It is a cult but over the millennium spent inside the Warp they have fused into armor, man and daemon into something terrible. It is treated as a virus in earlier material for how it progressed through stages until in the final stage the armor could never come off as all three became one at last. Also they are freaking genius' when it comes to all things technology.

TheHeavenlyLily said:

Yeah, but it acting like a virus in any way is silly imho. As it involves warping your body into a fusion with your equipment, it sounds far to much like corruption. As the effects of corruption are measured in stages in this game, there is no reason not to use that as the basis, in my opinion. Besides, how many obliterators have you heard of that had non-obliterator mutations? It especially doesn't seem right to have them be just advances that you can take willy nilly.

Quick thing about the obliterator and mutilator's third gifts:

They're something to, more or less, avoid. Take it when there's only two more gifts to gain, for example. The second gift is great, to be sure, so the third one's drawbacks make you seek to avoid it there.

Autostablized and Daemonic are both kind of questionably useful [you probably have bulging biceps or appropriate equipment like suspensors and a lot of stuff negates the daemonic bonus, and chances are your obliterator is no psyker], +1 size mostly just makes you easier to hit and harder to squeeze in places, and the -20 agi [or terminator suit] basically kill dodge and you lose the ability to run. By then, you're probably not going to need more bonded weapons than the 4+ish you have at that point.

Cryhavok said:

I agree with you on this and i like to add that becoming a Obliterator should not be a reward of the gods, because of the abilities that you gain (look at the Chaos Space marine codex), ill put the Obliterator in "Apotheosis" destiny even if they say that you become a Demon Prince (maybe i am wrong but i think that it is one possibility.)

@TheHeavenlyLily: its your game so in the end its your choice on how your player become a Obliterator.

@Cryhavok: Your idea is great but i have some problem with it (If were taking the information from the Chaos space marine codex)

-First: : its is clearly stated that the oblitarator exist outside of the warbands, moving from one to the other, exchanging their services for the opportunity to claim ancient technologies or capture exotic war gear from the Emperium and alien races. So for me the Obliterator cult wouldn't work,

-Second: About unaligned powers in the warp, i don't think it fit too, i mean if you choose to be Unaligned its because you don't want to follow an entity of the warp and that mean that your character will keep is soul (when you receive the mark of one of the four chaos gods, the soul of your char. will be claim for "eternity".)

Third: with what i said before,the corruption thing doesn't keep the road.

But in the end, its your game, not mine, so its your choice that count.

I don't suppose anyone here has read Siege of Castellax? Or owns Tome of Blood and/or Codex: Chaos Space Marines? It seems very clear that it is in fact a chaos mutation brought about, like all things chaotic, by strong emotions and maddening focus, in this case with weaponry, combined with exposure to strong warp currents/energy. The term virus probably comes from the fact that it eventually comes to consume its victim entirely and he becomes a machine dedicated to killing everything in sight with whatever he touches. As a matter of fact, despite the fact that mutilators exist, obliterators are just as capable of absorbing melee weapons as they are ranged.

Look at the model itself; it is festooned with plenty of knives, hooks and chain/power weapons, and it counts as being equipped with powerfists in melee. In Siege of Castellax the obliterator is capable of manifesting multiple weapons at once, including melee and ranged ones. One of the secondary characters is in fact infected with the "virus", but has managed to keep it from swallowing anything but his hand, which is a mutatn thing of metal fused flesh. The fact that he can keep it at bay with his willpower alone suggests that it is no true disease, but progresses similar to one.

Tome of blood actually has mutilator stats in it, and any starting character with those would leave his companions far behind in terms of power. So I would reason the high pre-requisites mentioned in some of the earlier posts are probably quite appropriate.

Also on that note, as far as I have seen there are no human mutilators/obliterators: they are SM only. Makes sense, since BC itself mentions that humans don't handle their mutations well compared to SM. Implying that the transformation to fleshmetal is lethal/impossible to regular humans as their forms can't withstand that level of change.

Talos77 said:

1. For the virus theory they are not even sure because they lack evidence to back up those claims and the another theory its a demonic possession.

2. It is said that most of the Obliterators come from the Techmarines of the Empiror's Space Marines(taken fom the codex:Chaos Space Marine). Which mean that the others Obliterators were once Heretek or Tech-Priest. So humans can become Obliterator.

Second: Unaligned powers in the warp appear throughout the fluff. Its pretty much canon that the are there. To assume everyone who is not aligned to one of the four gods is that way for only one reason is silly and limiting (in my opinion, no offense intended). Also Warmaster abbadon, who bears the marks of all four gods and remains unaligned due to his alliance with all four of them might disagree with you. While many who remain unaligned might do so beacuse the do not want to worship one of the four, it is not unreasonable that others are unaligned because they worship something other than one of the four. It takes all kinds.

Third: Your statement here does not make sense to me. If you dont mind please explain furthur so I can understand, though I might disagree once I do.