Hello! I am a new Gamemaster to Black Crusade. Been a longtime fan of the 40K universe since the publication of the book Slaves to Darkness in 1988. I am about to begin my first campaign for Black Crusade and I have a legitimate question for this forum:

Do Chaos Space Marines have genitals?

Seriously.

The reason I'm asking is because I'm contemplating various plot angles involving Slaanesh - and the temptations, desires and forbidden pleasures that go along with that deity. It seems with the power armor fused to the skin and the genetic upgrades there would be some sort of catheter situation or recycling of bodily fluids.

Then again, if a loyal Space Marine falls for the seductions of Slaanesh and forever forsakes the Imperium to spend enternity engaging in bacchanals with the Daemonettes or whatever, what, is the pleasure all in his mind? Is it a hallucination? Are his senses so jacked up that the lightest touch on the cheek sends a thrill that equals an orgasm? Is there no actual physical touching of the lower body regions? It seems inconsistent to me for a worshipper of the God of Pleasure to be a eunuch for all practical purposes.

If that isn't the case, then what? Can they remove their armored britches like in the love scene between Uther and Igrayne in the movie Excalibur ? Then you wonder (well, maybe you don't) about urination and defecation - is this mandatory, is it an option, is it a non-issue? If they are using their plumbing for one do they use it for the other? Is there an on/off switch somewhere?

Has this question every been asked/answered? I'm totally serious and would like some viewpoints.

Space marines are not bonded to their power armor. It comes off. What you might be thinking of is the Black Carapace. This, however, is a mostly subdermal implant limited to the torso, featuring only several skin mounted interface ports. In short, in terms of equipment, implants and power armor, there is nothing preventing space marines from getting naked.

As for genitals, well, it's presumed yes. They are built from human males, and nowhere in the process of making them is it mentioned they get castrated (which, for the record, does not remove or impair the *****, merely the testicles). They are, presumably, fully functional. However, opinions differ on whether they get undergo mental conditioning to make them uninterested in sex or merely have hardcore monastic training to focus them purely on their combat duties. Or if they do, indeed, get chemically castrated in some way, and to which degree this stretches, from mere inability to impregnate to full on inability to feel lust.

In game terms, chaos space marines do not possess Cold Hearted, the talent that represents immunity to seduction. One can infer their sexual organs and their drive to use them both remain. Or, to put it another way, you can seduce a chaos space marine.

Equating Slaanesh purely with sex, and sex purely with stimulation of the genitals, is also doing both the god and sex a disservice. Slaanesh is the god of all pleasures, and without sex a devote still has everything from food to music to a really good morning jog. Indulgence is key, regardless of form. Also sex goes far beyond merely touching naughty bits. The existence of erogenous zones means you can get quite a bit of stimulus outside of masturbation or penetrative sex. And that's not even touching upon the fact that various fetishes, like BDSM, can illicit rather strong sexual satisfaction without any sort of intercourse occurring at all!

As for space marines NEED to go to the bathroom, I have no clue and has seen no reference one way or another. I'd strongly suspect, however, that all power armor has built in means to deal with it, not unlike our contemporary space suits. It fits both with the thematic nature of 40k power armor as futuristic full plate, complete with rarity and association with the upper echelons of society, and makes pure practical sense. Power armor is not something donned or removed quickly, and is meant to be worn for significantly long stretches of time.

Some Space Marines do have relations, I believe the White Scars are fond of harems, but this seems to somewhat the exception and I don't know if it produces offspring of any kind.

Power armour collects and recycles all bodily waste, dumping what cannot be reclaimed for nutrients.

Both of these may have been changed in more recent canonical fiction that I'm not aware of, but they were true at one point at least.

Hiyas

The main problem with beings like Slaanesh (IMHO), is that the W40K gameverse in general is a PG to PG-13 universe, but with the Reagan-Era type of rating: lotsa lotsa hideous & violent thingies/stuff but no sex whatsoevah!

HtH

L

All I can say is that since my players are 20+ and males there will be no shortage of sex and stuff when Slaanesh is part of it.

The way I've always viewed it is that Slaaneshi marines have moved beyond mere sex. They probably still indulge in it from time to time, but on the whole they have mored on to other, darker vices. Torture, murder and drug use are just the tip of the iceburg; think of the Cenobites from Hellraiser and you're on the right track; pain and pleasure indivisible; agony raised to levels that it becomes rapture, etc.

You can be sure that anyone a Slaaneshi marine chooses as an object for their pleasure isn't going to enjoy it, or possibly survive it.

I know this has been discussed before but I think that I should bring it up again.

Do you think its possible in some way or another for Chaos Space Marine to create offspring? The reason I was asking is that I would love to re-create a 40k version of the Grigori and the Nephilim scenario and I figure that Chaos Space Marines would probably work best as fallen angels, or should I use something else instead to fill that part?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori#Slavonic_Enoch

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephilim

Gurkhal said:

I would generally say no.

That doesn't rule out Tzeench deciding that chaos marine spawn would be a grand idea and changing things.

The thing to keep in mind is that Astartes physiology isn't stable or natural. They aren't mutants that breed true, like Ogryn. Their biology requires maintenance to keep it running properly, special food additives and what-not, and all their extra bits are added later and wouldn't really be in their genetic makeup to pass on. If any special traits would pass to offspring becomes questionable.

ItsUncertainWho said:

I totally agree with you that the Marines special physicology would not be transmitable by standard biological reproduction. The scenario I'm mostly looking at is that the Chaos Space Marines would be deeply tainted by the Warp and thus their union with human women would result in a form of hideous mutant, not because they are Chaos Space Marines but because they have so much Warp taint in them. After the children are born the Chaos Space Marines would teach their children and human wives various forbidden lore and knowledge before departing, perhaps to return in some future.

In other words we are NOT talking about anyone being born as a Space Marine or being born with any kind of similarity to one. The selection of Chaos Sapce Marines as the fathers is that I think that they could possibly fill the task of fallen angels better than most others candidates.

Gurkhal said:

I'd say normally no, for the same reasons as ItsUncertainWho mentioned; space marine physiology would mean that 99% of pregnancies end in miscarriage as the mother's body rejects the gene-altered fetus.

However, this is Chaos we're talking about. Should one of the Chaos Gods take an interest, or possibly just a powerful daemon, I'm sure a child could be conceived, and such a child would no-doubt have a dark and magnificent destiny ahead of it.

Such a plotline could open up all manner of possibilities for Chaos Space marines hunting down their own offspring who is prophesied to destroy them; or maybe they have to find and protect a pregnant slave who, it has been foretold, will give birth to the child of a mighty Chaos Space marine.

Evilscary said:

All good points that I agree with.

OK, here's how I see it from various books/background.

Marines are made from boys just reaching puberty and put through all sorts of surgeries so they become marines instead of men. All those steroids added/'naturally' produced by their genhanced bodies probably take their toll on a marine's nethers.

I agree with some of the previous comments that there are all kinds of ways a Slaaneshi marine could get his excess on. There's a scene in the Heresy book Fulgrim (SPOILERS) where the Emporer's Children and all their remembrancers go to a concert that basically turns them all. The regular humans all start stripping down and forming sex piles while the Astartes give into the urges of their altered frames and start crushing the remembrancers with theis bare hands or just moshing out to the deadly music. I remember an older book where a Slaaneshi lord has one of his subordinates blasted out an airlock for writing 'boring' poetry!

I notice no-one seems to have mentioned the standard means of Astartes reproduction: the Progenoid Glands. You could do some interesting things with the concept of a marine's gene-seed developing its own malignancies or even picking up some of its bearer's genetic code. It would be more deliberate than a pleasure-worshipping chaos marine impregnating a human woman, but you could get a Fabius Bile-type guy to harvest a progenoid from a likely host (Not necessarily lethal) and either put through some Heretek process to extract usable DNA to bond with an ovum or just implant the whole gland into a surrogate in the hope all that warp exposure has made it possible for it to grow into some kind of life-form. Just don't ask me what such a life-form would look like...

Thank you, thank you for the thoughtful and informative responses!

My guess would be that Astartes conversion actually does not effect the testicles.

While Marines aren't sterile, it seems unlikely that there would be any change to their sperm.

Most if not all of the implants are more surgical than genetic, and while they are keyed to pre-existing genes do not change them significantly.

Most of the new bone and muscle is actually done by the implant which controls it, and the mortal physiology is simply carried along for the ride.

Of course, this is just idle speculation.

@SomVone

I'd assume that the hormonal havoc the space marines likely go through during their implantations will make healthy progeny rather unlikely. Consider it from the Emperor's point of view: Every modification on that scale has side effects which you'll have to counteract, making the whole process more and more complex and invasive.
Side-effects on the mind will have to be dealt with as we want sane warrior-monks, not lunatics (well, oops...).
Side-effects on organ functions will have to be eliminated as well considering we want top physical performance from our super soldiers.
Side-effects on longevity would be undesirable as we can benefit from having soldiers with centuries of experience.
Side-effects on the progeny... hey, they're not supposed to have kids anyway!

Thus, I'd imagine that reproductive capabilties would be the first thing to be lost as it's one system more the rest of the process doesn't need to care about leaving intact.

I have never ever heard of marines siring children or even partaking in sexual congress.

All marines (that is those that are gene-enhanced teenage boys!) are inherently infertile by the very nature of the process done to them. They may well develop emotional attachments to humans and indeed have 'relationships' but as far as i am aware, do not mate with them. That said chaos marines can be made in different ways to the standard process - vat bred brutes that simply need implantation, vile heretekal processes using warp energies or simply even cabals of sorcerers and elaborate rituals.

While the RPGs may delve into areas that Games Workshop won't write about, the hobby is inherently Pg certificate (or here in the UK the rather stupid 12A where the A means adults can take whoever they want in with them). I don't expect there to ever be any sort of 100% canon answer about this kind of thing, so just make it up and stick to it for your games.

Hiyas!

WARNING - TWISTED STUFF COMING:

[Ye just made me] conjure up some pretty bizarre images now... Slaneeshi CSMs with giant horns/tusks for penises, hentai marines (much like noize marines), mutated she-male marines, giant amorphous "baby" marines, etc.

That's just the tip (pun)!

L

It's all yer fault!

LETE said:

Purge the abominations! Let them burn in holy fire!

Difficult in the middle of the Vortex.

Altho' I've been toying with the notion of a secret Imperial enclave in the Vortex...

L

I'd assume they have it, but are not capable of reproducing with humans barring warp taint doing some sci-fi magic. They're not just the same species anymore, space marines are not just large, old humans. They're a breed above, the closest we have on earth is horses and donkeys that are different species yet capable of producing offspring.

Somehow I see space marines beeing further apart from humans then horses are from donkeys. I can easily see them having genitals unless taint in the initiation process involves it. However, alot of fluff suggests CSM fuse together with their armor over time so the ability to use it might be somewhat reduced.

Ghaundan said:

This is primarily in the earlier fluff that still paralleled them to fantasy Chaos Warriors and their Chaos Armour. More recent fluff that I've seen has them out of their armour when not in battle.

HappyDaze said:

I'm not sure Plague Marines take their armour off very often. It actually stands to reason that the more corrupted a Marine is, the less his armour comes off (Berserkers, Obliterators, Champions, Raptors, Noise Marines, must all have their armour fused to an extent).

K0balt said:

Plague Marines ooze puss from every pore. I'm fairly certain they're somewhat discounted on the topic of Astartes sex

Obliterators are infected with a supernatural machine virus, which kinda makes them somewhat of another aversion from the baseline.

The rest? I see no logical reason they'd be in any way fused to their armor. At the most I can see the logic behind them removing it less, because they get their jollies in battle, not outside of it, so why remove the appropriate vestment? But none of them, barring other mutations or weirdness, are in any way ever gonna get physically fused or incapable of removing it.


As for the idea of Astartes breeding, well, they don't actually go through genetic therapy, do they? It's all implanted, which means that most likely their genes, and thus their genetic material, remains untouched apart from possible corruption from other sources like chaos and radiation.

Also, wasn't the Emperor VERY adamant about how the Astartes were not to be a new race capable of breeding true as an off-shot of mankind? Wouldn't the easiest way to ensure this remain so be to actually never touch their genetic material, ensuring that any child they have is completely normal and human?

Lamarck was wrong, after all, so unless their genetic material was touched, Space Marines would never stop being genetically human and thus never pose the risk of creating a new race.

Reverend mort said:

That is if their sexual intercourse is consented. Probably not the case 99% of the time. Yuck. Human nature intrudes in the equation. Better go back to more lighted places now.

L

Overall, better talk this over with your players before any awkward/awful situations pop up.

Berserkers: I don't think psycho-killing machines would take their armor very often. Simply from paranoia. But they may not actually be fused, though.

Champions: generally mutated enough that removing it can be quite problematic.

Noise Marines: most debatable one, but it is so warped as to come off uneasily, if ever, I think.

Raptors: their armor mutates with them. For them, at least, I am 100% sure the armor doesn't come off.

Possessed, since I think of it: depends, but there are quite a few fluff instances where they are bonded.

All in all, I think that the further a marine falls into corruption, the harder it is for the armor to come off (whether willingly or not). That's my interpretation of it, though.