Reclaimator

"Tranters, primes, 'lthic cells, hand rippers, I can get 'em all, reconditioned and good as new—even a batch of good slaught. Great wheel o' the steel god crush me if it’s not so… The price? Let's not quibble about the price. You see, I know this up-hive guilder rolling in gelt and he needs a little intel you may have the knowing of yourself…"

- Obadiah Plex, Hive Magnogorsk Reclaimator

Reclaimators are the the most-skilled and certainly least trusted of the Adeptus Mechanicus functionaries. It is their task to redeem raw materials from old and damaged systems, to scavenge parts and be tasked with the endless cycle of minor repairs needed to keep a ship flying or a hive’s infrastructure from collapsing under its own weight. By necessity, a Reclaimator’s skills begin to stray into a higher understanding of machinery and technology than most and many learn to worship the Machine God in a fragmentary and superstitious manner, marking them apart from others. Reclaimators themselves are often sent in to dangerous or unsafe areas with little direct supervision, and they scavenge and salvage a good deal more than their masters know. As a result, most Reclaimators have a well-deserved reputation as suspicious, shifty characters who sell their skills and the items they retrieve or repair for a good profit on the black market. Many have links to criminal gangs and more than a few are willing to resort to robbery and even murder to build up their spoils if they think they can get away with it.

Technology is a thing little understood and its workings lie shrouded in mystery and superstition for most of humanity. The Adeptus Mechanicus holds undisputed rights to the secret lore of science and technology, but the tech-priests themselves are comparably few in number and particularly set against the teeming billions of the hive worlds or the isolated crews of ships plying the void. Such people rely on technological infrastructure in great profusion simply to live, be it a hive water-recyk system or a ship’s thermal heaters. The ongoing low-grade maintenance of such petty systems, along with the day-to-day workings of the more sophisticated parts of a manufactora’s machinery and the like are left to an army of technomats, functionaries, duct-crawlers, voidwalkers and work-prefects gifted by their Mechanicus masters with just sufficient knowledge to perform their tasks with due deference and supplication to the machine-spirits and nothing more. Of this disparate group, arguably the most skilled and certainly least trusted are the Reclaimators.

In the Calixis Sector, Reclaimators are common in the reaches of the hive-cities of Scintilla, Malfi and other worlds, as well as, serving on the great Chartist vessels and numerous small trader ships. Despite their vital purpose, rarely, however, do they enjoy a good reputation, although in some places their ill-renown is more deserved than others. In the depth of the Sibellus underhive, it is well organised networks of Hereteks and "reks" that are the real power behind the infamous narcogangs. On war-ravaged Tranch, the men and women who make up the numerous Reclaimator scav-packs that prowl the ruins are often little more than murderous bandits weighed down by dead men’s plunder and broken trinket-fetishes. Among the void born it is no different; the wreaker crews of breaker-ships and junkers are considered untrustworthy and accursed of their kind and the void families tell dark stories of death-scows, haunted vessels filled with scavengers driven to cannibalism and madness by want or by uncovering something best left alone in their desire for valuable salvage.

In one place in the sector, perhaps perversely, the Reclaimator is held in high esteem, and that place is Volg. In this most nightmarish of hives, the Reclaimator’s knowledge is a vital part of sustaining life against the myriad hazards the hivers must struggle against on a daily basis. Given very little to work with in the city’s environs, the Reclaimators of Volg have a reputation for coming up with nearly miraculous (if often crazed and dangerous) solutions to keep things running, and ever more inventively salvage weapons to drive away the bloated things crawling up from below. Some point to their unusual designs and the local worship of a debased form of the Machine God by the Reclaimators in the shape of "Ironskull" as evidence of the influence of rogue tech-priests exiled to Volg as punishment in times past.

Becoming a Reclaimator
Hive and void born Scum with a technically-minded bent, or those who fancy themselves as dealmakers and traders often start their careers as technomats and Reclaimators before focusing on more "lucrative" work. While for those born in the iron canyons of a forge world’s macro-industry, the path of the Reclaimator and perhaps ultimately the heretek is a natural one to follow. Likewise, the Inquisition sees them as a useful resource. Often a cut above their kind in terms of intelligence, a Reclaimator can make an excellent agent for infiltrating criminal gangs, contacting cult groups and passing unobserved through the hive and underhive, while their void born brethren are just as useful aboard ship or working orbitals and dockyards. Regardless, it is wise for an Acolyte with such abilities and history to avoid too many entanglements and questions from the Mechanicus, or they run the risk of being labelled a heretek and suffer a fate even the sanction of the Holy Ordos might not save them from.