"It is better that the masses do not know the truth behind what they consume for many find their sanity overwhelmed by the necessity of our great work. That is what the Corpse Grinders are; weak-willed fools who have seen the truth and seek now comfort in the arms of heretics."
- —Quirinos, Mercator Pallidus
Corpse Grinder Cults are cannibal Chaos Cults devoted to Khorne and active in the hive cities of Necromunda.
Overview
"Throw down your arms! Resist the Lord of Skin and Sinew no longer! Topple the bloated edifice you serve and feast on its innards! Our lord blesses those who revel in his bountiful offerings!"
- —Speech given to the defenders of Precinct Omicron-Red, shortly before they were overrun
A cannibal sickness lurks at the heart of Necromunda, like a festering wound that will never heal. It is the great cycle of existence that rules over all who serve the Imperial House, the denizens of the hives either feeding on their predecessors, or feeding the living with their own dead flesh. Corpse Grinder Cults are a by-product of this brutal necessity, charged with the grim task of recycling their fellow hivers into corpse-starch. The Great Houses of Necromunda are intimately familiar with the Corpse Grinder Cults, for they are a plague that rises from within the mortuary combines and Corpse Guilds with regular frequency. Even in the unrelenting horror of the hive, those forced to recycle corpses sometimes rebel against reality, losing their sanity among the whirr of the meat-saw and wet crunch of the bone-grinders. Where once a creature of reason and temperance stood, now a hollow shell consumed by hunger remains – the perfect vessel for the corrupting touch of Chaos to infect.
Corpse Grinder Cults often start within the hallowed ranks of the Corpse Guilds. From among the toiling workers a leader will arise. Whether these deranged individuals draw the gaze of the Blood God with their cannibal madness or if it is the influence of the Dark God who turns honest men to feast upon the cutting floor is unclear. The result, however, is the same. Over time, a cult leader will become stronger and more ravenous, the growling voice of Khorne driving them to murder so that they might feast upon warm and bloody flesh. Around these debased leaders, deviant cults are formed. Prospective followers might be drawn from within the mortuary manufactorums, or from the greater hive populace. At first trusted members are inducted, and offered a taste of the gory bounty smuggled out of production lines. Thus are entire families and hab communities corrupted, most knowing only that the meat gives them strength and endurance like nothing they have known, unaware of the dark blessing surrounding the cult leader.
Under the nose of Guild overseers, the cult grows, knowing full well that should it be discovered, it will be purged without mercy. Hungry for the power the cult offers, others join, gathering in secret meetings and donning butchers’ garb – masks, robes and jewellery made from the remains of their meals. In these hidden places, the cultists worship the Lord of Meat, the head butcher feeding their followers with chunks of weeping flesh drawn from mounds of still-warm corpses. As the cult is fed on meat so too does the head butcher feed the faithful on promises of freedom and power, echoing the whispered voice in their own head. Slowly, the cult begins to gather weapons and fresh recruits – a single word upon their lips: uprising.
When at last the Corpse Grinders are ready to rise up, they emerge from their hidden fanes in their thousands. Their bodies grown hard and muscular upon a diet of forbidden flesh, they are hivers no more. Their former workers and clan-mates fall beneath their blades, adding more meat to the feasting tables and causing the power of the Blood God to wax ever stronger. As their rebellion spreads out into the hive, open warfare takes hold and the fragile order of the Imperium breaks down. All citizens of the hive are then faced with a choice – join the Corpse Grinders’ uprising and partake of their forsaken bounty, or become their next meal.
At the heart of every Corpse Grinder Cult stands the Harvest Lord, a blood-soaked demagogue of prodigious power. Should the cult be successful in its cannibalisation of the hive then the Harvest Lord will become a vessel for one of the Blood God’s Daemons, a living embodiment of the Lord of Skin and Sinew. Under the thrall of this insane individual are scores of Butchers, talented murderers and savage fighters. Touched by the power of the Dark Gods, each of these gang leaders has a connection to the Harvest Lord by profane ritual.
Below these Chaos-tainted madmen the teeming masses of the cult begin, some unaware of the true power behind their rebellion. Cutters are the lieutenants to the Butchers, keeping the lower ranks in line. Garbed in fearsome panoply, they carry the best looted weapons or largest blades. Then there are the Skinners, initiates and acolytes who have partaken of their first feast and grown stronger as a result. Among the Skinners sometimes there will be the bloodied and unbloodied, a distinction made between those within the cult who have eaten the living flesh of a defeated foe and those that have yet to earn this honour. Regardless of rank, however, all Corpse Grinder cultists are bound together by madness and devotion to the Lord of Meat once they have fed on the unprocessed flesh of their fellow hivers.
Corpse Grinder Cults fight as a rebel army, their weapons scavenged from Imperial authorities, House gangs or forged in secret workshops. These can range from simple stub pistols to heavy ordnance, depending on what each cult can get its hands on. Supplementing this arsenal, the cult retains many of the tools of the corpse trade – powered meat-saws, amputators and flensing knives, all repurposed as deadly weapons. These serrated and spinning blades also allow the cult members to quickly turn a felled foe into a meal, greedily ripping off bloody strips of muscle and skin before jamming it in their mouths.
Over the centuries, countless Corpse Grinder Cults have plagued the hives of Necromunda. Lord Helmawr has gone to great lengths to conceal their presence from the greater Imperium, scrubbing them from history just as his Enforcers expunge them from existence. While hives and settlements can be cut off and starved into silence, rumours seem to be carried by the ash winds on Necromunda and are much harder to suppress.
The first Corpse Grinder Cult ever recorded, or so the legend goes, was during the Great Road War, when many hives were still to be brought under the unified control of the Imperial House. Out among the wastes, grave robbers picked over the remains of battles, repurposing the fallen to feed their cannibal clans. Their leader was an ash-rider by the name of Waz Bonepicker, a savage blessed by the Lord of Meat. Even centuries later, Corpse Grinder Cults are raised in the name of the Bonepicker, their icon a bladed wheel mimicking the great machines of the ancient ash-rider clans – and the tools of their grim trade.
Since the days of the Bonepicker, countless cults have risen and fallen. During the Hive Mynerva famine, many hivers turned to cannibalism and the Corpse Grinder Cults gained a foothold within the hive’s walls. Some say Lady Helmawr’s refusal to relieve the hive’s torment by allowing orbital craft to ferry in supplies had less to do with maintaining her monopoly on off-world trade and more on starving out the cults she secretly knew existed. There are those that whisper that the Corpse Grinders are not merely another subversive cult – that they worship a single malign entity of ancient and terrible origin. They believe that the Lord of Skin and Sinew, so recently emerged in Hive Arcos, has walked the wastes of Necromunda before. Spattered icons and ancient texts speak to this truth, hinting that the true power behind the cult is a powerful Daemon somehow tied to Necromunda, perhaps eternally seeking escape, or to transform the world into its own personal realm of blood and hunger.
Masks
"Do not fear, brothers and sisters. What you feel is nought but the glory those above have denied you."
- —Felkormog, Harvest Lord of the Lodge of Tearing Hands
The ranks of the cult are marked out by the masks worn by its members. Those that Cult Initiates wear are simple affairs, designed by overseers to prevent workers from consuming the flesh of the dead. Unfortunately, such precautions often prove futile. Initiates proudly wear these symbols of servitude, enjoying the secret knowledge that the cult has revealed to them.
Skinners show their rank within the cult by decorating their worker’s mask with horns and spikes crafted from bone and sinew. These modified masks are kept secreted away, secured in lockers and hidden in hab units and only brought out at lodge meetings, until the cult rises up and the wearers can show their status proudly to the hated authorities.
More baroque and ornate still than the masks of the Skinners, a Cutter’s mask is hooded and sinister. This clear display of authority marks the Cutters out to their subordinates and chills the blood of their enemies.
Finally, the mask of the Butcher is a truly frightening sight. Adorned over many cycles with carved bone and coated in many layers of blood and viscera, it exudes an almost daemonic aura of savagery, causing enemies to shrink back in terror.
Corpse Grinder Gangs
Corpse Grinder Cult gangs are always led by one Butcher and up to three Cutters. Below them stand the Skinners and unbloodied Cult Initiates.
Source
- Necromunda: Underhive - The Book of Ruin, pp. 14-15, 17-19, 122-123.