I have just finished reading Ravenore. Which got me thinking about adverseries for my players.

Cognitae training could a skill giving a bonus to int test.

Enuncia is the use of sound to munipulate the energies of the warp producing effects like psychic powers,

Enuncia could be used by granting characters to purchase powers as if they were a psyker. The powers would be unchanged but when casting the character use Intelligence instead of Will power. This would also work with perils of the warp as mispromunciation would have the same effects.

Any thoughts or ideas welcome.

I haven't read the novel's, but enuncia sounds dangerously like sorcery (manipulation the warp through incantation and what not). Anyhoo, you may want to look into the rules for sorcery for guidelines.

P.S.- Could you elaborate on what enuncia is exactly.

Just read up on "Enuncia"

So here is an idea;

Whenever you cast a sorcery power you take 1d10 minus your willpower bonus in corruption points. Instead for Enuncia you could make it 1d10 damage minus toughness bonus (make sure it can't be healed by psychic powers).

Thanks for the suggestion. I will take a closer look at Sorcery when i get home next week.

pheonixlww said:

Take a look at the Blighted Schola Background (Radical's Handbook?). The fluff of that background clearly indicates that it is similar to the Cognitae.

I don't recall much on the Cognitae part, but I found Enuncia a really interesting idea, despite that Dan Abnett used it as a bit of a throwaway for the books. Shame, but nevermind.

Principally, I'd integrate it exactly as Sorcery. Sorcery covers a whole host of things, which seems quite viable to me.

The trouble, then, is thinking more closely on Enuncia. If anything, it's *sortof* like the Language of the Old Ones in Fantasy (none save the Slann could hear them speak, or something like that), or more accurately: the programming language/source code of the Universe given verbal execution.

Rough suggestion:

Elite Advance: Enunciate (200xp), +d5 Insanity Points, must have access to some sort of source for it. Only useable when you can speak, can't be non-vocal via Sublime Arts.

Adaptations to sorcery:
- Roll as normal.
- Willpower Test each time Enunciate Phrase is used so as to 'speak clearly'. If failed: roll D10 with +1 to the roll for each DoF. 1-5: D5 Fatigue. 6-9: D5 Wounds. 10: D10
- Each 9 rolled/instance of Psy Phenomena incurred will add a -10 penalty to the Willpower Test to speak clearly.

Acceptable? Slightly complex, I suppose, but I think it captures the feel of 'commanding the very structure of pan-reality'. (Pan-reality being my recently [last few seconds] made-up-phrase for including both the Warp and the Materium [and anywhere else] in the description of reality.)

I have to say, as an aside, I was more than a little dubious of the "Ravenor" books, all the way through, but in the end and even now, looking way back on them, I think they're really some of Abnett's best novels. I can't quite put my finger on it, more wholesome and developed than some of his other novels? Not better in a 'more awesome', but tighter, more adventurous, more room to let him flex his literary muscles in a good way. Hmm, difficult to describe.

Enuncia crops up again in Prospero Burns.

Uttering it doesnt seem to do too much damage, its mostly cosmetic. Split lips, loose teeth, mouth bleeds. It doesnt seem as flexible as Sorcery either, I've only read it used to attack. It seems a lot like a Power Word:Stun or :Kill from D&D.

I'd probably use some kind of Int or Skill check to indicate correct pronunciation, allow degrees of success to reduce feedback damage rather than cause additional damage.

Also, I dont think its warp related at all. Demons don't use it, its more "Building blocks of the Universe" themed rather than Warp related.

Xisor, I think you are being far, far to generous and at the same time underpowered.

The two instances of Enuncia that I am aware of, Ravenor and Prospero Burns , both by Dan Abnet, revolve around peoples heads and servitors exploding upon the utterance of a single syllable.

Good God, as if this setting needed to steal anything else from Dune. That's just blatantly appropriating the concepts of mentat training and the Bene Gesserit Voice.

Still, I guess if you're going to copy off someone, Frank Herbert isn't a bad choice.