What effect would these have on xenos species?

I would assume highly attuned species (like Eldar) would have a much stronger reaction than the average human. I can't find any fluff anywhere about it though. What about orks? If I remember right their presence seem to actually be painful to tyranids. I would assume the Tau are affected less. Any ideas? I've got a player who wants to run an untouchable, but our RT loves to commune with xenos and am looking for what should be expected when he makes planetfall with somebody like this on his away team.

I'd reckon if the Xenos is psychic in some way (so yeah Eldar and Tyrannid mainly, also Kroot) then it'd have the same effect on them as it does on a human. Tau are not psychically gifted so i'd assume it has very little effect on them other then maybe a very slightly uneasy feeling.

The real question for me is Orks & Tau Eternals. Orks have a kind of group consciousness that fuels their "psychic" powers, tad akin to the tyrannids but not warp-related in nature if i remember it right. So i'd say that maybe they don't get their morale bonus from other orks but they do get to use their mind powers if they're weirdboyz. Tau Eternals are explicitly stated in one of the DW books that they don't use the warp for their mind-effect on the other Tau so they likely would not be effected.

But it's all conjecture from my part.

Bleh, ment the Tau Ethereals

Well I'd say that the effect on Eldar is about the same as on human psykers, which is obviously more radical than the effects suffered by human non-psykers.

I don't think orks would be affected at all, though. Individual orks are only barely psykers and even in the middle of a waaagh, I'd think that the only effects on the average ork could be that their bitz stop working as dependably or that the red 'unz don't go fastar anymore.

I wouldn't think that tau would be affected at all, either. They're practically nulls already, so they probably wouldn't feel any effects.

Tyranids, however.. my memory is a bit hazy, but I do remember something about it being physically painful for them to be around untouchables or nulls, because they communicate by the warp. Their entire synapse system and hive mind gets jammed. How you'd interpret this in game terms, I honestly have no idea, all things considered - you may want to just slap some penalties onto them. All in all, however, this question is probably the most moot, considering that you are unlikely to have any kind of peaceful exchange with them to begin with.

Kroot would likely have a similar effect as humans. Can't say I've heard of kroot psykers, but it's enough to have one super-special-snowflake-race in 40k.

In tau codex was written that etherels use pheromones to control their kindred.

I seem to recall that in Codex Assasins, a massive Eldar fleet was poised to destroy the Temple moon of the Culexus assassins, but its Farseer suddenly realised that if he did so it would **** his Craftworld, so they retreated.

From that passage I'd say that the Eldar loathe pariahs/untouchables intensely, and it seemed the Farseer was surpised by his sudden insight...this suggests to me that most Eldar will want to destroy the untouchable on sight, but there is perhaps some hidden reason why they might restrain themselves from doing so.

There are hints also that the Eldar are aware that the pariahs are hugely dangerous, and that humans don;t know what they are letting themselves in for by utilising them.

I'd imagine that the effect on Eldar is greater than that in humans, firstly because the Eldar are all slightly psychic, probably to a greater extent than humans, and secondly because Eldar feel all emotions far more intensely than humans. This means that the feelings generated by a pariah - loathing, hatred, fear etc - would be far more overpowering for an Eldar.

Lightbringer said:

Well, while I do think that Eldar loathe untouchables intensely, I'd say that you're reading way too much into that passage. First of all, if the eldar knew the location of the Culexus Temple, of course they'd want to destroy it. Not because they're pariahs, but because it's the **** Culexus Temple; A assassinorum temple of the Imperium!

Secondly, the Eldar Farseers are called Farseers for a reason. The fact that destroying the Culexus Temple would cause the destruction of the Craftworld is likely entirely unrelated to the fact that it happened to be the Culexus Temple. It could be as simple as a single person on that moon who is destined to set some event into motion that prevents it's destruction. So again, regular Eldar fare.

Lightbringer said:

Eldar only care about Eldar and no-one else. They've been known to sacrifice entire worlds of humans to only save a handful of their own. The fact that the Eldar warns humans of their use of pariahs ties directly into this and the fact that they consider humans ignorant and petulant children. It does however lend support to the theory (which I share) that eldar are all affected by untouchables and pariahs much more than the average human. Let's also not forget that Eldar generally feel things much more intensely than humans. So not only are all Eldar psykers, but when they feel ill due to the proximity to an untouchable, a null or a pariah, they likely feel it hundreds of times stronger than a human psyker would.

This is all just conjecture, though.

Lightbringer said:

And.. uh.. Yeah, this all serves me right for not reading the entire post before dividing it into sections and responding to it.

Fgdsfg said:

Might slap Tyranids that they revert to Instinctual Behavior and little bit modify the effects that creatures, reverted to this behaviour by Untouchables, attacks even other Tyranid creatures. Not just non-tyranids like Feed effect says and might even try to eat non-biological targets or stuff. Might bring it's own mayhem and chaos as Rippers swarm start to chew power cables, fuel drums or other hazardous material.

For the mechanics, it really comes down to whether they have a psy rating or not, except for 'nids. Everyone with a warp signature (just about everyone) hates untouchables, and I recall fluff with some mechanics that psykers' hatred for untouchables is so great that they fly in a murderous rage to kill the abomination, but I'm not as certain for the last part -- basically, the stronger your tie to the Warp, the worse your reaction to a null.

So Elder are all psychic, and if the rule above exists, it explains why they want to wipe out nulls so badly -- it's not much different from human psykers, but their are more of them.

Tau and Kroot would both operate on a human (i.e. baseline level) of hatred for a null.

Special cases do exist. Orks have psychic potential, but it doesn't use the Warp, and Orks aren't really affected by Chaos at all. For simplicity, a reduced effect can be used: halve the bonuses from Mob Rule and any Wyrd Boyz in play (assuming your House Ruling them or they've seen print). Orks shouldn't outright hate nulls, but they'd be itch'in to fight the null even more than normal.

The idea to disrupt the Tyranid's hive mind and place them into instinct mode within the null's range makes perfect sense IMHO. Synapse creatures can be affected based on how far their psi rating drops (for 'nids that have a psi rating) while ones without it can have the effect based on their Willpower -- I'd use the mechanics for a psychic power on an opposed Willpower test, with the null gaining +5 for every point of penalty he inflicts on psi ratings, to represent the dampening effect. Synapse creatures should hate nulls as much as psykers do -- they're basically brain tumors for the hive mind, and only short of cancer because they can't undergo mitosis.

Then there are Necrons, who like you so much they turn you into a Pariah Still, there are some classes of xenos who don't have souls who probably aren't affected at all. Advanced Magos' may fall under this category, especially if they have undergone the Right of Pure Thought.