Lucius is a world turned inside out. Where other forge worlds bury their surfaces beneath foundries and reactor stacks, the Tech-Priests of the Hollow Forge burrowed inward, carving their manufactories into the inner skin of a hollowed sphere and kindling an artificial sun at its heart. That caged star is a fusion reactor of colossal scale, its light falling upward upon the hanging forge-temples that ring the void within. By all sober reckoning the experiment should long since have destroyed the planet, yet Lucius endures, which its priesthood holds as proof of the Omnissiah's favour.
It is in the manipulation of space itself that the Hollow Forge has earned its fearsome name. Teleportation is a fickle and lethal art across the rest of the Imperium, forever threatening to scatter flesh and metal into the warp, but the magi of Lucius wield it with careless confidence. Their soldiery blink across the battlefield through hyper-localised translation devices, appearing amid the enemy without warning, while their war-engines translate into the thick of the fighting. The Titans of the resident Legio Astorum, the Warp Runners, are reckoned the only god-machines sophisticated enough to teleport directly into battle, a distinction that breeds pride in Lucius and envy among rival legions.
Such feats are possible because the Hollow Forge hoards techniques known almost nowhere else, its wargear outstripping the common patterns of other worlds. Its magi guard these mysteries with jealous zeal, so that even within the Machine Cult the true depth of Lucian knowledge remains a riddle.
Adeptus Mechanicus
Order of battle
The Forge World Lucius field the units of the Adeptus Mechanicus — a detachment from the roster:
Kindred formations
Other Adeptus Mechanicus formations
Forge World AgripinaaAgripinaa, the Orb of a Million Scars, is a grim and war-battered forge world set perilously close to the Eye of Terror. For ten thousand years it has laboured to arm the Imperial bastions of the Cadian Gate, its manufactories choking out ammunition, autoguns and battle tanks without pause. Bloodied again and again by the Black Crusades of Abaddon the Despoiler, Agripinaa is a fortress-foundry that forges in one hand and wars with the other, its survival bought in blood and rust.
Forge World GraiaGraia is a forge world renowned for its unbreakable resilience and its fanatical devotion to the war effort of the Imperium. Its Tech-Priests are famed for their stubborn refusal to yield ground, augmenting their forces with redundant systems and unshakeable programming so that even grievous damage cannot halt their advance. Graia's legions fight on where others would break, their machine spirits and cyborg soldiers driven by an almost supernatural will to endure.
Forge World MarsMars is the sacred heart of the entire Adeptus Mechanicus, the birthplace of the Cult Mechanicus and the seat of the Fabricator-General who rules over every forge world in the Imperium. Its rust-red surface has been consumed by ten thousand years of industry, buried beneath foundries, hive-manufactories, and the fume-choked spires of the Martian priesthood. From Mars flow the oldest doctrines, the most jealously guarded secrets, and the ultimate authority to which all other forge worlds must ultimately answer.
Forge World MetalicaMetalica is a forge world so utterly given over to industry that scarcely a scrap of natural land remains upon its surface. It is a planet of ceaseless machinery, its skies black with pollution and its ground a single unbroken sprawl of foundries and hab-stacks. The Tech-Priests of Metalica are famed for their vast, disciplined Skitarii legions and their belief in the supremacy of the machine over the frailty of flesh, marching to war in overwhelming, relentless numbers.
Forge World RyzaRyza is the great plasma-forge of the Adeptus Mechanicus, a world whose mastery of contained starfire is said to be rivalled only by Mars itself. Its priesthood venerates plasma as the very lifeblood of the Omnissiah, and from its armour-cradles come the finest energy weapons and reactor cores in the Imperium. Home to the Legio Crucius, the Warmongers, Ryza has endured heresy and endless greenskin invasion alike, its fires never once permitted to gutter and die.
Forge World Stygies VIIIStygies VIII is a forge world with a shadowed and controversial reputation, its Tech-Priests long suspected of dabbling in forbidden and xenos-derived technologies in their pursuit of knowledge. Masters of stealth and misdirection, the magi of Stygies favour cloaking systems, ambush tactics, and the study of alien war machines. Whether radical heretics or merely bold researchers pushing the boundaries of orthodoxy, the priesthood of Stygies walks a razor's edge between innovation and damnation.