A player of mine wants and needs a halo device. He is in the possession of one from some interesting choices he made during house of dust and ash. How likly is it he knows what the device really is. Hes a rank 5 adapt whos spent all xp on knowlages so far and has total recall. he trys to say that he should know what it is from that. but i dont see it happening. Can someone shine some light on these little buggers for me?

Brinkosanity said:

Pg 98 of DotDG should be illuminating for you then. Just refer to the black box entitled knowledge of Halo Devices. In short, going strictly by the book, if he hasn't taken any elite advances or the Calixian Xeno-Archivist alternate rank to get FL (Xenos), then he wouldn't wouldn't know much of anything at all about them. I can see, though, where many other lores (such as legend or underowlrd) would let him know they exist and then heap on a healthy helping of misinformation, hear-say that's been distorted with the tellings, and Emperor only knows what else resulting in knowing they exist and having a head full of dangerous and misleading ideas about what they really are.

Graver said:

heres my interpretation of what will happen
Acolyte: oh whats this button do. [CLICK]
GM/device: self destruct sequence activated commencing in 3....2....1....BOOM!!!!
takes out half building/ship acolyte is in

lol

my 2 cents

What is the nature of thequestion? Does he want to know what a Halo Device is, or what his particular Halo Device does? One way to find out would be to have it activate.

In my personal opinion, I don't think he should know everything about a Halo Device. Maybe one or two actual facts, and everything else is bogus. Say, he learns it does indeed make you immortal. But, the bogus part is that it makes you immortal by speeding your aging process to the crack of death, and keeps you there.

Something along those lines.

My characters know about the Halo Device, they discovered on in Dust and Ash.
Today we played Tattered Fates again and they encountered the Spider Bride...now they FEAR the device after seeing her in action, they spotted the Halo Device....*grin*

Halo Devices are fun. I just put mine on because I thought it looked cool and boy was I in for a surprise that led to a really climactic scenario.

Of course, I might have done different if I didn't fail on my Forbidden Lore (Xenos) roll when trying to figure out what that innocent looking gorget was.

I always consider these two factors when running Dark Heresy:

What will be fun?

and

What will most likely lead to a horribly tragic outcome?

Giving a PC a Halo Device results in both, so I'm in favour of it.

Cheers.

Well everyone knows that the Halo Device bestows immortality....

Let your adept know that and then have fun as he tries to use it.

SJE

Note that some Halo Devices immortality. Some appear to be horrible worm creatures that animate dead bodies. I'd say that many lores like legend, cults, warp, and the like would give a PC a roll. Also evaluate would work. I'd let the PC roll as many lores that seem to apply. Some with a -10-20. Then feed each bit below based on degrees of sucess.

-Halo devices are a highly sought after xenos object with many powers.

-Ownership of one is forbidden on pain of death.

-The are said to have many powers including granting immortality.

-They tend to have very bad side effects.

SJE said:

I say cleary "no, they don´t". This is an obscure alien artifact. Some-one who is not passing a suitable check on "Forbidden Lore (Xenos)" will not

- know about "Halo Devices"
- be able to identify one if he sees it
- know how to "activate" it

So why the last point could be found through "try-and-error", the first a cleary the realm of "Forbidden Lore"(Xenos). Talking about other Lores...

"Legends" might/will tell you that there have been stories about "strange devices found in the darkness outside the emperous light, devices that give immortality... for a most terrible and unholy price", but not more about it. Perhaps it will give you stories involing such strange devices, pointing to "this Acient Forbearer of that RougeTrader lineage" or "that emporer forsaken world in the halo stars "where that settlement shall ones have existed till...'". This will help to get clues where to find informations about said devices, but imho the skill should not work as an "substitue" for Forbidden Lore. Otherwise, it would be forbidden itself.

"Underworld" is not something I see as helpfull at all. It is "Commen Lore" about illegal activity and organized crime. This will help to find groups involved into the "cold trade" who/whom might in turn be able to provide the information... but again, I doubt that this will help with the "three points" I stated.

But anyhow, if the pc has to "hunt for clues", the more the fun...if all players agree to hunt for such a thing.

One thing that gave me a pause in the orginal topic starting post is "the player NEEDS to have a halo device".
I cannot see how any player should -need- something like this.... he might GREED for it, but that is something different.

Gregorius21778 said:

Make it's needs like he needs a hole in the head. Or needs to be burned repeatily for heresy....