Telepathic Mischance

By Dalnor Surloc, in Dark Heresy House Rules

I've been thinking it's rather odd for a psyker reading someone's mind to produce the kinds of things that the Psychic Phenomena table causes. What I'm putting together is a new set of tables for rolling 9s invoking a telepathic power.

Telepathic Mischance:
1-5 Telepathic feed back: All living things in 50 meters hear a loud sound.
6-9 Lesser warp surge: The power of warp surges through your mind take one fatigue point
10-13 Minor stroke: You have suffered a minor stoke -10 on tasks for the next day requiring use your weak side. Roll 1d10 odd=right even=left
14-18 Telepathic Leakage: All living things in 50 meter hear the telepath's surface thoughts echoing in their heads for 1d5 rounds. A rather guilty psyker will need to roll vs will to avoid thinking about what he doesn't want to think about....
19-24 Lesser Demonic Visage: You see a vision of a lurking warp entity. Roll vs Fear 1
25-30 Warp surge: Lose 1d5 fatigue
31-38 Momentary Hallucination: Roll on Hallucinogen grenade tables lasting for 1d5 rounds
39-46 Momentary Insanity: Gain one insanity of the GMs choice for 1d5 rounds
47-55 Stroke: You completely lose control of one side of your body for a day. (Roll 1d10 odd=right even=left) Use rules for loss of arm, and legs for that side.
56-61 Demonic Visage: You see a vision of a lurking warp entity. Roll vs Fear 2
62-67 Temporal disjunction roll on Precognitive Dissidence Table.
68-72 For whom the bell tolls: All psykers, daemons, and the like within 2 km hear a disturbance. With a successful psyniscience psykers may determine general direction and distance. (daemon and the like use per)
73-78 Hallucination: Roll on Hallucinogen grenade table with effect lasting for 1d10 rounds
79-82 Crazy juice: Roll vs will or gain 1d5 insanity.
83-86 Temporary insanity: Gain one insanity of the GMs choice for 1d10 rounds
87-90 Warp mishap: roll on Psychic Phenomena Table
91-100 Roll on Telepathic Calamity Table

Telepathic Calamity:

01-05 Reality Disjuntion: Roll on Hallucinogen grenade table 3 times. Each effect lasts for 1d10 rounds. (roll for each.)
06-09 Greater Demonic Visage: You see a vision of a lurking warp entity. Roll vs Fear 3
10-13 Warp surge: Lose 1d10 fatigue
14-18 Hysterical Blindness: Psyker loses ability to see by any means for 1d5 rounds.
19-24 Brain burn: Take 1d10 damage no armor to head
25-39 Greater brain drain: Lose 2d10 Int. (Recovery as wound points.)
31-38 Crazy juice: Roll vs will or gain 1d10 insanity. If you succeed gain only 1d5.
39-46 Psychic misfire: Do 1d10+WB damage to the head of nearest intellegent beign that can be effected by telepathy.
47-55 Psychic strain: Lose 1 Psi score for 1d10 days.
56-61 Vice Versa: see Perils of the Warp table 56-61 (p 163)
62-67 Roll on Precognitive Disjunction Table.
68-72 Aphasia: Psyker speaks in long sentences that have no meaning, add unnecessary words, and even create new "words". For example "You know that smoodle pinkered and that I want to get him round and take care of him like you want before", meaning "The dog needs to go out so I will take him for a walk". Lasts for 1d10 hours.
73-78 Serious stroke: You have suffered a stoke you are unable to move one location. Roll hit location. Only major brain surgery, regeneration, or daemon pacts may repair the damage. (Basically only healing on the order of replacing a missing limb will help.)
79-82 Insanity: Gain one insanity of the GMs choice (or random). This insanity is permanent, and may only be removed with major psychic surgery, mind wipe, or similar techniques.
83-86 Brain buster- Take 2d10 to head no armor. If this causes a 5 or higher crit your head explodes dealing 1d10+2 to a 3 meter radius.
87-90 Global aphasia: Psyker can only speak random words, and is unable to understand verbal commication. Telepathy vs, and from the psyker have similar issues. (The player must mime hand singals, and the like.) Lasts 1d5 days.
91-95 Roll on Perils of the Warp Table.
96-99 Massive Stroke: You permanently lose control of one side of your body. (Roll 1d10 odd=right even=left) Use rules for loss of arm, and legs for that side. Only major brain surgery, regeneration, or daemon pacts may repair the damage. (Basically only healing on the order of replacing a missing limb will help.)
100 Brain Aneurysm: You burst a major artery in your brain. Death is immediate.
Note if Precognitive Dissidence, and Precognitive Disjunction Tables are unavailble roll again or use Psychic Phenomen/ Perils of the Warp Table respectively.

Apart from the stroke result, the Telepathic Mischance table seems rather harmless, especially when considering that for Psychic phenomena, everything above a 75 lands you in the Perils table.

Yes and no. The table is meant to be kinder than the standard. The basic idea is that reading someone's mind should be safer than throwing a firebolt.... That said past 72 it starts getting rougher. Yes you only have a 10% chance to go to Calamity, but most of the things are pretty nasty. Insanity temp, and insanity points. The hallucinogen grenade table is pretty disabling as well. (And funny)

Also in the lower section things can get fairly bad. the fatigue loss can be pretty bad. You start getting minuses to your rolls, and if you get more than your toughness bonus you are down. Rolling vs fear can result in anything from running away to insanity.

In the Calamity table things get pretty bad way before a stroke. Taking 1d10 fatigue stands a good chance of putting down the psyker. High fear ratings can literally drive the psyker insane. 1d10 or 2d10 to the head no armor can easily kill if the psyker is injured. Aphasia is pretty disabling as the psyker can't communicate with his party.