Intro
Hey everyone, last time I wrote a 2,000 word presentation that goes into details about character creation. Today I will do my best to present a character concept whose story fits the Darktide narrative, and also is so much fun that would not only feel great when playing him but also other players would love to have one on the team. A character idea that would easily get positive ratings by wh40k fans. In this presentation, I will try to put some images to it’s more fun to read. Anyway, here’s the link to the presentation on adding a new character to a game with characters so deep like in Vermintide 2.
Why Techpriest?
There are many reasons for it. The first is simple, I was playing the “Mechanicus” on steam and was blown away by the diversity of techpriests (as you will learn from the featured screenshots). A techpriest is also such an open term that when mentioning a character like this everyone sees it very differently. What is great about techpriests is that they’re sci-fi, something literally that wanted to separate itself from human weaknesses. Their in-game cosmetics would be a true gold mine with so many different headgear designs. Ancient Skitarii gear, Heretek modifications, Necron bits here and there, you name it A guardsman helmet has to meet some sort of expectations but here we are talking about a techpriest. There are no restrictions. Another thing worth mentioning is how flesh melded with metal works so well in this grimdark, insanely religious, and brutal universe. I’m not going to go into details because we all have our favourites. Despite being a priest this character is a lot different mechanically (yep I just did that) from the priestess present in the trailer. Both are of them are very religious but worship a different god. It would be very interesting to see those two interact with one another. I can already tell there would be quite a lot of competition between them. On top of that, they also are very different visually. The priestess most likely dislikes the fact that the techpriest’s technology taps into the Xeno’s doings besides the obvious difference in their religions and motivations. The priestess here is to redeem her fate as part of the convict squad. My character is sent here too in a similar manner but I will talk about this in another segment of my presentation. Techpriest can also fill countless roles in the Adeptus Mechanicus. This means diverse and interesting careers! Lastly, you can either have this character voiced or work around it with the techpriest making sci-fi computer sounds just like in Mechanicus with subtitles on the bottom of the screen for the people wanting to know everything about the new character. You could always toggle the subtitles as you could in Vermintide 2 if it’s somewhat immersion breaking or you simply do not care and are only here to see the Techpriest slap the life out of Nurgle’s servants as he’s studying them. If you don’t know what I’m talking about then you should absolutely feel obliged to click here and watch the next 40 seconds of this video to fully grasp what I have in mind. Moving on.
So who’s this guy lore-wise
Now don’t get me wrong, I am by no means a lore guy but I will do my very best to try to set up this character’s story to fit Darktide’s narrative. For the sake of the integrity of this post, I am going to refer to this character as Verotaax since it’s a mix of letters that sound like a proper techpriest name and can be shortened to “Vero” just like we all say “Saltz” and not Saltzpyre. From what we know from the bits of information about the game we can safely assume that all the characters sent to the hive-city are convicts sent here to redeem themselves much like some sort of penal legion. We have a priest who must’ve had committed some sort of heresy. We have an ogryn who most likely disobeyed his superior and so on, you get the idea.
Here’s my take on what happened to the character. Verotaax similarly to his rival was deemed a heretic. He was sent to investigate a Nekron tomb and when things got rough he was able to make use Nekron weaponry. Integrating part of Nekron technology Vero saved himself and his fellow brothers from the claws of enemy. While his brilliance and abilities helped to change the results of this important battle other techpriests didn’t approve of his actions. He was shunned down by what he thought of his family and what he tried to protect in the name of emperor. His supervisors were conflicted about what happened inside of that tomb. Unfortunately for him, the great majority wanted him punished and deconstructed, they saw him as a danger to the imperium now that he is afflicted with Xeno’s technology. One of the supervisors, a well-respected one asked proposed sparing Varotaax’s life and signing him into the penal legion to join other criminals describing him as a very adept technician and swiftly adapting war machine. The inquisition was the first negative about leaving Xeno affected being alive but agreed to this on the condition of him being watched at all times by a servo-skull companion documenting his action and gathering data for the imperium of man. This is how Veronaax is come to join the other convicts sent on a suicide mission featured in the trailer. Veronaax unlike the other characters isn’t afraid of dying, the reason he fights back against the enemy is to protect and serve the emperor. This makes him the perfect exploration and recon unit to infiltrate the hive-city and to adapt itself to cover the variety of weaknesses of his squadmates. He might or might not still carry Nekron technology with him deeply believing that making use of it will help the imperium in gaining the upper hand over Xenos by fighting fire with fire. Will he show compassion to other characters or is he here just to collect data and will leave the rest to die when having to choose between the lives of the party and the knowledge hidden just around the corner?
The careers we could on the battlefield
Speaking of filling different roles and covering them I came up with these careers for my techpriest but first I’d like to mention a few things. Verotaax’s career should be bent and twisted not always being 100% lore accurate simply because that’s not how it works and is also almost impossible to have one techpriest be 3 careers at the same time in lore. That’s why similarly to Kruber from V2 being both a huntsman and also the holy grail knight of bretonnia I chose techpriest of different roles and ranks in the mechanicum society. I believe that with the right amount of balancing and common sense almost everything can work here as long as you don’t do anything too ridiculous.
From a gameplay perspective, Verotaax plays very differently from his allies. Besides collecting data from the enemies which is kind of like an autopsy but on a breathing and living enemy (I love it). Vero cannot use medical equipment such as medkits, bandages, or syringes instead he makes great use of his multiple back-mounted arms. A welder hanging over his shoulder takes care of the necessary field repairs. Now you can do this two ways. The idea I like better is that you take metal and synthetic material just barely glowing on the corpses of the elites, specials, and bosses by using mouse 3 button (middle mouse button) and heal yourself a small amount. Healing the more you fight bring this interesting almost lifesteal-like mechanic. I think it’s really cool. The boring way to go about is to have the techpriest repair itself over time. Maybe combine the two and fuel the health regeneration with metal picked off difficult enemies. This mechanic called let’s say “field repair” would always take one of two perks of each career. I’d love to see that claw in action reaching for the bodies. It is important to note that those enemies will have a chance to drop armor while bosses would always drop armor. Having all elites and specials drop armor would make picking up low amounts of materials a chore. Now that’s just one of his arms mounted on the back, what about others? Here’s three careers I came up with that are pretty diverse, fill in different roles, and also play very differently. I think there’s something for everyone. Quick heads up, those careers have fewer perks because of the new health regaining mechanic and also because their career skills are stronger and more significant.
- The Engiseer (tank and a support engineer)
- Career Skill: Blessings of the Omnissiah
(Deploy a stationary turret launching nerve gas grenades paralyzing the swarm and slowing down the hardest enemies, targets marked enemies first. You can take advantage of the turret using it when blocking melee attacks, different turret models available at level 30 in the talent tree.) - Passive Ability: Disaster Recovery
(Upon depleting all stamina with blocking Verotaax has a high chance to release a pulse of electricity paralyzing enemies around, giving him time to reposition.) - Perks: Field repair, Open Source, Superior Metal
(Techpriest can scavenge material off elite, special and boss enemies which restores his health this takes away his ability to use medical equipment on himself, enemies killed in melee have an extra chance of dropping metal, light attacks don’t deplete stamina on block.)
- The Artisan (heavy weapon specialist, a DPS spec)
- Career Skill: Overclocked
(Your additional mechanical arms reach in front of you and assist you in battle for the next 15 seconds shoving away enemies and shooting at enemies all around you who get too close autonomously with heavy-caliber rounds focusing the toughest foes first. You can take advantage of extended arms even when blocking with your melee weapon. Additional arms and modifications available at level 30 in the talent tree.) - Passive Ability: Customer Relationship Management
(Hitting an enemy with a ranged weapon grants a stacking damage buff. Increases damage by 5%, stacking 5 times. Buff goes away when missing a shot or not firing for 3 seconds.) - Perks: Field repair, Hear of Lead and Iron
(Techpriest can scavenge material off elite, special and boss enemies which restores his health this takes away his ability to use medical equipment on himself, Increases ammo capacity by 100%.)
- The Explorator (scout and recon)
- Career Skill: Benchmark
(Verotaax emits a loud noise pushing back enemies and starts scanning the area seconds and his enemies for the next 20 seconds. Said enemies are now outlines and highlight just so barely so that you can see them in pitch-black environment. Scanned enemies take extra 20% headshot damage.) - Passive Ability: Handsome
(Double the amount of hands is always extra helpful, imagine the possibilities they said. Reload speed increased by 20%, Interacting with objectives faster by 10%.) - Perks: Field repair, Rocket Science
(Techpriest can scavenge material off elite, special and boss enemies which restores his health this takes away his ability to use medical equipment on himself, Increases ranged damage and fire rate both by 10%.)
Why those careers and not others
I chose these because they feel the most “mechanical” to me and do justice to the Adeptus Mechanicus. You deploy a turret, you use your additional mechanical arms during your last stand, and also scan and document enemies you kill. It’s hard to get more mechanicus than that. I’m not going to go into details because it would take a lot of time to balance those out. That’s why I mentioned the career skill upgrades at level 30 in two of the careers. While choosing these careers I tried to stay fairly lore accurate but also accommodate for what we as players are looking forward to playing with. Some people like to play support because they like benefiting the team greatly and value utility, there are some who love tanking for the team while taking on all the foes, others will choose a ranged DPS because they love shooting stuff and then you have the people who love living the recon squadmates fantasy. Filling all of those archetypes attracts a diverse and wide variety of players. Not just a narrow audience, this makes this paid DLC even more worth buying. Now, why didn’t I choose some sort of Electro-Priest instead of the Engiseer. One because I find Enginseers more known, liked, and fun. Second, because Electro-Priests aren’t the best looking… To me, they were never popular because they didn’t feel mechanical enough like the Mechanicus Adeptus should.
Weapons of a Techpriest
I think that the crazy amount of steampunk/cyberpunk-looking weapons would be just the cherry on top of this paid expansions. If you know the Skitarii arsenal you know for sure you’re getting your money’s worth out of this. We could see a galvanic rifle and the treansuranic arquebus and a radium carbine for the “Explorator”. The “Enginseer” could use a stubcarbine, an arc pistol, a flechette blaster, and even an arc rifle. The heaviest and the bulkiest of weapons excluding sniper rifles go to the “Artisan” of course. This means plasma culverin, phosphor blaster, plasma gun and a heavy arc rifle would enter his weaponry. That is a lot of fantastic weapons and I didn’t even mention the melee weapons yet. The Adeptus Mechanicus has numerous melee weapons of all lengths and sizes ranging from arc mauls, maces, and two-handed axes to transonic blades, taser goads, arc claws, and electric whips. The new weapons would only enforce the game’s graphical fidelity in the ever dark corners of hive-city.
“And lo, shall Your holy steel be as armour around our souls, and shall Your wisdom guide our hands. No spear nor barb of the enemy shall trouble our flesh of iron. Let the Will of Mars be done!” -Collected Logic-Psalms 31.3
Thank you for reading, hope you had a great time checking out the highlights of this faction I talked about. Damn it’s crazy how hard it used to be for me to write down 200 word long assignment in school and when you’re writing about something you love you can pass the 2,5k wordmark in a blink of an eye. This post was my longest one yet and so it would help me a lot if you rewarded my efforts with the heart under this post. Other than that comment below what you think of the concepts but keep in mind this is a rough sketch I single-handedly put together in just over two hours. That is all I wanted to say. Have a great day cheers.
My other posts:
[Techpriest Character Concept]
[Ork Character Concept]
[Tougness Rant]
