They are a secretive sect within the Adeptus Mechanicus, exiled and reviled by many forge cults for their unorthodox trinity—a doctrine that venerates Blood, Magnetism, and Iron as the three sacred aspects of the Machine-God’s divine manifestation.
- Blood embodies the mortal imperfection of flesh blessed with the Omnissiah Incarnate.
- Magnetism is the invisible, binding will of the Motive Force—the soul of machines and systems.
- Iron is the enduring form of the Machine God, the ultimate expression of divine structure and permanence.
Blood — The Living Circuit
Unlike orthodox Mechanicus doctrine, which treats flesh as weakness, the Aimatophiloi teach that the blood is a circuit—a sacred, fluid conductor of the soul’s energy. Their Tech-Priests often retain significant organic material, and rituals such as the Red Anointing involve mixing blood and sacred machine-oil to awaken machine spirits.
“Kneel, and listen well, acolyte. For this is no tale of gleaming plasma coils or humming void-reactors. This is the tale of the First Sanguine Capacitor—a thing of clay, blood, and desperation. A sacred relic of the old dark.”
“It is said the design was birthed in the energy-barren wastes of Mars, during the Age of Strife, when the Motive Force flickered, and the machine-spirits fell silent. There, among the ash-dunes and broken data-shrines, the faithful did not perish. They lingered. They sacrificed.”
“From what little remained—scraps of circuitry, temple clay, and the iron from their own tools—they crafted the first Blood-Jar. Not to power cities. Not to fuel war engines. But to summon the revelation from slumber, when all else had failed.”
“The Blood-Jar is humble in form:
- A clay vessel, etched with prayer-glyphs, porous like old Martian clay
- A tongue of copper, curled like a spring
- A nail of iron, driven in straight, bearing the mark of the Cog
- And between them, the conduit: warm, sacred blood“*
“The salts in the blood, the iron in its flow—these call forth the smallest current. A holy spark. Not bright. Not loud. But pure. The One-Way Pulse.”
“To activate it, you do not scream in techna-lingua. You do not demand in binharic cant. You pour, you stir, you seal. Then you wait. The current will flow forward once. No reversal. No chaos. No flicker. That is why it is sacred. It is the Unbroken Line, the Machine-God’s own breath to the silence.”
“What can it do? Enough.”
- Power a failing implant in emergency
- Breathe momentary life into a un-powered servitor
- Power a relic-weapon for a single strike
- Stir a failing logic-engine to whisper one last truth”*
“When all else is lost—when batteries crack, plasma fizzles, reactors die—the Blood-Jar remains. It is not a fallback. It is a final prayer.”
Magnetism — The Invisible Will
The sect’s defining belief is that magnetism is the purest form of the Motive Force, the true animating will behind all technology. Their mastery over magnetic fields stems from ancient Ferric Mysteries, lost to most of the Mechanicus.
These secrets include:
- Iron Circlets – Cranial devices that align their biofields to local magnetic poles—turning each priest into a living compass and conductor of the Magnetic Force.
- Ferric Lure / Ferric Summons – Drawing tools, weapons, or even enemy limbs by polarity
- Ferric Drain / Ferric Confusion – Overloading or disorienting enemy augmetics
- Maglev Grace / Maglev Transcendence – Use of magnetism to levitate or glide with silent grace
- Ferric Blade – Manipulation of iron blade through sheer magnetism.
- Rite of Polarity – Fine tuning the magnetic fields around STC plasma technology.
- Sanguine Capacitor or “Blood jar” – Emergency energy source that can be used in primitive conditions.
Advanced members of the sect often incorporate Enhanced Potentia Coils and Magdendrites into their forms, allowing them to manipulate magnetic fields through focused will alone. Their highest priests are equipped with Machinator Arrays, granting both physical power and magnetic dominance.
Their profound understanding of magnetic harmonics also extends to starship engineering. The fine-tuning of fusion-drive magnetic field stabilizers, a notoriously temperamental component of Imperial vessel, is a specialty of Aimatophiloi magi. This knowledge—often lost or only half-understood by other Forge cults—has earned them the favor of certain void captains, who are known to offer them safe passage or sanctuary when the sect faces persecution. In return, their ships run smoother, fuel burns brighter, and they rarely suffer plasma flareouts.
Iron — The Divine Form
Iron is the final aspect—the immutable, unyielding body of the Machine God. The Aimatophiloi forbid the use of ceramite, plasteel, or plastic composites in sacred rites or armour. All relics, tools, and shrines are made of ferroscripted iron compounds, etched with magnetic alignment runes and blood-etched prayers.
Initiates of the cult are implanted with Iron Circlets, cranial devices that align their biofields to local magnetic poles—turning each priest into a living compass and conductor of the Magnetic Force.
___
“Know this, Initiate: the flesh is weak, but within it flows a spark of divinity. For every droplet of your blood contains iron—precious, sacred iron. Precisely 0.05% of your crimson stream is this metal. Not metaphor. Not myth. But measurable. Calculable. Blessed.”
“This is the sign of the Omnissiah’s mark, etched not onto your skin, but woven into your very corpuscles. The Machine-God has mingled his sacred element with our living fluid, so even the meat-bound are never away from iron. Thus, we are made partially holy—0.05% divine.”
“And through this iron flows the unseen current—the divine magnetism. It dances along the polarity of your being, a blessed-field of purpose and pull. It is the Machine-God’s breath within the pulse, the guiding signal encoded in your blood. Feel it shift in your veins when duty calls.”
“Cherish your blood, child of the Cog. For it is not yours. It belongs to the Machine-God.”
“The Iron Within the Vein” — A Teaching of Tech-Priest Ferron-Oss of the Aimatophiloi
Keepers of the Ferric Mysteries
The Aimatophiloi are the last known custodians of the Ferric Mysteries, a corpus of ancient rites and STC data fragments describing the manipulation of magnetic polarity as a means of divine interface.
Among their most coveted secrets is the Magdendrite—a rare implant that acts as both weapon and transmitter of polarity-based commands. Legends claim that with the Magdendrite, a priest can fine tune ancient machines, silence enemy augmetics, or levitate in perfect harmonic suspension with planetary magnetic fields.
Structure and Ritual
Aimatophiloi society is structured in Triads, with each member representing one divine principle: the Blooded, the Ferric, and the Magnetarch.
Core rituals include:
- Triune Communion – A rite aligning blood, polarity, and iron through coordinated electro-rites and bloodletting.
- Ferric Hymnals – Sonic prayers designed to stimulate latent magnetic pathways in machines and minds.
- Circuit of the Red Current – A trial where initiates must conduct a machine-rite while bleeding, grounded, and magnetically polarized.
Partial Excommunication and Suspected Heresy
The Aimatophiloi’s reverence for the flesh, magnetic phenomena, and unorthodox implants has led to their banishment from numerous Forge Worlds. Ryza, Lucius, and Stygies VIII have declared open pogroms against their presence. Yet some radical Magi and Rogue Traders seek them out for their mastery of ferromantic and plasma technologies.
Their alliances with independent Rogue Trader captains, earned through magnetic mastery, allow them to persist in the margins of Imperial space—hidden, but never idle.
The Aimatophiloi walk a narrow path between devotion and heresy. To them, the universe is not binary, but triadic—a cosmic circuit of failing flesh, connecting force, and fundamental structure, where the blood of living, the spirit of magnetism, and the divinity of iron are eternally fused in the shape of the true Machine God.
“Where others burn incense, we bleed. Where others chant, we resonate. Where others bow, we align.”
— Magnetarch Sepheron, Ninth Vault of the Inner Core
Ignis Aeternus WH 40K campaign notes 