I'm currently involved in a brand new 2e campaign with an Ulrican initiate. At one of our most recent encounters ( The Cultists Swamp Keep in Thousand Thrones), my character faced the unfortunate circumstance of receiving a laddle of "blessed water", causing him to receive golden metallic skin. While the +2 armor bonus is nice, the mutation poses an existential problem for my character.

So far in our campaigns, my initiate has been extremely devout to Ulric; in fact, his devotion to charging into battle without armor is what got him mutated. From a roleplaying perspective, is it possible for my priest to attempt to continue serving his god? Though he is Mutant, it seems harsh to have to turn to Chaos immediately, especially with my fellow players, who will cut me down in an instant. The GM and I are struggling to come with a good answer to this dilemma. I'd like to find some way to continue serving the Wolf God (wear a wolf mask / gloves, start a lesser Ulrican order around the practice to cover up his skin etc), but I'd be mighty appreciative if anyone had any ideas.

I know mutants is a good theme to dovetail with the campaign, but I'd really like to try and stave off serving Chaos as long as possible, like I believe my character would. A secondary problem, even if my character continues to serve, is the prospect of divine magic in his next career, should he reach it. I know the lore states the god frequently still provide divine favor to those not adhering to the orthodox cult, but I'm not sure if its stretching it too much to attempt to continue using this PC.

I don't think there is anything fundemental about a mutation that would cause you to immediately change your beliefs or values. I suspect that what initially turns mutants away from the rest of humanity is as much tied to the threat of shunning and death that comes from being found out. I would imagine that over time the corruption would start invading your mind and soul, gradually turning you from your god to the baser things in life and towards whichever god was responsible for the mutation. So I would play him as still devote, but now torn as he recognizes that he is now tied to the very evil that up to now he condemned. Self loathing would creep into his thoughts and its that self loathing that would eventually turn him away.

Unless someone devout burns him at the stake first.

I agree with dcgreenwood.

It could be possible to cover up the mutation and keep on playing the character. It could be fun playing a character as you suggest, but not even devout Ulricans (or Sigmarites) can stave off the corruption to the mind forever. Sooner or later your character would probably fall to chaos.

As the risk of turning to chaos is to horrible a prospect, devout sigmarites often travel to the chaos wastes trying to kill as many followers of chaos before they are killed themselves. Kind of like a dwarven slayer - take as many enemies with you when you fall.

There is actually a Warhammer novel that covers this exact thing. I think it's called "Mark Of Chaos". It's about a witch hunter who develops a mutation. His mutation is a bit easier to hide than golden skin, but it's essentially the same thing. His mind starts to devolve throughout the book as the corruption slowly creeps through him. The fact that he is trying to unravel a chaos conspiracy while also being paranoid about being discovered as a mutant probably doesn't help his mental health

The "slayer" concept seems really good and fitting for this character. He would become even more devout, perhaps involving self-mutilation to keep the mutation at bay. Perhaps he fears that he is not deemed worthy of Ulrics realm in the afterlife (and suicide will make him even more unworthy) so he strives to prove to Ulric and himself without a doubt that he is a worthy Ulrican and not just some mutant scum. This can only be done by striking such a fell blow to the forces of chaos that there can be no doubt which side he is on.

He would also need to cover up the mutation. If all his skin is golden, this would involve a mask or full helmet, as well as long sleeves and gloves. Perhaps hiding it from the other player characters as well? That's a good source of roleplaying.

But an ever more zealous death-seeking warrior with a mutation... is pretty much the bread and butter of Khorne.

If you want to bend/break the rules a bit for theme; when he should get an insanity, give him the "Violent Impulse" (think that was the name) insanity. It even has Khornate flavour text.

I remember a story ages ago of a werewolf mutant who met a law daemon and via an event had the mutation removed by the wolf part becoming its own creature. So there was the human and the wolf. Cannot remember what happened next.

This was in the Norse lands though.

The Drachenfels novel has my favourite take on this - the "call of chaos" is heard by mutants over time. A mutant is "himself" though society may scar and make him a "monster" before his time but even if he resists this he must also resist "the call of chaos", the psychic call of Chaos, come prove yourself in the Wastes (where of course you will gain even more mutations). A mutant may resist this for years, or not.

The other Yeovil novels also have examples of - including at least one "completely monstrous" appearing mutant who is (apparently) a decent fellow (at least an appreciator of art who ends up opposing a more comely source of evil than any mutation). In that novel the most "evil" is not done by mutants.

BTW, congrats on getting into 1000 Thrones. It's uneven and you really need to read the later chapters and bring forward some material and NPC's from them earlier - they really show being written by different people - that said there's a ton of stuff in there to use.

Having played a mutant priest PC over most of a year through three acts of Enemy Within, it's an interesting balance. My character ended up with a mutation despite having only a bare minimum of corruption due to an awkward lucky roll by a monster, so the 'pull of Chaos' rarely came up - most of the game focus was on surviving and not letting the rest of the party know. Three acts later, she successfully fooled one, managed to keep another in willful denial, co-conspired with the third, and survived the adventure with only one extra mutation. (That said, the Ranald blessing stack makes it actually fairly easy to ignore the negative consequences of being a mutant so long as you're OK with obligatory nonviolence, and the loose-going nature of the god himself was also a plus).

A lot of this is really going to come down to how the GM wants to play Ulric, and Chaos. Those are the factors you're going to have to balance yourself again. My character ended up rigidly adhering to her god's strictures (including nonviolence, charity, etc), in a desperate attempt to stay rooted to humanity and alive - in return, the god allowed her to appear as a normal human via one of the Ranald blessings. An avenue to think about might be "what could Ulric offer to help his follower, and what would he want in return?"