Okay, the feel I want from my Marine games is basically Pendragon. Marines are knights clad in shining Powered
Armour riding forth on mighty motorcycle steeds to quest and rescue beautiful damsels in distress.

So, adapting Pendragon adventures to Deathwatch, part the first:-

The Adventure of the Questioned Heraldry

While briefing and re-equipping at a non-Deathwatch Marine facility the player Marines encounter an argument. Two Marines from different chapters have discovered that their armour is decorated with an almost identical device - crossed powerswords on a field of skulls (one has the swords hilt up, the other hilt down).

Brother Banast of the Imperial Fists is incensed, and demands that Brother Fogolor of the Dire Wolves either give up the arms or face him in battle.

As a neutral party the player Marines are asked for their opinion.

Have the players make a Lore (Marine Heraldry) roll for their Marines.

On a success, the Marines know that by custom the arms of different Marines must not be the same, but that these are not identical.

With three margins of success, the Marines knows that these two devices are too similar to be considered different.

If the consensus is that the arms are different, the Marines are satisfied, but if they are judged the same the Marines take to the field to settle the dispute by combat.

Have two players take control of the Marines and fight to the death!

They wouldn't fight to the death, especially if an Imperial Fist is involved, Astartes are too valuable for that.

And the Sons of Dorn's dueling traditions are very different from that, first blood is more likely. The odds of multiple chapters at a non-DW facility are low, as are the numbers of non-DW facilities in the Jericho reach.

Looks cool otherwise.

Such an adventure is only possible between renegade marines. Because a fight to the death only for a heraldic dispute instead of having authorities judge this issue, when humanity is on a crusade for it's survival... Sounds a bit chaotic to me... But it sounds interesting and I think it's possible to do with little modifications to Deathwatch's rules so... Good luck !

The thought also occured to me a while back, it's not far-fetched as Ross Watson cites the knights of the round table as major inspiration. However I think it's incomplete if the Marines may not court ladyfolk. Without that it doesn't have the same feel... but who should the Astartes court? ...mortals? ...the Emperor's Brides? ...actually the latter might be an interesting reinterpretation of 40K - the Soritatas and the Astartes being allowed to bond and the Sororitas only allowed to bond with them as the Astartes carry on the blood of the Emperor.

It'd be a nice twist but not exactly canon.

Alex

It'll never be Pendragon to me. Pendragon is about carving out a legacy for your children, looking after and growing your manor, scraping a living and finding the money for the next warhorse AND knightly questing, jousting, tourneys and high adventure in a not-very-grimdark world. There just isn't enough shared ground for me to consider the campaigns similar.

That said, it's a great little 'encounter' idea, that I might well use. I'm certainly looking at doing more stuff in Erioch, and stealing elements from Pendragon's courtly system is a fine idea (although of course much of it will be moot!)

Oddly, I've got the Cruxshadow's 'Winterborn' playing at the moment, and it's just occured to me that the lyrics of that are pretty darned thematic to the game! /grimdark

Siranui said:

Pendragon's Personality Traits can be used to some degree though to define your Deathwatch 'Paladin'.

Alex

Yeah, I could devote a quarter of a page to codifying personality... or I could just roleplay it!

The personality traits -on their own- are just a way of codifying a PC's personality; perhaps to a greater depth than other games, but in a pretty rule-heavy manner. Adding in the idea of passions and the 'religion bonuses' injects some more mechanics and makes the traits 'matter' more, but I'm not sure if Deathwatch needs it.

One part of me has a soft spot for the whole yearly 'let's see if I'm greedier next year' thing, as well as the 'trials of personality' that characters would undergo in order to do quests and resist temptation... but for the GM to force stat-checks on players to see if they can act in a certain manner is somewhat archaic.

"You WILL roleplay stealing the gem, because that number there says that you're greedy and your dice just said you had to be greedy!"

I'd prefer players to be able to fully choose their personality, rather than dice dictating how a character is thereafter roleplayed.

I kinda went off Pendragon when it hit 3E, and there was a magic system. Pah: Players having any magic powers, and the GM not just making up what a dark wizard could do on the spot. What a silly idea!