I know it's a detail, but hey, the details can be quite bugging

I always thought it was some kind of printer/cogitator unit, like the one the Adept in the DH book is sitting on/behind, but now I am beginning to think it's more like some kind of automatic pen. The new player in my group is going to portray an Adept and I am sure this question will come up pretty quickly

I do not know for sure, but as you mentioned I expect to be the machine on the adept-picture to be an "autoquill". Where do you got this pen-idea from?

I imagine it to be a pen-like device of some kind, perhaps the complex thing that the adept in the picture has. I imagine that, because it doesn't use ink of any kind, that it has a sort of heat/laser projector behind the nibs that channels through the nib to burn lines into the page. Because it can also be used on dataslates, I'm also figuring it has an alternate nib set for writing using it as a digital stylus. It might actually have a real stylus nib set (for writing in clay or soft stone). The device itself probably has a very simple machine spirit to permit it to react to different material surfaces, and to realize when it is trying to write on an invalid target (living tissue, for instance).

Now, an autoquill that did all that might be a higher Quality one, but there's the general idea. Minimally, it will have a dataslate stylus and a paper nib, and it will probably have enough mechanism to automatically adapt to the writing/illumination style of the user (thus to, for instance, complete curves in a more even fashion than the writer manually would be able to do). Higher quality ones would be able to write on more diverse surfaces, have multiple nibs for different line intensities, special settings for drafting (such as to make a circle or a center line), clay and stone nibs, and even color nibs.

And no, I'm not getting this from anywhere. However, my mother is a calligrapher, I'm an artist (or at least I try to be), and most of my family are drafters. I know what I'd need for a single pen to fill all my linemaking needs.

I always pictured it as a typewriter sized dictation machine which scratches out the words with a quill remniscent of a lie detector machine. I honestly wouldn't mind paying for a supplement that details the more mundane items from the 40k world. A pocket sized guide to 40k gear would be awesome.

That's equally likely, and it's possible that we're both right.

And agreed.

I imagine something like this:-

The quill takes input direct from the users brain, so he need merely move the quill across the page or slate and the arm on the quill writes what he is thinking.

The arm also moves to dip the nib in the ink pot when it runs low. A colour autoquill has red, green and blue ink pots in addition to black, with the quill mixing colours on demand.

An interesting thought for sure, also makes for something much less bulky and cumbersome although in DH I like some gear to be bulky and cumbersome. It just seems to feel right to me. The idea that it can interface with a data slate is why I can't seem to picture them as an actual ink pen. I still like the idea of a typewriter sized (perhaps a tad smaller and portable) dictation machine that can write out stuff the old fashioned way, or be interfaced with a data-slate so it copies whatever you say (or even think) directly into your slate.

Normally I'd just say there are tons of different variety and let the player fiddle with the particulars but 40k is a world that crushes change and variation beneath a spiked boot.

I have to disagree with that. There may be multiple styles of autoquill - change and variety are commonplace. The massive diversity really underscores the point - if you're still standing out against the background, people think that you bloody well have to be wrong. Or compare a void born Scum with a feral Guardsman - the two are night and day.

As for the autoquill, firstly I would be astonished if they were all designed for neural interface - those things are rare as honesty. Secondly, the fact that it interfaces with both paper and a dataslate makes me think it takes multiple nibs. Plus, the fact that you never have to buy ink refills for your autoquill tells me that it does something vaguely similar to a modern laserjet printer when scribing on paper.

Finally, the game effect is a bonus to the Copyist skill. This makes me think less of a typewriter and more of a pen, but I can see the alternative interpretation.

Pneumonica said:

Well, all kinds of augmetics must be connected somehow. Think of it as a dedicated cyberarm.

Although it could be a version used only by tech priests.

In the Last Chancers (Gav Thorpe) there's a servo skull that acts as an Autoquill, which the owner puts on to the desk when he needs things written down, otherwise it acts as normal and hovers over his shoulder, but it never mentions How it writes stuff down but it does indicate other things..

For That specific item, it acts like voice operated writer, you say it, it writes it, in what ever code required (for the character involved, its the usual military quartermaster style of tabulation: "Mens uniform, for the use of, one. Las pistol, for the use of, one" and so on.

I imagined it to have the reel of paper inside part of the cranium, and spooling out between its teeth like some macabre tongue, with the teeth themselves acting as the printer head

Think dot matrix printer on acid..

perhaps a small steno styled typewriter?

I always pictured them to be akin to a tattoo gun with a giant feather sticking out of it.

I kind of have to agree with the multiple nibs and tatoo gun thing. No nib, and you can hook it up to a dataslate and "write" while you use different nibs for different writing mediums. I pictured small retractable hoses that can be slipped into inkpots to draw the ink directly, with better quality quills capable of drawing multiple inks at once. Low friction innards so that the ink doesn't stick to the side, a small air chamber to "clean the quill" and some soft of minor automenation. I picture most of them to be voice activated with maybe small hover servros (like those used on skulls) to float over the paper and write.

The better the quill the more things it can do, with the most advanced capable of translations, cyphers, and fancy letterings, while the basic one draws only black ink, and writes in Times New Calix font.

There is an inquisitorial henchman model with an autoquill, it's a feather with a mechanical end.

Jes Goodwin's sketchbook has some administratum pictures and an autoquill pic, which also looks like a feather with a mechanical end. Like Dezmond's picture.

Hellebore

I think it's more lige the Danish Writing Ball (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/04/HansenWritingBall_color.jpg), but on wheels so it can move around on whatever it writing on...

Fantastic reactions guys, thank you! I was actually a bit reserved to confess that I had been wondering about such mundane things

I'll go for the feathered stylus with a machine end, in my campaign.

@Dezmond: Great Picture. Did you draw it?

Probably a tiny bit too late, but there is a picture of an auto-quil in the Dark Heresy Core Rulebook. Just flip to the first page of the Adept career and you'll see the character portrait is using one. Its a quil on a mechanical arm controled by a typewriter looking thing.

Firstly: That writing ball is FREAKING COOL. I totally want one for my steampunk costuming.

Secondly: I think that, given no coherent description of an autoquill exists, that it might come in multiple shapes, sizes, and techniques for usage. I suppose you can use what you will, but a few common elements exist based on all the things that we've gone through on this list I think the following rules apply.

• It's large, but can be carried about in a satchel or briefcase (it's either a large, mechanical calligraphy/drafting kit or its a disassemblable device).
• It's complicated (hence why it augments the Copyist skill rather than replacing it entirely).
• It's the kind of thing that could be useful for illumination and drafting as well as multiple styles of calligraphic text (you either program it with the design specifications or you write/draw with it semi-normally - either way, you can write in your own style using it).
• It's steampunk-ish.
• Higher Quality version are probably required for more detailed work (color, detailed illumination and drafting, etc.) and write on multiple surfaces (clay, soft stone, etc.), while lower-Quality versions can probably only handle plain text, and might not even reproduce a true black and might not even be able to handle paper or dataslate (being specialized to only one medium).

Within these limits, I'd say you should describe it for your own character. The look of your autoquill might be pretty descriptive of your character.

NB: This is an IMHO post, not a rule post. YMMV. And any other acronym you might choose to apply.

To add another way of thinking:

perhabs this "compatible with data slate" is not a feature of the quill but more a feature of the dataslate. Today, we have got "touch screens" you can write on. Perhabs the "machine spirit" of the data slate "transfers" the input from the "touch screen"? The only difference between the "auto quill" and a normal feather might be that an autoquill comes with some kind of sensors that recognizes the material beneath so...so that it would not "scratch/ink/burn" the dataslate but simply "touching" it.

And I agree: an "equipment book" with the more mundane gadgets (and without weapons, armor and explosives!) would be nice. And it would help players new to the WH40K-Universe to get a fell for it...

One thing to toss fuel on the fire on this discussion, and to kind of discount that at least in Dark Heresy its a smallish thing, no briefcase needed, is simply that according to the Gear Chapter, an auto-quill has negligable weight. This kind of moves the thinking back to a smallish compact pen like object, that can be connected to various input/output devices, so probably the typewriter object isn't the auto-quill, just the feather-ish like object is.

...and rationality strikes again. You're correct, it does say that.

I'm still going to opt for a "kit" of some kind, simply because for the kind of work the autoquill does (calligraphy, text illumination, drafting, etc.), a kit is always required. But good catch on that one. Maybe a mechanical pen that can do things like automatically draw shapes and correct for wobbly hands, with a nib-set on the side for different intensities of line, different surfaces (I still don't think you'd want a laser-etching point on the screen of a dataslate), etc.?

Pneumonica said:

My guess is that the autoquill is simply a mechanical pen as you say. My guess is though that it can be connected to other input/out devices (like dataslates and that typewriter style thingie) to write things. So if you attach it to a dataslate to copy from and copying it to a scroll, you just have to move it over the paper, and the pen itself will do the writing. As long as you move at the same pace as the writing, it goes smooth, you screw up and you have issues. Same with the typewriter style thingie, and it can become a stylus like a blackberry for dataslates.