with a true talent for war; those who believe the supremacy of the Machine God is to be proven at every opportunity. Though they are as likely to hail from the laboratories of the Magi Biologis as they are from the war halls of the Magi Militarum, each is an expert in weapons arcana. To them the secrets of the battlefield are laid bare. Every bullet's ballistic trajectory, every las-pack's current capacity and every battle engine's optimal fire solution flickers in their mind's eye.

They feast on raw data and cerebro-stimulants, allowing them to coordinate frontline tactics and exload war-psalms from their vox arrays even as they visit destruction personally upon the foe.

No foes are safe from their wrath, for a Tech-priest Dominus can tear the Machine Spirit from a super-heavy tank even as they blast its infantry escort to coiling wisps of steam. To augment their own formidable weaponry, the contents of the vast vaults of the Forge Worlds are available to the Tech-priests Dominus, allowing them to carry to war ancient relics capable of extraordinary feats of destruction.

History[]

Magosdom1

A Magos Dominus of the Ordo Reductor from the time of the Horus Heresy mounted within a scarab-like Abeyant, a hovering conveyance used to traverse the battlefield

During the Horus Heresy, the Magos Dominus was a master of the arts of the Legio Cybernetica, a sect of the Priesthood of Mars granted the dread right to create and control the robotic cortex-automata built for war and based upon the terrible secrets of the Dark Age of Technology.

Such strange and threatening powers were not without price, and by doctrinal tradition such individuals forgo an easy route to power within the Mechanicum, so dangerous did their fellows consider the secrets they wield.

Instead, Magi Dominus and their acolytes formed but one of the many factions and sects within the ancient Mechanicum, divided both by technological specialisation as well as rivalry and ancient feud, each vying for power, knowledge and resources beneath the outward unity the organisation displayed, shrouded as it was and still is by impenetrable mystery and arcana.

Those found within the ranks of the Taghmata served a vital role but were seldom the most powerful of their kind, who could instead be found in command of the Legio Cybernetica.

Rather, they served the Magos Prime either under terms of personal fealty or in fulfillment of binding pacts of mutual support between their Legio Cybernetica cohort and the Archimandrite who stood as the power behind the Taghmata.

In the millennia following the Horus Heresy, a Magos Dominus also became responsible for leading Electro-Priests and Kataphron Battle Servitors as part of the Adeptus Mechanicus' Battle Congregations.

Heavily trained in the art of war and able to skillfully monitor the battlefield with machine-like precision, the ancient and dreaded art of battle-robotics they still study has made many within the Mechanicus consider them dangerous.

This limits their chances of rising to greater political power within the Priesthood of Mars even in the 41st Millennium.

Notable Magi Dominus[]

  • Anacharis Scoria
  • Gavion
  • Gerg Zhokuv
  • Hieronyma
  • Hyperion Ismene Themis IV
  • Ivasnophon
  • Ovid Thrensiom
  • Kryptaestrex
  • Ozmerhadus Phal
  • Sydorax-IX
  • Inar Satarael
  • Dahan
  • Lexell Kotov

Wargear[]

  • Macrostubber
  • Cortex Controller - An arcane device and wonder of the ancient Mechanicum's arts, comprising the reasoning control centre and animating machine-spirit of a Battle-automata.
  • Refractor Field - This device is a defensive shield generator designed for personal protection. They encompass the wearer in an energy field or force barrier which serves to refract or deflect impacts and energy discharges, although the need for the wearer to move and fight, as well as their power consumption prevents them from being anywhere near inviolable to attack.
  • Conversion Field - This device emits a powerful gravitic energy shield which surrounds its user and is capable of converting large amounts of kinetic energy into harmless light.

Optional Items[]

  • Abeyant - Considered in part a symbol of status as well as a functional tool by many high-ranking magi of the ancient Mechanicum, an Abeyant is a name given to a general class of hovering conveyances into which the rider's augmetics and life support systems are directly connected through bionic linkage, so that the machine-vehicle becomes an extension of their own body. Many of the higher-ranking Dominus of the Legio Cybernetica and the Ordo Reductor prefer to take to the battlefield mounted on specially outfitted Abeyants. Often taking the form of either a stylised throne or an enclosing scarab-like framework, the principal advantage is that their mag-suspensor fields allow the most war-torn battlefield to be traversed with ease, and their armoured life-support chassis greatly improves their user's survivability.
  • Mechanicum Protectiva - This term covers a variety of force field and defensive shield projectors devised by the Magi of the Mechanicum to protect themselves both on the battlefield and from assassination by their rivals. For this reason, the frequency and modulation of each device is a closely guarded secret.
  • Psyber-Familiar - Utilised by the adepts of the Mechanicum psyber-familiar is a term that encompasses a variety of semi-autonomous devices such as Servo-skulls, mek-spiders and other smaller drone units and lesser haemonculites tied into the direct neural control of their operator. These minion-drones are an extension of their master's will and provide them with a host of additional senses and capabilities.
  • Infravisor
  • Servo-arm - A Servo-arm is a heavy industrial claw-limb and manipulator array often directly spliced into a Magos Adept's nervous system. As well as making a powerful tool, they can also be wielded in battle as a clumsy but savagely powerful weapon.
  • Machinator Array
  • Rotor Cannon - These weapons are multi-barrelled Stubbers, using electric motors to maintain an extraordinary rate of fire from their spinning barrels. The simple, medium calibre solid slug projectiles they fire lack the power of bolt shells, but the hail of shot they unleash can be particularly useful against unarmoured hordes of foes and fleshy xenoforms.
  • Graviton Gun - Little understood even by the Tech-priests of Mars, this weapon is part of a group of gravity projector devices whose sophistication is such that the few that now remain are relics of a lost age. Such weapons prove extremely useful when fighting on a starship or in a null gravity environment.
  • Rad Cleaner
  • Photon Thruster - A specialised weapon used by the Mechanicum's Myrmidon Destructors, the arcane secrets of these deadly beam weapons are jealously guarded by the adepts who hold them, even from their own brotherhood. When fired they unleash howling, needle-thin beams of utter blackness able to pierce the densest matter. These tenebrous beams slash and slice armoured men and machinery apart like razors, leaving pulsing waves of darkness in their wake.

Optional Wargear[]

  • Volkite Serpenta - Part of a class of arcane powerful ray weapons whose origins date back to the Age of Strife. Possessed of considerable killing power surpassing most armaments of their size, Volkites are difficult to manufacture, even for the most able of the Mechanicum's forges, and the demands of the expanding Great Crusade swiftly overwhelmed supply of these relic-guns.
  • Archeotech Laspistol - One of the more common types of relics from Mankind's ancient might and arts that survived the stifling darkness of Old Night, these relics are sidearms of surpassing firepower and elegance.
  • Photon Gauntlet - A Photon Gauntlet is a personal form of Photon Thruster Weapon often used by Myrmidon Destructors and Thallax. The arcane secrets of these deadly beam weapons are closely guarded by the Tech-priests of the Mechanicum. When fired, it unleashes a howling needle-thin beam of blackness able to pierce through the densest matter and easily able to rip apart the most heavily armored men and machines. The power source of these weapons is extremely unstable and little understood even by the Myrmidons themselves, and a catastrophic failure can lead to its wielder being consumed by raging black flames.

Sources[]

  • Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus (8th Edition), pp. 10, 74
  • Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus - Cult Mechanicus (7th Edition) (Digital Edition), "Cult Mechanicus Battle Congregation"
  • Master of Mankind (Novel) by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Ch. 7
  • The Horus Heresy - Book Two: Massacre (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pg. 270
  • The Horus Heresy - Book Three: Extermination (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pg. 218
  • Warhammer Visions 27, "Parade Ground"
  • Forge World - Magos Dominus with Rad-Cleaner

Gallery[]

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