hive

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Necromunda is very similar to many other Hive worlds of the Imperium. It is a planet devoid of any remnant of its original natural beauty, its surface reduced to wasteland of windblown ash and accumulated industrial waste. Throughout this wasteland lie the Hive Cities.

The Hives are grouped into clusters comprising up to a dozen or so individual Hives all linked by a network of over and above ground sealed transport tubes and subterranean passages. Many Hives have their own airports for the rich, but only the capital, Hive Primus, has a spaceport, thuse controlling the planets massive export industry. These clusters are scattered over the cloud-strewn surface of the planet. From the top of any Hive it is possible to see the tips of distant Hive clusters projecting from the seas of poison mist like far-flung islands.

Hive clusters are connected together by larger overland trans-tubes supported by pylons and suspended from cables. Normal roads across the wastes are invarible covered by ash and travelers swamped and kiled. The desperate or poor still use sealed vehicles to travel this way, but rarely get to their destination. Withs its forest of tower Hives interconnected in a network of tubes, the landscape resembles a petrified forest entangled in the web of some giant spider. Indeed, the spider and its web are powerrful symbols for Necromundians.

The Hives are the resul of millenia of constant demolition and rebuilding.. The original cities lie beneath the hives, below the current surface of ash. These cities serve as foundations for the newer cities. Skyscrapers are built upon skyscrapers so as to escape the poisoned surface. These dark, forbidding ruins are often crushed or collapse by the weight above them cause Hive-quakes (see below). These old cities preserve the history of Necromunda and many strange things can be found down there.

Each Hive-City takes the form of many huge Spires that rise from the base of each city. From a distant they resemble a mass of stalagmites rising from the strewn wastes. Each Hive covers a cirular area of some fifty to a hundred miles in diameter. THe tops of the Spires can rise to a dozen or more miles above the ash-surface, piercing the festering clouds. The Spires usually merge with each other at the bases and smaller Spires often grow out and up from just above the base, branching out like cactus and forming multiple Spires.

Spires are an almost impossible feat of accidental architecture. The need to build higher as lower sections collapse, or slag heaps grow higher around or gas gets thicker the base, necessitates building upon ruins and buildings. Spires are supported by vast colums made of the strongest materials that hold levels up. Sometimes anti-gravity technology is used, but only in the richer upper Hive. If one were to stand at the ground level of a Spire and look up, one would see building upon building, criss-crossed with bridges, support colums and pylons, cables and arches, railings and scaffolds, walls and anti-gravity platforms. One would not be able to see the top, only the "floor" of the next level which is really a web of supported roads and streets, hanging in the air from cables and arches. Theoretically, one could fall from the top of a Spire like this, all the way to the ground floor - so long as one fell through all of the right gaps. Though this is a rather fragile way of building Spires, it is the cheapest and allows for constant rebuilding and maintainance, resulting is smaller "side-Spires" and refitting of an outer-shell.

Sometimes levels do have floors and ceilings, Old buildings and streets are filled in with plas-crete to provide solid foundations and a floor paved atop the roofs. This method is repeated hundreds of years later. This creates a sealed honey-comb effect, where level upon level rise above each other, largely self-cotained. However, the plas-crete does not fill all of the gaps and Hivers still live in these older, abandoned levels. Often there are routes between the individual honey-comb levels, so they are not truely sealed. This routes may be owned by gangs, undiscovered or just very dangerous, unstable or inhabited by spiders, rats or mutants. This sandwiching creates solid foundations and can be used to seal off contaminated or irradiated levels.

The following links will take you pictures of Pripyat, the radioactive and abandoned city in Russia which is closest to Chernobyl. This link will also take you to stunning pictures of the area aroundChernobyl. These haunting images will give you a good idea of what the lower levels of the Hive might look like, abandoned, dark and empty ghost cities from ages past.

A Hive-quake is an event feared by all Hivers. It can result in the mass destruction of Hives in under an hour, and the sudden, crushing deaths of billions of people. Spires are instable structures. Three main things are responsible for the mass-disaster known as a Hive-quake.

Any kind of flaw or fault in the building of a Spire at any stage (including a thousand years ago) can suddenly give way due to the weight above it, or due to age, weakness or industrial or gang activity like mining or bombing. When a lower level or support colum gives way and collapses, many of the levels above will crumble down after it. Inevitably, this means lower levels are also crushed or at least bombarded by the tons of masonry. Whole Spires and Multi-Spires can collapse in this way, and if the Emperor is not smiling good fortune that day it may result in a domino-type effect where one Spire will crash into neighbouring Spires bringing them crashing down and those around them too. Some Hives have smashed almost completely to the ground when a central Spire has collapsed. Those spires that survive are typically on the outside, but often have their sealed shells compromised and poison gas and ash floods them from outside.

During the hot-season Ash-storms rage in the wastes outside. Only outer-edge Spires are usually in danger from this weather. Tornado like winds pickup the corrosive rust and crystalline chemical waste outside and whip it into a deadly whirl-wind. Such wind will strip a person of their flesh and smash their bones to dust. Against an outer-shell, Ash-storms can tear and corrode straight through them, spewing steaming, cuttig ash and toxic gas upon the Hivers within. When this happens, those within are burnt and torn and gased and entire spires can be smashed from the raging forces outside causing a hive-quake. More typically, ash-storms will merely rip open a hole of holes i n a shell and destroy almost everyone within (though honey-comb Spires have a higher rate of surival, as to lower levels, though they could get buried or cut-off from life-support). However, great storms have raged in the past and have been large enough to cut through entire Hives, destroying them in a few hours. Spires torn-open by ash-storms will eventuall be explored by rich-tech clans in sealed-suits and the shell fixed. A Spire is then re-populated. Sometimes nomads might get there first and take anything left of value.

These obvious factors have resulted in Spire and Hive detruction. For example, compromising the heat-sink would result in rupture and destruction, or firing a defense laser at another Spire would result in massive damage to the shell, resulting in slow poisoning by toxic gas from the outside. Sometimes these things happen if noble families war with each other. Though this is illegal and will bring swift retribution from the royalty of Hive Primus, it still occurs occasionally.

Needless to say, Necromunda is littered with destroyed Hives and smashed Spires, the detritus of a hostile planet and a sign of its desperate peoples futile struggle against themselves.