My gaming group has been playing Dark Heresy every fortnight now for about a year.  My character started out as quite a normal tech priest but over time he has become more personal to me than any character I have ever had before.  We have been through the bad and ( seeing as it is Dark Heresy ) the even worst together but have come out stronger in the end.  This is something that I love, that personal connection, and also where the fourth edition of Dungeons and Dragons has lost its appeal for me.

Now to say that these game sessions can be classed as “normal” Dark Heresy would be pushing it a bit.  My sense of humour just does not allow for normal role-play sessions.  Lets take a look at the history of my character.

When my character had his leg was blown off I thought he would bite the big one, but through some lucky dice rolls he was stabilised and continued on. Being a tech-priest I knew he could be rebuilt and over the next few gaming sessions I was able to get his team mates to scrape together the money to buy him a new bionic leg.  Thats nice of my group you would think but the fact that every time something bad would happen I would point out where my team mates where hiding to buy time to get my character out of harms way had something to do with it. So after the operation he threw away his crutch and was able to join the good fight.

Now having a funky biotic leg to play with I had visions of the Six Million Dollar Man going through my head.  I wanted my character to do that slow motion running thing and catch the bad guy.  But as I said, my sense of humour usually kicks in and that was not going to be in my character future.  Turns out that with just one super leg my character CAN run really fast, as long as its in a circle.  Bionic jumping, NO! that would be too easy, think more Bionic spinning through the air like a helicopter in trouble in any random direction the dice rolled. Wicked!

Then there was the servo-arm that adopted me.  I was knocked through a wall in a huge explosion that killed the leader of my group, felt some thing scrabbling behind we as I fell unconscious and the next thing I know I woke up with a new servo-arm attached to my back.  A “normal” servo-arm you ask.  Nope that would be too easy! Lets have it possessed by the soul of a rouge phycer that may or may not be trying to kill me according to the situation we are in.

I have an ever growing selection of wallets that the bloody thing keeps stealing from people I pass in the street.  It makes rude gestures to the demon that just popped into our dimension for a snack.  It has no second thought about taking the power cell out of my laz pistol when I try to shoot the bad guys.  It makes bunny ear gestures while in diplomatic situations.  If you are starting to think of Rod Hull and Emu then you are right on the money.

We were stuck for three months on a planet with a large sea port.  My team mates all learned new skills and advanced their characteristics, what did I get my character to do for three months?  I became a pirate.  Not the kind of pirate that goes out with a gang to steal stuff oh no!  He sat for the entire three months in a little yellow inflatable boat, learning how to make alcohol and gained a new language – Pirate.

When I got the shuttle craft pilot drunk on the next mission and the shuttle turned into a spinning washing machine full of sick I thought maybe I had taken it too far.

But the great thing about my gaming group is that you can never go too far.  It’s role-playing, if we were just role-playing real life then they would have to pay me to do it.