Hive Secundus was once a shining beacon in the firmament of Necromunda. It had been a seat of learning and enlightenment for millennia – even when the planet still bore the name Araneus Prime – a bastion of civilisation at the heart of an empire. Then a radical Magos Biologis arrived with a captive in tow, setting off a chain of events that would leave a 100km crater wracked by esoteric energies and crawling with maddened mutant Genestealers. It’s a bold new setting for Necromunda, so Warhammer Community met up with Rules Lead Rob, Miniatures Lead Alex, and Illustrator Miguel for a series of discussions about the lore, the rules, and the new factions.
Rob: Though Hive Secundus has been in the lore for some time, we had been quite vague as to what exactly had happened there. So when we came to write the story, we explored the Secundan Abyss – the hive isn’t intact or standing at all. Instead, it’s this enormous crater blasted by a perpetual storm of strange gravitic energies roiling below ground level. But as with everywhere else on Necromunda, the residents are ingenious. Despite being enclosed on all sides for hundreds of kilometres around by the Dust Wall, there are great crane cities built around the Abyss, helping explorers and raiders enter the ruins of the hive.
Hive Secundus harks back to the rogue Magos Biologis Hermiatus of the Adeptus Mechanicus, a Heretek character introduced in issue 145 of White Dwarf (all the way back in January 1992!). He was the target of a Space Crusade* scenario campaign – you had to hunt him down and kill him after he’d left Necromunda as he was too much of a threat to the Imperium to be allowed near the Hive Mind.
He arrived on Necromunda specifically to visit Hive Secundus, which was at that time the centre of all learning on Necromunda. It was basically a vast databank which contained all the knowledge of Necromunda dating back to the Aranean Continuity – which was the federation of planets ruled from Necromunda (then called Araneus Prime) before the region was brought to compliance during the Great Crusade. As you can imagine, this was an incredible repository of information during the Imperial era.
Hermiatus aimed to cure the Genestealer curse, and wanted to tap into this knowledge. He had a pet Genestealer which he had managed to trap in stasis, locked up behind full hexagrammatic wards so no psychic influence could get out. After he arrived and set up a lab in secret, he would extract its DNA, mess around with it, and inject it back into the Genestealer. These experimentations weren’t strictly** legal – but Tech-Priests do these things all the time…
Nevertheless, cracks started to develop, and the Genestealer’s psychic presence began to take over. Eventually Hermiatus was induced to release it, and it duly started a Genestealer Cult in the hive. The Magos fled elsewhere, in thrall to the Hive Mind, and was hunted down and killed. The Cult of the Second Son, however, remained hidden for a long time amassing their power. When the cult was eventually discovered, a massive war for the hive began. The then-Lord Helmawr attempted to contain it at first with the Planetary Defence Forces and armies of Enforcers, who laid a constant siege, The situation continued to escalate, and at one point, even the Imperial Fists garrison (which almost never interferes with planetary issues) were deployed and even they were unable to win.
As things looked dire, Inquisitor Anneth Vestrix took command of the situation. Judging Necromunda too precious to the Imperium for Exterminatus, she ordered the great orbital space station above the Eye of Selene to move from its geostationary orbit above Hive Primus, and turn its weapons onto Secundus. These were designed to destroy attacking war fleets and consisted of horribly powerful gravitic warheads, nucleonic weapons, and other stranger energies. This formidable arsenal destroyed the hive, smashing it into the ground and creating a colossal crater. The area was declared free of Genestealers, but the Dust Wall exclusion zone was built to contain the area, just to be totally sure. With nothing allowed in or out, the Inquisitor declared Necromunda safe and went on her way.
Obviously, things didn’t go as planned.
In fact, the Patriarch survived, as did other pockets of infestation. There were also many settlements on the wrong side of the Dust Wall that were completely cut off from the Imperium whether they had been infected or not. These communities began to consolidate and work together in order to survive. In the end, they built settlements around the Abyss, which eventually became the Port Cities, and they now operate as ferrymen for Spyre Hunters of the Imperial House, Van Saar Tek-hunters, and other parties interested in the detritus of Hive Secundus.
Eventually, a successive Lord Helmawr decided to check whether everything was still alright back there and discovered it wasn’t. The horror of the Malstrain was discovered, but so was evidence of surviving Data Crystals – knowledge that could be found nowhere else on the planet and had been thought lost. Every scrap of this information is unfathomably valuable.
Unfortunately, the destruction of Hive Secundus meant that all the machinery, heat sinks, and reactors went into meltdown - creating a lethal environment combining radiation, gravitic forces, chemicals, and toxic gases. The Patriarch had already been compromised by Hermiatus and altered on a genetic level – and it gave rise to the Malstrain. These are a warped, twisted, and weakened form of Genestealer – nothing at all like the Tyranid perfection of the Purestrains. They’re still terrifying, but if you put a Malstrain against a Purestrain, it’s not a close battle.
Lord Helmawr did not inform the Imperium in case they decided to reconsider employing Exterminatus. A policy of secrecy was decided upon, but the Malstrain also needed to be controlled and contained. This quickly became a rite of passage for the sons and daughters of the Imperial House, and they now don Spyrer suits in order to cull the Malstrain population and ensure it’s all contained.
The Spyrers take other interested parties with them, essentially as bait. In the case of the Hive Secundus boxed set, it’s the Van Saar Tek-hunters who are desperate for information, hoping they might hold the secret to fixing the malfunctioning STC that’s slowly killing their house. As far as the Spyrers are concerned, however, they operate like beaters in mediaeval hunting parties, flushing out the Spyrers quarry. It’s a symbiotic relationship; the Spyrer doesn’t care about the gang or their plunder – they just want to kill Genestealers to prove that they’re worthy of advancement.
And that’s where we begin in Necromunda: Hive Secundus – a band of Van Saar Tek-hunters are embarking on a desperate mission with a Spyre Hunter there to protect them… or use them as a human shield.
Thanks Rob! We’ll have another Necromundan double bill on Warhammer Community tomorrow when we examine the lore, miniatures, and playstyles for the Spyre Hunters and the Malstrain. If you’re hungry for more, we’ve prepared a video explaining it all below.
* An epic dungeon-crawling board game featuring plastic Space Marines exploring a derelict space hulk full of xenos.
** Remotely…