So, I'll cover right now with I'm not sure I didn't miss something, but I am wondering, is there any reason they seemed to overlook, or a way to incorporate some of the bits that certain Space Marines are occasionally known to have? If the GM was maybe a bit too nice, or drunk, it could be cool to play a Blood Angel who, somehow, sprouted wings, like Chaos causes in some of their novels, or a Space Wolf who bears the Mark of the Wulfen, and starts getting more crinos features (maybe not full werewolf, like I might imagine 13th Company, but more inhuman looking, nonetheless.) While one could say "well, they wouldn't send those Marines to the DW, and this is DW, not Space Marine", some of these could easily be developed while they were serving, especially for those who make a long stay of it.

Between the book basically saying "don't worry, we won't let your Space Marine suffer mutations; he's too good for that", and not having a table that covers it, it sort of makes me sad. Certainly, my examples are probably a bit less "good RPG", and a bit more "point that light at me!", it would be rather easy to drop in some mysterious Marine, one that the DA always seems to try to rush, and then not ask him why, or drop an enemy psyker in, and get the BT to frenzy toward him, but with Space Marines like the Blood Angels and Space Wolves, rather iconic Chapters with much more visible oddities, and "known" (at least to the players) flaws/details, it would be cool to have them represented in the book. Are they in there? I have DW, MotX, and RoB for Deathwatch, and never seen Mark of the Wulfen in any, and I certainly haven't seen anything that says the occasional BA MIGHT manifest wings, if only because Sanguinus did, and we are feeling cheesy. Granted, these are the same books that say psykers can't be Dreadnoughts, when there are Librarian Dreads in the TT book, and Grey Knight Dreads, too (and everyone of them is a psyker). I know that the Space Wolves try to eliminate their Wulfen 9 times out of 10, but something for it could still be fun.

Please look past that I'm appearing to be a cheesy, attention-hogging player (I'm not playing anything, right now, so there's no risk there), and help me see if the material does exist somewhere, or what it might entail, if it was to be house-ruled?

As another dumb aside, so that I don't start a whole thread for it, is there a way to get other Unnatural Traits? I have a character, not for DW, who would benefit from Unnatural Fellowship, but I am unaware of a way to get it, other than letting Slaanesh wear one as a..., and as a Navigator, she can't get any mutation that does it, that I am unaware of, because they apparently ALWAYS use their limited mutation chart. Even some especially gifted officer could use it, but I don't see anything with it, besides Daemonettes. S and T aren't too hard, Space Marines get them for free, and Int can come from rare tech, while WP can be achieved by Psykers, and Ag is also relatively simple, but Per and Fel seem to be a bit harder to achieve, or just not available.

Well, the Corruption point rules prevent 'hostile' mutations for Space Marines, but I could definitely see no problem with the in-built weirdities (copyrighting that word) of a Marine's geneseed coming into play.

And yes, the Dreadnought rules say you can't be a Librarian, except for the Blood Angels Librarian Dreadnought Advanced Specialty in First Founding. I've sort of mentally put it down to the Blood Angels just happening to have some reeeeally ancient technology (it might be hard to hook up a Librarian, I don't know), and so of course the Grey Knights would have it, since they always have some seriously rare junk (that makes two technologies shared by the GKs and BAs, actually). Kind of like how, I BELIEVE it's been stated, that the Dark Angels have many more Plasma Cannons available than other Chapters, or if that can't be corroborated, you can see the kind of concept going on here, but in then end... I don't know why that is.

Anywho, I'd see no problems with house-rule something like that. As always, discuss it with your GM, plan out how quickly it might progress, etc. I'm not heavily read-up on Space Wolf and Blood Angel lore, but you seem to know enough, so try and find effects and rules and such scattered about that can be glued together and modified to represent such things, like with any good house rule.

I don't THINK there are ways to get other Unnatural stats, at least by RAW, but GMs can always do craaaaazy stuff if they want to! Extenuating circumstances and all that. You could never expect the game to cover ALL eventualities, so learning to roll with things and house rule aids a great deal.

And now, as with any good thread, we wait for No One Here to lay out an excellent opinion on all these matters.

No Blood Angel EVER sprouted wings (James Swallow =/= canon, and even if he did that was chaos mutation so it don't count). It really is NOT in their Geneseed. Sanguinius did have wings, the blood angels do use a lot of wing motifs in their iconography, but they don't grow them.

SW wulfen do go mutant though. But chapters with issues like this wouldn't send a marine susceptible to said mutations into an arena where Astartes from who knows how many other chapters as well as a bunch of Inquisitors hang out and intermingle amongst themselves and some of the most powerful men of the Imperium. It would be very bad for their image. They would make quadruple-double sure their representative wouldn't bring undue and/or unwanted attention to their chapter.

I like the word weirdities. Good work, captain Ventris!

It's true that there are no canon sources for any Blood Angel other than Sanguinius growing wings, but if you want to push your game in that (non Canon) direction, why not? More power to you, I say. I would guess that FFG won't be producing any rules for non canon stuff like that, but the Wulfen stuff definately IS canon, so it seems feasible that there may eventually be something that covers that.

Out of interest, what weirdities do you have in mind for the other founding Legions?

herichimo said:

True. I assume the Wolf Priests have ways of determining if a Marine is 'at-risk'. It depends on how much of a surprise the Curse of the Wulfen really is, or if there are warning signs, genetic or otherwise.

40k wingfic!

'Don't look at me, Brother Akriel! I am hideous!'

'No, Brother Yefefiah. They are *beautiful*'

--

I guess, with my policy of wanting to encourage people to have Marines any way they want them, I have to support it. But wingfic?

herichimo said:

While I'm certainly not going to argue what is and isn't canon (George Lucas has given every flavor of reason not to take anything as set in stone, even if he did write it both times), even if the Blood Angel novels aren't, what is canon is that Sanguinius had wings, and also some psyker/prophetic powers. Now, I for one don't want to have to fend off all of the Blood Angel fanboys, by saying "well, then Sanguinius has also been touched... by Chaos", so that must mean he was born with the psyker gene (or some variant), and unless he slaughtered a mighty space gryphon, and had its wings grafted to him as a trophy, the wings are in his DNA, too; that's how one gets various physical traits. Since they used his DNA to forge his Blood Angels, that means that 1 in ???? should have the potential to sprout vestigial, if not full formed, wings. I'm not saying they would grant flight, though that would be stokin' awesome, but they COULD show up. If there's actual (canonical) fluff that says some day, a new vessel for Sanguinius will be born of his progeny, and his soul will return, to lead his Chapter against the darkness, I don't know (though it sounds cool, sort of like how the Emperor might, someday, come back), but the wings thing might have a smidge of grounding.

As for the Wolves, yeah, I sort of went with that, too, after the fact. Every once in a while, the affliction holds off till older age, and there really isn't a tell until it emerges. Partly, it's just me wondering, and also me dreaming of playing that one, especially distinguished Marine, not just among the group, but among the masses; that little bit of spotlight hog I should know better than to indulge. Mostly, I just wondered how it COULD form, since Space Marines can't easily mutate, so sprouting even more extra hair, and claws/fangs more pronounced than what a SW already has would be hard to declare, to say nothing of sprouting wings, unless the GM really wants it, too, or they are wasted.

As you mention "good RPG", I'll say that I think that a "good RPG" will not introduce a die roll for every single thing. A "good RPG" should be able to include a fair amount of GM fiat for story reasons. For DW, flirting with heresy and the Warp is probably a less important theme than in DH or RT (mileage will vary on that comment). Therefore, mutations probably are more often a story element than a mechanical element. If it were a mechanic, then mutation as the result of geneseed quirks is likely not Corruption induced, but rather Insanity induced. At least when I think of Wulfen and Black Rage, it's more a fight for the Marine to control their inner animal than external influence of the warp. As their self control erodes, their ability to control their baser urges slips, eventually that causes a psychosomatic change. It also wouldn't ever effect Ultramarines or Imperial Fists, so a broad mechanic would be inappropriate.

However, I have to agree with others... chapters likely screen all of their DW candidates to determine whether their geneseed abnormalities would be likely to come out during a DW tour of duty. Most chapters guard the information of any such flaws extremely closely b/c they know the Imperium at large is likely to see it as a Chaos mutation rather than a genetic flaw. If you're familar with enough novels, you know there's a chapter that was declared Excommunicate Traitoris over mutations. Imagine that happening with the Space Wolves or worse, Blood Angels. Wolves would be bad enough, but the Blood Angels have a fair number of Successors that would likely get swept up in the same writ. It would make the Badab War look like a skirmish IMO.

As for the mark of the Wulfen, it is speculated that it reacts as a sort of protective measure to the influences of Chaos. There's various fluff around that talks about the 13th Company and how the exposure to the warp increased the reaction of the canis helix. Now 13th Co. would never be DW but if you want to know more about the mark, look them up. I think the latest SW codexfor the TT talks a bit more about it.