Our group encountered our first psychic-active opponent earlier in the month and the aformentioned witch was Soul-Bound to a daemon of nurgle. In the midst of the battle she botched a roll and went perils of the warp but with a reroll.

At which point our own Psyker asked "Why dont i have that as im Soul Bound to the Emperor?"

A quick look through the book didnt turn up any talents that could even match this.

Is our group missing something here (I apologise if this is a dumb and easily answered question but i havent got a copy of the book to hand for a detailed look)

S.K.

Solomon Kane said:

In the Imperium, the majority of psykers - that is to say, Astropaths - are soulbound to the Emperor, as a means of making them as safe as possible and allowing them to resist corruption. Those who are considered potent enough to not require soulbinding to protect them from corruption make up the remaining portion of sanctioned psykers, a group which includes player characters.

That said, If your player wants to be soulbound, I say let him, just so long as he accepts that he'll be irreversably blind as a result (as in, not even bionics can restore his sight), as the process of binding a psyker's soul to the Emperor destroys the eyes and optic nerves in the overwhelming majority of cases.

Not only dose it have a bad habit of blinding them, but it can also deafen them and work all kinds of hell on rather sensitive nerve endings destroying a lot of their senses. Most end up merely blind, but some are also deafened, partially or fully lose their sense of touch, taste, smell, etc. And, from what i understand, these can not be replaced with cybernetics as fundamental nerve connections to the brain are fried in the soul binding process making it difficult or impossible to replace their lost senses with cybernetic ones.

As such, I guess the IoM has just decided that having a gaggle of pyromaniac psykers on the battlefield who may, in some cases, bring doom down upon themselves and all around them was preferable to having a gaggle of blind pyromaniac psykers on the battlefield who would almost definitely bring fiery doom down upon themselves and everyone around them ;-)

I realize this is a bit of thread necromancy, but page 332 of the DH Core Rulebook has you covered. To take Soul-Bound, your character either gets 1d10 Insanity, Permanent sight loss, Permanent loss of 1d10 from one characteristic, or if soul-bound to the Ruinous Powers, a random mutation. You are also permanently indebtted to the entity to which your soul is bound.

I would like to inquire about Regeneration. What if you soul bound yourself and had that? If it's just that the nerves are suppose to be "irrepairably damaged" and regenerate says it can heal any non-fatal damage ie. remove critical damage such as loss of eyes from melta to face or arm from grenade to shoulder wouldn't an astropath that has biomancy be able to heal the damage?

Nahpishtim said:

Astropaths can't take Biomancy. They only have access to Telepathy, Telekinetics and Divination powers. They are purely mental power beings, given that they have only been given these powers in the rulebook, and it has never been said in the canon that they have powers beyond the mental. You're stuck with Sanctioned Psykers if you want Biomancy, Pyromancy, etc.

Also, some damage scars one at too fundamental a level to heal by Psychic means. The prime example is damage caused by Holocaust. Presumably, the Emperor's own wounds are also of this nature.

Solomon Kane said:

Simple. Daemon of Nurgle is a creature native to warp and thus adept at manipulating warp. Emperor is not.

Being soulbound to a fish will give you ability to dive better, being souldbound to a bird would not.

I think there are a couple of of high level Talents which provide similar protection, but maybe I'm thinking of Rogue trader.

The Psyker could try to become soul bound though.

I don't remember reading that holocaust wounds can't be healed by psychic powers >.>? is that for the psykers wounds, the ones he deals to others or for both? and where is that mentioned?

Nahpishtim said:

It is in the errata 3.0, p. 10 of the print friendly version.

Actually, if you read the rules of Soul-binding, you can pick to have blindness OR 1d10 insanity points.