I originally developed this background option because one of my players wanted to play arbitor who was slightly psychic sensitive but his psychic profile was so low that he wasn't captured and detained on a black ship. So, I thought it over for a few minutes and figured out a solution which allows a slightly sensitive character who is still essentially a non-psyker. It also fitted my campaign perfectly because I wanted to give the acolytes access to psyniscience skill without introducing a sanctioned psyker into the party... Which would have been problematic anyway since the party does have one Untouchable

Anyway, I decided to share this background option for everyone to use as you see fit:

Suppressed Psyker

Background: 100 xp

Skills: Psyniscience

Talents: None.

Traits: Suppressive Medication

Suppressive Medication

Person is a test-subject prescribed with highly expensive suppressive medication designed to keep his nascent psychic powers from manifesting. This medication is very rare and usually available only to Inquisition Ordo Hereticus who use it to control detained psychics aboard Black Ships during warp-travel. As long as person is regularly taking his suppressive medication he is treated as a normal person with no psychic powers apart from Psyniscience skill.

In addition to suppressing nascent psychic powers the suppressive medication also guarantees some control over effects of Spook drug. If a person under suppressive medication takes a doze of Spook he only risks gaining 1 insanity point for the failed willpower roll and can manifest the power with simple willpower roll. In addition when rolling for random psychic power he can count the rolled dice in any desired order (i.e if he rolled 1 and 6 he can count the roll as 16 or 61).

If the person does not receive the medication for 1 full week he will go on withdrawal. During withdrawal from suppressive medication person has to make a Fear (1) test each for week or Fear (2) test for each day in warp. All normal insanity rules apply to these tests. If he purposefully attempts to “kick the habit” then addition to this he must make a willpower (-20) test to avoid taking the drugs anyway if they are available. From 2nd week on without the suppressive medication he must make toughness test each week or lose 1 point of willpower or intelligence. Full withdrawal will take 6 weeks. The withdrawal symptoms end instantly when he receives a new doze of suppressor and any future attempts of withdraw from the suppressors start again from zero.

If suppressed psyker survives a full withdrawal from suppressive medication then he is considered a Nascent Psyker and receives Nascent Powers trait. Effects of suppressive medication on fully developed psykers wary highly but long term use of suppressor on a full psyker is always extremely dangerous and possibly lethal to the psyker.

Very interesting. I just have a couple questions.

First, does the suppressed psyker show up as completely "normal" to other psyniscience users?

And second, does taking this background ensure a steady, adequate, supply of the suppressive medication? Or does the player have to somehow obtain it themselves?

I'm just curious, since I am considering allowing my players this option. I'd like to know how you are intending to handle these things.

Thanks in advance. And nice idea.

Sister Cat said:

As the suppressive medication would include minute amounts of the same chemical used in Psyk-out grenades I'd say on a very good roll (maybe 2 or 3 degrees) another psyniscience user could probably notice something weird but it would show up more like a very low-ability blank than a psyker.

The answer to the availability of the medication depends on what kind of campaign you are intending of running. In my campaign Ordo Hereticus is testing comparatively wide scale use of suppressants in Calixis sector and thus they have registered the suppressed psykers and the medication is dispensed to the lab ra... eh, I mean, registrated users by the Imperial Administratum.

However, I see no reason why a character couldn't be an unregistered user who is using the medication to avoid the trip to Black Ship. In this case he'd probably had to have high level criminal, clerical or perhaps noble contacts to get his hands into daily supply of suppressants.

Polaria said:

Thanks. That's what I was wondering, and it gives me a few ideas. I wonder how far the "wannabe-anything-but-a-psyker" character will go to get her medication when that Administratum clerk misplaces a decimal point or inverts a couple letters in the shipping address?

Good times!

While I like your rulesset, I wonder if the Imperium would even try to "surpress" a psykers in the first place? The Imperiums needs psykers to survive.

The unworsthy as the fodder for the Emporer and thereby for there only possibilites of navigating the Warp (Astronomicon)

Those worthy as Astropaths and to a view here and there for "special uses".

If the power is mighty enough to be usefull..****** him.
If it is to weak ... snuff him!

Afterall, life-long medical treatment costs a lot of money. Execution is much cheaper. And the imperium does not tend to be squirmish if it comes to (perceived) potential dangers.

Gregorius21778 said:

While I agree with this if you look at it from the vantage-point of the Imperium as a whole, I can certainly see certain individual secretive and powerful organizations/factions, like Ordo Hereticus in Polaria's example, that might want to experiment with "special uses" for these already "under-the-radar" individuals. Imagine a force of, say, Arbites, that are not psychic, have no power to draw on the warp, but that can be taught to sense others who can, and can sense when someone else does draw on the warp, if they actively look. Just sayin' ...

Gregorius21778 said:

Official Reason (told to the recipients of Suppressor medication):

Even though the constant supply of psykers is vital to the function of celestial choir and astronomicon and thus intsrumental for the continuance of the Imperium the Ecclesiarchy and Senatorum Imperialis is worried at the terrible cost of human lives we must pay as we constantly cull the psykers too weak to serve the Imperium as Sanctioned Psykers but still too strong to attract the terrible forces of the warp. In their infinite mercy the Ecclesiarchy and the Senatorum Imperialis have instituted a program which, if successful, would dramatically lower the need of permanently removing low ability psykers from population and instead would allow millions of citizens -who would have otherwise been doomed to be sacrificed for the greater good of mankind- continue their life in service of Mankind and the Imperium. This program will distribute so called "suppressive medication" to low ability psykers, completely neutralizing their nascent psychic potential and thus allowing them to function as normal, accepted citizens of the Imperium and contribute their full lives work to the glory of the Emperor.

The Cold Truth (told to the Inquisitors in charge of the program):

Psyk-out warheads, while effective, have proved out to be almost prohibitively costly weapons and even when combined with wide-area saturation orbital bombardment their coverage on planetary targets is still disappointingly lacking. However, we have started to test a new chemical system called "Suppressor Medication" which seems to have the capacity to render low-level psykers completely psy-neutral for extended periods of time. So far the research on this has shown extremely promising results but also a couple of problems. Still, I am confident that in maybe as short time as few hundred years we might have the capacity to neutralize whole worlds with orbitally deployed suppressive chemicals. When fully completed this system could be deployed to end large-scale planteray rebellions or civil disturbances including a sizable psykhic component in matter of hours. imagine how much easier it would be to neutralize a Genestealer Cult infestation if the first naval ship on range could saturate the whole planet with suppressive medication, thus yielding each and every psyker on the planet psykhically impotent for several years? Imagine how much smaller would the chance of serious demonic incidence on seldom patrolled frontier world be if the whole population would be inoculated with suppressors as a standard practice? Imagine space travel when all passengers except the navigators themselves could be chemically rendered with psykhic immunity during the travel? The possibilities are endless... and with the deployment of the suppressor test medication on Inquisitorial Detainment Facilities and few Imperila Worlds we've just started to scratch the surface...

Polaria, I applaude your spirit .

So, guess the "Treatment" handed to the "patients" is applied through an inhaler?

Gregorius21778 said:

Actually I had the character taking blue pills... just wait untill they introduce Spook to him. That would naturally be the red pill