Located halfway up the massive western face of Hive Primus, set above the bustling Nexus but well below the gleaming lower reaches of the spire, squats the Fist. Today, we take a look at this House Goliath stronghold.
A Toxic Ruin
Set into a ragged hole in the side of the hive, a place long abandoned by the other Clan Houses, the savage House of Chains has made its home. Only the rugged physiology of a Goliath could hope to prosper here, so exposed is it to the toxic atmosphere of the hive world. Any normal hiver taking a lungful of the polluted air of the Fist would soon be rasping their last as their organs blistered and burst.
A powerhouse of heavy industry and smelting, the hammering forges of the Fist ring out across the wastes, drowning out even the constant drone of the hive’s great storm turbines. Each propeller is the size of a city and is used to direct the worst of the ashen gales away from the hive shell. Most of the high-grade alloys used in Hive Primus’ thousands of Clan manufactoria come from the Fist, and it’s a measure of the work of the Goliaths that Guilds and Great Houses alike pay well for the Clan’s hammer-stamped metals.
Of course, the Fist was not always the industrial hellhole it is today – not so long ago it was a completely different kind of hellhole. After a stricken orbital shuttle crashed into the area where the Fist would one day stand, it was abandoned for many centuries. Considered too toxic and badly damaged to be of use, nearby domes were sealed off and servitor work crews were directed to leave its fate to the elements. It was not until the early years of M38, and the emergence of the Goliaths, that it was to see human habitation again.
So the story goes, a Goliath Alpha by the name of Rakarn Fist, escaped the slaver's noose by climbing out onto the shell of Hive Primus, scaling the great hive and seeking shelter in the ruin. Wounded and bleeding, Rakarn was set upon by an army of hairless rats, some the size of Phyrr Cats. Fashioning armour and weapons from the scrap around him, Rakarn waged war on them, clearing out the ruin, and laying claim to it for his people.
In memory of his deeds – or perhaps just because it amuses the local Goliaths – in each great cycle, a Goliath is chosen to recreate the deeds of Rakarn. The fighter is hurled naked into a fighting pit filled with starving rats… and cheered on by their clan mates as they punch, kick and bite their way to victory.*
House of Pain
It’s not without good cause that Clan Goliath is known as the House of Chains. Hundreds of thousands of slaves infest the Fist, toiling at all those tasks the Goliaths themselves are either ill-suited to or consider beneath them – be it sweeping the boiling floors of the great factories, running the medicae habs or cleaning the intricate workings of a renderizer.**
To keep this slave population from choking to death on the thick atmosphere of the Fist, something only Goliath lungs can truly endure, most slaves are shackled to their workstations by long, snaking breathing tubes. Groups of slaves might even be linked to the same tube network, making it easy for a Goliath to lead them about by simply hauling the rebreather unit on their back, the slaves trailing along behind like giant rats on a leash. This system also makes it easy for the Goliaths to chastise a slave that might be slacking on the job – there’s nothing more motivating than having your air ration cut to up a production quota.
The Goliaths are not especially cruel masters, however, and some say they lack the imagination to be truly sadistic toward their drudges – like some of the Great Houses are known to be. This, of course, doesn’t extend to the Goliath’s love of pit fighting, and it’s almost inevitable that a slave owned by the House of Chains will at some point end up in the pits – and in the Fist, that means a trip to the House of Pain.
One of the largest arenas in Hive Primus, the House of Pain is a smoke-shrouded colosseum that echoes daily to the sound of roaring Goliath crowds and the screams of its combatants. It is a great honour for a Goliath to have fought in the House of Pain, and legends like Attilus the Axe made their name there, while even Over-tyrant Varran Gor has painted its iron floor crimson with his chain blades. Ajex Gorgoth, the Alpha of the Fist, wisely keeps the House of Pain packed, lest his Goliath workers grow bored after a full cycle at the forge, and all manner of fighters and creatures grace the arena each evening shift. Some are mundane matches between poorly trained pit slaves or augments like chrono-gladiators – the crowd wagering if the gladiator will fell their opponent before the bomb strapped to their chest goes off. Others are more exotic, and House Escher supplies Ajex with countless horrors found out in the wastes, the depths of the underhive or born in their labs – all for the pleasure of the crowds.
The World Forge
Vast amounts of ore pour into the Fist from the Orlock mines surrounding Hive Primus, raw materials brought in as far afield as the Spoil to feed the Goliath smelters. It’s said that land-trains approaching Hive Primus from the west can pick out the glow of the Fist on the side of the great city even through the toxic gloom of Necromunda’s putrid atmosphere. As they draw closer, the sounds of its hydraulic metal hammers ring out as they churn out a ceaseless supply of finished ingots.
More than once, another Clan House has thought to capture the hugely valuable factories of the Fist and use their manufacturing capabilities for themselves. Even though Lord Helmawr is swift to punish open warfare between the Clan Houses, he encourages limited exchanges in the interests of pushing up production quotas and trimming dead meat from the population.
In recent times House Escher, on behalf of the Noble House of Ulanti tried to poison the population of the Fist, introducing a new strain of Lungscald into the settlement’s ventilators. The result almost wiped out the slave population of the Fist, countless drudges bursting in crimson showers as their rebreathers pumped the chem into them. Though not a single Goliath perished, some did comment on the air having an odd smell that morning.
Far more worrying for Ajex Gorgoth and the other Alphas, was the Ogryn Slave uprising of Nine ’89. Organised around a ‘charismatic’*** Ogryn pit fighter named Sparky III (not to be confused with any of the other Sparkys to have led Ogryn uprisings), the great brutes rampaged through the Fist for three long cycles. Goliaths, slaves and visiting Guilders all felt their wrath. It might have gone on longer, or threatened the rest of the hive, had Sparky III not led his people to freedom down the wrong tunnel – causing the entire uprising to charge off the edge of the Fist and plummet to their doom down the outside of the hive!
* They cheer even louder when the rats win.
** A task that requires surprisingly dainty fingers.
*** Some say he could even say his name without pausing between each syllable.