In many of the illustrations in Rogue Trader and many more illustrations in the Dark Heresy show people with long Ribbons of Text on them. What exactly are these things? I can't seem to find anything in the rules about this. Am I missing something?
My guess would be that these are some sort of ward against “the warp” or “chaos” or ... something ... or perhaps they are just superstition?

Are they some sort of artifact from the miniature games?

Were they just put in the illustrations for flavor?

Do they have any effect on game play?

Inquiring minds want to know!

T

They are just flavor. You will continue to see them...

I think what you are referring to may be purity seals. These are strips of parchment secured to armour by wax (or, in special cases, precious metals) that are inscribed with prayers or oaths of moment (the latter being largely an Astartes thing). They symbolise the purity of the wearer (their lack of Chaos taint), and, to my knowledge, have no in-game mechanical effect.

Well that's good to know ....

I kept thinking I was missing something.

T

They are religious in nature. In game you might treat them as charms or give social bonuses. Someone with true faith might get a 5-10 bonus for it on faith related rolls. Also you might give a 5-10 willpower bonus to resist daemonic powers. Other than that it's just part of the look of setting.

I'd think that Purity Seals definitely fall under the definition of Charms (page 139 RT rulebook).

Any particularly pious PCs who roleplay out having the Purity Seals tended to before major battles should count as carrying an extra charm or two. Beyond that, no, they shouldn't have any extra in-game effect.

For the Adepta Sororitas, each purity seal represents a horror that the particular Sister has encountered and overcome. I'm not sure if "common people" assign a similar meaning to their purity seals, but I suppose it's possible that they do.

So would you say ... use a charm to add a +1 to an attribute to help with "rounding" issues?

For example, If I have a 39 in Strength, a mere +1 would really come in handy!

Troy812 said:

Althought they're now they are largely just illustrative, or a charm in DH/RT parlance, they did have a mechanical effect in the 4th Edition era of the wargame. Codex Space marines equipped with them could adjust their fall back distance, and for Black Templar players they were knows as Crusader Seals - allowing a movement adjustment to a special ability called Righteous Zeal.

So, what everyone else said was true, but there is a mechanical history to them.

Troy812 said:

In my opinion, this would be an abuse of a house rule (since there's no official mechanic for them, that I know of). The way charms generally work is that, when something randomly bad needs to happen to a member of the group (e.g. a heretic sees the group and takes a shot at one of the acolytes), one who has a charm may, at the GM's discretion, be more lucky than the others.

In that example, say, if you have four acolytes and one has a charm: 1-3 it's Player 1, 4-6 it's Player 2, 7-9 it's Player 3, and only on a 10 is it Charm-possessing Player. Alternatively, the player with a charm may even be left out of potential badness altogether.

Charms are discussed on Page 146 in the DH rulebook, and the entry explicitly says "Charms have no tangible benefits."

But, given it would be a house rule on what effect purity seals might have, if your GM is especially indulgent, perhaps they would say that, under special circumstances, they do add +1 to a relevant stat, or grant a reroll!

Edit: Apologies for a DH-centric answer in the RT forum. The above equally applies if a trade delegation goes wrong and the RT and their retinue come under fire from angry xenos...

As a GM, I'd be reluctant to have charms of any kind grant straight stat bonuses. The reason the character has them is for reasons that are less than tangible. I would be prepared to have them grant situational bonuses - the Missionary confronting some Warp-thing that just materialised onto the bridge could wave his charm at the predator in utter conviction that the Emperor will grant him strength through the icon and therefore gain +1 to melee damage from his sheer determination

They could provide social benefits. For example the Arch Militant bearing numerous well tended religeous charms could have an easier time with the Ecclesiarchy (and a correspondingly harder time with their rivals).

The ribbons, like many other trinkets and adornments that we can see in the illustrations that FFG and Games-Workshop produce, merely add to the back ground, history, etc of the 40k universe.

I really like Tullio's response above and would tend to agree that we shouldn't search for a definitive stat bonus for everything. Instead we should reward the inventive Player for his / her use of said item. Such as a Xeno Pelt Cloak, why does it have to have a related stat bonus, why can't it just add to that characters history? Maybe he's a big game hunter, maybe it’s a rare beast that coffers a level of status with his tribe or cult, and if the GM decides then it might add a small influence % bonus when interacting with that tribe or cult.