I was hoping to introduce a Sensei into my adventures some time in the future, but i'm not sure how he would play. I was thinking having him Captian of an old raider around the periphery disrupting Imperial traders and even Navy Cruisers and have my Acolytes chase him, but as for personality, psychic powers and states i'm at a loss.

Any tips on using sons of the Emperor anyone?

I'm no fan of the heavily Ret-Conned adventures of 'Jaq Draco', so I can't really help you there. If you are willing to do some deep digging, you might turn up something here in past posts: a few years ago, there was a stretch where it seemed like every third post was about trying to shoe-horn the Sensei into DH ...

The sensei are immortal, incapable of negative emotions, have no warp presence and have mysterious "good warp" powers in other words they are horrible mary-sue saturday morning cartoon characters. They are incapable of grimdark or character depth and in my humble opinion are a bit too "light and hope" at odds with the death and despair of modern fluff.

Leave highlander immortals where they belong.

That said a very similar adventure could be had with the raider captain using a halo device.

The sensei are immortal, incapable of negative emotions, have no warp presence and have mysterious "good warp" powers in other words they are horrible mary-sue saturday morning cartoon characters. They are incapable of grimdark or character depth and in my humble opinion are a bit too "light and hope" at odds with the death and despair of modern fluff.

True. But, as GW maintains, "there is no canon". Nothing requires you to recreate the Sensei exactly as they were (we never actually saw any of them in the Jaq Draco trilogy, anyway, only heard them described, and pretty much everything else that the Harlequin Man feeds Draco is at least suspect and at worst knowingly a load of outright fetid dingos kidneys).

A more recent analogue (from the Horus Heresy series) is the Perpetuals. Who I know a lot of people still aren't a fan of but who fit the universe a lot better.

Essentially, it doesn't matter.

as for personality, psychic powers and states i'm at a loss.

A big feature of the Perpetuals (which I approve of) is world-weariness. Dying and coming back is a horrible, sanity-wrecking process. As is watching everyone you know age and die and forever having to move on and move on to hide who and what you are. This guy will have lived for millenia, died probably several dozen times and keeps coming back whether he likes it or not. He'll probably have tried to kill himself at least once and found that doesn't work either.

Psychic powers...could be anything. If you want him to be immune to the touch of the warp, then just ignore psychic phenomena, but you might decide not to. After all, if 'immunity to the warp' was an inheritable trait rather than a facet of personality, mind and soul, you'd have thought the Emperor would have had the sense to include it in the Primarch genome.

One thing you might do, even if you don't want him to be a psyker, is to make him a sorceror. No-one can live that long, especially around reaver crews and the scum of the universe, with both Chaos and the Inquisition intermittently chasing him, without learning a few 'tricks'.

Well at least there has to be some kind of "Sensei", right? I mean, the Emperor was arguably human and it would've been strange if he didn't seed a score of mortal progeny.

The issue is that the the big E was special for psychic reasons not genetic ones, he used biomancy to make himself immortal. His is why Horus putting him down on his arse caused such problems as he no longer had the energy to spare maintaining his 38,000 years of psychic immortality and immediately started dying.

Sure he had the psyker gene, but as far as superpowered immortals go he`s kind of a self-made hero.

The issue is that the the big E was special for psychic reasons not genetic ones, he used biomancy to make himself immortal. His is why Horus putting him down on his arse caused such problems as he no longer had the energy to spare maintaining his 38,000 years of psychic immortality and immediately started dying.

Sure he had the psyker gene, but as far as superpowered immortals go he`s kind of a self-made hero.

There's no telling what effect that would have. We're talking about a person with such a strong soul, in a single individual, that it can be seen clear across the entire galaxy through the warp.

Add to that the fact that the Emperor is far older than virtually any recorded psyker. Psykers didn't start becoming prevalent in any meaningful fashion until the Dark Age of Technology, sometime 10 000-20 000 AD. Yet the earliest recorded origins of the Emperor dates back to 8000 BC.

Calling him a "self-made hero" is also a bit.. arguable. He's possibly the creation of thousands of pre-historic psykers, part of a shamanistic conclave, sacrificing themselves to pool their psychic powers into a single übermensch. The only thing that could possibly sound more Mary Sue is if he had literal wings and shat rainbows while his long black raven hair flowed in the wind.

The only thing that would be odd as hell is that the Sensei actually don't have any warp presence. I could see them masking their warp presence if they'd wish to.

I do like the idea of Perpetuals and may use them as a start on how I want the Sensei to be. World-weary sounds right how I would picture an immortal outlaw

My point was tha the Emperor is a psyker, his thousands of years of breeding with the humans of various areas is likely a good start as to why the pysker mutation is so prevalent. It might even explain why all 40k humans are only a few points from being full blown psykers but it doesn`t explain Sensei at all.

A big feature of the Perpetuals (which I approve of) is world-weariness. Dying and coming back is a horrible, sanity-wrecking process. As is watching everyone you know age and die and forever having to move on and move on to hide who and what you are. This guy will have lived for millenia, died probably several dozen times and keeps coming back whether he likes it or not. He'll probably have tried to kill himself at least once and found that doesn't work either.

Completely off-topic, but...

New World of 40K GrimDarkness

- Yeah, not helpful at all, I know. I just think these, the Sensei, Pariah's & all that stuff fit 40K even less well than back when the Eldar race were a client species of the Imperium.

Also.. Get off my lawn, lol

Completely off-topic, but...

New World of 40K GrimDarkness

- Yeah, not helpful at all, I know. I just think these, the Sensei, Pariah's & all that stuff fit 40K even less well than back when the Eldar race were a client species of the Imperium.

Also.. Get off my lawn, lol

I'm not a massive fan of the Sensei either. But that's what was asked, and - as pointed out - the closest 'current' version is the Perpetuals in the Horus Heresy series. Who aren't quite the same thing; having no direct relation to the emperor, and being variously aged only in their mid fifties*, three centuries (almost exactly the start of the great crusade)**, several dozen centuries***, Unknown but bloody old****, and in one extreme case, as near as old as the Emperor as makes no difference*****.

Wasn't aware of the Eldar ever having been an Imperial Client species, even back to Rogue Trader, by the way. It doesn't sound like a terribly Imperial thing to do; alien-burning having been a popular (and state-sponsored) hobby at all points in the background as far as I know.

[...]

Wasn't aware of the Eldar ever having been an Imperial Client species, even back to Rogue Trader, by the way. It doesn't sound like a terribly Imperial thing to do; alien-burning having been a popular (and state-sponsored) hobby at all points in the background as far as I know.

[...]

I present to you..

My god had forgotten all this. Half-Eldars and what not. Marines being Psychotic murderers just kitted to kill and not the "noble" ones now days.

have to rummage my attic for these books

Which book is that from? Genuinely curious.

Which book is that from? Genuinely curious.

Rogue Trader , if I'm not mistaken. The original one, not the FFG line.

It's usually one of those things I ignore, but I always bring it up when people start pushing fluff-stuff.

In my mind, the fact that there's a single example of half-eldar within the Ultramarines is about two thousand times more canon than talking necrons, dreadknights, centurion armour, Rowboat Girlyman Spiritual Liege and Grey Knights with warpaint made out of Adepta Sororitas blood.

Not to say working two years with Dark Angels

I have to ask, what is this about Grey Knights and the Adeptus Sororitas warpaint, its been made reference to a couple of times and its in Fgdsfg sig. Whats it all about?

I have to ask, what is this about Grey Knights and the Adeptus Sororitas warpaint, its been made reference to a couple of times and its in Fgdsfg sig. Whats it all about?

Essentially, in a piece of fluff written by Matt Ward , cursed be his name, a group of Grey Knights - the only group in the entirety of the Imperium to be confirmed to never have a single one of their men fall to Chaos, who endure soul-crushing possession and exorcism of said possessive daemon, that literally have litanies burned into their bones to prevent corruption, that cover their armours in holy symbols and hexagrammatical wards, whose faith is so strong that it is leaps and bounds stronger than almost any other beings in the universe, a chapter that is believed to be created from the geneseed of the Emperor himself, and that are mind-wiped and brainwashed from the moment they are recruited - slaughtered a whole convent of Adepta Sororitas in order to not only take advantage of their pre-existing immunity, but to become double-immune to the influences of Chaos.

And the reason they did this was because despite being purer than the Emperor himself - the Emperor at least being known to have fathered children - they feared falling to corruption, while the Sororitas they slaughtered and used as warpaint were pure enough to withstand the corrupting influences of a bloodthirster relic.

I could not make this up. It's that bad .

This is the same guy that had Necrons, faceless, unknowable and unspeakable horrors enslaved to alien Star Gods, reaping the souls of lesser sentient species in order to feed their unfeeling masters , ally with the Blood Angels to combat a tyranid threat for no reasons that makes sense.

And this guy still has a job. That's how terrible Games Workshop is. They should chop off this man's fingers and apply for a restraining order to keep him from writing fluff of any kind. Supposedly writes decent rules, though. Darth Ward and his dark apprentice, the Cruddmeister, are the two greatest disasters to ever hit WH40kdom.

Thats...interesting, I shall have to look out for this authors work, just to check it out and make sure I never buy it by accident

God, and I thought that the Sensai were horrible. Illyan Nastase sounds like the 40k answer to Samuel Haight!

Rogue Trader

, if I'm not mistaken.

That would surprise me, because I have Rogue Trader and have never seen that before. Certainly it's not in either the marine or the eldar sections.

There were a couple of compendia and sourcebooks which came out shortly after. Maybe one of those?

And the reason they did this was because despite being purer than the Emperor himself - the Emperor at least being known to have fathered children - they feared falling to corruption, while the Sororitas they slaughtered and used as warpaint were pure enough to withstand the corrupting influences of a bloodthirster relic.

The thing that bugs me the most is I can see (just about) how a heavily re-written version could work*, but the worst thing about his writing is that he creates non-sensical situations and then doesn't provide enough background to explain how it could make sense, he just leaves it as is (with you alternating between confusion and rage). Or he pushes it too far. I could, for example, see the Blood Angels and Necrons fighting alongside one another against the Tyranids (note 'alongside one another', not 'in alliance'), but not 'parting afterwards without immediately going back to war once the bugs were dead'.

One of the things I like the most about Daemon Hunter is it is, amongst other things, a decent writer doing a quick once-over the description of the organisation and wargear referred to in the codex. Smooshing Interceptors and Strike Squads into one thing, for example, and pushing them far more to the 'power-armoured nightcrawler', whilst making the purifiers much more the scholar-warriors (i.e. a librarian not in terms of psychic power - because they're ALL psykers - but in a sense of "the scholar who spends time in a library).

The black library authors don't seem to like him much more. Aaron Dembski-Bowden is most fascinating to listen to, because you need to bear in mind he was half-way through writing The Emperor's Gift when the new codex draft landed on his desk. I get the impression that a few bad words ensued.

* Not as described , I hasten to add. They don't need spiritual protection.

But grey knights are big on sacrifice to sanctify armour; if said big daemon was powerful enough to rip through even the physical protection of Aegis armour, an additional layer of protection in the form of wards drawn in blood might let them live a few seconds longer - maybe just long enough to banish it. Provided the blood was from someone pure (i.e. sororitas or other grey knights). Where the story falls apart is that this isn't the sort of protection implied, and that that sort of thing has to be willing**.

I could see the sororitas in the extreme voluntarily sacrificing themselves somehow to aid the knights against heresy incarnate, but ward's writing gives the impression the Knights didn't bother to ask, went "oh, sod it", teleported into the convent and just started hacking them up with nemesis weapons and as a result they weren't inconvenienced at all by the daemon. Which is...well....there's a reason it gets held up as the worst example in a gallery of fail.

** See the closest equivalent I can think of; the Justicar Alaric short story Sacrifice . Which, by comparison, is awesome and a piece of fiction which feels totally right for the Grey Knights, despite covering virtually the same topic.

My memory is pretty hazy on this, but I believe it's from a WD or CJ army list that never made it into one of the compilations.

But it kind of has to be said that 40K back in the 1st edition and 40K after 3rd edition hit, are very, very different things. Probably about as different as Dark Sun and Forgotten Realms for D&D are. You'll mostly recognise everything right off, but if you look for more than a second you'll realise you don't actually recognise it at all.

And FWIW I'm not sure than on the whole, the post-3e edition of the universe is better than the original. More consistent and coherent, definitely. But not necessarily better for it.

... Then again, I'm one of those unfortunate people who unfailingly start collecting armies that the next edition of the Wargame retcons away or at least never publishes an official armylist for. Totally not bitter, lol