BCTheEntity — Roleplayer Guild

♥ - Rodney Colton Smith

Oh, wow. I am so glad he's human. I mean... he looks human, anyway, so I assume he is. I mean, he's... well, he's half-naked, and showing very human-like skin (at least so far as the abrupt LED light is letting me see, that thing is really bright), so chances are, and all... I wonder what happened to his wetsuit? He had to have had one, after all... well, either way, our mission is one-seventh of the way to completion. Huzzah!

'It's, uh, good to see you,' I start in a kind of lame fashion, slightly thrown off by the unexpected circumstances, but eventually bringing myself back to normal to lower the gun and return it to its bag. 'Name's Rodney, and my companion is Skylar. Not gonna lie, I'm pretty sure I couldn't shoot you even if I wanted to. The clips for this thing have vanished, actually,' I continue, waving the gun in its bag slightly to indicate, 'and I have no idea where they went. That said, uh... alright, I'm going to copy Skylar here: I'm guessing you were part of the previous dive team? And when you say "enemy", are you suggesting that... there... are...'

And the reason I've trailed off like that is because, all of a sudden, some weird pixellated ghost has emerged into the light of the LED. What the hell...?

♥ - Eeeeeeeeeeee

Holy butts there are humans here. Three of them. This is such a fun time! I will finally be able to talk to people who do not dislike me!

'hello my name is eeeeeeeeeeee how are you are you humans how did you get down into this area what are your names tell me about yourselves this is extremely exciting we have never had humans in this area before i think i dont remember exactly but i assume you are the first humans to be in here in a long time what are your names please tell me'

♥ - Rodney Colton Smith

Oh my God, that ghost thing will not shut up. It's like a verbal motorboat or something. In an effort to interrupt it, I call out 'Uh, okay, so my name is Rodney, and these two are... uh.' I stop talking as I realise its own speech has continued on regardless of my own. I let a second or so pass, before deciding to disregard the ghost's incessant talking and saying to my human companions (loudly, so I can be heard over the ghost) 'Alright, so maybe you want to tell this ghost guy your names. I don't think we got yours yet, anyway, friend?' This last sentence is directed at the half-naked guy specifically, because otherwise, he's going to become "half-naked guy" in my head, and that'll end up sticking for way too much time.

Alright, I should probably make a start on Valius' character sheet, anyway, if only so that we have some actual content to work with for him.

Name: Valius Rooke

Rank: Forge-Adept

Valius' personality has gone through some... phases. In his time as part of the Raven Guard, he was quite heavily devoted to the Omnissiah and its teachings, and had a great obsession with the mechanical aspects of the chapter, moreso than many other Techmarines, albeit sometimes to the point of their morality being questionable. This was exarcerbated beyond reasonable levels when, as the newly-formed Warp Skulls continued to mutate, his brain was targeted by mutation as his only remaining organic component, rendering him ever more insane, and ever more willing to perform extreme modifications to weapons, armour, and people alike, given the opportunity. Eventually, this insanity was forcibly surpressed in him by the chapter Librarians, leaving him in his current state: he retains laser-like focus when it comes to both mechanical knowledge and skill and his newfound psyker abilities, but reverts to moderate confusion in just about any other situation, such that communicating with the other members of his chapter can sometimes be difficult. Unsurprisingly, he isn't overly bothered by this - he always preferred the company of machines anyway. However, the procedure has not been perfect, and without another psyker to keep repressing it, he'll revert to his psychotic and excessively-experimental mannerisms; worse still, it seems that every time his madness is undone, his personality becomes more and more distant, as though his brain is actively attempting to hinder itself for as long as it isn't in its maddened, psychotic state.

After extensive modification to himself, Valius' entire body other than his brain has been replaced with cybernetic machinery, itself modified over the years for ever-greater levels of effectiveness. Thus, he externally appears to be composed almost entirely of shining adamantium, though his outer shell is actually a combination of this, painted in the colours of the Warp Skulls and the Adeptus Mechanicus, and plasteel for joint flexibility, whilst his inner circuitry is laced with protective materials to ensure that nothing is damaged or dislodged by any sort of shock to his outer casing. The overall build he possesses is one akin to that of a fairly standard Space Marine, at around eight feet tall and several feet wide with an overall muscular appearance, yet this body is notably stronger and tougher than any normal Space Marine's for its build, albeit without quite as extensive a capacity to repair itself under duress. The exceptions to this otherwise pseudo-average appearance are the servo-harness attached to his back, from which spews a great array of servo-arms and mechadendrites with more functions than most people could even remember, ranging from standard manipulators to weapons to crafting tools to surgical instruments; and his face, which resembles nothing like a human face, instead being covered in optic and auric sensors, vocalisers, and other bits of technology for perceiving and communicating with the outside world, topped off by a crown of what appear to be metal-plated tentacles emerging from the crown of his head in a tangle of writhing mechanical manipulators, seemingly rather far removed from the appearance of any other mechadendrite in his body. As a matter of fact, these are tentacles that have actively grown out of his brain and promptly been incorporated into his skull structure, almost disguised so as to hide their true nature, though they remain highly noticable even then.

And none of this even begins to cover his artificier armour, built from scratch over his many centuries of service in a style that draws from the best elements of the mainline armour Marks plus some additional modifications to further improve the suit, then lovingly painted and adorned in the colours and symbols of the AdMech (with the Warp Skulls symbol and colours on one shoulder to avoid offense to its machine spirit, of course). Valius' artificier armour has been designed to accommodate his own artificial nature, and to improve upon it further than even what has already been achieved; thus, as with any suit of artificier armour, it represents the pinnacle of Imperium design, providing impeccable protection from external harm that is only surpassed by Terminator armour itself, and for Valius in particular, may represent a near-match to the same, whilst also allowing for as much additional technology as Valius has been able to cram into it (at least the tech he hasn't already installed into himself). Furthermore, it is, as might be expected, designed to accommodate both his servo-harness and the mechadendrites coming from his head, minimising the weak points those areas might otherwise represent whilst allowing both their full mobility. In short, it is an exceptionally-functional work of art, one that surpasses any lesser suit of powered armour, and which makes Valius a nigh-unstoppable force whilst he wears it.

Brain tentacles, insanity, psyker powers (no crystal coating, due to artificial exterior and lack of Mucranoid Glands).

Born on the planet of Deliverance at some time in the middle of the 35th millenium, Valius was raised as part of the higher classes of the planet, and in fact was trained almost from the day he could walk by the best tutors his parents could afford in anticipation of the upcoming Raven Guard recruitment drive, determined that their son should become one of the esteemed Space Marines to help defend the Imperium, and bring honour to their family for generations to come. As it happened, this left somewhat little time for his own hobbies, though he did discover his interest in electronics at some point, which would greatly shape his future path. By the time the Aspirant Trials rolled around, he had achieved as much training as he might need at the tender age of nine, and his interest in circuitry had started to evolve into an interest in machinery and the like in general, the majority of which wasn't particularly helpful as he progressed through the Trails until its final stage, a one-on-one battle against an unarmed Space Marine, something that was still more than able to kill a grown man with ease, let alone a young boy. Of course, this battle would merely be to inject a certain substance into the opponent without being caught, but it was nevertheless a nigh-impossible feat for a young boy under normal circumstances. Thus, whilst Valius could have tried to go for a quick and simple attack (one which, inevitably, would have led to his failure, and at the very least would not have achieved his acceptance into the Raven Guard), he instead took advantage of the quite large battlefield available to him, fleeing into the nearby streets to bait his opponent after him.

This was a risky strategy for one of his upbringing; it might have been less successful if, unbeknownst to his opponent, he had not already stashed away a map of the area in anticipation of the battle. It would also have been unsuccessful without certain helpful measures put in place beforehand, for instance a mediocre rope trap that the Marine avoided with ease, and a less mediocre wire trap that actually caught Valius' foe up for a second, before he freed himself and continued his pursuit. Eventually, after about an hour of repeated luring and hiding, the Raven Guard stopped playing with his food and snuck up on the child undetected, only narrowly failing to immediately inject Valius after an unexpected fall on the child's part. This, however, was a prelude to the child's final gambit: an autopistol he built himself in his free time, and stashed away for just such an occasion, though it was luck alone that allowed Valius to fall in the right place at the right time, and the Marine's own curiosity at what last resort was going to be used against him that allowed Valius to act as he did. The child shot the surprised Marine in the throat a couple of times, then stabbed his needle into the Marine and gloated for a moment at his apparent victory. Unwisely, as even a severely-wounded Marine is still a threat; he was snatched up by the leg, and himself injected by the Marine's needle, falling unconscious before he could properly process the sudden turnabout.

The next thing he knew, Valius was in a room somewhere in orbit, being told that despite, or possibly thanks to his underhanded tactics, he had been accepted as a Neophyte of the Raven Guard, given that it was no mean feat for him to have injured a far superior opponent the way he did (though he wondered for a while afterwards whether fate had smiled upon him in that moment, since he certainly hadn't been aiming the weapon with very much skill). Additionally, his obvious tech-savviness showed that he would have a bright future as a Techmarine, and would be seconded to Mars and the Adeptus Mechanicus as soon as it was reasonable. And so it was that, several years and many long, gruelling hours of training, surgery and hypnotherapy later, he found himself on Mars, learning the ways of the Omnissiah, and quickly developing a healthy respect for this similar-yet-separate being to the God-Emperor of Man, and a vicious, perhaps even obsessive desire to work with whatever technology he could get his hands on. The standard time spent training on Mars was around thirty years for most Techmarines, but Valius somehow managed to eke out another twenty, taking advantage of the extra time to begin replacing parts of his body with ever more machinery, and then, upon being returned to the Raven Guard as a full-blown Techmarine, continuing the process until, at around 115 years, his only biological component left was his brain. There were rituals available to replace even that (as least the more emotional half) with sacred techno-organic circuitry, thus ensuring that his mind would be purely and entirely logical for all time, but for some reason, he never found the time to have the servitors perform the operation, or so he claimed in spite of having his progenoids extracted as soon as was reasonably possible.

Certainly, the ferocity with which he put himself to work on the chapter's technology and his own physical form for the next couple of centuries might have precluded this operation, and it could not be said of him that he did not produce many marvels of engineering that, to some extent, continue to be utilised by the Raven Guard in some form or another. Of course, many of Rooke's tech-inclined brethren believed that his voracious appetite for improvement was counter to the Mechanicus Creed, sometimes even claiming that the rate of his work was heretekal in nature, to which he rarely responded with anything other than "look at my results and tell me that was a bad idea". At some point or another, however, the limited armoury and resources of the Raven Guard bored him, having done what it could to produce the incredible achievement that was his artificier armour (not, he believed, that this would be his ultimate achievement, as even the suit itself had yet to be perfected), and he began to wonder what else could be done...

And it was then that a vision came to him: the Omnissiah itself, telling him to ask for secondment to the Deathwatch, that he might help engage and destroy the xenos that threatened the Imperium more effectively, and acquire ever more technical knowledge. After going to the Chaplains of the chapter about the vision, and having the chapter Librarians confirm it as legitimate, his request was duly granted; he spent the next 120 years or so helping battle-brothers from chapters far-removed from his own to fight a wide variety of aliens in a wide variety of locations, at the same time benefiting greatly from the oftentimes far more esoteric technology available to the Deathwatch. One of the most infamous specific examples of his use of this technology involved his dismantling of an atomiser cannon to study its components, subsequently rebuilding it and several more, including one attached to his servo-harness, with this production process only halting after several of his squad mates, plus one or two higher-ups in the Watch, requested to varying degrees of politeness that he stop building more of them.

This was not, however, what eventually ended his mission in the Deathwatch. That came about forcibly in the days prior to the 21st Founding, when as many members of the Raven Guard as could be spared were recalled to the Raven-Spire on Deliverance in preparation for their division into a new chapter. Whilst he was not greatly pleased by this requisition of troops, Valius obliged to the call, and was ultimately chosen as one of the first members of the newly-founded Warp Skulls, for his extensive technical knowledge and experience in the field of battle. Though he was not judged as the most suitable candidate for Forge Master, it happened that the command structure of the new chapter demanded lieutenants for every company, to act as second-in-command should the first fall in battle; therefore, for his incredible talent, he was named Forge-Adept, lieutenant and second to one Constantine Drustos, and continued his work at a rate much bolstered from his time in the Raven Guard by the strangely solid link between the Warp Skulls and the Adeptus Mechanicus, who had sent some of their own number along to accompany the newly-forged chapter, at some point culminating in his upgrading of the chapter's plasma and melta weaponry to substantially reduce their tendency to overheat when used too frequently, something much appreciated by all who used them.

No amount of technological alliance, however, could prepare the chapter when its members began to mutate. At first, this did not affect Valius too greatly, and he foolishly believed that his advanced state of technological enhancement had effectively shielded him from its effects. This proved to be false at about the mid-stage of the chapter's alteration, when mutation began in the only place it could, the one biological component he had left: his brain. One day, he felt a bit of pressure against the inside of his skull, but thought nothing of it; the next, he awoke to find his entire skullcase had burst open despite its construction out of adamantium and plasteel, and was now writhing with tentacles that, after experimentation and a failed attempt at surgery, were discovered to have grown directly from the most precious component he had. They could be covered, but could only barely be hidden outright, and then not in a comfortable fashion; instead, he had them plated with metal as part of his replacement skull, in a sense disguising them as head-based mechadendrites, though even this marked him as an outlier even compared to some of his fellow mutants. But worse was yet to come, as, over the next several years, Valius' bearings began to tilt, leaning from fairly radical for a Techmarine, to ever-more-serious degrees of psychotic. He began experimenting in ways that even the more supportive of his brothers began to disapprove of, became ever more withdrawn to the point of utter obsession with his work, and though nobody said anything when tools, gadgets, weapons, servitors, and even chapter serfs began disappearing into his workplace- sometimes returning with strange mechanical additions of variable and usually inobvious purpose, sometimes never reappearing again- it was clear that he had gone quite mad, and would need to be dealt with in some form or another soon.

As it happened, the "soon" many believed would be appropriate was not soon enough. One day, out of nowhere, a massive burst of psychic energy was detected emanating from his quarters, and shortly afterward, some of the lesser brothers of the chapter would spy him being carried by Librarians through the halls of their abode to the Council Chamber, a psychic hood covering his head and sparks flying from his body. This would mark the abrupt awakening of something never seen before: a servant of the Omnissiah who had developed into a psyker, something that might have been thought impossible by many, near-heretical by plenty in the AdMech and Librarian communities, and a distinctly bad thing given Valius' ensuing madness, yet something that also represented a unique opportunity for the chapter if it could be harnessed correctly. In a debate between the command staff of the chapter regarding whether or not he should be executed immediately, sides were taken based on danger, potential usage, rehabilitation, and plain old emotional argument, but it was finally decided- against the wishes of a certain minority- that he would be effectively reprogrammed by the Chief Librarian himself, and subsequently trained to utilise what would eventually become relatively mid-level psychic abilities effectively.

With this decided, he was taken away and brainwashed, in an effort to surpress his insanity, and at the same time enhance his focus upon the two things that mattered, his tech skill and his psykerism. At first, this appeared to succeed with flying colours, leaving him surprisingly well-adjusted, and raring to continue his work in both of the relevant fields, ultimately developing psychic abilities that differed greatly from those of his chapter, mostly revolving around the manipulation of the machine spirits of technology and certain beyond-standard electrical abilities, something which assisted in the development of psychic technology that had been denied more intricate improvement until then. However, whilst at first he did just fine, it quickly became noticed that he had begun to slip back into madness, reverting to his obsessive ways, and he soon required a second session of brainwashing, then a third, then a fourth... eventually, reprogramming became a ritual for him that was performed regularly, so as to prevent his insanity from returning, yet it eventually became noticed that with each new layer of reprogramming, his personality was starting to fade, shrivelling ever-so-slowly in every aspect other than the ones that mattered to him most. For a Techmarine, this was hardly problematic, and so the sessions were allowed to continue unabated, right up until one of the largest battles the Warp Skulls faced to date: the battle of Chronon III, a world besieged by the Eldar for seemingly no purpose other than for conquest, and which many of the Imperium's chapters and forces other than the Warp Skulls fought upon.

Chronon III became a battleground unlike any which had been seen before. The Eldar present there seemed unending, fighting in far greater numbers than should be present in such a far-flung location, a fact not helped by the presence of a wraithknight of notable skill, slaughtering a great many of the Imperium's soldiers and often averting and avoiding situations that should have been disastrous for it. So vicious was this small war that the Collegia Titanica deigned to send one of their own Warlord titans to help even the field of battle in the Imperium's favour, and such a mighty and powerful machine certainly helped in this goal. Yet it seemed all but insufficient when pitted against the wraithknight itself: the wraithbone construct was as nimble as any Eldar, capable of dodging salvoes of plasma and missiles that would have struck less nimble entities, and once it reached melee range, it practically danced around the Warlord, wearing down its Void shield until, finally, a blow was struck that broke the shield and penetrated the titan's hull, destroying the cockpit and pilot, and toppling the machine in a state which was not, in theory, irreparable, but that was functionally unusable until the Collegia could reacquire it.

Valius, having been fighting in the front lines of this battle for a great length of time at this stage, found himself unreasonably distraught at the great machine's fall, in spite of the logical manner that followers of the Omnissiah were expected to act in. As it happened, his most recent reprogramming had been delayed by the Warp Skulls' secondment to Chronon III, and in a fit of madness, he rushed over to the Warlord, found a port to connect to, and unwisely tried to communicate with the almighty machine-spirit of such an entity through both physical and psychic means. One does not, however, simply interface with such a powerful machine, especially one in a broken state with a damaged spirit, and the connection began to fry much of Valius' circuitry, something that would take a great deal of time for him to rebuild from, and which resulted in his complete loss of any memory about the event. Yet, to the amazement of many onlookers, he somehow succeeded in moving (or convincing the machine-spirit to move) the god-machine's left arm to point toward the wraithknight, unaware that its foe had not been entirely disabled.

What is reported to have happened next is nothing short of awe-inspiring: a titanic, particularly over-strong blast of energy from the arm-mounted Volcano Cannon that struck the knight from behind, blasting a hole straight through its chassis, then tore it apart limb from limb from the excessive forces involved. Incidentally, the immense beam of plasma annihilated a massive line of both Imperial and Eldar troops afterwards when the cannon fell back to the earth whilst still firing, sending the xeno race into a panic over the combination of lost brethren and destroyed construct, and spurring Imperial forces to press the charge and finally gain the upper hand against their foes. The battle ended with the destruction and driving back of whatever Eldar remained on the planet's surface, and Valius was later found unconscious, having been flung about a hundred meters away from the titan by a combination of the shockwaves and what appeared to be psychic backlash from the machine-spirit itself.

He awoke in a state of insanity notably more advanced than anything seen before then, and the brainwashing utilised upon him to cure that left him in a notably more degraded state than before; where he had merely been inobservant outside of his technology and psychic powers before, now he was severely hampered, seeming moderately confused practically constantly, and occasionally barely paying attention to anything outside of his areas of expertise, and this only got worse over time. As of the present day, whilst generally respected by the lesser Marines of the chapter, he is seen by the majority of his equals and superiors as merely a useful tool, one which continues to have the potential to become dangerous at any moment, but which so far has proven to be exceptionally handy for various reasons. What will be done about him if and/or when he is required to take over as Master of the Forge has yet to be discussed, and though he is still part of the command staff, his future remains somewhat uncertain, especially given the newest information regarding the Inquisition's upcoming examination of the Warp Skulls chapter.

-Outmaneuvered and noticably injured a full-grown Space Marine at just nine years old;
-Trained under the AdMech for 50 years, converted himself almost entirely to machinery in less than 100;
-Countless feats of extreme engineering prowess, not least of which is much reducing the tendency of plasma and melta weapons in the Warp Skulls armoury to overheat or detonate under duress;
-Seconded to the Deathwatch for many decades, acquiring more esoteric mechanical knowledge as a result;
-Spontaneously developed psychic abilities, becoming (so far as he is aware) the sole tech-psyker in the entire Imperium;
-Single-handedly manipulated a downed Warlord-class titan's machine-spirit to aim and fire one of its weapons to destroy an Eldar wraithknight.

Valius possesses a servo-harness which, since its creation, has been modified into a spidery mess of servo-arms and mechadendrite-mounted tools and weaponry, most of which has either been built or upgraded to a degree of craftsmanship that even most other Techmarines would consider exceptional. His weapons are no exception, and they include one of the rare and distressing weapons known as an atomizer cannon, with associated auto-loader in place to remove and replace batteries and the like as needed, as well as the servo-arms of the harness itself and the breaching augur fitted to the harness; however, the only weapon he ever wields in his hands is an Omnissian power axe, which has recently been modified in a manner many techpriests might call profane by adding a chainsword-like structure to its edge, creating something not unlike a (moderately) less unwieldy chainfist which benefits from both a power field and moving, rending adamantite teeth.

The degree of self-modification Valius has performed upon himself, along with the effort put into his artificier armour and number of servo-harness limbs he possesses, has allowed him to cram a truly absurd number of tools and devices into his repertoire of equipment. Aside from the standard Chapter handouts, including his servo-harness and a few frag and krak grenades, the vast majority of his body has been replaced with a superior cybernetic version of itself, frequently enhancing his strength and toughness or boosting and adding to his senses where appropriate, as well as implementing into himself an auger array in place of a hand-held auspex/scanner, and a mind-impulse unit to assist in machine communication; aside from these, he has implemented into himself or his armour or harness a signum, targeter, cartograph, elucidator, multikey, pict recorder, stummer, vox-caster, diagnosticator, and, most recently, a psychic hood to help control his new-found psychic abilities and, more importantly, resist incoming psychic threats. His most useful tools, however, are the combi-tool attached to his power axe, in fact upgraded to an omni-tool not unlike those used in the Deathwatch for even greater technological manipulation, and a dilation field installed into his armour capable of briefly accelerating his movement as though time itself has sped up for him, with his senses modified to account for and minimise the negative effects of such a sudden shift in perception, though this field unfortunately does not interact well with force fields, precluding their use in his arsenal of equipment.

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