This question springs from an argument between my friend and I: Can a space marine be a blank? I realize, of course, that this would likely be a *unique* individual, but with trillions of citizens, you'd think one might end up as a space marine (assuming they got overlooked by the culexus temple)

To clarify, this is more a question of the possibility, not the likelihood. Is there a reason why a SM *can't* be a psychic blank?

I would imagine that it might be possible if a Chapter was in a hurry to rebuild their numbers after some major losses. It's not probable as I think as part of the testing, a Librarian would check them out and instantly sense the "nothingness" about the person.

vastrix said:

What about chapters, like the Black Templars, who don't have Librarians ?

Could they have one slip through ?

For the chapters with Librarians, would they reject the potential marine, or would they value someone who could cause so much trouble for enemy witches and daemons just by turning up ?

Personally, unless the player can point to a single canon untouchable space marine, I'd say no to this as it hasn't happened in the fluff.

Either I'm planning a campaign which warpcraft/daemons features heavily (meaning an untouchable is a major wrench in my plans*) or it won't (meaning the disadvantages to the player aren't going to be worth it).

*Surely I can ask that players don't throw wrenches that big until the first session of play.

I don't see a reason to support or deny the possibility, except for the lack of canon examples. Without going into hypothetical 'maybe it doesn't work with the geneseed' stuff, then one facet to bear in mind is that people do not *like* pariahs. Given this enormous social disadvantage, it seems difficult to think that one might be considered a great enough warrior to be accepted amongst an elite brotherhood of warriors.

Maybe not impossible, but substantially less likely than one-in-a-million, making it statistically highly unlikely.

This question came up before. My response would be that a null/pariah/blanks is something that would probably be detected probably before anything of the initiation process. Given the rarity and value of such individuals, I imagine the Chapter/other imperial organizations would not see the sense in allowing the risk of the implantation process to go forward. I would see the Inquisition/Assassinorium whisking them away before anything.

Think of it like this

Null = 5 points

Dead null = 0 points

Space marine null = 8 points

Chance of a null surviving the implantation process = 40%

So risk it and have .6 * 0 + .4*8 = 3.2, or don't risk it and have 1 * 5 = 5. More points from not taking the risk. Of course, the survival chances may be tweaked, but the fiction always makes it out to be insanely dangerous.

Also, there has been some indication that marines share some form of psychic link to their Primarch, so I would be very iffy on allowing it.

Finally, it reeks of cheesing out the system, and I could not justify it for the DH cost of 400xp, its simply too powerful.

Bare minimum, I would say 4000xp for the package.

Also note that there may be aspects for/against sending such a marine into the Deathwatch.

yeah basically this is just reinforcing what people have said about but its a combination of

1. no there is no genetic reason why not as far as we can tell

2. given that untouchables are far rarer than psykers (who are 1 in 1000+ sort of people anyway) it may well be that of the million space marines in the galaxy none of them are untouchables at a given time

3. making a human into a space marine has a high probability of killing the subject, thus if the chapter comes across a well trained untouchable suitable for the implantation process it may well be a better use of resources to leave the untouchable as he is, and take him into battle with a body guard of 5 veteran space marines to protect him

...Or just hand him over to the Inquisition, saying "See, sometimes, we can be good?" and getting the F' out whithout caring anymore

Then again, why not? The thing is to balance out things. At any rate, Space Marines are quite resistant to Psychic Powers (Resistance(Psychic Powers) + Willpower over 30 at least is quite cool IMHO), so a blank Marine wouldn't be extremely game changing (though I don't have the DH book here on my laps so I might be missing out something...). You'll just have to be careful and not always launch Psykers against him, 'cause that would be boring.

But, really, a Black Templar blank, seen as a "useful abnormal being" would make sense and be fun to role play in my mind.

The big problem is the fact no one likes or is comfortable around nulls. That would be a huge issue for space marines.

SM's rely on being very close knit as a part of their doctrine. If you can't stand being near someone in your squad and don't trust them, that makes for a huge crack in that squads armor.

lol so basically the only way we can see this happening within the deathwatch would be a black shield pariah kill marine. I cant help but feel this character would be an unbreakable unstoppable killing machine

[edit] but seriously I like letting my players do what they want within reason, so if a player came to me asking to be a space marine blank I think I would give him the DH pariah ability and either give him a massive penalty to the squads cohesion, or just exempt him from squad mode altogether. make him a solo mode only marine, that would be more than enough punishment I think. I might not even levy an XP cost [/edit]

If you were really set on using one I would consider reducing the squads max cohesion by the nulls WP bonus, just for being part of the kill-team, and instead of no squad mode you might say all cohesion costs incurred while the null is participating are increased by his WP bonus. Solo mode abilities are unaffected.

So he can play, but the other kids really don't like it at all when he does.

ItsUncertainWho said:

Yeah I generally don't like to penalise the team for something one person wants. but I think I would make an exception in this case because it is truer to the effect of being a pariah that the other members of the squad actually dont want you in their team. and would allow for some interesting roleplaying opportunities. only something I would try with a good group though for fear of just having the one guy ganged up on

What role does the "psychic link" to their primarch play though? (Although severing that would probably, as far as roleplaying goes, sever any emotional bond to the chapter and leave him more akin to a normal man in a SM body, albeit without a soul)

And, although I do agree (now) that the Imperium wouldn't create one (barring several hypotheticals), what would Chaos do? They've tried to use blanks before ( http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Spear ).

Narkasis Broon said:

Personally I wouldn't allow a null marine. My view is based on the combat doctrine of space marines being one that relies on very close knit units fighting together as one organism, represented by squad mode with cohesion being what allows the various chapters to work together in Deathwatch. I see a null as having a horrifically detrimental effect on the groups ability to function properly.

So, if I had a player who just wouldn't let it go I would impose the restrictions I mentioned. But if you like the idea knock yourself out and impose whatever penalty you like. I'd be interested to here what your final restrictions would be and how the character works out in the squad.

I'm of a similar view to a number of posters here in that I would not allow an untouchable space marine for background reasons. An untouchable wouldn't make it past the selection process IMO. Librarian or no, people sense that there is something *wrong* with an untouchable. Considering the value of geneseed, I can't see a space marine willingly implanting it into someone they have an innate disgust of. Cohesion would definately be lost, even assuming a theoretical untouchable space marine could learn the chapter's way of fighting with his would-be squadmate's growing hatred of him.

If you're dead set on creating a custom deed or background package to allow an untouchable space marine, it should be costed appropriately for DW (DH advances and packages are a lot cheaper). I would also run it by the other players since they'll have to put up with the consequences and few of the benefits.

SPOILERS

Incidentally, People usually aren't born psychic, psychic powers develop in people, usually in puberty, but sometimes not. I'm thinking of examples like Gaunts Ghosts where Soric becomes a psyker very late. Can the same thing happen to Untouchables? or are people born Untouchable? I always thought of them as being like anti psykers. But I am not sure if that is true

Narkasis Broon said:

Technically, there's a difference between "being psychic" and "able to wield psychic powers". Most people who develop psychic powers were born that way (as are Pariahs - there's a genetic element to both sides of this metaphysical coin), they simply don't begin to manifest those powers until later in life. Some who have strong psychic potential may never manifest their powers, while others go most of their lives without manifesting until a moment of extreme emotional stress.

Yes, Pariahs are born that way. The Negative Psychic is tied to so-called Pariad gene and is thus hereditary.

No, I would not expect any Pariah ever making it into Space Marines because all Space Marine recruits are being psychically screened to detect psykers who will be put into Librarian training and to prevent cultists, rebels and daemon possessed from slipping into the Space Marine program. Most chapters use their own Librarians to do this, but even those chapter who do not have Librarians (Black Templars, for example) will certainly screen all their recruits. Black Templars would probably use their astropaths, navigators and other sanctioned psyker serfs (which they have plenty since they are fleet-bound) to do the screening. In this screening the psyker doing the screening is unable to certify that the recruit is "clean", but instead it will actually be mentally and physically painful for the screening psyker to be near the Pariah. Unable to screen this particular recruit any chapter even remotely sane would either execute the suspect recruit right away or, at minimum, hand him over to Inquisitor for processing.

"Brother Epistolary, you do not look well. Was there something wrong with the screenings of the recruits?"

"Brothers Librarians, I have just executed recruit number 784513, because -frankly- he was freaking me out in every possible way."

Untouchables are that since birth. In case you want to look at it, it's a 400XP background package in the Inquisitor's Handbook (consider a Dark Heresy character has 500 XP to customize...).

To the player, I'd say two things: first, there is no record of any kind of Untouchable in the Space Marines. And second, there is a 1000XP advance that you can find, right from the start, in the advance options of the Black Templars: Abhor the Witch. And my rule is "if it already exists, take the relevant one". If he wants an Untouchable that badly, he can always make a Dark Heresy character and advance him with Ascension. A tech-priest with that background tends to be a game breaker... well, aside from the Tech-Priests being game-breakers themselves XD

Argus Van Het said:

Actually DH characters start with 400 XP so the Untouchable package takes it all.

My bad, I'm just a little fuzzy between DH, RT and Deathwatch XDDD

DH is the one where you're horribly out-gunned and rubbish at everything, RT is the one where your spaceship is far more important than any one party member, and DW is the one where you save planets.

Siranui said:

Sir, that is the most accurate description I've seen. You now own an interwabz.

Statistically unlikely, but I see no reason why not.

I would say, however, that it might make a good NPC, but shouldn't be open to PCs.

Siranui said:

In my experience, all of them involve saving planets (except Black Crusade, which tends to be more about defiling them)... in Dark Heresy, if you succeed, nobody notices. In Rogue Trader, if you succeed, the planet's populace make you their king. In Deathwatch, if you succeed, you get a pat on the back and your choice of what would-be suicide mission you'd like to do next.

Personally, I view the four games thusly:

A Dark Heresy game has its heroes, but they are ordinary men and women made extraordinary by brutal circumstance and grim necessity, to wage a war unseen by the masses, forced to cast aside innocence and blissful ignorance to fight enemies that shouldn't exist and strive towards victories nobody will ever know about.

A Rogue Trader game is where heroes aspire to be legends, where danger is merely a signpost pointing you towards opportunity, and where the section on the map saying "Here Be Monsters" is a challenge, not a warning.

A Deathwatch game is blood and fire and noise and death, it is to be a god of war in a universe that loves nothing more to see gods bleed and die, and it is to be faced with a war where victory means nothing more than postponing extinction for another day.