During the course of an adventure, one of our players gave away his combat knife to a normal human. Now, I don't think he realized the bond that the astartes have for their knife, so we're probably going to let him retcon this.

However, if he chooses not to, any advice on potential repurcussions?

If the Space Marine intended it to be a high honor to the mortal, I'd let it stand. But, if he was just thinking "When am I ever going to use a measly knife when I've got this other awesome kit?", I'd definitely stress the importance of how wargear belongs to the Marine's Chapter , and the Space Marine is honored to be allowed to hold it on behalf of generations of long-dead Battle Brothers, etc...

Adeptus-B said:

QTF

I'd also say that it'd depend upon the Astartes' demeanour and his chapter's overall outlook. I can imagine a White Scar reluctant to part with his ritual longknife, a Space Wolf presenting a third-favourite Seax in recognition of bravery ("Well met, little brother!"), an Ultramarine disapproving of altering his prescriptive load out, a Black Templar distainful of a mortal's purity and dedication. Play it by ear, I guess, although Adeptus-B has the right idea.

It's an interesting little question, and one that I might use as one of my (in)famous pre session 'fleshing out the vanilla marines' exercises.

It's not the Marine's knife to give away in the first place.

I can see if a human did something ridiculously great and worthy the situation might occur, but It would have to be a fairly amazing human.

Otherwise the Brother might well be met back at Erioch with "You did WHAT? Drop and give me...15,000!" and not getting a replacement given to him.

Also: Rap on the knuckles for the kill-team leader in not preventing it unless the deed was worthy.

What was the chapter of the marine?

I could see such a thing done if the chapter had a ritual where each marine forged their own blade, an item unique to their own hand that may be buried with them when they fall. In which case the marine might give it to someone who had saved their life as a symbolic act of the death that was avoided by anothers hand and then they could replace it forging a new blade to represent the rebirth and rededication of their continued service of the emperor.

Take in mind that some of the Horus Heresy fluff has the primarchs gifting awesome weaponry to each other as tokens of brotherly respect and affection (or in the case of Lorgar, repayment of a debt owed). A space marine gifting his treasured combat knife might be appropriate to reflect some deed or service down or as a symbol of great esteem.

That said, his chapter might get pissy about it if he just gave it away for no good reason. Marines generally have quite knightly outlooks and such a gift for the right reasons could be highly looked on, even if the marine had to ritually atone for loosing a chapter weapon, he might do so while being looked on favourably by his brothers.

Chapters into forge stuff (Iron Hands, Salamanders, etc) might well consider this more common practice with the marine forging a replacement for himself after gifting away his own knife. Of course as a knife not only carried by a marine but also forged by him, this would make the gift even more important and honoured.

e.g.

Lorgrim the Space Wolf comes across a very badly wounded guardsman defending a field hospital or vital comms point fighting off a huge bunch of chaos cultists, although the marines save the day its clear the guardman fought like a man possessed and the post would have fallen but for him. Lorgrim patches the hacked up guardsman and hands him his knife saying "If any doubt your courage today, show them this and tell them Lorgrim of the Space Wolves thinks differently". Lorgrim then heads off to battle and largely forgets the gift, making sure to apologise and accept any penance from the Ironpriests for having to requisition a new knife.

or

Valdim of the Salamanders has spent the last year fighting alongside a Sororitas regiment to cleanse a fallen world of heresy. The war won and the Sisters and Brothers say farewell having earned mutual respect during the long months fighting side by side. As a gesture of his chapters esteem, Vladim (as ranking officer) formerly presents his beautiful combat blade to the Abbess, telling her as he does so of its long history and the most note worthy foes it has slain. The Abbess, deeply humbled accepts the gift and it becomes a treasured item commenorating her sisters victory. Valdim, now knifeless follows Salamander doctrine and ritually prepares himself before forging a new blade. He and his chapter do not consider the lost blade to be wasted, it has gone away with due respect and Valdim now accounts for its absence by forging another.

Gribble_the_Munchkin - nice, very nice

If the knife was given as a mark of honour for a great deed done: no problem and good role playing. Just given away on a whim: not good and deserves any punishment due.

[Which is more or less what others have said better anyway ]

DW

Adeptus-B said:

Should a player ever think that they deserve to be shot on the spot.

Seriously, the combat knife is a terrific piece of work, and any player who thinks otherwise should find himself in duel with an Imperial Fist, wielding a measly DH Sword against an Astartes Combat Knife. A duel conducted in non-primitive Astartes Power Armour. He'll kiss his Combat Knife until he falls asleep after that experience.

Alex

It's really a mater of Chater outlook. Some Chapters are very attached to wargear, others aren't. A low level piece of gear like the knife isn't likely to be a Chapter relic. It's something you have to look at based on that trait, what Chapter he is. That said, a knife is one thing. Handing over bolt pistols, bolters, just about anything higher up the chain is much more likely to be a no-no.

If the mortal truly deserved the honour than there should be be a renown reward for the character....

If it was just given away for no real reason strip him of atleast 5 renown and make him understand why the knife is so useful, watching Starship Troopers might give you some inspiration....MEDIC!!!!

I'm playing a bit of devils advocate here... After all it was just a combat knife. Okay, so it is ubertech superforged piece of crystallized awesomeness when compared to mundane weapons in Dark Heresy. But its still just a knife. And, furthermore, it was chapters knife, not like his "personal" item, so it should all boil down to individual and chapter behavior.

Surely a White Scar would not part with his ritual weapon which is like an extension of his soul, but how about Ultramarine? To him the knife is a powerful symbol but its not something you can't get replacement for if you happen to lose it in combat. So why not give it to someone who really deserves it because of his actions? Or how about a Raven Guard then? Notoriously unorthodox in their methods and known for their inventive strategies a Raven Guard who knows his homeworld is an equivalent of a Forge World in production capacity the material worth of a combat knife is neglible, so why not give it away if the symbol value of it is so big to this human that it will inspire him to ever greater heroics?

From the Astartes point of view, few if any mortals are worthy of wielding even their least weapons. It's not just a question of technology or raw resource cost. Astartes gear have a certain honour going with them. No Astartes should ever regard handing over any of his weapons as a trivial matter. If it happens at all, it should be a Big Deal from a roleplaying point of view as has been described.

Five renown? That seems a tad harsh; considering that its the same as Rites of Battle suggestion for surrendering. I doubt that giving away/losing a basic piece of wargear is anywhere near the level of admitting defeat in the face of the enemy. Maybe dock him 1 or 2 points but not 5 unless it was a unique relic or if the mortal turned out to be a Chaos champion later on.

We're running our own campaign, where they're all just normal Chapter Space marines, so I am not sure how this would work in Deathwatch. But it could be a great chance to use a Chaplain (or any kind of Captain), to remind his fellow brother about the worth of one of his most useful weapons, and simply ship him on a mission armed with nothing else but his Combat Knife, and simple trappings. - His team brothers might even do the same, to show their support of him, or to humble themselves.

We started our campaign up with the marines being on their final mission as scouts. Just before we started, I got a lot of moans and groans about why they had to be "useless" scouts, instead of awesome marines. Afterwards, when they were granted their own Space Marine armor, and entered the ranks of "real" space marines, they actually started complaining about that, - simply because they really enjoyed having to think a bit more, about how to proceed in a mission, with camo cloaks, fall suspensors, bolters with stalker ammonition, etc. (Previously we had played normal DW setting, and they just basically found nearest cover and started gunning their enenmies down without much further thought every time there).

Well, that turned into a bit of a rant - but my main point was that sometimes focrcing the players to do more with less, opens great roleplaying possibilities, that the players will really enjoy (at least afterwards)

He doesn't need to give away the Combat knife. Just talking to a mortal, maybe shaking his hand even, will have drinks bought for said mortal for sometime, and be a story told to children and grandchildren down through the ages XD

What did the humn do to earn the combat knife? This is an interesting moment in a character history as it presents a chance for the GM to take a small moment in a previous session and create several possible repercussions and even adventures.

If the Watch Captin was mad at the loss of the knife he could give that character extra objectives to replace the knife through honor. An even simpler consequence is that a sympathetic Watch Captain would see the honor is presenting a weapon to a noble human and the player could earn a small amount of renown.

Regardless of how Chapters would actually react to the loss of a knife I find it's always fun to look at how something like this can add to the greater campaign.

Here you all go, as I was the one that decided to use my combat knife as a strong infulence to gain the respect of humans on a feral world. I play a Space Wolf Devestator and I put a lot of role play into making my character and there was a lot of role playing...I.E the use of skills....tracking, carouse, wrangling. We were arriving to a feral world and we saw several tribes running around the planet as we made our approach. I decided to make a perception check to try and notice war paint, different clan markings, and several other things that made me think of my home planet. When we touched down on the planet the kill team went to meet the dignitary and I set off walking through the town. Some beasts went loose and I managed to be the only kill team member to not harm the beasts and help bring them back to the holding pens.

At that moment, I gained a significant amount of respect from the fellow tribes men and I was using skills and role-play to determine tribal markings on the clans to determine warriors from commonfolk. During this time I also used my gambling skill to assist in a trade I was attempting to make for an axe that reminded me of a weapon from my people, a lizard that I could ride while on this planet, and a blade which was made from a tyranid talon. I gave the combat knife to a merchant who stood out to me for his good deads to the rest of the "tribe" and as a gift for a future warrior with potential, maybe a future candidat for training into the Space Wolves chapter. This world we are on isn't part of the Imperium yet. I was scouting for a future battle grounds for Chapter prospects. It's not exactly like the Space Wolves home planet but this world does have the potential to sprout future prospects for many chapters.

I didn't just give away my combat knife. There was a present agenda, get the peoples respect for an easier transition into the Imperium (as one of our secondaries at the moment was to not inflict casualties on the local populace) and this was one of the best ways I could see us doing so. The second was that I was being reminded of my "warrior" days prior to being inducted into the Space Wolves. Third, I was roleplaying with the GM about the use of this feral world as a potential "breeding" grounds for chapter initiates. Last, because of my background as a Space Wolf, how I've been roleplaying my Space Wolf, and based on my personal demanour, when our kill team leader attempted to stop me from doing this act, I quickly stopped him from doing so.

In short, there was a lot of roleplay that went into this and it wasn't just some random thing for no purpose.

Sounds reasonable to me. It appears as though a lot of thought was put into it.

BYE