Imperial Psyker Staff

Playing in a number of LARP's you get ideas for costume ideas all the time.  This staff was build for a friend of mind who plays in our monthly Dark Heresy LARP.  He's playing an Imperial Psyker so it made sense to build him this staff.  I took the design from the Dark Heresy core rule with no read changes.

The build was not that hard.  The head of the staff was 4 pieces of half inch wood glued together, then cut and sanded into shape.  Extra blocks where added to the top and bottom to add depth.

The Imperial Eagle, which sits on the top, was carved out in two pieces.  The bottom piece held the wings, which were sanded down for more depth detail and then the top piece was glued on top.  I learn this trick from the last time I made an Imperial Eagle, were it was made from one block, which made sanding out the wings so much extra work.

By far the messiest part, and the most detailed part, was carving out the two wax purity seals that would be attacked later.  The seal on the left was modeled after the one which came with the Space Marine collectors edition game for the 360.  This involved a lot of dremeling.  Hours of it. Just to get that "pressed into hot wax" look. The seal on the right is just a skull, because it's 40K and skulls are always welcome.  When I try this again I shall need to get better heads for the dremel.

 I attached bolts to the head for the lump details and then positioned the eagle in the center dowels.  Then just a quick spray of black undercoat topped off with a nice shiny gold.

The staff itself was easy enough.  There was only a few pieces of detail which need to be added to it.  A bottom was add, which I believe was a wooden door knob, and two dividers to show where the hand grip would be.  It took about 6 coats of varnish to get the wood as dark as I wish it to be.  The hard grip itself was just a strip of red velvet wrapped around.  I also cored the center of both the staff and the head piece and used a .5mm threaded steel bar to give the connection point between the two more stability.

The two purity seals when given an under coat of black then dark red then dry brushed a light red.  Strips of cloth where hot glued to the back.  There would be protection warding that the Psyker would have written out to keep him safe.  Sadly these where cut out and glued onto the staff the night before the event it was need for so nothing was written on them.

The finished head of the staff.

 The event in question was a book signing at our local Games Workshop by Dan Abnett and Graham McNeil, pictured below.  In this photo you have me, in costume as an Imperial Priest.  Pretty much everything I'm wearing I made myself for my Dark Heresy character.  The guy playing the Psyker was late so I just carried it around myself as it fit in with my look.  This was a really enjoyable day.  Everyone though that  our costumes looked amazing and the staff was later signed by both the authors there.

I'm looking forward to making more Imperial props.  Being a gamer it helps to make items for what I enjoy doing and it's always nice when I get complements from other gamers.