Good evening gents, in our last game the acolytes have salvaged a machinator array from the body of a heavily mutated Magos that had been a ships chief enginseer. Basicaly they found the wreck of a frigate while searching for a heretic in the underhive of Hive Gloriana on Solomon. The Magos and his complement of crew that survived the crash had gone mad and became trapped in the ship's wreck. They survived for 3000 years hunting the other vile things in the pre- imperium underhive and basking in the warm glow of the ship's plasma reactor. The Magos being bonded to the ship became completely insane by the pain of the ship's crash leaving the rapidly mutated ratings (Hullghasts) to worship him as a blind impotent god. Enter the Acolytes who took a wrong turn somewhere and after a vicious fight, the Magos was finally dead and the Techpriest (rank6) after a few very lucky rolls identified the big mutant, that was bound to the Cogicator bank, as a Techpriest and decided to set about reclaiming his ''blessings'' to return them to the Omnisiah. So after a few burned fate points and some -30 Medicae and tech use rolls he managed to remove them and among them the fabled Machinator Array.

I have reasons to believe that he plans to meld with it as soon as he can get his mechadendrites to a decenmed Medicae facy. I think that Rank 8 and an Elite Advanceof 2000 xp should be acceptable for a talent that appears in rank 2 of the Ascencion Campaign. I plan to take this campaign to Ascencion levels so maybe i could tell him to wait till he gets that rank.

What do you gents think? I would value your opinions… Also what interesting ghlitches and handicaps would come from the melding of a Magos that saw his ship destroyed by the Yu'Vath and a "lowly" Techpriest. Maybe false memories, or even insanity as the residual personality of Magos meshes with the one of the Acolyte.Is such a thing even probable? Thank you for your indulgence.

I think there are two ways I might go:

1. Make him wait until the appropriate Ascension rank. If he does things right he should return these blessed artefacts to the AM as he is not yet worthy of them. They may then reward him by giving them back when he reaches an approprite level of understanding (i.e gets to Ascension and purchases the appropriate talents). After all are any of your other players gaining access to stuff like this that is 'above their pay grade'?

2. Turn it into an adventure where upon melding with the array he must master it. This could come under a techsorcism (if it has been corrupted over the years) or as you say I would be tempted to have the spirit of the old magos left there in part. I would have it partially down the road to insanity but not completely so he has the option of reasoning with it to gain further understanding or forcibly destroying it to gain mastery. First off he puts it on and must make appropriate toughness tests for the surgery and wp tests to gain access to the controls. Then at moments of high stress the intelligence in the array will try to wrestly control away from him. Once he realises this is what is going on he can start to think about communicating with/investigating/destroying it.

Thank you for your ideas. I will keep the spirit of the dead Magos in mind and demand a series of -20 Willpower and Toughness checkse to meld and awake it's spirit. And then opposed wilpower rolls with the Magos… Fun times…

And no, my Acolytes have limited access to funds. Most of their equipment has been given to them by their Inquisitor. He did however LOAN them 2 Kronus Plasma pistols as they would supposedly go tto investigate the dreaming dead of Hive Gloriana on Solomon. They always find weapons and trinkets in their escapades but they invariably lose them at the end of the story ark.

Just a question, you noticed, that the Machinator Array is already available for Secutors at Rank 4 for 500 XP, right? If as a player my GM would try to make it that difficult to acquire this talent, I would rightly ask if I should stop playing a techpriest, because it seems to be the intent of the GM from a players POV. Or are all the other characters equally penalized to aquire talents?

Its not available in DH at rank 4 I belive? Arent you talking about Rogue Trader?

Indeed the array is available by RAW to a rank 4 Character in a different game system. In the Dark Heresy ruleset the only appearance of the Machinator Array is in Ascenscion for a rank 2 ascended Character. Also please note that rank 1 Rogue Trader characters are equal to rank4 in DH… And it was not a Talent that was available rather it wa the equipment itself that is lying around at the moment.

For the record the Tech Priest acolyte spontaneously announced that he refuses to put it on as it would be blasphemy because of his "low rank" and plans to return the recovered implants to a mechanicus temple. A pity, as i would have enjoyed roleplaying the "Ghost in the Machine".

It's in the Inquisitor's Handbook. Mechanicus Secutor.

Thanks for pointing that out. I will show the tables to my player but currently he lacks in WS and is in a peculiar spot vis-a-vis with his superiors in the Cult so i don;t see him going the Secutor path. He aspires to be an honored member of the Inquisition not a envoy with unsure loyalties.