We're currently playing as undercover operatives on a Chaos infested planet (We sort of let the demons out by accident, but thats a different story) and have an untouchable in the party. And we've been discussing corruption for a few nights now, so I was wondering if anyone had any experiences/clarifications in that respect?

Basically we're a bit torn, since an untouchable doesnt have a warp presence, can he/she be corrupted in the same manner as normal people and psykers?

I argue that they can, by their actions and how they choose to serve the Emperor, whereas our psyker argues that since there is no warp presence, there is no soul to corrupt, and that their descisions and actions cannot corrupt them.. They simply just do it and live with it, not suffering the warp influence some of them might incur. Also we've been discussing passive corruption, i.e. being constantly affected by corruption, simply due to being on a world dominated by Chaos, and how that relates to untouchables. The scenario is a somewhat shorter version than the years of undercover resistance by Gaunt's Ghosts, where we are to disrupt Chaos on the planet untill we can be extracted somehow.

Any insights would be appriciated.

----

Khaine

Khaine said:

The Psyker may argue that their is no soul to corrupt, which I completely agree with. But, there is still flesh that can be as easily corrupted as any other man's. You may put in modifiers to whatever test to represent their untouchable status to give them a bonus towards it (which I feel is already represented by immunity to warp shock), but, otherwise that is my feelings towards it.

Sadly I have no insights but I wanted to support the side of untouchables being uncorruptable in the sould and the flesh. As I understand it psykers can only hurt or influence an untouchable indirekt - like dropping a boulder on them from a great hight like the rulebook suggests, for instance.

I'd say the same goes for daemons - they can only corrupt the untouchable indirect. There's nothing stopping a daemon from promising unlimited power if the untouchable would only do this or that. Or killing everyone and everything that the untouchable holds dear if he or she doesn't comply etcetera.

Of course, since the daemon won't be able to find out exactly what it is the untouchable desires or for that matter, even get close to the untouchable to begin with I'd say it's generally a lot easier to just choose another, touchable, target.

Sending an untouchable to do undercover work on a daemon held world sounds like a really good idea.

Sending an untouchable to do undercover work on a daemon held world sounds like a really good idea.

For not getting corrupted? Sure. For staying undercover? Not necessarily. A world held by chaos tends to have an above-average rate of psykers and we all know how psykers react to Nulls...

@Topic

That depends on how you view Corruption. In my opinion, Corruption always means contact with the warp, via sorcery, presence of a daemon nearby or even just becoming attractive to a warp entity who decides to pay some attention to you. And that's exactly what Untouchables can't have.
Meaning yes, except for very specific circumstances, Nulls are immune to Corruption.

Cifer said:

...actually I do not know. Or at least, I always thought that a null or untouchable simply did not register or even existed when concerning the warp and by extension, psykers. Can I assume I have it wrong?

bladerunner_35 said:

Well, according to the fluff, psykers, depending on how powerful they are, feel anything from an utter sense of wrongness from a null, to actively being repulsed and sickened by their presence. They generally don't react to it well.

You can fine more info on how psykers feel around nulls in the Eisenhorn trilogy, Ravenor trilogy, and the first Ciaphas Cain omnibus.

bladerunner_35 said:

Where the warp is concerned, perhaps. But a Null is still there. In the weakest of cases, a psyker (or, for that matter, anyone) observing a Null may well register the incongruous nature of a man who you can see and hear, yet who your instincts and psychic senses tell you is not there (all humans are, to some minor extent, psychic; Nulls are generally loathed because people can sense something wrong about them). With a more powerful Null, it's worse - at that point it's not the absence of a discernable soul, but rather a howling psychic black hole that replaces it, consuming psychic energy in its vicinity.

That's funny. I am almost finished reading the Ravenor trilogy and I am taking the exact opposite experience from it.

SPOILER:

When the cohorts of Molotch are searching for Ravenor (or any strong psyker really) in Eustus Majoris using no less than five of their own psykers, Ravenor simply have his untouchable blank them out. The hunting psykers cannot "see" them at all. If there was a raging black hole of nothingness then they would surely have found them in an instant.

As I've said, I am not exactly up to speed on this and am reluctant to debate it but what you say really seem to go against the concept of a null or untouchable (as I have come to understand it).

Maybe we are taking different perspectives - I can see how a null would stand out to a psyker if they were in the same room or relatively close to eachother. But on the other hand if the psyker were unaware of the null to begin with I do not see how he will ever even know he existed.

I always figured that one of the reasons that untouchables were so revolting to other people (including psykers) were because they were "not-there" even when they clearly was there. Meaning that while being close people realise there is something wrong, something terrible is missing, but that's only at close range.

I'll probably reread Eisenhorn before long and I'll keep a look out for this. Any other references would be cool.

Lore says following on Untouchables:

They are null-entities in the warp, their unnatural lack of a presence inspiring even in non-psykers a sense of unease. To psykers their mere presence is terrifying, invoking panic. To purely psychic entities like daemons, they are invisible.

So they should be completely invulnerable to corruption of soul... Corruption of the body, however, is a bit tricky. Mutants are born not only of Warp, but also by biological and chemical agents produced by the daemons. Things like Obliterator Virus and Nurgle's Rot could inflict Untouchable as easy as anyone else so it is safe to assume that Untouchables gain Corruption Points just like everyone else... in their case it just represents the dangers of physical corruption arising from spending time exposed to strange radiations, viruses, funguses and chemicals of Chaos.

Untouchables pretty much always require careful case-by-case approaches by the GM as they are (quite literally) human pariahs and many of the metaphysical "truths" of the Warhammer universe simply do not apply to them. How I would handle Corruption Points for an Untouchable is to grant them a special immunity: If the corruption is from warp exposure, being near a psyker or something like this then they gain no CP from the experience and are generally baffled as to why their companions are wretching, reeling, holding their heads in pain and so on. Expose the same Untouchable to "chemicals Man was not meant to know"TM or some other ENVIRONMENTAL (non-supernatural) cause then they get to put up with the same risks as the other acolytes.

Likewise, in the unusual event that an Untouchable somehow gains enough CP to develop side effects I would ignore any results on the corruption table that were in any way Warp-related and have them re-roll. Suddenly able to see into the Warp? Nope, re-roll. Constant exposure to mysterious glowing semi-viscous goo in the underhive of a Forge World while on a mission leads to a deadened nerve-endings mutation? Sounds about right.

bladerunner_35 said:

Not an issue, really. The psykers were projecting, and consequently using only psychic senses. From a distance, and using only psychic senses, the aura of an untouchable is simply a black patch against a field of black, an area of emptiness that is easy to overlook. As the psykers are incapable of seeing (in this case) Wystan Frauka directly using their own eyes, they can't try and match up the incongruity of his simultaneous physical presence and psychic absence.

From a practical perspective, and given the generally disruptive effect untouchables have on nearby Psykers, I can't imagine that such a recognition is automatic, and likely requires relatively close proximity (being stood in the same room, for example), and probably a knowledge of what an untouchable is in order to discern one accurately. In rules terms, I'd probably request a Psyniscience test for a psyker to tell if someone was an untouchable.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

That is more or less exactly what I meant in my post above, so cool.

Note that the rules for Untouchables in the RH mentions them being explicitly immune to Warp Shock. However, very rarely the Warp can affect Untouchables (one of the results in the RT Perils of the Warp table mentions Untouchables only taking half damage).

I think it's funny that, as this thread reveals, the rules for mutation make the Warp and other sources of mutation overlap. I guess this kind of fits the universe, though, and as far as anyone but maybe an Archmagos Biologis would know, one form of mutation can easily lead to another. Of course, Untouchables are mutants in the first place...

Also note that the Power Soul Sight mentions that it takes a basic success with the Power to discover that a person is an Untouchable. The reactions noted for a certain NPC in the House of Dust and Ash may also be a good guide to the typical reaction in game, for both normal PCs and Psykers.

So they should be completely invulnerable to corruption of soul... Corruption of the body, however, is a bit tricky. Mutants are born not only of Warp, but also by biological and chemical agents produced by the daemons. Things like Obliterator Virus and Nurgle's Rot could inflict Untouchable as easy as anyone else so it is safe to assume that Untouchables gain Corruption Points just like everyone else... in their case it just represents the dangers of physical corruption arising from spending time exposed to strange radiations, viruses, funguses and chemicals of Chaos.

Don't know about the Obliterator Virus, but Nurgle's Rot IMO has a very distinctive and necessary warp component. Depending on how benevolent you feel, I'd say nulls are either immune or carriers, but definitiely not afflicted.

This one IS an interesting question. If a null severs a psyker's link to the warp, do they sever all links? Put an alternative way, if you got enough nulls near the Eye of Terror, would it close? The idea of a null actually cutting all warp-contact seems not just too powerful, but too useful. If it's the case of a Culexus Assassin which has been enhanced with arcane technology and trained to project their psychic void, sure - but a normal, run-of-the-mill why-is-everybodyalways-picking-on-me null?

But there doesn't seem to be any consistent way of reading all the text/fluff/rules and getting an answer to this one.

We have copious examples of things being corrupted physically that don't have souls. Tanks, titans, buildings, guns, WHOLE PLANETS. Material objects suffer physical warping and degradation when exposed to warp energies for extended periods of time.

An analogy would be, a human is born with a brain completely immune to radiation. His body however breaks up and decays from radiation exposure. A null has a soul immune to the warp (or the lack of a soul that means they can't be affected - you can't get footrot if you don't have feet sort of thing - although I know you can) but their body isn't immune to the warp.

Corruption of the body and soul can affect one another (so gaining physical corruption can cause spiritual corruption although not alway and vice versa) but a null simply suffers corruption of the body.

Hellebore

Hellebore said:

The difference between buildings and untouchables being corrupted is that the untouchable is strengthening the barrier between the warp and realspace while the buildings are merely not altering the barrier (compared to psykers which pull things through the barrier). So the untouchable should at least have quite a lot of resistance to bodily corruption, but they can be corrupted if something powerful enough tries to.

If we read the rules Untouchables "null aura" serves to make psychic powers harder to manifest. Harder, but not impossible.

Also, Untouchables themselves are immune to actual psychic effects but not collateral damage resulting from use of psychic powers. It also bears noting that Untouchable status grants a person no immunity against daemons, corrupters, gargoyles or any other physical manifestation of warp, even though those things are quite definitely "created" by warp itself.

If daemons or chaos-cultists use warp-magic to conjure up some nasty gamma-radiation, super-potent DDT or a mutant strain ebola-virus... Well, then all bets are off. They maybe created by warp but the Untouchable has as little resistance against them as he has against, for example, claws of a daemonette.

So yes, I'd say Untouchable can most definitely be corrupted bodily and twisted (go insane) in mind, too.

Hellebore said:

Thing is, it's not quite that simple.

A chair, tank, sword, gun, rubber duck or space hopper is 'soulless' in the sense that it lacks the psychic presence of a normal sentient, sapient creature... but it isn't completely dead to the Warp like an Untouchable. If they were, then you'd be unable to affect inanimate objects with psychic powers.

Untouchables are, then, a definable something else when it comes to the Immaterium; they're not just ambulatory meat with no soul. Instead, the thing that dwells within them in place of a discernible soul as 41st Millennium metaphysics defines it somehow influences the Warp in a particular way so as to render body, mind and soul immune to the touch of the Warp and disrupt its influence within the immediate vicinity (otherwise flames conjured by a psyker could harm their flesh, for example, because psychic or not, fire burns).

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Yes, this is the problematic part. However, I'll still hold my ground and say that Untouchable can be bodily corrupt by daemons and the logic is this:

A psyker channels energies of the warp. Untouchable is a object where no channel to warp can exist and the null aura radiating from him works by specifically breaking the channeling (call it static). Thus even if the psyker manages to summon up enough will to pull the energy through the static and summon a fire bolt to throw at the untouchable the fire bolt is not a real piece of real, flaming material (if it was its damage would be equal to throwing someone with a wad of flaming paper, i.e almost notihng) it is an active energy channel and its existence during the flight to the target is still dependant on the channel being kept open... so when it "hits" the Untouchable the channel is cut off and the fire simply vanishes.

A manifested daemon is a pile of warp matter and energy brought into materium. There is no channel there to disrupt. This is real matter and real energy right here, right now. The presence of the Untouchable makes it harder for the daemon to manifest in the first place and makes "killing" the daemon easier because the daemon cannot open a channel to warp to draw fresh energy and has to make do with what it has. However, the daemon can (and probably will) still rip the Untouchable apart, radiate him, infect him and all that...

Imagine it like this. Fire burns Untouchable and smoke still suffocates and hurts his lungs, right? A psyker is the fuel line of the psychic flame thrower but Untouchable holds the switch on the fuel line. The flame thrower could, theoretically, burn the hell out of the Untouchable but as long as he prevents any fuel from getting to the flame throwers nozzle the flamer can't hurt the Untouchable. A daemon is a 1000 pound pile of gasoline and burning tires. There is no fuel line there and none is needed as it will burn long and bright and release the smoke. The Untouchable can prevent anyone from pumping more gasoline into the pyre but if he gets close to it he'll still get burnt and poisoned.

Polaria said:

I can see the reasoning, but I don't agree with it.

Fundamentally, the abilities of a psyker - or, indeed, any interaction between reality and the stuff of the Warp - alters reality. The presence of Warp energy is inherently disruptive to the natural laws that govern reality, and at the behest of a psyker that disruption can be made to take particular forms.

A Pyromancer conjures a Fire Bolt. He has reached into the Warp and brought about a change in reality that allows for a flame to appear from nowhere. If disrupted by the presence of an Untouchable, reality reverts, and the flame ceases to be - the conditions that allow it to exist without fuel or ambient heat (or, theoretically, oxygen) are removed, and the flame vanishes. The Untouchable may feel momentary heat - like the rush of hot air you get when you open an oven to remove something you've cooked - but the flame can't exist, so it flickers from existence. The fire produced by a Pyromancer is inherently impossible.

If that fire bolt strikes a puddle of weapons-grade Promethium, however, the fuel ignites, just as it would if a mundane fire struck it. An Untouchable's presence would not stop that blaze - the impossible fire has found conditions that allow it to exist without the will of a Psyker.

The powers of a Psyker - indeed, all the influences of the Immaterium - produce impossible effects, but those effects are still real, and so long as they can continue to exist without warp energy to sustain them (a boulder thrown by a Telekine retains momentum if the psyker ceases to will it, but a boulder suspended by a Telekine will fall if no longer willed to stay aloft).

A Daemon, then, is the next step up. It is created (or rather, manifested) by the influence of the Warp upon reality, but once there, it is a real, tangible thing. It manifests an anatomy of sorts, is subject to things like gravity and time, and so forth. Its nature is still impossible in many ways, but not so impossible that it simply ceases to exist in the presence of an Untouchable - the context of its manifestation is sufficient to allow it to exist in the real world to some extent. Its claws will still lacerate, its blades will still cleave... but those are only the least of its abilities, the elements of its being least susceptible to the disruption caused by the presence of an Untouchable.

But the corrupting influence of the Warp is just that - it is of the Warp, and thus will not appear upon an Untouchable. They can still be mutants - physical and genetic mutation are still entirely possible, as they aren't necessarily the result of contact with the Warp - they can still be corrupted (in the mundane sense), and their sanity can be harmed, but the Warp cannot taint what it cannot truly touch

@N0-1

A Daemon, then, is the next step up. It is created (or rather, manifested) by the influence of the Warp upon reality, but once there, it is a real, tangible thing. It manifests an anatomy of sorts, is subject to things like gravity and time, and so forth. Its nature is still impossible in many ways, but not so impossible that it simply ceases to exist in the presence of an Untouchable - the context of its manifestation is sufficient to allow it to exist in the real world to some extent. Its claws will still lacerate, its blades will still cleave... but those are only the least of its abilities, the elements of its being least susceptible to the disruption caused by the presence of an Untouchable.

But the corrupting influence of the Warp is just that - it is of the Warp, and thus will not appear upon an Untouchable. They can still be mutants - physical and genetic mutation are still entirely possible, as they aren't necessarily the result of contact with the Warp - they can still be corrupted (in the mundane sense), and their sanity can be harmed, but the Warp cannot taint what it cannot truly touch

Got to agree there. The sanest way to handle daemon/null interaction IMO would be to partition daemonic abilties into those that are pretty physical and those that aren't. A bloodletter whacking the null would be mundane enough for it to work by the "telekinetic rock theory" (assuming the bloodletter can perceive the null in the first place) while a Horror's magical flames would fail to sear the null.

@M'Kachen

This one IS an interesting question. If a null severs a psyker's link to the warp, do they sever all links? Put an alternative way, if you got enough nulls near the Eye of Terror, would it close? The idea of a null actually cutting all warp-contact seems not just too powerful, but too useful. If it's the case of a Culexus Assassin which has been enhanced with arcane technology and trained to project their psychic void, sure - but a normal, run-of-the-mill why-is-everybodyalways-picking-on-me null?

Er... you mean a normal, run-of-the-mill, one-in-a-million-psykers null?

As for the Eye of Terror... well, the Necrons are aiming a little higher than that.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

The problem (if one wants to see it as problem) in your explanation is that it actually does not prevent Utnouchables being corrupted by daemons as long as they play by the rules of mundane physics:

Daemon of Nurgle creates a plague that causes mutations in humans, this plague is not "psychic" but plain old viral plague. Then he injects the virus into rat. Now it exists in mundane physics. The rat bites the Untouchable, infecting him... Nothing "impossible" has happened and Untouchable will get mutated.

Daemon creates gamma radiation and radiates the super structure of space ship, causing it to turn radioactive. Now the originally "impossible" gamma-radiation hjas cause mundane material to become radioactive and emit more gamma rays. Untouchable enters the ship, becomes radiated...

N0-1_H3r3 said:

(**** the Edit function for being time-limited)

Okay, I can relate to your opinion on this. But how do you trasfer this to the rules of the game? Rules-as-written on the Untouchables (DotDG) do not give Untouchables any resistance or immunity against corruption points or malignancies. If we check at the RAW corruption points are gathered by following ways:

- Failing a fear check induced by daemon or other creature of warp

- Reading or studying sorcerous or daemonic texts, art, picture or other documents

- Being near a rift into warp

- Making pacts with daemons

- Using sorcery

Obviously Untouchable would be unable to use sorcery and but how about the other things? How would you handle them ruleswise and explain them? I personally don't want to give Untouchables an unconditional immunity to all things bad and evil so I'll go with RAW and slap them with corruption points just like everyone else. If asked to explain this I'll say that for Untouchables corruption points represent the psychological and psychosomatic symptoms as their mind and personality is slowly breaking up under the weight of witnessing things-man-was-not-meant-to-know.

Polaria said:

According to the Untouchable background package in The Radical's Handbook (page 38), an untouchable has the following immunities:

"An untouchable is completely immune to Psychic Powers, psychic energy and effects directed against them (as well as warp powers, possession, sorcery, Corruption from warp shock, and so forth)."

Additionally, the sidebar on the same page states that they can't enter Dark Pacts with a warp entity.

Polaria said:

That's Corruption from warp shock; the untouchable is immune.

Polaria said:

No, nothing to prevent that, assuming that the texts or other media in question are entirely mundane in all ways save for the subjects they depict... though in that case, the item is more likely to simply cause Insanity rather than Corruption. If, at any point, the influence of the Warp becomes involved (the book is tainted or brings forth daemons when read aloud, the painting is possessed, etc), then the untouchable remains immune.

Polaria said:

Immunity to psychic energy covers that.

Polaria said:

Covered by the sidebar - they can't make the pacts in the first place, so they can't gain any corruption from doing so.

Polaria said:

Untouchables can't gain or use Sorcery, Psychic Powers or Faith talents.

It's not an immunity to Corruption... but it is an immunity to the things that cause Corruption.