Maltek Stalker - A Maltek Stalker is the chosen assassin and favoured agent of the outlawed and malign Phaenonite faction of the Inquisition. The Maletek Stalker is a living fusion of murderous skill, profane technology and the power of the Warp. These dark weapons given form are nightmarish shadows that serve only the Phaenonite cause, sowing terror and death among the faction’s enemies, and by their very diabolic nature epitomise the horror and malice of the Phaenonite doctrine. Maletek Stalkers are built rather than made. First, the Phaenonites select a trained killer of consummate ability from the ranks of their tried and tested servants. This candidate must also be of considerable mental and physical fortitude to stand a chance of surviving the process, and the Phaenonites have long known that a body and soul that has already felt the touch of Chaos is likely to yield the best results. The candidate is then taken by the sect’s Dark Magos and Hereteks and subjected to a series of nightmarish occult rituals and a grueling series of cybernetic and bionic implants. Not all those chosen survive the Hereteks’ attentions, but those that do are profoundly transformed, their killing powers drastically augmented and possessed of a daemon’s taste for slaughter. The Potentia Coil powering the Maletek Stalker’s implants is known as a Maletek Warp Coil, a dark fusion of ancient technology and occult science, engraved with dark runes and suffused with the energies of the Warp. As a result, a Stalker’s implants may “heal” on their own if damaged just as normal flesh would, slowly re-knitting and repairing themselves (he may not be healed by first aid, only by the Stalker’s natural healing and talents). The Stalker’s augmetics are twisted mockeries of those gifted to the Machine Cult’s priesthood, attuned and powered by the malefic energies of the Warp, which suffuse the Stalker’s body with unnatural vigour. These systems react more like flesh than metal, and thanks to the malign power that courses through them can even heal when damaged, and have been seen to scar and weep steaming blood, and may even “evolve” as time progresses to better reflect the dark soul within. The most potent and terrible effect of the Stalker’s Maletek implants, however, is to allow the assassin to feed on the lives taken to bolster his own, ultimately acquiring an unnatural hunger for murder even the Phaenonites find hard to control.