Hey guys...kinda new to the fourm...i have a question about deamons and what not....i have a void master in my party {i am the rogue trader} that is looking to either get possed or atleast start worshiping a Khorn deamon...he has talked about geting the malefic codex to sit down and learn some forbidin lore becuse his class advancment do not alow him to get it....i am a bit dumb on the gods of chaos...all i need to know if this is something that i need to be worried about...My RT is a guy that doesnt go one way or the other...he skirts the fence...using anything that can help him alsong as it doesnt hurt him...also im woundering what he malefic codex is also...thanks

ZaZZ

No, just no. The moment the character says this to the group (not the player, but actually the character in-game) you should all shoot him, purge his remains and send the poor bastard's soul into oblivion.

Rogue Traders and their crew are still members of the Imperium, and you all follow Imperial law and belief, and as such, all Daemon Worshipers should be purged, since they represent a threat to mankind. It's important to note that you got your Warrant to to make things for the Imperium of Manking (conquest planets, make colonies, retrieve lost technology, kill xenos, etc). Be allowing such heresy on your ship you will get your Warrant revoqued as soon as the news spread, plus all your Dynasty will be marked as heretics and hunted one by one to purge them all. On the best possible outcome, you will survive and scape deep into the Koronus Expanse, forced to live as pirates and outcasts. Never to set foot on Imperial worlds again. Time to convert your characters to Black Crusade.

Also you should note that it's not only the Void Master who is ging to get Corrupted, but the deamon will slowly spread corruption among the Crew and all other Explorers. Oh, and if the Void Master ever gets possessed, it's time for him to make another PC, since a permanently possessed character it's an NPC.

A Codex is just a big book and the type of Codex he's speaking of is just one that would have information on the dark diety Khorne. Typically in the Imperium this is a big no, no, ie if most people catch him with it they'd turn him over or kill him themselves (not to say there aren't cults out there he could find and talk to).

As for the former comenter pay no heed to them. You're not playing this game to railroad people as loyal to the God Emperor you're playing it to have fun, if some player wants to do this let them (but react accordingly within your character). Some (most) will see this as Heresy and kill the player, this does not state how YOU must react though. Typically though if you're playing a normally "Good" character or even a neutral one, you're going to want to get rid of them as soon as possible and hide the evidence that it ever occured. You have a ton of power but the last thing you need is the inquisition on your back.

thanks guys...both info is nice and is practily how i think...thanks

Dark Bunny Lord said:

I'm not sure you are going to have much fun once you get your Warrant revoqued. A Chaos Worshiper shouldn't be just a player choice, everyone on the group must be cool with it, because if Inquisition gets their nose on your ship, everyone is screwed. A player is allowed to have all the fun he wants, but for as long as he doesn't **** on everyone else fun. If most of the grout is Imperial loyal or al least neutral, they probably won't like to have a Chaos Worshiper of Khorne on their ship. Plus I don't think the Khorne-worshiper player is going to have much fun if the rest of the party turns on him and tries to kill him.

What I'm saying is not that you shouldn't allow it, but just be sure everyone on the game group understand the consecuences and is cool with that. You also need to consider two other things:

1) What I said about possessed characters still holds true. A deamon is controlling the body, so it´s an NPC since your character's consciousness is trapped inside his own mind. Unless the group can exorcise the deamon, or the GM allows you to play the deamon, you will have to make a new character (which isn't fun at all).

2) A Chaos Worshiper will earn a lot of Corruption points during the game. Once you reach 100 CP, you loose your character (although you probably will be a horrific mutant by then). Again, doesn't seem very fun if the player does not understand this.

The best thing you could all do is gather togheter and have a little chat about what you want to do during the game, and if a Chaos Worshiper is or isn't a good idea for that kind of game.

Maese Mateo said:

That's stupid for a few reasons.

1) They're not automatically going to get their warrant revoked. You'd need an inquisitor sitting there on your ship. I'm pretty sure the guy isn't walking around shouting how much he loves Khorne and asking the inquisition for human sacrifices. The inquisitions presence in the Kronus expanse is extremely limited do to the limited established colonies of it. Not only that but rogue traders are constantly consorting with xenos, mutants, psykres, traversing through the warp, etc. If an Inquisitor was all gun ho to screw the PC's they wouldn't need a chaos worshiper to do so as they'd have a litteral christmas list full of reasons.

2) If a player wants to follow chaos it SHOULD be a choice. There are consiquences in game in the form of corruption points. The GM is the ultimate judge on what will happen but in the end it all depends on how good the character is at hiding the fact. Without the option for corruption the game becomes dull like a dungeons and dragons game where everyone plays a lawful-stupid paliden.

3) If your warrant is revoked so what? It just means you can't do legite buisiness (unless you get one forged which a high int character with the proper trade could do). Again if the GM is constraining the players then that is not a gaming group I'd want to be in. Number one rule as any GM is you let your players play the type of game they want to play with only limited restrictions, cornering them into playing how you want them to play is just gong to wind up with a frustrated player base.

4) If the rest of the group has trouble with it it's not at all difficult to vent them into the void and cover the whole thing up. Again the chaos player isn't (unless they're extremely retarded) be running around shouting about how much they love Khorne and even if they did who do you think is bound to get wind of it first? The PC's. If they choose not to take proper recourse then so be it.

Now you just contradicted yourself:

"A Chaos Worshiper shouldn't be just a player choice"

"What I'm saying is not that you shouldn't allow it..."

As for possession worshiping a chaos god =/= possession. The character would have to be a very unlucky psyker or go through a binding ritual, both of which are not neccessary to worship chaos.

As for corruption yes, you're right, if a player did not know that would suck however when was that ever insinuated to be the case?

It doesn't change the fact that, as a character and the Rogue Trader on his own ship, he should shoot the living hell out of that man and never look back.

As a Rogue Trader, you skirt the law. You may even end up breaking it. But when your crewmembers start talking about actually setting up cults or actively worshipping demons, it is time to pull out the bolter and put a stop to it for your own good.

Hell, one of the characters I rolled up is basically a full-fledged heretek. But even he would probably shoot first and ask questions later in this instance.

Fgdsfg said:

I'd assume there'd be plenty of RTers that think they could control the guy, even if he did end up being possessed. Being a RT is all about power, and a rather large percentage got their warrant to get rid of them ... which is a prime way for Chaos to start getting a grasp on their scorned ambitions. I'd assume at least 1% of all RTers will eventually start dealing with Chaos, or experimenting with it in an effort to increase their power base.

Dark Bunny Lord said:

Fgdsfg said:

Except that he DIDN'T say he told the rogue trader he was intending on worshiping chaos, he told the rogue trader he was looking for a maelfic codex to learn forbidden lores. JUST like the inquisition might.

Yes if his real words where "hey I need to worship some daemons" then of course even the most radical of the inquision wouldn't do that (though they certainly have studied Chaos and even bound demons inside many people or even learned to bind them to their will in more extreme cases), instead he was looking for a book ABOUT demons to study them (at least from what the OP said this was the information that has gotten across).

It seems as if you've cobbled together a scenario that didn't happen.

Dark Bunny Lord said:

Just to make it clear for anyone who reads this thread, everything I was saying (like Efidm) is applicable if your fellow explorer friend says "Nice day to start worshiping Khorne" in-game to everyone else. If he just says he wants to study deamons (maybe he can say as an excuse that he wants to learn how to kill them for the benefit of the whole Dynasty), most Rogue Traders will just let him do that (unless your characters is an Imperial zealot).

If your group has access to Into the Storm, I highly recommend your friend to read the "Glympse from Beyond" elite advance package. He can take the Deamonology specialization. After that, if the still likes the idea, he could turn into Sorcery (i forgot which book has the rules, sorry).

EDIT:

I just realised I said something very stupid. He can't be a Sorcerer if he's going to start worshiping Khorne. Or at least he can't use his sorcerous powers if he has them.

Maese Mateo said:

Dark Bunny Lord said:

Maese Mateo said:

@FDSG

"But if someone near you is flat-out stating that he's thinking about actively worshipping the ruinous powers"

"You're literally arguing against a position no-one has taken"

Cute, you can't remember one post back, are you done yet?

Also, I was looking through The Radical's Handbook for Dark Heresy just now, and if you have access to it, there is definitely some good inspirations in it. Notably, I'd read through pages 40-72 , covering Alternate Career Ranks and Elite Advance Packages in the vein of a radical. You might have to poke at them some to make them entirely Rogue Trader -worthy, but I'd take a look at the Malefic Scholar and Warp Dabbler Alternate Career Ranks and the Daemon Vessel Elite Advance Package .

Dark Bunny Lord said:

I'm not sure what you're getting at. You're attacking strawmen of your own construction, seemingly spawned out of your inability to read.

No-one has "cobbled together a scenario that didn't happen" . The only way you'd interpret the discussion as such is if you're being obtuse or trolling.

In which case you're failing hard.

Fgdsfg said:

You might want to stop with the strawman claims when I just quoted you insinuating that his scenario had the player going to the RT and saying something he never did. That is quite clearly what I was commenting on, how you missed this I have no idea especially when I brought up the quotes once again from your very post. I'm not trolling, I'm just calling you out on something you said and of course your response is that you never said it and I'm constructing some absurd strawman argument despite the quote being clear as day.

The fact is he never even hinted at the idea that the character was running around telling anyone that he was going to worship chaos, and your original response was the typical "you should kill him" knee jerk reaction without considering the original content. Then when someone disagreed you tried to justify killing someone that blatantly told their leader (or any other crew member) that they where going to worship chaos should be killed.

So either you didn't pay attention to the first post, or your comment had absolutely nothing to do with the situation at hand, pick your poison I could give two ***** less.

Dark Bunny Lord said:

The quote is indeed clear as day. You might want to re-read it again. Also, if you don't know what a strawman is, I think you should consult wikipedia. It's a quite common argumentative fallacy.

Dark Bunny Lord said:

Clearly we seem to have read two different posts here.

In my OP, OP clearly states that he is the Rogue Trader (not the GM), and that he has a Void-Master in his party that is looking at either worshipping or getting possessed by a Khornite demon. He has talked about sitting down and reading the Malefic Codex in order to learn things not normally allowed by his choice of career.

To this, I offer the most sensible option a Rogue Trader should take for his own security, and stipulate that " when your crewmembers start talking about actually setting up cults or actively worshipping demons [...]" - operative word bolded in case of a rampant case of the dumb.

You then accuse me of pigeonholing what a player must do in a given situation, independent of the situation presented.

I then clarify my original intent, again repeating and highlighting the difference between 'first sign of heresy', i.e. radicalism, and actually stating that you want to worship chaos, or be possessed by demons. I maintain that there is a stark difference between the two and that one is perfectly alright for most rogue traders, while the latter can only really be met by one reasonable response, unless your rogue trader is an "open" heretic as well. Again, the scenario presented is an "if" . Again, bolded for stupid.

You then construct a strawman around this and, to top if off, claim that you know the exact scenario at hand; "Except that he DIDN'T say he told the rogue trader he was intending on worshiping chaos, he told the rogue trader he was looking for a maelfic codex to learn forbidden lores. JUST like the inquisition might." - so, the first part, that he wants to worship a demon or become a demonhost was OOC, but the part where he expressed a desire to aquire a Malefic Codex was IC? Where is this clarified? Oh, wait, sorry, it's not. You're just making baseless assumptions. My bad.

You then accuse me of the very thing you did yourself; cobbling together a scenario that didn't happen. That's the strawman.

I point out that it's a strawman.

You reply by quoting what I said back at me; A quote that clearly stipulates that there is a scenario in question that may or may not have happened. If or When X then Y .

I proceed by laughing at your inability to read what's been written.

You continue by saying that you don't care at all, while doing your damnedest to show that you are caring as hard as humanly possible, crying sweet, sweet troll tears. What will be your next excuse I wonder? "English is not my native language?" . What luck that ****** is international, so that the rest of us can read and laugh at you.

I am MORE than aware of what a strawman is and I never constructed one. You may claim I misrepresented something you said, but no knew information or quote that didn't exist was ever inserted.

Now then, how is telling someone exactly what they should do with little to no knowledge of their character and a complete disregard for how Chaos could ever come to be by saying it should never be allowed not pigeon holing? Not only that you assume that worshiping chaos is suicide, if it was suicide where on earth would chaos get it's armies of humans from?

Now that said I see we both have different views, and rather than continue this pointless exchange of insults I'll offer a hand of treaty saying that I may have over reacted.

I simply do not like people telling others how they "should" play. I realize the fluff supports the "just kill them" most of the time, but certainly not always (if it where the BC book wouldn't have ever been made). Certaily telling them the risks, but asserting that it is complete suicide not so much.

Dark Bunny Lord said:

I'm going to jump in here and point out that it's because of the Warhammer 40K setting. There's pretty much no time at all that you'd be able to justify harboring open chaos heretics and be either one yourself or rapidly heading in that direction; Even the most selfish Rogue Trader would realize that if he gets caught with a full-fledged Khornate cult on his vessel, it's a one-way trip to the loss of her/his Warrant and the destruction of the associated House unless some sort of arrangement with an Inquisitor before hand to catch whatever supplies the VM is using to get his goods turns it into a sting. You also have to deal with the Astropath, Missionary, and anyone else who realizes that this is both a bad idea and/or outright blasphemy, on top of the horrible effect it'll have on crew morale -- nothing will cause an outright mutiny among the crew faster than openly turning to the Ruinous Powers.

Then there's the fact that this sort of stuff spreads Corruption like wildfire. Even if the Rogue Trader is nieve enough to not see the problem, daemons spread corruption, cults spread corruption, and tomes of daemonology (especially as Elite advances) spread corruption. Falling to Chaos is inevitable, except for the few who can make themselves immune to it on some sort of basis (Astropaths, Missionary).

So yeah -- turn on the PvP and let the good times roll. Because it'll end up as a huge battle between the loyalist members of the crew and the heretics, with the victor choosing the setting (roll out the Black Crusade if the heretics win), or someone blasts the VM before the massive chain of Bad Things mentioned above happens.

Objulen said:

Dark Bunny Lord said:

Simply because something is possible doesn't mean that it's possible in any given situation. Chaos Reavers generally come about when an entire ships falls to corruption, mutiny by a Chaos influenced section of the crew, and other gradual rot that turns normal Imperial citizens into heretics gradually -- there's some transition from average joe to jack chaos, especially for an entire ship, which demands some relatively skilled Hereteks to keep everything running once the switch happens.

So no, one random VM outing himself as a worshiper of Khorne (and we haven't seen anything to indicate that there's anything else going on) is going to get a bolter the back of the head, not suddenly shipping the game over to Black Crusade.

I'm also curious if you read through my post, as I listed possibilities where the vessel could potentially turn to Chaos. While I understand that TLDR is a common problem on the internet, it doesn't help the conversation much when skimming drops important points.

Might I add that it is not umimportant to look at the original question. I have the clear impression we are talking here about a player who is both new to the forum (" kinda new to the fourm ") and to the warhammer universe (" i am a bit dumb on the gods of chaos "). His main question is if this is something to be worried about. Giving the basic Imperial response to such a situation is in this case neither pigeonholing nor railroading, but nothing more then offering well-willed advice on the normal Imperial reactions.

The question can be answered with a resounding, yes, this is something you should be extremely worried about. Even if you are skirting the edge doing anything to get ahead, allowing a crewmember (and certainly a trusted voidmaster) to worship daemons and even try to provoke a possesion is no longer skirting the edge but going beyond the pale. As has been pointed out, the safest solution if you find this out is to slay this voidmaster, and for good measure purge everyone who might have been corrupted by him as well. Chaos tends to spread, and one individual like this can doom your whole ship and yourself to utter damnation. If you do not do this yourself, there is a very good chance you will provoke either a mutiny led by Imperial loyalist (who will in all probability gain the support of the Imperium and all the resources that could be brought to bear on you) or failing that the attention of the Inquisition. In either case, if you survive your career as an Imperial Rogue Trader will be over and you should break out Black Crusade and join te damned, as there is no place within the Imperium where you will be welcome any more. Skirting the edge will be definitely over by then. If however your voidmaster is able to hide the extent of his corruption to any loyal Imperial citizens (both on and off the ship) and manages to get himself possessed then your problems really start. As has been pointed out, your voidmaster will lose any control over his character at that moment. Instead of him, you will have a terrible entity of the Warp aboard that thrives on slaughter and that will happily make a start with the players and the crew of your ship. You might be able to beat it (at horrendous cost to the crew and yourself), but chances are your only shot left will be to run. As a GM, I would be quite merciless at this stage, as you really have it coming to you if you allow things to get this far.

A second angle might also be a cause for worry: party dynamics. Where a slight divergence off interests within a party can create interesting RP and great moments, completely opposed goals seldom work out well in the long term and tend to force a confrontation between party members. This is something I would discuss OOC'ly with the whole party and GM and see if you wish to walk this path. Not every player likes having his characters brains blasted out by a fellow gamers character. But of course, if you wish to walk this path, it is your game and you are free to do so. I can imagine that a game of RT where one of the party members slowly corrupts the whole ship to the worship of the Dark Gods would be an epic saga. But for some reason, I fear that this is not what your voidmaster has in mind. Trying to get possessed by a daemon of Khorne is not really the most subtle way of doing things and can only end in bloodshed.

In short, it is your game, but I would be very worried by it and would not hesitate a second to utterly destroy the voidmaster and anyone he might have corrupted at the merest hint of these ideas. The knowledge itself that this is possible is allready enough to **** him.

FvR