Kanluwen said:

Why would the Inquisitor's power be based on the good will of the Astartes?

Also: realistically, no. Unless the issue is a serious one, the Astartes are not going to be bothering the High Lords with this one. The Chapter Master does not go running to the High Lords every time an Inquisitor demands a few marines to accompany him on a mission. He'll go to the Lord Inq first. If the LI thinks the local Inquisitor is right, then odds are there's no point sending a message to Terra. They'll compare the CM's report with that of the LI and probably side with the LI. That makes the CM look stupid, cost him political capital and possibly gets him punished for failing to obey the =I=.

The only time the astartes can get away with refusing an =I= is when he's an outsider without allies in the Inquisition. That kind of Inquisitor will know his limits (otherwise he'd be dead already) and won't be the one asking for Marines.

macd21 said:

Once again Lord Inquisitors have no real authority over other Inquisitors. It's an informal position that relies on the backing of other Inquisitors. Everyone seems to think their upper-level management or something. That isn't the case.

And the idea of a Chapter Master running off to anyone and pleading his case is...just...well...absurd. A more likely scenario is that an Inquisitor demands X number of Marines from a Chapter, that Chapter doesn't take kindly to said Inquisitor's pushiness, and then simply states that they can't spare men as they are tied up in combat. Another possibility would be to inform the Inquisitor that yes they can send the desired Marines, but it's going to take six months as the Chapter has no free warp-capable ships and must make use of the next available chartist vessel to deliver them. Or perhaps they simply don't respond one way or the other, giving no explanation whatsoever.

All such tactics would work for the simple fact that a Chapters operations and resources are almost entirely hidden from outsiders. What that means is that if an Inquisitor makes a fuss and brings a Chapter before a tribunal, he'll be unable to provide any real proof that they were blowing him off and not in fact incapable of fulfilling his demands as they claimed. Similarly, if they simply don't respond they can use an untold number of completely plausible excuses as to why they were unable to (communication within the Imperium can be very spotty). In the end other Inquisitors would simply shake their heads and dismiss the charges, and without their support, the offended Inquisitor would be unable to do much about the situation. That is why Inquisitors "ask" rather than "demand".

Oh and if an Inquisitor marched into a Fortress Monastery and started throwing his weight around he might well simply cease to breathe (unless he brings A LOT of backup). Space Marines are quite savvy and more than capable of making an Inquisitor disappear. It isn't that hard to stage a warp "accident" to cover up what actually happened (bolter round to the head).

macd21 said:

and one Inq.

Unreasonable demands from an Inq will be refused out of Hand, reasonable will be the only to be considered, but will only be granted if the SM have no other demands on their time dependent on the relations of the chapter to the Inq, his chamber and the Inquisition as a whole.

The relations between Space Wolves and the Ordo Malleus - Inquisition are stressed, strained after the Armaggeddon(?) Massakers.

I will not say the SW shot every Inq on sight or every Inq who moves to the Fenris System, but any Inq moving to the system is very good advised to show his best side, asking very politely of the Privilege to be allowed to the Fenris System and has very good reasons and proof to do so.

An Inq who will try to boss a SM Chapter around, is dead except he has the backup of a company of SM who back him up on bossing

Space Marines are a power onto themselves - The Inquisitors can not order them to do anything, they are not part of their chain of command. That said the Space Marines WOULD do what the Ordos asked them to do. Malleus is kind of special though. KNOWLEDGE of the daemons they deal with is a death sentence. The Ordo Malleus will co-opt Space Marines, and any that survive would be promptly executed.

The Grey Knights have a special geneseed - rumor has it from the Emperor himself, so other Space Marines can't join the Grey Knights - no matter how good / brave they were.

Deathwatch have been seconded to the Ordo Xenos - transfer of command was formal - they ARE commanded by the Xenos, but this is not a generic hand of to the whole Inquisition. Ordos don't play well together so I would think it highly unlikely that a Kill Team would be seconded to the Malleus. If they were because of an immenent emergency, they would be executed after wards and replaced with Grey Knights ASAP.

Now one possibility would be to have a Xenos Chaos cult - So the Deathwatch are brought in to deal with the Xenos aspect (The Chaos monkies are dealing with Xenos artifacts / backers) and the Malleus are there for the Daemonic entities they are producing. So a Xenos and Malleus Inquisitor might team up.

Space Marines are a power onto themselves - The Inquisitors can not order them to do anything, they are not part of their chain of command. That said the Space Marines WOULD do what the Ordos asked them to do. Malleus is kind of special though. KNOWLEDGE of the daemons they deal with is a death sentence. The Ordo Malleus will co-opt Space Marines, and any that survive would be promptly executed.

And I take it the Marine chapters regularly fighting against the Traitor Legions habitually shoot themselves after action? Sorry, that's absurd. Certain elements of the Malleus generally execute the forces they requisitioned after completing their mission, but that covers neither the entire Malleus (some content themselves with a "You haven't seen anything and you've lost half your regiment fighting rebel scum", others simply permanently requisition regiments and continue to use them in their campaigns until they fall) nor all forces they employ - there are quite a few forces with sufficient "clearance" to know about the arch-enemy, starting with the Cadians sitting around pretty much on top of the Eye of Terror.

"Everyone knowing about daemons is executed" has been canon a few editions past, but it's pretty much overruled by now.

That's what mind wipes are for.

Wouldn't that mess up all the training and indoctrination (not to mention their characters )?

Easy solution:

Hook your Deathwatch people with Ordo Xenos inquisitor like the normal case is. All is well. Then if you want to run them against heretics/mutants/daemons just send them to deal with something that was first reported as "xeno activity" but on closer scrutiny turns out to be heretics/mutants/daemons. Since normal level administration (the guys who actually ask help) are unlikely to know enough forbidden lores to distinguis between the fine points of different types of xenos/daemons/psykers/mutants its not that unlikely. If the planet is in serious trouble, you call help right away instead of trying to first find out who to call...

And its not like any responsible Ordo Xenos inquisitor will the case at that point saying "oh, thats not my problem" and let a whole planet die... or, if he tries, any responsible Astartes brothers should interfere at that point anyway.

Darq said:

Probably, unless you have a very precise wipe for only the memories of the demonic things. So they'd go around with gaps in their memories, which would be a nice role playing aspect too. "I remember working with Inquisitor X but don't remember what I did with him. Wonder what happened?" At least mind wipes are better than just killing a character for witnessing something.

6Kilgs said:

Going back to Ian Watson

The Imperial Fists supported one Inquisitor with a Company on a mission to attack eldar, another Chapter supported an Inquisitor against another menace with at least a partial company.

In the UM Novels Ventris was send twice with Is, Kryptman and another in one Case to fight tyranids, in the Ragnar Series rRagnars Squad was send because the Great Wolf considered it good to support an old ally with SMs

Deathwatch can both initiate and respond to to a treat.

If an Inquisitor fears a small scale invasion of xeno/daemon or wants to break a nest of some kind, he will ask for a kill-team support.

If the Inquisitor as spotted an dangerous treat he will request full out chapter help and kill teams.

If an Inquisitor is sure of a massive Daemon incursion he call the Grey Knight. (Remember grey knights are the rarest of all chapters and serve Ordo Malleus only and are trained to counter Greater Daemons and Daemon Princes specifically).

Your kill team may be trying to recover an artifact stolen from the Ultramarine and it succeeding chapters by the Mechanicus (Blood Drinker serie) and send out a kill team to get it back. (The enemy can be within)

Your kill team may have ties to a specific Inquisitor who as radical tendency and then asked by a more ortodox Inquisitor to hunt him down and kill him. Which will they choose in the end?

A kill team may be sent to save a Lord of Terra or a Governor, only to find out an infiltrated Xeno within the retinue but without real proof. (a lord of terra is not someone to piss off!)

Another easy target is traitor marine incursion.

Any SM chapter or kill team will respond to a call or even rumors of it's presence (especially Dark Angels as they could be Fallens or the Space Wolf as they could be Thousand Suns).

A kill team coudl be sent to kill a traitor governor who just had to time to open a daemon gate.

I have to respectfully disagree. When Marines join the Deathwatch, they have to put aside their personal agendas or they would be completly ineffectual. Given the Deathwatch are drawn from all chapters, you would have them being pulled every direction. All the fluff I have read, the Ordos just plain don't play well together. It was the whole premise of the Inquisitor game. You also need to consider the sheer scale of the 40k universe. These guys think nothing of turning a planet full of billions of people into an ash heap, because some Genestealers are loose on it - that's because billions of people is nothing in comparison to the Imperium as a whole.

If every time an Elder showed up, the Sisters mobilized to fight them or every time a Traitor Marine showed up the Deathwatch moved in to put it down, they would never get to taking care of their OWN business. In my mind you don't cross the streams. Sisters don't do Xenos / Daemons, Deathwatch don't do Heresy / Daemons and Grey Knights don't do Heresy / Xenos.

My teo credits

All the fluff I have read, the Ordos just plain don't play well together. It was the whole premise of the Inquisitor game.

Individual Inquisitors don't play well together if they're of opposing factions, which usually don't have much to do with the Ordos. In fact, I'd assume most Inquisitors would cultivate a few allies in other ordos, simply because their territories can very easily shift into each other. There are Xenos using warpcraft, heretical cults that cross the line into full daemon summoning and of course heretics that have rather suspicious access to xeno equipment. If any time an Inquisitor encountered those he'd say "It's not my specialty so I won't pursue this lead - but I don't trust the other bastards, so I won't hand it over to them either", the Imperium would come crashing down pretty soon.

You also need to consider the sheer scale of the 40k universe. These guys think nothing of turning a planet full of billions of people into an ash heap, because some Genestealers are loose on it - that's because billions of people is nothing in comparison to the Imperium as a whole.

It's not quite like that. Inquisitors have no qualms about burning worlds when it's necessary. However, since worlds are the Imperium's most important ressource, they'll generally do everything in their power to make sure it doesn't come to that. An Inquisitor calling Exterminatus on a world can expect to have that decision thoroughly scrutinised afterwards by his peers. If his reasons don't hold up, he may well be denounced...

Valid reasons for Exterminatus would generally be the world falling to Daemons, the existence of Necrons or denying it to a Hive Fleet coming along when there's no way of defending it otherwise.

If every time an Elder showed up, the Sisters mobilized to fight them or every time a Traitor Marine showed up the Deathwatch moved in to put it down, they would never get to taking care of their OWN business. In my mind you don't cross the streams. Sisters don't do Xenos / Daemons, Deathwatch don't do Heresy / Daemons and Grey Knights don't do Heresy / Xenos.

On the other hand side, many threats may simply have devoured a world or two before the appropriate response is mobilized. There are forces in the Imperium that wouldn't have a problem with this (mostly Inquisitors), but others certainly would spring to action (mostly other Inquisitors ). The Sisterhood in particular would be very hard to convince to leave any threat to His Divine Majesty's Imperium alone unless there's an Inquisitor around ordering them to do so.

You have your Imperium, I have mine That;s the beauty of it.

All Inquisitors are charged with prosecuting Heresy. An Ordo Xenos Inquisitor doesn't walk away from a nest of heretics he's uncovered because it's "not his department". Inquisitors come in many flavors, too, and may approach their cases in strange and indecipherable ways. Don't get wrapped up in the bureaucracy - think of a story that would support what you want to do and do it!