Hey.

A small group of friends and I are starting a DH group. One of the players wants to play the group's techie, but the character idea he has in mind entirely doesn't fit with the Tech-Priest class. Further, the GM doesn't want to house rule too much, and so changing the RP, setting, and story parts of the Tech-Priest class isn't an option.

Is there another class fitted to being a techie, both in practical use/creation of technology, and (hopefully) piloting/driving? Further, any advice in properly pushing this class in the technology direction?

If there’s *any* supplement material we can go out and get that might help in this, I’m all ears. We’re trying to make it work for this player without bending the official rules.

Thanks in advance!

Nex Terren

Tricky subject. The Mechanicus pretty much has the monopoly on technology, and the few exceptions within various semi-independent Adepta generally don't leave their workplace because they're needed most where they already are.

That said, there are a few options. How about a criminal from the Underhives who was clever enough to get a basic understanding of how stuff works and thus was able to make a living of repairing the gear of the gang he was affiliated with? Pretty much already comes with its background story included: He got found out and the Enforcers almost passed him on to the AdMech for tech-heresy, but your Radical Inquisitor saved him from becoming a Servitor because he/she thinks the character might be useful. Career: Scum, with 1 Elite Advance in Tech-Use (at start) plus 1 Elite Advance in Drive or Pilot (later, trained by Inquisition)

Alternatively, the character could have been a lowly worker or foreman in one of the many Manufactoriums of the Calixis Sector, and whilst his knowledge is very specialized and limited to the product the factory was churning out, he is generally skilled enough to pick up on new stuff fast. The Inquisitor recruited him before the AdMech could discover his talent, or perhaps the Inquisitor spirited him away -after- he was discovered and now he officially died in an "accident" ... at least this is what the AdMech's records show. Career: Adept, with 1 Elite Advance in Tech-Use (at start) plus 1 Elite Advance in Drive or Pilot (later, trained by Inquisition)

Just make sure he doesn't become too knowledgeable. The character should at best have a very basic understanding of technology and be able to perform simple repairs. The higher arts are reserved for the AdMech, and whilst the here-tech might be able to get his hands on some inside knowledge via his Inquisitor, he'll never be able to rival a true Tech-Priest.

Whats your friend's character idea. It would be easier to help if we knew.

BTW - Off the top of my head the "Reclaimator" in Inquisitor's Handbook seems pretty good, gotta be a level 1 scum though.

The Adept can be a rather competent techie.
The cheap int, tech use (later on with +10), binary chatter, ich think electro graft use, some other abilities inkluding a talent for +10 to a roll with 10 minutes preparation (forgot the talent's name), psy powers like lucky (a reroll) and in the end unnatural intelligence.

But I'm not sure when he gets tech use. If it's not from start perhaps as lynata said take it as elite advance.

I was recently re-reading the Shira Calpurnia novels, and in "Legacy" there's a section where Shira is talking to a Tech Priest about the installation of a gene-analysis device in an Arbites fortress. The Tech Priests asks if there are any tech priests within the fortress, and Calpurnia says words to the effect of "No - only laity."

So it seems that there is some scope in the canon for the existence of "lay" tech-personnel, ie technicians who aren't full tech priests.

The passage also implies that these "techs" are actually Arbites personnel.

My reading of all this is that there is therefore that the Adeptus Mechanicus are prepared to train some non-tech priests to a limited degree in the mysteries of the Omnissiah.

When one thinks about it, this is really a bit of a no-brainer. While the tech-priests are very talented, and have lots of servitors to assist them, there are only a finite number of tech priests available, and servitors lack any kind of intelligent decision-making ability. A lot of workaday devices will need low-level maintenance and care, perhaps even limited repairs. Hence the need for junior, non techpriest techs.

I'd say that these "techs" would be trained in the use, maintenance and repair of one particular device, and nothing else. Personally I'd always imagined them being barcode-tattooed by the techpriests to show that they had these skills. You can imagine Imperial guard personnel being trained to effect limited repairs to damaged Leman Russ tanks, Sororitas being trained to repair their armour and so on.

In game terms, this could perhaps be used as an elite advance...or perhaps you could create a more limited Tech Use skill that can only be used on one device, so Tech Use (Leman Russ) or Tech Use (Sewage control systems) etc.

Just a thought!

What Lightbringer said. These AM schooled techs (or technomats) are often mentioned and it seems they are simply taught how to perform the right rituals to sooth the spirits of certain machines (i.e. have the Trade (Technomat) skill). They probably are like real world technicians in comparison to engineers (or scientists). Otherwise the Fanes of Gunmetal city and most commercial corporations (e.g. Cadence) could not work without an all time AM presence and thus would be under scrutiny by the AM through and through. This in turn would make the odd heresy almost impossible without notice by the AM. If a machine is broken or does not work normally as it should (i.e. the machine is spirit angered or uncooperative), the AM must be called in anyway. The fluff text for one of the Tech-Priest ranks in the DH book describes how a Guardsman is punished because he jury-rigged a Chimera tank that’s engine broke down.

Aye, those are the specialists I meant. I'm not sure how rare they are, hence my scepticism towards taking them out of their natural habitat. That said, if there are even some rank and file Guardsmen who may have acquired this skill perhaps this is the best solution? That'd give him the Drive skill, too, if he just was a tank driver who happened to know how to work the engine of his Chimaera or something. Though this runs the danger of taking the mysticism out of technology, so I'd at least make sure that the character still follows AdMech teachings about the machine spirit, etc.

Alternatively, make him play a Squat like Inquisitor Draco's personal engineer in "Inquisitor".

Lynata said:

Absolutely. Perhaps even more devoutly than a techpriest. If these guys have learned their tech skills from a man who's told them that a failure to offer the correct libations will offend the spirit of the photocopier, causing it to jam, they're going to be even more deferential to the correct procedures, however bizarre.

In addition to what I said earlier about tech-use, the Adept gets drive and pilot skills, too.
I don't remember when (on which rank) but my adept has Drive (ground), Drive (hover), Drive (walker) and pilot (civilian). Some of them +10 and none as elite advance.

And fluff wise I think the adept is fitting as well.

by rank 3(scribe), the adept has the potnetial to gain +20 in drive(ground) and drive(hover); as well as +20 in pilot(civilian)

pages 45 onward in the core book, if you need a reference

If your GM is willing to give the player Tech use at rank 1 as elite advance (normal would be rank 3) I would suggest he really take the adept and as Origin the forge world from inquisitor's handbook.

That way he gets a char as near a Techpriest anyone but the real thing is ever gonna get.

Umbranus said:

If you come from a Forge world you do get to start with technical knock and as an Adept you also get a +3 to your starting Int.....I don't see why your GM wouldn't let you take Tech-use as an advanced skill early on in your career. Come up with a good back story as to why..... We GM's love stuff like that

Does he want to be a particularly competent one?

Take the Tainted Blood of Malfi homeworld from the radicals handbook. It'll give him +10INT and some other goodies in exchange for D10 corruption and 2D10 insanity.

I believe people have already mentioned the reclaimator option for scum. This, combined with the int bonus would give you a capable tech who also doubles up as an excelent FEL based character which synergises well with the noble background giving peer talents and the "tallented(decieve)" granted by the Malfian blood.

Or you could just go straight ultra high int adept and elite in a tech skill..

I'd build the character as Forgeworld Adept. You can actually get a very decent set of technical skills that way. Of course you won't have access to the "tech sorcery" a true Tech-Priest gets, but everything else you can do fine. As for the background the character could be any layman tech in pretty much any imperial organization: Arbites, Imperial Guard, Navy, any of the Administratum officies...

Just remember that technology is very much religion in the setting and some things are supposed to be only done by ordained Tech Priests who know the specific rituals. A lay-tech has the right to build , operate and maintain technological devices, but actual modifying or repairing would be outside his mandate even if he knew how to do it. Of course a cunning lay-man tech could probably obtain a number of written mandates from a friendly Tech Priest for specific cases...

In BoM there is talk about a type of Adepta Sororitas called a Protonius I think?(dont have my book with me atm at school), that handles holy relics. They would probably be simular in respects to skills that a Tech-Priest has, though they would still have a very religious way of looking at the items it just would not be the Ommnisha or what ever its called it would be for the fact that they were used in a crusade in the Emperor's name and or a patron saint.

The Orders Pronatus (from latin "pronare", "to bend forward", possibly referring to the body stance assumed during academic studies) are the Sororitas' scholarly arm and combine scientific investigation with religious zeal. They handle archaeotech and recovered xenos equipment just as much as they research Chaos artifacts or safeguard important relics. They seem to be more about analyzing and guarding items of great religious or technological value rather than maintaining basic gear, and by virtue of the great distance between the individual convents it stands to reason that each larger Sororitas facility has its own local "Mistress of the Armoury", responsible for basic repairs and maintenance. The Orders Pronatus usually focus on a specific task or area of expertise - for example, a convent on Parnis was dedicated to the study of a captured Keeper of Secrets. Furthermore, they are likely involved in the ongoing technology trade between the Missionarius Galaxia and the Adeptus Mechanicus, possibly (speculation!) running the Ecclesiarchy's Technology Purification Centre on Ophelia VII.

Given that player's dislike on the idea of playing a Tech-Priest I do not assume he would be willing to substitute with yet another heavily religious (and even more rigid) character type. That said, I suppose it's never wrong to bring it up for the odd chance that his or her intentions were judged wrongly.

Lynata said:

Thanks I knew you would come in and save me on that. I am still finishing my work on the Orders in the Calixis Sector, probably done this weekend. I had to go back and put in a calixis versions of the 3 main orders BoM mentions. Back to Pronatus though, could it be possible that a Sororitas that was a Sister Pronatus becomes a Sister Repentia or Oblitia, this might give the player a little more room for character development maybe, but they would really have to know how to play a sister to pull this off I would think. Some missions in DH could be perfect for a Sister Pronatus though, retrieving a lost relic sounds like a good basis for a mission.

Nimon said:

That sounds fairly easy. Many of the Orders Pronatus are surrounded by unholy or xenos artifacts day by day, and by studying them voluntarily expose themselves to their potentially corrupting influence. This is what caused the Sisters on Parnis to turn on each other after a number of them had been corrupted by the Slaaneshi daemon they were studying.

Note that a Repentia (or Oblatia - though I have to say I never liked this "Repentia Light" variant as it makes the Sororitas seem less "hardcore" on punishments than in the previous fluff) does not actually have to be corrupted, she just needs to feel unclean and thus desire repentance. It could be that she was temporarily under the influence of a Chaos artifact - if only in thought, a brief glimpse of doubt or an idea that shocked herself - or that she simply believes that having worked on a particular piece of xenos technology has tainted her soul. As you can imagine, the lines between actual corruption and imagined one are very blurred here.

That said, I am really not sure if a suicidal fanatic would be a proper pseudo-mechanic. A character like that would be much more concerned with finding a good death amidst a lot of dead enemies, and in the meantime mostly busy praying or flogging herself. I doubt she would be able to continue working like she did before taking up the Oath of Repentence.

Nimon said:

Indeed - undoubtedly there is a lot of plot potential hidden there.

Oh, and glad I could help!

Lynata said:

Ya, you would really have to flesh out this background and figure out how they got corrupted and how it changed them. I could see the Sister very begrudgingly repairing equipment, possibly bargining that if she does this, she wants to lead the next hive raid ect.

I dont typically play DH, so i can't say for sure, but I had a similar problem converting the explorator from RT into something less "praise the Omnissiah" and more "i just joined for the tech". I ended up doing it by stripping a lot of his (in my opinion) useless trade skills and blatantly dehumanizing talents and replacing them with things like scrutiny and decadence. after about rank two, he was effectively a morally lax tech-guard with more Mechanicus knowledge than a true tech guard had any right to know. now i know that's not the feel your man is going for, but have him take a second look at the tech-priest career, and then work with the GM to strip it of starting skills he (the character) sees as superfluous in exchange more experience to buy some early elite advances he wants. it's worth a shot.

In the Inquisitor’s Handbook there is an alternate rank for the Scum career called the Reclaimator. A reclaimator salvages equipment abandoned in disused parts of hives and ships and so has access to basic tech skills (i.e. Tech-use, Tech-use +10 and a couple of Tech related Common Lore and Scholastic Lore skills). Many reclaimators stray pretty close to tech-hersey and traffic in goods and services the AM would rather they didn't.

Though I'll likely get denounced as a heretic, I'll share what's going on in my campaign so far:

At one point in the story, the party had a serious lack of tech priests... or anyone with significant technical skill... much less knowledge skills. Everyone was stacked for combat. After a few adventures where I had to fudge some dice or come up with novel excuses as to why the party could do what it did, I introduced an NPC to marginally fill this role.

Enter Edward Alan Turing, a void-born with an unnatural knack for all things technical, who grew up in a ship breaking yard toying around with all the scrap until his 'hobby' was discovered by the mechanicus and he was 'disappeared'. His intro to the party was done by his 'boss', Magos Steve (I didn't name him ), who later it was discovered worked for the Mechanicus Office of the Inspector General as well as maintaining a covert Inquisition title. The party knew Steve was associated with upper echelons of the Inquisition, and seeing as they'd taken a fairly radical stance already, they were still someone taken aback when Steve introduced the new person with the phrase, "I'd like you to meet my favorite Tech Heretic, Mr. Turing."

Much later in the campaign, the party member who advanced to Inquisitor asked Steve shortly before his (Steve's) untimely demise as to what exactly Steve had meant by 'favorite heretic' ... to which Steve honestly replied, 'The man denies the existence of the Machine Spirit, proclaiming himself heretic; yet, his ability to not only create new machines but alter the machine spirits controlling them... the biggest reason I haven't executed him yet is I cannot determine if his interaction with the Machine Spirit takes place on such a fundamental level that he's unaware of it. For all I know, the man could be a machine Saint, and I will not tempt damnation by killing the Machine God's own."