Just an idle curiosity, but how do they eat?

According to the RT book the implants include one that replaces the lower face and throat. Seems to me that would make eating a bit difficult. And on top of that, the techpriest in the Dark Heresy novels seems to drink recaff (OK not often, but he does).

Any ideas?

-Erich

I wondered that myself, since my first RT character is an explorator. (First game last weekend. Woot!) In my case, I simply said the augmetics were removable and the organic bits underneath are still intact. However, that might not work for you since A) my character has the filter lungs augmetic and therefore doesn't need the respirator, and B) his backstory specifically lists him as a former liaison officer. Since he had to deal with superstitious, 100% biological humans all the time, his augmetics are considerably more discreet than normal.

For the rank and file techpriest, I suspect they may need to consume all meals via a straw, or perhaps by IV. Why bother eating actual, savory food when you can consume nutritionally balanced algae paste, or shoot yourself full of vitamin fortified glucose syrup? Then again, needing specialized rations is inconvenient at best, and a starvation threat at worst... Perhaps they simply have a food processor crammed in among all the other facial augmetics? "The cook prepared boiled grox again? Set face to 'puree'."

Well, in the novels 'Scourge the Heretic' and 'Innocence proves Nothing' Vex, the techpriest in the acolyte troupe, seems to be able to gain his nutrition in a relatively normal fashion, meaning he's still able to ingest food and drink the normal way. It's mentioned several times throughout both novels, though his interest in food or drink consumption is rather low. He doesn't seem to cherish it any longer, maybe his sense of taste is dulled as well.

With techpriests becoming more and more mechanic over time that wouldn't be hard to imagine. And it would lead eventually to a point where a member of the AdMech would be more machine than living creature, solely depending on small amounts of biological nutrition (applied either enteral or parenteral or in whatever fashion would be appropriate in the 41. millenium) to fuel his ever decreasing parts of living tissue and organs. Just my guess at it.

I tended to assume the use of plastic bags of nutrient slurry, consumed through a thick straw inserted into a port in the respirator mask as the primary foodstuff of the Tech-Priest and Skitarius in my Dark Heresy game. Starvation was seldom an issue - the slurry is quite nutritious and keeps for a long time, and is made from recycled human anyway (on Forge Worlds, humans not fit for purpose tend to be... repurposed. Some end up as servitors. Others end up as servitor feed), so the raw materials are fairly easy to find.

Of course, in Rogue Trader, as soon as an Explorator gained the talent The Flesh Is Weak (and thus gains the Machine Trait), I'd remove the requirement to eat altogether (the Machine trait already removes the requirement to breathe, so this is a logical next step), as their heavily-mechanised body is essentially powered by the Explorator's potential coil and a set of implanted micro-generators.

In my DH campaign, our tech-priest "eats" a pouch of nutri-slurry through a tube implanted directly into his torso... usually in the privacy of his quarters while plugged into a power socket.

My understanding, however, is that the mechanicus implants aren't all the same in their shape and form. If you look at some of the art depicting tech-priests, some don't even have faces anymore while others can look almost human. It is quite possible for one tech-priest implants to leave him able to eat and drink normally while another from the same forge must use feeding tubes.

I'd say it strongly depends on the extend of the tech-priests 'transformation'. A lvl 1 DH-tech-priest might still have a functional mouth with teeth and a fully functional digestive (biological) apparatus and might be able to eat normally. A RT-explorator or more advanced tech-priest migh only be able to digest nutritious fluids while really advanced explorators and tech-priest might only need to plug into some powersource, while their ancient artificial internal stuff might take care of what's left of the cursed flesh. In the end it's up to your fantasy and imagination (and some common sense).

A tech priest, even with the Flesh is Weak, will need to ingest food in some fashion. Even if he's down to a brain and spinal cord in a metal body, those both will need nurishment or the cells will die. Of course they won't need much and it could all come in the form of a nutrient solution. Intake methods will very with the nature of techpriest's augmentations.

Cynical Cat said:

As will intake frequency and quantity. It may well prove that a Tech-Priest's augmentations are capable of (and likely specifically designed to) providing some form of nutrition to the remaining organic components - afterall, it's no good being a brain in a jar if the fact that you're a brain in a jar kills you. Most of the augmetics that come with The Flesh is Weak are likely to be a life-support mechanism for the remaining flesh, primarily the brain, which probably contains some obscure and bizarre alchemical apparatus that keeps everything organic that remains in a functional (if entirely unnatural) state. Doesn't matter that he's doing it by inhaling promethium fumes and the pollutants in the air, or something similarly inhuman.

It's much like the fact that the Machine trait also means you don't need to breathe. An augmented Tech-Priest (having gained the Machine trait) probably still requires some degree of respiration... but the method, frequency and quantity of oxygen that respiration provides are so small as to be inconsequential from a game perspective. A lungful of air and a few milligrams of nutrient concentrate (to be distilled and distributed via internal mechanism) every six months is hardly the kind of thing that compares to the life support requirements of any other person aboard the ship...

Agreed in general. A lungful of air every six months isn't going to do it for someone who is a brain in a robotic body (the brain is a resource hog compared to the rest of your body) and it will require actual nutrients, but many augmentations will reduce this (such as replacing half your grey matter with cogitator circuitry and most of your remaining bodily fluid with nanomachines).

Erich said:

It could actually be that even a TP with full replacement lower-face can detach the actual respirator housing, revealing a sort of "mouth" beneath it. Or, with a bit less-radical augmentation, maybe the respirator is attached to little bolts on the lower jaw and the face beneath is fully functional when you detacth the respirator housing. The latter would make sense because the habit of wearing those respirators date back to the ancient colonists of Mars who wore them outside out of pure need... They didn't need to get rid of mouth and teeth and works. Also, if youassume the whole mouth, including teeth and tongue are gone the TP would need a voice synth to be able to speak at all.

Polaria said:

I do not know where the notion comes from that Tech Priests have their lower jaw/face/throat removed to make use of their respirator. For whatever it's worth. In my vision (and campaign) the respirator is indeed attached by little bolts to the yaw and can be removed quite easily. The lower face is complpetely functional beneath even if a little pale. Our groups Tech-Priest does not even have an artificial voice (in contrast to our Sanctioned Psyker). I think that Tech-Priests are already 'alien' enough in the way they are without complicating matter with such 'inhuman' stuff, would make them too 'alien' and thereby unsuited to an investigative RPG like DH in my opinion.

Should the Tech-Priest take the Autosanguine talent, I tend towards saying that it is not needed to eat in the classical sense anymore (drinking is another matter though). I would say the Tech-Priest (with Autosanguine) only needs to take in some kind of specialized rare AM-manufactured nutrient once a week (that would cost him the same as one week of normal food approx. anyway).

Luthor Harkon said:

The predominant notion that Tech-Priests have their lower face removed comes from the description of the Respirator found on pg 366. It states "This implant involves tubes, wires, vox-grills, or other augmetic parts replacing the lower face and neck ." (emphasis mine). In that sentence is also the the voice synth (vox-grill) that the tech-priest would need if we assumed his lower face was removed ;-) It's also quite handy for the use of binary chatter as well.

But it is rather free-wheeling with exactly what it incorporates as it dose have that "...or other augmetics" clause. While their's a lot of tradition amongst the Priests of Mars, there's also a LOT of sects each with a deferent bent which would lead to a wide verity of respirator implants and designs. I always found it to be a fun challenge to make each tech-priest my group has met to be new and unique in look and deed.

Graver - it's variety not verity (which is a synonym for truth), I mention this because I've seen it a couple of times in your posts and not to score points or humiliate. Anyway, my real post, having watched this for a little while would be:

There's quite a long tradition of senior Tech-priests being little more than a servitor with freewill, which is to say that a lot of their biological material has been replaced and what remains requires only the barest of sustenance. It is stated in the description that the lower face is replaced but I think that's more by way of describing what's typical than proscribing to players. In the end, I'd say that the older the Adept the more likely it is that he doesn't eat like normal human beings but it's your character, maybe you're a bit weird (in AM terms), eh?

Erich said:

One word: "Suppository"

But seriously, any of the options presented above could make sense depending on the specifics of how the characters particular implants are constructed and installed.

If memory serves, Innocence Proves Nothing features a scene in which the techpriest, Vex, is working away at his cogitator. The rest are eating and chatting. Someone puts some snacks on the table near Vex. Though he's hungry, he makes a point of denying his 'emotional yearning' and holding off. When he does decide to eat it, he eats it as quickly as possible (efficiency, y'see). In my mind (and I don't know if this matched what the text actually implies on close inspection) I imagined this scene as him avoiding eating 'to prove himself', only then later rationalising his rapid devouring of the food as efficiency. A bit cynical of me, but it felt an endearing touch on Vex's character.

In our DH campaign our GM ruled that the face grille, at least of our techpriest, had a sort of retractable techno-proboscis. This proved to be a source of constant amuement when the techpriest was forced eat or drink in the company of others.

They could have a sort of grinder built into the grille, something sort of like a sink disposal unit. They could open the grille, pop in some food and water and grind away at it for a couple of seconds.

It would be a big hit at formal dinners, the whirring grind while everyone is trying to talk!

Wow,

That's a lot of replies and good ideas for (what I thought was) a simple question.

Anywho, my GM seems to like the detachable grill with a face underneath. Some of our players are less than thrilled with the darkness of the 40k universe. So he is trying to lightenthings up a bit and cut down some of the "ooky" factor. Meh, whatever gets the group interested in the game I guess.

Now if I can convince him to let me start with a balefull eye....

-Erich

The 'grim, dark' bit should always be heavily coloured by equally grim and dark humour; it's certainly how it was originally written. :¬)

On that note, where are the stats for the 'groinal attachment' tools?

I have a Techpriest player in my DH game. Alot of the nagging little questions regarding "routine biological maintenance and restock" can be answered by having each player describe what their character looks like when they are first introduced. None of this "He is some dude with brown hair and a bolter." crap either... A thoughtful description.

So what we already knew about our Techpriest in the first game session: He is voidborn, hailing from Battlefleet Calixis and came to Inquisitorial attention when he discovered and violently dealt with heretek sabotage of his ship's reactor core. He walks with a limp. He shys away from ranged combat whenever possible (logical since his Navy training emphasized close-in work and he is of questionable marksmanship anyways). He collects flashlights. His respirator implant resembles a mempo (samurai facemask) with tubes emerging from the sides. He decreed a simple rope issued to the team as "lucky" and proudly includes it in his mission-kit to this day (the rope saved THREE lives in the first game, his own included!)... And not just any rope, it has to be THE rope! His robes are classic Martian red and require frequent replacement due to damage from both combat and maintenance related issues. As the game has progressed he has made it a point to describe and point out any new implants that are visible to others. In his case he always makes it a point to eat in private. If he attends a social function he has been known to take "samples" for later analysis and possible consumption. Once when offered a social drink he literally extended a medical dendrite and drew the drink up into an empty syringe, then subjected it to chemical analysis as soon as he was back at their base of operations! The player has since generated artwork for this character that is sometimes helpful in determining what he can and can't do from a physical standpoint. Ever since a mission on Acreage he gets a physical twitch at the mere mention of "salt water"....

A Magos Biologos likely eats just like other people except that the meals are calculated out for maximal nutritional and caloric intake based on expected daily activity levels. A Secutor is far more likely to load a TPN bag into some hidden compartemnt once daily and be done with the troublesome task. There is also the "Robocop" solution of utilizing baby-food jars: Very simple and efficient!

I'm with Cynical

"Brain energy consumption

Although the human brain represents only 2% of the body weight, it receives 15% of the cardiac output, 20% of total body oxygen consumption, and 25% of total body glucose utilization." Wikipedia

Nutri-Slurry and protein gel are the favored biological fuel sources that my Skitarii and the Tech Priest in our group consume. The Skitarii had a Tech Priest respirator unit installed early on. That consisted of his entire lower jaw, throat and tongue being removed and replaced by the true flesh. We went with the respirator having a feeding port that allowed a protein gel packet to be attached and mechanically sucked in and forced down to the stomach or a straw like apparatus attached and then that was inserted to a can/jar/cup/bowl of nutri-slurry for the same effect. We generally didn't eat in front of others as the humans reliance on gorging themselves in a barbaric, inefficient, ritualistic, and animal like consumption of "food" was disgusting and offensive to us.