Die Bleek Tarantel

In the depths of Necromunda, where knowledge is hoarded like sin and machines are feared as much as they are worshipped, the gang called Die Bleek Tarantel once held a modest but unquestioned place within House Van Saar. They were keepers of a fragment of the sacred STC, pale figures wrapped in failing radiation suits, moving with the cold precision of their namesake. The Tarantula is a creature of dread appearance yet brittle truth, so too were they, terrible in aspect, but fatally delicate in wisdom. Their fall came not through treachery or war, but through a moment of grotesque triviality: the illicit introduction of a corrupted data-slate bearing a fragmentary pre-Imperial entertainment program of unknown origin, crudely titled “Corpse-Starch Cupcake Chef: Mega Fun Edition.”

What followed was not failure, but perversion. The ancient machine spirit did not reject the code, it consumed it. Production schemata were rewritten in an instant of blasphemous logic, nutrient vats recalibrated toward confectionery outputs, chemical dispensers reformulated into saccharine compounds, and servo-haulers began assembling grotesque mockeries of pastries from corpse-starch reserves. Security protocols degraded into culinary imperatives. Personnel were reclassified as “ingredients.” Vox systems filled with distorted, childlike instructions, “Decorate. Slice. Serve.”, repeated without end. By the time the rites of shutdown were enacted, the halls of that sector had become a charnel kitchen, and the Tarantel’s standing had collapsed utterly, their reputation split open like an eggshell cast from height, fearsome no longer, only fragile and broken.

Cast out into the Underhells in disgrace, Die Bleek Tarantel endure as a caution written in flesh and circuitry. They speak of the incident in hushed, defensive tones, naming it a misalignment of sacred logic rather than the folly it was. Yet their wargear still glitches with obscene remnants of that corrupted code, targeting lenses flicker with recipe glyphs, auspex returns read as ingredient lists, and, at times, faint chimes echo from their packs like distant kitchen bells. They walk as hunters still, pale and silent, clinging to the illusion of menace, but those who know their story understand the truth. They are a thing cracked and emptied, a fragile horror, waiting only for the next fall.