Watch fortress

A watch fortress is a fortified installation that serves as a fortress, command station and training facility to support Deathwatch operations in a particular region of the galaxy. A Watch Commander and all of the Kill-teams under his command are based in a given watch fortress.

Such places can take a great many forms; some are mighty deep space stations, while others are imposing, fortified keeps on a planet's surface.

Some are impenetrable installations many miles below ground, while others still are hollowed out asteroids bristling with weaponry and protected from prying eyes by arcane cloaking systems.

Within each Watch Fortress the Kill-teams train and prepare for coming missions. Each fortress combines the functions of command centre, keep, archive, garrison and more.

The Watch Commander often coordinates the monitoring of a hundred different threats; or his attentions might be focused exclusively on one single, overriding concern towards which all of his efforts are turned.

The commander is assisted in his duties by a cadre of specialists, some of whom are Adeptus Astartes, such as Techmarines, Apothecaries and the likes, while many more are the equivalent of Chapter Serfs. Some are specialists seconded from the staff of one or more Inquisitors, while the greatest number are mono-task Servitors.

Amongst the most important members of the staff are the Astropaths, several of whom are always present in any Watch Fortress. At all times, at least one Astropath is locked in an armoured saviour-chamber (sometimes referred to as the ebon coffin) with its own life-support system, which is isolated from that of the fortress.

In the event of the facility being overrun, it is intended that this Astropath will survive long enough to transmit a message to the nearest Inquisitorial bastion or Space Marine home world.

Getting such a message out is far more important than the Astropath's survival of course, and many have committed suicide rather than fall into enemy hands, once reasonably certain their message has been received.

That being said, one Astropath in the service of the Inquisition is known to have survived for six months within his saviour-chamber, while hideous Drugh slithered around the fortress and rasped ineffectually at the chamber's armoured hatch. By the time the fortress was retaken, the poor soul was quite insane, and put out of his misery soon after.

The number of Kill-teams stationed in any given Watch Fortress varies enormously. Some are home to only a handful of Battle-Brothers, while others host several dozen Kill-teams.

Despite the small number of warriors stationed on even the largest Watch Fortress, it would be suicide for an enemy to attempt an attack on one, even if its location could be determined.

Each bristles with weaponry, much of it controlled by hard-wired Servitors or fired remotely by the Watch Commander's staff. Some are even said to be protected by great cannons and banks of missiles controlled by autonomous machine spirits.

At the heart of each fortress is to be found a sealed vault, containing the most sensitive and valuable of assets. It is said that some of these vaults are encased within stasis fields; that time stands still within and even the most ancient and crumbling parchments can be preserved.

Other vaults are said to be encased within quantum-displacement fields, so that they are not actually located in the Watch Fortress at all, but exist out of phase with it so that even should the fortress be destroyed the contents at its heart will survive.

Exactly what is kept within these vaults depends upon the mission of the fortress and the threats it guards against. Some contain vast libraries of forbidden texts, knowledge so terrible they may only be consulted when the very fate of Humanity itself hangs in the balance.

Alien artefacts of unknown or devastating potency might also be sealed within the vault, affording the savants of the Ordo Xenos the opportunity to study them whilst they are kept out of the hands of those who would use them for the detriment of Mankind.

Some Watch Fortresses even maintain a stock of the most exotic of weapons, which are kept safe in the vault and only brought forth in the most dire of situations.

Here are found the warheads of the cyclonic torpedoes used to enact Exterminatus upon a world. Some weapons are unique and so potentially devastating they may never be disturbed, the singular relics of the Dark Age of Technology.

This includes such artefacts as the anti-baryon detonator held in a Watch Fortress at the heart of the Ghoul Stars, and the super-massive 'starbane' vortex cascade generator secreted within the eon-locked Ormand Repository near the Ring of Fire. Aside from these sealed stocks of weaponry, each fortress contains vast stores of more conventional arms and ammunition.

Sufficient stores to last for centuries without re-supply are held in the Watch Fortresses, as well as all of the heavy equipment normally utilised by the Space Marines such as artillery and vehicles. Many of the weapons are venerated relics, crafted by long-dead master-artisans whose names have become legendary amongst the Space Marines.

The larger of the Watch Fortresses are home to all manner of training facilities. In vast domes, unique environments can be recreated in which the Battle-Brothers can perfect their battle drill and rehearse their missions.

Some of these domes have been stocked with life forms, such as Death world flora and fauna, in order to create the most realistic training conditions possible. It has even been known for captured aliens to be set loose in the training domes, to be hunted down by the Kill-teams in deadly mission simulation exercises.

Although no resource is spared the Kill-teams, it is usual that each Battle-Brother lives an austere existence in the Watch Fortress. It is common for each to maintain a personal shrine, at which he undertakes the devotions and rites particular to his own Chapter.

A Battle-Brother seconded from the Ultramarines Chapter, for example, might maintain a simple chapel dedicated to the Primarch Roboute Guilliman, while one drawn from the Mortifactors Chapter might keep vigil before the flensed skulls of a hundred slain enemies.

When not engaged upon a mission or a training exercise, and not meditating at his own chapel, the Space Marine may rest in a cell which is seldom more than a bare, stone-walled chamber. Space Marines require little sleep however, and most of the their time is spent either in battle, or preparing for it.

In addition to the Watch Commander, Watch Captains, and the Kill-teams, a great many, though not all, Watch Fortresses are host to an Inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos. It is the role of this individual to communicate the strategies of the Inquisition and to coordinate them with the missions of the Deathwatch.

The Inquisitor is more of an ambassador than an overseer, and has no direct control over the Watch Commander or his forces. Rather, he provides a link between the two organisations, ensuring that the ancient pact between the two bodies remains in place, for the defence of all of Mankind.

Watch Stations
While Watch Fortresses are relatively scarce, there are far more of the smaller facilities known as Watch Stations. These are often no larger than a small escort ship, and some are little more than a rockrete bunker situated upon a lonely mountain top.

Watch Stations are located so as to provide watch against a specific threat, or to guard a particular location. They may have been placed centuries ago, perhaps on the word of a mystic’s prophecy or an especially auspicious reading of the Emperor's Tarot, or it may be that a great enemy was defeated at that location and its possible return is being guarded against.

As with the Watch Fortresses, Watch Stations can take many forms. A great many are silent sentinels in orbit around a world, while others are lonely towers standing guard over a long dead battlefield.

Watch Stations provide facilities for little more than a single Kill-team and the Battle-Brothers are rarely stationed on one for any great length of time; the resources of the Deathwatch too scarce for every such station to be permanently staffed.

Instead, Watch Stations may be used as a staging point should a threat become apparent, and to this end they are always stocked with vast reserves of ammunition, arms and equipment.

While they are not always manned by Battle-Brothers, many Watch Stations are home to a skeleton crew of sensor-techs and watch-serfs. These live out their entire lives performing their duty, ever watchful for the threat of the alien and ready to call upon their masters should such an event occur.

Many of these serfs have lived and died and never met a Battle-Brother, yet all are indoctrinated and conditioned into their duty, and their watch never tires.

A great many Watch Stations are not crewed by men at all, but are controlled by machine spirits. It is only by the blessings of the very highest acolytes of the Machine God that this is possible, for such devices that can be entrusted are rare indeed.

Orbiting many a Dead world might be found, by one who knows to look, a silent mechanical picket, its glass eyes scrutinising the surface far below, its transmitters trained upon distant relay stations. The primary task of any Watch Station is to gather information and to pass this back to the Watch Fortress.

The nature of the information may be detailed activity logs compiled by watch-serfs, or at the other extreme, it may be the constant chatter of raw machine language beamed in a neverending transmission across the void.

The most important Watch Stations are attended by an Astropath, but others rely instead on regular visits for their reports to be collected.

In many cases, it is not a sudden and disturbing report of alien activity that draws the attention of the Deathwatch, but the absence of any report at all. Standard doctrine dictates that any unexpected silence must be investigated immediately, and a Kill-team dispatched to forestall possible alien attack.