Pity poor Specialist Bax...

Some facts... My campaign, rather than being agents of the Holy Ordos, the PCs are part of the command squad of a Guard platoon assign to a relief mission on the outskirts of a small hive city (which may or may not be Tranch just prior to the Pale Throng uprising). Specialist Bax is one of the NPCs who rounds out the command squad. He's the vox officer and "company clerk." One of the PCs, Sergeant Mir, is a Nascent Psyker. Specialist Bax was with Mir when she used one of her psychic powers, triggering the psychic phenomena Warp Madness, causing Frenzy and granting corruption to all those nearby... including the unfortunate Bax.

Our session ended with the other PCs recovering the unconcious Mir and Bax, and taking them back to their base camp. Bax was in convulsions and is now drugged into unconciousness himself.

The question, as the title says, is what do to about Bax? Now, Warp Madness only grants 1 Corruption Point, but I tend to take to heart the sidebar Chaos and the Common Citizen, which says that Corruption oints are for PCs and the average mook suffers madness and death. I could just kill him, the grimdark price of a rogue psyker paid by an essentially innocent bystander. I could have him shrug it off and continue with only 1 CP and no lasting ill effects. I could have him survive but be tainted by his brush with the Warp.

I'm curious what others might do with poor Bax...

LuciusT said:

Definitely option number three! Psykers, especially the unsanctioned ones, are a danger to themselves and all those around them and this is a golden opportunity to show that. The real danger isn't in their power, or peoples heads 'splodin' around them, it's in the simple small corruption creep they allow to happen and you now have a poster-child for corruption creep! Consider Bax to be a warning sign to what lays ahead of the PCs if they serve for any great time with the nascent psyker. They might be holding it off better, but poor Bax, well, he'll be the first casualty.

Like i said, no head popin'. For this, something more insidious and slow on the coming is required, like a cough that isn't checked that turns into pneumonia that eventually turns fatal. Right now, he's just coughing, but it will get worse. Don't gage it on CPs, just let your gut and the pace of the story dictate his degradation. Start real small, maybe pick a malignancy you like and apply it and then start slowly building on it and it's theme. He has bad dreams that turn to waking dreams that turn to actual thoughts that turn to actions kind of chain reaction. The PCs might not notice at first of or for a little while, but eventually they should notice that Bax is soul-sick. Perhaps he will turn into a danger for them, but, even better, if they like him, then perhaps he will likely never be a direct and overt danger to them. Instead, he vents his sickness, his impulses and wrong thoughts on the enemy so he can justify it to himself, then civilians, but never the PCs forcing them to have to execute him, murder in cold sobbing blood the hollow blubbering wretched husk that was once Bax after a long and slow corruption creep. maybe by then, they would have gained a malignancy because of the nascent psyker, maybe they would have started feeling a bit sick as well...

I opt for the other end of the scale. If merely one point of corruption is enough to doom an npc, .... well think about it yourself. A little "heavy handed" for my taste.

Take it as the development of "bad stroke", a little change in personality. Something the pc will notice. Perhaps old Bax now has minor change in the direction of a bad temper (if he was mild mannered before). Perhaps hes is know into very cruel jokes.

This will subtley play out the "corruption" but there is nothing a pc can do about it. It gives the players nice rpg opportunity as they are "starting to worry about Bax"...and if they ever slip up, they might have stories to tell about "good ol´Bax.... never was quiet the same again after this...incident".

As soon as it is 10 point or more, I say "free hand for the GM". My Dusk-Group had a rather fresh soon-to-be-priest with them whom never happend to leave his Monastry for to long a period of time. After he had amassed more then 10 points, he turned quiet insane. After a short flight of a manical shock he know has suicidal tendencies since he thinks the cannot stand all of this any longer. Now, our pc have a steady eye on "Brother Anathel" and his "spirituell well-being"

Thanks for the input guys.