Hi all,

Will there be any rules for Sisters of Silence in this upcoming RPG core rule book?

I can imagine Sisters of Silence fighting along side the Death Watch in hunting down witches and other stuff. Being a bit of a noob on w40k lore, will this be out of place?

Well since the Sisters of Silence haven't been mentioned in fluff outside of the Great Crusade and the Heresy I don't think they will be appearing.

Most think that the Sisters of Silence were destroyed or disbanded during/after the Heresy although there has been nothing published about their eventual fate so there is a chance they still crew the black ships.

Kaihlik

Given the name of the game is "Deathwatch", I think we can safely assume that only members of the Deathwatch will feature as PCs, which would mean Space Marines only. Also, like Kai said, nothing has been written about the Sisters of Silence since their involvement in the Horus Heresy and the Crusade, so I doubt we'll see them included.

I've long assumed that the Sisters of Silence were absorbed into the Inquisition when it was founded. I mean they had black ships and were responsible for the regulation of psykers just like the Inquisition.

i would guess that any of the Sisters organizations could be included in death watch (hey they need an excuse to get girls into the game) only at a level on par with marines i.e. living saints and the such

Fairly certain they died during the siege of terra fighting alongside the custodes against the daemons spilling out of the ruined imperial webway under the imperial palace.

And really, must we have gender neutrality everywhere? want a female character? roll up an ascended chick inquisitor if it rankles you all that **** much.

ThenDoctor said:

If you think about the world (40k world that is) there are more male roles than female roles for people to fill. Now is you are going under the idea of getting more females to play the game because females only want to play female characters, then you have not seen allot of female space marine players and fans. I know a number of female 40k players that are looking forward to marching into battle as a marine of their favorite chapter.

nastybutler said:

AFAIK it is not so

SM are the only male only, all others are gender free from Kommissars to Assassins, from Inquisitors to Nobles.

Out of a thousand SM chapters how could the gene not have been tried in females. It's not like there is any modification organ for the testicles.

Mantis Sine said:

Because that'd be innovation and experimentation, which would be blasphemous to the Omnissiah and the Emperor both (in both cases, it is an embodiment of the sin of doubt; to innovate and experiment in things not done before presumes that those who came before may have been incorrect).

Doesn't mean it can't have happened, but rather that it's unlikely to have been done openly or to be well-recieved if anyone of a puritan persuasion found out.

Really? Another "we need girls in game!" thread?

Blargh.

As for "why hasn't the gene-seed been tried in females?" question:

The gene-seed was designed to exclusively work on males.

The Emperor didn't want the "Battle-Persons".

He wanted "Battle-Brothers".

Why is "female space marines" such a bad word? From what i have seen this really gets people up in arms. I have yet to see a compelling argument that dose not involve fluf. Is it really worth getting high blood pressure over a fictional setting.

Logan Ambrose said:

How to put this lightly.

There are certain immutable aspects of the background.

Tyranids aren't cuddly, Chaos wants your soul, Necrons are jerks, Eldar have pointy-ears, and female Space Marines cannot exist.

The process that turns an average human being into a member of the Adeptus Astartes is tailored to only work with males and even then it requires the males to be a specific age group for the best chance of it not ending in a horrible and painful death for the aspirant.

If you want women in power armor with gunsyou've got the Sisters of Battle. If you want women in combat, you've got Sisters of Battle and Imperial Guard regiments which will actually field women on the frontlines.

Those are your choices, outside of bringing an Inquisitor and her band of wacky followers into it.

Logan Ambrose said:

All that 40k is is it's fluff. GW intellectual property is what makes 40k 40k. If it's in the fluff, especially when it isn't contradicted at all, then that's how it is in the setting. It has always been stated that there are only male Space Marines and that the Emperor specifically designed the geneseed and implants to work with male genetics and hormones. Therefore, that's how it is.

Now, if you want to do it in your game, no one is stopping you, it's not like the GW ninja are going to burst in and gut you for your insolence. But understand that then you are straying from a long, LONG established fact in the 40k setting, and that your game is no longer following the canon.

Also, equally, I've not yet seen a compelling argument for female Space Marines at all, as they all revolve around "my girl player doesn't want to play a smelly man" and, essentially "it's sexist, woman should be equal". So why should people agree that there should be female Space Marines if there is no good reason, either in setting or out, to have them?

Oh well. Do one thing if a girl wants to play a Space Marine not being a "true" male character (I know it might sound crazy or little off, but what the heck, it suits the fluff ):

Let each player think she's playing a Space Marine. Yes, a male one. BUT actually, she will be a Callidus Assassin who changed form into a Space Marine (Temple Assassins are at least on par with Space Marines as far as body conditions are concerned) upon the moment of infiltration of Deathwatch (for the reason to come up with) and stays in that form all the time (her memory may trigger some hidden agenda, like the class Infil-traitor in RH, like searching Deathwatch database or the like - well, anything, that if detected, may arouse fellow Brothers' suspicions). I know it's crazy, but it doesn't violate the fluff, and might work well, if the GM and the player can play it accordingly.

We already have one useless thread about female Space Marines, could we not start another? This thread was actually about the Sisters of Silence remember?

Atheosis said:

Good point. On the topic at hand, when DW drops i hope someone comes up with house rules for the sisters of silence. I think they will be a fun addition.

MILLANDSON said:

Excuse my military background; but, show me the publication. I personally (as a GM) prefer sexes to stay the same (pc=player, males def can't play females). I know ffg will incorperate a way to get a sister of battle into a killteam, but I'm just saying there is nothing saying it CAN'T be done, as previously stated "out of a 1,000 chapters." And it's just fun, aka: samus, HALO , all those "surprise" females.

Mantis Sine said:

You actually preclude your players from playing opposite sex characters? I don't know if you play D&D or the like, but do you also only allow them to play human? They're called ROLEPLAYING games for a reason.

Mantis Sine said:

No offence intended, but the lack of ability for your players to play opposite sexes to their biological sex does not automatically extend to every other RPG player. I have in fact been told I can play female characters exceptionally well, and most of my players have played opposite sexes without any problem.

So please don't use such sweeping statements as "males def can't play females", as that can be proven to be incorrect. Frankly, being restrained to only play a male character by dint of my RL gender would be incredibly dull for me, and would result in me quickly finding another GM who was more open to variety.

Logan Ambrose said:

Someone already made a Sisters of Silence career for DH ages ago Dunno if it's still floating about but it was done on Dark Reign by a guy called the Patriot. Was pretty good but is a bit out of date now as it had an Untouchable ranking sytem like buying new psy ratings, and of course there has since been an actual Untouchable starting package made by FFG.

It's one of the few bits of work that the Patriot didn't use copyrighted images and writing in (he extensively copy/pasted GW owned articles into other pieces of his work) so it wasn't removed in the purge of his work when GW served Dark Reign with a C&D order which covered a lot of Patriot's other work. However, as stated, because of the rules released by FFG about Untouchables, etc, they will probably need further work on the part of the GM to use them in a way compatible with the current rules.

I found the Sisters of Silence document on the Dark Reign website, and I think its a great piece of work. The individual GM must of course make a decision on what rules of untouchables to use.

I guess that getting rules for Sisters of Silence is not very likely in a rule book on Space Marines, but one could always hope that someone will make an "Ascension" extension of the Sisters of Silence document so you could have a Sister working alongside Space Marines when needed. After all, it seems to be the case that the Astartes works together with Sisters of Silence every now and then. Personally I like the concept of the sisters and would love to see good ideas on how to "Ascend" a sister of silence to the level of play required to play along side a Space Marine.

One poster above said that the organization was destroyed in the Horus Heresy, is that true?

Well, if you like the concept of the Sisters of Silence this is an important bit right here:

They no longer really exist. They're seemingly a branch of the Sisters of Battle and not really mentioned now.

For a bit more information on The Sisters of Silence, try Lexicanum: http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Sisters_of_silence

From the information contained in this entry, it is unclear if the Sisters still exist in the 41st millennium. I think it would be reasonable to assume that at the very least they may still operate in the Black Ships.

If this is the case, the Sisters may form a (very) small part of the crusade in the Jericho Reach - I can see the crusade incorporating some form of psyker containment or Black Fleet capacity.

From this assumption, it shouldn't be too hard to come up with a scenario that brings the Deathwatch into contact with the Sisters.