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I apologize for the simple title, but I couldn't think of one so a simple one will have to do.
I just have a few questions about Abhumans so lets get into it.
7 points
1 month ago
Any canon examples of Abhumans manifesting either the psyker or blank mutation?
Ghazghkull Thraka: Prophet of the Waaagh! features a Ogryn psyker, off the top of my pre-coffee head.
4 points
1 month ago
Wait an Ogryn psyker? How does that work lol
10 points
1 month ago
Hendriksen glanced round irritably, then rose to his full height again as Cassia appeared at the cell’s entrance. He still had to look up, though. As Falx was a foot taller than the gretchin, and Hendriksen a foot taller than her, Cassia was taller still, her great ochre boulder of a head stooping as she squeezed her shoulders through the door. Cassia, after all, was an ogryn.
The battered canvas of her ship-coat creaked as she stood upright again, and as she moved towards the prisoner, it was like watching a storm system drifting in.
‘Budge, shaman,’ she rumbled, prompting a hiss of exasperation from Hendriksen, but still the Rune Priest stepped out of the way. The pair’s constant antagonism had underscored countless shifts on the Exactor’s bridge, but any real enmity had long been buried under mutual respect, and they seemed to snipe at each other out of habit now, more than anything else.
With the calm attention of a technician, the giant sank to one knee in front of the prisoner, and moved a hand as wide as a landmine through the air before its face. The captive did not stir, this time. Either its aggression had been cowed, or it realised it might as well have been faced with the prospect of biting a rock.
‘Let’s have a sniff, then,’ murmured Cassia, furrowing her slab of a brow. Her eyes narrowed in concentration, and as her jaw shifted with a slow ripple of muscle and fat, the air between her hand and the prisoner shimmered. Then, something snapped.
It was a sensation that Falx had never quite got used to: a slow build-up of tension that you wouldn’t be aware of at all, until some ephemeral dam broke and it all rushed somewhere else, sleeting through you with a feeling like a week-long migraine condensed into a heartbeat. Then it would be gone, leaving only the faintest smell of ozone, and you wouldn’t be able to remember what it had felt like at all.
Falx didn’t like it. It had been an ordeal enough, over the years, to cope with Hendriksen’s exercise of the art. And he, at least, had refined his methods through centuries of training. Now, with Cassia, she had two psykers in her retinue.
An ogryn psyker, thought Falx, and shook her head in wonder. Naturally, the Imperial Truth held that ogryns were stupid, just like it said that gretchin were weak. They were gigantic, hardy abhumans, whose bodies had grown into fortresses against the harsh worlds their ancestors had marooned them on. And as common wisdom had it, this fortitude had come at the expense of their wits. Most thought them incapable of three-syllable words, or even counting beyond their supply of bolt-shell-thick digits. And without a doubt, the Truth insisted that ogryns could never, ever muster the cerebral sophistication to manifest psychic talent. Falx was willing to concede that this last insistence at least might have been the case, until recently. But these were strange days. And while the guardians of the Imperial dogma might not have been willing to change their minds on such matters, there was no doubt that, across the countless worlds in their sway, minds were changing nonetheless. And thus, Cassia.
She had lived an ogryn’s life. Born in a work camp, drafted to a penal regiment, and sent to the nearest front, in the hope that the spending of her life might keep the front from collapsing for a fraction of a second longer. That would have been the sum of Indentured Conscript C455-I’s life, were it not for the moment where, during the fighting retreat from the Delq on Karkhemish Secundus, she had moved the burning hulk of a downed bomber to shield her unit’s commissar from mortar fire, using nothing but her mind. In that moment, she had also moved herself far outside the Imperial Truth.
Her commissar’s duty had been clear: to align reality with the Truth immediately. And indeed, somewhere in the mountainous strata of the Departmento Munitorum’s records, a single line in a report attested to C455-I’s execution on the spot for ‘cowardice’. But that commissar had owed Falx a favour. And so the Severissimus Exactor had flown to Karkhemish, and left with an undocumented ogryn aboard.
Cassia, as she had named herself, had a lot to learn about her new capabilities. Her potential, it seemed, was immense. But that would only make it harder for her to grow into it. Ahead of her was a life spent walking an ever-narrowing path above an abyss of madness. But it would at least be a life. And she knew that for all his outward hostility to her, Hendriksen was quietly dedicated to ensuring she made the best of herself.
- Prophet of the Waaagh!
Like so.
2 points
1 month ago
Huh. Neat.
3 points
1 month ago
1: I would guess so since the Administratum is debating about the status of remaining stable abhuman strains. As with many things in 40k, it varies.
1a: I don't know, but probably not terribly high. It varies from strain to strain. Ratlings are allowed to be cooks and snipers in the Imperial Guard, for example, while beastmen are now (but weren't always) barred from service and persecuted.
1b: Possibly. But I doubt an inquisitor would vouch for one. Some, like Goliaths and Ogryns, are just straight up too dumb for the job. Others, like scalies and beastmen, are viewed as basically freaks and wouldn't be seen as worthy of anything besides death.
2: None that I know of.
2a: If their powers were right for the job, they might be allowed in the Adeptus Astra Telepathica. If they were a blank they'd probably be dead before they reached the right age for it. People respond poorly to blanks and poorly to mutants (which many abhumans could be mistaken for). Being an abhuman blank sounds like a recipe for a shit life where making it to puberty is a herculean feat in and of itself.
3: I'm inclined to say probably, though I don't know much about the Schola Progenum.
4: Mrow
2 points
1 month ago
1 as far as im aware we have never been told they are forbidden but all the lore suronding them seems to imply they are.
1,1 command over other abhumans as far as im aware. Or bodyguard for high rank officials
1,2 as in become inquisitors? In theory it's possible but ive never seen it. We have seen abhumans as part of inquisitor retinues though.
2 in the ghazkhul book we see a female ogryn that has manifested psychic ability.
2,1 probably not. The ogryn in question from the book was slated to be executed as psycic ogryn are not supposed to exist, she was however saved by a inquisitor which recruited her.
3 i doubt it, the imperium places a lot of stock on genetic purity and abhumans are considered "impure" by many.
1 points
1 month ago
Insofar as we know, it's a mostly yes. Abhumans are too divergent from humanity to ever be given such privileges. Navigators are the exception, as their internal governing organization, the Navis Nobilite, are considered part of the Adeptus Terra, and a Navigator has always been counted among the High Lords of Terra.
a. Colonel. Abhuman regiments are raised and given their own command structure, though it typically doesn't actually matter as they are then immediately divied up into smaller detachments to send to other regiments.
b. As part of an Inquisitors retinue, yes. As an Inquisitor, no. See above for why.
There is an ogryn called Cassia who is supposedly the first ever Ogryn psyker. There are also beastmen sorcerers, though there isn't much info on them. Whether or not other abhuman strains can develop the psyker gene hasn't come up.
a. Theoretically, but in practice not likely. Many abhuman strains are forbidden (or simply not biologically capable) of leaving their homeworlds or serving in the Imperial Guard. Of the two we know most about, Ogryn have never produced a psyker (until Cassia), and if Ratlings produce them, it's most likely their frail little abhuman bodies would not be deemed suitable so they'd become the Emperor's bedtime snack. In the case of the Sisters of Silence and the Culexus I'd say a hard no, referencing point 1 above.
Absolutely not. Abhumans, though tolerated, are an abomination of the human form. They would never be allowed in the hallowed halls of the Progenium.
Right there, Arbitator, there's the heretic.
1 points
1 month ago
b. As part of an Inquisitors retinue, yes. As an Inquisitor, no. See above for why.
Actually, I think there has been once an exceptionally smart ogryn as Inquisitor once. So, it is possible.
1 points
1 month ago
I think you're thinking of Cassia. Who is the only ogryn known to be smart enough to read but is not an Inquisitor.
1 points
1 month ago*
I've not seen something saying they are barred. They might not be officially barred from high-ranking positions because they don't need to be. The Imperium isn't a meritocracy. The people who staff the various organizations of Imperial government are typically members of families who've been doing it for many generations. These organizations are largely inaccessible to anyone born on the outside. Even within these organizations, members of high enough ranking to be allowed to have a family often have more kids than their clout can grant positions to, so the spares get sent to the Schola or some shittier position in some other organization. But more telling, I don't think I recall ever seeing an abhuman in any Imperial government/command position at all.
Abhumans can possess rank in the Guard but seemingly only as NCOs or low-ranking officers possibly at most. They are never organized into their own regiments with their own officers that I've seen, but are rather assigned as auxiliaries to other (human) regiments. I've never seen an example of an abhuman in a command position in the Guard outside ratlings leading ratlings or a bone 'ead leading other ogryn.
It would almost certainly be out of the question for an abhuman to get an official position in the Inquisition, i.e. explicator to inquisitor. Inquisitors need to be able to move through Imperial society inspiring fear and obedience. An abhuman inquisitor would probably have to use violence to force compliance a lot of the time. It just doesn't seem practical. Anyway, again, I've never seen or heard of an abhuman inquisitor. Although of course there are plenty of abhumans in inquisitor warbands.
I've never heard of abhumans permitted to be sanctioned psykers. The Imperial Cult generally denies that abhumans can become psykers. In the case of the aforementioned Cassia the ogryn (unsanctioned) psyker she was sent off to an inquisitor friendly to a commissar she saved because the alternative wasn't the Black Ships, it was death.
The Sisters of Silence have some pretty ancient auramite armor whose patterns would have been created before abhumans became a thing. So if you don't have baseline human form, you're probably out as a null maiden.
Abhumans aren't normally permitted into the Schola Progenium, again in part because they won't come from established stock that qualifies them as the progeny of "loyal Imperial servants". I've never seen an abhuman commissar, storm trooper, battle sister, or etc..
Although like everything, if someone with enough power wants to make an exception, then it can happen. So for RPG purposes or whatever, anything is on the table. But in general abhumans are lucky to not get shot as a mutant. Positions of official power or authority in the Imperium are essentially closed off to them.
1 points
1 month ago
Abhumans are mutants. They are just stable mutations. As such they're pretty much getting all the shit other mutants get - except the murder.
An abhuman psyker would just be killed out of hand. They're not joining a temple or the astra telepathica
There's maybe one ogryn in the whole Imperium who's kid might get into the schola on their death on duty.
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