Forge worlds are a vital part of the Imperium; they are the great factories without which its armies would falter and cease to exist. Because they provide the bulk of its armaments and munitions, forge worlds utilise technology unseen elsewhere in the Imperium. Around them might be tracked cities that continually move lest their toxic clouds dissolve the walls, or orbital elevators reaching from the surface into the depths of space like skeletal fingers. The teeming workforce swells with hordes of servitors fashioned from the bodies of lobotomised humans and mechanical parts.
Technology is both embraced and feared within the Imperium, and much of what was once known has been lost. What remains is bound in ignorance, ritual, and mystery. This is the purview of the Adeptus Mechanicus, the keepers of Imperial technological lore and secrets and overseers of forge worlds. For the Machine Cult, and by extension the Imperium, technology has become a complex religion shrouded in mystery and ritual. For most citizens, it is frightening and strange, hidden behind odd rites, prayers, and the dire warnings of their preachers. For a forge worlder, technology is more omnipresent but no less revered. They might have greater familiarity and access to technology, but they have just as little true understanding. For them, the metal and plasteel marvels around them are perhaps less strange but no less sacred.
Everyone born on a forge world has their place, often mere cogs in the huge machines that keep its factories running. Some might rise into positions within the Machine Cult, and take on the mantle of Tech-Priest. Others live out their days as mere drones, mastering their trade until they can pass it down to the next generation.
Forge World Characters
A forge world is not one, but many, societies pressed together in a carefully constructed system. Characters that hail from a forge world can come from several classes, either overseeing the forges, serving in the armies of the Omnissiah, or toiling on the manufactorum floor. Others might even operate illegal enterprises, or merely try to survive in the dark areas between abandoned habs. What they all share is exposure to fabulous and terrible technological mysteries, and are often fitted with augmentations only available on a forge world. This makes them favoured to become part of the Machine Cult, but also makes them favoured with other organisations focused on the use and abuse of technology.
Those who aspire to become Tech-Priests are most likely to originate from forge worlds, where the training they receive can set them on a path within the Mechanicum. From here, they can then serve in any number of capacities, or be sent to aid another Imperial organisation, such as the Astra Militarum to maintain tanks and weapons, or the Imperial Navy to oversee a starship’s machine spirit. They can even find a place in the service of an Inquisitor, where their technological expertise can prove invaluable.
Forge worlds also sometimes provide tithed manpower for forces such as the Imperial Guard. Service here is often a worker’s first exposure to open air and sunlight away from the oppressive heat of his manufactorum. Unlike those pressed into service, or those who must suffice with whatever meagre weapons the Imperium can provide, regiments from a forge world might be equipped with weaponry beyond what might be granted to a lesser world. The men making up these ranks often forge the very weapons they carry. Imperial fighting forces always have a use for
those raised among the manufactorums and habs of a forge world, their supreme reverence for the machine setting them apart from the countless masses of the Imperium.