A pair of dim red lights in the darkness are the first sign of his approach. A methodical, symmetrical gait marks the sound of his footfalls. A human silhouette is broken by an array of sinuous mechanical limbs which coil about him like the arms of something from the black depths of the sea. A light falling over the form reveals the red robes of the Tech-Priests of Mars.

Silas is possessed of the sort of build one expects from a stimulant abuser or Hive Worlder. While it is unknown if the former were ever a part of his life, the latter is quite certain. Born amidst the misery and despondence of Volg Hive on Fenksworld, he was destined from an early age to either die ignominiously or rise up to thrive in that toxic hellscape.

There are those in the Imperium who fail to escape the womb alive, others who succumb during infancy. Still more fall to illness or violent death as young children, or adolescents. Many more are the Emperor's servants who meet the blackness of death before even reaching adulthood. In truth, such are the fates of all too many of those born in the unceasing tragedy of Volg Hive. While his peers fell around him, the travails of home only seemed to give him strength.


It seemed almost by design that he came to the attention of the Tech-Priests while still quite young. There was a spill, a substance so volatile, so capricious that it fired the air on contact and would burn through steel, stone, and men without slowing. In that conflagration, he did not panic. Even as the flames caressed him to offer the release of oblivion, he did not falter. Through his actions the worst of the flames were extinguished, two of his fellow hivers survived unscathed when they would surely have died, and an irreplaceable piece of machinery was saved from destruction.

For his efforts, the young Silas earned terrible burns on his arms and scalp -the former leaving scars and the latter forever changing his hair-, and a charge of Heresy. One of the survivors claimed that he had failed to observe sacred rites during the chaos of the fire and tainted that very same unique machine. Even then the subsequent trial seemed to give him strength. At length, he was declared innocent of the charge and drawn further into the ranks of the Tech-Priests.


Today, the scrawny hiver's hair comes in thick and gray, it is unruly, unmanageable, and seems possess of a will of its own. The scars healed sufficiently for all of it to return, but it refuses all forms of control. At best, it is tucked behind an ear or trapped under his hood. Even then, rogue strands find ways to escape their captivity to rest seemingly where they will. He stands slightly over one and two-thirds meters in height. Over the years, the vast majority of his person has been given over to the hallowed cybernetics of his order, causing him to weigh over one hundred and fifty kilos. With much of himself devoted to the Omnissiah, it can be a challenge to tell man from machine. It is inarguable that a man still dwells within his shell, but exactly where to find him remains a point of contention.

A throat injury at some point in the past caused the loss of his voice and he was gifted a vox by which to communicate with others. His voice remains recognizable as his own, but is never without a mechanical sound. Most of his senses have been damaged and replaced, or on at least one occasion replaced while the original flesh was still in ostensible perfect working order, with cybernetics. This causes his eyes to glow with a red light and his ears to have the uncanny ability to pick up the occasional whispered word or machine fault.

Over the course of time, he has increased the number of limbs which protrude from his corpus by three times the number with which he was blessed by the Omnissiah at birth. Two mechadendrites serve to put down the foes of the Imperium with attached Mars-pattern Hellpistols. The remaining ten serve in a variety of ways: cutting, lifting, mending, exploring, anchoring, burning, healing, and many more.