Lore-wise: Imperial or Mechanicus Knight Houses?

[Wired4War]

Not looking for rules discussion, I've found plenty of those. I'm looking to build a existing or create my own Knight Household for a narrative campaign. In your own opinion, what are the lore based pros and cons for being Questor Mechanicus or Questor Imperialis? Most of what I read, especially books about houses like Cadmus seem to have a very negative view of being so closely tied to Mechanicus and that it takes away form the freedom of the House. The Mechanicus then also seems worried to have too many houses gain independence. 

For houses that are aligned, what are some reasons they might stay other than tradition or proximity? (if this belongs in different forum, I apologize.)

[Focslain]

What I found what determines a house alignment is who leads it. If it's a magos then machanicus, if a noble then imperialis.

 

So for your narrative then question becomes who is leading your house and who are their main allies. Their homeworld can also add to which side to take.

 

As for pros/cons in truth you make that up.

[brother_b]

Why would your house not align itself with the most glorious cult of the Omnissiah? Do we not walk in His light, the Force that propels all things?

 

Those who align with the Omnissiah see their enemies crumble before them.

 

Adorn your holy engines of war with adorations to the Cog, to the glory of the Omnissiah. Intone the ancient hymnals of wakening, strike the bells of combustion thus driving your Knights forward, to see the foes of the Omnissiah fly from the field of battle as the heavenly tread of righteousness falls upon them, destroying them utterly.

 

We’ll be awaiting your data uplink and oath of fealty in Kiosk #2798732.

[Beren]

Mechanicus Knight Houses get better tech, typically more suits of armour, better maintenance, more likely for Forge World elements to come to their aid etcetera. The downside is that the Mechanicus does have requirements, such as requesitioning House forces for their expeditionary fleets, calling them to arms in the defense of the Forge World etc. Horus Heresy book 4 conquest gives good examples of these from the Horus Heresy, showing a fairly cordial alliance between House Hermetica and Mezoa, and the near-outright slavery of House Atrax to Cyclothrathe.

[Brother-Captain Gilead]

Echoing what Beren said it really seems to be up to the individual Forge World and Knight World and their nobles. In the aggregate it seems that being more tied to the Mechanicum leads to less autonomy but better support, but even there there are degrees of difference. Even in the 41st millenium the knights of House Raven that have sworn eternal fealty to Metalica have stopped answering the call of an individual Magos from that Forge World after they were too appalled at that individual Magos' views on what should happen to organic life. This gives you a lot of freedom in figuring out the character of your knight house and how it interacts with the Forge World that is supplying it with Sacristans. Is the Forge World happy with the current agreement or does it wish to increase its influence on the knight house? Is the knight house chafing under the tyranny of the Forge World or is it content with their status? Depending on how ambitious you are feeling, you can even decide that your knight house is not the only one on their Knight World with several houses vying for supremacy all with different agreements and contracts with the Forge World. You can take this really far and sketch out a wondrously interesting tapestry of conflict between competing noble houses and how their shifting power structure interacts with the constant pressure from the Forge World (I would assume that there are no Forge Worlds that feel like they should give their vassal Knight Worlds more power in relationship to them, what we know of the different Magos is that they are all pretty greedy and covetous individuals).

[Wired4War]

Echoing what Beren said it really seems to be up to the individual Forge World and Knight World and their nobles. In the aggregate it seems that being more tied to the Mechanicum leads to less autonomy but better support, but even there there are degrees of difference. Even in the 41st millenium the knights of House Raven that have sworn eternal fealty to Metalica have stopped answering the call of an individual Magos from that Forge World after they were too appalled at that individual Magos' views on what should happen to organic life. This gives you a lot of freedom in figuring out the character of your knight house and how it interacts with the Forge World that is supplying it with Sacristans. Is the Forge World happy with the current agreement or does it wish to increase its influence on the knight house? Is the knight house chafing under the tyranny of the Forge World or is it content with their status? Depending on how ambitious you are feeling, you can even decide that your knight house is not the only one on their Knight World with several houses vying for supremacy all with different agreements and contracts with the Forge World. You can take this really far and sketch out a wondrously interesting tapestry of conflict between competing noble houses and how their shifting power structure interacts with the constant pressure from the Forge World (I would assume that there are no Forge Worlds that feel like they should give their vassal Knight Worlds more power in relationship to them, what we know of the different Magos is that they are all pretty greedy and covetous individuals).

 

This is really insightful! Thank you. I guess from a narrative point of view, a mechanicus house has lots of possibilities for internal turmoil from external pressures. I've also thought about your idea of multiple houses on the same world, could have my own version of Game of Thrones with giant robots.

[Focslain]

 

 

This is really insightful! Thank you. I guess from a narrative point of view, a mechanicus house has lots of possibilities for internal turmoil from external pressures. I've also thought about your idea of multiple houses on the same world, could have my own version of Game of Thrones with giant robots.

 

 

That is pretty much what happens in KingsBlade. The knight force is made up of four(?) houses and there is some in-fighting. 

[Brother-Captain Gilead]

 

*Snip*

 

This is really insightful! Thank you. I guess from a narrative point of view, a mechanicus house has lots of possibilities for internal turmoil from external pressures. I've also thought about your idea of multiple houses on the same world, could have my own version of Game of Thrones with giant robots.

 

 

My pleasure. Note that these same pressures are also there with the Imperial-aligned knight houses because they also require Sacristans from the Mechanicus, but I would imagine that the Magos would much rather send their best Sacristans and supplies to the houses that have tied themselves more strongly to the Adeptus Mechanicus rather than "waste" them on some more autonomous houses. In my mind (and note that this is headcanon although based on implications from the established lore) this is similar to a situation where you have a company that produces industrial equipment (like valves and pipes) both for sale to external users and to their own internal oil refinery business. Even in a normal situation you would imagine that the people designing the valves would design them first and foremost to be the optimal valves for their own oil refineries even if that means that some external users are left with sub-optimal valves, and in non-standard times of course their own refineries would get first pick of the valve production and the rest would need to survive on whatever is left after their own refineries had been supplied.

 

You can derive a lot of interesting lore hooks from this for Imperial-aligned knight houses where they might be short of thermal cannons and thus prefer to use other weaponry or they might not have the necessary replacement joints for their Cerastus chassis limiting their deployment and thus delegating their Scions to more administrative roles (or maybe they only have so few that their Cerastus knight pilots are selected to be the most careful Scions instead of the more reckless ones that the faster chassis typically gets in other knight houses). Again there is a wealth of opportunities here in a galaxy so big as the 40k universe is.