So, I was watching the Ultramarines movie, earlier, and I have to say I thought it was soso, overall. With all of the fanboys for Blood Angels and Space Wolves, and everyone treating the Ultramarines like they were the NY Yankees, I appreciated that the movie focused, for the most part, on the "Vanilla Marines".

That being said, my question/comment is derived from one of the couple characters who WEREN'T Ultramarines; Chaplain Carnak, of the Iron Fists. In one of my favorite scenes, we see what's left of our Ultramarines squad, now accompanied by Chaplain Carnak and another Iron Fists SM, Nidon (or maybe Brother Sandal, if you are up on your Dragon Age references), and they are about to be overrun by Black Legion CSMs. Everyone is firing at the baddies, except for the Chaplain, and some of our guys are wondering if this is a sign that he is in league with the BL. After a tense moment, and the BL CSMs closing into range, he bellows "burn heretics!", holds forth the Crozius Arcanum, and from it emanates a cone of blue light. Where it hits, CSMs die, just straight out biff it. Later, when it might help if he did it again, it still needs charging time.

So my quandary, what was that? I've never seen the Crozius make a ranged-ish attack, nor have I seen Chaplains get powers, like other Faith-bearing souls might. Usually, I just see them as mostly melee wargods, granted a guaranteed power weapon, and carrying a guaranteed field generator into battle. How might someone go about making this seeming flame cone of holy faith fry the enemy? Is there something cool like it in one of the books, already, and I missed it?

It may simply have been an unfortunate (and glaring) deviation from the intent to make a fan-targeted movie. Perhaps Dan Abnett was feeling a little under the weather the day that scene was in develpoement, and C.S. Goto filled in for him…?

Perhaps something akin to a Thunder Hammer could be applied; Concussive with an AoE as a Flamer, maybe?

Firstly it was Imperial Fists and it was some kind on relic Crozius.

Face Eater said:

Yeah, I mentioned Imperial Fists for Carnak. As for the Crozius, I sort of assumed that EVERY Crozius Arcanum was a bit of a special relic; not something they make in surplus. If Chaplains were any force other than Space Marines, I would've probably assumed it was a Pure Faith-based Miracle power, but Space Marines don't get that Talent, because they don't think of the God Emperor in quite the same light, so I didn't know if it was some sort of off-weapon built into the Crozius, or if the movie said "Faith in the Emperor gets results, the same way devotion to the Dark Gods does, just less often, and with less side effects." I really liked the effect, truth be told, and felt it an interesting addition to a melee-derived fighter, sort of a "let the flamers loose" before closing in for assualt. Since Chaplains don't get real Faith, I wondered what technological/weapon-based sort of thing might do it.

Alekzanter said:

Mr. Abnett is quite able to produce deviations by himself, from all I've heard.

I just watched the movie last week, and have to say it was not so bad. Certainly not brilliant, but I have expected worse after the comments I've seen on the web.

Anyways, another possible explanation, provided one would desperately try to find a way to have this occurrence fit in with other fluff on the Crozium, could be that the Chaplain had latent psychic powers. There are screening processes to prevent this and separate recruits that have tested positive towards a Chapter's Librarium, of course, but I do remember Space Marines unexpectedly developing psychic potential being mentioned as one possible plot hook in the Battle Narratives section of Codex Witch Hunters, so I suppose the possibility could exist.

It's a long shot, but the Chaplain could have "coupled" this ability with the Crozium in a way that he used his innate powers to channel the weapon's energy discharge into a ranged attack, or that he used the Crozium as some sort of mental focus to conjure a discharge out of thin air (read: the Warp). In all these instances, the Chaplain himself might not need to be aware of the true nature of this attack, given that it only seems to work whenever he handles the device (either as a focus, or as a source of the energy).

That said, I would agree that it is far more likely and less weird an idea that the Crozium might simply be a relic of an earlier age of the Imperium, though. Given how much knowledge has been lost over the millennia, it may not be too far-fetched to assume that the "standard" Crozium is a pale cousin of that which cannot be built anymore. Or maybe it was even a different weapon entirely, and they only treat it like a Crozium because it looks like one and they don't know the difference. Or perhaps the source of the blast was some other artifact that has been integrated into a Crozium for a sort of secondary effect.

If you want to implement such a weapon into Deathwatch, I'd say there are a range of options to explain it. It could even be a sanctioned device of Xenos origin that has been forged into a human weapon, given the game's theme. Plot hook: have aliens recover "their" device, and your players are sent to bring it back.

venkelos said:

There's 'a bit of a special relic' and then there's 'a true relic'. There are 'standard' Crozius just as there's standard bolters and standard power armour, power swords etc, but then there's the relic versions, holy bolters or special designs that can no longer be built. Presumably the one in the film was one such.

If Tyberos The Red Wake can get away with a chain fist/lightning claw combi-weapon I have no problem with Karnak's crozius going boom.

I just blinked and assumed it was a special weapon.

I suppose "relic Crozius" is an acceptable answer. It's just a shame, at least to me, that the Chaplains are the only "allowed" fake holy men in the 40k universe, and that they can't have Pure Faith and some of those benefits. If it was a Priest, or a Canoness holding such an object, I could just say it is their faith, that their reverence for the Emperor allows for a miracle, but Space Marines know better, and this knowledge sort of disallows them to worship the Emperor to benefit, beyond getting Fate Points. Oh well, there are more bizarre relics out there.

Well, that depends entirely on which vision of the fluff you're going by. FFG's current rules indeed confer special powers to "holy people", but that is something I have criticised in the past as it is too much of a difference to the studio material I've grown up with. From the books that have formed my own understanding of the setting, something like divine power simply does not exist in 40k. Anything that is treated as such is superstition and coincidence at best, or psychic phenomena and tech-based deception at worst. This includes the Tech-Priests' Machine Spirit mumbo-jumbo just as much as it does Acts of Faith (which merely "appear miraculous to the unschooled", as the Codex says).

But as already proven by FFG's RPGs, and likely a number of Black Library novels, this detail depends very much on what sources you're looking at. Gav Thorpe once said that this setting exists in countless different but overlapping variations in the minds of developers, writers and readers alike, and none of these interpretations is wrong. So, it ultimately comes down to how you (and your group) perceive the following:

Also consider that you don't even need to have your characters' IC explanations be the truth. You could easily have a Chaplain from a Chapter that's slightly more religious simply declare that relic to wield the Emperor's power - just like the Black Templars are utterly convinced that their Champion works in a similar way.

Considering Tau Commanders and Hive Tyrants get Fate Points, I'm gonna go ahead and say that Fate Points have nothing to do with Faith.

Captain Ventris said:

No, I'll grant you that; Tau might have some "faith" in something akin to the Emperor, sort of the embodiment of the Greater Good beyond the Ethereals, but no, the Emperor doesn't give us our Fate Points. As to Faith = Fate Points, I more meant that their belief in the Emperor, and belief in His occasional actions, might be how said individuals explain what spending a Fate Point did. If I was inches from certain harm or death, I will likely look up and saw "thank you God", whether he had anything to do with it, beyond also maybe causing the event that almost killed me. I'd just never seen anything like that Crozius, before the movie, and was pretty sure that the Chaplain was mostly melee, and possessed no "holy powers", akin to those that Priests might have, or that make the Sisters of Battle the fighting force they are. Also, I wondered if anyone else knew something I didn't about what that was. I'm not a total fanboy for Space Marines, and they aren't what I've usually chosen to play in TT, and I haven't done much with that since 4th ed; was unaware if something had changed. Blood Angels, Dark Angels, and Space Wolves have all gotten extra stuff above and beyond the "regualar" SM Chapters, and I didn't know if this was something cool Imperial Fists had recently acquired, though it would be cool if Chaplains got a flamer template holy attack, to soften things up prior to an assault.

Also, according to the Lexicanum wiki, this Crozius IS special. The Stormrod - Arcane Crozius of Thalhant is what it is called, and it is specific to that Chaplain, Karnak.

This…
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Stormrod_-_Arcane_Crozius_of_Tharhant#.UYXis8r4KCM

I'd not be surprised if a large number of Croziums have their own name, just like the vehicles do.

The gear and equipment of the Space Marines (or a number of other Imperial factions, for that matter) has been crafted over a span of millennia. There's bound to be countless variants and variations in-between the individual items (especially as a number of them may be unique one-offs), possibly resulting in a Crozium crafted M32 on Mars functioning different than one that has been put together yesterday in some Successor Chapter's own forge. Sometimes not enough to make a difference on the tabletop, other times enough so that it should be a special piece of wargear unique to some character or Chapter. The loss of knowledge almost guarantees that there will be a large range of efficiency when comparing equipment from different eras, the average merely skewed towards the new stuff because most of the old "relics" have been lost in battle or stopped working due to deficiencies in maintenance (-> Golden Throne!) .. and it is this rarity that makes the surviving pieces special.

Of course, I assume that most of us realise the true reason why that Crozium in the movie worked like it did, but that doesn't mean that it absolutely cannot be explained using only in-universe reason. Sometimes, fortunately, unique author ideas are easy to reconcile with your preferred interpretation of the setting.

I asked Dan Abnett about this after being a bit non-plussed by the overall quality of the Ultramarines Movie.

He said: " The Crozius - GW let us play with that. Their attitude is that the WH40K Universe has more variation and possibilities than can be expressed within the framework of the game rules. In the novels and films, we can do things you can’t do in the game. It’s a BIG Universe."

Well, 40k not having a "true" canon and a hundred books saying a hundred different things isn't anything new… An answer regarding whether this Crozium is supposed to be special, or whether this is a standard Crozium and they just work differently in his movie, would have been more useful.

Oh well!