Deathwatch - Brother Mortis Personal Log

This is an old picture. He's much better equipped now ;-)

I had decided to chronicle my Deathwatch characters progress in 'Personal Log' form and then our GM started his own Blog so the process seemed a bit redundant. He's now decided that writing the scenario, playing the scenario and then writing it out again is a bit tedious and therefore has stopped bothering, lol.

I am therefore going to chronicle our various campaigns from the point of view of my own character. I'm sure the rest of my team will chip-in with comments if they think I've missed out some important event. As I'd blatantly be lying if I said I remembered even a quarter of what happened during our campaign to prevent the planet of 'Pilgrims Loss' falling to the Tyranids (it was spread over 5 or 6 once a week sessions) I'm going to skim over those events a bit in the first of these posts before going into a bit more detail with any of our future missions.....

There will also be a few notes at the end to explain certain things for those of you who are unaware of some of the game mechanics.

Pilgrims Loss.

Brother Mortis placed the last piece of his Mark 8 Power Armour on the rack in the corner of his cell and placed his Storm Bolter on the workbench along one wall to await his attention later. Though most of the Marines cells were bare apart from whatever shrine to their Chapter, Primarch or other venerated icon they prayed to, Brother Mortis's position as Techmarine had allowed him to take a cell sufficiently large for a basic workstation and the sacred tools and oils of the Omnissiah that allowed him to maintain both his own equipment and that of the rest of his Kill-Team.

The mission on Pilgrim's Loss had resulted in much damage to every team members equipment and armour and had also resulted in the death of two members of his own team and virtually every other Marine of the Deathwatch involved which had inevitably created a great deal of work for both himself and their Apothecary. It was however still considered a 'success' due to the placing of two samples of a specially engineered viral agent (designed specifically to work on the Tyranid splinter fleet they were facing) on the primary Tyranid Hive-Ship. Though it hadn't had the effect of completely destroying the enemy fleet (as had been hoped) it had destroyed the vessel on which it had been placed as well as several others nearby and seemed to be gradually weakening the others.

The two new Deathwatch members now permanently attached to Kill-Team Epsilon after joining it to bolster their strength before the mission against the primary hive-ship had integrated themselves into the team with remarkable efficiency and were somewhat ironically far better at their team roles than the Marines they had replaced*. The new Apothecaries skills at healing far outclassed those of his predecessor and the Raven Guard Assault Marine's abilities in combat were impressive to say the least. Mortis had overheard several of the Deathwatch Serfs joking that Kill-team Epsilon had their own pile of missions awaiting them in the watch Captains office all labelled 'kill everything and set what's left on fire'. Though making light of his teams abilities had irritated him slightly he was forced to admit begrudgingly that diplomacy was not their strong suit in any way, shape or form.....

Mortis moved to his work bench and awakened the machine spirit of a portable Diognosticator before attaching it to a port in one of his new bionics in order to check it's integration with his existing systems. Epsilon's contribution to the defence of Pilgrims loss and it's considerable part in the weakening of the splinter fleet attacking it and it's neighbouring systems had not gone unnoticed by their superiors and subsequent enquiries about equipment availability had been provisionally approved** as well as the team receiving several honourable distinctions in recognition of their mighty and heroic deeds. He himself had personally received an additional Machina Opus from the stations Forge Master while the rest of the team had gained honours appropriate to their own particular specialities. Brother Magron had been particularly pleased with the Marksmen honour granted to him and had been even more humbled when the Master of the Armoury had agreed to configure an 'Ultra' Pattern Mk. IX Sniper Rifle for his personal use.

He himself had taken advantage of this new found favour by having his other arm replaced by an extremely well crafted*** Bionic that's ability to work on precision devices was considerably superior to his own organic limb that it had replaced. This procedure had been simple enough to be performed on the Strike Cruiser on the journey back to the Deathwatch Watch Station though he had had to wait until they reached 'home' before he could have the additional internal systems fitted to his Respiratory system and heart. He had also taken advantage of this downtime to fine tune the improvised additional armour plating he's added to his form during a brief stop at a medical facility while on the previous mission****. This integration of all his new augmentations when combined with his older ones had increased both his Strength and Toughness to even more impressive levels*****.

Once the diagnostic and subsequent minor adjustments had been completed he turned his attention to the Storm Bolter that had served him so well in the previous campaign. Despite the fact that it's previous owner had been a Chaos Terminator, the reconsecrated and reconfigured weapon's machine spirit had attempted to erase the stain on it's honour by destroying as many xenos as possible and had in fact killed one with virtually every bolt fired******. Brother Mortis had decided to honour his weapons new found purpose by rebuilding it to even more precise tolerances and adding a Motion Predictor who's own machine spirit would combine with that of the weapon in order to make it into a truly awe inspiring weapon of war...

...Brother Mortis aimed the weapon at the creature recently released at the opposite end of the circular area and unleashed a burst of Bolts at it as it loped across the training arena towards him. He watched with satisfaction as every bolt hit it's mark and the Diablodon exploded in a spectacular display of scattered limbs and shattered bone. Mortis engaged his Vox and sent a brief message to the Marine in charge of the stations 'Zoo'.

"Lets' try that again with a pair shall we....."

* Two members of our RPG group had decided they didn't like their characters and had (to be honest) probably not picked particularly good ones based on what they wanted to do with them. The simple solution was to just kill off their characters and create new ones. Amusingly enough our Apothecary is now an Assault Marine and our Assault Marine is now an Apothecary...

** Most of us are at 'Distinguished' levels of Renown (the stat that decides how exotic the equipment you can requisition for missions is) and the rest of them who are only 'Respected' should be 'Distinguished' by the end of our next couple of missions. This means that we can take wonderful new toys such as Omnissiah Axe's, Power Fists, Plasma Cannons and some of the more interesting grenade and ammunition types as well as most of the available equipment options as well. There's still a few things were not allowed near yet though...*cough* Conversion Beamer *cough*...

*** Equipment is either 'common', 'exceptional' or 'master' in terms of it's quality. Equipment over and above the standard types gains additional benefits depending on what it is (Armour increases in AP value, guns do more damage, etc.) but at an increased requisition cost. I've been of sufficient renown to get 'exceptional' level bionics for a while (which obviously have additional benefits) but have only just become famous enough to have 'master' level ones. Unfortunately a 'master' level piece of equipment is twice as expensive as a 'common' one...

**** I am allowed by our GM to use appropriate bionics from other of the compatible game systems such as Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader as long as I can justify it from a character building point of view. Therefore using various bits of the aforementioned medical facilities equipment to make Cranial and Subdermal armour was graciously approved. On a side note, our GM has a somewhat draconian attitude to 'Power Gaming' for the sake of it and also has a somewhat vindictive streak with those who argue with his decisions as one of our group who got ran over by a Lictor can testify too.....as can the guy who got his head stuck in what can only be described as a sphincter.....

***** It was the only way I could think of to justify suddenly getting stronger and tougher after spending XP on those particular stats.

****** I don't miss often and can fire 8 bolts in a single burst with an average roll combined with the weapons 'Storm' rule.

So that's the 'story so far'. for those of you interested in such things my character's stats are as follows,

WS 48, BS 51, S 64, T 64, A 40, Int 64, Per 49, WP 44, Fel 43.

As well as the Skills and Talents Deathwatch Marines get for free he also has the following upgrades,

Skills.
Awareness +10, Demolition, Dodge +20, Forbidden Lore : Archeotech +10, Security +10, Speak Language : Techna Lingua, Talanted : Tech-Use, Tech-Use +10.

Talents.
Autosanguine, Electro-Graft Use, Machine, Mechadendrite Use, Mechanicus Implants, Mighty Shot, Sound Constitution (2), The Flesh is Weak (1), Weapon Tech.

Bionics.
Augur Array, Bionic Arm (Left), Bionic Arm (Right), Bionic Heart, Bionic Locomotion (Legs), Bionic Lungs, Cranial Armour, Mind Impulse Unit, Servo Arm, Sub-Dermal Armour.

Wargear.
Mark 8 'Errant' Armour, Astartes Bolt Pistol, Astartes Bolt Gun, Astartes Combat Knife, Frag and Krak Grenades x3, Repair Cement, Signature Wargear (Master) : Astartes Storm Bolter, Techmarine Servo Arm.

Not sure what comments are necessary but feel free to make them if you like ;-)