Lady Aleena Van Staal (and friends!)

[Kaled]

I too dislike the toxin rules and if I was playing you would simply ignore the after-game effects and would have my character recover fully.  The in-game effects seem too powerful as well - it's significantly more powerful than the other toxins in the rulebook (which are admittedly rather weak).

[Myriad]

Since the target character has to be stunned to administer the drug, I don't mind that it's powerful, since toxins that disable someone reliably must be fairly commonplace, but possibly a successful attack should be necessary to inject it. 

They might be a bit too elaborate though, just stunned for 5 turns or frenzied might work better (and maybe allow a willpower test to break frenzy or something).

[Kaled]

Good point, I'd forgotten about it being injected into someone who's already stunned. In that case, I agree it should need a successful attack as a stunned person can still defend themselves.  I'd also prefer a random duration D3+2 or 3, and a Wp test to stop being frenzied would be a good addition.

[Chipperz]

OK, yup, Vengeance is massively too powerful, so how about this for a complete overhaul?

Vengeance - Vengeance is a vicious drug that is designed to disable an opponent and ravage their bodies.  This has a chance of backfiring, however – if Vengeance doesn't disable it's target, it will turn them into a frothing berserker that will easily break most bonds and attack anything in sight.  If an enemy is captured by Aleena's warband, then Nixx must pass a leadership test (this can be failed voluntarily if it is a long-time enemy of Nixx's, or Ali orders it) or inject the captive with Vengeance.  The enemy must take a Toughness test.  If they fail, any resistances to persuasion, intimidation or any other interrogation are halved.  If they pass, they break free, injuring Nixx in the process (not fatally, but she can't do anything else before the next game).  What happens next is up to the GM's discretion.

OK, I've also narrowed down the list of characters for the fourth member, but I can't decide;

Commissar Jural Braen - Badass Commissar extraordinaire.
Sister Katarina - Epherael Stern (Gaah, remember her?  Every time I type her name I need to go dig out my old Daemonifuge comics) style battle sister, recovering from madness/daemonic possession.
Jackson - An Arbites liason who keeps the local law enforcement aware of Aleena's movements so they don't interfere.

[Kaled]

Vengeance is a vicious drug that is designed to disable an opponent and ravage their bodies.
...
If they fail, any resistances to persuasion, intimidation or any other interrogation are halved.  If they pass...

Now the description doesn't fit the rules - now it's more of a truth-serum type thing.  Why not literally have it as a variation on Stun & Barrage.  The target takes a T test & if failed is stunned for two turns plus one for every 10% (or part of) that the test is failed by.  If the test is passed, the target counts as having being injected by a dose of Barrage.  The drug must be injected, which requires a successful close-combat hit.

Commissar Jural Braen - Badass Commissar extraordinaire.
Sister Katarina - Epherael Stern (Gaah, remember her?  Every time I type her name I need to go dig out my old Daemonifuge comics) style battle sister, recovering from madness/daemonic possession.
Jackson - An Arbites liason who keeps the local law enforcement aware of Aleena's movements so they don't interfere.

I'd say it all depends on what models you like.  An Arbitor is easy - there's a nice model in the GW range.  A Commissar is not too difficult - there are plenty of models that would work, the only bit you'd need to do yourself is the rather ostentatious hat.  A battle sister is trickier still and is likely to require a fair amount of conversion work.

[Chipperz]

Vengeance is a vicious drug that is designed to disable an opponent and ravage their bodies.
...
If they fail, any resistances to persuasion, intimidation or any other interrogation are halved.  If they pass...

Now the description doesn't fit the rules - now it's more of a truth-serum type thing.  Why not literally have it as a variation on Stun & Barrage.  The target takes a T test & if failed is stunned for two turns plus one for every 10% (or part of) that the test is failed by.  If the test is passed, the target counts as having being injected by a dose of Barrage.  The drug must be injected, which requires a successful close-combat hit.

This works, but wouldn't the massive stat damage from Barrage make it unfair?  Maybe allow another Toughness test after the game to recover all/part of it?

Commissar Jural Braen - Badass Commissar extraordinaire.
Sister Katarina - Epherael Stern (Gaah, remember her?  Every time I type her name I need to go dig out my old Daemonifuge comics) style battle sister, recovering from madness/daemonic possession.
Jackson - An Arbites liason who keeps the local law enforcement aware of Aleena's movements so they don't interfere.

I'd say it all depends on what models you like.  An Arbitor is easy - there's a nice model in the GW range.  A Commissar is not too difficult - there are plenty of models that would work, the only bit you'd need to do yourself is the rather ostentatious hat.  A battle sister is trickier still and is likely to require a fair amount of conversion work.

I was thinking of using the Damien Bloodhound model as the base for the Arbites, mainly because I've already planned a Chaos Magus conversion for the actual Judge model, and that pose is so distinctive I can't think of a decent way of getting two on the same table without it being obvious it's the same model...  I'm currently erring on the side of the Sororitas, with the Daemon Huntress as the base.  Does that daemon's head detatch easily?

[Kaled]

This works, but wouldn't the massive stat damage from Barrage make it unfair?  Maybe allow another Toughness test after the game to recover all/part of it?

Just ignore it - I always do.  I figure that it's up to me if my characters recover after the game, not the dice.

Does that daemon's head detatch easily?

Yep, it's a seperate part - look at the modelling resources thread and you'll find a link to a place where you can see pics of the models unassembled and unpainted.

[Chipperz]

This works, but wouldn't the massive stat damage from Barrage make it unfair?  Maybe allow another Toughness test after the game to recover all/part of it?

Just ignore it - I always do.  I figure that it's up to me if my characters recover after the game, not the dice.

Ahh fair enough, then!

Right, for my last character (and finding that the daemon's head is seperate.  Wish I'd known about that site sooner...) I've settled on the ex-sister.  I've tried to go for a darker Daemonifuge, because Daemonifuge was pretty light and happy.  For 40k, anyway.

Katarina

While investigating a cult in the Braccari System's Adeptus Arbites, Aleena found herself a hunted woman.  The Furelon Hounds were too far away to get to her aid in time, and Gheiss and Nixx weren't enough firepower to aid her on their own.  After a brief flight from the traitor Enforcer teams, the three of them came across a small Ecclesiarchy chapel in a forest clearing.  Ducking inside, they came face to face with three women that, even unarmoured, Ali immediately recognised as Adepta Sororitas.

After a short briefing, the three Sisters took up their arms and joined the Inquisitor in a battle around the chapel, their righteous fury being more than a match for the cultist's superior numbers.  Still, the Arbites' had roused the local populace to attack them too, and the sheer crushing numbers pushed them further back onto holy ground.

It was then that the defenders became crushingly aware of the daemonic entity that was aiding the cult.  With a roar, the creature sprinted at the gates, using it's momentum to destroy the holy seals and breaking through.  It swatted aside two of the sisters with a single swipe before turning on the last, who stood before it, unflinching and firing from her bolter the entire time.  As it swung with it's massive claw, she put up her hand to block it, only for the daemon to slow it's attack and take hold of it.

With a stream of sickening light, the daemon used the connection to force itself into her as the other defenders watched, helpless.  The woman's hand started to grow, becoming gnarled and spiked, like the claw of the daemon possessing her, before another sister stood up and started chanting litanies while taking aim, blowing the hand apart with a shot guided by the Emperor Himself.

Ali acted quickly, kicking her towards the font of holy water and forcing her head under it, but the damage was done.  The woman they knew was only a shadow of her former self.  The daemon started screaming obscenities from her mouth, calls to it's cult and oaths that it would destroy the inquisitor and everything she had ever known.  With the last of her holy fortitude, the sister slowly and painfully jerked up her right hand and tore out her own tongue before collapsing to the floor.  While one of the Sisters watched the unconscious woman, the other came back to the door to fend off the last of the cult that had already started to rout as the daemon had been silenced.

After the last cultist had been driven off, the two sisters started preparing an exorcism for the unconscious woman, not waiting for her to regain consciousness to see if the daemon had fled of it's own accord.  The ritual lasted almost two days and the woman had to be sedated eighteen times before it's end but finally she awoke, cleansed of the daemon.  The three Sisters decided that she was no longer able to guard a holy site and agreed, wordlessly, that she was to be sent off.  Aleena, feeling a mixture of guilt and worry about the woman whose life she had ruined, took her in as a fighter in her entourage.

Over the next three months, Aleena, Gheiss, Nixx and the sister, who was finally introduced only as "Katarina", took to removing all taint of the cult from the planet's forces.  Katarina would accept no bionic replacements for her injuries, going so far as to pull out a bionic hand as it was being implanted, and fought one-handed and wordlessly, a problem Aleena found only exacerbated when they discovered that the daemon had unlocked some of the ex-Sister's psychic potential.  Now, Aleena keeps Katarina on staff as psychic defence, and a powerful defence at that – for her part, Katarina resents Aleena for asking her to use her warp-spawned powers, but considers her discomfort part of her penance for being weak enough to allow a daemon entrance in the first place, a penance that will only end with her death.

WS – 61
BS - 58
S - 54
T - 52
I – 58
WP - 98
SG - 76
NV - 83
LD – 51
Speed – 4

Katarina is Right Handed (and she'd be buggered if she was a leftie...)

Equipment – Blessed Staff (Counts as a Force Staff.  The bonus damage is only usable against non-Imperials), Carapace Armour (All but head), Hexagrammic Wards

Skills – Force of Will, Nerves of Steel (While Katarina does still feel fear and pain, she doesn't care if she lives or dies any more)

Powers – Psychic Impel, Telekinesis

Problems – One Handed (missing Left Hand), Mute.

[Flinty]

Humm, mute team members - could be interesting in a firefight if she sees someone creeping up behind her boss...

Possibly worth checking, as fluff wise, Im pretty sure the literature firmly states that the Adeptus Sororitas Sisters are not psychic in any way, shape or form.
[By literature I mean the collection of pdf's uploaded by Marco]

If that is the case its easy to add a little statement saying Katrina's psychic potential was entirely due to the short period of daemonic possesion.

[MarcoSkoll]

Possibly worth checking, as fluff wise, Im pretty sure the literature firmly states that the Adeptus Sororitas Sisters are not psychic in any way, shape or form.

You're right. All Schola Progenium students are evaluated for psychic potential or other mutations on entry - the consequences of a positive result are fairly obvious.

And yes, even as of yet unmanifested powers/mutations would show up.

~~~~~

Two other things...

Bionics are very unlikely to be implanted while the subject is conscious (i.e. she wouldn't be able to "pull it out" as it was being implanted). Better idea is to just have her flat out refusing them.

The other thing is that Wp value - it's very high, and combined with an array of other stats that are all respectable (if not exceptional) in their own right. You might want to consider rebalancing that.

[Myriad]

If the tests were 100% accurate it'd be the exception rather than the rule, but I'll grant that the demon happening to pick out the one sororitas to slip through the net seems like too much of a coincidence.  I suppose it's not entirely impossible the demonic possession unlocked powers in an individual previously possessing no such potential.  Given her reluctance to use them it seems unlikely she'd attain much proficiency, but I note that the powers are quite basic.  It also seems a bit odd that she can be forced to use them.

For the rest, I quite like the background, which I feel adds a bit of darkness to the warband in general.  The concept of a character who feels their damned in the emperor's eyes is perhaps underused (must happen all the time if you read enough imperial doctrine).

[MarcoSkoll]

If the tests were 100% accurate it'd be the exception rather than the rule

They're pretty good. A really low end psyker (i.e. nothing more than occasional unconscious manifestations of "good luck") might not register on the tests, but anyone who actually has what might be described as "potential" would be detected.

but I'll grant that the demon happening to pick out the one sororitas to slip through the net seems like too much of a coincidence.

If, for the sake of argument we say that a Sororitas could be a latent psyker, that's not really a coincidence. Daemons of course see the warp, and to them the soul of a psyker is quite easily told apart from the soul of a "mundane". So for him/her/it to pick out the most psychically adept of a given group is not that much of a long shot.

The coincidence is more that the two run into each other at all - but it's a big universe.

[Chipperz]

DISCLAIMER - The following is based on my admittedly less than perfect knowledge of 40k.  It used to be great, but then I took, like, a five-year break.

On the whole "Sisters of Battle can't have psychic powers" thing; I'm fairly certain that all humanity is evolving into a psychic race. All but the Untouchables have presences in the Warp, which would give everyone the potential to be a psyker.  I admit that it's a low chance, but I imagine that even the most stringent tests have to deal with a certain level of "background radiation" and a ridiculously low-level psyker would be all but undetectable, with no powers of note (I'd imagine her Bolter jams a bit less than everyone else's), but still be the biggest target for a daemon in a room full of people.

Also, I'd just like to cite Daemonifuge again.  I'm fairly certain Stern had some fairly impressive psychic potenital, was possessed, then exorcised, and after all that was allowed to rejoin the Sororitas after a review of her purity.  The tests may be good, but they're not amazing, and even if they fail the rare Sister can still keep her position if she isn't a danger to others.

Humm, mute team members - could be interesting in a firefight if she sees someone creeping up behind her boss...

You're right!  Should she wave before or after they go flying into the nearest wall?

On a more serious note, she'd probably either use a power or try to get in the way - there are plenty of ways a mute can communicate in a gunfight, especially if they can move things with their minds.

Bionics are very unlikely to be implanted while the subject is conscious (i.e. she wouldn't be able to "pull it out" as it was being implanted). Better idea is to just have her flat out refusing them.

OK, yeah.  That bit didn't make sense.  Just refusing them works better.

The other thing is that Wp value - it's very high, and combined with an array of other stats that are all respectable (if not exceptional) in their own right. You might want to consider rebalancing that.

The main reason I wanted her Wp to be so high is that I wanted her to have a slightly more fallible version of Wyrd-Telekinesis - she's great at it, but she can suffer from feedback, and her mind can be directly attacked.  I'd really want to keep it around that level, but I could see her neglecting her physical training as she gives up on life, maybe lower physical stats across the board?  Also, while I'm thinking about it, as she's one-handed, would that give her a strength of 27?  I'm fairly certain Strength is for both hands combined...

It also seems a bit odd that she can be forced to use them.

It's less that she's forced to use them, and more that Aleena is aware of them, and asks her to use them.  Katarina, fully believing that she's a witch that is eternally damned, continues to use her powers because she feels that her doing something she's extremely uncomfortable with is part of her penance for witchcraft.

It doesn't help that her boss is an Inquisitor with a remit from the God-Emperor Himself to use any means necessary to destroy enemies of the Imperium, which is often used to permit the use of xenos, mutants, witches, daemons...  Whatever...  In the name of the Imperium - how does one devout little witch argue with that?

The coincidence is more that the two run into each other at all - but it's a big universe.

Heh, with all the worlds they travel to, and all the different cultures they meet, I'd imagine that even fairly novice Inquisitors would be able to find someone like Katarina soon enough.  Low-level psykers aren't that hard to find (rare, maybe, but still common enough) in the Imperium, and an Ordo Malleus Inquisitor isn't doing their job if they don't find cults on a regular basis, the most powerful of which could easily be gifted a lesser daemon by a more powerful patron - I'm sure low-level psykers and daemons meeting around an Inquisitor isn't as much of a msssive coincidence as many would think.

[Aidan]

Gruesome story, but it fits. 

Firstly, I'm going to go against the grain here and say that I'm completely okay with a low-end psyker slipping through into the Sororitas. Everything the Imperium does is fallible, absolutely everything. While the likelihood wouldn't be high, there's always possibilities of someone screwing up.

The main reason I wanted her Wp to be so high is that I wanted her to have a slightly more fallible version of Wyrd-Telekinesis - she's great at it, but she can suffer from feedback, and her mind can be directly attacked.  I'd really want to keep it around that level, but I could see her neglecting her physical training as she gives up on life, maybe lower physical stats across the board?

That WP score is really high. An alternative option would be, quite simply, to count her powers as 'wyrd', but still risking psychic feedback - remember the rules are always malleable.

Also, while I'm thinking about it, as she's one-handed, would that give her a strength of 27?  I'm fairly certain Strength is for both hands combined...

Debatable in certain circumstances (such as close combat bonus damage), but as a rule, yes. But she is only missing the hand, not the arm, so she would still have all the musculature there - I'd leave her with full strength but use half strength for tests that would require her to hold whatever she is exerting force on. As I normally do when people have one hand occupied already.

The coincidence is more that the two run into each other at all - but it's a big universe.

I consider coincidence to be one of the greatest driving forces of the universe - stranger things happen every day.

-Aidan.

[MarcoSkoll]

Unfortunately, I managed to lose quite a long post, so what you're getting here is what I can remember of it.

I'm fairly certain that all humanity is evolving into a psychic race. All but the Untouchables have presences in the Warp, which would give everyone the potential to be a psyker.

I had the potential to be a girl with green eyes and black hair. As those who have met me at Conclave meets can testify, I am not - that particular possibility was quashed about nine months before I was born.

Being a psyker is more than just "having a presence in the warp" - in fact, I see that as a consequence of being a psyker, not a cause. The existence of psi-boosters and psychic hoods very strongly implies that there's a physical aspect to psychic power - that is to say, the brain of a psyker is physically different.

And having Asperger Syndrome, I am an real world example of an individual with a brain structure that differs from the human norm. Almost any human birth has the potential to be autistic - maybe as high as a 1% chance.
Ignore any nonsense you've heard about "people becoming autistic" for whatever ridiculous reason they've thought up this week. There is no force on earth which can restructure a neurotypical brain into an autistic one - it has to be built that way in the first place. No cause, no cure.

Just like I was born with an autistic brain structure, a psyker is born with a psychic brain structure (and as a consequence, has a "stronger" soul.) You don't just become a psyker, although you can be unaware that you are one.

To close this, while I accept that mutating and altering brain structure in such a way would be relatively trifling for the energies of the warp, I would expect serious side effects to go with it.

A ridiculously low-level psyker would be all but undetectable, with no powers of note

While true, it also means that they'll never have powers of note, unless their brain structure is somehow altered to allow them to channel greater energies.

A Lambda level (i.e. pretty wimpy) psyker is always a Lambda level, even if they haven't realised that yet. An Epsilon level (i.e. hope they're on your side) psyker is always an Epsilon, even if they're not capable of utilising all of that.

Also, I'd just like to cite Daemonifuge again.  I'm fairly certain Stern had some fairly impressive psychic potential, was possessed, then exorcised, and after all that was allowed to rejoin the Sororitas after a review of her purity.

That doesn't really work for me. The Ecclesiarchy preaches psychic power as a form of heresy - being a psyker automatically makes one impure.

While there is the possibility of screwing up the testing, I can only see a psychic sister being "disposed of" unless they have a particularly powerful patron to save them from such judgement - in which case, they would still get kicked out.

Heh, with all the worlds they travel to, and all the different cultures they meet, I'd imagine that even fairly novice Inquisitors would be able to find someone like Katarina soon enough.

Yeah, but there is a bit of a difference between finding just any low level psyker and finding one who's been inducted into an organisation that goes to some lengths to weed out psykers.

In the end, it is your character, so do what you like, but psychic powers should always be treated seriously.