So, I certainly might've just missed it, or it might not be necessary, but if you were to find a relic in your adventures, would there be a good component to represent it? Would you just have a Temple Shrine, and maybe increase its bonus by +1, while the relic is interred there? I know that some vessels have carried "sacred relics", and even the Space Marines in Ultramarines has a shrine bearing a rather special thunder hammer (daemon hammer, possibly). Other than the mechanical benefits of actually having one player wield it in battle, I'm not sure what you'd do, and if it were a non-weapon, like an optional book in Lure, even more so. It might be cool to have the ship, and the people who live there, feel honored, and receive a mechanical benefit (I'm greedy that way), from housing a true relic aboard their ship. Thoughts?

As a second, would the Ecclesiarchy try to take the relic, or would they accept you as caretaker, if pious? They might want to have pilgrims be able to come see it, but you might get more use out of it, and few people can afford more security than a Rogue Trader. Out in the Expanse, their presence might be weaker, but your crew might be pious, and think their master a heretic, so...just wondering what some thoughts here might be? I have this cool idea, in my story, of having the crew find a rather impressive spear somewhere, and having it be sort of a "Longinus-lite" daemon-killer; something maybe a Canoness, or Inquisitor, once carried into battle, before falling to mortality. I was looking at a site where some people are making variants of 40K minis, since GW can't entirely enforce their will on things, after court, and one had Canoness-analogue with a cool spear. Since it isn't an official 40K piece, with an official 40K relic, I thought I might borrow one, and have the Spear (more work necessary, beyond silly, mechanical benefits to one person using it) be housed aboard the Exalted Wyrm , for the benefit of the crew (the Priest in question prefers bolter/chainsword to spear), but I was unsure whether the Ecclesiarchy would try to muscle in on it, or what? In Warpstorm, you are given a priceless relic, but you NEED it, for the most part, and it makes the players feel important, while only one Priest is involved in giving it to you, and he doesn't ask permission. In your trips through the void, how have relics fared on your ship? Were they put up for reverent display, or locked in a vault, and did you use them, or keep them? In an existing component, or fabricated a whole new one, for a separate bonus? Just some thoughts I'd like from the community, thanks. As for me, right now, I am thinking that I would just place it on an altar, in the Temple Shrine, and up that component's bonus by +1, so long as the relic is there. If Corianna takes it into battle, unlikely for her, though that might be, that bonus would be lost, until she returned it, and the people knew it was still safe (and had kept their masters safe, praise be the Emperor). I'll see what anyone says, of course.

As to the first, yes, I'd just house it in a Temple Shrine component and give the crew a morale bonus.

As to the second, if it made for a good plotline then the Ecclesiarchy might press for its return, but I'd be just as likely to have them press for an honor guard to accompany the relic, depending on its relative importance.

As to the first, yes, I'd just house it in a Temple Shrine component and give the crew a morale bonus.

As to the second, if it made for a good plotline then the Ecclesiarchy might press for its return, but I'd be just as likely to have them press for an honor guard to accompany the relic, depending on its relative importance.

I like this very much, especially as it supports the things I said. Here comes some needless extra crap:

Since something as storied as the Spear would need some stuff, I think I'd have some Fraterus Militia, or maybe a few Adepta Sororitas, get the job of guarding it, though they'd rather be doing so someplace else. There would be one interesting spot where Qel-Drake is seemingly defying an Inquisitor, and heading out to engage the Tau, where that guard would probably object. It might also, after that, give Qel-Drake a reason to take the Spear to Damaris, and have it enshrined there, saying that the relic he took from there, the "Eye of Drusis", led him to the Spear. Then, if keeping it aboard the ship seems unnecessary, there'd be a secondary place to leave it, and giving Damaris' Ecclesiarchy-branch something to smile about. Otherwise, it would be a nice excuse to have someone else aboard the Exalted Wyrm to "take note" of the crazy things Qel-Drake does, and give him, and a one or two other members of his crew, a nice opportunity for conflict/growth. Thanks Errant Knight. The day was kind of being shite, and now I am feeling a good deal better for it. Have a good one.

In fact, I'm working up something similar for my current campaign and I'm a bit conflicted about it. I've only had a few missionaries in my previous campaigns, so my epxerience is limited. One of them needed to leave quickly since I wouldn't approve the snowflakiness of a psyker-missionary (I really hate those). My current missionary actually rolled a relic from that silly table in the Origin Path (81-00) for Prestige (?) and then gave the thing away about session 6. Just goes to show that some players favor their character over the game and some players favor the game over their characters.

I'm thinking of some deviant imperial cult guarding a relic whose value they don't really understand. If I make them too deviant, then my players will just muscle in and appropriate the relic. I do kinda want them to obtain it, but I want to make them feel guilty about taking it and I haven't quite come up with a proper heart-tugging moral dilemma to affect that. I have plenty of time, though. They are still systems away and they play very conservatively. For what it's worth, I'm considering a relic that was jury-rigged as a conduit for a power supply that operates the life support systems required on an otherwise very deadly world. I just need to figure out the details, create a storyline that accentuates the necessity of the relic before its actual discovery, then contrive a romantic side-plot to complicate it a bit. I'd also like to throw in a lost or mutated navigator gene that has survived on this world, but only in its current condition...just to add some more interparty conflict.

@OP - My first instinct is to have the spear be a Nemesis Force Halberd from a fallen GK, that was taken up by a Sister of Battle and used to banish some Greater Daemon. Maybe she became a Living Saint during the combat, and used the weapon for a century or two after that, before falling in battle and having the weapon relegated to a shrine or whatever. This gets you all kinds of fun consequences for having it, ranging from the SoB wanting it back, to the Ecclesiarchy wanting to get their hands on it so that they can use it to inspire a new Crusade, to a rival faction within the Ecclesiarchy wanting to destroy it to prevent the Saint's cult from gaining prominence, to the GKs themselves wanting to get it back, and even to the Greater Daemon's cultists wanting to get their hands on it so that they can perform a ritual to undo the banishment.

It's sort of funny, at least to me, that my biggest "little gripe" with the above stuff is that the NF Halbred is a Force weapon, and as powerful as one can be, in the hands of a typical SoB, it is crap; they don't often use psykers. I actually had that thought, at one point, as Force weapons are one of my favorite things (psykers, and Grey Knights, too, but I get justified flak for those ),but the Force weapon makes it not useful for Aedan (he wasn't going to use it, anyway, and not a psyker), Corianna (not a psyker, doesn't WANT to use it, feels unworthy, but probably will because SHE is the one who had a vision, when they first found it, to know a bit of its history), the Sororitas who get assigned to guard it (SoBs have no psykers), and on. If the Adepta Sororitas HAD a cadre of psykers, those "blessed by the Emperor with His power", assuming you don't presume their Faith IS psykerdom, it might've worked, but nope. I'm thinking it might be some more spiritual relic, able to pierce most armors, maybe even vehicle sides, and the entire original purpose was to be able to heighten daemonic warp instability, but the biggest baddies don't use that, and neither the tabletop rules for it, nor the RPG rules for it lend themselves well to a weapon doing that (I sort of liked the idea that it could target a daemon's WP stat, rather than health, but that only matters to big daemons, and they don't have warp instability; otherwise, it's JUST ridiculous cheese). It'll be a power weapon, but I want more like what a Living Saint would wield, rather than a GK Brother-Captain/Grandmaster, or Coteaz. Still a work in progress, certainly, and weird that I have a better idea of what will happen to it, in the end, than I do of exactly what it can do. Sort of nice, though, in that I feel more like having it be a glorious morale boost, than one more mcguffin/snowflake weapon in the Dragon's hoard, sort of like how a Guardsman banner is just cloth, but the effect it produces in the men is real. As a bit, I think it will eventually go to Damaris, where they will be told that the "eye of Drusus" led them to it (certainly a fib, but...), and then it, and its Sororitas protectors, will move to Damaris, to take up the empty spot on the altar there, and further endear the people of Damaris, and maybe even the Ecclesiarchy, to Qel-Drake's dynasty.

Faith and Coin has some good ideas and examples for Relics, and Stars of Inequity has powers for ancient artifacts that you might find useful. If nothing else, they might give you some ideas on the One True Grail that would fit your campaign exactly. You might already know that the mention of a Nemesis weapon prompted me to put a polish on my Holy Sacred Flamer of Snowflake Melting. Heh.

Well, at least I wasn't the one who mentioned it. I snowflake, certainly, but this time, I can be happy it isn't me. The only thing I have on this one is an additional +1 ship morale, and a weapon that might kill daemons, if it is ever used. I might give F&C and SoI a peek see. Thanks for the direct.