I'd love to invest more in combat-oriented skills, but I'd like to hear your advice. What would be good for Icarus in the beginning?
And yes, I'd like to know what kind of cyber enhancements are we talking about?
All right you asked for it!
I hope you like a huge wall of text.
Augmenticist:Augmetic implants are ubiquitous throughout the Imperium. From the prosthetic limbs of Imperial Guard veterans, to the life-extending sanguinary actuators of ancient savants, to the multi-jointed mechadendrites of the Adeptus Mechanicus, one is hard pressed to find a resident of a civilised world who does not sport some form of bionic implant. Within the upper classes of Imperial society, where money is freely spent in service to status and fashion, the scions of nobility strut like peacocks displaying a plumage of coiling wire and ribbed augmetic tubing. But for some, bionic modification is more than a mark of status, age, or devotion to the Omnissiah.
For some, it is an obsession. For these few, known as Augmenticists, there is no greater goal than physical and aesthetic perfection. It is through repeated bionic surgery that Augmenticists believe such a goal can be attained. There are as many reasons for becoming an Augmenticist as there are Augmenticists themselves. An ageing servant, driven by fervent devotion, replaces his failing organs one by one lest he die leaving some task incomplete. A warrior of exceptional skill nevertheless becomes frustrated with the limits of the human body, undertaking repeated muscle grafts and the implantation of evermore-lethal weapons in a quest to become death incarnate.
The foppish merchant prince, a slave to youth and beauty, puts himself under the surgeon’s knife time and again until he has attained statuesque allure and an inhuman tolerance to even the most exotic intoxicants. It is not long before such burgeoning Augmenticists pass the point of no return, reasoning in their various ways that they are better off as beings of mechanical perfection than creatures of crude and ugly flesh. As they pursue their physical ideal, many Augmenticists declare their contempt for the flesh proudly, displaying each new implant with gleeful abandon, every graft moving them one more step above the ruck and run or humanity.
Others hide their increasingly artificial bodies behind knowing smiles and tailored robes, content in the knowledge of their own physical superiority. However, an Augmenticist’s obsession rarely ends in the realm of the physical. What is the mind, they reason, but another organ to be improved upon or replaced? The Cult Mechanicus looks upon Augmenticists with the same cold logic with which it evaluates all things. Most tech-priests applaud the burgeoning Augmenticist for ecognising the limitations of the flesh and for taking steps towards the “true flesh” of the Machine God. Unfortunately, as an Augmenticist is implanted with increasingly complex devices for ever-more-selfish reasons, the Adeptus Mechanicus comes to regard him as a fetishistic dabbler, an abuser of both his body and the sacred technology that infuses it. It takes an Augmenticist of exceptional comportment and devotion to maintain the respect of the Cult Mechanicus. For their part, Augmenticists tend to view tech-priests as hidebound dogmatists weighted down with ugly cybernetics.
Despite their differing opinions, many alliances have been struck between individual Augmenticists and the servants of the Machine God. Augmenticist Rogue Traders have been known to escort Exploratory contingents deep into wilderness space in the hopes of being the first to benefit from whatever bionic technology may be rediscovered. In their quest for the rarest and most potent implants, Augmenticists all too often come into contact with heretek factions and fabricators of proscribed technology. Augmenticists who report such groups quickly earn the respect and gratitude of the Adeptus Mechanicus, often becoming regular informants for both the Machine Cult and the Inquisition.
As Augmenticists evolve, they find themselves becoming more familiar with the ways of machines and less comfortable amongst beings of flesh and blood. They spend the majority of their time in private, tuning up their implants and polishing exposed metal, emerging only to seek out new cybernetic technology and engage in social activities that best allow them to display their unreal forms. Some Augmenticists come to view those without bionics with disdain, replacing servants and crew with servitors and augmented savants. To the true Augmenticist, such isolation is a small price to pay for physical perfection and the immortality of steel.
PHYSICAL PERFECTION (TALENT) Prerequisites: Augmenticist Alternate Career Similar to the Explorator Talent The Flesh is Weak (see the ROGUE TRADER CORE RULEBOOK page 107), the Augmenticist’s body has been modified to the point where it is almost totally mechanical. This Talent grants the Explorer one level of the Machine Trait. This Talent can only be taken up to three times, gaining one additional level of the Machine Trait each time. Additionally, the Explorer’s Wounds may be healed with the Tech-Use Skill in place of Medicae. However, due to the esoteric nature of the aumentations, any Tech-Use Test to do suffers a –20 penalty, in addition to any other modifiers.
BECOMING AN AUGMENTICIST
The path of the Augmenticist begins when an Explorer first realises the true potential of his bionic modification. This moment may come when the Explorer first uses a cybernetic arm to accomplish a feat of strength beyond the limits of any mortal brute. It may come the first time he is overwhelmed by the rush of data flowing through an implanted cogitation engine. Or it may come when he is rendered euphoric by the enhanced sensations imparted by an auger implant. However it begins, the Explorer is quickly obsessed, making it his goal to forsake the limitations of the flesh and embrace the potentialities of the machine.
Required Career: Any, except Explorator, Missionary, Ork, and Kroot. Alternate Rank: 2 or higher (7,000 xp) Other Requirements: The Explorer must have at least 1 bionic replacement limb and 1 implant system when this Alternate Rank is taken. Additionally, he may possess no cybernetic gear of Poor quality, and at least one implant must be of Best Craftsmanship
***
Gland Warrior:To act as an Arch-Militant means being one of the finest warriors humanity has to offer. Having risen through the ranks or up from the underhives, survived countless battles and killed endless foes, it would be easy to believe such a person is more than a match for any opponent. The longer spent fighting in the Expanse, however, the more one realises that being merely human isn’t always good enough. For some this means improved martial disciplines, mechanical augmentics, or superior weaponry. There is another path though, infamously rumoured through the undercircuit of mercenaries and pit fighters and all others who make their living by the bolter and chainsword—to submit to the flesh manipulations of the Adeptus Mechanicus and become a Gland Warrior.
The quest of improving the human body as a fighting machine has been ongoing for millennia—the Holy Emperor’s favoured sons, the Adeptus Astartes, are living examples of this quest. The Adeptus Mechanicus favour a more direct approach, simply replacing troublesome flesh and blood with the purity of plasteel and circuitry in order to create forces like the Skittari Tech Guard. However, the secrets of these processes are jealously guarded and often too time-consuming for the needs of the Imperium’s war machine, so other techniques have been explored. For many centuries the Genetors of the Adeptus Mechanicus strived to improve the flesh itself via series of operations and implantations which could be done in a relatively short period of time. Finally, on the forge worlds of Dantis III, they achieved success. An unexpected Tyranid invasion had caught the system unawares, and only the nearby Imperial Guard regiment on Lostok was able to offer any defence. Unfortunately, the heavily-polluted planet was already covered with vile Tyranid organisms, rendering combat outside the factory complexes nearly impossible. Several companies of the toughest guardsmen volunteered for experimental surgeries to allow them to fight effectively in the deadly environment. Implanted with series of new vat-grown organs and drug-secreting glands, those who lived through the process could now fight unprotected on the surface and counter the horrific creatures with an inhuman aggressiveness and ferocity of their own. After many months, the swarm was repulsed and the few survivors of the combat were recovered for further study and examination. Of thoseseveral were quickly plucked away by Inquisitors and others wishing to have such an individual fighting at their side (or in their name).
The process of creating Gland Warriors is more art than science like much of the Imperium’s works. Despite this, many more of these augmented humans have appeared in wars throughout the Imperium, and have acted more covertly as assassins. Their exploits became legends amongst the Imperial Guard regiments which have seen action with them. In Calixis, detatchements of Gland Warriors have been used effectively in the hive war on Tranch, where their ferocity matches that of their mutant foes. While most Imperial Guard armies in the sector do not normally contain Gland Warrior units, some elite formations do feature these specialised squads. It is even whispered that entire fighting regiments of these fleshaugmentics operate in the more desperate and hellish warzones of Calixis.
While the surgeries that produce these once-men are somewhat short, it takes many months for the recipient to learn how to properly utilise their new biological additions, assuming the soldier survives the process. Even soldiers already used to fighting with the aid of combat drugs must re-learn how to use their body in order to make use of their newly-heightened motor functions and more-durable physiology. The physical changes can also bring about mental ones, increasing one’s focus on killing and combat until there is little else driving them but impatience for the next battle.
Given the nightmarish conditions they often fight in, it is not uncommon for Gland Warriors to decide they would rather pick who and when they will fight than depend on the whims of a superior officer. Many become mercenaries, prized through the sector and beyond. In the Expanse there are also Genetors both authorised and renegade willing to work their operations on existing warriors to transform them from human to more than human. Here their life is filled with blood, for there is always a conflict that needs fighters of their calibre. Membership in warrior lodges is not uncommon, for they often find true fellowship only in the company of other augmentics. These secretive cults often draw the attention of the Inquisition, even in the lawless reaches beyond the Imperium’s rule. The Red Night Brotherhood is just one of the lodges destroyed by massed Imperial forces lead by the Ordo Hereticus, but there are many others where the more feral Gland Warriors gather, and what they may discuss beyond the heavy fur lodge curtains no one can say. Most Rogue Traders are willing to turn a blind eye to such activities as long as the warrior continues his duties and maintains his loyalty, but a vigilant trader will always keep an eye on every member of his crew.
LOSTOK AUGMENTATION (TRAIT) The Lostok process introduces a series of new organs and glands to a Gland Warrior’s body, allowing it to survive in more toxic environments as well as fight even more fiercely than before. These duplicate the effects of a Respirator and make them immune to most Toxins (including the extra damage dealt by weapons with the Toxic quality). Their new glands also act as Injectors containing Frenzon, Slaught, Stimm, and Spur. The user may activate their implant glands to produce any of these drugs as a Free Action requiring a Routine (+20) Willpower Test for each dosage. A Failure means that gland has malfunctioned, and will need 1d5 days to recover. Other newly added organs are designed to filter away any chemical by-products of the dosages, so the user does not need to take any tests afterwards for ill effects. The augmented physiology will also ward off any effects of excessive drug use (see page 142 of Rogue Trader).
BECOMING A GLAND WARRIOR: While some careers are the result of specialised training or years of intensive studies, the transformation to a Gland Warrior is due primarily to a series of surgeries. These introduce tox-filters into their lungs and bloodways as well as artificial vat-grown organs and drug-producing gland implants, all designed to greatly augment an already formidable fighter to levels normally impossible to attain otherwise. Only those of sufficiently strong constitution and combat expertise would be selected for the process, and only those with a sufficiently strong will to live despite the agonies associates with the process will survive it. Once they have adapted to their newly augmented bodies though, they are death incarnate in combat. Required Career: Arch-Militant Alternate Rank: Rank 4 or Higher (13,000 xp) Other Requirements: The character must have a Toughness of 40 or higher, and must posses the Melee Weapon Training (Universal), True Grit, and Die Hard Talents. Traits: All Gland Warriors receive the Lostok Augmentation Trait upon taking the Alternate Rank.
***
Of Course these two are perfect for Bane's more savage side. However, I feel that there are more that that appeal to his devout nature. Such as this one....
Drusian Adherent: Throughout the Calixis Sector there is no figure, save the God-Emperor himself, more revered than Saint Drusus. A warrior without peer, Saint Drusus lead the Angevin Crusade to victory, bringing the Emperor’s light to the Calyx Expanse, transforming it into the Calixis Sector as men know it today. The Saint attracted many followers in his lifetime, and a sizeable Ministorum cult continues to venerate Drusus and his deeds. Among the faithful, there are those who believe the Saint’s mission ended in the year 384.M39, when the Angevin Crusade was officially called to a close. There are others who claim that the crusade can never end, for as long as there are worlds to conquer, the works of Saint Drusus remain unfinished. It is from this doctrinal schism that the first Drusian Dissidents were born. When the Koronus Passage opened, an event prophesied in Drusian chronicles by the seer Abenicus, the Dissidents gave rise to a new faction. The Drusian Adherents, as they came to be known, did not pore over musty tomes of saintly lore and engage in theosophical debate. Instead, they armed themselves and drove deep into the Expanse, eager to claim new worlds and tame wilderness space in the name of Saint Drusus.
Drusian Adherents are driven by fanatical devotion to their patron Saint, and by the belief that every citizen has a sacred duty to push the borders of the Empire outward, braving hostile environments, indigenous xenos races, and uncultured heathens. For a Drusian, there is no respite from the Saint’s crusade. Every world, from looming gas giants to airless icy moons, must be touched by the God-Emperor’s light and claimed with the Drusian standard. With the Koronus Passage open, disparate Adherents gather at Port Wander, forming ramshackle armies eager to march into the Expanse and prove both their devotion and the righteousness of their cause. Adherents are often asked if Saint Drusus had meant for the crusade to continue, why would he have called it to a close?
Adherents of a pragmatic nature typically answer that their Saint was forced to end the crusade prematurely by order of the High Lords of Terra, making the cessation a political necessity. Others posit that Saint Drusus intentionally left worlds unconquered so that future generations could be tested in the crucible of war. A third explanation claims that the declaration of the end of the Angevin Crusade was meant to be temporary, Drusus intending to resume his conquest after consolidating his gains in the Calyx Expanse, and that the Saint’s death prevented a glorious return to the field of battle.
The path of the Drusian Adherent has broad appeal, attracting devotees from the lowest death world dregs to ambitious nobles of the highest spires. The faith is also popular amongst Rogue Traders and their crews, both those who view profit and conquest as a GodEmperor-given right, and those looking for an army of crusaders to bolster their own mercenary forces. Regrettably, for every Adherent of high standing there is a charlatan eager to exploit the faithful for personal gain. For their part, the Adherents care little, so long as they tread upon alien worlds, cleansing them with bolter and chainsword as Drusus did in his day.
SCHOLASTIC LORE (DRUSIAN CHRONICLES) Adherents are expected to study the life and times of Saint Drusus that they might better model their lives upon his own. A successful Scholastic Lore (Drusian Chronicles) Test allows the Explorer to recall specific information about Saint Drusus, his role in the Angevin Crusade, miraculous deeds, his process of beatification, and sundry apocryphal tales espoused by the Drusian movement. This skill also confers knowledge of countless Ecclesiarchal prayers and rituals that invoke or even simply mention the Saint.
BECOMING A DRUSIAN ADHERENT
For men of faith, becoming a Drusian Adherent is a simple matter. One need only take up the standard of Saint Drusus and pledge their life in service to the unending crusade. But to truly call oneself worthy of the Drusian ideal, these words must be backed by action. The Adherent must be more than willing—he must also be able to carry out the sacrament of conquest. A Drusian Adherent does not sit within a command centre directing his brethren from afar. The true Adherent marches proudly into the fray, revelling in the act of physical confrontation, and knowing beyond any doubt that if he dies, he dies in glory, at last worthy of Drusus’ blessing. Required Career: Any, except Astropath Transcendent, Explorator, Ork, and Kroot. Alternate Rank: 1 or higher (5,000 xp) Other Requirements: The character may have no more than 10 Corruption Points when this career is taken. Note: Although this Rank has the option of replacing the first Rank of a Career, it does not re-list any starting Skills and Talents. All Skills and Talents listed here are in addition to starting Skills and Talents the Career may contain.
There are more that would be perfect for Bane though....
