The Rise of Plasmatek Dynamics Corp

Among the sprawling manufactoria of Hive Primus, where the smoke never lifts and the hum of machinery drowns out the cries of the dying, one name carried both prestige and dread: Plasmatek Dynamics Corp. To most of House Van Saar, Plasmatek were innovators — a semi-autonomous offshoot of the Clan’s weapon-research guilds, dedicated to perfecting the deadliest plasma technology available in the hive. Their las and plasma prototypes trickled into the black market, devastatingly reliable by Underhive standards, and whispered about with awe even by hardened gangers.

Yet to those who knew the truth, Plasmatek’s prosperity was tainted.

Their leader, Magos-Engineer Helvar Saarlund, was more than just a clever Archeotek. He was obsessed. Like all Van Saar, Helvar bore the curse of radiation sickness, the price of wielding their decaying Standard Template Construct. Every day his body failed him: hair fell out in clumps, his skin blistered beneath his bodyglove, and his lungs rattled with each laboured breath. He poured his intellect not only into building better plasma coils, but into finding a cure for his gang’s fragility.

The Descent

During one ill-fated expedition, Helvar led his gang deep into the Underhive, following faint energy readings that hinted at lost archeotech. For days they trudged through sump-choked tunnels and half-collapsed manufactoria, until the scanners crackled with a pulse unlike anything Van Saar had ever seen.

They expected a machine. Instead, they found… them.

The Genestealers revealed themselves not as predators, but as whisperers. Pale forms emerging from the darkness, their claws poised yet strangely still. A robed figure stepped forward — a Magus of the Cult — and in a voice that bypassed speech entirely, promised Helvar what he craved most. Not riches. Not power. Healing. The cult’s broodmind touched the Archeotek’s with promises of vitality, strength, and freedom from the genetic curse of his House.

Helvar should have recoiled. Instead, he listened. In that moment, the gnawing sickness in his bones seemed louder than any oath to House Van Saar. With a trembling nod, he opened himself to the embrace of the broodmind.

The Transformation

When the gang returned to Hive Primus, they were… changed. Helvar’s skin gleamed with unnatural health, his posture straighter than it had been in years. His eyes glowed faintly in the half-light, and his words carried a zeal that silenced doubters. He spoke of Plasmatek’s “new future,” one where their plasma research would fuse with living flesh, where technology and biology would merge under a guiding will greater than any Clan or Guild.

The others, weakened by sickness and desperate for salvation, followed him willingly. One by one, they too were blessed. Some grew strange resilience, others heard the broodmind whispering strategies in their dreams. Most shocking of all was the arrival of an Aberrant — a hulking, half-formed brute Helvar declared to be the gang’s living prototype, proof that Plasmatek could breed the perfect fusion of weapon and warrior.

Plasmatek Today

Now, in the Underhive, whispers spread of a Van Saar gang who move with uncanny coordination, wielding plasma weaponry of terrifying efficiency. They fight not only with beams of sunfire, but with a strange unity that unsettles even the hardiest gangers. Their leader no longer hides his ambition: to transform Plasmatek Dynamics Corp into a dynasty where sickness is burned away, replaced by the purity of the cult.

Rival gangs call them heretics. The Van Saar call them traitors.

But the brood calls them family.