So my adept has progressed far enough into the Ranks to reach the point where he can use xp to buy psychic powers.

This raises some fluff and crunch problems:

- would he need to be scooped up by the Black Ships for sanctioning on Terra, effectively putting the character out of the game for months or years?

- is he considered a sanctioned Imperial psyker, an un-sanctioned Imperial psyker, some other kind of psyker, or even a sorceror?

- are his new psychic talents a matter of intuition, finding new strengths and potential within himself, OR a matter of learning, having gleaned forbidden truths about the nature of reality?

(the former seems Imperial psyker-like, the latter Sorceror-like)

I'm AFB right now (and don’t recall if it states either in the core or IHB if gaining psychic powers after char creation warrants the same starting fluff as a psyker) but I would handle it as such:

Your characters are powerful members of the Inquisition or at least agents of such. They are not nameless/faceless mooks who display psychic potential. Therefore (and for game purposes) I would say that they are approved by the Inquisition in study and expansion of their growing talent. If the Inquisition had any reason to find them wanting before psychic powers, they probably wouldn’t have recruited them. Period.

I guess at the end of the day it depends on how impactful it would be if your party or parts of the party were dragged off for lengths of time to do the sanctioning. Does everyone have down time? Do you have a time sensitive mission they are working on when they gain the powers?

There are rules for this in the Radical's Handbook.

I would handle it by first defining how he got the powers. Is he a natural psyker who only know learned of his powers? or is he a Sorcerer who gained his knowlegde from studying the arts? Is it a mutation gained somehow (corruption or perhaps drugs), you get my point

Depending on this information he can decide not to share this the knowledge of his powers (especially if he is a sorcerer). It depends on how the other characters would react to these changes in their comrade.

If he is a natural psyker or got psychic talent somehow and shares this information, i would say what happens next comes down to his importance at the moment, can the Inquisitor spare his Acolyte for months or maybe even years? or is he willing to take the chance with this one and wait for a more favourable time to send him to sanctioning.

bogi_khaosa said:

do you know which page? **** the lack of proper indexes :/

Hey!

Sorry for the delay in the answer- Its on page 149 of the Radical's Handbook: The Question of Psychic Adepts.

It offers you three options- Skill and talent exchange to Sorcery, actually removing the char from play and coming back with the Sanctioned Psyker trait or Nascent Psykerdome from the Inquisitor's handbook.

Though, between the both of us- none of the options are particularly attractive to me. There are other, easier ways to gain sorcery- and at rank 8, it should be a chance for a sorcerer adept to actually enhance his powers. Removing yourself from play long enough to take the trip to Terra and back also seems a bit insane... More like an ascenscion option then anything.... And lastly, becoming a nascent Psyker and not wrecking the game after the first session seems virtually impossible, what with the constant triggering of phenomena. I can't imagine a rank 8 adept "not noticing" he has psychic powers...

Overall, a slightly modified option two would best: a sorta of private sanctification, validated by the Inquisition, would be best. If the acolyte in question has previously taken sorcerer talents and skills, he might want to use these advances to power up his art- that's for the more radical people who would want to keep it hidden.

Developing these powers in the privacy of your study due to harsh training and practice for years can also be an option- again, something you'd want to conceal unless you were willing to take the trip to Terra [Not all inquisitors will be satisfied with an another Inquisitor's vouching, Monodominants Vs Xanthites for example].

At a certain level the Inquisition turns a blind eye to a lot of stuff that is normally heresy. In Eisenhorn III when the monodominants caught up with him, they were more interested in getting Cherubael for themselves, than destroying it for example.

Many Inquisitors will keep the Adept around I think. Note that I said many, not all. And iwould not pay to let those abilities become public knowledge however or you're off on a trip to Terra or dead, and your boss Inquisitors's opponents will use that knowledge to discredit them.

As already touched on, a lot depends on what you choose as your reason behind the powers. Awakened psykic power due to unlocking higher dimesnional patterns of thought, sure, it's a bonus, (make sure you have talents like Strong Minded and the one that helps against possession), but sorcery? Much dodgier in my mind, because the Adept has chosen to practice forbidden arts and hence opened themselves to corruption by choice.