Greetings FFG.

Once again, I come to you with a problem. In the finale to our campaign, which concluded this night, many a corruption point was dealt out and more than one acolyte found themselves permanently marred by the warp. This was pretty straightforward, except for our assassin, who fell foul of the malignancy Ashen Taste . I'll be blunt when I say I'm actually at quite a loss as to what it does.

The text reads "The character doubles the negative effects for levels of fatigue." I'm inclined to read this as "The -10 penalty for suffering fatigue (the negative penalty ) is doubled to -20 whenever this character is fatigued".

However, I can also see it interpreted as "The character takes 2 levels of fatigue instead of 1 for every point of fatigue suffered." I can also see it being both at the same time (especially considering how much sway there is between some lenient malignancies and some which are downright inhumane).

I'd like to not be a complete bastard to the character; the poor guy is already claustrophobic, suffers intense nightmares every night, and now this (one player suggested he nuke his tastebuds into oblivion to ease his suffering), but I'd like a RAW-answer if anyone has it, if only to give a level baseline of understanding.

Any takers?

As it says "effect" specifically I was of the mind that it was the the -20 for fatigue and not 2 per instance of accumulation. Fluff wise, it talks about how being fatigued is worse for the person due to the fact it's harder to satisfy due to things losing their pleasant taste.

I agree with Filadan. The text specifically says the "effect of fatigue", as opposed to just "fatigue" or "levels of fatigue". Go with the -20.

The Hobo Hunter said:

It's -20, doubling fatigue levels he'll be unconcious fairly quickly, I'd run with RAW rather than an interpretation. Course, this kind of effect can be negated medically if he's just on a glucose drip every now and then for not eating... or have the guardsman sit on him while the tech priest shoves paste down his throat, if he complains overly much there is the suppository option.