Apothecary - Apothecary: An Apothecary is a specialist Firstborn and Primaris Space Marine medicae officer who possesses advanced biomedical and scientific training and who serves as a combat medic and research physician for his Chapter. An Apothecary's role in battle is to recover the gene-seed from slain Astartes and to tend to the wounded and maimed.Outside of combat, Apothecaries are responsible for monitoring the Chapter's neophytes for mutation or flaws in their gene-seed and organ implants and for carrying out the implantation process in their Chapter's aspirants. The Apothecary is well-versed in the arts of battlefield first aid as well as advanced surgical techniques, cybernetics and bio-engineering.The Apothecary must be as courageous as his fellow Space Marines if not more so, for he must perform his life-saving surgeries in the midst of the battlefield. If a Space Marine is injured, the Apothecary will use his medi-pack, called the Narthecium, to tend to the wounds. Nartheciums can dispense medical aid and perform complex surgery -- cauterising, stitching, removing shrapnel, and more. Even severely injured Space Marines can fight again with the aid of the Narthecium.Whereas Chaplains are charged with maintaining the spiritual health of the Space Marines in a Chapter, it is the Apothecaries' role to mind the physical well-being of their battle-brothers.Several of a Space Marine's specialised organs can self-heal wounds that would kill a non-augmented man outright, but such functions take time, and will not happen during a melee or fire-fight. It is the Apothecary's duty to stabilise the worst of wounds, patching up a transhuman warrior's seemingly mortal injuries so that he may return to battle within moments.Not all injured Space Marines can be saved, however. Even when a wound is beyond healing, the Apothecary's duties are not done. He can calm the dying and speed them on their way by granting them the Emperor's Peace since the Narthecium also includes a special humane euthanasia device for this task, ironically called a Carnifex, that is a solid, spring-loaded piston of metal. This is applied to the sufferer's temple, its powerful spring hurling the piston through the Astartes' brain and killing him instantly.Apothecaries are armed and armoured like the brethren they serve, and have undergone the same extensive combat training. Their priorities may be healing or extracting gene-seed, but they too are fully exposed to all the horrors of a battlefield, and every company of every Chapter tells tales of the extreme lengths their dutiful Apothecaries will go to ensure their charges are kept alive, one way or another.It is standard for each company in a Chapter to have at least one attached Apothecary, and it is common practice to have several more that work in the Apothecarion, where they train Initiates and also ensure the Chapter gene-seed -- both in the gene-banks and in the Space Marines themselves -- remains genetically pure and free of deleterious mutation through constant testing.Additionally, it is the most senior Apothecaries that implant gene-seed into neophytes, ensuring the Chapter has a new influx of recruits to match the rate of those lost in constant battle.A number of Chapters scattered across the Imperium have unusual cultures that can impact their Apothecaries' craft. Those who tendto the Iron Hands, for example, must be so well-versed in the implantation and maintenance of bionics that their roles and those of the Chapter Techmarines begin to blur.Conversely, Mortifactors Apothecaries spend almost as much time on the battlefield claiming macabre relics from fallen brethren as they do healing the living, while the Apothecaries of the White Scars must learn to ply their trade within the transport bay of a hurtling, lurching, bouncing Rhino -- for the Chapter's hunt waits for no man.