"Pain is the wine of communion with Heroes!"
- —Rethoricus of the Imperial Fists
The Pain Glove is a piece of arcane technology used by the Imperial Fists and their successor Chapters as a tool for education, meditation, penance, punishment end even torture. Present in every Reclusiam and Chapel wherever the Fists reside, this bulky machinery takes the form of a large cylinder in which hangs a body glove made of electro-fibres. The suit will cause pain to anyone who enters it by using electrical pulses to stimulate the nerve endings of his skin.
History
Rogal Dorn, Primarch of the Imperial Fists, was a firm believer that pain helped scouring both body and mind from impurities. He was not alone in that belief; Jaghatai Khan and his White Scars ritually scarify themselves, while Vulkan and his Salamanders ritually brand themselves as acts of devotion. However, Dorn was disinclined to damage his body needlessly and sought a way to inflict pain without harm. His first success was a contraption that delivered electrical discharges to his body through the neural interfaces of his Black Carapace implant.
The Pain Glove is a refinement of Dorn's first contraption. Once the user enters the hatch in the flank of the cylinder, the machine animates, and the body-glove wraps itself around him. The user finds himself suspended in the middle of the cylinder, at sufficient distance from its walls that he cannout touch them while flailing once the glove is active. The bodysuit itself is a flexible but resilient compound of electro-fibres, studded with bio-monitors. the only hard surface is the neckpiece, a large collar equipped with more sensors and chemical injectors. The collar serves both as a neck brace, to prevent the user snapping his neck when his muscles spasm, and as an opiate-blocker, injectin chemicals in the brain stem to prevent the user from passing out, ensuring he remains conscious and lucid for the whole duration of the procedure.
Once the operator outside the cylinder (often the Company's Chaplain) starts the procedure, electrical current will flow through the suit, exciting the user's nerve endings all over his body, making him feel excruciating pain like he's been dipped in liquid flame. The bio-monitors will keep a vigil on the user's vital signs, and stop the Glove at the first signs of heart fibrillation. The readouts from the sensors can also be used by the operator to tailor the waves frequency and intensity to the user's tolerance, preventing his body to shut out part of the pain. A skilled operator can maximise the pain inflicted even at low power settings, thus lowering the risk of harm while keeping the efficiency of the procedure at a peak.
Usage
The Pain Glove has various settings, each of them tailored for specific usage and users. They include:
- Educational: The lowest setting, and the only one that can be safely used on unaugmented humans. Chapter's aspirants and acolytes take turn in the Glove at this setting, while the Company Chaplain lectures them on their Chapter's history, values and faith. The younglings must learn to focus despite the pain, and absorb the teaching imparted.
- Meditational: A low-moderate setting, it is the equivalent of the educational setting, but tailored to the superhuman physique of a full-fledged Astartes. Battle-brothers request time in the Glove at this setting either as a mark of devotion, or when they want to meditate on a particularly vexing subject.
- Penance/Punishment: A moderate-high setting, that inflicts pain to an Astartes for the sake of inflicting it. Often, the sergeants and officers of the Chapter will enforce stints in the Glove on their underlings as a punishment for small failures. Any battle-brother can hower request a seance at this setting from his Chaplain whenever he believes he must atone for some event.
- Torture: This is the highest setting of the Pain Glove, and is only administered to captured traitors, heretics or xenos, to break them and force them to confess or deliver information. This setting require careful monitoring by an experienced interrogator, for it is quickly lethal even to an Astartes.
Sources
- Phalanx novel by Ben Counter
- Sons of Dorn novel by Chris Roberson