[Brother_Brimstone]

I'd be inclined to agree with Kaled - it doesn't really fit with Zophar's levels of resources and general methods. The suggested alternative seems to 'tick all the boxes' I need, and be a much more easy (and suitable) idea to implement fluff wise.

Thanks to everyone for the input.

EDIT: although thinking about it, the suggestion Magos Exarratus makes might make for a really good story/fluff piece, where Zophar uses his influence to have a minion tamper with an Eversor's mechanisms. It would cause a lot of problems for the local authorities and be difficult to trace back to him (it certainly wouldn't give anything about him away). With the bonus that he gets a killing machine sent after a target of his choice. Could make for an interesting read/writing exercise.

[Myriad]

IMO, the fact that assassins more or less do what they're told makes them potentially easy to turn.

An eversor would be near impossible to capture and turn - their metabolism is after all highly unstable.  It seems that if you could get hold of one still in cryo-storage you could manipulate his orders quite extensively, though.  Probably the best way would be to intercept one in transit to be deployed - naturally you would need a tip off as to the exact location.

Keeping their metabolism from going haywire, however, would probably require specialist knowledge (or possibly demonic powers given the character, although the chaos gods aren't known for fixing stuff).  I suppose this gives you a relatively neat explanation for the reduced power level, in that the character lacks the supercharged metabolism normal for the assassin (and/ or is badly programmed).

[Molotov]

The thing to consider is that an Eversor is designed to tear the throat out of any enemy organisation, killing everything that gets in its way. It's meant to terrify the foes of the Emperor into submission. A stark, potent symbol of what happens to those that cross the Imperium. It's designed to inflict as much collateral damage as possible, as messily as it can.

Assuming that Sarthuul could somehow gain control of an Eversor's orders so that it could be (innocently) turned against whoever is inconveniencing Sarthuul, Zophar probably couldn't be on the same board as it; it'd just tear apart anyone, friend of foe. It would be the "one-man-warband" that Brimstone was seeking to avoid.

At least a Death Cultist would (hopefully) be a little more discriminating in who it kills, especially once he's been indoctrinated into Sarthuul's service.

[Robert_the_damned]

Of course a guaranteed way to turn one would be to make it a daemon host, of course that would probably be a rather pointless (and difficult) endeavour as then you'd just have a daemon host and not an assassin.

[Brother_Brimstone]

I think molotov sums it up nicely. While an Eversor could be used to assassinate the 'wrong person' through having been given different instructions from those he was meant to receive, it would only be able to occur once, and would not work as a consistent warband member (however, as i say, it could make for an interesting fluff piece or even game setting - stop the assassin before he reaches his target!). I also must extend my congratulations to Molotov for using Zophar and Sarthuul's names correctly in each instance - even I often have trouble working out which to use in some situations!

This topic seems to really have captured the forum's interest. Thanks for everyone's responses - i've learned a lot about the OA and particularly Eversor assassins.

[Heroka Vendile]

you know, it isn't even necessary for the assassin to have been turned/manipulated/etc, it's fairly obvious that there are numerous of both neutral (i.e. don't care who the target is, only that they get paid) and chaos-aligned assassin organisations around, both within and out-with the Imperium. So it would be far simpler to simply have an assassin presented to Zophar/Sarthuul as a sign of their allegiance, instead of contrived manipulations (even if that is Sarthuuls speciality).

[Brother_Brimstone]

While that is a fair point, I can't imagine it being in the best interest of a death cult styling themself after the Eversors to show allegiance to someone like Zophar. Especially not if they're a cult in which the Eversor temple show special interest. What if they're found out? The Eversor temple are not a group you would want to have personally angry at you. Even if they didn't retaliate themselves, you'd at the very least become a target for either the Hereticus or Sicarius. After all, a Death Cult which is rabidly loyal to the Imperium is a very tolerable thing, one which has been seen to allign itself to Chaos is a very dangerous thing. And having one of your members 'do the dirty work' for a heretic is a very good way to be caught. 'Hey, doesn't that guy on the vid feed killing everyone look exactly like a member of the sanctioned Death Cult X...' (the Eversor temple are not exactly un-distinctive and neither would a member of a cult who dress to look like the Eversor temple).

To be honest, I find that entire plot to be more contrived than simply 'There was a member of Death Cult X (i haven't thought of a name yet), he was seduced by Chaos, which Sarthuul introduced him to. He decided to escape his own Death Cult to join Zophar and perhaps pursue the benefits which Chaos can bring'. That, to me, seems fairly reasonable, credible and straightforward.

While I disagree, I still appreciate your input. I think I simply have a different vision of this character's fluff.

[Heroka Vendile]

My point was more that not all death cults and assassin organisations (both imperial and non-imperial) are linked to the Eversor Temple. And that there is potential for much more interesting origins - for example coming from an assassin temple on a chaos-held world.

Just because they share the same trait of a skull mask doesn't make them automatically have to be linked - after all it's not even like there's just the one design of mask used by the Eversor Temple and there will be plenty of other groups (both martial and non-martial) in such a highly gothic environment as 40K that will also use skull-masks.

But it is up to you in the end how you develop the character.

[Alyster Wick]

Assassin turning is a quite interesting idea (though I suppose I'm coming in late in the game).  I rather like the idea of an Ordos Sicarius operative that deals in black market assassin gear and (very rarely) assassins themselves. 

With multiple identities they could pull off operations to get someone their very own assassin.  For example, during warp travel Operative X modifies the Eversor's orders to kill the ship's captain then puts themselves in temporary stasis.  The Eversor kills their way through the ship then returns to its slumber when the mission is accomplished.  Operative X awakens (along with a Navigator in his employ that he smuggled aboard), goes to the bridge with said Navigator (planting melta charges along the way), brings the ship out of warp travel far off from its original destination then leaves in a smaller vessel with his Navigator and newly liberated Eversor shortly before the melta charges go off.  The ship is chalked up to being lost in the warp (no communications were possible during the warp travel so no one could report what was going on and it's unlikely that anyone aware of the ship's disappearance will find it in the random region of space they left the warp in.

Elaborate, yes.  Plot holes?  Almost certainly a few (though nothing beyond fixing).  Overall it seems right up the ally of an Ordos Sicarius operative though.  Not that they could do this often (each time it would cost them an identity) or even more than once, but it would be possible for them to get their very own Eversor and rent it out to Inquisitors whose views would make them unlikely candidates to otherwise receive help from the formal temples.  The more I think about it, the more I really like the idea of an unscrupulous Sicarius dealing in ultra-rare black market merchandise from the Temples who trades with Inquisitors who have fallen out of grace with main stream Imperial Society. 

Another thought is that there was an Eversor with a faulty off-switch who refused to go back into it's cryo-sleep (or perhaps there was a long delay).  Their technician reported the Eversor eliminated but secretly had the thing operated to lobotomize it/install a more "reliable" method of controlling it (I've wanted to have a ferocious and uncontrollable warband member with an electrode in its head that did variable settings (1-4d6) of shock damage to the victim's head when activated by the master).  Their deadliness would be decreased by necessity but they'd still make for a dangerous opponent.

Anyway, that's enough of my off the wall ideas.

[DapperAnarchist]

Another option would an Ordo Sicarus or Officio agent who smuggles out trainees. An Eversor trainee, 9 months in, is already a fearsomely powerful killer, relentless and amoral, and quite quite mad - but still relatively controllable. And if there is any group easy to cover up the disappearance of, it would be Assassin Candidates - its one in several hundred who survive, isn't it?