Deathwatch Chaplain

I HAVE THE POWEEEEEEEEERRRRRRR!

Deathwatch Chaplains, like all things Deathwatch, have a slightly different role than the Chaplains of other Space Marine Chapters. While the latter have many different duties within upholding traditions and maintaining morale of their own chapter, the Deathwatch Chaplains have the hard duty of maintaining the morale of multiple Space Marines from multiple different chapters. All at once. These guys must have a charisma streak to make Horus Lupercal look as well sophisticated as a Snotling.

Overview

As mentioned, Deathwatch Chaplains need to reform their way of thinking as now they are in command of multiple different brothers from multiple different chapters. This might lead in accidental cultural misunderstandings and the results are often...hilarious.

A Deathwatch Chaplain must study extensively during his training that covers sociological and historical aspects. He must know the beliefs and values of a thousand different chapters and their often contradictory legends of the Primarchs by heart; considering that their histories and legends can stretch back anywhere from a few years to the founding of the Imperium as a whole, along with the fact that it has to be done on top of training to fight and overcoming their own biases, this is a bumcrunchingly difficult task at best.

You could say that they're a bunch of nerds for doing this, but the cohesiveness of the Deathwatch is of utmost importance, lest the Imperium's most key force of Xeno rapists fall apart due to different and contradicting beliefs and ways to conduct their Spiritual Liege Codex Astartes. Watching a Dogfucker and a closet heretic trying to rip each others' knackers off in a Watch Fortress because the Wolf called the Dark Angel an overly-paranoid emo is kinda funny, having them do so mid-battle and get ripped apart by angry xenos isn't.

Deathwatch Chaplains also make it their business to know of every potential motivation, conflict and agenda among their battle-brothers before battle is joined; this may even include things normally kept to the Chapter's officer cadre. He'll take no sides and makes no judgments about individual chapters, and in some senses their long study grants them a perspective denied to most. Deathwatch Chaplain doctrines hold that all Space Marines are united in their purpose of service to the Emperor and those bound by their vows to the Deathwatch must be united more than most.

In addition to their traditional garb of black Mark VIII: Errant Armour and skull-shaped helmet, Deathwatch Chaplains also commonly add many xenos trophies: strips of tanned alien hide, strings of bones, skulls or shrunken heads inscribed with liturgies of hate and remembrance, etc., just to really turn the scary factor of a regular Chaplain up past eleven.

One of the best known Deathwatch Chaplains would be Ortan Cassius, in case you need a look into their overall mindset and attitude.