How about Skitarii for female characters?

Just use the rules for Apothacarys, Devastators, Tacticals and Tech Marines and make up a set of equivalent Chapter Rules for Adeptus Mechanicus Skitarii. They will probably have equivalent genetic engineering, more bionics, eqivalent weaponry and a similar out look on War and the Emperor ect.

Probably be suitably brainwashed too. There sould be plenty of reasons for a Mechanicus representitive to accompany a kill-team. In order to recover alien tech for example.

Bolt of Change said:

Another good solution. Hopefully you're not going to receive flak from the people that don't like to see "female Space Marine" threads.

Kage

Had to look those up

According to the lexicanum, the elite of their number (Praetorians) fit somewhere between Imperial Guard stormtroopers and Space Marines, or alternately a counterpart to the Obliterator. The fluff is debated there as to whether or not they are human or servitor. Servitor woulnd't exactly make that interesting of a PC to me.

The inclusion reasons are pretty sound though, they'd be all over recovering alien tech- though would the Deathwatch keep the tech for themselves and the Ordo Xenos or would they be willing to part with it or share? Sharing could make for an interesting joint operation kind of deal.

How well would the Magos class from Ascension work ?

I'd say it'd work pretty well actually Bilateralrope, depending on how you wanted to do it though. I plan to do a Tech-Marine who worked closely and helped the Skitarii in his apprenticeship to the Adeptus Mechanicus. During this time he rose to the level of Magos in the Mechanicus, and gained what would be similar to Captain level control over a whole company of Skitarii squads. Now, whether he would still have command of those troops or not will be up to the GM, but I think this would be a fun character to play. Even if it's just in his background, that's quite flavorful I'd have to say.

In the 40K fiction I've read (particularly 'Mechanicum' and 'Titanicus'), the skitarii are definitely not servitors. They are heavily weaponized and very savage, but they still have personalities and individual identities. They're pretty well dedicated to serving the Mechanicus and no one else, so you'd have to handwave pretty vigourously to put them in the Deathwatch full time, but I reckon it is an option.

Our female player was enthusiastic about playing a Blood Angel assault marine, so the "female problem" wasn't a problem at all.

I actually recommended a Skitarii back in the last 'female' thread, but it was ignored over the shouting and chest thumping of the "NO GIRLS!" club. I'd also say a Explorator/Genetor (RT/ItS) would be a good role - sent to collect information on the various xenos targets of the Deathwatch. Even with the biological angle, the character still has more than enough tech-priest in them to cover the tech portion of the Techmarine (just not the Marine portion).

Direach said:

The Skitarii aren't, but Praetorians are Battle Servitors. However, an elite Skitarii would probably have enough genetic and bionic upgrades to make them pretty close to a Space Marine in power.

Charmander said:

They would actually be zealously against any recovery of xenos tech seeing as such things are seen as being devoid of the spirit of the Omnisiah and thus an abomination.

MILLANDSON said:

Indeed. In terms of overall killing power elite Skitarii should be on-par with Space Marines. Some more militant Techpriests would be as well.

I would go so far as to say that a very militant, combat focused Tech Priest should be able to dismantle most space marines one on one and have a better than slim chance of taking out a 4 member kill team.

ItsUncertainWho said:

I doubt he's be any scarier than a similarly built Techmarine. I find them to be very cool, and it's hardly a coincidence that the first character I've thrown together for a DW game is a Dark Angels Techmarine with a focus on tenacity and staying power.

Kage2020 said:

I don't know about flak, but I do wish people could keep this debate to one of the 4334365743234265767542432346676789 other threads on the matter instead of burying the first page with them. I don't care what people do in their own games, but the amount of threads on this subject are getting out of hand.

this was mentioned in one of the other threads,.... admittedly, trying to find the one idea on page 3 of a 25 page thread is not the most fun thing to do in the world...

as to the NO XENOS TECH. the AdMEch has this group... Explorators? i think they are called, they are even a full RT careepr path.... and well.... they are all about going out and finding and researching the xenos tech. admech facilities pop up whenever necron ruins are found and im sure tere are labs workign away right now on finding out the secrets of tau weponry and tyranid bio-tech if only to know how to defeat it best. certainly some admech are all about only the STC templates, but the mechanicus is a large orginization with many of its different members persuing different goals with different means. If you want your skitarri to not have anything to do with the xenos tech he.she finds, more power to you, but mine, mine is going to gladly grab that pulse rifle and start shooting. (admittedly however, the idea of playing a dark angels librarian is more my style so no skitarii for me)

In one of the Deathwatch sidebars there's discussion of a specific AdMech group whose sole purpose is the collection and study of Xenotech, and that they work hand-in-glove with Deathwatch. So not so much hand-waving is required after all.

Fizzywig said:

Skitarii aren't researchers and they generally aren't going to violate the orthodoxy of the Machine Cult like a Techpriest might. By the way, Explorators are primarily supposed to seek out STCs. Xenos technology is officially forbidden. Techpriests fall into a Puritan/Radical spectrum much like Inquisitors, but Skitarii generally are going to follow the baseline Machine Cult beliefs, which involves the destruction and avoidance of xenos tech.

Its not a bad idea, but it falls into a sort of, you have to play X sort of deal.

I'd just tell female players to grow a pair, don't get so hung up about it, and play a space marine.

I decided to do a sketch of what I had in mind.

http://shuggnuggath.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d2zsi2f

KommissarK said:

Which would be unfortunate if the group doesn't allow cross-gender characters, something that I can certainly appreciate since I have yet to see a male play a convincing female or vice versa. With PbP, though? Maybe. Still, as a general rule I still would ask players to avoid such characters.

Kage

Kage2020 said:

Which is thankfully something I've never, ever encountered in my years of both playing tabletop and playing online. If a group decided that there was to be no cross-gender roleplaying, I'd leave and go find a group of better roleplayers who aren't so stuck up about whether your character has breasts like you do in real-life or not.

MILLANDSON said:

But again, some people just aren't comfortable with it, even if the group does allow cross-gender characters. Sure, you can tell them 'play this or don't play' but that really kind of sucks if they're a regular member of your group and are your friend. Try to persuade them, sure, but I'm not going to break off friendships or kick members out of a group because they're uncomfortable with canon of an imaginary universe, especially if your campaign lengths are months and years, not days or weeks.

Now onto the thread suggestion and my lack of knowledge on Skitarii; are they the guards of the tech priests, or are they the investigators/explorers themselves? I see either role as an interesting option with a DW unit. Also, do you have any suggestions for reference material for folks that wanted to consider this option (for females or for just cross class folks in general) to do some background investigation?

Kage2020 said:

Heh, you haven't played with me. I've done a solid job, as far as I can tell, of playing just about every gender and preference out there. It's all about the group you've got.

Some people just don't do it well. It's not that they aren't bad roleplayers otherwsie, but genders differing reactions to situations makes it hard to effectivly maintain immersion. Particularly when the guy playing a hot elf sorceress is a hairy 400 pound male with bad teeth trying to talk in a high girly voice.

From what I gather, just from browsing Lexicanum they range from cyborged up Imperial stormtroopers up to and including Terminators and AdMech 'Obliterators'. I guess they are whatever the Magos feels like for the job at hand. Skitarii are not 'Tech Priests', the are elite soldiers from forge worlds.

Basically take a genetically engineered human, Add a truck load of boinic and biological upgrades, indoctrinate to revere the Omnisah and Emperor and the send them forth to smash baddies (people and aliens who stand against the AdMech). :-)

That's all I got from the Lexicanum too, just wondering if there was a good source of background info or fluff on how they act, what they do, etc. A good novel or rule book with a sidebar that discusses them or the like.