Astrid Tantalus, Chaos psyker (WIP Blood Magic rules)

[Koval]

Yes, I have been playing too much Dragon Age.

I'm looking mostly for pointers regarding the Power Of Blood ability, rather than thoughts on the character, though I'm open to both. I appreciate that there are some things in the Power of Blood rules that appear extremely fringe or pointless for Astrid to have, but my intention is to open the door for other characters (not necessarily mine) for whom these things are less useless.

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NAME: Astrid Tantalus (née Lorena Guillory)

RANK // AFFILIATION: Apostate psyker, formerly Savant Militant // Slaanesh, formerly Scholastica Psykana

PHYSICAL STATS:
Date of Birth: (3)568974.M41
Place Of Birth: Canderous Prime, Carthax Sector
Gender: Female
Height: 170cm
Weight: 60kg

BRIEF BACKGROUNDY BIT (that probably isn't all that brief, but whatever):
When the Orks invaded Issana, the Scholastica Psykana were far from idle, and Savant-Militant Lorena Guillory was deployed alongside regiments from Indeli and Nova Sagittar. A sanctioned telepath, Lorena's talents were initially put to a rather limited use alongside her psyker battle squad; unable to contribute effectively to a battle on her own, Lorena found herself relegated to bolstering the resolve of those around her as the remainder of the squad put their energies to a more offensive use. This changed when a unit of Orkish Kommandos got the drop on Lorena's unit, killing two before the psyker squad could find the courage to retaliate. Lorena's attempts to break the Orks' will telepathically were feeble at best, perhaps causing one of them to hesitate for a second before a lasbolt struck it, but little more. Eventually, one of the Orks turned its attentions towards Lorena, striking her in the face with the butt of its pistol and sending her to the floor with a broken nose; her resolve turning to rage, Lorena's desperate psychic burst manifested as a telepathic bomb that detonated within the Ork's brain, killing it instantly and surprising its fellows for long enough that her squad could drive them off.

While Lorena's apparent boost in power drew the attention of her superiors, who had until now assumed her telepathy to be rather limited in scope, it also drew the attention of an entity that, perhaps unoriginally, called itself Allocer. Taking an interest in the psyker for its own inscrutable reasons, Allocer appeared in her dreams as a well-dressed man, at first in the background, but soon making direct contact as it attempted to convince Lorena that she had more power than she allowed herself to realise. Lorena repelled the entity, unwilling to surrender to its temptations, but further instances of physical injury triggering a psychic power surge made her wonder whether to listen to Allocer after all. When she encountered Allocer again, it was calm, and even unfailingly polite, as it forgave her earlier misgivings. Daemons have an eternity to play the long game, and Allocer was willing to exercise patience as it drip-fed Lorena promises of power. Slowly, it convinced her to explore the extent of her psychic abilities, and although it never granted her its own power, it taught Lorena ways to augment her abilities through her own efforts. Initially, this was subtle sorcery, using a small amount of her own blood to paint simple sigils on her skin, hidden away from outside observers. Lorena quickly noticed the connection between sacrifice -- blood -- and a minor, but noticeable, increase in her own psychic focus, and courtesy of Allocer Lorena began to outshine the rest of her unit.

Her superiors were quick to grow suspicious and it was not long before Lorena was confronted by her Savant-Warrant, Greger Kartal, who wanted to know how Lorena's powers had grown so rapidly, and demanded that she submit herself to rites of psi-scrutiny. Fearing that she had been exposed as a practitioner of sorcery, Lorena attacked Kartal with her mercy blade, prompting Kartal to respond in kind and plunge his own weapon into her stomach. Expecting the blow to have killed her, Kartal withdrew his blade and allowed Lorena to fall to the floor, but Kartal had barely taken three steps before he himself fell down dead, his brain overloaded by a spike of telepathic force that impaled his mind. Collapsing into unconsciousness, Lorena's dreaming mind again encountered Allocer, who -- perhaps unexpectedly -- congratulated her before leading her towards a shimmering palace of gold and marble, more beautiful and impressive than Lorena could imagine.

What transpired within is between Lorena, Allocer and the lord of the golden palace, but when Lorena emerged it was clear that she considered herself blessed by the touch of a Dark Prince beyond mortal comprehension. Came Lorena's return to the world of mortals, her escape from Issana was swift, taking a minimum of possessions together with Kartal's head and fleeing on board a refugee transport. Her nature as a Chaos-touched psyker was concealed by Allocer's influence until she could escape into the Warp and meet the daemon again.

Allocer taught the psyker more than just means to power. It taught her the ways of immorality, sharing with her the names and natures of those who served its -- and her -- dark master faithfully until death and beyond. It showed her how to use everything at her disposal to carry out her goals, and revealed to her how to augment her physical strength through psychic means. She learned of men and women, the stuff of legend, who devoted themselves to perfection and the pursuit of power. At Allocer's suggestion she took on a new name, throwing off the title given to her by the Imperium and renaming herself after mythical traitors and villains from the tales and legends of humanity's past.

The psyker now calling herself Astrid Tantalus has little motivation beyond fighting, and killing, for her Dark Prince's favour. Her powers have, naturally, grown through the use of blood sorcery, and her mental delusions mean she considers herself superior to other humans, even other psykers, unless they too have embraced Chaos. Allocer continues to watch her, though it limits its role to conversation as it does not believe that the psyker will gain much further benefit from its instruction. Nonetheless, it is still there, waiting for a time when it can reap what it has sown in its erstwhile protégée's soul.


WS BS S  T  I  Wp Sg Nv Ld
63 57 51 54 65 72 68 65 57

Handedness: Right

Equipment: Force staff, breastplate (AV 4 on chest, AV 2 on abdomen, AV 1 on arms), miscellaneous odds and ends

Skills and Talents: Feint, The Power Of Blood

Psychic Powers: Agony Unleashed*, Blood Boil, Hallucinate, Psychic Scream, Puppet Master*, Warp Strength
*Special: May be used only through The Power Of Blood.


Force staff: Courtesy of Allocer pointing her towards a heretek artisan, Astrid had the skull of her former Savant-Warrant turned into the head of her staff, replacing the defaced Imperial iconography it once had. Reinforced with black iron, infused with psychic power, and framed in the halo of a Star of Chaos, the skull has been transformed into a powerful psychic focus.
This is a normal force staff (insofar as a force staff can be "normal"), but anyone looking at it will have no trouble working out that Astrid is a follower of Chaos.


The Power Of Blood: The use of blood as a catalyst for sorcery is an ancient practice whose origins few can decide upon. Some say it originated in works of fiction that later turned out to contain some truth, while others suggest that a genuine practice was dismissed as fantasy in a time when sorcery was almost nonexistent. Regardless, there are psykers and sorcerers in existence that use blood -- their own, or someone else's -- as a tool when using their powers; whether this blood was obtained through deliberate bloodletting or circumstancial injury appears to be irrelevant. While some are quick to connect this practice with Khorne, others point out that Khorne despises psykers, and using blood in sorcery insults him and finds favour with his enemies.
As an alternative to using psychic powers normally, a psyker with this ability may optionally use The Power Of Blood when using psychic powers. The psyker must have taken Heavy damage or worse to at least one location, or be bleeding, in order to use The Power Of Blood. Do note that The Power Of Blood is compatible with Concentration actions.
In addition, once per game, the psyker may use an action to draw blood from him/herself, cutting the arm of the player's choice -- if the psyker does not have a bladed weapon, assume s/he is carrying a suitable tool such as a sharpened letter-opener or kitchen knife (not a chainsaw!). Drawing blood deals D3+2 damage to the chosen arm, ignoring armour**; additionally (and most importantly), if that location was not bleeding before, it is now. The character may not deliberately attempt to heal self-inflicted damage or staunch self-inflicted bleeding until after the game.
When using The Power Of Blood to cast psychic powers, choose one of the following effects and apply it to the power being cast:
--The power's Difficulty is reduced by 10 (to a minimum of 5)
--If the power requires the target to test Willpower for the power to take hold (not to break the spell in subsequent turns), apply a -10 penalty to the target's test
--If the power deals direct damage, it gains the Tearing property (see the Revised Inquisitor Armoury)
--If the power is persistent, the psyker may re-roll the first test to maintain the power
Using a psychic power through The Power Of Blood is a Risky Action, whose effects override the normal Risky Action rules for using psychic powers. If the psychic power action fails, the power backfires; the psyker immediately suffers 2D6 Willpower damage, 2D6 Toughness damage (which may affect his/her BIV, as well as his/her Consciousness, System Shock and Instant Death thresholds), and is Stunned for the rest of the turn. Note that Psychic Overloads may still occur and have all of their usual, unpleasant effects.
**Special: If the psyker is wearing armour with at least AV 5 on his/her arms, s/he may cut a leg instead -- s/he may not attempt to draw blood from any non-limb location due to a greater risk of debilitating or highly unpleasant injury. If the character is wearing AV 5 armour or greater on all limbs, then s/he is out of luck and must rely on being injured normally.


New Psychic Powers

Agony Unleashed: Difficulty (half of target's Willpower), ranged, requires line of sight. The psyker harnesses his pain, rage, and hatred, binding them into a psychic bomb, which is then launched directly into the mind of his target. Roll a number of D10s equal to the tens digit of the psyker's Injury total, and add 2 to the result. The target takes this much damage. This attack is always resolved against the target's head (more specifically, their brain; if the target does not have a head, then the GM is the final arbiter of where the target's brain is located).
Special: Damage from Agony Unleashed ignores armour and force fields.

Hallucinate: Difficulty 0, ranged. The psyker causes his victim to perceive something that just isn't real. The target must take a Willpower test; if this is failed, the victim must roll on the Hallucinogen Effects Table on page 79 of the Inquisitor LRB, applying the effect immediately.
Special: Impose a negative modifier on the victim's Willpower test, equal to half the amount by which the Psychic test was passed.

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Unfortunately, Allocer went to the same School of Unoriginal Names that produced my Bloodletter character, Agares (in that both names are lifted straight from Goetic demons). Considering that Allocer is a daemon, however, it's hardly going to use its real name. Also consider that Allocer will come to collect, in case anyone's wondering why it's being really nice; it probably offers power to everyone that takes its fancy (and being as it's a daemon of Slaanesh, it tends to play around a bit). Lorena probably just happened to be the one that amused it at the time.

To head off the "why did nobody notice Lorena daubing herself in blood?" questions, let's assume she found some measure of privacy somewhere, even if it's just in the washrooms or latrines. All she'd have needed was a small razor blade, which she could've piked from a Guardsman's grooming kit.

Tantalus should be abundantly obvious to anyone who either knows about Classical mythology, or can look on Wikipedia; however, there's a space cookie going if anyone can tell me specifically where I got the name Astrid from.


As usual, comments welcome, though again, the focus should be on the Power Of Blood rules first, as that's what I want to get right.

[Gilleon]

Can't see anything initially wrong with the Power of blood rules, though I would be concerned about her getting a little too hammered before being able to blow off some psychic steam.
Perhaps a familiar (of some sort) could be used as an unwilling donor to fuel her powers, or possibly gaining Regeneration when blood related damage is inflicted on the enemy (ie Blood boil, Agony unleashed or melee damage).
Other than that I like her, the story is well put together I think.

Just a guess, but is it Astrid from Skyrim you are referring to? That's my best guess right now.

[Eziah Kranox]

Instead of the Power of Blood rules, couldn't you just make it that she is forced to use the Corpus Conversion rules from The Sanctioning Brand or a modification of those? It just seems simpler. While I understand most of it I don't quite understand why the psyker needs to take Heavy damage or be bleeding to use it, as from the way it is described she cuts herself.

[MarcoSkoll]

While I understand most of it I don't quite understand why the psyker needs to take Heavy damage or be bleeding to use it, as from the way it is described she cuts herself.

As I was partially responsible for making this suggestion over Skype in the first place, I'll field this one.

Koval's initial suggestion was not unlike that for the Lashblade Chaos power (see Phil Kelly's article) - deal X damage to an arm in exchange for unlimited rice pudding.
However, I feel this kind of thing doesn't work well with Inquisitor's damage rules. Cast a power several times, and suddenly you're dealing with someone whose arms are cut to ribbons (in the same way as the "four face slaps" rule -  or you can heal it every time and end up using your blood for sorcery repeatedly, but be uninjured. Neither really makes sense.

Hence, the suggestion was that rather than blood magic requiring the character injure themselves each time, that it simply be based on whether they were (sufficiently) injured.

Under those circumstances, she could either injure herself or use wounds already inflicted, without the problem of under or over injured characters.

As for Corpus Conversion... seeing as Dark Heresy includes this for sanctioned Imperial psykers, I've always preferred the idea that the cause and effect are reversed from what the name implies. Rather than a psyker channelling "life force" or whatever into their powers, they're pushing their powers to the point that it's taking a physical toll.

While it could be either way around (depending on case), I can't imagine most of the Imperium looking kindly on psykers feeding their powers with their own life force. It's a little too far down the path of damnation.
But it being sheer strain would help explain the ill health and short lifespan of many psykers in fluff (beyond general maltreatment, of course).

So, I'm happy to see the two separate, and I'm not seeing anything unnecessarily complicated - although there is perhaps a change or two I would make.
I'm not completely keen on automatically passing persistent tests - I'd make it a bonus (maybe a re-roll) instead. Auto-pass tests (see Nerves of Steel, Force of Will, etc) tend to be something the community take issue with...

~~~~~

EDIT: @ Gilleon: Do NOT try and guess. If these space cookies are anything like our DH game's space cake, you don't want them.
Interrogator Greensail has been out for three weeks after eating it. (Or a few hours, if you take in-game time rather than the actual time of our weekly sessions.)

[Koval]

Just a guess, but is it Astrid from Skyrim you are referring to? That's my best guess right now.

Space cookies for you.

Can't see anything initially wrong with the Power of blood rules, though I would be concerned about her getting a little too hammered before being able to blow off some psychic steam.

That's part of the risk, though, and she can still use powers normally -- I tried to present TPOB as an alternative rather than a straight replacement, though maybe I need to make that clearer.

Perhaps a familiar (of some sort) could be used as an unwilling donor to fuel her powers, or possibly gaining Regeneration when blood related damage is inflicted on the enemy (ie Blood boil, Agony unleashed or melee damage).

At first, I thought about stealing the Sacrifice rules from Black Crusade; the simple version is that a sorcerer can kill someone and use their death as psychic fuel, in exchange for any nasty side-effects channeling itself through the sacrificial victim's corpse (usually resulting in them bursting into flames). Of course, the downside is that I'd need to kill someone first, and AFAIK there's a problem in this game when you have a character deliberately setting out to kill other characters for something as petty as "your next psychic power is easier to cast".

So I didn't bother with that.

I didn't think about familiars, on the basis that I've no idea how to handle a familiar. As for Regeneration, she was initially going to have a Drain Life sort of power that operated through gaining Vampirism, but Vampirism at the moment is really gimmicky and any other attempt to make a "damage opponent, regain HP" power either made no sense or ended up being horrendously overpowered. (Or both.)

Other than that I like her, the story is well put together I think.

Thank you.

Instead of the Power of Blood rules, couldn't you just make it that she is forced to use the Corpus Conversion rules from The Sanctioning Brand or a modification of those? It just seems simpler. While I understand most of it I don't quite understand why the psyker needs to take Heavy damage or be bleeding to use it, as from the way it is described she cuts herself.

Marco's already answered this in greater detail than I could hope to, but the shorter version is that I don't have The Sanctioning Brand available (because Dark Magenta is still down) so I don't know what those rules entail; in any case, coming up with my own stuff is more fun. I'll have to see if Marco saved it.

I'm not completely keen on automatically passing persistent tests - I'd make it a bonus (maybe a re-roll) instead. Auto-pass tests (see Nerves of Steel, Force of Will, etc) tend to be something the community take issue with...

It's the first one only, but I do see your point. I'll change it.

[MarcoSkoll]

the shorter version is that I don't have The Sanctioning Brand available (because Dark Magenta is still down) so I don't know what those rules entail; I'll have to see if Marco saved it.

The backup of all Dark Magenta articles covers what I think is everything save the animated version of the "Things that dwell in darkness" article (which I do have, but haven't uploaded.)

[Gilleon]

Quote
Other than that I like her, the story is well put together I think.
Thank you.

Not a problem Koval, always happy to actually be helpful.

With regard to familiars.... well, I imagined something along the lines of a cat, rodent or Ptera-squirrel. Given her submersion in all things demonic maybe something like Huron's Hamadrya would be appropriate. Shouldn't need much in the way of physical stats, just slice em open and enjoy that delicious psychic goodness.

EDIT: @ Gilleon: Do NOT try and guess. If these space cookies are anything like our DH game's space cake, you don't want them.
Interrogator Greensail has been out for three weeks after eating it. (Or a few hours, if you take in-game time rather than the actual time of our weekly sessions.)

I have an iron stomach, I'm sure I can handle it. Glad to know I got a hole in the one though, thanks Koval.