I was (re-)reading DW-14: Ark of Lost Souls as part of overall preparation for my Deathwatch campaign, seeing if I would need to prelude or tie-in anything beforehand.

Watch Captain Esteban de Dominova is a supporting character in the book Adventures of DW-10: Rising Tempest and DW-14: Ark of Lost Souls .

Off-handedly, I was thinking of making Captain de Dominova the Kill Team's primary Watch Captain (until one of them rises to the Advanced Speciality themselves), though they could be interchanged with other Watch Captains as the campaign progresses.

Where-upon it occurred to me, a major flaw with Captain de Dominova...

Captain de Dominova is a Crimson Fists Apothecary, risen to Watch Captain among the Jericho Deathwatch. Captain de Dominova's supporting role in DW-14: Ark of Lost Souls is that he is critically wounded when the Kill Team's starship crash lands onto the Mortis Thule, and Captain de Dominova falls into a Sus-an Membrane induced coma.

Unfortunately... (excerpted from DW-12: Honour the Chapter , pg. 61; also covered in DW-04: Rites of Battle )

Quote

CRIMSON FIST CHARACTERS

The Crimson Fists are a Second Founding Chapter with a glorious history which has accrued much honour for themselves and their founding Chapter the Imperial Fists. Stubborn and valourous, the Crimson Fists are noted for their many campaigns against the Ork menace and have earned a bloody reputation on both sides of such conflicts for their ability to deal with greenskins.

A Crimson Fists Space Marine gains the following benefits: +10 Willpower, the Hunter of Aliens Talent (this only applies to Orks unless the Battle-Brother acquires the full talent as an advance), and the Solo Mode Ability Ork Slayer.

Implants: Like their Imperial Fists progenitors the Imperial Fists do not gain any benefits from their Betcher’s gland and Sus-an membrane implant .

This (non-functional Sus-an Membrane) is also backed-up by the WH40K canon wikias.

Now, I am aware that WH40K often contradicts itself (both in lore and in gaming-rules), but this was careless (if not just plain sloppy).

So, as Game Master, I am faced with two storytelling routes:

A. The simplest route would be to change Captain de Dominova's Chapter-origin, probably to that of Ultramarines.

B. The more complex route would be to have Captain de Dominova still rendered critically wounded, but with Apothecary talents' Autosanguine & Prosanguine to keep him (comatose) alive. This is in-tandem with the Kill Team's Apothecary's efforts to keep him stabilized.

ok, suppose a CF can't put himself into sus an but an apocathery was able to induce a sus an state in him? Maybe the sus an system can't be voluntarilary activated but an apocathety nigbt be able to force it into operation, then he would need help to come out of sus an.

@ Professor Tanhauser ...

Nope.

By canon (WH40K "canon" being a very relative & loose term at times), the Imperial Fists and their gene-seed successors' such as the Crimson Fists, their Betcher's Gland and Sus-an Membrane are both degraded to the point of complete non-functionality.

Cannot start an car engine if the fan-belt is frayed to the point of having snapped, and the sparkplugs are completely rusted through; and you are not allowed to replace (or even "fix," because Imperium dogma forbids it) either part(s).

sigh. Suppose in very rare cases the.implant is functional in some members of the CF, like 1 in every hundred or so. It's a very rare event. Either do it tbst way or change him to an ultraboring.

When I ran that campaign we noticed that as well. We decided to change him into a Salamander. Didn't make much of a difference to the overall plot honestly and it gave me as GM a good enough reason why he survived due to his armor mods and upgrades.

There is another possibility. Mutated gene-seed causes his Sus-An Membrane to actually work properly. After all, the organs are still implanted.

There is another possibility. Mutated gene-seed causes his Sus-An Membrane to actually work properly. After all, the organs are still implanted.

He would have been instantly killed had that been the case, especially within the Crimson Fists whose heritage lies with one of if not the most stubborn and conservative First Founding Legion. That's the lore answer anyway, your game your rules.

SCKoNi is correct, any deviation &/or mutation from what the respective (Loyalist) Space Marine Chapters consider their norm, results in the deviant/mutant being purged.

The gothic-irony & -stupidity of the Imperium, where once all the Space Marine Legions bore fully-functioning gene-seed & Astartes bio-enhancements across the board during the time of the living Emperor, the current "modern" deviations are a result from the ever-increasing loss of technical knowledge and willful ignorance to recovering lost knowledge or innovating new knowledge.

But back on subject, for a Codex-abiding Chapter, the Crimson Fists would not tolerate one of their own with an active Sus-an Membrane &/or Betcher's Gland, much less one highly ranked. Nor would Watch Captain de Dominova, an Apothecary himself, allow such a deviation of himself to continue to exist.

No, if I want to keep Captain de Dominova as a Crimson Fist, the probable best route would be to have him have both Autosanguine & Prosanguine cyber-enhancements which are available to Apothecaries, and the Kill Team's own Apothecary work (adding in some GM-fiat) to keep Captain de Dominova alive and stable (but still comatose) during the Kill Team's harrowing trek through the Mortis Thule space hulk in DW-14: Ark of Lost Souls .

That sounds like a good compromise, another idea could be a special Power Armor system that he has installed. This is a high-ranking member of the Deathwatch we're talking about after all, it isn't too far a stretch to think he has advanced systems within his armor or has even modified it himself. An example of something like this would be the Armor of the Apothecarion from Dawn of War II.

There is another possibility. Mutated gene-seed causes his Sus-An Membrane to actually work properly. After all, the organs are still implanted.

He would have been instantly killed had that been the case, especially within the Crimson Fists whose heritage lies with one of if not the most stubborn and conservative First Founding Legion. That's the lore answer anyway, your game your rules.

Maybe they would, but the "Gene-Seed Anomaly" Deed is there for a reason.