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I've always loved the Adeptus Mechanicus, and since I'm an RPG player/GM I decided to write an RPG based on playing a techpriest. Its very much in the vein of Ars Magica, focusing less on the standard 40k tropes of large explosions and action and more on the life of a techpriest, scheming, ritual initiations, secretive quests for knowledge, heretek hunting, and of course large explosions and action.

In writing the background and rules its become apparent that I have several large holes in the fluff that either haven't been addressed by published products or have and I've missed them. So where else would I turn but to the sages of Dakka Dakka. What I'm hoping is that you clever guys and gals can either tell me fill the fluff holes with knowledge or if these are genuinely unaddressed, engage in some well informed speculation as to what a reasonable answer might be (or unreasonable but likely, this is 40k after).

1. Skitarii are stated to be raised in legions under the control of a forgeworld's Fabricator General. However, techpriests are paranoid and have much to defend. So, do individual forge owning techpriests on forgeworlds create their own Skitarii and if so are there are restrictions on the limits of their personal armed forces? If not, what forces do individual techpriests use to defend their forges beyond the usual servitors?

2. The cult Mechanicus are a mystery religion where knowledge is held sacred. Those at the bottom know far, far less than the arch magi. Since we know that forge temples have as their focal point an altar that is effectively a database of templates and knowledge known by the presiding priest and that the largest forges have vast databases containing all manner of rare and amazing knowledge, do we know whether there is any religious duty to share knowledge? Do lower level techpriests on a forgeworld have access to some kind of planetary data repository for common templates?

3. Resources. Forgeworlds are vast factories producing high end technical goods and war machines. The fabricator locum is generally the person coordinating this on behalf of the fabricator general. We can therefore assume that every forge is given essentially a tithe that they must produce. How much co-ordination do we think is realistic by their central control? Are resources bought in from knight worlds and offworld mines and then distributed to the forges or is each techpriests responsible for sourcing their own resources?

4. We know a bit about the religion of the Mechanicus but what about their government? There are a few mentions of feudal responsibilities. Can we assume that there is a chain of sworn loyalty going up through the ranks with each priest owing fealty to a liege lord and the Fabricator General effectively serving as a feudal king? If so then would the Fabricator Locumt be thought of as a loyal duke who has delegated responsibilities or more of a minister (aka a loyal nobleman with delegated responsibilities but far less of his own power base)? If we assume a feudal base, what is the arrangement, Medieval feudal vassals owed their lord a certain amount of military service but the Ad Mech seems to have the professional armies already directly under the control of the fabricator General and various quasi-independent organisations such as the titan legions. Is it in fact a confusing mess of military/religious orders, feudal obligations and direct planetary resource control cutting across all kinds of directions. This is less satisfying but possibly more accurate.

5. How far does the feudal web extend? Are explorators all feudally sworn to a senior explorator, treating their ships as mobile forges? Are offworld installations still sworn to a particular forgeworlds Fabricator General?

6. What kind of ability/template access would we expect the most junior of forge owning techpriests to have? Obviously any old techpriest should be able to build a lasgun from scratch, but how about a bolter? A plasma gun? Refractor field? Power weapon? Power armour? I'm not talking about your run of the mill enginseer or trans-mechanic, but a member of the ruling classes, a priest with his own forge.

1 - an individual forge appears to be a vassal state of the worlds fabricator locum/archmagos - I believe the fabricator general is specifically mars (its Vilvoi unless Cawl has replaced him because apparently he does everything in the entire mechanicus). Individual subidiary units of a forge worlds taghmata will be raised by each forge. Other than that, Myrmidons are tech-priest soldiers who take to the field themselves, and various grades of combat servitor.

2 - there is, but it's one way. You MUST provide a copy of all discoveries and patterns to Mars, but Mars does not provide every pattern to every world - and to a lesser extent major forges and minor subsidiary demenses. Essentially, and priest must pass STCs upwards, but has to petition for the rights to any pattern the don't have.

3 - we dont know. Most likely things are done at a fabricator locum/archmagi council level - certainly big, long-term projects like "support an astartes chapter with ammo and armour" needs that level of commitment.

4 - definitely "confusing mess". All the different mechanicus sub-factions are semi independent. Seeing the mechanicus as a monolithic entity is no more true than the imperium -see Mechanicum or Titanicus.

5 - Explorators are an independent bunch. They will have a home forge, but their relationship is more like that between Indiana Jones and the Smithsonian...

6 - forges tend to specialise by a given field of tech - say "bionics" or "plasma". But in theory pretty much any field is possible in a major forge - these things are the size of hive cities, after all.