Hi!

We recently finnished playing Oblivions Edge and after defeating cutting all the synapse nodes one of the players took a bite of it. I didn't know what to do with it so a had him go black out from sensory overload. I mean the thought of experiencing the feelings a tyranid mothership feels as it is dying. I just can't put words on that.

So now to the question. What do I do with the character?

I'm thinking about giving him a big load of insanity points (as a reminder of what NOT to do) but I also want to balance it up with some good stuff. Some examples is "talented forbidden lore (tyranids)"or maybe that binds him to the race like the talent "synapse creature" but with some exceptions (his own free will for starters).

If someone has a idea I'm all ears.

//GM from Sweden - Silvstaal

Hm.

Perhaps he becomes able to somewhat "predict" where a new cluster of the hive fleet will appear.

Perhaps he gets a bonus to sense tyranids - a gaunt hive below the surface, a sneaking lictor, etc. Tyranid things that not even an auspex would be able to detect well, he can - at a penalty, but he still can.

Maybe if there's not a synapse creature around, lesser nids (think gaunts and rippers) won't attack him. Not even if he attacks them. The only time they'll try to hit him is if if he's caught in the crossfire of a Horde attack against his KT brothers. Creatures that form in Hordes therefore won't intentionally target him ever, but synapse creatures (nid warriors and above) try to target him before all others, or at least some do, sensing the unnatural connection and acting to stamp it out as it's a 'corruption' of the Hive Mind, since he's in the synapse but doesn't 'smell right. '

Maybe give him Hatred: Tyranids and Talented - Forbidden Lore: Xenos (only applicable to Tyranids) for free as well since he now knows more about them than he ever wanted to.

The Techmarine in my game plugged into the CPU of a gigantic asteroid base…which just so happened to have the machine spirit of a 15,000-year-old grand cruiser. We're still dealing with the implications (and why a seemingly-innocuous mining base was built around a warship's machine spirit and why it had Titan legion banners in its command center…) but Insanity Points are a great place to start!

Well, taking a bite out of the neural tissue of a hiveship is certainly going to change you, but it won't grant psychic powers or a true connection to the Hive Mind to a blunt.

I'd run this by letting the player buy a slightly modified version of Wisdom of the Ancients that only applied to Tyranids (xp cost scaled depending on exactly how important nids are in your game. If they're only in it occasionally, it might only be 100xp. If they come in every session, it might be worth 500 or more). Add a chunk of insanity on there, but even that will likely be dealt with by the Chaplains when the kill team return to their watch house.

Isn't any Tyranid tissue highly poisonous, and slowly takes over the host if ingested (don't quote me on that)?

Regardless, I wonder what possessed that player to get him to bite a Tyranid anything. That's the sort of stuff that normally come from players that think playing a Chaotic Neutral means being "wacky and random" all the time.

Though if you must have some positive side-effects, how about a +10 to resist Tyranid psychic powers since the marine has already seen the worst of it and survived.

Well, this may just be me being mean, but if you are going to use your Omophagea on a bit of Tyranid synapse cord… I would give a hilarious amount of insanity points for experiencing even the vaguest sense of a hive ship's memories, and then entertain the possibility of having the character suffer from some mysterious ailment for a while that effected WP or something due to the experience.

Alternatively, you could just rule that nothing happens because the mind in question is so alien that the Omophagea is all "Huh? Did you bite something? I thought that was a sponge."

Now, if the character were a Librarian, I would go with the Insanity Points, and then maybe come up with some new and interesting Primarch's-curse style effects from even pretending to touch the Hive Mind.

Given this is the GM's section, there is another valid point to be raised: Did the player do this because it was an in-character action, or because he was attempting to be disruptive. If he was jsut attempting to be a smartarse, then smack him with insanity and call it a day. If he was actually trying to genuinely perform a clever action, offer a reward in terms of allowing access to a special ability, new demeanour or plot hook.

To be honest, this sounds more like a disruptive use of the Omophaegea than anything. I always felt that its real purpose was for hunting a target; injure it, but maybe it gets away, but taste its blood to aid the hunt.

In this particular case, the target is already dead or dying. There is no further hunt. There also is no benefit to being able to track down hive ships better (because the normal senses that would benefit just are not that useful in space). Also, while the marine is insanely resistant to poison, there's no telling how dangerous it can be.

Once again, it just sounds like a player who looks at the omophagea, says "Oh man, that's creepy and cool at the same time, I should use that on everything ," and has proceeded to chew on everything he can get his hands on.

I would say slap him with 1d10+5 IPs, but generally don't allow a disruptive player to further disrupt the campaign by further hobbling his character. Best case is get the player to agree it was a stupid idea and just retcon that it didn't happen.

If he dead serious meant it as an in character action, and had no disruptive/immature attitude about it, that optional Wisdom of the Ancients (Tyranid) idea seemed rather appropriate.

Either way, if you choose to provide any sort of benefit (whether counterbalanced by some weirdness or insanity), or if you're like me and simply frown on the whole thing, warn your player of your interpretation of touching the Hive Mind if you don't think they are thinking in the same direction.

If he is being disruptive, give him an Alan Rickman look as you explain, to let him know that srs bsns is about to go down.