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For an upcoming Dark heresy Campaign I'm running with my friends, I've created a piece of tech for their enemies to employ: The Serenity Engine.
I will include the fluff and crunch of the ENgine in this post. I have a few questions for you all about what I've come up with.

A) Is this a good idea? Is it intriguing/will it increase enjoyment of a game session. Essentially, the Serenity Engine is intended to be a more interesting alternative method by which characters can receive medical and mental care - although, as you will see, it has many other applications...

B) Are its rules good? Is there a better way to construct rules for this this device based on its fluff (see point A).

Here we go.

SERENITY ENGINE

The Guild of the Violet Serpent is one of the most comically infamous cults hounded by the Inquisition and, due to the nature of its practices, one of the most easily purged. Despite the exotic armaments of the majority of the cult’s fanatic members, the Guild of Violet Serpent’s downfall lies in its usage of the mechanical constructs designated by Inquisitorial tech-priests as “Serenity Engines.”

Serenity Engines take the form of a luscious, plush throne, often made of rich, polished wood or precious metals. Plump cushions and furs adorn its surface, and anesthetics bled throughout the fabrics exude an intoxicating musk, placating those who sit within the throne’s soporific embrace. For the more resistant, bejeweled manacles built into the arm and footrests serve as ample restraints. The most alarming aspects of the Serenity engine are the six slender mechadendrites that extend from hidden recesses in the throne like the legs of a clicking, golden insect, laced with monomolecular syringes, extractors, and other surgical implements. A twist of a gilded key in the system’s ornate cogitator, mounted behind the throne’s headrest like a halo, activates the Serenity Engine.

For the cultists of the Guild of the Violet Serpent, the hypodermic needles administer soothing relaxants and narcotics directly into the pleasure centers of the brain, while extractors remove stress-causing chemicals and hormones, such as cortisol and norepinephrine. For the nonbelievers, potential slaves, or captured enemies of the cult, the throne’s armatures can be used for simple lobotomizing or even more excruciating torments, ironic inversions of the machine’s nomenclature. In many cases, Serenity Engines have also been used to provide medical care for the injured or sick, thanks to the number of curative concoctions it is capable of administering combined with its intimate knowledge of the human anatomy.

The Guild of the Violet Serpent’s choice of armaments is predominantly characterized by needle rifles, poisonous daggers, and other toxic weaponry, which, while common in its own right amongst chaos cults worshipping the Prince of Pleasure, is unusual in that rather than employing deadly venoms, the cult’s members prefer to augment their weapons with the hormones extracted from willing and unwilling subjects by the Serenity Engine. The hormones and neural juices dripping down the tips of the cultist’s blades come in many subtle flavors: the paranoia of a cult magus under scrutiny from the authorities: the naïve agitation of a new initiate, about to face induction into the forbidden and occult for the first time: or maybe the agony of a tortured captive, anguish slowly pulled and plucked by the machinations of the throne.

The Serenity Engine’s connection with the Guild’s downfall is self-evident to any Inquisitor attentive enough to ponder it. Ordinary chaos cults not enamored to the usage of these devices, even other cults of the Dark Prince, exist in a subconscious state of stress and paranoia, and often go to extreme measures to conceal their activities from the local Arbiters or Inquisitorial investigations. Cults employing Serenity Engines, due to the stress-relieving and placating nature of the machines, are bereft of that sense of urgency, which, in many cases, has saved many a dubious organization from falling within the notice of a prying authority. Those who make use of Serenity Engines have often been known to ignore the complications of code words, the foreboding of impending warnings, or even the blatant danger of a boltgun toted by a wrathful agent of the God-Emperor. Captives taken from the Guild remain docile while they are slowly herded into the vast-prison ships of the Inquisitorial Orders – it is only when the interrogations begin that the false calm bestowed upon them degrades, replaced by abject, reveling terror at the horrors to come.

Employing the Serenity Engine

The Serenity Engine is capable of treating one subject at any given time, with individual treatment, depending on the intention of the user, lasting anywhere from ten minutes to multiple hours. Typically, a daily stress-reliving extraction lasts anywhere from ten to fifteen minutes, while prolonged interrogation of a captive can draw on for much longer.

The Serenity Engine takes the form of a large throne with six biomechanical arms, containing vials of various narcotics and anesthetics, as well as empty vials awaiting extracts from the subject’s agitated mind. Each armature counts in-game as a medicae mechadendrite, sans the usual chain-scalpels and flesh staplers – the chain-scalpels are replaced by blades with music more finesse and elegance, which provide the same capabilities in-game, while the flesh staplers are absent entirely.
Each mechadendrite contains the usual six Injector pistons (making 36 in total), which can be loaded with any combination of drugs, medicines, or excruciations as determined by the GM, or any player characters who manage to obtain a Serenity Engine and the substances to supply it. Activating the serenity engine requires the possession of an activation key and an Ordinary (+10) Tech-Use Skill test, but need not be made by the character using the throne at the time. The Serenity Engine possesses its own automated cogitator, which can interpret commands intelligently from whomever holds the activation key. The throne also has manacles for each wrist and ankle, which require a successful Hard (-20) Strength check to escape from.

For the purposes of gaming, the Serenity Engine has three settings:

Relaxant: The engine withdraws stress-causing chemicals directly from the character’s neural tissue, relieving him of his worries but sapping his motivation and sense of urgency. This setting requires 2d10 minutes to administer and lasts for 1d10 hours following its completion. During that time, characters who have been subjected to this setting count all Willpower Checks as Very hard (-30) and lose the Paranoia Talent if they possess it, along with any Shock, Mental Traumas, or Mental Disorders that they possess. These effects are all disbanded following conclusion of the 1d10 hour time period. At the character’s (or activator’s) behest, the Serenity Engine may also administer any number of drugs or narcotics to the subject, will all side effects of such drugs applying.

Torment: The engine administers agonizing stimuli to the subject, who is restrained by his bonds and thrashes in horror as terrifying hallucinations invade his senses. In order for this mode to be employed, the Serenity Engine must be supplied with any variety of hallucinogenic, drug, compound, or consumable – the specifics are irrelevantly as the Serenity Engine knows exactly how to and where best to apply its abilities. The specific effects of the hallucinogenic drug in question are ignored. For each hour that the subject remains captive while the Serenity Engine is active, the subject counts as having been affected by hallucinogenic grenades, Shock, and Mental Trauma, successively and cumulatively. Attempts to move as a result of these effects are ignored. During this time, if the subject is able to respond to questions or interaction, Interrogation, Intimidate, and Inquiry checks become a degree easier for each hour the captive is subdued.

Number of hours Torment Interrogation Difficulty
1 Counts as being under the effect of hallucinogenic grenades. Ordinary (+10)
2 Counts as being under the effect of hallucinogenic grenades and Shock. Routine (+20)
3 Counts as being under the effect of hallucinogenic grenades, Shock, and Mental Trauma. Easy (+30)
After three hours, it is assumed that any captive who has not yielded information already will not succumb to any further horrors – the mind-breaking effects of the Serenity Engine are no longer a match for him. The characters are free to do with the captive as they wish, including the option of Lobotomizing. Lobotomizing renders the character mute and halves all of his Characteristics, reducing his Fellowship to 1.

Medical: The subject of the Serenity Engine is the subject of a Medicae test by the serenity engine’s activator. Again, the activator may also be the subject. The Serenity Engine is capable of performed both First Aid and Extended Care. The activator only gains +10 to Medicae tests despite the six mechadendrites, but they may test to heal the subject even if they do not possess the Medicae skill, as the automated cogitator of the Serenity Engine guides their actions.

26 views and nothing? Derp.

Well, it's a long block of text for a drug giving torture chair...and saying a cult is 'comically infamous' make it sound like it was the 40k equivalent of Cobra/Sphinx/any Saturday cartoon evil organisation, but that's just me talking..I mean comically infamous but they somehow managed to steal a device made by and for the Inquisition.

I'm not too sure about removing talents, except if they are temporary as they are under the chair's effect then that's all right.

For you point A: sounds ok, but a tech-use or common lore (tech) might just have the Tech-Priest or adept know what it is and how to use it.
Also, it is an item used by a chaos Cult, so I do not think Acolytes will simply go "Oh hey, I can get healed/relaxed with this, let's take'her for a spin!" Even if it is archeotech, the fact it is used by a chaos cult make it tainted enough.

I would go with something a bit more sinister in look and origin, or something actually tainted: like a WP test when you're loking at it/near it or you'll compelled to go sit in that plush, comfortable looking chair..which is inhabited by a Slaaneshi daemon or spirit. Have the chairs' spirit corrupt the owner (would can be someone respectable and such) and him start a cult of the lord of excess.

From the way I'm reading it, it seems the =I= already know about the cult, the chair and, like Cobra, they show every week with some convoluted scheme to take over the world/sector/Imperium, only to get beaten by the =I= with Violet Serpent Commander going "'I'll get you next time, Inquisition!" shaking his fists. I could be wrong, but it reads like that.

Perhaps go with victims being injected with hormones having them do things or act in XYZ fashion, then having the acolytes run about trying to find how are those cultists managing to get such hormones. Having an acolytes being victim of a needle shot could also make things more grave and serious than simply having guv'ner Bob flipping out at the duchess' Ball.

What I meant by comically infamous is that the cult is very well known within the inquisition because, while other chaos cults attempt secrecy, this cult, due to its enforced laid-back attitude, keeps getting its members caught by the inquisition because they're too lazy to think up ways to hide. Due to their total lack of urgency, they do absolutely nothing about the possibility of getting captured - an "I'll deal with it later" attitude.

I see what you mean about point A - but my group is very, very radical, and show know signs of having any aversion to tainted tech. Perhaps it should bestow corruption points as a drawback? And yes, the loss of talents while enthralled is temporary.

I love the idea of the WP test to avoid sitting in the comfy chair. If then the use of it bestowed corruption points, do you think that would work?

Ah ok- make sense now with thier attitude, more than "Oh, here comes those wacky cultists again!"

Yes, corruption points would be a good idea. soemthing has tainted ought to have consequences, or perhaps make it as an addiction (that goes heavier as the Pcs uses it), as they'll finally relax form being always on edge as acolytes.