This came up twice yesterday. Grand Possession from Perils of the Warp states (all paraphrased of course): a Greater Demon attempts to possess the psyker (see Possession Trait).

Fair enough, so we go there (pg 142) and find this under Effects of Possession: victim increases Str and T by 10 and uses possessing entity's Int, Per, Wp, and Psy Rating. Replace the possessed creature's Skills and Talents with the possessing entity's. The entity may attempt to recall memories and Skills from its victim with a successful Int test. Good chance of becoming immediately mutated and developing more mutations the longer the possession continues.

First question is this: what is the down side to being possessed by a Greater Demon? Look at Lord of Change! He is a win button when possessing a marine! So is a Great Unclean One…even Phokulozortis is pretty freaking awesome. Again what is the downside? Why would anyone want to not be possessed by a greater demon? Sure you develop mutations, but that's a pretty small cost for Tzeentch aligned characters since change and mutation is their calling card.

Second question: how long is this supposed to last?

There are possesed space marines in Wh40k. But isn't the possesion suposed to be kind of lethal? There was something similar to posesion in Dark Heresy i think, when you create deamonhosts. I think that actually your soul is like consumed by the Deamon ( or at least part of it) and after it ends it results in some permanent characteristic damage (see page 143). The other thing is that it's the deamon, not the player who takes control, and the deamon has completly no reason to work with the rest of the team, or not to attack them for example.

Those are rules of possesion from the book - in case of greater deamon possesion i would probably increase permanent characteristic damage(143) and(211) or add an disorder. And any way - in case of hostile possesion, as a result of the perils of the warp is, the deamon ( like greater deamon of tzeentch, knowing all the powers) and it's new host should be in no way friendly towards any other living beings. Being possesed by a greater deamon while performing some magic is rather an EPIC FAIL and the deamon is rather angry that those pesky mortals disturb the warp performing some trick.

End a possesion? Exorcism - some kind of simple ritual, or maybe few forbiden lore (demonology) test, its rather basic knowledge, how to cast out a deamon. I didn't say it's easy to do. Or when the deamon gets bored. Or near dead damage, being unconcious maybe. That would be my ideas. There probably will be more about possesions in other BC suplements.

Still remember that getting a greater possesion is still an big failing, especially if you are towards tzeentch.

And you get a lot of permanent T damage - from trait (p.143) and as an effect of possesion (p.211). Surviving 4d10 T damage is kind of tricky.

deadlyhammer said:

Umm, the downside is that you stop being you, and a Greater Daemon wanders around in your body. "Possession" isn't "you get a load of free stat boosts" it's "an NPC with really great stats gets to borrow your character's body for as long as the GM sees fit and there's bupkiss you can do about it."

Though that the Daemon Prince stats presented in BC are for a chick who forced possession on herself and then dominated the daemon to extend her life, slowly leeching it's warp energies to sustain her, I feel that there need to be mechanics to represent that. Since I'd like the chance to pull the same thing off.

@ Chastity: where does it say that it becomes an NPC? I cannot find anywhere in BC where it says that.

I understand that grand possession is supposed to be a failing from pushing your psychic limits, but if a Thousand Sons marine is possessed by a Lord of Change, why would he ever exorcise himself, or communicate that he wants to be exorcised? They just found Necrons in hand of corruption, the only thing in the universe that does not change.

I cannot find anything detailing how long the possession lasts (excepting exorcism), and I do not see anything saying the character is now a GM controlled NPC. If that is the case, effective TPK because 2 of the 3 groups members just got possessed.

As for the T damage, p143 says permanent T damage for surviving the exorcism, but the just regular T damage for the grand possession on p211.

deadlyhammer said:

First line of the paragraph entitled "The Effects of Possession" p142. " A possessing entity takes control utterly , binding itself to its victim, and is capable of commanding the body to function regardless of pain and injury." (emphasis mine)

If your character is possessed, it is the possessing entity (which is by definition an NPC unless the GM allowed you to *start the game* as a Greater Daemon) which controls your character's actions. You do not just get to carry on playing as the possessing entity any more than you would get to carry on playing the Daemon if it just killed you with a conventional attack.

Now it is absolutely true that many Chaos Worshipers *do* deliberately invite possession (it at least used to be a major mechanic in Tabletop - you bring Daemons into play by having them possess your foot troops) but they do this because they are self-annihilating psychopaths who will willingly sacrifice themselves to further the goals of Chaos.

Ahhhhhh. Okay. Well I was looking for something more like 'the PC is no longer in control of his actions' or 'becomes a GM controlled character until the demon can be exorcised' kind of thing. Something cut and dried, less interpretative or inferred. But I think I can work with this.

Thanks!

Well if 2/3 of your group just got possesed, just treat them as Killed in Action, some extra corruption from failing, decrase infamy as p.307-308 and the other drawbacks of being possesed, and just carry on in the next sesion…

hehe, well one of them rolled grand possession, used infamy to reroll, and promptly rolled annihilation. she is pretty stuck with rolling up a new toon. what you have stated above is a workable solution for the 1k son marine though if he wants to keep his toon badly enough.

deadlyhammer said:

You DO know that you can't reroll Psychic Phenomena/Perils of the Warp by using infamy unless you have special abilities/talents that state you can do that?

And yes, Grand Possession is kind of meant to be a TPK or atleast a something VERY VERY bad for the character and the rest of the group.