I know the whole female marine has been brought up before but i have a girl who wants to play DW. I explained to her why their were no female marines and showed her the fluff. So the next day she came back and used the fluff to show their could be a "female" marine. Specifically a space marine who worships Slaanesh could be changed into a woman using warp magic as part of worship or ritual. I was a little perplexed by the concept, especially the part where she concived a loyal female space marine who's background involved being assigned to a radical inquisitor to help in an investigation into a slaanesh cult who were trying to summon a very powerful deamon. To infiltrate the cult the space marine has to go along pretending to have falllen to slaanesh, and during their occult rituals is changed into a woman. So.............. yeah........ what do you guys think of that?

Is it plausible?

Would you allow it?

Would you allow said female space marine to be a functioning member of a team. My game is a little differant in that instead of being a deathwacth kill team, were a special team headed up by a lord inquisitor, and we use less than regualr methods to complete our goals and the main character are a little odd. A couple of examples include having an eldar farseer helping out as a non combat member of the team, aswell as a having a squad of sisters of battle as back fighters to aid the group, oh yeah and one of the guys is in love with a female inquisitor and another with a captured eldar howling banshee. so.....yeah.....any way thanks for the replies in advance.

Ehr......no

Though for the Eldar you might want to look up Santioned Xenos in Into the Storm

My opinion is that it is implausible to the point of impossible. I can't imagine how any Marine who had undergone such an extraordinarily blasphemous ritual would ever be allowed to continue serving as a Marine, whether his soul was untarnished or not (which itself seems highly unlikely). The best he could hope for would be servitor conversion, or just a shot in the head from a carnifex (the Astartes captured-bolt euthanasia tool, not the Tyranid gigantosaur).

More likely he'd be cleansed and purified, and all record of him stricken from existence. The Imperium is not very forgiving of those warped by Chaos, whether they were willing or not.

If she's that dead-set on playing a female, have her play an ascended (13k xp) Battle Sister/Crusader and be done with it. Her idea is so excessively complex that it breaks even 40k's suspension of disbelief (which is saying something for this setting).

A cross-dressing rainbow marine (actual chapter from 1st edition 40k), on the other hand, would be entertaining. >D

Considering your game already seems to break canon into a thousand pieces and dances on the shards... why not? The roleplaying police will likely not come to your door and confiscate your rulebooks.

As for whether that idea could work in a more mainstream game... no. No way, not for all the nickels in Jupiter.

Direach said:

My reply to that is that it depends entirely on what's at the heart of the Omega Vault (especially if it's an Ill.. no I'd better not finish that thought). In fact one of the simplest ways to allow female space marines into a campaign is to let another vault door open. Hopefully any FSM revealed will live longer than the old astropath mentioned in the corebook. <g>

Ah, the wonders and endless possibilities of such a gamemaster's device. Whoever came up with that idea, I'd like to shake their hand.

Alex

Direach said:

True, but then if they're working for a radical inquisitor .. then that all doesn't really apply to their group.

My issue with the character as written is that he/she isn't really a woman. Mentally and psychologically he's still a male SM in a warped female shell. He would think and act as a male SM. So ... it doesn't seem to achieve the intent of having a female SM in the first place, unless the intent is simply to have knockers.

Still sounds like a fun campaign.

Eh, if you've been following the FSM debate, you could try the 21st Founding solution.

...and I told you all so...

Cifer said:

There's nickels in Jupiter? 0_o?

At any rate, I'd say no as well. If the marine was tainted so obviously by chaos, he/she wouldn't last long. I would be more keen on some of the other solutions discussed in other threads, such as being the "First of Her Kind" female marine, like an experimental subject or some such. Alternatively, the high XP SOB sounds quite plausible as well, but may need some tweaking to take advantage of the solo and squad mode abilities.

BaronIveagh said:

And a pulpy setting any otherwise hair-rising explanation will do. Sometimes the more outrageous the better. So why not give "odd" ideas a take-off?

Alex

Why take it that far, infiltration work is not really up a space marines ally, but if you want to do it just have the the marine be cursed by a slanesshie warlock during a "storming the citadel" type event and turn into a girl (mutation is mutation is mutation). Only bad thing is that the character is now in effect just a guy with boobs, which lets face it I would never leaver my bedroom, but other than that it makes little sense roleplay wise since the character would still just be a male stuck in a female body. That said, +1 if you want to explore the psychology if the transgender experience in one of your games, I approve.

As to the OP:

No.

A Marine mutated by Slaanesh wouldn't get to join the Deathwatch. They'd get to be killed.


BaronIveagh said:

Please. Stop. Making. New. Threads. About. Female. Space. Marines. For. The. Love. Of. God. Please. Stop.

H.B.M.C. said:

Unless the chamber, including the High Terra ambassador, had good enough reason to decide otherwise.

Alex

The answer to every oddball question (female space marines, reformed daemonhosts, redeemed Chaos Marines, Space Marine in a Necron body, Skippy the Termagant Who Thinks He's A Boy) is the same: if you're willing to ignore established canon, you can do whatever you want with your game. There's no need to fold/spindle/mutilate canon to make your bizarre ideas fit. Just handwave it, and have fun with your group. I promise you I won't care if you promise not to explain it to me in detail.

So I'd try to convince her to play one of the 100 other suggestions offered, and buried, on the other 1000 threads about the topic- SoB, assasin, inquisitor, what have you as opposed to this.

To me, I'd have to say no about the whole 'you fell to chaos once but turned back, now we're going to use you to infiltrate a cult' thing as well for two main reasons. First, the way I understand Slaanesh, you're not going to willingly turn back, and even if you do, you'd probably not want to go wandering around in Loyalist territory lest they purge you.

Second, and more important to me, is that from a story perspective what are all the other players supposed to be doing while the one character that could blend in with these cultists goes off and does his/her magic act- go with her and just not say anything, or stay at home?

And third, as Adam mentioned, playing a male with a warped body into a female wouldn't be playing a female at all, it would be playing one of those people from the TLC specials on 'I was born a man,' which is a whole different thread war.

I personally don't mind the other oddities you've got going on, with the radical inquisitor finding xenos allies to fight a greater threat, or other inquisitional allies helping, or even with a space marine feeling emotions like love towards an inquisitor (though I'd tend to play it closer to the canon and make such an act controversial at the least- I figure SMs have emotions, personally, and aren't mind wiped drones, but I also would expect them to be the ultimate professionals and separate his work from his pleasure, so to fail at that would create quite a stir, but also quite an interesting opportunity to role play it out)

@H.B.M.C.; the Baron DID tell us something, he told us girls would try and find ways to play FSM within canon, and the other threads, in some places, attempted to find reasonable workarounds to the situation. I know some folks just are burnt on the whole concept and all, but some of the rest of us, whether we'd let it fly in our games or not, are offering ideas to help people that want to try.

@Ancient Defender: If we'd all stop getting so worked up over the argument (yeah, right, pot, meet kettle ) and our threads were mostly solutions to a houserule, I doubt there would be so many of them. Hard to read all 100 pages of the other threads if you're just joining the conversation.

Flame on...

H.B.M.C. said:

Um, sorry, HBMC, the fluff does not bare out your theory. The 21st Founding, according to Index Astartes, had a whole lot of other stuff beyond 'correcting the flaws in the geneseed'. See Chapter Approved 2004.

Apoligies, I meant Index Astartes II not Chapter approved 2004, that's the army list.

Direach said:

Why would you care even if they do wish to share it?

It's not your game, it's not canon, shrug and walk away. There's really no need to keep contributing solely to express your displeasure is there?

Direach said:

There we have it, GW: the title for the next straight-to-DVD Dan Abnett scripted CGI movie!

through all these posts I always wonder why do people want to stretch the boundaries of the game beyond how it is presented.

They want "untouchable" marines, female marines, chaos marines, stunty marines, ogrynn marines, orc marines, eldar marines etc.

The premise of the game is there, Adeptus Astartes are male, if you don't like this restriction simply play something else. If you want people to go beyond what is presented make your choice, but understand the vast majority of 40K fans don't care to hear about female marines,

The story you as gm and players tell is your story, and no matter how great, you are going to switch off many if you "cheat" the game. It is however your game, your universe but understand every time you introduce this kind of munch/tat/Political Correctness another part of the God-Emperor is subsumed by chaos.

FatPob said:

Nonsense. If something is 'great' as you put it, I want to hear about it. I don't care if it's strictly canonical or not.

Let her build a Sister of Battle.
1) Give her some unique artifact armor that provides double Strength and Double Toughness. Along with all the other normal armor stuff Battle Brothers get with type VII Power Armor.
2) Allow her to requisition one of the starting kits from the Deathwatch for 0 requisition.
3) Start her out with the same wounds, and fate as Deathwatch characters.
4) Make her somehow important to the Deathwatch. Perhaps the leader of the Deathwatch owed some Battle Sister, and she called in a favor to get one of her own some glory. Perhaps to display that women are as capable as men in war.
5) Give her a different paint-job, but perhaps keep it mainly black.

That way she is as strong (attribute wise), and does as much damage as her Battle Brothers.

Lightbringer said:

I'd rather watch this than a movie about the least interesting SM chapter (with the dumbest name to boot).

You have to understand how paranoid this universe is - Marines are subject to constant scrutiny and evaluation, ESPECIALLY anyone who has been near Chaos. There is just no way this could be any kind of secret. First time any legitimate Apothecary / Chaplain found out (and probably most rank and file), this abomination would get a bolt pistol upside the head and a field dishonerable discharge.

But that's fluff. Your game, do what you want . You might want to dig a little into Chaos, Champions of Chaos and Slaanesh in particular. 1) They have some... interesting personal habits, 2) You don't just walk away from Chaos.

Um and another note, Space Marine Power Armour has the necessary hook ups to handle male anatomy. Her Armour would need to be custom, custom maintained and all that bagage.