Techpriest

"One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man."

– Elbert Hubbard

"Hast thou attempted to initiate the rites of deactivation and reactivation a second time?"

– Senior Archmagos Roy on the Mechanicus' most effective repair rite.

" 01000010 01110101 01100111 01100111 01100101 01110010 00100000 01101111 01100110 01100110 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01110011 01110100 01110101 01110000 01101001 01100100 00100000 01101101 01100101 01100001 01110100 01100010 01100001 01100111"

– every techpriest when you bug them.

A Tech-Priest of the Adeptus Mechanicus

Techpriests are the fully-initiated and above members of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and generally act as tech support and religious engineers to the Imperium of Man in Warhammer 40,000.

Overview

They are united by a belief in technology, Machine Spirits, and the Omnissiah, zealously guarding what secrets of technology the Imperium has managed to scrape together (and jealously kept by the Adeptus Mechanicus—the technology cult of Mars). Their core dogma is that all technology is sacred, and everything that can be learned has already been done so, and probably just forgotten. This inevitably leads to the Tech-Priests being unwilling to either reverse-engineer other technology or develop new ones, citing disrespect towards existing designs. Despite their role as a priesthood of technology, they've stagnated for close to 10,000 years and are now the foremen of little more than glorified Mass-production factories. Only very few senior members of the Mechanicus are allowed to experiment or innovate. Fewer still are actually capable of doing so, and only within strict guidelines. Considering what horrors are produced (often by accident) by those Tech-Priests who try to innovate outside those guidelines, this isn't at all unjustified.

Tech-Priests are often secluded within their own priesthood, studying or (if they're of a high enough rank) performing minor research. Sometimes they're also found outside the Adeptus Mechanicus working as tech-support, fixing the many machines of the Imperium when they break by performing hour-long maintenance rituals involving sacred incense, blessed oils, and prayers to the Omnissiah for the machine spirit to start working again. Both surprisingly and unsurprisingly, this system tends to be effective, given that most rituals involve cleaning and purifying components, anointing the machine with sacred lubricants, and restarting revitalizing the machine spirit. On the other hand, regularly saying a prayer to a fuel-tank can keep it working longer than reasonably expected, or get a malfunctioning Cogitator to work properly again, so long as you keep doing it and the machine doesn't get moody. On their off days, they read and nerd out on their Pleician Tome which is basically the AdMech's diary to dot down interesting mechanical stuff to molest and violate.

Other varieties of techpriest exist, such as the Magos Biologos -- a sect of the Mechanicus who focus on repairing and updating the natural machinery of the human form, rather than artificial replacements, as well as xenologist branches. They may implant purpose-grown organs (such as the Lostok Augmentation, a set of glands that pump powerful combat drugs into the bearer's body), create fully organic Servitors, and so on. Enginseers are tech priests seconded to the Imperial Guard to perform maintenance on vehicles and equipment. Verispex agents are forensic specialists trained in natural science by the Mechanicus for the Inquisition and the Adeptus Arbites.

Rogue Trader ships sometimes carry Tech-Priests, not just for their invaluable technological aid but to also ferry them to a pilgrimage or holy place. They may also be found working for Inquisitors as emissaries from the Adeptus Mechanicus, giving aid or simply claiming artefacts in the name of the priesthood.

Sometimes Techpriests are allowed on certain Squat regiments to inspect on their technology and maybe re-engineer it for Imperial use. The Squats aren't so keen on letting their technology be molested by a cybernetic Dr. Octopus but they let them in anyway to keep the trade going between the Squats and the Mechanicus. Techpriests in battle often accompany Squat War Machines and the Squat Engineers accompanying their weapons of mass destruction. The Techpriests and Squat Engineers often work hand in hand despite distrusting each other due to the former's anal-retentive hoarding and stubbornness to technologically progress and the latter's mad-scientist style of inventions and stubbornness to trade their technology to others.

A Space Marine who shows talent with the sacred rituals of technology may be inducted into and trained by the Adeptus Mechanicus, eventually returning to their chapter as a Techmarine.

Techpriests may also accompany They-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, although they are just there to oversee their tech progress. They have no actual power over them so the Techpriest can't accuse them of tech-heresy and whatnot.

See Also

• Heretek, what you get when techpriests violate orthodoxy, and sometimes mix in with Chaos.
• Haemonculus, the Dark Eldar's mad scientists.