Discussing the Daemon!

[The Pirate Captain]

Hey all, Pirate Captain here,

I have some queries on Daemonhosts and their characteristics?  I'm hoping to stir up some discussion.

Do you folks all play Daemonhosts with roughly the characteristics in the Inq-rulebook?  I ask because frankly, daemons are all heavy on the close combat, but the Inq-rulebook seems to make them out as fairly psyker heavy when they possess something.

So how do you guys play them?  Do any of you give their innate unarmed attacks special attributes like Cherubaels?

cheers
Pirate Captain

[Cortez]

A Daemon host is different to an unbound Daemon such as a Bloodletter. It is basically a Daemon imprisoned inside a human host so I would usually not give them exceptional physical stats and equipment or special abilities and use them mostly like a psyker with some additional Daemonic abilities or other exotic ability such as vampirism. If I was going to give them any of the Daemon sword abilities I would probably adapt them into persistant psychic powers in a similar manner to Burning Fist or Warp Strength.

For example you could give a Nurgle Daemon host:
'Corrupter', Difficulty 10, Persistant, see page 78 of the Inquisitor Rulebook (just make up an appropriate difficulty value)

Hope that helps.

[greenstuff_gav]

if it's Daemonhosts you've got an immortal being of malevolence stuck into a fleshy meatbag so it's physical characteristics pro'lly wouldn't be as powerful as a raw daemon or an unbound host (wherein the warp is bursting thru the flesh...)

[Koval]

I would probably gen a daemonhost using Dark Heresy and backwards-convert into Inquisitor, with all the relevant weirdness it happens to have coming into full force. Covered in diamond scales, burning with an inner fire that glows all sorts of colours that don't exist, emits an aura that tastes like purple, and has a voice that sounds like an Alice Cooper record being played backwards? Bleeds cheap lager, has claws that carve clouds into pretty shapes, and has an awesome tattoo of Richard Feynman on its left shoulder? No problem, it all gets rules*, and the weirder the better. If the daemonhost in question needs to be psychic, it will be, but if it doesn't need to be psychic (or as powerfully psychic) then its other weird traits would get played up to match.

*Richard Feynman Tattoo: All physicists within melee range that can clearly see the tattoo must pass a Wp test at -10 or spend D3 actions geeking out.

[MarcoSkoll]

I ask because frankly, daemons are all heavy on the close combat, but the Inq-rulebook seems to make them out as fairly psyker heavy when they possess something.

In 40k, unbound daemons are mostly close combat, but in fluff, most non-Khornate daemons will use a generous variety of warp powers.

Also, I would say the idea of a psychic daemonhosts being most common for Inquisitors isn't that unlikely.
If you need the kind of melee carnage a bound daemon could offer, there's a less volatile and heretical alternative - an arco-flagellant or three. But psykers with the mental potential of a daemon are almost unheard of.

That said, I was inspired some time ago to draw up plans for a Slaaneshi daemonhost with a focus on close combat... but still, a lot of psychic boosts.

[Charax]

The thing about daemonhosts is that a daemon bound into a mortal body is quite powerful, because it doesnt have to expend any of its energy to remain manifested - it can focus it all externally into abilities. That's part of the reason why Daemonhosts need to be so heavily warded - A Bloodletter running around is a serious, if fleeting, threat. A Bloodletter bound into a mortal body can stay in the material plane not for days or weeks, but for decades or centuries, and Daemons are, above all, extremely intelligent.

Meet a Bloodletter on the battlefield and he'll just charge at you and bathe in your squishy entrails. Bind him to a host, deprived ofways to manifest his power and he'll scheme and plot and plan far better than any mortal, and with the patience that comes from existing in a realm where time is meaningless. All daemonhosts are powerful, dangerous and intelligent.

How do I play them? with a twisted malevolence and a variety of rules inspired by the Realms of Chaos books

[Gilleon]

Most of the daemonhosts I have created fit the archetypal mould: scheming, malevolent and with plenty of psychic nous. Like Marco said, few mortals can compare to a daemon when it comes to psychic might.
That said, I did start a khornate daemonhost, though as the Inquisitor was feeling rather nasty at the time it was bound within a disabled arco-flagellant. Suffice to say that would make a mess of things in any game it got loose.

[Koval]

Meet a Bloodletter on the battlefield and he'll just charge at you and bathe in your squishy entrails. Bind him to a host, deprived ofways to manifest his power and he'll scheme and plot and plan far better than any mortal, and with the patience that comes from existing in a realm where time is meaningless. All daemonhosts are powerful, dangerous and intelligent.

I don't imagine they stop being Bloodletters at the end of the day, though. Sure, they have a far greater capacity to plan things, but the whole Blood For The Blood God thing doesn't exactly go away just because hosts don't have to worry so much about maintaining their form.

[DapperAnarchist]

There's a great bit of microfiction, I think in a Codex, describing the experience of being a Possessed Marine from the inside... The Daemon isn't interested in planning or manipulation but only in killing and death and destruction. I would imagine that a Khorne Daemonhost could be similar - constantly dripping with blood, spikes emerging from skin, bones being shattered and reformed, raging and spitting and straining at every restraint, even the restraint of the body.

[Koval]

It may have been in Dark Apostle or Dark Disciple, as I remember Burias shared his body with a daemon that may or may not have even been a Bloodletter. However, I also remember Burias and Drak'shal having an arrangement that was more than just daemon-in-control-all-the-time, which therefore made Drak'shal more of an Ax Crazy type than a Manipulative Bastard because he had to be let out by Burias rather than it being his door to open and close.

[Adlan]

Meet a Bloodletter on the battlefield and he'll just charge at you and bathe in your squishy entrails. Bind him to a host, deprived ofways to manifest his power and he'll scheme and plot and plan far better than any mortal, and with the patience that comes from existing in a realm where time is meaningless. All daemonhosts are powerful, dangerous and intelligent.

I don't imagine they stop being Bloodletters at the end of the day, though. Sure, they have a far greater capacity to plan things, but the whole Blood For The Blood God thing doesn't exactly go away just because hosts don't have to worry so much about maintaining their form.

I've always been a fan of more subtle Portrayals of Khorne. The raging berserk is there, but there's also the Methodical Killer, the Thrill of the Hunt, the Honour Driven Slayer, the Single Combat Duelist.

Khorne cares not how blood is shed, only that blood is shed. And at the =][= level, I find it much easier to explore those differences. Bound Bloodletters shouldn't be cookie cutter monsters.

[Koval]

Meet a Bloodletter on the battlefield and he'll just charge at you and bathe in your squishy entrails. Bind him to a host, deprived ofways to manifest his power and he'll scheme and plot and plan far better than any mortal, and with the patience that comes from existing in a realm where time is meaningless. All daemonhosts are powerful, dangerous and intelligent.

I don't imagine they stop being Bloodletters at the end of the day, though. Sure, they have a far greater capacity to plan things, but the whole Blood For The Blood God thing doesn't exactly go away just because hosts don't have to worry so much about maintaining their form.

I've always been a fan of more subtle Portrayals of Khorne. The raging berserk is there, but there's also the Methodical Killer, the Thrill of the Hunt, the Honour Driven Slayer, the Single Combat Duelist.

Khorne cares not how blood is shed, only that blood is shed. And at the =][= level, I find it much easier to explore those differences. Bound Bloodletters shouldn't be cookie cutter monsters.

I wasn't trying to imply they should be -- what I was trying to say (or think I was trying to say; this was a couple of weeks ago) was that although there may well be all those facets to Khorne and his daemons, and although I endorse and make use of these less obvious aspects, you can't really take away a defining feature without destroying what it means for a Bloodletter to be a Bloodletter.

I've used a Bloodletter Daemonhost in one RP, and am currently using him as a GM-device in a second -- he thinks and plots and schemes with the best of them (though he's spent most of the more recent of the two RPs trying to get out of his daemonsword and possess its wielder), and he might mix it up with a bit of planning and forethought in and around the killing, of course, and specifically headhunting a few people, but he doesn't stop being Ax Crazy when push comes to shove.

Does that help to clarify things?

[Adlan]

I wasn't trying to imply they should be -- what I was trying to say (or think I was trying to say; this was a couple of weeks ago) was that although there may well be all those facets to Khorne and his daemons, and although I endorse and make use of these less obvious aspects, you can't really take away a defining feature without destroying what it means for a Bloodletter to be a Bloodletter.

I've used a Bloodletter Daemonhost in one RP, and am currently using him as a GM-device in a second -- he thinks and plots and schemes with the best of them (though he's spent most of the more recent of the two RPs trying to get out of his daemonsword and possess its wielder), and he might mix it up with a bit of planning and forethought in and around the killing, of course, and specifically headhunting a few people, but he doesn't stop being Ax Crazy when push comes to shove.

Does that help to clarify things?

Yeah, I'd agree. Especially for bloodletter, they are very smart, tactical and strategically. It's just their goals are utterly different to what you normally use strategy and tactics for, their goal is to be in the position to go axe crazy.