Ive recently found some new material for PC background events ( both good and bad ) from the Dark Reign site for use in my upcoming campaign to sort of "flesh out" the new PCs without having to make the players drum up their own storyline for their PCs advancement to acolytes. When i actually decided to roll up a NPC to assist using the new backgrounds ( files are Career Events and Homeworld Events ) I found an entry under the Psyker career table ( on random roll btw ) Below is the actual info listed:
Alpha-Level Awakening. Your psychic potential is greater than any but the Emperor could
have guessed and you have sworn to use it to further His works. Gain +8 Wp, and the
Awareness, Deceive, Forbidden Lore (Psykers), and Psyniscience skills. You start with the
Psy Rating 2 talent (hereafter, all Psy Ratings advances will be for the next highest
number).
Now my question is this. Given ive researched all topics about psykers levels and rating on the site that i could find and found several opinions on it...How would you as GMs work something like this as a total random event for an NPC ( or PC if you dare think of it..lol ) ?
On one hand you could simply say that they gain the focus ability to fetter / unfetter / push starting at level 1 AND / OR grant them unnatural willpower (x2 OR x3 ) to aid them in simply being able to avoid the pesky issues of perils rolls needed for practcially ALL lower psy abilities and some of the majors ( since to manifest you have to meet or beat the threshold number which varies but is adjusted by how you roll to achieve it ( 1d10 per psy rating + your willpower bonus +/- and powerwells discipline focus and mastery the character has )..so simply granting them the unnatural willpower ( x2-3) would help alot with solving the perils problems/potentials that a regular lower powered psyker faces.
OR
Granting them access to the ascended psy powers from offset ( at regular cost NOT an elite advance since they are supposed to be ELITE to begin with )( as well as the ability to fetter/unfetter and push ) to reflect their Alpha status..and given all the literature ive read from the black library as well as from DH does say that the Alpha level psykers arent quite "right" in the head...perhaps a simple mechanic to deal with that would be to require the PC/NPC to have the "From Beyond" trait (DHCB pg 330 ) to more accruately show their inhumane / detached mindsets compared to regular mortals.
OR
Perhaps granting them a starting psy rating of 3+ AND an automatic Disipline to choose at level 1 in addition to unnatural Willpower (x2-3)( ALL psy rating advancements afterwards act as normal ) ( IF this is what the folks at FFG were thinking when they did the burning princess psy rating of around 14-16 then that would make sense if she started at say...psy rating 6 then progressed at +1 to the psy rating the same as regular psykers do in order to achieve her given rating
Im personally leaning towards handling this by simply granting any PC/NPC that manages this 1 in a billion fluke to automatically gain the "From Beyond" trait as well as unatural Willpower ( x2 at least but most likely x3 ) AND the ability to fetter, unfetter, and push their abilities from the offset to reflect their ELITE abilities and strengths as psykers and perhaps adjusting the starting psy rating to more accurately reflect the initial power level being above the norm.