My group's Psyker Hermes Has a secret from everyone. Inside his body is an Eldar Spirit stone that holds the soul of a Farseer. The soul has agreed to aid in return for being returned to her people at the first opportunity. She gives cryptic warnings and gives the Psyker the Favoured of the Warp talent.

Recently however Hermes allowed the Eldar to "mount" him and gave control of his body and mind to the xeno. He eventually managed to regain control but i feel he should pay for allowing a Xeno to control him. The question is:

Insanity? It seems a little begnin. I am considering somewhere in the range of 1d10 insanity with no willpower roll to shield him. He did relinquish control voluntarily.

Corruption? I keep reading the description for Corruption in the book and cannot find anything to back it up. Again considering 1d10 Corruption.

I would value your input…

Easy! The answer is Both!

konst80hum said:

Corruption Points can be a divisive topic.

I prefer a fairly strict interpretation of what corruption points represent. In my game, corruption is the physical effect(s) that come about as a result of exposure to the energy of the warp. Corruption does not come from within, but without. For this reason, untouchables are completely immune to corruption points, and unless a demon, psyker, or sorcerer is involved, there is very rarely any cause for them to come into play.

In this case, the spirit stone inside Hermes' body is a device specifically designed to prevent the farseer's soul from entering the warp. It is, essentially, a warp barrier, and by my interpretation, could not cause corruption points of its own accord. If the Farseer invoked any phenomena while in control of Hermes' body, I could see an argument for increasing the amount of corrupion gained, since a Farseer is probably capable of channeling far more warp energy than the psyker is capable of or used to.

(There are plenty of people who disagree with me, and see corruption as relating to the purity and resiliance of one's soul against the toxic miasma of chaos. Ultimately, it comes down to your group, and the kind of game you want to play.)

Insanity, on the other hand, is fair game. Go hog wild. I think 1d10 with no prevent is fine. If you're feeling generous, you could gradually reduce the insanity gained, as he becomes more used to sharing his mind with the Eldar, or not. I could see the argument for either scenario.

Those're my two thrones. Have fun!

Insanity seems best here. Usually this how the process goes any ways. The other wise devout agent of the Emperor plays with fire and puts his mind on the table thinking that he has what it takes to resist. But as the insanity progresses it leads the character in to situations where corruption comes in to play. I mean once one is insane the notion of seeking out "alternative solutions" comes second hand it won't be long till the afflicted find themselves howling alongside their corrupted brethren convinced that they are on the right path.

Regarding Corruption: It can be a moment or event, a pivotal decision made by an Acolyte. Allowing oneself, mind and body, to be puppeted by the alien is foul, and looked upon with shame and horror by an Acolyte's peers. Corruption could very well be considered equally as physical and moral taint. There are politicians, and then there are corrupt politicians, and it is the manner in which they have let their moral compasses drift that determines their corrupt nature. Once that path is trod there is no turning back. It is the path of the Radical, and the justifications, rationalizations, will soon become second nature. We've all read of the city financial auditor who embezzeled hundreds of thousands of dollars from his or her employer in a short span of years; at what point does a hundred thousand become two, become three, become not enough, instead of quitting while the quitting is good? That is the path to corruption of the moral compass.

Allowing an alien entity to take possession…poor moral decision, and worthy of Corruption.

That's my point Alekzanter. He could have died there but instead he prefered to use any and all available means to achieve his purpose. His eventual success is irrelevant. Hermes succeded by taking a shortcut to power. The rest is just rationalisations and excuses. It is after all the Grim Darkness of the far future. Thanks for convincing me

I will go ahead and award 1d10 both Insanity and Corrruption. Deviation from the correct path does bring after all insanity, Corruption and Mutation…..

I think 1d10 in both is justifiable, although I would probably go with 1d10 insanity and 1d5 corruption, as corruption seems much more character breaking than insanity so I usually go a little more gently on that one - but you don't have to be as soft as me ;-)

konst80hum said:

I would probably go with 1D10 Insanity and 1 or 2 corruption per time period until the character divests themselves of the stone. Rember that the reason Eldar need spirit stones is that they are attractive to certain warp entities.

I personally use corruption limited to dealings with chaos/the warp etc. rather than with xenos. In this case allowing an alien mind to take control should definitely involve quite a lot of insanity. I would be tempted to go with 10+1D10 IP partly to encourage your PC to not use this ability all the time! I would be inclined to award small CP gains for being exposed to psykic forces that a human psyker is usually ignorant/incapable of.

To Crunch: What do you mean by time periods?

To Brother Kane: It's not an ability he can activate at will. His conscious self was being destroyed by a Daemonhost and while bleeding and battered he asked the spirit of the Farseer to help. She demolished the Deamonhost, afterwards was quite unwilling to return control of the body back to Hermes and quite ready to destroy the rest of the Acolytes. (They were responsible for her death after all). He did manage to regain control (after burning FPs) with a lot of luck and is now at critical levels with his mind and soul his after all.

For the rrecord the same Psyker in our last session suffered 26 Insanity points by Learning Things Man Was Not Meant To Know^tm . I don't want to end with a gibbering wreck of character as he is my Scion of Haarlock. I plan on the ship to the next mission to introduce him to what passes for psychotherapy in the 40k.

konst80hum said:

By time period I mean per Hour/Day/Week/Month whatever is appropriate for the pacing of your game.

I understand more fully now: I still think that I would make the costs very high for asking a disembodied xenos consciousness for direct help like that, especially with it involving handing over control of his own body. However I don't personally think this has anything to do with corruption as I see it as totally invovled with the ruinous powers and not with xenos.

There are plenty of occasions in fluff when Imperial forces ally temporarily with xenos forces for the greater good (usually in killing 'nids or chaos). These people are not gaining corruption - that doesn't mean that the Inquisition doesn't frown upon it somewhat.

The only similar thing I can recall written canonically is when a DW marine's armour has a hero's spirit that can possess him, this inflicts 3d10 insanity on the character.

Corruption point is sometimes also described as the results of exposure to radioactives products; I would say that corruption represents everything that destroy a man body and soul by bringing him away from its original humanity; when insanity is just the fact of being crazy (yeah, well, when you see where it can bring a character, it isn't always pretty).

In my opinion, if we forget the fact that there was also a daemonhost in his mental fiesta, I would clearly give something 1D10 +3 insanity points and 1D5 corruption points; he became insane by seeing things, ideas, concepts and having thoughts that were aliens to human mind, but he also saw his own consciousness and spirit being warped, transformed forever by these alien perceptions.

On one way; it affects him to see this, on the other way, it transforms him to see this. It was also a very hard decision to take with consequences on his purity and anything.

Permitting one's mind and body to be subsumed by another, and an ancient Xenos at that, should cost a whole stack of Insanity; it's a profound injury to an individual's psyche. As to Corruption… a psyker secretly invites a Xenos psyker to possess them in order to gain additional power and knowledge over an enemy? Tzeentch approves. +1d5 CP, or more.

I agree with Darth Smeg, you should err on the side of caution and award both corruption and insanity points. Just because you can!

If the posession thingy didn't screw up the guys mind, I would only grant corruption for a voluntarily heretical act.

Sorry for the post on an old topic, but I find this one of the more fascinating aspects of DH!

I usually use wounds, insanity, and corruption to represent damage to, respectively, body, mind, and soul. So, cuts and bruises cause damage to your body, meaning you lose wounds. Horrific sights and torture facture your mind, meaning you gain Insanity points.

And compromise in the fight against Chaos and xenos results in damage to the purity of your soul, hence you would gain Corruption points in my game! The further one sinks into using the tools of the enemies of the Imperium against them, the more you risk damaging your soul. (On top of that, exposure to the raw effects of the warp inadvertently tears at your soul, causing you futher corruption)

In this particular case, I think both is the answer. The actual process of an alien possessing your body, something else moving your limbs as you're merely a passive observer, that will clearly cause you some mental damage. However, falling back on the last resort, using a foul Xenos to get you out of a tight spot, that's a step on the path of radicalism. The Acolyte is starting to risk his soul in the fight for survival.

A lot of the fun of the game is how close to the edge you can skirt before you go over!