I'm sure this has probably been stated somewhere, but I was just wondering how many psykers might be given as tithe to a black ship per world. Take Scintilla for example. With 25 billion people, how many might be pskers, and of that how many would be given over to black ships? (almost all I assume)

I'd say any of them the government or the Inquisition know about. Some are going to fall through the cracks, some are going to be recruited by chaos cults and some are going to be hidden away by nobles and criminal organizations for their own use. But the last thing the Empire wants is rogue psykers running around, so any not snatched up for the greater glory of the God Emperor had better remain well hidden.

I'd say the Black Ships would take as many psykers as have been rounded up by the locals or however many will fit within it's holds, whichever comes first. Though, for bigger planets like Scintilla I suspect a whole fleet of Black Ships would be scent whenever scheduling and the vagaries of warp travel allow.

I believe it was said somewhere that psykers are about one in a million. That means your 25 billion planet generates 25000 psykers over about 80 years (assuming you use the american billion... otherwise, that planet would be a little crowded). Assume that about half of them are not found or simply killed (the majority making up the latter portion - redemptionists tend to shorten a psyker's trip to Terra considerably by making them meet Him in person...), that leaves about 13000 for the ships.

I always assumed that the psykers held up in Black Ships or detainment camps would number in the thousands on reasonably crowded planets.

Giving Unsanctioned Psykers to the Black Ship isn't exactly a tithe. Its a duty. There is no percentage its ALL psykers (unless for some reason the Inquisition steps in). its either give them to the Black Ships or kill them.

Now like others said, all may not survive the wait for the Black Ships, and all may not be found, but any that are found are rounded up and detained until the Black Ship arrives. Those not detained are killed outright.

Of course that's Unsanctioned Psykers. Sanctioned Psykers of course don't go onto the Black Ships (except that be a cool little mix up for a scenerio).

Xathess Wolfe said:

Of course they don't. Sanctioned Psykers have already been on the Black Ships ("on the unwilling pilgrimage", as one of my players has taken to saying). That's part of the reason why they're Sanctioned.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Well I know that and you know that and I would assume the OP would know that, but I've discovered that sometimes its best to state the obvious then assume.

The Administratum is supposed to keep track of how much of the percentage of a certain planet's population are psykers. It varies somewhat from world to world. One example from one of the novels (?) was that the Inquisition went to a planet ahead of schedule because their reported "catch" for the last few years was notably less than average on record.

Most worlds, the Arbites is responsible for warehousing them until they're picked up, usually in a special prison of which I forget the name of right now.... Black Ships, like most Imperial vessels are huge and can hold thousands...maybe 10,000+...or more. The descriptions I've read it seems most likely that they stop at several systems to "fill up" before heading back to Holy Terra.

OHH! OOHH!

The exact answer to your question is in Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader. Waaaaayyyyyyy back in the day, you had to (or had the option to maybe) roll to see if you were a psyker. There was a tiny percentage chance. Even less if you were a Ratling, Squat or Ogryn. YES, there are psyker Ogryn!

Well, it is said that the Tau are unique for not having psykers, so I'd assume that all other species (necrons excepted) have some amount of psyker presence. I've actually been trying to find out the average percentage occurance of psykers, if you assume one in 100k, then with a 20% birth rate you'd be generating fifty thousand psykers per year on Scintilla, and it's a fairly small hive world by Imperial standards (remember Calixis is a very new sector as things go, and the hives are far more expansive in older regions). Even at one in a million and a very low brith rate of 15% that's 4250 psykers a year, which is going to be a rough amount of rounding up for anyone, especially if they tend to be troublesome. Personally I'd guess that the 50k is closer to the mark, though I'd also assume half those die before being discovered, given the nature of their problems. Thoughts?

@Aureus

You are aware that birth rate is usually measured in per mille (/1000) instead of percent? According to Wikipedia, our world has a yearly birth rate of about 20 for every 1000, which makes for 134 million babies per year - which would lead to a manageable 134 psykers assuming one-in-a-million chance.

A birth rate of 20% would mean that at any given time, every second woman you know either is pregnant or was at most three months ago.

Back when RT first came out, Normal (Human) Characters had a 5% chance of being Psykers, RT's Inquisitors and such had a larger chance, then their where the Psyker characters who where 100%, those found fit for Imperial Service where 1% of the popluasion and those who had the raw talant or survived long enough to reach Character Status amounted to 1%, so given a bace line 1 in say 500K

The Rogue Trader numbers are for the chance of special personalities possessing psychic powers, not the species as a whole. That's how you could have a number like 5% for a human hero and 50% for Inquisitors, which is a revealing enough number on its own.

like I said 5% of "normal" Characters of whom repesent less than 0.01% of the population.