Hallo there,
I’m fleshing out an NPC who will join my players’ party in a mission: he’s an adept working as a secretary to their inquisitor; he’ll be sent with the group in order to witness the party’s orthodoxy. He has also to survive or else the whole party will be deemed heretical by the inquisitor himself.

I thought to give him a family memento, something like a status symbol his father was given by his father, who then gave him it: the lens of a space marine’s helmet visor, a «relic» of the Emperor’s harbingers who fought on this world a long time ago.

Now, here is my question: I thought this visor could also double as a sight aid (such as a monocle or a magnifying glass) for the adept but I wonder if this lens could have extra properties besides being a chunk of glass. My knowledge on the subject is quite poor, as always.
I fear most of the sensors work by the hardware inside the space marine’s helmet, thus making the lens more of an ornamental item: yet in your opinion what special qualities (if any) could plausibly be still working?

Thank you for any help!

Remember that a space marine helmet is quite a bit bigger than a human head and the eye peices of the helmets are reltively large. It is likely that a single lens from a helmet would span the width of a human head rather than an eye.

Banjulhu said:

I am not sure space marine lens's are quite this big.

Yeah if a normal person wore a space marine helmet he would look like Dark Helmet from Space Balls. He should totally do it, head shots at +10 on that guy.

One can always pretend he is Juggernout from x-men. But from what I see on images from google (as a refreashment for poor image memory) visors aren't so big. Some rockstars had bigger dark glasses I think.

The helmet might be really large, but the eye lenses are small slits.

I'd probably be a bit larger than most sun-glass lenses.

The lense has Dark-sight and magnification and enhancement, but whether that works without the helmet and Black Carapace is unknown.

It's a really cool idea.

I think the Rites of Battle book from Deathwatch describes autosenses as not working until the helmet has been reattached to the armour for a full round. So it looks like the helmet doesn't have an independent power supply. One could be built and attached but it didn't come out of the artificier's forge.

is it the helmet or just the eye piece?

if the helmet. you might be abel too rig something up but its unlikely too work!

if its the eye piece why not let the dark sight thing be abel or something like that. its not going too have too full powers of a SM auto senses. but you could give one of the bonuses (the +10 per, dark sight or binocs or something els)

Firstly Space Marines don't have massive heads, while they are taller and larger than a normal human, they are not deformed. A Space Marine is still essentially Human sized.

Now for the question at hand, the visor of an Astartes Power Armour Helmet, firstly you'll need to decide on the mark of armour as different marks have different lenses, so that you know what it looks like. Whether it works is up to you, but i would suggest that it is mounted in something, such as a frame that supplies it with some sort of power, a bit like a night vision monocle.

I do have a question though, why a helmet lens? A Space Marine is unlikely to remove a lens from his helmet, and the Chapter is more like to repair and re-use the armour should it's occupant have been killed. A Bolt Casing is more likely as a relic, perhaps still covered in some of the Marines blood from the battle.

Just the lens by itself wouldn't have any special abilities, other that maybe as a magnifying glass, but it could be attached to something else- say, a handle (like old-fashioned opera glasses) that contains a power cell and micro-cogitator that opperates the lens's normal functions.

Thank you all for your replies: sorry for not writing before but I have been far from civilization for a few days.
This memento is made by just one of both lenses or eye pieces: it is not the whole helmet.
I really like the Dark Sight idea: therefore I think this object will work as a magnifying glass that allows to see in the darkness as well (though giving a little distorted vision of the environment: it calls to my mind that scene in the second D&D movie where we see the party through a gem of true seeing).

Valdek said:

Adeptus-B said:

Valdek said:

Because it doth conform to The Rule of Cool.