N18 Book of Desolation - new Spyrer lore.

[Aulenback]

So the write up on the Spyrers in the Book of Desolation does make a few very significant changes to the story, background, and setting.

Specifically that the Spyrer suits are no longer alien (Jokaero? Tau?) creations that are smuggled to Necromunda for the wealthiest elite. Instead, these learning rigs are built in-House by House Hellmawr (though the source of the better-than-Imperial-Military technology patterns isn't suggested at all here?), and are very much exclusively granted to a very few House Hellmawr individual nobles, and not to any of the other noble Houses.

The original N95 / N03 version of the setting had the Spyrer suits be amalgams of off-world technology (hinted at various times to be Tau or Jokaero in origin - though given the nature of the suits, Jokaero made more sense), and used in a "coming of age" ritual by a swath of nobles from all of the noble Houses of Necromunda.

This is a significant change, and it retroactively would invalidate a scattering of fiction from White Dwarf, Inferno! magazine, Citadel Journal, and various novels and short story collections.

 

[voidwyrm]

Maybe I need to read the whole thing again, but:
I indeed was in part a bit confused/unhappy with this one.

What I do like about it, is the hints about there beeing some serious dark-age-tech/knowledge on necromunda left, (maybe even some tech/connection from/to the mysterious warpgate-aliens.)
The Jokaero always seemed a bit silly for me and Tau-tech is too "clean" in my humble oppinion.

What I dont really like, is the part, where house Helmawr actually builds the suits themselfs. Not only that, but in such a stupid way, that the user has to be mutilated to fit in it! (Are they some BDSM-dark eldar or what?)) So they left the bit in there that actually hinted, that these were alien-suits, that are not actually built for humans... but now they are actually built by humans... ... ... ...

And what I mostly disliked, was the retcon about the "Helmawr-only"-Spyrers. I can see some benefit storywise, as in that makes house Helmawr a "tier" above the other noble houses, but it indeed is a significant change that retroactively invalidates even "my Spyrers" from over 20 Years ago. AND its also a bit... problematic, as house Helmawr was just mostly destroyed by the "?original ruling dynasty?"(the Iron lords of araneus) this very moment. So "right now" they wont even be able to make new spyrer suits, unless they let Lady Hera win "big time" soon.

 

[Xisor_of_Karak_Izor]

The Helmawr-only angle is arguably exacerbated by the human-made element: what can be made once can be made again. It's laughable that Helmawr could (or would) keep them to themselves when they can even keep themselves to themselves. (See Kal Jerico, Lady Hera, etc.)

They're also not even House Helmawr as it was anymore. House Aranthus rules, so Helmawr's primacy is literally nonexistent.

Enforcers, Spyrers, they're all - in principle if not in rules - overequipped Outcast & Outlaw gangs.

Of course, that's overstating things a bit, but then that's not stopped the lore writers, so why should it stop me?

(I really enjoy it all, daftness included. Even if I wish it were otherwise I'm happy it's there - and still coming - at all!)

 

[TopsyKretts]

Is it Spyre or Spyrer? I don't even understand the naming.

 

[Aulenback]

Historically, as it were, it seems to have been "Spyre Hunter" according to the nobles, and "Spyrer" to the Underhivers. These days? The Book of Desolation also uses each indiscriminately.

Interestingly (?), the first paragraphs of the Spyre Hunting Party section of the BoD suggest that the Spyrers hunt the inhabitants of the underhive. The following paragraphs then give this the lie, and say they only hunt genestealer malstrain. And then the rules give THAT the lie, showing that they do hunt gangs of Underhivers.

And yes, the idea that the suits are now NOT of alien manufacture, but are made in House by the Hellmawrs, but then NOT made to fit humans, so that humans need to be surgically altered to fit the alien requirements... well.

While a noble must be shaped to conform to the technologies of the Spyrer warsuit, the suits themselves are also often bespoke creations fashioned by the most diabolical weaponsmiths of the spire. Over the centuries an array of suits have been created by House Helmawr.

They are unique to their users, bespoke crafted to fit individual Hellmawrs ... but require surgical modification to change the physical shape of those very Hellmawrs for whom they are built as bespoke and tailored creations?

Yeah. Odd.

 

["Technic" Al]

Yeah that is very odd. I can see two potential covers for this.

The first is that these suits, as sophisticated as they are, still run on exceptionally old Dreadnought technology, the types that don't require the pilot to be dead, but still require the user be surgically modified to fit. That Necromunda does have a type of dreadnought technology for unmodified humans (the Sanctioneer Automata is the big one, though the Ambot is also around for Xenos use) at least supports a theory that the hive-spire nobles are utilising some Dark-Age-of-Technology suits in that same vein.

The other is that the original suits were xenos in origin, but have since been reverse engineered in the same way the phase sword has been. Personally I think that might be the case, just because I think these suits and the Blackstone Fortress drones share the same vibe, but anyway. Because they've been reverse engineered, it means that they're being produced by humans, but because the Imperium is the Imperium, no one improved on the design because original designs are sacred and innovation is heretical. Not that anyone in-house has the technical know-how to make modifications without it being suspicious (The classic Van-Saar problem), so the next best thing is to surgically modify the wearer to fit.

What's amusing to me now that I think about it is the Spyrers outside of the suits (if they can even remove the suits) trying to excuse the mutilations to any visiting Imperial officials as just an extreme case of Hapsburg Jaw. "No Inquisitor everyone in the family only has three fingers on each hand and an extra joint on the arms. We've cleared it with the Adeptus Biologis and they say we're still a few generations away from being Abhumans so it's cool, don't worry about it."