In the earliest days of the Lathes, Lathe-Hadd was home to several enormous infotemples that had been set down around the Hadd Fabricator ship. The data stored within these temples was essential to the operation of all three Lathe Worlds at the height of the Angevin Crusade. For production, Lathe-Hadd was responsible primarily for the ammunition and ordnance that the Crusade desperately needed. Although such production was honourable and instrumental, for reasons lost to time, these duties came to be construed as belittling to the Magos of Lathe-Hadd. Unrest and centuries of discord followed as the adepts petulantly went about their appointed tasks, many petitioning to leave the world at their earliest opportunity. A growing movement on the planet agitated for the production of such expendables to be taken off planet to make way for more prestigious works. The dissemination of much of the data held within the infotemples further lessened the prestige of Lathe-Hadd.
In the 6th century of M41, Arch-Magos Villem Warik Wahh was named Forge Master of Lathe-Hadd. Rumors claiming he had maneuvered himself into that position through manipulating the simmering feelings of resentment and bitterness among the tech-adepts were never proven. These feelings had developed over centuries as Lathe-Het rose to a position of prominence, and the factories of Lathe-Hesh provided waves of vehicles and enormous weapon systems famed throughout the Sector. Wahh declared that he would see Lathe-Hadd rise to a position of equal importance within the Sector.
This position, and the dissatisfaction from which it stemmed, was inconceivable to most of the Calixis Mechanicus. One of the greatest satisfactions within the Adeptus Mechanicus is to see an important job well-done, and without the ammunition and armaments Lathe-Hadd provided, the Crusade would never have succeeded. The vast majority of the Magos on the forge world, however, followed their new Forge Master in his demands that the production of these mundane products be moved to off-world facilities, so that room could be made for greater projects more befitting one of the three original Lathe Worlds. Over the next two hundred years, almost all major manufacturing and assembly plants were moved off planet, causing gaping holes in the planet’s surface, and leaving the vast ancient infotemples, now sadly bereft of any but purely symbolic power and importance, crouching alone around Fabricator ship Hadd.
The stage was set for Lathe-Hadd to rise to equal prominence with its sister worlds, and to prove its artisans and manufactorums the superior of any in the Sector. Unfortunately, this did not come to pass.
Forge Master Wahh had pursued his agenda of division and discontent too well, and the adepts of Lathe-Hadd had fractured into countless minor factions, none of which could agree upon the most basic of tenets with any of the others. Proposal after proposal went before the Adunatio of Lathe-Hadd, and the other factions vociferously struck each down. The Fabricator of the Lathes finally granted the request for the relocation of the many manufactorums, to see it removed from his docket; the facilities were soon moved off planet, into orbit, or to several of the stations along the Praeclusio Anchor Points. Soon Lathe-Hadd was stripped of the vast majority of its manufacturing capability and paralyzed in its search for a new identity. Somehow (many speculate through manipulating the various factions against each other) Wahh was able to avoid blame for the dissolution of his planet’s capabilities, and maintain his position as Forge Master.
The Fabricator of Lathe Hadd rules from the Halls of Ignavus, built around the now-defunct Fabricator ship on Hadd Nord. Within the hall, all adepts of the forge world come together in a constant dance of subterfuge and manipulation, hoping to bring their own projects to the fore. Despite the silencing of the major manufactorums, the planet is still home to countless smaller workshops and laboratories housing the experiments and projects of thousands of adepts, all eager to see their work rise to the prominence of global production. Debates and discussions within the Halls can become quite heated, another uncommon trait surfacing among the adepts of Lathe-Hadd. It is not uncommon for visiting adepts to surround themselves with bodyguard servitors or other security measures.
Since the stripping of Lathe-Hadd’s manufacturing capability, the world has been in a state of flux, constantly searching for the one project or product that can raise the planet back to a position of prominence. Desperation is endemic, and those Magos who have stubbornly stayed are frantic to find a new path to distinction. Any path, in fact, is seen as better than the current state of unproductive stagnation.
In this reckless search for a new identity, any number of strange beliefs, theories, and cults have taken root among a feckless ruling class despairing of ever recapturing their old status. For decades now, the vast majority of the factories and manufacturing works have lain still, internal squabbling and political machinations paralyzing the planet even at the cost of productivity. Recently, many adepts have taken to referring to Lathe-Hadd as the Silent Forge.
Though it might be silent, it still holds its secrets, such as the ancient and mysterious construct known as the Baltean Maze. What appears to be the surface of the planet, still covered in layers of construction and infrastructure despite centuries of neglect, is in fact a man-made construct, an artificial crust formed of many steel platforms, each attached to the others through a labyrinth of girders, sliding connectors, and gasket-like adamantium mesh. Each platform is suspended above the mantle of Lathe- Hadd upon enormous gravitic generators, the likes of which man has not constructed for thousands upon thousands of years. Between the false surface and the hidden mantle lies the Baltean Maze, a network of supports, power conduits, and energy transfer channels that tie the gravitic platforms and the planet’s actual surface together. Many believe that beneath the maze are the legendary deep infotombs, enormous receptacles of faulty or heretical data, relegated to the permanent dark to protect the very Mechanicum itself. Whispers cant of malign data-spirits rising from the deeps, capable of possessing all forms of technology. The Lathesmasters deny that these schimsaticals, as the legends call them, actually exist, and act quickly to suppress any evidence that might suggest their presence.
Home of the tech-priest turned heretek Cyrrik Scayl.
Fabricator of Lathe-Hadd, Forge Master Villem Warik Wahh[]
Adepts serving elsewhere among the Lathe Worlds see Arch- Magos Villem Warik Wahh as either dangerously incompetent or suspiciously ineffective. Seeming to never cease in his work to bring together the divided adepts of his world, he nevertheless has yet to manage any consensus among them. Suggestions and suspicions abound around Wahh, as many believe that any being capable of rising to rule over a forge world could not possibly be as ineffectual as he appears to be, and thus darker motives are often implied. Perhaps, go the infra-cants, he works for some other, more ruinous master, and perhaps the silencing of an entire forge world is only the beginning.
Forge Master Wahh, contrary to the standard image of the cold, aloof Fabricator, is a gregarious and approachable personage. He projects an air of helpful and energetic efficiency that was instrumental in his earning his present position. It has only been time and experience, however, that were able to prove these traits false, and no matter how energetic the Forge Master seems to be in the pursuit of his duties, nothing ever seems to be resolved. As a result, Lathe-Hadd is awash with frustrated ambition and desire, awaiting only the right spark to leap into open rebellion. Watching over this straining energy conduit is the Crimson Guard stationed on Lathe-Hadd, the Magos Hiscere.
Schismaticals of the Deep Infotombs[]
"She cried in anguish as her augmetics dragged her to battle, her flesh arm scrabbling for purchase on the vault wall. I killed her first, an aimed shot as mercy, and then the mass of them were upon us---her dead body with them, mechadendrites seeking for my throat."
–Vox-Record of Enforcer Quintus Cortez
The Lathe world Hadd was at first a repository domain of mighty infotemples set down from orbit, claimed by the Mechanicus while the Angevinian Crusade still swept xenos from the stars. Suspensor Magi, layered menial hives, and great floating manufactory slabs came later, after an Administratum grant of the Lathes--a political gesture to assuage those angered that the Mechanicus had already taken the system.
Manufactory and laboratorium layers have grown high above the surface over the centuries, but the deepest strata of Hadd remain an endless maze of silent infotombs devoted to the Omnissiah: silver walls of binary microrunes, millennia–old data transepts, crystal arrays of machine psalms, archeodata vaults, and sealed tech–librariums and cryogenetoriums. These are holy places for the Mechanicus Calixis, too holy even for pilgrimage, as though a relic world of Saint Drusus lay buried beneath mundane hives of the Imperial Creed.
Unlike the upper manufactory and laboratorium strata, the infotombs are empty of menials and tech–adepts and are entered only for infrequent ritual, such as conjunction invocations or quests for archeotech suspensor devices upon initiation to deeper mysteries of the Lathe Mechanicus. More activity takes place within the infotombs than most Lathe Mechanicus suspect, however, and within the depths of ancient cogitator cores lurk malign data spirits---the schismaticals.
A schismatical is a memory–cloud of suppressed ideas, an archive of heretical data that should have been destroyed, a folio of vile plans and whispers that has acquired forbidden volitional urges. It incorporates data–patterns by which other machine spirits can be rapidly corrupted into echoes of itself, and so the predatory schismatical awaits the one unlucky machine spirit trespasser that it consumes and supplants so as to bear it to the forge world above.
Once free, a schismatical rampantly converts an army of machine spirits to its cause. It creates machine covens populated by its echoes, each of which is an independent schismatical in its own right. Any vox–aware device can be converted via broadcast, while others require the use of dataconduit links. Any Mechanicus device governed by a cogitator can contain some echo of the full schismatical. Simpler devices fall under the schismatical’s sway in its presence, but are too simple to house its essence: voxcasters, augmetic limbs, elevators, auto–doors, weapons, servitor components, and manufactory power–manipulators, to name but a few.
A schismatical device cannot accomplish any more than it was already capable of, but that is more than enough on a forge–world filled with heavily augmented tech–adepts, servitors, and cogitators. Even doors and other common technological devices have a role to play when they refuse to function at the behest of the schismatical within. The minds of tech–adepts are the last to convert; there the schismatical must persuade, threaten, or drive mad. But it does not really need men---only the machines they have created. Schismaticals imprison unwilling tech–adepts within their own treacherous augmetic enhancements, dragging them screaming and weeping into battle when the schismaticals must defend themselves. Many claim that the schismatical data-patterns are the work of Nomen Ryne, but no connection has been proven.
In 596.M41, a schismatical rose from the Hadd depths infused with knowledge of forbidden Empyric technology. It sought to open the way to transcendence within the warp and claimed enough of the low Machine Temples of Hadd Nordus to work effectively in secret. The schismatical was only discovered before it achieved its aim because it sent echoes of itself within a Mechanicus vessel across the voids to Sleef, an act which led the Ordos Calixis back to its machine coven upon Hadd.
Unique Equipment[]
Concussion Mace
Desperate times call for desperate measures, which may explain the Concussion Mace’s recent popularity as a melee weapon. Designed on Hadd for use by asteroid miners who need an instrument they can employ within the tight confines of a tumbling zero-gravity rock, the Concussion Mace is essentially a small explosion on a stick. The flanged shell of the “mace” acts as a sort of containment cage for an ancient fragment of gravity plate, which activates when the mace strikes a target with sufficient force, creating a small crushing field. Unfortunately, the mace does not discriminate between friend and foe, and many overzealous Acolytes have been the unwitting cause of their own demise by attempting to use this weapon in tight quarters. The shaft is 1.5 meters in length, so when properly used the wielder is out of the effective blast radius. On a Weapon Skill roll of 94–00 the user is within the blast radius and takes damage equal to the weapon’s normal damage.
Melee, 1d10+3, I, PEN 4, Unwieldly, Volatile, Blast (1), WT 15kg, Cost 200, Scarce
Hadd-Pattern Tarantula Sentry Gun
The Tarantula automated defense turret is a common sight across the Imperium. Many different patterns and configurations exist, and their ability to mount multiple weapon systems, from Lascannons to Multi-Meltas, make them efficient and flexible heavy weapon platforms. The Hadd-Pattern Tarantula, recently unearthed by the Tech-Priests of the secretive Aurora Novos sect, differs from most standard Tarantulas in that it lacks the automated point-defence machine-spirits that make them such excellent sentries. Nevertheless, the Hadd-pattern is capable of moving swiftly via its external controls, shifting its role from a defensive weapon or sentry gun to that of a more mobile heavy weapons carrier.
Weapon Emplacements are stationary platforms that act as small-scale artillery pieces. They can be targeted independently of their user as though they were a separate character, and have Toughness 60 and 30 wounds. They have the following Talents and Traits: Size (Hulking), Fearless, Machine (10), Strange Physiology, and Unnatural Toughness (x2), and are considered to have an Agility Bonus of 4 (for the purposes of Movement only). They cannot take actions independent of the controlling character, and cannot make Charge or Run Move Actions. If engaged in melee, they are struck automatically (although the Weapon Skill Test should be made to determine Degrees of Success/Failure). Weapon Emplacements do not suffer Critical Damage, and can only be repaired via a Difficult (–10) Tech- Use Test where each Degree of Success regains one Wound.
All Weapon Emplacements are supplied with control equipment, usually in the form of a large, detachable, handheld control device, or sometimes a backpack control vox. These controls have a range of 500 meters. The character that controls a weapon emplacement can divide their Actions up between themselves and the Weapon Emplacement (e.g. a character might use a Half Action to make a Half Move Action, and then a Half-Action to make the Standard Attack Action needed to fire their Weapon Emplacement). As always, Actions cannot be repeated, so a character controlling a Weapon Emplacement cannot fire a ranged weapon and a Weapon Emplacement’s weapon in the same turn.
Each Hadd-pattern Tarantula has a pair of heavy weapons, slaved to fire as a single weapon with the Twin-Linked weapon Quality. The cost is for the Tarantula and its control systems; the cost of both heavy weapons (and any ammunition) must be added to the weapon.
Heavy, Range †, RoF †, DAM †, PEN †, Clip †, RLD †, Special †, Twin-Linked, WT 50kg + ††, Cost 1,100, Very Rare
†The weapon or ammunition type being used determines Range, RoF, Damage, Penetration, Clip Size and additional Special Rules.
††Plus the weight of both weapons.
A Hadd-pattern Tarantula can be configured in one of the following ways:
- Heavy Bolters (120m; –/–/10; 2D10 X; Pen 5; Clip 200; Reload 2 Full; Tearing): +4,000 Cost
- Lascannons (300m; S/–/–; 5D10+10 E; Pen 10; Clip 20; Reload 2 Full): +10,000 Cost
- Multi-Lasers (250m; –/–/10; 3D10+3 E; Pen 4; Clip 200; Reload 3 Full): +4,000 Cost
- Plasma Cannons (120m; S/–/–; 2D10+10 E; Pen 8; Clip 50; Reload 5 Full; Maximal, Overheats, Recharge, Unreliable): +17,000 Cost
- Multi-Meltas (60m; S/–/–; 4D10+12 E; Pen 12; Clip 10; Reload 2 Full; Blast [1]): +17,000 Cost
Hadd-Pattern Mole Mortar
The Hadd-Pattern Mole Mortar launches specialist burrowing torpedoes that detonate under or just above the surface. The torpedoes can plough through almost any material, and the Tech-Priests of Aurora Novos have rediscovered a number of different munition types to enhance the tactical flexibility of this peculiar weapon.
Heavy, 50-200m, S/–/–, DAM †, PEN †, Clip 1, RLD Full, Special †, Indirect, WT 60kg, Cost 8000, Very Rare
†The Mole Mortar torpedo type being used determines Range, Damage, Penetration, and additional Special Rules.
Hadd-Pattern Thudd Gun
Spurred on by the reintroduction of the Het-Pattern Rapier, a small sect of Lathe-Hadd Tech-Priests calling themselves Aurora Novos began researching and manufacturing other ancient Crusade-era artillery emplacements in the hope that it would inspire the restoration of their falling forge world. The Hadd-Pattern Thudd Gun was the first of these designs, and was quite a strange one at that. Many siege regiments throughout the Imperium utilise the Thudd Gun, or Quad Launcher as it is more commonly called, but most use the Lucius-pattern: a basic breach-loading weapon that must be towed from battlefield to battlefield. More sophisticated and with its own remote-controlled motive system, the Hadd-pattern features four squat gravity-fed magazines, allowing the weapon to fire continuously for up to a minute before reloading. How long the Tech-Priests of Aurora Novos can continue making this weapon until their efforts are curtailed is unknown, but certain Guard Commanders, Rogue Traders, and even a few Inquisitors have taken an interest in the revival of this long-dead design. As this Thudd Gun consists of four linked mortars that fire as a salvo, the weapon is always fired using the Indirect Fire Action. Each individual clip for a Thudd Gun holds 5 shells.
Heavy, 50-500m, –/–/4, 1d10+8, X, PEN 4, Clip 20, RLD 2Full, Blast (3), Indirect, WT 130kg, Cost 12000, Very Rare
Hadd-pattern Data-loom
A limited data-engine and geometric display that has proven useful to those faced with challenging problems of logic or fragmentary information. It gives a +10 bonus to Logic skill Tests, and at the GM’s discretion may reduce the time taken for research or investigations, provided that the investigator has the Tech-Use skill.
13kg, Very Rare
Forge World Origin[]
A stifled world of endless procrastination, those who dwell within the bureaucratic and technological quagmire of Lathe-Hadd tend to either live a life of looking over their shoulder, or have simply given up hope of ever seeing any progress in their lifetimes.
Characters originating from Lathe-Hadd start with either the Paranoia or Jaded Talent.