What do you think the deathwatch do with the recovered gene seed of a dead blackshield?

Cleanse it with holy fire.

Can't risk it being corrupt since they don't know where the guy came from. The apple may not have been bad, but the seed may have.

I dunno if they'd burn it right off, but without knowing which chapter the seed belongs to, you can't very well return the seed. I guess they'd either dispose of it or have a new Black Shield- one who never had a home chapter and was trained by the Deathwatch.

Cool idear! (not the purge with fire, but the OP) (although a good fire purging can never go far wrong )

I would hafta submit that, geneseed being so precious, nonchalant destruction would be a last resort. The Watch Commander may dispatch a team to investigate the blackshield's past to determine his origins...the Apothecarion would, presumably, analyze, test, and measure the geneseed for any deviation or corruption...

Of course, this implies an interesting idea...just what does the DeathWatch do with such 'unclaimed' geneseed? Does the chapter have its own secret supply of geneseed? As Gaire said: can DeathWatch chapter marines be created 'from scratch' i.e. without being seconded from another Chapter? Very interesting...thanx for the thread!

Zappiel said:

Actually, I'd wager that, as Deathwatch Chaplains know the practices of various chapters, the Apothecaries in Erioch can probably identify someone's (at least first-founding) chapter by their geneseed, so there's that. Still, even if you do figure out where it's from, you still don't know why the Blackshield became a Blackshield, so that still brings into question whether the geneseed should be passed on or not.

Good point, Captain! I forgot about the Chaplains...they too would be involved, as you rightly point out. They could even head up the investigation into the lost brother to ascertain the geneseed's viability...good way to introduce a chaplain into the kill team...they would range far and wide across the galaxy, following up clues, perhaps solving the mystery behind a black shield's 'disgrace' or finding some way to aid/redeem the black shield's chapter.

Sounds like a perfectly viable campaign idea, actually...

If an apothecary can identify the parent legion of the Black Shield's chapter, they could give the seed to the first founding chapter that still holds the legion name, and they decide if they want to keep it or not, I guess...

After examination of the geneseed by the apothicary and if no flaws had been found, then the geneseed would be saved.

If any trace of genetic material can point from witch chapter it comes, then it's possible that other SM from the same chapter are now in watch and the problem to know if it could be send home is, I guess, to be decided by the higher ranking marine and / or chaplain from same chapter (because they will find a way to know why the SM live his chapter and if his fault had been corrected.

Last possibility is the geneseed to be send on mars to go in the geneseed reserve made by adeptus mechanicus and wait there untill a proper use could be given to it.

The Deathwatch have their own gene stocks, there are several instances of fresh marines being created by the deathwatch using Kill-Marine or Black Shield gene seed

mcbale said:

Can you point me towards a source for this?

They don't have their own gene-stock. Any gene-seed recovered is returned to the Chapter it originated from. Gene-seed taken from a black shield might be identified by the Deathwatch Apothecaries and returned to it's chapter. Or, if the chapter is associated with Chaos, it would probably be taken by the Inquisition, destroyed, or returned to Terra if it were pure.

On further consideration, I remember now that the Adeptus Mechanicus keeps a store of every Chapter's gene seed- including the Traitor Legions' under stasis. The Deathwatch would probably just send the questionable seed to the AdMech, have them analyze it and either add it to their stores or send it to the parent chapter. I mean, if they kept around the original Legionnaires' gene seeds, then they won't torch this one unless it's all Chaos-y.

Angel of Death said:

It's mentioned in one of the Black Library Deathwatch Novels.

Would those be the Black Library Deathwatch novels written by C.S. Goto? The same C.S. Goto who seems convinced that the standard Astartes weapon is not the bolter, but the multilaser?

There are only two Deathwatch novels, both are CS Goto. Nothing in them should be taken as canon material.

DJSunhammer said:

Unfortunately with the way intellectual property works, all of these novels need to go through an approval process. So novels usually are acknowledged as canon after they're fully published. it's your choice not to acknowledge it, but it could be quite possible that Games Workshop does acknowledge and approve of this work into the canon material.

Except, of course, that the official GW stance on 'canon' seems to be: 'there ain't any!'....anything goes in wh40k, cause it's all lies....

Zappiel that's going in my sig...

Am I the only one that finds the whole concept of the black shield's absurd? A warrior shows up on the fortress doorstep and even the watch commander can't question where he's come from? THat seems like a tailor made way for the traitor legions to slip someone into the Deathwatch and therefore gain access to all the materials in the watch fortress.

this has bothered me as well....I've assumed that there is, indeed, some form of screening process (not fully fleshed out as I've not had a player opt for this) - something along the lines of the Watch Commander (or a trusted Chaplain/Apothecary) interviewing the Black Shield and doing a corruption/geneseed check on the feller. Or, Black Shields are implanted with some sort of 'loyalty guarantee' i.e. a bomb, virus, what-have-you.

The way I see it, the DeathWatch appears to be a last-chance-at-redemption sorta thing, so I understand the concept of the Black Shield (heck, it's the only way to redeem a space marine who's burned all his bridges or lost his chapter)

Conjures up some interesting idears, though, such as mutated chaos space marines who have (somehow) found a path to redemption and sign-on to the DeathWatch so they might serve humanity again. Black Crusade/DeathWatch crossovers, anyone? (mm, yeah, me neither; but interesting to ponder; and would make a great one-off adventure/campaign or character hook [one player one time only, imo])

Thanx, Lurkeroutthere, for asking the obvious and causing my brain to ... work ... thinking... stuff ... are there any other thoughts out thar regarding this interesting detour to the thread?

Heh, your welcome. It just seemed like a very odd system to go by.

lurkeroutthere said:

In my kill team there is a Knights of Blood Assault Marine. His back story is that he was sent to Deathwatch by the Inquisition as a sort of punishment or chance for redemption. He is now considering to ask the watch-commander to "become" a black shield. The way he sees it, and I like it very much, is that by the confrontation with marines from other chapters in his kill-team, the ways of the Knights of Blood are wrong. How better to redeem his deeds of his previous life than becoming a Deathwatch Blackshield?

Zappiel said:

This is supported by a short story in the legends of the space marines book. major spoilers follow!

It's in the story Orphans of the Kraken written by Richard Williams where it's mentioned that the Scythes of the Emperor chapter did a deal with the deathwatch sending them many veterans of the battles with the Tyranids in return for equipment and I'm pretty sure it says geneseed too to rebuild the chapter. This was part of several actions to rebuild the chapter which included getting those marines who would rather go out in a blaze of glory rather than rebuild away from the rest of the chapter either sending them to the deathwatch or on recovery missions searching for rumoured survivors of tyranid boarding actions. It's a dark brooding bleak and challenging story which i really enjoyed.

I think those Scythes who'd join the Deathwatch after this deal would surely include some who'd feel their chapter was in effect dead to them, and so become Black Shields despite the chapter still existing. Post-kraken Lamentors marines are also good black shield contenders. However that would nead some timeline bending or changing the setting of deathwatch because the standard setting is prior to the badab war with it's profound impact on the Lamenters (and their subsequent impact on the scythes) let alone the invasion of hive fleet kraken and the near destruction of both chapters and the fall of Sotha.

Another great idea occurs to me... the warp is an inconsistent and dangerous medium for travel because sometimes ships arrive years late or even arrive early... so you could have as a blackshields background a marine who arrived at their destination in the past! Fearing they would be taken as some chaos plot they may choose to join the deathwatch to still serve the emperor... and that could be quite challenging for a blackshield lamenters marine were he to meet up with some of those who will go on to be part of the tragedy of the Badab War. Or for a Scythes marine encountering his chapters past and the imperiums lack of preperation and understanding of the true threat of the Tyranids for whom the battles with hive fleet dagon and the way the crusade is dealing with it could take on an extra level of tension.

And imagine what would happen were the fallen blackshields geneseed identified as Lamenters (it being pretty distinct being cursed-founding geneseed) only for the Lamenters to respond with confusion having no marines missing that could account for it. Perhaps it may be identifiable that the geneseed is several generations older (does geneseed have Telomeres?) than any should be! And what if the marines arriving in the past wasn't one of the fickle whims of the warptides but some plot by Tzeench after all?

Zappiel said:

It is said only true servent of the emperor may find a straight path through the outer wards of watch fortress erioch. So that itself may constitute the test!

Well, thanx Batty!

Bloody intriguing comments...I'd forgotten about the little blurb about entering Erioch; and your blackshield idear is a good one! Nice!

(one could almost create an adventure around a marine's first entry to Erioch.....loaded with pitfalls to eliminate the unrighteous....interesting......)

Thanx again for chiming in!