Corruption

By Wolfie4, in Dark Heresy

I know that chaos corrupts, does it do so permanently, or is there a way to avoid an inevitable slide into destruction for the players? It doesn't have to be cheery, just not totally hopeless.

I don't play WFRP because it is too gloomy, and I was wondering if DH is a little less so...I know it's grim, but I don't want hopeless like that (warpstone everywhere, you are toast no matter what you do, that sort of thing). Please advise, as this may be a deal breaker for me...

If anything, Dark Heresy is even more hopeless and depressing than WFRP. As for corruption, there's a few specific instances where you gain corruption points but it's mostly up to GM.

As written, Corruption never goes away, there are talents which can slow the rate of acrual, but nothing that removes it.

If that doesn't work for you though, feel free to just ignore corruption entirely, or introduce ways to remove corruption points. Maybe by commiting acts which reafirm your humanity or belife in the Emperor a character can remove a few, perhaps theres a golden age device out there that clenses the soul? Finding a way to remove corruption points could form the principle aim of an entire campaign, but if its not something you want to play, just ignore it and play the kind of game your happy with.

Action_Carl said:

If anything, Dark Heresy is even more hopeless and depressing than WFRP. As for corruption, there's a few specific instances where you gain corruption points but it's mostly up to GM.

My thoughts exactly to the point.

One of the designers mentioned this on the old BI page.

You can burn one fate point to negate one corruption point. Otherwise a Sister of Battle with Corruption 11+ does not make sense...

Yes, according to the RAW, a character can not get rid of corruption points. The GM, as always, can make exceptions, but once the path to damnation has begun, there is no going back to a more innocent state. However, it's really not all that doom and gloom and your PC's won't all end up warp corrupted mutant freaks unless you really push for that.

I've been running my DH game for about a year or so now and the highest CP total that any character has achieved so far has been just a hair over 20... and she's a psyker. Granted, my group (being led by a heretics =I=) deal more with nut job cults, conspiracies, giant xenon beasts that have lain dormant for thousands of years and what not. Almost all of the CP's that the Psyker have are self inflicted, and all of the cp's that one of the party members has came for being too close to her.

The point; the amount of CP's that your characters gain is determined by the amount of warp tainted things and foes you toss at them. If you don't want that much corruption, then focus on heretics or xenon and keep demonic incursions to a minimum if at all. It would also help to make sure there's no psyker in the group. I understand why the AS hate them so much -they are little corruption magnets. It's only the doom and gloom of damnation if you, the GM, make it that way by tossing the horrors of the warp at your party. Lets face it, Ordo Mallious probably has the hardest row to hoe.

I don't really have anything constructive to add, but will lend a voice to the concept. The Grim Dark Future is only as grim and dark as your gm makes it. So, a pure and shining faith in the emperor, a brush with a living saint, benediction from a preacher with an amazing holy relic...any of these things can be used as a tool to remove corruption points. Granted, it's not rules as written, but we are the Emperors of our own game tables!