In our current game I'm playing an adept, rank 5 right now, and I'm considering pursuing Loremaster Magister, but I started to wonder about some of the impacts it might have on the adventure as a whole.

As a Loremaster Lexographer (Rank 7) you can start to gain psychic powers, but could you possibly be accepted by the inquisition if you do not immediately take a little trip on one of the black ships and become sanctioned? And what then would the travel time from the Calixis sector to Holy Terra? 3d10 years? I.e. the added starting age for an Imperial Psyker. Seems like serious downtime for any campaign.

Thoughts anyone?

This would, I imagine depend entirely on the Inquisitor (or his designated subordinates) and if

a) you were more useful to him or her in service for the next 3D10 years

b) how the powers were manifesting and your level of control

c) the Inquisitors view on psykers - obviously a hardline "witches must be burnt" would have a different view than a Radical...........

d) whether disecting your body, living or dead would provide more useful information on psychic evolution than the value of the information you normally provide.

Some Inquistiors will take it upon themselves to "educate" their acolytes on the use of their powers - an unregistered Psyker could be an "ace in the hole" (or just hugely dangerous)

Scourge the Heretic (novel) showed that sometimes this occurs and other emotions can be involved making the choice ...........

It wouldn't be the first time the Inquisition has tacitly "Sanctioned" a psycher without sending them home. It also wouldn't be the first time the Inquisition has allowed (even instructed) a psycher to travel about incognito. The psycher abilities would probably be viewed in the same vein as the "psycher-like" abilities of the Adepta Sororitas - they have gained some sort of special insight or power of faith that has given them special abilities in the service of the Emperor.

And, in point of fact, that's more or less true.

Thank you both for the insight. I lack much having only recently been properly introduced to the Warhammer universe. I just figured that the adept psyker would be treated just like a nascent psyker, and from what I read in IH the reality seemed to be that you would be revealed sooner or later, and whatever you chose, you would end up with a "character beyond playability". Maybe my adept can manage a bit better though, seeing as how we no longer work for the inquisition... when your employer tries to kill you it pretty much ends any working relationship you might have had.

I remember that there was a topic about this.

It was more about the "mechanical" point of view. The "Adept Psyker" never had any "Sanction" down, but his powers are as stable as those of a "Sanctionite". Where the only other two other "unsanctioned" Psyker groups (Witches, covered to some extent in the Core Rules and the DotDG; and "Nascent" which have a own rules set in the IH) are completly different and more unstable. Since they lack "sanctioning".

Onfortunatly, the officials rules never covered this "strange difference"...and perphabs never will.

I wondered about making house rules to change the "Psyker"-Talent in the Loremaster into the DotDG Talents of "Sorcerer", "Master Sorcerer", and the "Major Arcana"/"Minor Arcana"-things.

Since all of his powers seems to steam from books and learning, it would seem appropriate to treat him like any other (corrupt) occult scholar who starts to harness powers of the warp...

Unlike the nascent psyker, the adept actually knows what he is doing, hence he dont need the emotional test, the ordinary psykers( who suddenly found they had powers to do strange things). The sactioning is both testing of the minds strength and teachings in the way of being least likely to invoke perils of the warp.
The adept already knows this and understands the warp and how to wield it and is proven strong in mind to the fact he has not gone mad aquiring this knowledge.

The psyker adept is one of those things I have not (nor anyone in my group) been able to figure out. Basically you are talking about someone who is able to manifest psykic abilities through study...

What???

There are so many problems with this that it is painful.

If we get past how this goes against previous cannon and fluff we are left with how would everyone react to someone suddenly manifesting psyker abilities.

It is true the Inquisitor might be able to pull some strings, but it would be at personal risk to the inquisitor. Harboring unsanctioned psykers is something even Inquisitors burn for. The best the character could hope for and the most the Inquisitor could do without risking his neck would be to expidite the characters sanctioning. IE get him on a fast ship to terra (under guard, but most likely not on a black ship) pronto. Also once at terra the character would be moved to the front of the line for sanctioning (I am assuming there is probably a wait under normal circumstances). This would GREATLY reduce the time needed. The time needed for sanctioning would probably be pretty low as an adept of that rank would already posses a very disciplined mind. So figure travel time plus 2 to 6 months for sanctioning (adjust to personnel taste) is the best you can expect. In addition instead of the adept now using the psyker advancement chart the inquisitor could pull strings and keep him in the administratum.

Of course the only way the Inquisitor would do any of this is if he thought it worth the trouble.

We have house ruled the psyker advances away from the adepts anf instead given him some other nifty stuff he can get.

Well, if you consider that psycher powers are just chaos magics designed to be a shade "safer" than normal sorceries, and when you consider that sorcery is available to anybody under the sun if they can find the right books or teachers, it makes more sense. The genetic potential is there, but the psycher has a genetic advantage in finding it. The adept psycher has attained mental discipline to unlock it. There's nothing in canon that says that somebody can't unleash the powers of thier mind through discipline, and many things that say they can.

Hate to be pedantic, but seeing this over and over again is driving me nuts.

Even though we are talking about psy ch ic powers, the term in this setting is psy k er NOT psy ch er.

Don't know why but the ch mis-spelling is just bugging the hell out of me.

Pneumonica

The cases of people gaining psyker abilities such as the sorceror are all examples of chaos taint (or possibly emperor taint with living saints).

Those sorcerors may have gained their powers from reading a chaos grimoir or some such, but learning and training is not what gave them the ability. It is better to say that they read the chaos book and were corrupted (mutated) and thus opened to the warp. It would be better to say that their abilities are the effect of a specific object, dark pact, corruption, etc on them.

llsoth said:

I understand it to be pretty much the complete opposite.

From what I've read and understand it would seem that sorcery leads to corruption, not corruption leading to sorcery. The lure of power is one thing that leads many down the path of corruption and damnation. If it were something that waited at the end, not many would take the journey, but as something they get right off the bat, well, that gets a lot more folks tangled up in the machinations of chaos.

In DotDG, sorcery is described as the stuff of the warp being brought through into reality through the use of mimetic formula and esoteric equations and theorem, expressed sometimes as simple verbal and somatic patterns (outwardly at least), or more complexly through rituals of paradox, murder, and discord. That kind of sounds like something that can be learned (through some maddening chaos tome or otherwise) as well as taught to another. Such an ability doesn't sound much like a mutation, the effects of an object, or the rewards of a pact. It sounds more like someone exploiting a natural tendency or phenomena that allows the warp to be channeled into reality under certain conditions, conditions the soccer learns through a master, a daemon, tomes of madness, or some other manner.

After all, we know the warp can be manipulated by those who are not psykers. Heck, technological devices can be made to manipulate the warp (warp drives, gellar fields, pentagramatic and hexagramatic wards, psy-jammers, psy-trackers, psycannons, those helmets those psyker assassins wear...) thus there must be some underlying properties to the warp that can be studied, understood, and then used to effect certain results on the immaterium or reality.

Taking away the Psy Rating advances and replacing them with Sorcerous ones from DotDG would make more sense in my eyes. Of course, the alternative is also acceptable, that being that the character has gained such a great understanding of the human mind that he has unlocked his own psychic potential, with said potential lying dormant within most/all humans.

Graver you might be mistaking cause for effect. The way I see it when you have a group of cultists (none capable of using psyker powers) performing a ritual to summon a demon (as an example) are not actually the summoners.

The actual summoners are either the demon being summoned or other more powerful warp entity.

In short all the cultist could do was get its attention and the demon is the one who opens the hole in the materium it crawls through. Probably using the life forces of the sacrifices etc. They are facilitators nothing more. It may appear they are effecting the warp but in reality the demon is doing it not them.

Same with holy weapons, pentagramic wards, etc. Does it work because the makers can effect the warp or because they are blessed by the emperor? Do pentagramic wards protect against warp attacks because of the pentagram's power or because of emperor's power. The pentagrams only "power" may be that the emperor has decided it was a good (and recognized) way to allow his followers to draw on his power in a controlled fashion. In much the same fashion as some of the chaos sigils work (after all the big E is a god residing in the warp just like the chaos gods).

That having been said there are examples in the fluff especially that would seem to say technology alone can effect the warp. The artifact in Cains Last Stand as one... though they never tell how it was made.. maybe it is the crystalized souls of psykers formed by the gods of those long dead races...

I'm glad to see others took to the house rule of removing the adepts ability to take psychic powers, and replace them with Sorcerer powers. IMHO it makes more sense that an adept studying proscribed and forbidden knowlege would pick up some tricks. I refrence Eisenhorn Hereticus, when Amos studied the Liber Daemonica (or something to that nature), he learned how to use Eisenhorns rune-staff to bind and control demons. So I would allow any radically inclined adepts (sometimes in secret), to take sorcery in leu of psychic powers.

I dont feel so original though...

-Ira-

There are plenty of sorceries that don't involve demons in any way. Individuals, simply put, have impact on the warp. Even if the demon is "self-summoning", who's drawing the demon's attention, and how? It's by means of latent or low-yield psyker capabilities in the individual.

And I don't know what the stupid thing is doing, but I can't get the last two paras out of quotes. Stupid system.

llsoth said:

I can definitely see your point here. However, as a counter point to the Warp Gods Do it All approach, if the Warp Gods (be they the big chaos four, the big E, or something else entirely) are the ones behind any warp manipulation (barring psyker's mucking about) then what's keeping them from just summoning themselves into our reality whenever they feel the itch to do such? It seems painfully clear that most daemon's greatest desire is to manifest in our reality and have a big ol' party to celebrate it's arrival. So, if a cult of non-pskers simply get their attention and the daemon is the one who actually summons it's self (or a bigger daemon allows a lesser daemon to be summoned) why do they even need the cultists in the first place? Why don't they just pop in whenever they're feeling a bit randy?

If getting their attention is the reason, and, more to the point, setting the proper atmosphere, generating the needed emotional energy, and otherwise facilitating the summoning, then those cultists are, for all intents and purposes, summoning the daemon. If the warp can not enter our world unless certain conditions are met to allow it to do such and someone sets forth to create those conditions, then they are summoning the warp. If a certain daemon needs 1000 innocents to be brutally slain in it's name on an alter of blood in order for it to come into our world, then those who go about slaying the individuals in the daemons name to set the conditions for it's arrival are, indeed, summoning it. They want the daemon to come and if they don't kill those folks, it won't come. When they slay those folks, they do so in order to call the daemon into our reality, to summon it into our presence. They summon it, it dose not summon it's self.

The thought that the big E might be behind hexegramantic wards functioning is a good one but it may or may not be so. Look at the Geller Fields and warp engines. Both, to my flawed knowledge, existed while the Emperor was still alive and traveling the stars himself. During that age, he was not worshiped as a god and, as such, was not a warp god. Yet the gellar fields still alter the flow of the warp preventing it from piercing the ships it protects, warding the warp away. Hexegramantic Wards seem to perform the exact same function. So it can be assumed that where the warp flows and dose not flow can be, to a degree, controlled through esoteric technological devices and principles alone.

If the warp can be denied access somewhere without the need to appeal to a higher power within the warp, then it can be assumed that the inverse is possible and the warp can be forced into an area. If there are principles and methods to deny the warp's access to a place, and if the inverse is true and those same principles can be applied to force the warp into something, then it can also be assumed that there might be principles and methods that can be employed to direct the shape or flavor of the warp that comes through or is denied.

In the end, if a machine can manipulate the warp, then a bright presence in the warp is not strictly necessary as there must be another way of manipulating it. If there's another way of manipulating it, then one dose not need to be a psyker or mutated with corruption in order to manipulate it; one just needs to use one of the other principles. However, mucking with the warp is a sure fire way to end up all kinds of corrupted. So, while you don't need to be corrupted to be a sorcerer, you'll probably end up that way (assuming learning the blasphemous arts themselves somehow wasn't enough to corrupt you).

llsoth said:

Sorry, but I disagree

IMHO Inquisitors do what they like - they only answer to their peers and only then if the Inquisitor or his retinue etc draw the attention of another for the wrong reasons (or are enemies).........I would take it that most people would assume without question that an Psyker in the service of an Inquistor is sanctioned - few would dare ask?

The best an Inquisitor can do is simply taken them into their service and become responsible for them and their actions......if he / she thinks its worth their while. The DH novel Scourge the Heretic has exactly this situation with the Inquistors psyker.

There are rules and Inquisitors can ignore them - although I agree it is at their own peril if it all goes wrong

All Inquisitors have enemies and they would LOVE to bring the matter of an unsanctioned psyker before the Ordo Calixis. Also remember the Inquisition as an organization knows all about the character and how he was not a psyker and most definatly NOT sanctioned. Unless of course you are running a very different camaign style than is in the book. (but we are talking the "norm" if you will here) Any slip up adept uses his powers at the wrong time or place.. a flubbed perils roll at the wrong time etc. could lead to discovery. More than a few enemies would indeed dare ask. Also and this is very important.. they are not going to ask the inquisitor. Look at it the politics of power, lets say the acolytes are sent to investigate a possible cult at a large factory on a hive world at the request of the noble factory owners. They get there and check in with the owners and go from there... now here is the problem. As a matter of course the Nobles are going to run a check on their IDs and will thus know the basics of the characters(and they may dig deeper). They are going to do this for several reasons, first simply to verify identity, second they are going to check history to see if the characters are affiliated with a competing noble house or power block, third they will be looking for dirt, even if they asked the inquisition to send someone, it is always a good idea to have some dirt on those around you. I mean what if the acolytes find the cult and seem ready to take down a few of the nobles own family for say incompetence.. Dirt comes in handy. That is just your ALIES. Your enemies will did like no tomorrow to find something. This does not mean they dig up that the adept is a psyker.. but rather that he is not supposed to be one.

Now I am not saying Inquisitors don't do that sort of thing, I am saying they occasionally get caught and bad juju happens to them. Those demon weapons and such they keep saying radical inquisitors use... I am willing to bet that is very rare and they go to EXTREME measures to make sure NO ONE ever finds out. An unsanctioned psyker would probably be treated the same way.

Basically it comes down to (as I alluded to in my earlier post) how much is your inquisitor willing to risk to have the adept at his side for those few years he would be gone if he went off for sanctioning. Cost vs reward, send him off for sanctioning and loose his services for a few years or harbor an unsanctioned psyker... I am just saying 99% of the time they are going to say go get sanctioned, they did not live to make it to the rank of inquisitor by taking unnecessary risks.

Remember the DH books and the fluff are FULL of examples of Inquisitors gone rogue who need to be, have been hunted down. They obviously thought they could do whatever they wanted and no one would dare question them.. and were wrong.

Edit. In regards to Scourge the Heretec (which I just finished). It does state (several times) that she was sanctioned but that the inquisitor guided her training and sanctioning. I read this as helped train her and shepherded her through the sanctioning process. Remember in most books they don't really account for just how long it would take to get to terra and back. (or travel time in general)

So... what does this ID-checking of yours do? Is there some kind of galactic database which contains the data of... let's see... The Imperium is often credited with a million worlds. Let's assume about ten milliard citizens per planet (more on hive worlds, less on certain others), so that would give us about 10 billiard citizens (that's fifteen zeros) of the Imperium as a whole. And you think there is a realistic possibility to identify a single person on a more than planetwide scale that can not be tampered with?

Also, it's not unusal for apparent non-psykers to manifest powers. The noble himself will likely have one or two "scribes" in his retinue who are mysteriously always present when he expects danger. Terra does turn out a few non-overtly marked psykers, usually using sanctioning electoos that can be turned visible on demand, for use by well-paying parties in need of discreet psychic backup.

Does it say in the rules that an Adept has to be sanctioned? No.

Problem solved.

Well actually yes there is a huge database that contains virtually all information. What did you think the Administratum did? It is not so much centralized as nodal (by sector) with out of sector queries having to be relayed by astropath. Without the ability to query/search all that data it would be worthless, and so would the adept class. You forget the actual level of technology involved (very high), to say nothing of the mainframes that run it all (most likely left over from the DAOT.

What is happening here is the atmosphere of the game is clashing with simple logic. If all information was stored as a hardcopy(books, punch cards etc) it would be WORTHLESS. You could turn entire sectors into fileing cabinets and it would not be enough and collecting all that would be a waste of time because it would take decades to find anything (if you were lucky) and comprehensive searches and queries would be impossible.

Who said that you couldn't tamper with the records? Of course you can and you might also detect the records were tampered with. I am not here to argue data mining and data obfuscation. Rather that the whole thing is a HUGE risk and could be found out. A constant risk and one shouldered just to get a few more years (or however long you deem it takes to get sanctioned with a Inquisitor riding herd) of service out of a single acolyte. I don't know about you but if I would not chance it.

Also who said anything about a lack of a visible sanctioning mark? I would assume most people would expect there to be none (being part of the inquisition and all).

This is just my take on how the setting plays out in this circumstance. If in your version of the 40k universe Inquisitors can sanction people then go for it.

llsoth said:

Interesting take and it dose make the Imperium more functional and less dysfunctional (though O prefer a dysfunctional Imperium), but that would also mean that they are using some form of faster then light technology to send these messages and, if this is the case, then why do planets have to rely on astropaths to communicate with one another when they can just send a query instead?

My bad I did not make myself to clear.

Basically (from reading a lot of fluff books) this is how I see the administratum working (within a sector). In using nodal I meant sector to sector. In a sector it is hierarchical.

Each sector will have at least one large information center. In the Calixis sector this seems to be the Prol system (IIRC). This information center containes copies of all administratum information in the calixis sector. They don't use a data network to get it there (I am sorry if I implied that before) it gets there as data dumps (probably incremental backups) of all the planetary (plus outposts etc). Shiped in some form of data storage devices (probably data crystals) on a regular schedule from all over the sector. You can propigate this system downward until you get to the lowest level.

Example from the bottom up. (place names are just examples and could be anywhere)

A child is born in a hospital on Malfi. The adepts working at the hospital create a record of its birth with all relevant data. At the end of each day either by transmission via land line(network) or a currier with a copy of the new data on some medium (lets use data crystals) the data is collected at the reginal/city/zone/whatever facility. This facility recieves data not just from the hospital but from all sources within its jurisdiction. They enter the information into their systems and at a set interval send the new information they have gotten in that time frame up to the planetary information center. This happens just like it did before. They get the new information on a daily/weekly/whatever basis to the planetary center. Then the planetary center would send copies via ship to the sector facility (prol) on some sort of schedule (or as much of one as they can manage as delays are probably common).

There are a few more points but so far we have..

Adepts are nothing if not information packrats. Any given data collection point will have copies of all information ever gathered there (or is supposed to). It also should have all information gathered by lower level collection points in its jurisdiction. The hospital has all the hospital records. The city has all the hospital records plus all other records from the city (other hospitals, arbits, tax records, etc), The planet has all records generated on the planet. The sector has all records from the sector (eventually).

Next all data collection points can also be expected to have an index or abstract you will of what the next higher level facility has. This is handled exactly as the data collection was only in reverse. This is not the data itself just a pointer to where the data is. This is kinda optional and I just assume it exists to aid in efficency and take some of the work load off of the higher level centers especially the sector center.

Between sectors the information system is nodal with each sector having its own information and a abstract or index of what the other sectors have. This index (if you will) is probably not updated overly frequently at a guess I would say months to years between updates and the updates being patchy (not empire wide). With updates of very far away sectors being much less common and more out if date the closer sectors.

There is probably some sort of mega information center on or around Terra as well. Weather or not it can hold all the information in the galaxy.. who knows. Probably not I would think.. most likely it has specialized information (a deep but narrow slice of all information) production figures, war news, etc.

Thus you have a structure of a ineficient but still somewhat workable (at least in WH 40k terms) information system.

Edit: Astropaths come ito play when trying to get information from another planetary center or the sector center. They send the query and the adepts on the other end look it up and send the information back. A currier (or mail) would be used when the volume of information would be too great for the astropaths to handle. Also intersector querys would be handled in this way.

@ llsoth, thank you.

Once you explain it like that, it makes perfict sense. Thanks for giving me a bit more to add to my game :-)