The doors to the chamber open with a hiss. Lord-Captain Delgado strides in with an air of impatience. The crusade against the Chaos forces on the planet down below is not boding well. He sees Magos Theoreon standing next to a covered table and growls.

"This had better be good, Magos. I need to be at a Crusade Council in a few minutes."

The Magos nods excitedly, shaking the many cables and tubes connecting to his head. "Oh it is good, Lord Captain. I have just finished a masterpiece of power armor. It is Mark eight, Sigil-power armor."

Magos Theoron uncovers the table and reveals a set of silver power armor etched in arcane sigils and rune of gold, red, and brass. A set of five studs center at where the heart of the space marine would be. He caresses the armor with a far away smile on his face.

"In the hands of a space marine, this is the ultimate in protection. He has a built in force field stronger than any model ever created. It is so potent that the marine can take the battle to the depthes of the warp itself to fight his enemies without fear of possession! It will enhance his strength to a degree unknown by previous armors. The space marine wearing this armor has little to fear from the attacks of daemons and sorcerers."

The Lord-Captain walks over to the table and surveys the armor closely. A masterpiece of forged work. "This must have taken a long time to create..."

The Magos laughs. "I am the seventh in the line to be working on this project! Also...in the hands of a Librarian? This armor becomes a powerful weapon. A channel for the powers of the warp. The Librarian will become more powerful in using his abilities. Every part of the Librarian will glow with the Emperor's light to bring destruction to His enemies!"

Lord-Captain Delgado nods. "This sounds like a glorious work of your forge! One that I am certain the Space Marine Chapters down below would love to have. Do you have more? Or will you be giving this to one of their captains?"

The glee goes out of the face of the Magos like an emptying sink. "Give? You don't understand. This is the greatest that my kind has ever created. To give it to a space marine? To let them take it into battle and let it be broken? I cannot allow that."

The Lord-Captain shakes his head. "You have this working model. When can it be put into a production so we can outfit the space marines of this crusade? There are daemons down there that are killing many. I will be sending the Blood Sword Chapter Master in here after the meeting. He can talk sense into you."

The Magos stares at the retreating back of the Lord-Captain in horror. His creation. Used in battle? He could understand maybe once others have been made, but the prototype. That is his legacy! As the Lord-Captain gets to the door, he knows what to do.

"Wait!"

The Lord-Captain turns around, but his expression changes to fear. A bolt round sinks into his chest and explodes outward in a shower of bone, blood, and flesh. The Magos curses the blood splatter on his new creation. He fetches up a cloth and begins cleaning the fresh power armor with reverence.

"Don't worry. None shall claim you, my sweet..."

Mark 8 Sigil-pattern Power Armor

Locations Covered: Full

AP: 10/12

Kilograms: 200

Enhanced Strength: +30

Autosenses (Awareness Modifier): +10

Osmotic Gill Life Sustainer: Yes

Pain Suppresant Doses: 10

Vox Link: Yes

Magnetized Boot Soles: Yes

Nutrient Recycling (time per test): 4 weeks

Recoil Suppresion: Yes

Manual Dexterity Modifier: -5

Rolls on History Table: 0

Special:

Shield of the Emperor: 5 interlinked Force Fields. Protection Rating: 80 Overload Roll: Damage from Attack (Roll damage from the attack that has been deflected, this becomes the Overload rating for that attack. 5 shields can be overloaded before Force Field is totally gone. Only test against one field per attack). If thrown into the Warp, this force field doubles as a Gellar Field.

Glory of the Emperor: In the hands of a Librarian, this power armor becomes a powerful weapon. The entire armor becomes a Force weapon and a psi focus, adding 4 to the Librarian's psi rating.

Armor of the Emperor: The armor is warded against attacks. Deamonic and psy attacks that bypass armor do not bypass this armor.

"Captain" would be an earned military rank where "Lord" is more like a rank or Position or Title. Either way I don't think it would ever be a combined title unless one was the Commander of a ship. In the context of a Space Marine serving in the Deathwatch, it'd never happen.

vastrix said:

Are you looking for feedback? IMHO the 'fairness' of the stats all depend on where it will be used. For PCs this seems a bit OP'd even for DW characters.

The Force Field: The Hero force field you can pick up for 40 req each only gives you a protection rating of 50. The distinguised one, for 5 points less, is rating 55 but a 10% overload. With your rules, are you saying that you could suffer say 5 attacks from lascannons and have an 80% chance of taking 8 damage but have a 40% chance per field that it would be overloaded? It seems kind of complicated to me, but seems to put some balance in something that otherwise feels overpowered.

What is the motivation behind providing the Marine a Gellar Field as well (which would theoretically make it immune to warp based attacks as well)?

What is the motivation to adding 4 to the psy rating? I guess you may go past rank 8 when you need a psy rating of 14 or more, but that seems pretty....high. The psy focus seems pretty nice though, I'd make it work as a staff instead, granting +15 to invocate tests but not the bump in psy rating.

The Armor of the Emperor bit seems like it could/should be tied into the Gellar field bit- gellar fields keep out the warp, so why not tie it to the fields?

What is the renown rating for this?

Korvis said:

Guilliman was called Lord Commander of the Imperium. The commanders that helped form the legions pre-heresy were also called Lord Commanders, as the Crusade Salients are run by Lord Generals. I think Dante has been referred to as Lord Commander as well. So I'd say...never say never . And it sounds like the story is dealing with a Chapter Marine not associated with the DW, but I could be wrong.

Lord Commanders and Lord Generals are specific ranks that command many numbers of assets and troops. By comparison a mere Captain being called Lord of anything other than a ship is just plain odd. Square peg in round hole odd. If it relates to the Deathwatch, then a Kill-Team or two under his command still wouldn't warrant the addition of "Lord" to his title. If not Deathwatch or Astartes related, then whatever fiction is created would seem out of place without any context of his "Lordship".

This Armor ist totaly OP! It makes Artificer Armor worthless. Mk. VI are allready broken but this is just an insane idea.

lol just an idea that I had rolling around in my head. This would be more of a relic than anything else as the Magos who made the armor would no doubt have to be killed and likely take out all knowledge of how to make it. The Lord-Captain was in charge of a space ship and part of a Crusade Council that had several Space Marine Chapters working with it. Wasn't made for any specific game...and the Gellar Field concept was sort of shoehorned in. Yes, it is overpowered.

Though I have considered adding...

Dark Heart: If a Librarian draws on the +4 psy bonus, he also gains 1d5 corruption points per level of bonus (though he may not know it at he time). And with each dose of pain medicine that the suit injects, 1d10 corruption points. This could represent the Magos turning Traitor in order to try to prevent his armor from being actually used.

Hmm... sooo....either you have a - sorry to say that - totally overpowered piece of powergamer equipment, or (if you include the dark heart), a still significantly overpowered piece of awesomeness which now shouldn't be used by Librarians.

In my opinion this is a suit of armor worthy to be worn by no one exept a chapter master. Hardly something I would issue to a PC (even a rank 8 hero).

My biggest concern (since most of what I initially thought has been covered already) is that there already is Mk8 armor called the Corvus pattern.

Second, and this is me trying to remember your story, is that your piece of armor seems to be not officially recognized by Mars as an official armor pattern and would not be likely used by an Imperial Space Marine.

In what capacity might this armor come into play? What are the thoughts on introducing this armor to players? Is this a mission objective to keep it out of the hands of Traitor Marines?

Anything to do with Imperial warp technology is incredibly specialised in 40k so it cannot be by accident that the armour is resistant to psychic powers, let alone that titanic bonus to psy rating. Assuming this armour is possible at all, mass production would not be on the cards. A legendary chief librarian would be about the minimum worthy candidate of wearing the sole relic suit. And bear in mind that Mk VIII armour is "Errant" and covered in Rites of Battle.

Frankly though, I think the armour is pretty cheesy. Any of the main elements: *80* rated force field, psychic protection, massive boost to psy rating would alone be a massive deal. All of them together, along with the "minor" bonuses to strength etc, make it a power gamer's dream and all but unheard of even in the pretty OTT 40k universe.

Oh duh and you know I had the book open in front of me, reading about the other armors and I still put down Mk8 instead of Mk9. And yes, it's still overpowered and with the dark heart it's dangerous to anyone who doesn't enjoy a good mutation and service to four masters instead of one. I hadn't actually thought about how it would be used in a game beyond "Oohh this is cool".

And as far as power gamer's delight? Sometimes I enjoy running a good power gamer's delight game. The players mow over pretty much everything til they get to the boss. These games normally end in tragedy as the players wind up feeling that they cannot be defeated at all, and wind up finding a stronger foe...

Now for ideas on what to do with it.

A Kill-Team could certainly be sent to destroy it (because Mars is pulling favors and the armor is NOT something they feel was done by the book) which leads to the team being tempted by it once the Magos who made it is dead (and installed his trap for them)

Or, they could be sent to get it from the Magos and then guard it until it can be brought to Mars for evaluation. The Traitor Legions would be frothing to get such a piece of work.

Rogue Traders in the region could find it supposing the ship went down in a furious battle and then decide what to do with such a relic.

Inquisition Agents could be sent to investigate the ship once the armor and it's path of Traitor-worn destruction leads to the Magos who created it and spaced the armor to prevent it from being taken before he was shot in the head for being a traitor.

And finally (for now), a Black Crusade team (Black Legion maybe?) could be sent to aquire the armor for Abbadon the Despoiler (though in truth any Legion still loyal to Abbadon would work.

You don't need to make comments such as that. I was just pointing it out to make sure you had all the information because I cannot read your mind and know you had the book/information. I was trying to help out and make sure that you had thought of things so that when/if your players says something you have the answers.

I really like those ideas for missions, well thought out and would be very interesting.

Korvis said:

I know the ship ranks got codified in RT, but I'm not sure most of the other ranks have ever been laid out in any official manner- of so I'd love to see it, honestly, it would be pretty helpful. I'm just saying typically anything with "Lord" in front of it tends to imply "more than" regardless of what they own or run, and could easily apply in a situation where you just wanted your Captain to be bigger than your other captains but less than a master of some kind. How do you make a Captian first class? Lord Captain. And it sound ominous and powerful.

@Vastrix; your ideas for what to do with it have merit, I have a question on the Traitor Legions though- how do they find out it exists? Not saying they won't (or that a daemon won't just tell them) but that could make for an interesting bit of the plot in and of itself- the Characters either have to find the leak/mole or if doing a BC style game, they have to be made aware of the info somehow, and have to then deal though this inside man.

@muzzyman1981 oh I wasn't meaning to sound mad or mean. I was just thinking out loud. Duh I read something and wrote something else.

I recall reading Lord-Captain in Rogue Trader, I forget where they were in rank comparison. I assume a Fleet Commander of some sort. I read about the Crusade Council in the Storm of Iron novel and a little in the Rogue Trader rulebook as in even a Imperial Navy commander had to work in a council in order to work with the Mechanicum, the Titan Legion, and Space Marines to get a defence organized.

Yeah, many times I make an item or an enemy and then work backwards for there to determine what to do with it.

Oh for the Black Crusade quest...yes an inside agent would work, but so would a sorcerer. A major Librarian in the Ultramarines sent the two outcasts to find Honsou's project with the gene-seed though it didn't say exactly where.

vastrix said:

Make it a Grey Knight item, it'd fit more their power level. They can't be corrupted anyway.

Alex

Charmander said:

In the Context of a Deathwatch Watch Fortress or Outpost, the Captains would still not be "Lord of the Manor". The Inquisitor Lord would be. It's the established heirarchy or chain of command. The OP already stated above that the intended was a Ship Captain so it's a rather moot point now. I've not gotten into RT so it there is officially established codification I was not aware of it.

Korvis said:

Largely new as of the publication of the RPG, the Inquisition no longer holds authority over the Deathwatch Marines, it's more of a partnership. The Watch Fortresses and Watch Stations are run by Marines, not Inquisitors. In Erioch specifically, page 239 states: "Despite the power of the Inquisition and the ancient and honoured role of the Inquisitor of the Chamber, the sole and final authority of the Watch Fortress, and thereby all the Deathwatch Marines in the Jericho Reach is the Master of Vigilance, a position held by the most senior Deathwatch Captain..." Then it goes on to say some Inquisitors that try to throw their weight around get shot.

Charmander said:

Correct. The boss of Erioch is the Master of Vigil, Watch Commander Mordigael at the time of the DW setting. The inquisition is merely given its own quarters, more as honoured guests/partners than anything else. Their top Inquisitor is the Inquisitor of the Chamber (Carmillus) which traditionally resides in the Tower of Brass.

Alex

muzzyman1981 said:

Very minor quibble... Mark VIII is Errant armor. Corvus pattern is Mark VI.

You know, this would be an interesting peice of armor for say, a librarian who turned traitor. He escaped with the prototype of the armor, after killing the magos and destroying the data and specs on it. The kill team has to hunt and kill the traitor in question.

Best played as a relic if you ask me, which you didn't. That forcefields could be a seperate relic on on it's own.

Indeed the very idea. The knowledge to create new ones would die with the Magos.