Corrupting a sister of battle.

What say the community?

It's a project my group is kind of working on right now actually.

And by my group, I mean one guy from the two-player (and one GM) game I'm in who isn't me. As opposed to my 6-man (and one GM) game.

That said, players will try to corrupt anything and it's not like the Sisters are immune; I believe there are storied examples of ones who have fallen to corruption.

So what I'm saying is that it's only impossible if you hold yourself back - the sky's the limit!

Corrupting a sister of battle.

What say the community?

It's a project my group is kind of working on right now actually.

And by my group, I mean one guy from the two-player (and one GM) game I'm in who isn't me. As opposed to my 6-man (and one GM) game.

That said, players will try to corrupt anything and it's not like the Sisters are immune; I believe there are storied examples of ones who have fallen to corruption.

So what I'm saying is that it's only impossible if you hold yourself back - the sky's the limit!

Personally I take the view point that corrupting a Sister of Battle is doable, but insanely difficult to do; It's much easier and more effective to corrupt some of their dogma however.

Doesn't even need much; Just have the local chapter of the Imperial Creed uncover a long forgotten holy ritual that looks like to came from the Emperor or one of the saints while in truth it is a ritual towards one of the gods of chaos. It would have to be convincing Imperial as to avoid the uncovering of its true intent, but that's were a little creative thinking comes into play. For example, a ritual to Nurgle might take the form of a healing ritual that removes the sickness, pain and suffering from one person and transfers it to the healer instead (The sickness losing much of its strength in the process) while a ritual to Slaanesh might just be so complicated that only someone absolutely obsessed with perfection would have a chance of performing it correctly.

It doesn't have to be big or flashy, it just has to open up that small opening for chaos to come flooding in.

I've also read it somewhere, could be the Liber Chaotica.

Ah, could just be a different take on the setting than the GW studio books, then - similar to "Xenology"?

Finally dug out my own books and this is what I found (and what I remembered earlier):

"With the ebb and flow of energy within the Warp, the power of a Chaos God expands and contracts, and his realm will shift accordingly. For long periods one god may dominate the others, fed by its own success, leeching its foes' energy for its own growth. Ultimately, the other gods will ally against the dominant force and through combined efforts reduce him in power, until another of their number rises to prominence. This pattern is played out again and again through eternity. No Chaos God can ever truly be victorious, for if all other Warp Powers were obliterated, the Warp would become a still, unmoving mass and Chaos would no longer exist."

- 5E Codex: Chaos Daemons

"This eternal battle waxes and wanes as the fortunes and powers of each God ebbs and flows. When great plagues sweep the mortal realms, such as the eyerot or the terrifying zombie plague, then Nurgle's realm might gain ascendancy for a while."

- 6E Rulebook

No clear ranking here, just an endless back and forth in reflection of what happens on the material plane.

On a sidenote, the Chaos codex also provides a description of exactly how the different gods spread their power, and lets Slaanesh stand out by mentioning how it "attacks in a more insidious manner", its influence much less blatant and perceptible than any of the other gods, instead corrupting in a subtle, sneaky manner.

That said, players will try to corrupt anything and it's not like the Sisters are immune; I believe there are storied examples of ones who have fallen to corruption.

Yes, it depends on where you look. Games Workshop codices and White Dwarf say incorruptible, Black Library novels and comics provide examples to the contrary. "There is no canon" - just pick your preferred interpretation and run with it.

Sorry to jump back to the original topic so late in the conversation, but we have a corrupted Sister of Battle among the characters in our current Black Crusade group (in this case we used the Renegade archetype to build the character).

The story used for this character was that she was a sister of middling ability, but strong faith who fell in battle against corrupted Guard. As she lay dying, she saw the forces of Chaos marching over her sisters defeating them, and she prayed to the God-Emperor for divine intervention. When nothing happened, and the march of Chaos continued unabated, she felt abandoned by the God-Emperor, and at that point she prayed to any who would listen to save her life. Something did.

Following that incident she found herself an outcast and slowly made her way to the Screaming Vortex to discover the nature of what had intervened to save her. Over the course of the game she has fallen under the purview of Nurgle, in whom she sees the opportunity for eternal life and a mixture of hope and despair. Feeling betrayed by her own former faith, she lives to demonstrate to the people of the Imperium that the God-Emperor wields no true power, whereas the Gods of Chaos actual do have an influence over life and death.

The character concept has seemed to work pretty well inside the game and has been fun to play with. We wanted a concept of a Sister of Battle that hadn't been forcefully corrupted, but had rather lost her Faith.

Loosing faith that way could be considered difficult though for actually dying in the name of the emperor is a great honor and a sacrifice many would welcome to do - especially such a faithful character and given that the sisters die in huge numbers without having a big problem with that. By no means they view them self entitled to receive divine assistance; it is more the contrary where they happily give everything to the emperor with expecting nothing - including their life.

Also the strong faith of the sororitas does not question the intervention of the emperor but welcomes it when it happens.

In the end though you are up to your own interpretation.

Yeah, personally I'd feel it sounds like Mortarion 2.0 (I blame the "something listened" bit) - no different than Space Marines, neglecting what truly makes this faction unique. But YMMV, and with the Sororitas in particular there are a lot of different interpretations out there all depending on who writes them!

The important thing is that it seems to work for your group.

To me it reminded me of the Word Bearers.

Lorgar: "Worshiping the Emperor doesn't do a **** good! He doesn't even want it! We need to find better gods! Gods that actually listen and reward their faithfull with power and glory!"

Like some of the other guys, YMMV quite a bit. The codexes typically say there was one exception to the falling thing. It's easy to read this as a GK sorta, it doesn't happen but once in 10 thousand years sorta thing. Then there was the bloodtide thing, was really dumb and we can pick it across forever, but that'd be another topic on it's own so let's just look at the idea it represents. It's not from a novel but from codex writer Matt Ward, so there's no extra info to go off of. What is there makes it sound like the weapon was corrupting some of the sisters and the rest of the planet's population, presumably their faith, and that the Grey Knight's believed from some reason that their blood would protect them.

It doesn't really expound on the effects of the weapon, but it makes it sound like a mostly magical technology based sort of thing rather than it putting forth a strong argument that shakes their faith. Where it zaps you and boom you're corrupted. Corrupted in this case being unclear, are you a mutant, a chaos spawn, terminally ill, does it just flip on the chaos switch? Any of those things would be considered a game over for a proper imperial servant, but for a question about specifics when it comes to using it as a precedent it leaves a bit to be desired.

Falls in the idea that Sisters can be corrupted through warp stuff warp stuffing them up, or that they can be subverted with false orders, but that them voluntarily signing up because of some PC with 50 fellowship rolled well is basically unheard of. While tides was a codex thing this idea shows up in the novels. Some Sisters are being mind controlled by a powerful psyker, like mind controlling millions and millions at the same type chaos lord during the 13th Black crusade powerful. Once the mind control is weakened, they instantly kill themselves.

It seems to be a semi popular idea that they can be corrupted and deceived if not convinced. Nothing is out of bounds, it's your collective story, you can say GKs are corruptible, that flies in the face of their current canon but if it suits your story then go for it. Anything can be done, and most of it can be done well if you put some thought into it. Blanks who believe in, but are not touched by chaos. Tau who stayed too close, for too long, for something to decide they're worth the effort. As a player I wouldn't be bothered by corrupted sisters, I'd wonder what the story was hope it was good, but it wouldn't ruin my fun either way.

The codexes typically say there was one exception to the falling thing.

Actually, the codices never said that - this bit was from a short story by Dan Abnett written for Sabertooth's Dark Millennium CCG. It got propagated among the fandom for a bit because some editor on the Lexicanum wiki claimed it was referenced in the 2E 'dex (even providing a page number), yet the actual book never contained this. What the 2E 'dex did say was that "Sisters of Battle are totally incorruptible", but as mentioned earlier I consider this to be hyperbole exactly like with the Grey Knights, who would not have needed the Sisters' blood as paraphernalia for corruption if they had this as an innate ability.

In the end, this is really a question where each one of us must pick the answer they're most comfortable with. This is really just to set some records straight when it comes to which books say what.

It doesn't really expound on the effects of the weapon, but it makes it sound like a mostly magical technology based sort of thing rather than it putting forth a strong argument that shakes their faith. Where it zaps you and boom you're corrupted. Corrupted in this case being unclear, are you a mutant, a chaos spawn, terminally ill, does it just flip on the chaos switch?

From the codex description, it sounded like some sort of "poisoning" that would weaken their bodies - it said that "those who endure fight valiantly", but the corrupted ones get killed by Chaos daemons. More a physical rather than a mental effect, which is in line with earlier material from GW's Inquisitor game concerning Sister Anastasia, the only Sister on Subiaco Diablo who got infected by the Zombie Plague (but managed to cure herself by intense prayer).

Perhaps the effect of Chaos on the body and mind should simply be regarded independently? There is certainly a connection either way, but a certain mindset may protect more against spiritual corruption, whereas physical corruption depends a great deal on the body and is generally harder to resist, due to Chaos being powered by psychic energy so that the body can only fight the effects, but not the cause?

As far as I recall, some novel went into more detail concerning the Bloodtide and how, as per its author's ideas, it is actually a bunch of nanobots rather than a supernatural disease, but ... meh.

Well there you go. I only occasionally skim the codexes when I'm looking for specific character or setting ideas. That particular idea is so often mentioned I was sure it was in a codex, thank's for explaining it.

That is the same impression I got, and while the point is academic to Imperials it has a lot of bearing on character depictions. The bloodtide stuff sounded like a mostly physical thing, now whether that just made them incredibly weak and easy prey, or it made bloodletters explode out of their bodies I'm not honestly sure. Apparently the bloodtide was used in a novel depicting another incident with it involving the Raven Guard, where it was a nanobot machine that ripped out people's blood and drowned others in it. Which while a very khornely themed weapon, that would likely cast some shadow on the warp, doesn't itself sound warp related. Though, if I'm mortally wounded by the lasgun of a traitor I'm unlikely to say I've been corrupted.

I'm not sure which story came first, if the novel was running with the codex blurb, or the codex blurb was referencing the novel. While normally I just pick whichever source sounds cooler, in this case it might actually be important in the wording. If Matt Ward codex writer came up with the idea, him choosing the word corrupted might mean that it was a psyker thingie that in gameplay equivalent gave them an assload of corruption points for a failed WP test. But if the first story was the novel, where it's not a fantastic(in universe) weapon, then it makes the entire story seem all the stupider for it. And it is, to me, one of the few stories that I actively dislike.

And yeah while the distinction between eating corruption points from background exposure to the warp, and the corruption gained from enacting a human sacrifice to the Gods is one that most Imperials don't care about. Imperials not generally making much of a distinction between mutants resulting from pollution and those resulting from Chaos. I think it's an important one when it comes to stories and character depictions. I sorta view it as the body is somewhat more easily corrupted against your will, and once corrupted can and often will trip the Glories of Chaos switch in your brain. This can be significantly tempered and resisted by extreme will and faith. Sorta like the Space Wolves lost in the Warp. Then there's the guys who are like "Aw yeah, chaos has more spikes man!" And sign up on purpose. Which the longer you're around it and believe in it, the more intractable it becomes. Sorta like the Dark Side in Star Wars, just with a lot fewer(but still some) redemption stories.

That's mostly my interpretation of a bunch of conflicting stories. So as always YMMV. But I'd be okay with SOBs getting shot with warp rays, but I might crack wise about one that converted after a couple well done speeches.

I'm not sure which story came first, if the novel was running with the codex blurb, or the codex blurb was referencing the novel.

I think the codex had it first, and a novel author then gave it his personal spin. It's pretty rare that something out of a novel makes it into a studio book, anyways, although it did happen in the past (Gaunt's Ghosts spring to mind).

The codex definitely made it sound like an entirely Chaos-based supernatural "Warp sickness" or whatever, a phenomenon like the Zombie Plague perhaps. The novel, as you said, instead depicted it as a wave of nanobots, although I was told that these nano-machines themselves were corrupted by Chaos. Personally, I'd just leave out the technological angle as redundant, but that's only my preferred view on the subject.

And yeah while the distinction between eating corruption points from background exposure to the warp, and the corruption gained from enacting a human sacrifice to the Gods is one that most Imperials don't care about. Imperials not generally making much of a distinction between mutants resulting from pollution and those resulting from Chaos. I think it's an important one when it comes to stories and character depictions. I sorta view it as the body is somewhat more easily corrupted against your will, and once corrupted can and often will trip the Glories of Chaos switch in your brain. This can be significantly tempered and resisted by extreme will and faith. Sorta like the Space Wolves lost in the Warp. Then there's the guys who are like "Aw yeah, chaos has more spikes man!" And sign up on purpose. Which the longer you're around it and believe in it, the more intractable it becomes. Sorta like the Dark Side in Star Wars, just with a lot fewer(but still some) redemption stories.

Yeah, well put - that's about my opinion as well.

A problem in 40k is also that "corruption" is often referring to so many different things, all depending on context:

• physical corruption from natural sources (radiation-induced mutation, genetic engineering)
• spiritual corruption from natural sources (enemy propaganda, "heretical" faiths, mercy )
• physical corruption from supernatural sources (Warp-induced mutation and diseases)
• spiritual corruption from supernatural sources (daemons giving you weird visions, toying with your emotions)

The Dark Heresy forum is full of threads debating whether GMs should hand out Corruption Points only for exposure to Warp energy, or also because the PCs did something morally questionable.

My own answer is somewhere in-between, as I do believe that a person's moral compass can act as a shield against the psychically powered energies of the Warp. In other words: someone who is already a vicious drekhead may be easier to affect than a truly goodhearted farmer - although there ought to be a threshold, because at some point a mass murderer is not affected by killing yet another baby anymore, to go for an extreme example.

In short: Handing out CP for a character's morals represents the shield of their "soul" being eroded by their own actions, but you ought to stop doing so at some point, beyond which only actual Warp corruption may twist them further.

Okay, that was a bit off-topic, but I consider this an interesting topic to discuss. Apologies!

It's only the slightest amount off topic though. Corruption is the subject at hand more or less, and how it interacts with any characters Sororitas or otherwise is more of less what we're discussing so I don't feel too bad.

I think we share a pretty similar view of the way corruption is supposed to work in the setting and the game. I'd hand out points for anyone of those things, though I'd be less likely for the natural sources, and smaller amounts for sure. and the further down the road they go the less likely something is to ping them on the defacto morality meter. If you're a chaos champion, are you going to get CP just from seeing a fairly standard summoning ritual? I'd hope not. But if your soul was unspoilt and unharmed, I'd imagine that letting your eyes linger on too much of it might net you a couple points if you failed a WP test. The further you go, the worse you have to be, a sort of rate of diminishing returns. Though there's always taking a swim in a pool of warp stuff, but barring down I imagine it starts slowing down after a while.

That said I mostly give out very few corruption points, and I do allow my players to buy it off for XP. My players just avoid it, they play characters that are more or less on the straight and narrow, and they know what I'd award points for. So they mostly shy away from closely examining or playing with warp related items. Thankfully it's never an argument I've had to engage in.

How about taking away some CP away after they successfully complete a mission?

Like with Call of Cthulhu you could get sanity points back if you manged to stop the big bad thing from happening before you wound up completly dead and insane.

Acolyte: "****, that was bad stuff in there, man! All those dead hivers, flayed alive...And what was inisde the summoning circle...Imperator save us!"

Inquisitor: "But we stopped it. You stopped it. Send it howling to the hells of chaos. Take heart in that. And in the screams of the unclean as it burned in the righteous wrath of our flamers."

Acolyte:"Aye. The innnocent have been avenged! Praise be!"

Yeah, that's one way to do it - although I'd combine it with the XP buyoff, representing a period of prayer, fasting and cleansing. Essentially making it an option for the characters, if they are willing to pay the price. Perhaps some characters in the party (Clerics, Sisters, ..) can themselves conduct the appropriate spiritual guidance, lowering said cost by essentially being "first responders" and providing first aid for your soul.

Yeah those are for sure options I'd consider if a PC has some amount of CP and they conduct a mission in a particularly holy cleansing way. And having certain holy character types RPing with the afflicted and lowering costs sounds like a great idea as well.

My group has captured a Sister and they intend to keep her as is.

Giving her a front-row seat to the apocalypse, and keep her like a bird in a golden cage.

They even let her roam (somewhat) free on the ship and preach to/pray for the dregs/slaves - whom they know won't listen.

Aren't they benevolent?

Maybe they are all Word Bearers who apreciate just how ironic the imperial faith is?

That's a pretty dismal, inventive, and darkly funny fate. Bravo to your players. Plus depending on the story, players, and tone. It's always a story angle you can revisit, if only to tell a funny short story about her failed preaching.