Warp Cult

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Warp Cult
“The Empire of Man has lain stagnant and dying for generations beyond count. The Emperor is a horrid leech who consumes the souls of the best and the brightest of mankind in order to cling with a tremulous death grip upon a past which was never glorious to begin with. Change cannot come within the rules of the empire, the hide-bound slaves of the Ecclesiarchy send their prayers to their dead god until they cannot hear the supplications of their people.

It is from these ashes that we will forge a new world! We will not accept the testaments of our cruel and worthless overlords. They call us mad, but it is they who sit and read their own words hour after hour by the light of candles. Mankind once made lights that shone as brightly as the sun. Ad with the help of the others, we shall do so again. A new day is dawning in the Empire. A day when we can throw off the tyranny of Man and embrace the changes which even now grow within.

Unleash your potential. Join us! ”

Warp Cult is a game set in the 40K universe. The assumption is that players play cultists – heretics within the Imperium that seek a better future for themselves and humanity. Whether your cult will or even can bring about a better world is unknown, and it is for this reason that the empire can be expected to fight back against you with every gram of its fading strength. Reactionary forces are very strong, and backed up by ten thousand years of prejudice and fear. They will fight back against the change you promise.

It is entirely possible that your cult happens to be championing a plan that will bring ruin to humanity. Warp entities are in no way universally beneficial. However, it is equally possible that the promises that the warp entities have made to your cult are sincere and that it is you who will bring about the dawning of a new day for the galaxy.

Warp Cult is a Role Playing Game

While set against the extremely epic backdrop of the Warhammer 40K universe, the actual focus is the actions of a small number of characters and the milieu is one of a cooperative storytelling game rather than a war game. Each of the players at the table takes the roll of a single character in the story rather than omnisciently controlling an entire force of troops. Meanwhile, the background and non-main characters are collectively controlled by a single other player at the table.

Nomenclature: The characters played by the players are called PCs (player characters) and “Cultists” rather interchangeably as the characters are generally expected to be members of a single warp cult. The group of players collectively is called “the cult” for this reason. The characters in the story not played directly by the players are NPCs (non player characters), and they have no special generic name beyond that. The player who controls the majority of the NPCs is called the CO (Campaign Organizer). It's a position which is analogous to the Dungeon Master or Storyteller of other games, and is given a different name because there is no guaranty that there will actually be any dungeons involved and the focus is on the cult's story rather than the overarching story of the galaxy.

Scope: The game focuses on cultists – characters who are roughly as competent as the hive gangers in Ncromunda. This means that you will never see an entire chapter of space marines fielded within the game. Indeed, even a single space marine or aspect warrior is a mighty challenge for the entire cult. The 40k galaxy has a million populated worlds in the Imperium of Man alone. You can't incorporate a substantial number of those planets into the campaign at the scale of the individual characters portrayed in Warp Cult. Even naming a substantial number of those worlds would take days of constant recitation, and that's way outside the scope of anything that you could plausibly do in a campaign of Warp Cult. It is important to note that not only are the characters in the game so far beneath the notice of a titan or dominatrix that such things are pretty much scenery, but that pretty much no matter what the cultists accomplish that life will pretty much go on in other parts of the Empire as if nothing had happened. Even word of your exploits will not reach Moribund III or Syrtyr V within your character's lifetime.

On the flip side the narrower focus allows for much more variation and individualization than does the wider scope of other renditions of the galaxy. Two humans in the war game pretty much have “human strength” but in Warp Cult there is actually a limited enough scope to see the differences between a strong human and a weak one. While the game is still not as narrow in focus as a first person shooter because of having multiple protagonists (and as a direct result does not distinguish between a character at 23% health and a character at 24% health), it is important to note that the game does keep track of the difference between wounded and unwounded characters – a stark contrast to Warhammer's depiction of enemies as binarily incapacitated or not with every attack.

What You Need Characters in Warp Cult are fairly complex compared to units in Warhammer, having skills and varied attributes and equipment lists that are somewhat more in-depth than the merely “armor and gun” lists that appear on troop rosters. So it is highly advised that you have paper and pencils available. Warp Cult uses only d6s, so dice of other sizes are not particularly needed or used. During combat, you may be called upon to generate a random direction. The Warhammer Direction die is great for this (though Warp Cult makes no special use of the “hit” sides), but you can also use a spinner or even generate directions crudely with a d6 by generate a “clock” direction by doubling the result of the die (that is to say that a “5” would point towards “10 O'Clock”).

WYSINWYG: An important note for veteran Warhammer players is that there is no compelling reason for every model to physically show all of the stuff that the character is carrying around. Partly this is because a character is carrying around wildly different and unpredictable things within the scope of a single adventure. It is simply impractical to make a separate model for every item your character could be packing around. But mostly this is because Warp Cult is a role playing game. That is, since each each player is playing just a single character much of the time, the entire purpose of the WYSIWYG concept (to keep players from making mistakes by forgetting that one unit or another on a battlefield is not what it appears to be) is lost. Since the game is largely noncompetitive experience you can even “go back” if for some reason you do make a mistake because of the confusion generated by substitutions.

So go ahead and use whatever models you have to represent individuals in the game world. It is certainly pleasant to have models that are a good representation of the player characters and the enemies they are fighting, it is not strictly necessary. What is important is base size. A standard human or humanoid alien in Warp Cult uses a 25mm circular base. You're welcome to place smaller miniatures or even numbered markers on bases that size to represent characters, but you should have some kind of markers to do the battles. Of course, for sessions where you aren't doing any battles, you can quite plausible play with nothing but character sheets and a pile of six sided dice.

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Basic Mechanics

When you perform an action, you roll a pile of d6s called a dicepool. Dice which come up as a 5 or 6 are hits. Those that show a number 1 are botches. A task will normally require a number of hits to succeed equal to the Difficulty Threshold, and throughout the game this will often just be abbreviated as “Threshold.” Any hits gained in addition to the difficulty threshold are Net Hits. If you get 4 or more net hits, you get a Critical Success. This basic terminology will be most familiar to those who have played Shadowrun, but it is really not much different from the Storytelling System (save that it uses d6s rather than d10s, and critical success is measured by how much you exceed the threshold rather than by getting an arbitrary number of hits and exceeding the threshold). Tasks also have an Error Threshold. If the total number of dice that come up as anything that isn't a botch match the Error Threshold, nothing happens. If they fall short of that, an error occurs whether the task succeeded or not.

Dicepools: Your dicepool is generally speaking Attribute + Skill + Equipment. The main characters are humans even if they are mutants, but remember that many of their opponents are super human. Daemons and Space Marines both have substantially larger attributes than do humans.

Setting Difficulties: In general, most tasks can be ascribed a difficulty – a number of hits required for them to succeed. Many tasks are predefined in difficulty, but some are must be defined in the middle of the game, which is generally the responsibility of the CO. If you need to ascribe difficulty to something in a very quick fashion, grab some difficulty from the following table:

1. Difficulty Table
2. - Easy
3. - Average
4. - Hard
5. - Extreme

Note that increasing difficulties have higher thresholds. Very often tasks will be best with complications that increase the thresholds, making them harder. It is important to note that +1 to the required threshold of a task is an increase to the difficulty of that task, rather than a bonus to the action.

Defaulting: If an action requires a skill and you don't have it, you can generally attempt to perform the action anyway and use -1 in place of your skill. So for example: an untrained man can still fire a bolt gun,he simply rolls Dexterity-1 instead of Dexterity+Firearms. Some skills cannot be defaulted on.

Extended Actions: An extended action has an extra piece of nomenclature on it: a time frame. This is because the action is expected to take some long amount of time. An extended test takes a variable amount of time. If the character meets the threshold for the action, the base time is divided by the total number of hits to determine how long it actually took to finish. If a character does not receive sufficient hits, then the action fails, and the character will know that it has failed after having spent half the base time on the project. And yes, this means that for very difficult extended tasks, it can take longer to not succeed than it does to succeed.

Buying Hits: When you are not particularly stressed, you may buy hits. Rather than rolling dice for a task, you may simply assume that you got one hit for every four full dice in your pool. This is less than you would expect to get on average by actually rolling, but sometimes consistency is its own magnitude.

Assisted Rolls: If two or more characters are helping to complete a single task, you may make a Teamwork Test. The assisting character makes a normal test, and their hits are added to the dicepool of the primary character. The primary character can at best double their dicepool like this. As such, the rule normally only applies for groups of 4-6 at the outside. For much larger groups you can figure that these teams are themselves individuals helping each other to create a ludicrously large dicepool. For the purposes of Warp Cult this will usually not come up, and indeed most tasks are not amenable to such maneuvers.

Opposed Rolls: Sometimes it is necessary for an action to overcome active interference. In these cases, the opposing character or factor is also allowed a test, with hits canceling out hits in the primary test. Actions which assume interference such as swinging a chainsword at a dude do not entitle the victim to roll anything to oppose unless something spectacular is going on. The inherent difficulty of trying to cut a guy's face off when they presumably don't want you to is already figured into the difficulty threshold. Also note that characters with larger Dexterity and Martial Arts ratings are harder to hit – the standard opposition is formalized in order to speed up play.

• Many Psychic powers specifically allow characters to oppose them, because the warp genuinely works differently when stronger minds are involved and opposition is always anything but standard.

Errors: Not everything goes according to plan, and things often go awry – especially in the Imperium of Man. Whenever a character makes a test, count the number of dice rolled that came up any number that wasn't a “1.” Every task will have an error threshold, and if not enough dice come up 2-6, then an error has occurred. In most cases, the error threshold is just twice the success threshold. Note therefore that it is entirely possible for a character to both succeed and have an error. This in no way negates the success, it just means that something untoward happened during the attempt. What happens because of the error is highly situational and is left to the CO to describe. Remember that a success is still a success and a failure is still a failure. So if the attempt is to jump across a gap, the fact that the character made an error while successfully jumping the gap may mean that they fall prone on the far side, but they won't fall down the gap because of that. Similarly, the fact that a character made no error while failing to clear the distance should be of little comfort if the way down is terribly far – though failing to make it across and making an error may involve an even more painful descent or a simple insult to injury as items fall out of pockets as the character falls themselves. The error threshold may go up or down depending upon the risk of the action, and the severity of an error depends upon the dangers present when an action is taking place. It is better to have an error when juggling kittens than it is to have an error while juggling chainswords.

• Ammunition: Firing weapons is a special case. Characters are expected to fire weapons many times during battle, and the difficulty threshold varies wildly. But the difficulty threshold doesn't usually go up because the character is pushing themselves to the brink or anything, it just means that one shot or another is less likely to land on target. Therefore weapon tests have an Error threshold that is set by the weapon itself, not by the difficulty threshold of the shot being attempted. Most weapons that have such an error simply stop functioning for the rest of the battle, and it is for this reason that the Error Threshold for a weapon is called its “Ammunition” number in its stats. Some weapons (notably plasma guns) do something special when they have errors, and this is noted in their text descriptions.

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Attributes

Characters in Warp Cult all have six major attributes: 2 Social (Charisma and Willpower), 2 Mental (Intelligence and Awareness), and 2 Physical (Strength and Dexterity). In addition, some characters have one or two special attributes: Power (which is only available to the Warp Attuned), and Edge (which is available only to those who have fate smiling upon them). During character generation and advancement, raising an Attribute of any type costs 10 points.

• Physical Attributes:
• Strength: Strength determines how physically strong and tough you are.
• Dexterity: Agility is a combination of precision and speed.
  Mental Attributes
• Awareness: Awareness is a combination of empathic and physical perception.
• Intelligence: Intelligence is a combination of scientific know-how and logical ability.
  Social Attributes
• Charisma: Charisma is one's ability to convince and ingratiate.
• Willpower: Willpower is a combination of determination and domination.
  Special Attributes: Special attributes are available to only some characters in the 40K universe.
• Edge Those who have been marked by Fate have an Edge score. This allows them to save their bacon through probability manipulation a certain umber of times an adventure.
• Power Those who have a connection to the Warp have a Power score. This allows them to communicate telepathically through the Imaterium as well as channel warp beasts and invoke psychic powers.

Using Edge: A character can “spend” an Edge at any time to reroll the dice they have rolled that didn't come up hits. They can do this on any test they have rolled. An Edge can also be spent to force another character to reroll the hits on a test to attack the Edge spender. Edge spent in this manner does not literally get lost, and a character's Edge stat remains constant no matter how much they spend. The character's attribute is divided into Spent Edge (that cannot be further spent to reroll tests) and Unspent Edge (that can). At the beginning of every adventure, all Spent Edge becomes Unspent Edge.

Longshot Tests: Sometimes a character does not have enough dice in their dicepool to succeed at a task even if all dice come up hits. In such a case, a character with Edge may spend an Edge to roll a number of extra dice equal to their Edge stat rather than rerolling.

Skills

Characters in Warp Cult have skills. Game mechanically, a skill is a bonus to a single facet of an Attribute. A character who is good at a bunch of similar tasks usually just has a high attribute. Someone described as savant could very plausibly have a high skill. Beasts and non-humanoids are often represented with very high skills and rather low attributes. This is because such beings are not able to do the kinds of things that a generally competent humanoid is capable of, but they are able to compete rather well with even very skilled humanoids in their fields of expertise. For example: a Dark Eldar Warp Beast is generally to be expected to perform well in close combat, and as such has a very high total Martial Arts pool, but they are no good at using Heavy Weapons and as such do not have a high Strength score. As such, beasts of this type are built horribly inefficiently from a points perspective, because they are not built with points – they have completely arbitrary numbers that make their total dicepools work out properly. During character creation and advancement, a skill costs 3 points, and a specialization costs 2 points.

Strength Skills:

• Athletics
  Athletics governs running, jumping, climbing, and swimming.
  • specializations: Running, Jumping, Climbing, Swimming.
• Endurance
  Endurance governs persistence in the face of physical difficulties.
  • specializations: Poison, Privation, Strain.
• Heavy Weapons
  Heavy Weapons are used for any weapon which is directed more than targeted precisely. The flamer, the Autocannon, and the Webber all fall under this umbrella.
  • specializations: by weapon type.
• Martial Arts
  Martial Arts governs the use of melee weapons. From the humble fist to the noble chainsword and awe inspiring powerfist.
  • specializations: by Martial Art (and thus, by group of favored weaponry)

Dexterity Skills:

• Firearms
  Firearms is the skill one uses to fire weaponry at targets.
  • specializations: by Weapon Type.
• Larceny
  Larceny is a skill
  • specializations: Security Systems, Pickpocket
• Pilot Vehicles
  Pilot Vehicles allows a character to drive around culturally appropriate vehicles. Unusual vehicles such as speeders and space craft require an appropriate specialization before than can be driven at all.
  • specializations: by vehicle type.
• Stealth
  Stealth allows a character to move and act without being seen or at least noticed.
  • specializations: Infiltration, Shadowing, Hiding

Intelligence Skills:

• Artisan
  Artisan is used to make things from scratch and to repair damaged devices.
  • specializations: Weaponry, Scavenging
• Logistics
  Logistics covers planning and navigating the rules and regulations that have been created to plan things out in the long term over the last ten thousand years of humanity.
  • specializations: Bureaucracy, Supply, Long Term Planning, Research
• Medicine
  Medicine is used to keep people alive. Sometimes it
  • specializations: First Aid, Long Term Care, Poisons, Diseases, non-human Physiology.
• Technology
  Technology governs the knowledge of how to use ancient technical items and techniques. Unlike other skills, Technology must be taken with a specialization, and while it can be used to work on current Imperial devices or identify scavenged goods from any archeotech, a character can only use whatever materials they are specialized in if they are considered lost tech.
  • specializations: Plasma Physics, Computers, Warp Technology, Gravity Engineering, Nanotech, Bioengineering, Chemistry, or by current Imperial technology path.

Awareness Skills:

• Empathy
  Empathy is one's awareness of the Imaterium. It is used to detect warp signatures, spot the use of psychic powers, intuitively understand emotions in others, and interpret the needs of animals.
  • specializations: Warp Perception, Sense Motive, Animal Ken
• Investigation
  Investigation allows one to reconstruct events in the past from clues in the present.
  • specializations: Forensics, Tracking, by Environment
• Perception
  Perception governs physically noticing things.
  • specializations: by Sense.
• Tactics
  Tactics is used to evaluate the actions and movements in others. Setting up and anticipating ambushes are both done with the Tactics skill.
  • specializations: by Unit Type, by Terrain Type.

Charisma Skills:

• Deception
  Deception is used to disguise one's self or one's intentions.
  • specializations: Fast Talk, Forgery, Disguise
• Expression
  Expression is used to make art.
  • specializations: Evocative art, Persuasive Art, or by medium.
• Camaraderie
  Camaraderie is used to manage others. It is used to determine how someone can contribute to a team as well as to instill within them a desire to work with said team.
  • specializations: Schmoozing, Evaluation, Recruitment
• Persuasion
  Persuasion is used to convince others of things. It can be as simple as getting someone to sell you a rat burger for half price because of perceived flaws or as complete as changing someone's world view or allegiance.
  • specializations: Barter, Diplomacy, Propaganda

Willpower Skills:

• Command
  Command is used to get one's orders heard and obeyed. It can be used to organize or even reorganize when morale has broken.
  • specializations: Inspiration, Calm Emotions, Oratory
• Faith
  Faith is used to resist torture and persuasion. But it is also used by some to call upon powers of warp powers indirectly through the intermediary of intercession by powerful warp gods. Those of strong faith can draw upon their faiths to recognize differences in faiths.
  • specializations: Conviction, Worship, or by Cult.
• Intimidate
  Intimidation is used to bully and torture. Coercion of most any kind falls under the Intimidate skill.
  • specializations: Interrogation, Battlefield, Coercion
• Survival
  Survival mediates both
  • specializations: By terrain type.

Power Skills:

• Channeling
  Channeling is used to bring the warp into the world in a controlled fashion. A daemon can be bound into a physical body or even brought to materialize directly into existence.
  • specializations: Possession, Telepathy, or by daemon type.
• Invoking
  Invoking is the skill used by a psyker to use their Warp Powers.
  • specializations: by Power.
• Summoning
  Summoning is the skill used to call warp entities into the imaterium surrounding one's location. Most warp entities have no special ability to affect the physical world save through a psyker.
  • specializations: by Daemon type.

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Character Creation and Advancement

Characters in Warp Cult are made on 300 points. This makes characters who are quite capable in several fields or severely bad ass in just a few. But they are decidedly within human power levels. It is entirely possible to play Warp Cult with characters who are are at lower or higher point totals. An Adeptus Soritas sister of battle, for example, would be expected to come in at more like 400 points, while scavies and other individually unimpressive members of society such as hive gang juves can be made on 200 points or less. Truly powerful entities like Space Marines and Genestealers are only barely on the scale of this game, and should probably be made arbitrarily rather than worrying about point totals at all.

When characters complete adventures, they gain additional points to spend. These points can be spent on anything, whether things are currently at their starting maximum or not.

Attributes

All attributes that a character possesses start at rating 1, and they may be purchased up at the rate of 10 points per rating. In general, a character should not be allowed to spend more than half their starting points on basic attributes (Power and Edge do not count). A character in Warp Cult cannot raise any of their attributes past 5 at character generation. To put these attributes in perspective: an average human has attributes of about 2.5, and an average trained human (such as an Imperial Guardsman) has attributes of 3 straight up.

All player characters in Warp Cult are considered to be of sufficient personal fate to have an Edge score, which means that they can purchase that up as well.

Skills

Your character Begins with all skills at zero. Skill ratings can be purchased up at a cost of 3 points per rating. A specialization can be purchased on any skill for 2 points. When a skill is used within its specialization, the character gains a +2 dicepool modifier. When used outside the character's specialty field, only the base value is used. A Warp Cult character can't purchase their skills up past 5 at character creation.

Traits

Every character in Warp Cult can do special things, and every character in Warp Cult has some ridiculously tragic story that brought them to the state where they are willing to fight or convince other people to fight in order to change things. These backgrounds act as adventure hooks that move the plot forward and also provide characters with unique advantages that can help them in their endeavors.

Positive Traits:
Positive traits are those which directly help the character in some tangible fashion. Each character should have no more than seven stars worth of positive traits.

• One Star Traits:
  ✦ :
  ✦ Brave: The character is very brave. Fear effects treat the character as if they were Berserk. They aren't actually berserking, and still notice fear, they just keep going anyway most of the time.
  ✦ Hard Knocks Diploma: The character has spent a lot of time living in the harsh underbellies of this world, and knows how things really get done. They know how to butter the bread around here, and get reduced Logistics thresholds when no one is looking.
  ✦ Certainty: The character is rather certain about their convictions. Virtually any action the character is compelled to do is considered to be a violation of their principles.
  ✦ Guard Veteran: The character has survived in a campaign on behalf of the IG. As such, they are entitled to some land, some respect, and some leeway from imperial agents who have never seen a battlefield. Unfortunately, the Empire also has their serial number and can call them back up if in “great need.”
  ✦ Linguist: The character speaks a language other than High Gothic or the local hive speak. This trait can be taken more than once.
  ✦ Rich: The character's bank account or cow herd, or whatever the planet uses to measure one's wealth is actually quite substantial.
  ✦ Socially Connected: The character's list of friends has people that you've heard of on it.
  
  Two Star Traits:
  ✦✦ Ambidextrous: The character can use either hand without difficulties.
  ✦✦ Blank: The character bears the Pariah Gene and not only has no contact with the warp but actively interferes with the warp by their mere presence. Everything within a number of meters of them equal to their Edge stat has its Power stat reduced by half the character's Edge. The character can never have a Power attribute nor any chaos mutations.
  ✦✦ Special Training: The character has already been inducted into an organization that teaches or grants advanced powers. Maybe the character received Navigator training on Terra or has already been marked by Tzeentch. Most such groups can only teach their abilities to Psykers, but there are those for whom this is not true such as Imperial or Khorne cults.
  ✦✦ Noble: The character comes from a high social caste that entitles them to own other people.
  ✦✦ Alien Technology: The character's background makes them familiar with alien technologies for whatever reason. Choose the technology base (ex.: Eldar, Tau, Ork, etc.) and the character can drive those vehicles and operate that machinery as if it was culturally appropriate.
  ✦✦ Spacer Family: The character's family has a lot of spacers in it. Such families are not only relatively highly placed, but also used to long periods of little or no contact with other family members. As such, the character can expect warm receptions from people all over the galaxy with whom they have never spoken.
  ✦✦ Bionic: The character is partially bionic. This means that damage to them can be repaired with Artisan, Technology, or Medicine skills, whichever is best.
  ✦✦ Ecclesiarchical Rank: The character is ordained into the Ministorum.
  ✦✦ Prophet: The character has a mild warp sensitivity even if not actually a psyker, and receives instructions and visions of the future from a warp patron of some kind.
  ✦✦ :
  
  Three Star Traits:
  ✦✦✦ Psyker: The character is a psyker and has a Power attribute.
  ✦✦✦ Inheritor: The character's family line is supposed to inherit a major company or noble house.
  ✦✦✦ Multidextrous: You can use all of your arms as well as you can use your good arm. Alternately, you are capable of making full use of non-standardly placed weaponry while still using both hands.
  ✦✦✦ Writ of Infallibility: Whether deserved or not, some Inquisitor signed off on you doing seemingly disloyal things in the name of a larger plan. This means that you can theoretically get away with anything, although it should be noted that anyone of sufficiently high rank can rescind it, and anyone who doesn't know what it means won't care.
  ✦✦✦ :

Negative Traits:
Let's get this out in the open: having a negative trait is not necessarily bad. Over the course of the campaign, adventures will happen. And while adventures are rather a bummer to actually go on, they are exciting and interesting to hear about or tell. When a character has a negative trait, there is something about them that works as the seed for adventures. This means that the player actually benefits because they get more screen time. It is for this reason that it is recommended that a single character has no more and no less than 7 stars worth of negative traits.

• One Star Traits:
  ✦ Coward: The character is a coward, avoiding scary incidents in their life and never standing up for themselves. Maybe that's why they allowed themselves into being bullied into joining a cult in the first place. Or maybe they feel that they have to do things publicly that appear dangerous in order to overcompensate. Any compulsion to make such a character respond in a fearful manner is considered natural.
  ✦ Addiction: In the 41st millennium, religion is no longer the opiate of the masses. The character is addicted to some actual opiate, or possibly a stimulant like spine powder. The character spends a lot of time high, and a fair chunk of their disposable income getting high.
  ✦ Orphan: The character never knew their parents. This makes them sad sometimes and gives them as good a reason as any to
  ✦ Fanatic: Every member of the cult is dedicated, but this character is just annoying about it.
  ✦ Embarrassing Secret: There is something about the character that would socially inconvenience them if it got out. What reduces someone's social standing on one world may be very different than what reduces one's social standing on another. For example: on Ocuron IV, left handed people are considered social pariahs, and a character who faked using their right hand for things would hold an embarrassing secret.
  ✦ Ugly: The character is physically unattractive, and has little luck with the opposite sex unless money is involved. Note that the standards for beauty are bizarre in the Imperium, and some places find the strangest things (un)attractive.
  ✦ Low Social Standing: On those worlds where heavy caste systems are in place, losing the birth lottery can have dire social consequences.
  ✦ Day Job: The character has genuine social responsibilities and people will actually miss them if they go off and do things on short notice.
  ✦ Pervert: The character likes to do something that other people don't like people doing. Sometimes this is as simple as breaking eggs on the wrong side. But it makes the character stand out.
  ✦ Clumsy: The character drops stuff and falls down.
  ✦ Lazy: The character doesn't like to work, and shirks off doing it whenever possible. This causes resentment.
  ✦ Stupid: The character may not be unintelligent, but the things that they do and which come out of their mouth are retarded.
  ✦ Distinctive Style: The character does something that is readily identifiable. This means that if they do something that they can often be described accurately later on.
  ✦ Silent Mutant: The character's mutations are subtle enough that they can only be detected psychically. Of course, it's still a death sentence, it just isn't likely to come up because it doesn't look like anything. The character can still purchase mutant powers though.
  ✦ Silver Spoon: The character has had a sheltered existence and honestly has no idea how anything works or how people actually live in the seedier realms of the planet or the empire.
  ✦ Gibbering Whispers: The character is mildly schizophrenic and sometimes hears whispers and sees shadowy shapes. These false visions can undermine the character's credibility.
  
  Two Star Traits:
  ✦✦ Abhuman: The character is a human, but distinctly and definitely a member of a known and accepted abhuman group. This gives you carte blanche to have really weird attributes, but it also means that a number of human groups, including ecclesiarchy agents will dislike you.
  ✦✦ Mutant: The characters is a mutant and has physical deformities marking them as such. This allows you to purchase mutant powers, but it also means that you are subject to a death sentence if certain Imperial agents detect you.
  ✦✦ Criminal History: Somewhere the Imperium has a record on crimes the character has committed. Luckily, the Imperial Bureaucracy is legendarily ineffective, but sometimes it pulls through. And that could easily be very dangerous.
  ✦✦ Escaped Slave: Most Imperial worlds have slavery of one sort or another. The character was once held as a Slave.
  ✦✦ Arbites Contact: The character actually works for or with the Arbites. While such a position is potentially useful, it also puts them under much more intense scrutiny from both their peers and the arbites.
  ✦✦ Hot Blooded: The character escalates conflict readily.
  ✦✦ Unlikeable: Nobody likes the character because they are simply unlikeable as a human being. Don't invest in a lot of Persuasion if your character has this flaw.
  ✦✦ Sickly: The character spends a lot of time getting sick.
  ✦✦ Dumb: The character cannot speak High Gothic, or any language other than their stunted local planetary tongue. This trait needs a warning: it should not be taken if the character is from a different planet than any of the other characters. It's interesting if a character needs other characters to speak for him in Imperial circles, but it's downright aggravating if a character in the cult can't talk directly to one of the other cultists.
  ✦✦ Lurid Voices: The character is moderately schizophrenic and hears conversations and pronouncements that aren't real. Not warp prophecies, just genuine crazy talk (though the character probably can't tell the difference).
  ✦✦ :
  
  Three Star Traits:
  ✦✦✦ Interesting to Chaos: The character is considered interesting by one or more Chaos entities. Even if such a being is nominally on your side, this is rarely good.
  ✦✦✦ Unhidable Mutation: While some mutations can be covered up with baggy clothes or heavy makeup, this character's cannot. The character's form does something that is really obviously non-human. Extra appendages, constant fire, whatever. This allows the character to purchase extreme mutations, but of course the character cannot participate in polite society.
  ✦✦✦ Malignant: The character is a first or second generation genestealer offspring. They certainly have human traits, but are instantly identifiable as non-human. Such a character can purchase any kind of genestealer abilities off of the mutation list, but if Imperial Agents find them, they are kill on sight.
  ✦✦✦ Draft Dodger: Once a person is marked by the Officio Munitorum they must fight or die. The character has chosen the third option where they run for the rest of their lives.
  ✦✦✦ Enslaved: While the character has escaped direct servitude, they are still nerve stapled. The character has command words that force obedience from them. All servitors and arcoflagellants are enslaved.

Equipment
“This is my lasgun. It is like many other lasguns, but this one is mine.”

Characters in Warp Cult do not have to pay points for their starting equipment. Instead, they start with an amount of swag that is “reasonable” for the game they are playing in. And yes, that's totally unfair at times. The difference in power between a lasgun and an Autocannon is intense. But while discrepancies in equipment are in many cases more important than any differences in skill between characters, equipment can also be gained or lost or traded with shocking ease. While having an extra die on your firearms checks is probably less of a big deal than is having a rail rifle – the fact is that there is nothing intrinsic about a character that would causes them to keep a rail rifle in the future. In fact, one could guess that whoever in the Cult had the highest Firearms pool would tend to be given the best gun that the cult had anywhere in their possession.

The goal of this rules is to make sure that it is never a good idea to start a character with a lot of equipment and then immediately become an hero and have them kill themselves only to start another character who has better skills and simply inherits that equipment. This is actually a bigger problem than some characters starting with good equipment or lots of money while others start with little for role playing reasons. After all, it is highly situational how one gets new equipment. In some circumstances, a character with some decent Larceny and Stealth can walk off with a Heavy Webber, and in others a character with a lot of money or good Persuasion can do the same.

Perks

Characters can get Perks at a cost of 5 points a piece. Some perks are available to practically anyone, and others require you to have specific traits.

Open Perks:

• Parry: When armed with a melee weapon that does more than half as much damage as your opponent's weapon, you increase the threshold to strike you in close combat by 1.
• Sprint: You may double the number of hits on your Run tests for purposes of how many extra cm you can move. Increase the Endurance threshold by 1 every time you do this.
• Quick Draw: Add +2 dice on your initiative checks. In addition, you can switch between weapons more quickly than normal, and you may take advantage of two weapons in close combat even when you are armed with a two handed weapon.
• Catfall: You are skilled at rolling out of falls. The distance the character falls is counted as if it were 2 cm less for each point of Dexterity you have.
• Evade: You are good at avoiding fire. In turns where you moved, the threshold to hit you with a ranged attack is increased by 1.
• Calm Under Pressure: You are blasé even when your life is threatened. You may buy hits even while in combat.
• Fast: Your basic movement is increased by 20%. So your standard move is 12 cm instead of 10. Your Run checks are unaffected.
• Sudual Striking: You are trained to bring enemies back alive. If your attack would do sufficient damage to kill a target, you may choose to have it do less damage such that the target does not die.
• Gun Fu: You can use ranged weapons (except heavy weapons) as close combat weapons.
• Big Picture Thinking: You can always ignore close threats when determining where you can move and shoot.
• Purposeful: You can ready a heavy weapon while moving. This costs you 2cm of your movement.
• Cool and Callous: By spending an Aim action, you may ignore the penalties and restrictions of firing into close combat, except with automatic or template weaponry.
• Keen Senses: The range of any weapon in your hands is increased by 10 cm. The range of a pistol is only increased by 5 cm.
• Dowsing: The thresholds for scavenging materials are reduced by 1.
• Jump Up: You can change from being Prone to Standing as a free action.
• Free Running: You can treat difficult terrain as open and impassable terrain as difficult for purposes of movement.
• Blood Letting: You can offer the blood of victims to your warp patron. The unsoaked damage level you inflict in close combat can be used to reduce the Drain of a subsequent warp power activation. This is naturally of most use to psykers, but some cults (notably Khorne cults), find use as well. You may inflict damage on yourself to aid in this way.
• MacGuyvering: A weapon or other piece of equipment which has stopped working can be made to function in the middle of combat with a Primary Action and an appropriate Artisan or Technology test. Only one test to jury rig a device may be made each battle.
• :

Mutation Perks:
Only mutants, genestealer hybrids, and abhumans can have mutations. In the case of abhumans, these mutations are considered to be “normal” among some strain of people. In the case of warp mutants, the mutations are likely unique or nearly so.

• Carapace: Your mutant structure is tougher than normal, and you roll an extra die when soaking damage. This may be taken more than once.
• Extra Arm: You have an extra arm. This may be taken more than once.
• Black Blood: You blood is a metal eating caustic substance. When you are wounded, a spray of Damage 3 ichor will spew out onto things near you, and you can eat through doors by cutting yourself.
• Natural Weaponry: You have some kind of gruesome natural weaponry, whether it be a crab claw, a scorpion tail, or a toothy maw. Practically this means that you have a +2 Damage close combat weapon that you cannot be disarmed of.
• Ghastly: Your visage is frightening and you cause fear. This isn't just a matter of being ugly or something, and indeed you may have a completely human appearance. It's just that your very presence causes terror to leak in from the imaterium into the physical world.
• Tentacles:You have tentacles. They lack the fine manipulation of hands, but they can reach out an extra meter or so. You can engage in close combat from 2 cm away.
• Tracking Senses: You have an enhanced sense. It could be a thermosense organ that allows you to “feel” the lingering heat from footsteps, feeder tentacles that let you chemically sense the passage of animals, or just a wicked good sense of smell thanks to a shout out from a sense-god. You can make Investigation checks on the move when using your special sense.
• Bio Ejector: You have one ranged weapon built into your body. Maybe you spit acid or propel spines out of your chest. It has a Damage value of 2 + half your strength (round up). When you get this mutation, you must choose whether it is an Assault weapon with a range of 30 cm, a Rapid Fire weapon with a range of 15 cm, or a Heavy Weapon with a Template range. Regardless, the weapon has an Ammunition rating of 5.

Warp Invocations: Characters who are Psykers may take Warp Invocations as Perks. An individual Psyker must choose a category of intrinsic power, and that's the category they can select from.

Daemon Favor: Characters who are Psykers may select a type of Daemon that they can Summon as a Perk.

[Username17]

Combat

Battlefields in Warp Cult are preferably handled on the same kind of three dimensional terrain that one might play Necromunda in. During a character's turn, they will move their model around that terrain and movement and weapon ranges are measured with an actual tape measure. The scale of the battlefield is 1 meter in the world equaling 1 centimeter on the table. And yes, this means that weapons are very short ranged. Partially this is to represent the incredibly low hit rate of bullets at any reasonable range in real battles. But mostly it is a nod to the 40k close-combat oriented battlefield. The 41st millennium has fights that are supposed to look like the fights in Star Wars, and it is for this reason more than any other that the game has long ranged weaponry work so poorly.

An ordinary human-sized character fights within a 25 millimeter diameter circle and this area is represented by the base of the miniature. Large creatures are usually placed on a 40mm base that represents the larger area that they fight in. It is important to note that these areas are actually much larger than the actual characters that are fighting in them. This is because a combat round is 12 seconds long and people move around a lot.

Health and Consciousness: Everyone and everything has 10 wound boxes, and when they are lost they are incapacitated. Big things and little things both have 10 wound boxes, because a wound box actually represents being 10% of the way to being incapacitated. More resilient things lose less wound boxes from the same attack as would a less resilient thing. The lasgun that might seriously main or kill a human would be lucky to do anything at all to a Hive Tyrant or even an Ork 'Ard Boy. A character who suffers all 10 wound boxes has taken a deadly wound, and is incapacitate. Whether they actually die is a question of medical intervention and environment. A character who loses 15 boxes is just plain dead outside of Golden Throne craziness.

When a character is struck with an attack, they have the opportunity to soak the damage with their strength, armor, and abilities. Many advanced armor systems of the 41st millennium actually provide automatic hits for soaking damage. If damage is unsoaked, it becomes a wound. And the more damage from an attack was unsoaked, the more egregious that wound is. Wounds are ranked in order of severity: Light, Moderate, Serious, Deadly, and Fatality. And they correspond to amounts of unsoaked damage. 1 unsoaked damage is light, 2 is moderate, 3 is serious, 4 is deadly, and 5 or more is a fatality straight out. Each wound takes off progressively more wound boxes than the previous wound did. So a Light wound causes you to lose just 1 box, a moderate 3 boxes, a serious 6 boxes, a deadly wound 10 boxes, and a fatality is nominally 15 boxes, but since that means that you're dead it hardly makes sense to worry over much about boxes at that point.

Being injured provides wound penalties. If you have lost wound boxes enough to qualify as Lightly Wounded, you are at -1 to all of your dice pools, if you are Moderately Wounded you are at -2, if you are Seriously Wounded you are at -3, and if you have a Deadly Wound you are at -4 but this scarcely matters because you are also physically incapacitated. If you have suffered a Fatality you narrowly escape having a -5 penalty to all dice pools on account of being totally dead.

A character can stay conscious so long as their Willpower is higher than their Wound penalty. And yes, this means that people with a Willpower of 5 can stay conscious even after being incapacitated with a deadly wound from a plasma cannon. This is because they are hard core. People who are physically capable of moving but have had their Willpower exceeded by damage will eventually pull themselves together, but generally not within the time frame of a battle. They are casualties even if they aren't dead.

Staging Damage: If an attack scores net hits, the additional hits are added to the base damage. A weapon (other than a close combat weapon) cannot gain more damage in this way then it has base damage to begin with. Once damage has been inflicted, the armor and soak roll will reduce it to determine the final inflicted Wound Level. This process is sometimes called staging damage up (and down).

Armor and Soaking: Most armor provides an Armor Value (AV) and a Soak Value (SV). AV reduces the damage value of a weapon, much like the character wearing it had gotten a hit on the soak roll. SV adds dice to the soak roll. Armor Piercing attacks ignore an armor's SV, and Phasing attacks treat an armor's AV as additional SV. Attacks which “ignore armor” or against which “armor does not apply” negate both the AV and SV of armor.

Vehicles and Walls: Vehicles and walls don't have strength scores, but they can be damaged. Inanimate objects just have AV and SV and suffer damage normally. A vehicle's top speed is reduced by 10% for every box that is filled in, and when it hits 15 boxes it is no longer able to be repaired. A wall on the other hand never has a movement speed to begin with, so its damage state is measured merely in how much you can get through it. At Light damage, there is one or more holes (like bullet holes) in the wall, allowing sunlight to come through in artful rays if one side or the other is outside in the daylight. At Moderate damage, a wall has holes sufficient to fit a weapon through and fire at targets on the other side. At Serious damage, a character can crawl through holes in the wall with a climbing test and a primary action. At Deadly damage, a character can move through the wall normally. A wall that has received Fatality damage can be driven through with a vehicle.

Healing: Every day of rest, a character makes an Injury modified Willpower test and recovers a number of boxes of damage equal to the number of hits. A character with Medicine (Long Term Care) can improve those healing rates by taking care of them during that period, providing a number of bonus dice for the healing test equal to the hits. If a character's injuries are tended to within the first hour by someone with Medicine (First Aid), the wound condition may be reduced in severity (from Deadly to Serious, Serious to Moderate, Moderate to Light and Light to nothing). The first aid using character must succeed at an extended test with a time frame of 10 minutes and a threshold of the wound level (1 for Light, 3 for Serious). A character with a Deadly Wound must be stabilized before they can have their wounds reduced by any means. A wound may only be reduced in severity with First Aid once.

Deterioration: A character with a Deadly wound is incapacitated and in danger of dying. A character may bleed out and expire in as little as 4 minutes, so tending to the wounded is important. If a character does not stabilize, they will eventually die. A character with Medicine (First Aid) may attempt to stabilize a dying character by making an extended test with a time frame of 10 minutes and a threshold of 3. If this is not attempted or fails, then the victim may try to stabilize themselves with an Endurance or Survival test with a threshold of 3. If this also fails, the character is dead.

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Initiative and Actions

At the beginning of any combat, all participants roll an initiative check, which is a Dexterity + Awareness check. Characters act in order of their number of hits. Ties go in order of actual Dexterity Attributes, further ties go in order of actual Awareness Attributes, further ties go in order of actual Tactics Skill Ratings, any further ties are resolved with roll offs or negotiation.

Basic Actions: A character can move and shoot in a single turn, but they are better at shooting if they do not move around. In general, a character gets 2 primary actions during their turn. A primary action can be used to move 10cm on the board or attack with a weapon. There are many other actions that can be used as primary actions, and you can also take as many Free Actions as seem reasonable.

Delaying Actions: Shooting first is not always as important as shooting last. A character who gets a higher initiative value may elect to take their action after other characters have taken theirs. A delaying character may cut in to the initiative order at any point between two other character's actions and take their action. If two or more characters are delaying, then the character has the better initiative value has the last word. Once the last character who isn't delaying takes their action, the delaying character with the worst initiative value must take their action or forfeit it.

Overwatch: A character may declare a primary action to be an Overwatch Action. An overwatch action has a declared trigger and takes place when and if that trigger takes place, interrupting any action currently taking place to do so. Overwatch actions are very difficult and require precision timing, and have their threshold of difficulty increased by 1. If the character's action comes up again, the overwatch action is lost, though there is nothing stopping them from declaring a new overwatch action at this point. A character may only have one overwatch action at queued up at a time.

• Example: Acolyte Daisy knows that there is an enemy on the other side of the temple complex, but she can't see them right now. She declares an Overwatch Action to shoot the guy as soon as they come into view. As it happens, the enemy then moves from behind one pillar to a spot behind a closer pillar. Daisy takes the shot in the middle of the target's movement where there is no cover, but the threshold of difficulty is increased by one.

Tactics: Characters can improve their reactions in combat by working out a plan and sticking to it. When a group is operating under the supervision of a tactician who knows the rough layout of the opposition, the leader can make a Tactics test and improve every character's initiative rolls by the number of hits on that test. No plan survives in contact with the enemy, and the bonus will only last a number of combat rounds equal to the character's actual ranks in Tactics. The number of characters that can be coordinated with the Tactics skill varies with the situation, and is largely in the hands of the CO to determine. Space Marines have massive commlink arrays and tactical layouts on head's up displays in their helmets and their tacticians can coordinate groups of squads with fire support and speeders, while most warp cults are mostly stuck physically explaining a tactical plan with a stick in the sand, limiting their penetrance to the number of people they can physically fit in a huddle around the diagram.

• Primary Actions:
• Move 10cm
• Run
• Climb
• Jump
• Sneak 5 cm
• Crawl 2 cm
• Fire Weapon
• Move 10cm and Fire
• Stand from Prone
• Prepare Heavy Weapon
• Aim Weapon
• Invoke Warp Power
• Summon
• Channel Daemon
• Pilot Vehicle
• Close Combat
• Issuing Commands
• Disengaging From Close Combat
• Search for Hidden Targets
• Combat Looting
  Free Actions:
• Talking
• Intimidating
• Overcoming ZoT
• Going Prone

Taking Turns: Every turn entitles each characters to two primary actions. Every turn begins with an initiative roll for each character, with each character acting on their turn. Once everyone has acted, roll Initiative again, and proceed another time.

Mob Rule: If multiple characters want to act together, they collectively act at the lowest Initiative. Any sufficiently large group will therefore go on count zero. Mobs of people or shambling groups of scavies will always act at Initiative zero.

• Optional Rule: Alternating Actions Sometimes having characters take both their primary actions in a row can be pretty unfair. “I move and shoot!” is a 4chan meme for a reason. It is for this reason that some games take alternating actions. That is, characters take their first primary action in order and then take their second primary actions in order. This makes killer combos more difficult, and makes Overwatch more powerful. It also takes slightly longer to resolve.

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Movement.

A typical battlefield of Warp Cult is as cluttered or more so as a Necromunda or Gorkamorka battlefield, and may in fact be a battlefield from one of those games. As such, it is reasonable to expect that there will be a number of places that a character will want to be that are not where they are. And to resolve that situation, moving is the preferred solution.

Movement Rates: A human has a movement rate of 10 cm. That means that with the expenditure of a primary action they can move themselves 10 cm. Moving at this speed a character can stay active for a long time, and won't get tired in any combat that is likely to occur. Furthermore, this movement rate is safe enough to not cause meaningful chances of falling down or jeopardizing one's defenses. Some species in the galaxy have movement rates that are very much faster or slower than humans, and vehicular movement rates are often very different.

Zones of Threat: People in battles are scary. An active combatant is very difficult to ignore, and it is often outright dangerous to do so. A normal character's Zone of Threat (ZoT) extends 20 cm in all directions. While a character is in the ZoT of an enemy character, they can't shoot at targets who are not threatening them, nor may they initiate a Running move to another point within enemy ZoT. A character may attempt to ignore the ZoT of another by making a Faith test (threshold 2), this is a Free Action that may be performed once per turn. A character can attempt to increase the magnitude of their ZoT by being especially intimidating. This is done by making an Intimidate test, with every hit increasing the radius of their personal Zone of Threat by 4 cm. Furthermore, if the Intimidate test gets more than 2 hits, then that becomes the threshold for enemies to overcome their ZoT by faith. Intimidating foes is also a free action that may be done once per turn.
If a character is subjected to multiple ZoTs, then a single Faith test made against the highest difficulty threshold is sufficient to last an entire turn. Monstrous creatures have a ZoT that extends to 40 cm in all directions, and the Faith threshold to overcome it is 4.

Difficult Terrain: The movement rates assume that characters are moving through flat and open terrain. When this is not the case, characters move slower. Difficult Terrain “costs” 2 cm of movement to move 1 cm through. If a character is moving through regular terrain and difficult terrain, just double the distance of the difficult terrain to see how much of their movement is used. Terrain that is slower to traverse exists, in general take the standard threshold for a task and compare it to how difficult the terrain is to move through and that threshold is the movement cost of each cm of real movement. So “average” difficult terrain such as shallow water, tall grass, or a ladder costs 2 cm of movement per table cm; “hard” difficult terrain such as sucking sand, cluttered shops, and knee-deep water costs 3 cm of movement; and “extreme” difficult terrain such as heavy snow drifts, waste deep water, and gelatin blocks cost 4 cm of movement per cm of terrain moved through.

Dangerous Ground: Dangerous Ground is terrain which has no impact on movement speeds but may collapse, catch fire, trigger ancient laser traps, or in other sundry ways cause damage to people moving through it. In general, moving through Dangerous Ground requires a character to make a skill check, with a threshold set by the difficulty of the area to avoid being hit with a baleful effect. The skill used for most Dangerous Ground is set when it is defined on the board, and most dangerous ground has a key skill of Athletics or Larceny. Moving quickly through dangerous ground (such as running or jumping) increases the threshold to successfully navigate it by 1.
A character moving down a ladder may elect to count it as Dangerous Ground rather than Difficult Terrain – the key skill is Athletics (Climbing) in that case. Failing to make the test causes the character to fall to the base of the ladder. A character may voluntarily fail such a check and simply move to the bottom of a ladder by falling.

Impassable Terrain: Impassable Terrain is actually something of a misnomer, because it's not actually impassable. Actually impassable things such as enormous metal pillars and force fields exist in the setting, and even in the actual battlefields of a Warp Cult game, but those are called “obstacles.” Impassable Terrain is rather underwhelmingly the name given to any terrain where it would physically take long enough to get through it that it is not a meaningfully possible combat action. Things like very narrow spaced bamboo and air ducts are “impassable” in game terms because people aren't going to get through them during a battle encounter, even though characters with sufficient time totally can go through those.

Climbing: A character may climb any surface, with the difficulty of the surface setting the threshold for Athletics (Climbing) tests to maintain position with net hits setting the character's movement rate. Each net hit moves the character up or down by 2 cm. A character who fails to meet the threshold to maintain position, falls. A character who suffers any damage while climbing must immediately make a climb test (remembering the new wound penalties), and net hits don't move them – the only thing that can happen is staying on the wall or potentially falling.
Ladders are a special case in which characters only have to make climbing tests if they are attempting to move on them quickly or take damage while holding on. Characters are assumed to be able to move up and down ladders as if they were difficult terrain without penalty or dice roll.

Falling: Falling is a special form of movement in which you go downwards really fast and quite often stop very suddenly and painfully upon meeting up with a solid object of some kind. A character who lands on something rigid and capable of supporting their weight must resist damage based on how far the fall actually was. Every full 6 cm of falling, the character must soak 1 damage (to a maximum of 7). A character always ends any fall of more than 1 cm prone.
Falling most distances takes substantially less time than does a combat round, so in general it is OK to merely move a character all the way to the ground when they fall. But if a character is sent off a ledge when it is not their turn, they may make an Initiative test with a difficulty threshold of 8 minus one for every 6 cm of falling. On a success, the fall is resolved on their next action and they may take one primary action halfway down. Extremely long falls may take multiple combat rounds, in which case normal initiative rules apply.
Falling Damage is soaked with Dexterity rather than strength, and armor values generally do not apply. Some worlds have high or low gravity. Indeed, the 41st millennium has some relic gravity generators so that some places on planets may have very unusual gravity levels. If a character is falling in high gravity, the damage from falling is 1 per 4 cm and the maximum damage is 9. If a character is falling in low gravity, the damage is only 1 per 10 cm and the maximum damage is 5. Furthermore, the Initiative thresholds to act in the middle of such falls start at 9 for high gravity and 7 for low gravity. Characters in zero gravity conditions do not fall.

Liquids and Swimming: Technically glass is a colloid, but that's sufficiently close to being a liquid that it inspires confusion on that point. Regardless, anything which flows slowly enough that characters can reasonably expect to walk on it rather than swim through it is considered “ground” by the rules. Even really sticky stuff like tar is just difficult, dangerous ground. Every primary action a character spends swimming they make an Athletics (Swimming) test, with a threshold of 0. Every net hit moves them 2 cm. If a character is carrying heavy or bulky items, the swimming threshold increases. A character who fails to meet the swimming threshold must either sink or drop their cargo. If a character spends 5 actions swimming, they must make an Endurance test. A character can fight from water, but it is very difficult. The character must “prepare” a primary action other than swimming by giving up a hit on their previous swim test (in short, they move 2 cm less on their last action). Swimming provides heavy cover against direct fire weapons, but no cover at all against blast weapons.
A character can walk through liquids if they come up to the character's waste or less. These areas count as difficult terrain, and only give cover from direct fire weapons if they are deep enough to cover substantial portions of the character's body.

Hiding & Sneaking: Characters can hide whenever they can get out of LOS from their enemies. A character who is literally fully invisible from opponents can “hide” themselves as a free action – it's mostly just a state of mind at that point. On the other hand, hiding when one is merely partially concealed requires a primary action to conceal one's self. A character is detected whenever they come within a number of centimeters equal to the spotter's Awareness + Perception – Psykers may substitute Awareness + Empathy(Warp Perception). They need not be visible at that point, as they could be heard or even smelled. A sneaking character may make a Stealth check to reduce the distance at which they will be detected at the rate of 1 cm per hit. Sneaking characters can also be spotted from a long distance away if there are clear lines of sight or similar methods, in which case the characters simply make opposed Perception vs. Stealth checks. A character may take a primary action to look for an opponent they have some reason to believe is there, in which case they can make the same Perception vs. Stealth check, but the searcher gets a +4 dicepool bonus.
If a character uses any weapon or psychic power that is not subtle, they are automatically detected for the next turn no matter what they do. It is suggested that each sneaking or hidden character make just one Stealth check for any round in which they might be detected by one means or another.

Running: Most characters are physically capable of moving substantially faster than their standard movement rates. They don't do it because moving at those speeds is tiring and unsafe. But if a character wants to flat out run, they may do so. A character who runs and takes any damage in the following turn falls prone automatically. When a character runs during a movement, they may add an additional 4 cm of movement for each hit they make on an Athletics (Running) check. A character who scores no hits is still running, it just means that they stumbled at some point along the way and made no more progress towards their goal than had they moved more cautiously. If this happens on dangerous ground, the hazard happens automatically.
Running characters are difficult to hit with ranged weaponry, but very vulnerable to close combat attacks. The threshold for hitting a running target with shooting is increased by 1. The threshold to hit a running target in close combat is reduced by 1. Every turn spent running provokes an Endurance test.

Doors: A door that can be kicked in while a character is on the run can be past through at the cost of just 2 cm of movement. Doors which actually require a character to work latches or press buttons to open is opened or closed with a Primary Action.

Driving: Piloting a vehicle for a turn requires one primary action, which should be the character's first primary action of the round. The vehicle's path for the entire turn should be declared before a piloting test is attempted. If a character does not spend their first action of a turn making a piloting test, or the piloting test is less than the difficulty threshold, the vehicle goes uncontrolled. A character is free to spend their second action doing anything they want, and indeed firing weapons out the windows of vehicles is fairly popular in the setting. The threshold for getting a vehicle to operate properly is 1 plus the number of 45 degree turns you want it to make during its movement. If you want a vehicle to make its turns in a manner that is not even spaced between its two actions, the piloting threshold is increased by 1. If the vehicle is supposed to accelerate or decelerate faster than the safe levels this turn, the threshold is increased by 1.

Running Around on Fire: A character who is on fire has a profound difficulty in getting themselves to behave rationally. They have a tendency instead to run around like people on fire. A character must make a Faith test with a threshold equal to the base damage of the fire to act normally. Failure indicates that the character must make a run test and roll a direction die and move half their full run distance in that direction, while flailing their arms and shouting “Aaaaah!” Characters who move off of ledges while doing this fall and flail their arms around while on fire going “Aaaaaaaa...” Characters who run into walls stop. A character who keeps their senses can roll around on the ground with a primary action and attempt to reduce the strength of the fire by making a Martial Arts test. Every hit reduces the strength of the fire by 1, and if it hits zero, it's over. Alternately, characters who keep their wits can just take whatever actions they want while on fire. Being on fire carries a -2 penalty to all tests.

Combat Looting: During battles, you can spend a primary action to grab stuff off a fallen comrade, enemy, or shelf. Weapons that have been looted are less reliable than ones you brought to the battlefield yourself, and have their Ammunition numbers increased by one to three depending upon circumstances. A weapon carried by a guard that was just shot in the back of the head probably still works OK and has its ammunition number increased by 1. A weapon that you just pulled out of a moldering pile of refuse has its ammunition number increased by 3. If you don't know the past conditions of a weapon, just roll a d3.

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Shooting!
Perhaps the most important act in a firefight is putting your ammunition into other people. And firing a weapon requires a primary action. A weapon has a Firing Rate, which determines how often it can be fired in a round. A Rapid Fire weapon or Pistol weapon can be fired twice a round (that is, with each Primary Action); a Heavy Weapon can be fired only once in a round and requires two Primary Actions to fire (one to prepare it to fire and one to actually fire it); and an Assault can be fired only once a round but requires only a single Primary Action to fire. A character can combine a single primary action to move 10cm and fire a weapon, but they suffer a -2 dicepool penalty to their attack and they lose the benefits of aiming as if they had moved prior to firing.

The following is the basic checklist for firing

• Declare shooting: Say "I'm gonna shoot that guy, in the face."
• Determine Dicepool and Modifiers: So you're going to be adding your Dexterity to your Firearms to your Gun Accuracy to special bonuses that apply, and you're going to take off wound penalties, movement penalties, positional penalties, and whatever. This will determine a dicepool.
• Roll your dice, count your hits: 5s and 6s count as hits.
• Do you want to use an Edge? You can spend an Edge to reroll your missed dice.
• Does your target want to use an Edge? Your target can spend an Edge to make you reroll your hits.
• Determine Threshold: The standard threshold to hit a dude is 2. Range increases it, as does cover, movement (of the target), restricted visibility, and so on. If you get hits equal to threshold, you hit. If you exceed the threshold, you do boosted damage with the Net Hits.
• Soak Damage: The target rolls their soak pool, which is generally just their strength. But it may be modified by armor and magic powers or whatever.
• Does the target want to spend Edge? They can reroll missed dice on their soak, and possibly use magic power.
• Determine Wound Level: The Wound Level is the base damage of the weapon (example: many guns are 3) plus the number of Net Hits minus the number of hits on the soak test. A wound level of 1 is called Light and fills in 1 Box. A wound level of 2 is called Moderate and fills in 3 boxes. A wound level of 3 is called Serious and fills in 6 boxes. A wound level of 4 is called Deadly and fills 10 boxes. A wound level of 5 is called Fatality.

Range, Recoil, and Aiming: The threshold to hit with any ranged attack is 2. But for every 20 full centimeters the target is from the firing character's model the threshold is increased by 1. This is the Distance penalty, and it can be removed by taking Primary actions to “Aim.” Every Aim action reduces the Distance penalty by 1, and a character may take a number of consecutive Aim actions equal to their Firearms skill (not dicepool, skill). Many weapons have a Recoil modifier. After being fired, a weapon subtracts the Recoil modifier from the number of Aim actions that are active. If a character moves from their position, their Aim actions are lost.

• For Example: Sister Mary is firing a Bolt Gun at a target 25 cm away. Because this is more than 20 cm away, she would have a Distance penalty of 1. This would raise the threshold of her attack to 3. Since she doesn't want to deal with this, she instead takes an action Aiming, which reduces her Distance Penalty to 0. She can now plug the target with her bolter as normal. Unfortunately, the boltgun has a Recoil of 1, which means that her Aim action is negated for subsequent attacks.

Furthermore, all weapons have a Range value. A Rapid Fire weapon can be fired out to that range normally; and be fired out to double that range with a threshold increase of 1. An Assault weapon can be fired out to its range in centimeters without penalty and cannot be fired past that. A Heavy weapon or Pistol can be fired out to the range at no penalties, at double range at +1 threshold, at triple range at +2 threshold, and quadruple range at +3 threshold.

Autofire: Weapons capable of Autofire can be fired in one of two ways: suppressing fire and sustained fire. Suppressing Fire targets an area rather than a specific person. Sustained Fire targets a number of enemies directly.

• Suppressing Fire: A suppressing fire attack covers an area in bullets, hot rivets, or whatever it is that your weapon fires. The purpose of suppressing fire is to keep people out of the area. Anyone who is in the area during your turn or who moves into the area has a chance of being hit unless they are prone or in cover. Roll a single die, on a hit, they are hit (do not stage this damage up). Make an attack roll as normal. The number of hits sets the threshold of Faith checks for characters to voluntarily move into harm's way (better gunners are better at keeping heads down), and also allows you to nominate a number of characters who are not subject to getting hit. The act of laying down suppressing fire on an area while allies move through it is also called “covering fire.” The area covered by suppressing fire is a triangle whose apex is the firing character, whose base is a number of centimeters equal to the base range of the weapon, and whose height is any distance more than short range and less than extreme range for the weapon.
  Example: Brother Maynard has a heavy bolter and only vaguely knows how to use it. So he decides to spray a hallway being used by hostile enemies. He chooses to put his cone of death out to 50 cm, leaving him with a triangle of interdiction that is 25 cm wide at the far end and 50 cm long. He makes his Heavy Weapons check and gets only 1 hit. This means that if any of the Arbites want to charge down the corridor they will have to get 1 hit on a Faith check (or their commander will have to get 2 hits on a Command check). It also means that Brother Maynard can nominate one of his allies to be exempt from catching a bolt. In this case, Brother Maynard will halt firing just long enough for Acolyte Daisy to run into a covered position partway down the corridor.
  
  Sustained Fire: A sustained fire attack is made in the same manner as a normal ranged attack, save that you can declare your attack against any number of enemies in a 45 degree arc. If your attack succeeds against the easiest target you declared, you hit that target. Net hits do not stage up damage as normal. Instead your attack roll is compared to the next most difficult target with a +1 threshold modifier, if your attack meets this higher threshold, it strikes an additional target. Repeat this process until your attack does not meet the threshold for the next target. Roll 3d6 for each target struck, and stage the damage up for each hit. Then roll a single d6 for each target (friend or foe) within 3 cm who is not in cover, and if the die comes up a hit, they are hit (no staging).
  Example: Caelin is firing a heavy bolter at three enemies at close range. Two are in light cover, and one is not. If Caelin gets 2 hits, the target out of cover is struck. If she gets four or more hits, she can hit the second target (threshold 3 +1 for second target), if she gets five hits, she can tag the third target (threshold 3 + 2 for third target).

Template Weapons: A template weapon can be placed anywhere with the narrow end in contact with the shooter. Everything under the template to any degree except the shooter is hit. The shooter may make a shooting test and split up the hits any way desired to stage up damage to any targets under the template. Template weapons ignore cover entirely.

• Example: Acolyte Daisy has a flamer and has moved up to a position where she can use it on some enemies. She can touch three targets with her flamer, so she does. All three are hit. She makes her heavy weapons test and gets 3 hits. The Flamer does a base 4 damage, so all three opponents are going to have to soak at least 4 damage. She can distribute the hits any way she likes. So one opponent could have to soak 7 damage while the other two soaked 4; or one could soak 6, one 5, and one 4; or they could all soak 5. She does not even have to distribute all of the hits (if for example, she is worried about outright killing one of the targets with a Fatality).

Blast Weapons: A blast weapon has a circular area of effect, and is subject to scatter. A weapon scatters a variable number of centimeters in a random direction. The base scatter is a number of d6s of centimeters equal to the threshold of striking a target at the desired range with a direct fire weapon. The scatter is reduced by 2 cm for every hit on the attack roll. Every target within the area of effect of the blast is hit by the weapon, with the base damage being staged up by the number of hits rolled on 3 dice. Targets in cover from the center of the blast may be protected from blast weapons. Reduce the number of hits to stage up the weapon by 1 for cover and 2 for heavy cover. If the remaining hits to stage up the damage are now negative, the entire hit is negated.

• Example: Brother Maynard is firing a plasma cannon at a group of enemies some 55 cm away. This is Medium Range for the weapon and more than 40 cm away regardless. Brother Maynard has not spent any actions aiming, so the threshold to hit a target at this range would normally be 5. He rolls his own heavy weapons check and gets only 2 hits. The weapon then scatters 5d6 minus 4 cm in a random direction. This pushes it 13 cm towards the frying machine. As there happens to be an enemy behind the frying machine, the blast nails someone. The blast rolls its own dice to stage up and gets one hit, unfortunately the would be victim is in heavy cover (-2), and so escapes being smashed by plasma. The frying machine on the other hand takes the full brunt and is reduced to slag.

Realism Note: sometimes a blast weapon may deviate to some place where it is literally impossible for it to go. Most deviations can be explained, for example there's nothing literally stopping a shell from going past the “maximum range” if it gets a favorable wind. But while a shell may indeed go around a corner by bouncing before detonating, it's not going to phase into an enclosed space nor escape from one. It is best in such a circumstance for the CO to just ad hoc something, with a good baseline being to draw a line from the shooter to the impossible location and have the shell go off when it hits something it couldn't go over or through.

Thrown Weapons: Thrown Weapons are resolved as Assault Weapons and the dicepool is Strength + Martial Arts. Many thrown weapons are blast weaponry.

Vehicle Weaponry: A vehicular mounted heavy weapon does not require an action to prepare and can be fired straight off (though still only once per turn). In this manner a single character can pilot a vehicle and fire one of its guns in the same turn.

Shooting Modifiers

• Distance: +1 Threshold for each full 20 cm.*
  Target in Close Combat.*
  Range: +1 Threshold for each range increment of the weapon.
  Poor Visibility: +1 Threshold✦
  Blindfire: +3 Threshold
  Cover: +1 Threshold✦
  Heavy Cover: +2 Threshold✦
  Target Moving Quickly: +1 Threshold✦
  Target Running: +1 Threshold✦
  Target Prone: +1 Threshold (-1 if within 10cm)✦
  Target Large: -1 Threshold✦
  Target Huge: -2 Threshold✦
  Target Stationary: -1 Threshold✦
  *: Aiming can reduce this modifier.
  ✦: Does not affect shooting tests for Blast or Template weapons.

Cover: A character counts as having cover when there is a physical object between the attacker and the target. Cover increases the threshold for normal shooting by 1 difficulty. If the attacking character “owns” the cover, they are not penalized on their attacks against enemies who do not own that cover. A character owns cover that they are within 5 cm of it and they can plausibly point their guns out or across. Template weapons ignore cover whether owned or not. Blast weapons ignore cover during the initial targeting test, but their staging roll is reduced if a target has cover from the center of the blast. Blasts never own cover. If cover is especially defensive and/or the target is about 10% visible (or less) from behind it, the cover is considered Heavy Cover and the penalties are doubled.

• Example: Caelin is in a building firing out of the window. Since she can reach her gun through the window, she owns the cover provided by the building and suffers no penalties shooting out. On her opponent's turn, she has cover from their attacks. On the next turn, Caelin kneels down, meaning that she is now displaying less than 10% of her body and she has Heavy Cover from enemies. If an opponent got into the room with her, she would have no cover from that enemy, only from any opponents still outside.

Moving Targets: If the target moved more than 30 cm last turn, the threshold to hit them with a ranged attack is increased by 1 difficulty. Template weapons are not affected. Blast weapons are usually not affected, since they target the ground rather than any particular target. If however the ground itself is what is moving (for example: the character is attempting to land a rocket on a skimmer such as a Dark Eldar Raider), then the penalty applies. A stationary target on the other hand reduces the threshold by 1 difficulty. A target is considered stationary whether or not they literally moved any distance on the table if they took no evasive action. A character taking any kind of combat action is considered to be taking some kind of evasive action as well. Note that a vehicle driving down a road at a fixed speed may be considered both fast moving and stationary.

Prone Targets: An opponent who is prone is hard to hit with ranged weaponry unless they are very close. Hitting a prone target with a ranged attack requires attaining a 1 higher threshold on your shooting test. If the target is within 10 cm though, this effect is canceled and even reversed: the angle is good enough that the target is easier to hit and the required threshold is reduced by 1 instead.

Shooting Into Close Combat: If you aren't super concerned about hitting the wrong dude in a close combat, by all means fire away. Simply resolve the attack as normal, but separately roll 2 dice. If you score at least one hit, your attack successfully targets the guy you were after and if none of them do it is resolved against the other guy. If you would like to be more certain of hitting your proper target and not an ally, you may take any dicepool penalty you want on your attack and roll an equal amount of extra dice on the test to target the correct combatant.

Ammunition: Most shooting weapons have an Ammunition number. When making an attack roll, count the number of dice that do not show the number 1. If this number exceeds the Ammunition number, then the weapon can still be used. If it falls short, then the weapon has either run out of ammunition, jammed, malfunctioned, or in some other way become unusable. Weapons with a an Ammunition value of “Auto” are always expended when they are used. So if you throw a plasma grenade at something, it explodes and you aren't getting it back.

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Close Combat
“The most powerful and advanced laser in the galaxy is of little use when a foe is breaking your skull with a rock.”

Close combat assaults begin when characters are in base contact. A character may make close combat attacks as a primary action. Each close combat attack's threshold is one plus one for every four rating points the target has in Dexterity and Martial Arts together.

• Example: Acolyte Daisy has a rating of 3 in Dexterity and Martial Arts. The two added together are 6, which is at least 4 but not 8. So the base threshold to strike her in close combat is 2. If she had specialized her Martial Arts in Defense, the threshold to strike her in close combat would be 3.[/i]

Charging Into Close Combat: A character may run directly into an enemy and attack them in close combat all as a single primary action. If the target is on Overwatch, not only do they not suffer and increase in the threshold for firing on Overwatch or at a running target, their threshold is actually reduced by 1. It's not hard to guess where an enemy will be when they just seem to be getting larger and large in your view.

Intercepting Runners: A character who is running is actually quite vulnerable to close combat assaults. If you can charge and catch a running opponent your threshold to strike them is reduced by 1.

Attacking With Two Weapons: Everyone and their dog runs around the grim dark galaxy with a chain saw in one hand and a pistol in the other. Normally speaking, pistols are not used in close combat save as a club, but merely having two weapons of any sort gives an attack in close combat a +3 dicepool bonus. If a character attacking with two weapons scores net hits on their attack, they may sacrifice one hit to resolve a basic hit with their secondary weapon. Otherwise, they only strike with one weapon of their choice. If a character is not ambidextrous and they are fighting with two weapons, the threshold to strike them in close combat is reduced by 1.

Disengaging From Combat: If you attempt to disengage from combat and your opponent has a pistol weapon, they can shoot you in the back. They may make an immediate shooting attack with a base to-hit threshold of 1. Either way, a disengaging character spends a Primary Action to move their normal movement rate out of close combat.

Close Combat Modifiers:

• Target running: -1 threshold.
  Target's movement restricted: -1 threshold.
  Attacker's movement restricted: +1 threshold.
  Friends in Melee: -1 threshold.
  Lots of Friends in Melee: -2 threshold.
  Ignored: -3 threshold.
  Target not Ambidextrous: -1 threshold.

Restricted Position: If the target is in difficult terrain, dangerous ground, climbing, or in some other position where movement is limited (such as being in a trench or attempting to protect an innocent), the attacker's threshold is reduced by 1. If the attacker is in such a position, the attacker's threshold is increased by 1.

Multiple Attackers: When a character is attacking an enemy in close combat and has one or allies also in base contact with that enemy, their threshold to strike their opponent is reduced by one. If there are three or more additional allies in an assault, the threshold is reduced by 2.

Ignored: If a character is attacking an opponent in close combat who is ignoring them, their threshold is reduced by 3. The most common cause for this is probably sneaking up on a target, but a character can also voluntarily ignore an enemy in order to concentrate on other (presumably more dangerous) foes. An ignored enemy does not count as an enemy in base contact for purposes of calculating multiple attacker bonuses.

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Activating Warp Powers

Characters who are psykers may use their warp powers, such as channeling or summoning, as a primary action. But like using an Assault Weapon, calling upon the warp may only be done once in a turn.

Suffering Drain: Many Warp Powers cause drain which is physical damage returned to the Psyker who used the power. Drain damage is suffered after the power has been activated, but it does not provoke a chance to lose sustained powers. Drain bypasses armor of all kinds, but a character can soak the damage with their Strength plus their Willpower.

Invoking Powers: Invoking a Warp Power or calling upon any other use of the Warp is generally a Primary Action.

Visible Effects: All Warp Powers are clearly visible unless they are subtle. A subtle power has no visible special effects. Characters can still feel warp power usage with an Empathy (Warp Perception) test with a threshold equal to the number of centimeters from the effect that the character is minus the Force of the subtle effect.

Summoning Daemons: The warp is a huge place where time passes differently and there are horrors beyond comprehension in uncountable hordes. And with a primary action, a character may attempt to summon one of them to his current location. The psyker can only summon types of daemons that they have the appropriate Daemonic Favor perk for. The psyker may choose to attempt to summon a daemon of any Force up to their Power attribute. In order to successfully summon such a creature, the psyker makes an opposed test, pitting their Channeling test against the Force of the Daemon. In the summoner gets at least as many hits a the Daemon, the Daemon appears in the warp. Every net hit of the summoner requires the Daemon to perform one service for the psyker. The psyker suffers Drain equal to half the Daemon's Force plus the number of hits the Daemon actually got. Most daemons have no special ability to interact with the physical world save through psykers, so if you want the summoned daemon to do anything other than scout or assault enemy psykers, you'll need to channel them.

Countering Psychic Powers: Warp powers are disrupted ironically enough by warp energy. This means that a character can attempt to counter powers by summoning warp energy. A psyker can take a primary action to attempt to Counter a sustained psychic power if they can see the target or the originating psyker by making a Summoning test. Every hit reduces the hits of the power, and the countering psyker suffers drain as if they had invoked the power themselves. Psychic powers are particularly well suited to disrupting other powers, and a psyker on overwatch to counter a power as it is being invoked can do so even against Instant powers without suffering a threshold modifier for taking an Overwatch action.

Channeling Daemons: Some daemons have the ability to assault and possess psykers, and there are warp gates scattered around the galaxy that allow daemons to simply walk directly into the physical world. But other than that, a daemon that wants into the physical world (and most of them do want into the physical world) will need the help of a psyker. And that help usually takes the form of channeling. There are several ways to bring a daemon across the border from the imaterium to the physical world:

• Voluntary Possession: A psyker can channel a daemon into their own body or the body of a willing and marked character.
  
  Involuntary Possession: A psyker can force a daemon into an unwilling psyker, marked character, or specially prepared object. The daemon does not have to be willing, and in the case of creating a daemon weapon almost certainly won't be.
  
  Materialization: A daemon that is successfully materialized forms a body out of nothing and appears in the physical world with their normal physical attributes and appearance.

Telepathy: A telepathic connection can be opened with one or more characters in LOS as a primary action. Once a connection is established, telepathic communications can be sent back and forth as free actions. Opening a new connection closes any old connection. When opening a connection, the psyker makes a Channeling (Telepathy) test and the number of hits sets the maximum number of characters that can be communicated with in this way. Telepathic communication persists after LOS is broken, but only to a number of kilometers equal to the psyker's Power attribute. Telepathic communication is a subtle use of warp power.

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Psychology

Characters are normally played by the appropriate player. Cultists are played by players, and the actions of NPCs are generally played out by the CO. But characters also have quirks and psychological reactions that make them behave in an unfortunate fashion. Most psychological effects have a rating. This is the threshold a character must reach on an appropriate test in order to avoid having their actions dictated by the whims of overwhelming emotion. If the psychological effect is substantially out of character for the person, the threshold is reduced by one.

If a character is affected by more than one psychological effect, one with the highest rating takes precedence. A character cannot gain bonuses or be subject to action restrictions from more than one type of psychology.

Fear: A character affected by fear is terrified beyond reason. To overcome Fear, a character must make a Faith test. Failure to do so requires that the character takes their primary actions to run away from the source of their terror. Characters who cannot perceive the source of their fear or don't know what it is run in a random direction. If a character is already in full cover from the frightening thing, they may cower behind that cover rather than bolting into the open.

Stupidity: A character whose action is dominated by stupidity doesn't take any action at all unless they are in close combat. If they are already in close combat, they will mindlessly assault foes. A character can attempt to overcome their stupidity with an Intelligence + Awareness test. On the plus side, a character stuck in stupidity gains a +2 bonus to Willpower.

Hatred: A character blinded by hatred must attack the object of their hatred, if possible. And if they are physically prevented from doing so they must spend their actions making it so that they can (moving into position, retrieving a weapon, or in some other fashion allowing themselves to slay their hated foe). A character can contain their hatred for a turn with a free action and a successful Charisma + Awareness test, but they still react extremely poorly to absolutely anything their hated foe tells them. A character riding out actions while burning with hate have a +1 bonus to Willpower and Strength.

Love: A character consumed by love cannot attack their object of their affection. They take actions that they believe will defend their loved one (whatever that may be under the circumstances). If they see someone attack their desired one, they get a hatred for that character of equal rating to the strength of their love. A character can attempt to not be a fool of love for a turn by spending a free action to make a Charisma + Intelligence test, but they still see actions of their loved one in an unreasonably favorable light. A character acting as a champion of love enjoys a +1 bonus to Charisma and Strength.

Frenzy: A frenzied character can attempt to contain their Frenzy for a turn with a free action and a successful Charisma + Intelligence test. A frenzied character runs towards the nearest perceived enemy and charges them into close combat if available. On the plus side, while a character is frenzied they enjoy a +2 bonus to strength.

Confusion: A confused character must make an Intelligence + Awareness test with a threshold equal to the difficulty of the Confusion or behave randomly that turn. While behaving randomly, the character rolls a single die each primary action. On a 1-2 the character's actions are as if they failed to overcome fear; on a 3-4 it is as if they failed to overcome stupidity; and on a 5-6 it is as if they failed to contain frenzy. The object of a confused character's fear or rage is simply the closest character, friend or foe.

Command: A character may take a primary action to motivate their troops. The character makes a Command (Inspiration) test, and all troops who can hear the leader may use the number of hits for their Faith tests in place of rolling Faith tests themselves.

Conditions

Sometimes a character's ability to fight is modified in a completely non-psychological but entirely real way. These modifiers are called “conditions” when they can be described by an adjective. Like psychological effects, conditions have a rating.

Entangled: An entangled character can't move until they break free. While entangled, a character is considered “immobile” for purposes of shooting or close combat attacks. They may attempt to break free as a free action once per turn. The character makes a Strength + Dexterity test, or if they prefer, a Larceny (Escape Artist) test, and if they get a number of hits equal to the rating they are no longer entangled. If they fail to escape, they may still attempt to take actions that don't involve moving anywhere, but the difficulty threshold for any physical actions is increased by the number hits they failed to meet the escape threshold by.

Stunned: A stunned character can't act voluntarily, or even defend themselves. While stunned, a character's Martial Arts skill does not count for determining the threshold to strike them in close combat. Potentially worse, a stunned character must take a Willpower + Awareness test against the rating of the Stun each primary action or lose their primary action entirely. Once a test is made, the stun is over.

Slowed: A slowed character moves through less time than people around them do. This means that they take much longer to react to problems when compared with other characters. While slowed, a character's initiative is reduced by 2. Also they count as a stationary target and all mobile enemies are considered to be moving rapidly, regardless of actual speed. The character's Martial Arts skill is halved.

Asleep: A sleeping character is immobile and cannot take actions. Waking up in response to stimulus requires an Awareness + Charisma test, or a Perception test if preferred, against a rating equal to the rating of the sleep. Natural sleep has a rating of 2. While sleeping, a character is normally both prone and immobile and doesn't take any voluntary actions.

Fatigued: A character who is fatigued must make an Endurance test any time they attempt to take a strenuous action against the rating of the Fatigue or the action fails.

[Username17]

Warp Powers

Psykers have a number of powers that are available to them. The most basic are intrinsic powers. Any psyker from any cult may choose any of the intrinsic lists to take powers from. The other are granted powers. These come from an outside source and are only available to those cultists who please their patrons in the warp, be it Emperor or Gork. An individual Psyker must choose a list of intrinsic powers from the list of Biomantic; Pyromantic; Telepathic; Telekinetic; or Daemonic.

Warp Environment
The Imaterium is a place that is coterminous in many respects with the physical universe. While it moves about strangely with regards to time, at any given moment there is a roughly one to one correspondence between a point in space and time in the material and a point in the Imaterium. And while there are occasional things in the warp, it's mostly empty. The most important thing to consider is the amount of ambient energy pulsing through the Warp at any given place. This is called the warp environment. The most common areas have an amount of warp energy pulsing through them that is sufficient to use warp powers and not enough to rend the minds of those exposed to it. This is called a Warp Environment of Zero. A Positive Warp Environment means that there is more power pulsing through the warp. This makes the power level of psychic powers larger, but is harder to control and downright dangerous. A Negative Warp Environment has less power available, making the use of psychic powers difficult.

• When there is a zero warp environment, there are no special effects.
• When there is a positive warp environment, the Power attribute of all characters with a Power Attribute is increased by the rating of the Environment; the Force of any psychic power invoked is increased by the rating of the Warp Environment; the threshold to materialize daemons is reduced by half the rating of the Warp Environment; and the Drain of all warp actions is increased by the rating of the environment. Daemons whose materialization threshold is brought to zero may materialize themselves. Positive Warp Environments increase the difficulty threshold of all Interplanetary effects.
• When there is a negative warp environment, the Power attribute of all characters with a Power Attribute is decreased by the rating of the Environment; the Force of any powers invoked into, out of or through the environment is reduced by the rating of the environment; and the threshold to materialize any Daemon is increased by half the rating of the environment. Daemons who are reduced to a Power of zero are destroyed.

When warp environments become particularly high (usually at above rating 6), humans mutate and the eye of chaos turns towards the area. That's usually bad. Especially powerful sorcerers can become acclimatized to positive warp environments, and no longer suffer additional Drain for using warp energies within them. This acclimatization often comes at the cost of madness.

Power Entries
Force: When a power is invoked, the Psyker may select any Force they want up to their own Power attribute. Powers with a greater Force are more powerful but cause greater Drain. Most importantly, when a power is invoked the Psyker cannot score more hits on the Invocation than the Force of the power. Any hits beyond the Force of the power are lost to no effect.
Drain: Most psychic powers causes drain when used. This is a painful experience, where the energy to use the power is drawn from the Psyker's own body and mind as well as the imaterium of the warp. When a psychic power is invoked, the psyker must resist a certain amount of damage, and they can die. The damage is soaked with the Psyker's Strength + Willpower, and the Damage is half the Force (rounded down), modified by the Drain modifier of the specific power. Unsoaked drain becomes wounds in the standad LMSDF fashion.
Range: Psychic powers will describe the distances at which they can be used.

• Self: A power with a Self range always targets the psyker invoking it.
  Touch: A power with a Touch range targets something or someone that the psyker is able to physically get their hand upon.
  X cm: Some psychic powers have a specific number of centimeters listed in their range. Like a ranged weapon, these powers can be used out to this range, and they can be be used out up to twice that range but with a increased threshold.
  LOS: A power with a LOS range can be used anywhere the psyker can see. If they have warp senses active, then “seeing” can be with those.
  Interplanetary: A power with the Interplanetary range can literally be used on targets on distant suns. The number of hits of the effect must be at least equal to the number of intervening jump points.
  (A): Many powers have an area of effect, centered on the target. The standard area of effect is 1 cm in radius per Force, centered on the target. Powers with other areas will have a “special” range instead.

Duration:Psychic Powers have a one-letter code that describes how long they last.

• I: An I(nstant) power takes effect within the action it is invoked and thereafter is no longer considered to be active. Any persistent effects of such a power are not counterable and no longer attached to the original Psyker except in the forensic sense.
  S: A S(sustaned) power lasts only as long as the psyker continues to maintain it. While concentrating on maintaining a power, they are distracted to the point that they suffer a -1 dicepool penalty on any active tasks. Also, their powers are strained and the Drain from further invoked powers are increased by 1. Multiple powers can be sustained simultaneously, but the penalties stack. A character who suffers damage while sustaining a power must make a Willpower test with a threshold of the number of powers they are sustaining, with failure resulting in a number of sustained powers being lost equal to the difference.
  E: An E(xtended) power is one which takes a period of time to fully form. These powers are treated like like Extended actions with a base time of 50 rounds (ten minutes). Until they take effect, they must be Sustained.

Description: Pertinent information on the workings of any Warp Invocation are written under their summary line.


Intrinsic Power Lists:

Biomantic Powers
The Biomancers have powers which affect the body directly. These powers often don't seem very biological in nature, so it may be better to think of these as Sith powers from Star Wars. For example: lightning arc is a power that pumps massive amounts of warp power through the body's natural electric field and creates a blast of lightning. This looks a lot like a pyromantic power honestly. But psykers watching it can tell the difference rather easily.

• Blood Boil – Drain: +0 Range: Template Duration: I
  Any targets under the template may have their precious bodily fluids brought to an unfortunate temperature. The psyker may distribute the hits any way she wants and a victim must soak that amount of damage using only Strength (armor is completely negated). The Force limit on hits is applied on a per target basis.

• Choke – Drain: +2 Range: LOS Duration: S
  A living victim is paralyzed, being unable to move or even breathe. An affected target cannot take physical actions and is considered a stationary target. If they are swimming they sink, and if climbing they fall. Furthermore, the victim must resist an increasing damage each turn (i.e.: 1 damage at the end of the first turn, 2 damage at the end of the second, and so on) using Strength alone for so log as the Choke is maintained. The initial Invocation is resisted with Willpower.

• Hallucinate – Drain: +1 Range: LOS (A) Duration: S
  All living creatures in the area are forced to hallucinate perplexing and disturbing imagery. The affected creatures may resist the effect with their Awareness plus Intelligence, but any net hits are added to the thresholds of all tasks. The Psyker may concentrate for a primary action to force any or all affected targets to hallucinate specific sensory input, making a Deception vs. Empathy test to make it seem real.

• Hammerhand – Drain: +0 Range: Touch Duration: I
  The psyker's hand shimmers as a warp field coalesces around it. The pyker makes an unarmed melee attack, with the base damage of the character's strike being increased by the hits on the Psychic Invocation test.

• Heal – Drain: Special Range: Touch Duration: E
  Psychic powers that can heal injuries are rare and sought after. The Heal power repairs physical injuries to living creatures. For every hit, the Heal restores one wound box. Only one psychic healing may be used on any set of injuries. The Drain that must be resisted is equal to the Force of the Heal, rather than half Force with a static modifier. Heal must be used at a Force equal to the number of boxes filled in on the target (so 1 for a deadly wound), and Heal is an exception to the normal rule that you cannot invoke a power at a Force higher than your Power attribute.

• Lightning Arc – Drain: +0 Range: 10 cm Duration: I
  A short range blast of intense electricity passes between the Psyker and a target. The blast is resolved as a normal shooting attack, with the Invocation test as the shooting test. The lightning has a base damage equal to the Force, and the attack is Phasing.

• Skitterleap – Drain: -1 Range: Self Duration: I
  The Psyker hurls themselves through the air. The distance the Psyker travels in this action is up to Force times Hits in centimeters, and the distance is counted as a jump.

• Quickening – Drain: +1 Range: Duration: S
  The Psyker's body moves at an incredible pace, and their form blurs with rapidity. The threshold to hit the Psyker with shooting or close combat attacks is increased by 1. Also their basic movement is increased by 3 cm per hit on the Invocation test. If the

Telepathic Powers
Every psyker can to one extent or another use innate telepathic abilities to communicate with each other and warp entities. Every psyker can have their telepathic powers exploited to be used as a conduit for such communications by sufficiently powerful and interested warp entities. However only dedicated telepaths can master the finer arts of astropathy and hypnotism.

• Astral Voice – Drain: +2 Range: Interplanetary Duration: E
  Telepathic communications usually are limited to LOS. Astral Voice allows a Telepath to communicate with another psychic sensitive creature anywhere in the galaxy, subject to warp disturbances. When the effect comes into being a short message has been successfully sent.

• Imprint Emotion – Drain: +1 Range: LOS Duration: S
  This power is subtle. The psyker can choose an emotion of Hatred, Love or Fear on the target, with a rating equal to the power's net hits. This power is initially resisted by Willpower. The psyker may choose the object of the emotion.

• Mesmerism – Drain: +0 Range: 20 cm Duration: I
  This effect is subtle. The power must hit as a normal ranged attack, and if successful, the target falls asleep with a rating equal to the number of net hits.

• Madness – Drain: +2 Range: LOS (A) Duration: S
  The psyker can instill a group with unreasoning madness. The psyker chooses a psychological effect of Frenzy, Stupidity, or Confusion, and each affected target is afflicted with that state with a rating equal to the net hits. This power is initially resisted by Awareness.

• Mind Crush – Drain: +1 Range: LOS Duration: I
  The spirit of a living bing is crushed with the power of the warp. Damage is the net hits, and the power is resisted by Willpower alone. Armor is not applicable and there is no soak possible.

• Mind Scan – Drain: +0 Range: Special Duration: I
  This power is subtle. Mind Scan allows the psyker to detect the presence and location of minds. For every hit, the radius of detection is 20 cm from the psyker. Other psykers are easier to locate, and their Power Attribute adds to the invoker's hits for purposes of how far away their location can be discerned unless their mind is shielded from the warp somehow (such as with a psychic hood).

• Mirage – Drain: +2 Range: LOS Duration: S
  This power is subtle. The psyker controls what the target sees and hears. The power is resisted by the target's Awareness. While a character may make an Empathy test against a Deception test of the psyker to determine that their sense data are being falsified, but this in no way allows the victim to see through the illusory sensations.

• Psychic Scream – Drain: +3 Range: Touch (A) Duration: I
  The psyker tears the warp asunder and hurls deadly waves out in all directions. Every living being in the area except the psyker themselves is is subjected to damage equal to Force that ignores all armor and is resisted by Willpower alone. All victims are also stunned at a rating equal to the hits.

• Puppet Master – Drain: +3 Range: 20 cm Duration: S
  The psyker takes control of the physical actions of the victim. The psyker must spend one primary action concentrating in order to puppet the victim into taking one physical action. The psyker uses their own skills but the Strength and Dexterity of the target when forcing the target to take actions. The physical actions taken by a puppeted character have their difficulty thresholds increased by four minus the number of net hits. The power is resisted by Willpower.

Telekinetic Powers
The ability to move objects with the mind is highly coveted. The exertion of force at a distance varies in strength and subtlety.

• Crushing Fist – Drain: +2 Range: LOS Duration: S
  The psyker telekinetically crushes and tears a target to pieces. The target is entangled at a rating equal to the number of hits, and every round it is maintained the target is hit with an equivalent amount of Armor Piercing damage.

• Force Lance – Drain: +1 Range: LOS Duration: I
  This power is subtle, although its effects are not. The target is struck by invisible telekinetic force from the warp. The target must resist an amount of Armor Piercing damage equal to the number of hits and is hurled a number of centimeters equal to the number of hits. Large targets are moved 4 less cm.

• Poltergeist – Drain: +2 Range: 45 cm (A) Duration: S
  Objects in the area are hurled into designated targets in the area, smacking them around massively. The area is placed as per a normal Blast attack, and any targets in the area may be attacked once each round the effect is maintained with a close combat attack using only as many dice as hits were scored activating the power. The close combat attacks have a base damage equal to the Force, and targets successfully struck are also stunned at rating 2.

• Psychic Shield – Drain: +1 Range: Self Duration: S

• Smite – Drain: +1 Range: 20 cm Duration: I
  The psyker creates a psychic explosion as per a normal Blast attack. The explosion is 5 cm in radius, and inflicts an amount of damage equal to the Force.

• Wall of Force – Drain: +0 Range: Special Duration: S
  The psyker creates a translucent wall somewhere in his line of sight. The wall is flat, and may be up to 3 cm in length for each point of Force. The wall is potentially quite resilient, having an AV of the number of hits scored and an SV equal to the Force.

• Wandering Hands – Drain: Range: LOS Duration: S
  This power is subtle. The character can do anything that she can do with her hands (up to a Strength and Dexterity of the number of hits).

Pyromantic Powers

• Bend Fire – Drain: Range: Duration:

• Blinding Flash – Drain: Range: Duration:

• Holocaust – Drain: Range: Duration:

• Incinerate – Drain: Range: Duration:

• The Salamander – Drain: Range: Duration:

• Ward Flames – Drain: Range: Duration:

Daemonic Powers

• Banishment – Drain: Range: Duration: I

• Cleansing – Drain: Range: Duration: I

• Gateway – Drain: +2 Range: Special Duration: S

• Instability – Drain: Range: Duration: S

• Teleport – Drain: Range: Duration: I

• Warp Rift – Drain: +2 Range: LOS Duration: S

---

Hymns of the Emperor
These are special in that they do not require a Power attribute, nor any connection with the Warp at all. Hymns of the Emperor have a dicepool of Willpower + Faith. Characters who use Hymns of the Emperor are called “priests” rather than “Psykers.”

• Divine Guidance – Drain: +1 Range: LOS (A) Duration: S

• Hand of the Emperor – Drain: +0 Range: Self Duration: S
  The priest rants about working the will of the Emperor with his hands. Then he starts breaking stuff.

• The Passion – Drain: +2 Range: Self Duration: S
  Increasingly elaborate versions of the story of the life and death and life of the Emperor are told in increasingly excited and unbelievable forms, whipping the priest into a berserk fury. The

• Light of the Emperor – Drain: +0 Range: Self Duration: I
  The priest glows with the warming glow of the Emperor's glowing warming glow. For an entire turn, any friendly character of the same faith may use the hits of the invocation in place of rolling any Faith test. Also, the priest literally glows, making hiding in shadows impractical.

• Spirit of the Martyr – Drain: +2 Range: Self (A) Duration: S
  The litany of noble deaths in the Emperor's name brings solace to those flirting with death themselves, and the Emperor himself intercedes to prevent the litany from growing. Every friendly character in the area of the same faith as the priest gains an increase in Soak Value equal to the hits of the invocation.

• Word of the Emperor – Drain: +2 Range: Special Duration: I

• Emperor's Tarot – Drain: +2 Range: Special Duration: E

• Inquisition – Drain: +1 Range: Special Duration: I
  The priest uses his deep conviction in the Emperor to find those who lack it.

Gifts of Chaos

• – Drain: Range: Duration:

• – Drain: Range: Duration:

• – Drain: Range: Duration:

Gifts of Slaanesh

• Lash of Submission – Drain: Range: Duration:

• Hypnotic Aura – Drain: Range: Duration:

• Fleshy Curse – Drain: Range: LOS Duration: I

• Clothing Beam – Drain: +0 Range: LOS Duration: I
  Easily the most metrosexual of chaos powers, the clothing beam transforms whatever the target is wearing into party clothes or fetish wear. This new attire has no protective function, regardless of what was previously worn. The clothing beam is resolved as a ranged attack, and net hits increase the fabulousness of the outfit.

Spells of Tzeentch

While Tzeentch is the Lord of Change and his powers are awesome and chaotic in a classic sense, they are also rather straightforward in their naming conventions. Sorcerers of Tzeentch don't really feel that they need to prove anything with fancy nomenclature. All Tzeentch powers are called “spells” and every one of them is accompanied by multicolored fire upon invocation. Tzeentch apparently thinks that it is super funny to give spells to people when they are not powerful enough to safely use them. Game mechanically this means that each spell has a minimum Power. Characters who learn a spell and lack the minimum Power Attributes to safely cast a spell either explode or transform into a chaos spawn in about one in three attempts. It is suggested that players don't bother learning spells beyond their powers.

• Change – Drain: Range: Duration:

• Destruction – Drain: Range: Duration:
  The multicolored flames of the Destruction Spell rather unsurprisingly leave things on fire and demolished.

• Mutation – Drain: Range: Duration:

Gifts of Nurgle

• Stream of Corruption – Drain: Range: 20 cm Duration: I

• Aura of Decay – Drain: Range: Self Duration: S

• Miasma of Pestilence – Drain: Range: Duration:

• Plague Wind – Drain: Range: Duration:

• Putrid Waterfall – Drain: Range: Duration:

• Lance of Foulness – Drain: Range: LOS Duration: I

Gifts of Khorne
Khorne refuses to acknowledge the psychic abilities of his champions, and those blessed by Khorne are forbidden from ever invoking Warp Powers normally. However, a Khornate Champion can still use Khorne Gifts with Willpower + Faith. A Champion of Khorne's Power stat has no bearing on their ability to invoke the powers of Khorne.

Secrets of the Laughing God

Powers of Mork

Techniques of the Machine God

The Shadow in the Warp

Choruses of the Hydra

Astartes Training

Navigator Training
The Navigators are traditionally trained by being forcibly exposed to the harsh light of the astromicon at a range of just meters, an effect that permanently scars a psyker to the soul and wrenches open their third eye. However, Navigators congregate in families which not only keep the genes of psychic power alive, but also act as guilds that pass on secrets of the warp from mother to daughter generation after generation. Indeed, not everyone who is a member of a Navigator family has been thrown prostrate before the astronomicon, but many of them have been taught methods of warp travel.

• The Lidless Stare – Drain: +0 Range: LOS Duration: I
  This power is only available to those who have a third eye, and is subtle. The target is filled with terror, and is afflicted by Fear rated at the number of hits. This lasts for a number of rounds equal to the number of hits.

• Warp Gaze – Drain: +2 Range: LOS Duration: I
  This power is only available to those who have a third eye. The third eye blasts raw warp energy at the target and shreds them to pieces. The blast has a base damage equal to the power's Force and is Phasing. Warp Gaze is resolved as a shooting attack but unaffected by Distance.

• Temporal Distortion – Drain: +2 Range: LOS Duration: I
  This power allows the navigator to go back and redo time. Unlike most other powers, this is invoked as a Free Action and can even be used on other characters' turns (though the limit of one invoked power per turn still applies. The character immediately gains and spends one Edge. The difficulty increases when used frequently. In order to successfully invoke this power, the character must meet a threshold of 2 + the number of times the character has already used it this adventure.

• Warp Inertia – Drain: +0 Range: Special Duration: S
  The psyker hardens an area of the warp, making warp invocations and channeling much more difficult. The Warp Environment shifts towards the negative by the number of hits. Powerful psykers can affect huge areas with this power. The base radius is equal to just 1 centimeter, but is doubled for every point of Power Attribute the psyker has.

• Find the Path – Drain: +3 Range: Special Duration: E
  The psyker can attempt to find a means to get from one place to another. The number of hits sets the maximum complexity and distance of such a path.

• Calculate Future – Drain: +4 Range: Special Duration: E
  The psyker looks deep into the potentia and sees the outcome of an action if taken in a specific way. The psyker may attempt to see the outcome of an action at any time in the future, but keeping track of more than one event at a time is tricky – in order to calculate an event successfully the psyker must get a greater number of hits than the number of events he has already calculated. A calculated event can be any task, and the results of that task are rolled immediately. Once these results are known, the psyker can either choose to bring about that future and ultimately take that result or choose to avoid that fate and roll anew when it comes up. Multiple versions of the same event can be calculated, and one of the calculated versions can be chosen.

Gue'vesa Training
The Tau don't actually understand the way warp powers function and cannot perceive the warp themselves. But members of the Tau Empire are psychically active, and humans who have dealings with these psychic member races can learn to use the warp in the manner that the Niccasar do. These techniques use the warp in a very different fashion from most other practitioners, and using them requires a Camaraderie test instead of an Invoking test.

• Envisage Intentions – Drain: +0 Range: LOS Duration: I
  The character looks deeply into the target's desires and sees what it is that they are going to do. This can be used socially, or in combat, and either way the effect is subtle. If used in combat it should be used on a target that has yet to act, and if successful the character knows what the target's next action will be – this information can be telepathically shared instantly with any allies in LOS. This power is resisted by the target's Charisma.

• Hope – Drain: +2 Range: Self (A) Duration: S
  The character becomes a beacon of hope, causing Love in every target. The rating of the Love is the net hits, and every affected target may resist the effects with their Awareness.

• Calm Emotions – Drain: +1 Range: LOS (A) Duration: S
  Everyone affected by this ability must resist psychology every round if they would normally have a choice, and they get a number of free hits in resisting the effects as the power got hits.

Forms of the Horned King

• Vermintide – Drain: Range: Duration:

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Equipment

The 41st millennium has a lot of stuff in it, which varies in quality from stone age technology levels all the way to far futuristic equipment. Unfortunately, just because you find something doesn't mean that you can actually use it. Equipment made for the Arbites or the Eldar, for example is generally keyed to a specific user and will fail to function or even explode when held by someone else. Grenades and bombs generally don't have this problem. What's a plasma grenade going to do when thrown by the wrong guy? Explode? Even the Eldar aren't silly enough to have such devices go off prematurely every time the wrong guardian picks up an explosive to hand it to a compatriot.

Armor
It is important to note that most characters in Warp Cult will never actually own the vast majority of the prettier armors in the galaxy. Lots of power armor is made for space marines that are very much larger than normal humans are, and that's even before we get in to how incredibly rare a lot of this stuff is. But stats are here for use by opponents as well as the protagonists.
Full Armor Descriptions:

Artificer Armor

• Artificer Armour is a type of exceptionally well-crafted power armour, that affords a greater amount of protection to the wearer. It functions exactly like Power Armor, save that it reduces incoming damage by 5 and provides just 2 extra soak dice.

Aspect Armor

• Aspect Armor is made out of psychic wraithbone and limits the users motion in no way. It is not transferable from the aspect warrior to someone who is not an aspect warrior. Most Aspect Armor reduces incoming damage by 3, though some Aspects get even heavier armors that reduce incoming damage by 4 or even 5. Aspect Armor provides only 1 soak die.

Chaos Armor

• Chaos Armor is a bizarre construction made out of warp materials that appear similar to heavy armor of either modern or archaic formation. It is attached to the skin and weighs essentially nothing. Chaos Armor is instantly recognizable no matter what it looks like and provides 12 soak dice.

Conversion Field

• Conversion fields are incredibly rare, having been produced in small supply even in the ancient past when anyone could build one. It is quite simply a device that converts energy into matter, something which has an exchange rate so terrible (or good, depending upon your POV) that even quantifying its protective limits is essentially meaningless. Entire nuclear bomb blasts would be converted into scant grams of Hydrogen – leaving not even a noticeable wind in its wake. Every time the user of such a field is struck by any attack, roll a number of dice equal to the base strength of the weapon. If any of the dice are hits, the attack is completely blocked centimeters away from the wearer. If none of the dice turn up hits, there is no effect. A conversion field blocks any attack it can detect, and it is more easily able to attack large attacks. Well placed attacks are no more or less likely to be spotted, and so it is that the damage staging from a good attack roll does not affect the Conversion Field's chances of detecting an attack. Conversion Fields have no effect on Phasing attacks or Warp based attacks that ignore all armor.

Displacer Field

• Displacer Fields are an ancient piece of dangerous technology that teleports the user out of harm's way when they are attacked. The user sets a numeric setting for the device when they turn it on, and thereafter every time they are struck with a weapon whose strength equals or exceeds that number they are teleported 2cm out of harm's way. This completely negates an attack from a direct fire weapon or close combat assault. If a character displaces into an area covered by suppressive fire, roll to see if they are hit (and forced to displace again). If they do not displace out of a template or blast weapon's reach, they are caught. Every turn roll a single die, the number shown on that die is the number of times the Displacer Field will shift a character that turn before it shuts off for the rest of the turn. A Displacer Field shifts a character towards the closest edge of template or blast, and in a random direction against all other weaponry.

'Eavy Armor

• Made by and for Orks, 'Eavy Armor is a wild mishmash of incredibly thick plates, cogs, chains, and nothing at all. 'Eavy Armor reduces an Ork's normal move by 2 cm unless the armor is powered. Some is powered, some is not. Wearing 'Eavy Armor reduces incoming damage by 1 and entitles the wearer to roll seven extra dice when soaking injuries.

Flak Armor

• Flak Armour is thin, composed of several layers of different absorbent material, which is most effective against energy attacks. It is the primary armor of the Imperial Guard. Wearing Flak Armor reduces incoming damage by 1 and entitles the wearer to roll 3 extra dice when soaking injuries.

Holo Suit

• Holo suits do not actually protect the user in the conventional sense, but they do break up the user's image and make it much harder to strike them. When the user is being targeted by sight, the threshold to hit them is increased by 2.

Mega Armor

• Orky Mega Armor is an all encompassing Ork armour which is immensely strong and often involves the use of built in bionics. It is often a ramshackle construction and each suit is vastly different to the next. Whether they are removable is debatable. Each suit of Mega Armor includes built-in weaponry, often some form of Shootah and a Power Claw. It reduces damage by 2 and provides 10 dice of extra soak.

Mesh Armor

Power Armor

• Power Armor is worn by all Space Marines, and is a powered suit that enhances the wearer's attributes and protects them in hazardous environments as well as in battle. Power Armor is also made for some normal humans of the Imperium, although they lack the implants required to take full advantage of the suit's benefits. All wearers of power armor get full environmental enclosure, communicators, flash guards, multi-spectrum vision, nightvision, and image magnification systems. And it is quite impressive as armor, reducing incoming damage by 3 and providing 4 extra dice to soak damage.

Rune Coat

• The Rune Coat is a set of probability altering spirit runes that require tremendous psychic potential to take advantage of. While it does not reduce damage, it does force every would-be attacker to reroll their hits when making any attack roll against the wearer.

Refractor Field

Terminator Armor

• Terminator armor is so titanic it is over nine thousand. But if for some reason you are being opposed by one, a set of Terminator Armor reduces incoming damage by 4 and provides 6 dice of extra soak.

Armor Table: AV / SV

• Artificer Armor 5 / 2
  Aspect Armor 3 / 1
  Chaos Armor 0 / 12
  Conversion ield *
  Displacer Field 0*
  Eavy Armor 1 / 7
  Flak Armor 1 / 3
  Holo Suit 0*
  Mega Armor 2 / 10
  Mesh Armor 2 / 1
  Power Armor 3 / 4
  Rune Coat 0*
  Refractor Field 0*
  Terminator Armor 4 / 6

Shooting Weapons

Pistols

Pistol weapons are usable in one hand, usable as a close combat weapon, and generally very inaccurate over any range. Pistols can be fired out to 4 rage increments. Most pistols have very large Accuracy and Ammunition numbers, which largely cancels out.

Auto Pistol: Accuracy: 4 Recoil: 1 Type: Pistol Damage: 3 Range: 10 cm Ammunition: 7 Cost: 10

Bolt Pistol: Accuracy: 5 Recoil: 1 Type: Pistol Damage: 4 Range: 10 cm Ammunition: 9 Cost: 30

Laspistol: Accuracy: 5 Recoil: 0 Type: Pistol Damage: 3 Range: 10 cm Ammunition: 5 Cost: 20

Hellpistol: Accuracy: 8 Recoil: 0 Type: Pistol Damage: 3 Range: 10 cm Ammunition: 10 Cost: 20
The hellpistol is a powered up laspistol that is fed by a battery satchel. The higher power output allows it to fire a continuous beam, allowing it to paint onto targets, attaining much greater accuracy. The hellpistol can be staged up by 4 damage to a total of 7 with sufficient hits.

Plasma Pistol: Accuracy: 5 Recoil: 0 Type: Pistol Damage: 7 Range: 10 cm Ammunition: 10 Cost: 50
The Plasma Pistol fires ludicrously powerful bolts of searing plasma. Without constant maintenance, a Plasma Pistol can easily lose pressure in its internal plasma engine or overheat and vent plasma all over the operator. It can be set so that it will inflict a 7 damage hit on the operator on a failed ammunition roll rather than shut down. The Imperium often does this for their own plasma weapons, as getting a plasma weapon back to operation after shutdown requires a Technology (Plasma Physics) test with a difficulty of 3.

Splinter Pistol: Accuracy: 7 Recoil: 0 Type: Pistol Damage: 3 Range: 10 cm Ammunition: 8 Cost: -

Rapid Fire Weapons

Unless otherwise noted, a Rapid Fire weapon requires two hands to use and can be physically carried in one. Rapid Fire weapons can only be used out to the second range increment, but they usually have much longer range increments making them very accurate at the same range as pistols.

Bolter: Accuracy: 2 Recoil: 1 Type: Rapid Fire Damage: 4 Range: 30 cm Ammunition: 6 Cost: 35

Lasgun: Accuracy: 2 Recoil: 0 Type: Rapid Fire Damage: 3 Range: 30 cm Ammunition: 2 Cost: 25

Autogun: Accuracy: 1 Recoil: 1 Type: Rapid Fire Damage: 3 Range: 30 cm Ammunition: 4 Cost: 15

Plasma Gun: Accuracy: 2 Recoil: 2 Type: Rapid Fire Damage: 7 Range: 30 cm Ammunition: 7 Cost: 120
The Plasma Gun requires constant maintenance by someone familiar with plasma physics or it has a tendency to vent hot plasma on the user. When it comes to a failed ammunition check for a Plasma gun, the user has to soak a 7 damage hit unless it has already been “tuned down” in which case it will simply jam up. Needless to say, the imperium usually leaves them tuned up on purpose, handing a recently vented plasma gun to the next unhappy user.

Hellgun: Accuracy: 5 Recoil: 0 Type: Rapid Fire Damage: 3 Range: 30 cm Ammunition: 2 Cost: 35
The hellgun is a powered up lasgun that is fed by a battery backpack. The higher power output allows it to fire a continuous beam, allowing it to paint onto targets, attaining much greater accuracy. The hellgun can be staged up by 4 damage to a total of 7 with sufficient hits.

Gauss Flayer: Accuracy: 3 Recoil: 1 Type: Rapid Fire Damage: 5 Range: 20 cm Ammunition: 4 Cost: -

Rail Rifle: Accuracy: 2 Recoil: 1 Type: Rapid Fire Damage: 5 Range: 50 cm Ammunition: 4 Cost: -

Assault Weapons

Assault Weapons may only be fired out to one range increment. Unless otherwise noted, an assault weapon requires 2 hands. An assault weapon may only be fired once per turn, but requires only a single primary action to do so.

Shot Gun: Accuracy: 0 Recoil: 1 Type: Assault Damage: 3 Range: 25 cm Ammunition: 4 Cost: 10
The standard shotgun stats assume that it is filled with, well shot. If an opponent is struck by it, calculate hits from the shot spread as if the target had been hit with Sustained fire. Since it isn't really an autofire weapon, there is no chance of having multiple main targets.
But shotguns can also be potentially filled with other kinds of ammunition, and their profile changes accordingly:

• Solid Slugs: Accuracy: 0 Recoil: 1 Type: Assault Damage: 4 Range: 30 cm Ammunition: 4
  Stun Shells: Accuracy: 0 Recoil: 1 Type: Assault Damage: 3 Range: 25 cm Ammunition: 5
  Target is stunned at a rating of 3 unless their armor negates all the damage by itself.
  Dragonfire Shells: Accuracy: -1 Recoil: 2 Type: Assault Damage: 5 Range: 25 cm Ammunition: 6
  Executioner Shells: Accuracy: 4 Recoil: 2 Type: Assault Damage: 4 Range: 30 cm Ammunition: 6

Flamer: Accuracy: 0 Recoil: - Type: Assault Damage: 4 Range: template Ammunition: 4 Cost: 50
The Flamer is a template weapon. It is used with the Heavy Weapons skill.

Exterminator: Accuracy: -2 Recoil: - Type: Assault Damage: 4 Range: template Ammunition: Auto Cost: 25
The Exterminator is a template weapon. It is used with the Heavy Weapons skill. The exterminator affixes to another two handed weapon and can only be used once in a battle, it simply does not have enough fuel to power more than one shot.

Grenade Launcher: Accuracy: 2 Recoil: 1 Type: Assault Damage: Special Range: 50 cm Ammunition: Special Cost: -
A Grenade Launcher launches grenades over a considerable distance and with substantial accuracy. What actually happens when a grenade detonates somewhere is dependent entirely upon what kind of grenade is being used. In general, anything noted as a “Grenade” can be loaded into a grenade launcher (ex.: Krak Grenade, Photon Flash Grenade), while anything noted as a “Bomb” (ex.: Melta Bomb, Stik Bomb) or “Rocket” (ex.: Boom Rokkit, Plasma Rocket) cannot .

Burna: Accuracy: -1 Recoil: 0 Type: Assault Damage: 5 Range: 15 cm Ammunition: 4 Cost: -
The Burna can also be used as a template weapon, but the Ammunition number goes up to 5. It is used with the Heavy Weapons skill.

Neutron Blaster: Accuracy: 3 Recoil: 0 Type: Assault Damage: 5 Range: 15 cm Ammunition: 4 Cost: -

Heavy Weapons
Heavy Weapons unless otherwise noted use the Heavy Weapons skill to fire. They require two hands to use properly and must be prepared to fire with a primary action before they can be fired at all. Most Heavy Weapons can be fired out to 4 range increments.

Heavy Bolter: Accuracy: 2 Recoil: 2 Type: Heavy Damage: 5 Range: 25 cm Ammunition: 7 Cost: -
The Heavy Bolter is an Autofire weapon.

Heavy Stubber Accuracy: 1 Recoil: 2 Type: Heavy Damage: 4 Range: 25 cm Ammunition: 5 Cost: 70
The Heavy Stubber is an Autofire weapon.

Bombs, Rockets, and Grenades

A distinctly different kind of weapon from the kinds of handheld devices so far described, a bomb or grenade is by definition gone once it has been used. It therefore has no Ammunition number as such. If you get a Vortex Grenade and you detonate it, you always don't have one anymore. Grenades are normally thrown with the Martial Arts skill, but can be loaded into Grenade Launchers

Anti-Plant Grenade – Range: 20 cm Blast: 10 cm
The anti-plant grenades are a powerful and virtually instantaneous defoliant, causing vegetation in the area to wither and shrivel to nothing in moments. Anyone granted heavy cover by plants in the area now has only light cover and those who had light cover have no protection at all.

Frag Grenade – Range: 20 cm Blast: 5 cm
The Frag Grenade is resolved as a normal blast weapon with a base damage of 3.

Hallucinogen Grenade – Range: 30 cm Blast: 5 cm
The hallucinogen grenade disperses a large amount of poison gas that drives people mad. Creatures in the area without gas protection must make a Strength [4] test or become Confused at a rating equal to the number of hits they failed to achieve. The effects last for about 10 minutes – or about 50 combat rounds.

Haywire Grenade – Range: 25 cm Blast: 10 cm
The Haywire Grenade drains the power from all devices reliant upon batteries, fuel cells, fusion charges, plasma engines, isotropic generation, and similar technologies. Mechanically and combustion powered devices still function, but anything capable of being “recharged” must be before it can work again. Note that many devices based on combustion may have batteries that actually start them, requiring a jump or push start if they are turned off and subsequently want to be turned on again.

Melta Bomb – Range: Touch Blast: Template
The Melta Bomb has to be set in advance, and is used by the Technology (Plasma Physics) skill. The Meltabomb itself has an Error Threshold of 5, and if it detonates properly, place the template facing an appropriate direction from its location. The meltabomb does 8 damage is Armor Piercing.

Plasma Grenade – Range: 15 cm Blast: 3 cm
Plasma Grenades hurl sticky plasma in all directions. The blast does 6 damage and catshes victims on fire.

Close Combat Weapons

Most close combat weapons inflict an amount of damage based on the strength of the user, and therefore do not have a fixed damage number but rather a modifier to your close combat damage. In most cases, your close combat damage is half your strength (rounded down).

Unarmed Strikes: Damage: -1
Sometimes the only weapon at hand is no weapon at all. Or a coffee cup, or something else that isn't intended for use as a melee weapon. Whether you're actually unarmed or hitting someone with a piece of cobblestone you just pulled out of the sidewalk, you inflict one less than your base close combat damage. But hey, it's legal pretty much everywhere to be armed with “nothing” and it's usually free.

Close Combat Weapon: Damage: +0
The game of Warp Cult does not bother to distinguish between swords, axes, hammers, or really big wrenches. Anything which is fairly lethal in a non-technologically enhanced sort of way is generally lumped into “Close Combat Weapon” and it is this which the baseline of close combat damage in Warp Cult.

Chains or Flails: Damage: +0
Hitting people with something deadly and flexible is a joy and a treasure. Flexible weapons are hard to control and harder to anticipate. Whether a character is using nunchucks or heavy chain, the user of a flexible weapon negates the defensive bonuses of a shield or the Parry perk. But they also have their Error Threshold increased by 3.

Great Weapon: Damage: +1
Anything sufficiently large that you have to use it in two hands counts as a great weapon. It requires 2 hands. Some great weapons are also flails, using the damage modifier of a great weapon and the special rules of both flails and great weapons.

Chain Sword: Damage: +1
The Chain Sword is a powered close combat weapon. The designation includes many similar designs such as the chain ax, as well as any other close combat weapon enhanced by supertech but without anything as fancy as a power field – such as a mandiblaster.

Eviscerator: Damage: +2
The eviscerator is an enormous chain saw. It is essentially a chainsword great weapon. The Eviscerator requires two hands, but does impressive damage. Other two handed, enhanced close combat weaponry fits into this category as well. The steam hammer and the vibro-halberd, for example.

Power Weapon: Damage: +3
Power Fields are poorly explained pieces of technology that break things up when brought into contact with things. Power Fields can in principle be placed on any melee weapon, and in the 41st millennium totally are. Power axes, power swords, power scissors... it's really not super important.

Agonizer: Damage: Special
The agonizer is a horrible Dark Eldar weapon that causes near lethal amounts of pain. The Agonizer does 5 damage to living targets and is not staged up by additional martial arts hits. On the flip side, it ignores armor completely and is resisted with Willpower instead of strength. An Agonizer has automatic shutoffs that prevent it from actually killing targets, and it never does more boxes of damage than are required to bring the target to 10 wound boxes.

Stun Maul: Damage: +1
The stun maul is a less lethal weapon that is used by the Arbites. It stuns a target struck at a rating of 2, or the unsoaked damage level whichever is higher.

Power Fist: Damage: +5
The Power Fist, also the Power Claw and anything kind of like that does tremendous damage. But it's slow and easy to dodge relative to other close combat weapons. A Power Fist provides a -2 dicepool penalty to the user's Martial Arts tests while using them.

Miscellaneous Equipment

Auspex:
Auto Repairer: An Auto Repairer is a device which performs diagnostic and maintenance functions when presented with power and materials. Bulky and difficult to move, the Auto Repairers have survived better than other devices built by techpriests because they are capable of fixing themselves given appropriate inputs. By and large Auto Repairers only function for Imperial goods, though mysteriously they are able to maintain many pieces of Necron equipment as well. A character using an Auto Repairer has their Artisan tests improved by 2 hits whenever they can supply th machine with power.
Bio Booster: A Bio Booster is a device which attaches to a person's lower back and painfully injects them with near fatal amounts of stimulants when it detects injuries through the spine. The Bio Booster raises the character's Willpower by 2 for purposes of continuing to act while injured. Also, whenever the character is injured they may roll a die on the following turn. On a hit, they recover one box. Once a Bio Booster activates, the character has one hour before horrible overstrain on the body knock them out.
Bio Scanner: A Bio Scanner is similar to a Star Trek tricorder in that it literally detects life forms. A character who spends a primary action monitoring the Bio Scanner and making a Technology (Computers or Bioengineering) test can detect the presence and rough size of biological forms. The threshold to find such life forms is set exclusively on distance, increasing at 1 for every full 20 cm between the user and a particular target. Note that some creatures such as Lictors do not appear on bio scanners until it's too late.
Cameleoline Cloak: Cameleoline is a substance that changes color to match the background, kind of like Predator. A character using a Cameoline Cloak can hide anywhere with a free action, and is visibility to them is never better than poor.
Clip Harness:
Drugs:

• Frenzon:
  Kalma:
  Slaught:
  Spice:

Filter Plugs: Called “flugs” for short, filter plugs are devices that are placed inside the nose. They provide 3 extra dice when resisting gases, and are not cumulative with Respirators.
Grapnel:
Grav Chute: A Gav Chute is a device which alters gravity in response to falls. A character outfitted with one can fall from any height and treat it as if falling from just 3 cm. Such falls take a long time, and the character will be “in transit” for an entire primary action for each 10 cm of distance fallen.
Holo Projector: Holo Projectors create virtual three dimensional objects which appear to be entirely real to visual inspection but are completely intangible. They can theoretically be programmed to display anything that can be imagined, but the direct neural interfaces used to create things of the imagination are long gone on most worlds. Instead, a holo projector must record some actual object or event, and can subsequently play it back into empty space. Holo Projector batteries are rechargeable and mostly last for a few hours.
Infra Goggles: A character wearing infra goggles can see into the infrared spectrum, which means that they can see most animals in the dark, see heat sources, and even recently handled objects by their heat signatures. This technology is so rare in the Imperium that virtually no one knows how it works or that this sort of thing is possible.
Isotropic Generator:
Jump Pack:
Lifter: The Lifter is a personal gravity harness that allows a character to move up and down as easily as forward and back.
Medipak:
MedKit:
Photo Contacts: Photo contacts are special lenses that affix directly to the eye and alter the amount of light that passes into the user's retina. Once charged, a set of photo contacts runs for about 30 minutes, and turns itself on automatically in response to glare or darkness. Photo Contacts reduce the penalties for darkness or flares by 1 difficulty threshold. Some photo contacts make a bold fashion statement, and have appearances ranging from Dark City to Pitch Black. Photo contacts are not compatible with other eye-affixing gear.
Photo Visor: A Photo visor is a face shield that automatically filters out excess light or enhances available light in darkness. Photo visors provide the same bonuses as photo contacts, but they carry a charge for 12 hours or more,make you look like Giordi or Boba Fett, and can be combined with other visual gear.
Plasma Engine:
Polymorphine:
Screamers: Screamers are motion detecting devices that make very loud noises when they detect motion nearby.
Spare Clips: Autoguns and Stub Guns are modular and clunky devices, but while they fail fairly frequently, they can be brought back to working order with spare ammunition packs and other spare parts, even on the field of battle. A character wearing a bunch of spare clips can bring such a weapon back to working order after a failed ammunition check by taking a Primary Action and making an Artisan [2] test.
Stummers: Stummers are special devices that counter sound waves by producing equivalent waves that are out of phase. It's like a silencer for your neighborhood.
Surveyor: A surveyor is a device that allows people to see things that are far away and accurately gauge the distance to them. Yes, it's seriously a set of binoculars with a range finder. This is practically lost technology in the 41st millennium because so few people have any clear idea of how optics work.
Targeter: A Targeter is a device that affixes to the user's eye and their weapon, connecting the two with a cable. A weapon must be specially fitted for a targeter (Artisan 3, 60 minutes), and the targeter must already be of a type that functions with the requisite weapon type. Users of a targeter find that the firing lines of their weapon are superimposed on their vision, which makes firing much easier. A targeter provides a +1 dicepool bonus when firing the weapon and also reduces the penalties due to distance. The difficulty for distance is counted only every 30 cm instead of every 20 cm.
Vox Caster: The Vox Caster is a strange and archaic device that allows one's voice to appear to emanate from a distant location using invisible waves and another vox caster. Two characters with vox casters can speak from virtually any distance.
:

Special Equipment
Some equipment is “bound” to certain users or places.
Animus Speculum: An animus speculum is a helmet that reigns in the warp disrupting power of a blank. It can also be used to fire bolts of energy by focusing a blank's warp disruption through a special lens. A wearer of an animus speculum can reduce the distance at which their pariah abilities operate all the way to direct contact, or increase that radius by up to double. Worn by a pariah, the animus speculum is also an assault weapon with a range of 25 cm. The beam has an accuracy equal to the character's Edge, and inflicts a base damage of 2. This beam has no limit to how much it can be staged up, ignores all armor and is resisted with Willpower rather than Strength. This weapon inflicts one extra damage against any enemy with a Power attribute, and is fired with the Intimidate skill rather than Firearms.
Bionics:

• Bionic Eye (Laser):
  Bionic Eye (Targeter):
  Bionic Arm:
  Bionic Leg:
  Mechandrite:

Black Carapace:
Collar of Khorne: A Collar of Khorne is a strange and horrible chaos artifact. Apparently made of some ancient metal such as bronze, iron, or dragonforce, it is in fact made of pure warp essence. Once placed on a subject it can never be removed so long as the wearer is still alive. Once removed from the dead body, it will sit inert until someone else attempts to wear it. At that point it will be sucked into the warp immediately if the new wearer is someone other than the person who slew the previous owner. Someone who wears a Collar of Khorne is subject to Hatred of all their foes whenever they are in battle at a rating of 2. In addition, the Collar itself will attempt to counter any psychic power that includes the wearer in its area or targets. The Collar never takes drain from this, and rolls 6 dice on countering tests. A wearer of a Collar is immune to Love and Fear.
Daemon Trap: A Daemon Trap is a device that interacts with the warp in such a way that any daemon sucked into it can't get out again until the trap is opened. The actual devices can look like anything from a puzzle box to a piece of coral, and have been made by countless cultures throughout the ages using wildly different techniques. Once a genie is in the lamp it can be communicated with telepathically but cannot use any of its other powers. It can be transferred to another device (this is how Daemonic Weapons are made by mortal hands), it can be bargained with, or it can be left there indefinitely.
Daemonic Weapon: Daemon Weapons are literally weapons that have a daemon bound into them. The weapon can and does telepathically communicate, but the real trick is that they provide a number of bonus dice to martial arts checks equal to their Force, do +3 damage in close combat, and are phasing.
Etherium: An etherium is a suit made out of a material that reflects warp actions around it. Someone wearing an etherium is counted as not even being on the board when psychic powers are invoked. An etherium provides no special armor benefits.
Familiar: Some psykers develop a close psychic connection with an animal or a materialized daemon. These creatures become their familiars. A psyker's familiar is pretty bright, usually at least as competent as the Beast Master's ferrets. But the real gem is that a psyker can invoke their psychic powers through the familiar as if they originated from it. Most psykers can only do this trick if they are within 20 cm of their familiar.
Force Weapon: A Force Weapon is a weapon that channels psychic power into a devastating warp strike. A Force Weapon in the hands of a Psyker is a close combat weapon that does +2 damage. In addition, whenever a living or daemonic target is struck by a Force Weapon the Psyker can make a Channeling test and the damage is further increased by the number of hits on that test.
Lobo Chip: A lobo chip is a horrible device that permanently removes a victim's ability to care about things. The person it is attached to becomes subject to Stupidity at rating 2, but becomes otherwise immune to all psychology. Too disinterested to love or dream, a “loboed” victim can't even become confused by effects like hallucinogen grenades. A lobo chip is one use only. Once it inserts itself into a person's brain it cannot be easily removed without killing the host, nor can it be transferred to a new victim.
Nerve Staple: A nerve staple prevents a character from experiencing strong emotion. Once the spider-like device has inserted its prongs into the skull of a victim, they will never again feel hate, fear, or pain. Nor will they experience love or joy. The character is never again subject to Fear, Hatred, Love, or Frenzy.
Psychic Hood: A psychic hood helps lock out the perils of the warp, allowing the wearer to harness warp powers more safely and extensively, and is especially helpful in releasing chaotic warp energies to cancel other warp powers. The psychic hood reduces drain by 1, and reduces the drain suffered from countering other psychic powers by 2. In addition, the character's Power Attribute is considered to be 2 higher for purposes of how powerful a warp power or daemon can be invoked or summoned.
Servo Skull:
Skull Chip: A skull chip is a device that hooks into the character's brain stem and accelerates their activities and reactions. The character gets a +2 die bonus to initiative checks. In ages past, skull chips could also hook into other devices by plugging them into the socket on the back of the neck, but this functionality is mostly a legend in the modern imperium.

[Username17]

Designing a Cult

Before the characters can go out proselytizing and slaying unbelievers they have to get a hold on what exactly (or at least approximately) it is that they believe. Also, what it is that they intend to do about whatever it is that they believe, and so on and so forth.

Your Creed
“I believe in one god, who is the sun.
And in four lords who were begotten in the warp by the father...”

The single thing that controls the fate of a cult more than anything else is luck. For every thousand cults that raise their hands to the stars and declare a holy war to spread their faith to the ends of the galaxy there is only one whose name is spoken in ought but historical discussions in dusty libraries in a thousand year's time. But the second most important thing is marketing. How a cult describes themselves has a tremendous impact on who wants to join the cult and what they are willing to be convinced to do once they do. Even before a single display of psychic or temporal power is made, the simple fact of a cult's creed will determine who is interested and who is opposed.

Remember that not everyone is out there shopping for a cult whose beliefs dovetail with their personal interest. It is demonstrably true that what ought to be true has no actual effect on what actually is true. People will become swayed by arguments to join religious organizations who preach things that they don't personally like. Just less than they would if the religious teachings happened to be telling them to do things they wanted to do anyway.

The Emperor
The position that a cult takes on the Emperor has a major impact on how the empire and the rest of humanity will deal with them.

• “He is Dead. Good Riddance.” Saying that the Emperor is gone and that this is a good thing is treason. Saying that this is so is punishable by death or being transformed into an arcoflagellant. This extremely controvertial statement then is made by those who see the Imperium as their enemy – and it attracts people who see the Imperium as their enemy. Everyone with a price already on their head will be inclined to take your organization very seriously. After all, you've already spoken the single unforgivable sin against the Ecclesiarchy: you've unrepentantly blasphemed against the Emperor. It's on bitches!
  
  “The Emperor Does Not Guide Us.” Claiming that you are guided by a force other than the Emperor is Heresy. Even, nay especially if it is true. A cult that admits that it gets communications from warp entities other than Imperial Sanctioned Psykers is exactly what the Inquisition hates and fears most. But the thing is that outside the inquisition, no one really knows that this is illegal. The Imperium doesn't even admit publicly that this is even possible, let alone that it has been at war with such people for ten thousand years. The Horus Heresy is secret and the fact is that most people in the Imperium, even church officials and arbites, literally don't know that they are supposed to fight against such groups. Claiming to speak to a foreign warp entity is actually a pretty mild stance as far as most Imperial personnel are concerned – it is only highly polarizing to the people already involved in the ancient secret war.
  
  “We don't have an opinion about the Emperor.” Not taking a side is taking a side. In this case, claiming that your actions are a good thing and that you aren't keeping the Emperor in mind while doing it is a substantially anti-Ecclesiarchal stance. But it's not officially an anti-church stance. This means that it is a claim that resonates with people who resent the church hierarchy but don't want to flip the boat over. Conservative reformists and secular leaders generally like such groups, while of course established Imperial Cults hate them. Doing things without the Emperor constantly in mind is a rather difficult crime to prosecute however, and all but the most radical Imperial Cults find it rather hard to mount effective opposition to such a group. In any civil war, such a group can virtually guaranty that they will end up on the side of the Administratum against the Ecclesiarchy.
  
  “The Emperor's Commands Were the Basis of Our Society.” The ultimate in conservative claims is that things were better at some time in the past. And while claiming specifically that things were better under the guidance of a living Emperor may sound like exactly the sort of thing that appeals to conservative elements in society, the truth is that conservative and radical elements in the Imperium are deeply divided on this point. See there have been about ten thousand years worth of rules made in the name of Imperial Guidance that frankly a theologian who claims that the Emperor is dead has a pretty good claim on saying are all false. And records on what rules were like back when the Emperor was making decrees are fairly hard to come by. Claiming that the Emperor does give guidance today is honestly an excuse to support or condemn any part of Imperial society or law. There are factions in government and the church which make claim to legitimacy based on this very teaching, and there are others that claim to further revelation within the last ten millennia.
  
  “The Emperor Commands Us To This Day!” Claiming to be personally commanded by the Emperor makes you a heretic, by definition. The official policy of the Ecclesiarchy is that this does not happen. But it also makes you a Saint if you get in on the good side of the Ecclesiarchy. What this means is that any cult claiming Imperial inspiration is automatically divisive within the Imperium. Any member of the Empire may at any time claim you as divinely inspired or as a radical heretic that must be destroyed. These claims may actually switch after you're dead. Many a heretic has been burnt alive only to later be enshrined into the lexicon of Imperial Saints. Many heralded saints have been repudiated and had their followings dissolved after their deaths.

Wealth
A cult's position on wealth has a profound impact on how it interacts with society and the galaxy.

• ”Money is Evil. Wealth is Corruption.” A strong anti-possessions stance will seriously alienate people who have or plan to acquire possessions of any kind. However, so long as your group does not appear to be doing well, people in power have a tendency to be quite lenient to such groups. Nobles and administrators love it when preachers tell the impoverished masses who don't have anything that they shouldn't have anything. That's like doing their job for them. It's only when the group becomes large enough to seriously threaten to take away the stuff of powerful people that poverty cults get pariah treatment from authority figures. And of course there's the fact that anyone who does join an anti-wealth cult is probably extremely willing to donate all their stuff to the cause. Making converts of wealthy individuals is hard, but making patrons and martyrs out of anyone already converted is easy.
  
  “Social Injustice is Wicked and Must be Stopped.” Leveler organizations are perceived as the greatest threat to the rich and powerful by the rich and powerful. Even minor cults preaching for the feeding of the poor or the freeing of slaves are met with quite stiff opposition from those in power. Of course, such cults also receive an easy ear from anyone getting the shaft from the Imperium – and that's most people. Unfortunately, it turns out that the governor and noble houses have troops with weapons, while the pit slaves and Cellarion workers often have no weapons training at all. Still, if rich members of society do join your cult it is easy to get them to become sponsors, just as it is easy to provoke have-not members of the cult to become saboteurs.
  
  ”The Soul Does Not Care About Credits.” There is no such thing as not making a choice. The statement that you don't want to make a decision about the distribution of wealth is actually a statement that you are supporting whatever method of wealth distribution currently exists. And people in power will interpret it that way, as they should. A religion that effectively tells the masses to allow the rich and powerful to keep their stuff is one which can expect a fair amount of support from those in power. However, it's a fairly diplomatic and underwhelming way of putting things, so it isn't going to make a strong impression on anyone as regards actual recruitment. The nobles may be willing to arm such a group, but the group has no advantages in actually getting such people to join.
  
  “Suffering Is Rewarded in the Hereafter.” Quite paradoxically, claiming that being poor is good and being rich is bad is quite appealing to the rich who don't believe in your message. Similarly, it's quite offensive to the poor who don't believe your message. But for people actually in your cult, the effects are exactly opposite. Rich members are alienated by this message and poor members are driven to fanaticism. By telling people that poverty and suffering is good for their souls, you are in effect telling people that being slaves and proletariat is a good thing – a message that planetary governors and slave holders have been trying to get out for some time. As long as they think you're a charlatan, you can expect them to support you.
  
  “As Above, So Below. The Favored Are Favored.” The claim that the rich have already attained the blessings of the spirits as evidenced by the fact that they are rich is naturally appealing to anyone who has wealth and power.

Tolerance
How your cult deals with others is a great predictor for how others will react to the cult and for what you can get cult members to do.

• “Can't We All Just Get Along?” Advising one's group to tolerate other groups is a dangerous stance in the 41st millennium. With so many chaos cults and Imperial death cults running around, the pacifists are often ground under heels. But it's not all just refusing to stab people in the face – it's also about sparing enemies. While it is difficult to rouse a tolerant cult to rise and slay others, it is also much easier for such a group to get acquiescence from defeated populations. A captured town under a tolerant regime will find its factories working away in a short transition time. Uninflamed rhetoric during war makes getting the soldiers to accept a peace as easy as possible. But it does make fighting those wars difficult. Tolerant cults suffer no difficulties working with other cults.
  
  “We Need to Reach Out to Others.” Ecumenism is practiced widely throughout the Empire, but actually advocated by few. Most of the time, different denominations and cults accept each other's existence only grudgingly, and often at the barrel of a gun or in the face of greater threats. And so it is that a cult that actually promotes interfaith cooperation may actually get little cooperation from others in putting its goals forward. However it is equally true that the statement “We're on your side.” is perhaps the most diplomatic thing to say in any situation. Ecumenical groups get the easiest time with peaceful conversion from other cults, as they specifically don't require their cultists to abandon old teachings. But they also end up with weird theologies and have a hard time creating unity in group think.
  
  “Meh.” Many cults don't even mention dealing with other groups. This make conversion difficult, but gives the cult a lot of wiggle room diplomatically. If you haven't said anything about the Followers of the Seven Moons until this point, announcing that you're teaming up to throw a festival or going to war won't be nearly as much of a shock as if you'd been saying the opposite for the last sixteen months.
  
  “Those People Are Not People, and Are Beneath Contempt.” Declaring a group to be anathema makes for a great scapegoat. It doesn't really matter who “they” are. They can be mutants, abhumans, homosexuals, aliens, humans of different skin colors or from different planets, or just plain people of different social classes. Picking on the pit slaves is popular because they have no power, as is picking on the planetary lords because they have lots of cool stuff to take. But regardless, the point is that a group with a proper scapegoat has an answer for every problem. But while it's good to be able to whip up combatants at the slightest provocation, remember that events can easily spiral out of a demagogue's control. If heaven forbid an Ogryn actually did rape a human woman, the cult followers would probably throw a riot whether that was part of the plan or not.
  
  “The Emperor will know his own.” The mantra of the death cult is that killing almost completely indiscriminately is acceptable, even required by the warp powers. Popular among Redemptionist and Khorne cults, but unpopular among virtually everyone else, this admonition is great to provoke cult members to go kill enemies, but extremely bad at promoting calm or negotiation. Redemptionists usually find that they can only have at best a temporary truce with other groups (even other redemptionists), before someone starts some shit and things start burning again. Great for taking power, bad for keeping it. The murderous mob is much easier to start than it is to stop.

Your Hierarchy

The Imperial Cult has priests that report to bishops, bishops that report to archbishops, and cardinals that report to the Emperor... which basically just means that they do whatever they feel like. Furthermore there are numerous sub groups including militant orders, independent parishes, and literally noone knows what all else. And your cult has some sort of church organization as well.

Now from the standpoint of playability, it is probably best to keep things from being too stratified or weird. After all, every player character cultist gets enough face time to be a player character. So it's kind of unfortunate to try to set your group up like Jones Town or the Branch Davidians. It is recommended therefore that your cult has some sort of clumsy parallel leadership or high council or something so that the main characters (that s the player characters) all have a reason to be participants in planning sessions.

Nevertheless, it is objectively factual that when it comes to actual revelations from warp entities, that psykers get them and non-psykers do not. However, this has relatively little baring on the running of a warp cult. Firstly, the average Imperial citizen doesn't know that. Secondly, not all warp cults even get revelations from warp entities. And most importantly of all, cults don't need real commandments from space gods to carry on. After all, every religion in Earth's history has done just fine without a single psyker getting a single communication from a real warp power. It doesn't seem to have harmed them at all. So it's entirely possible that a cult's actual guy being told things by warp beings and the cult's guy who is officially in charge of interpreting the will of the warp beings will be different characters. Indeed, that's pretty common because the skill set needed to tap into warp power and the skill set needed to convince people that miracles are occurring don't overlap much.

[Username17]

Running a Campaign of Warp Cult

Warp Cult is a game set in the W40k universe: all the characters are members of a cult that prays to a warp entity of some kind and hopes for a better life for themselves and maybe the other inhabitants of the planet. Maybe they are praying to a Hive Tyrant, maybe to a Chaos God, maybe to an Order God like the Great Hydra. They don't know, because knowledge even of what the differences are is an offense in the Imperium that can get your whole planet virus bombed.

But whatever the theological implications of the cult's ultimate success would be, the players should have a fairly firm grasp of what their cult stands for before play begins. It is actually game destroying for one character to be going on about making the world a nicer place while another character is trying to find new holes to stick penis knives into for the greater glory of Slaanesh. The cults ideals should be fixed by mutual agreement of the players, and if it turns out later in the adventure that the warp entities that have been contacting you don't actually support those goals – then that becomes a new adventure where you have to face off against your old patron and possibly get a new patron to do it with.

Another thing you have to get a reasonably sound set of agreement between the players and the Campaign Organizer is the planet or other habitation that your cult is in. Since the game is largely political in nature, it is of paramount importance that everyone at the table have a basic understanding of what the major factions are and how one could go about politicking with respect to them. Similarly such things as the lay of the land, the climate, the population, the technological and industrial base, the recent history of the planet, and even the ancient history of the planet should be known. These can be in very general terms for a lot of it. Players will want to know that the planet used to be under Eldar dominion so that when they eventually find some Eldar relics it doesn't feel really contrived – but they don't need to know that in M19 Eldar Farseer Glymphiel turned from her prophecies and led her clan into ruin because she loved the warrior Raltienor from a rival clan and the cities were united under Raltienor's banner. That shit just doesn't even matter.

But the fat remains that warp cults form on agricultural planets and hive worlds. They form on asteroid mining facilities and space hulks. They form on death worlds and forge worlds. And the infrastructure is wildly different in these different places. Ultimately the cultists are going to find themselves acting rather than reacting a lot of the time. The players need to be able to grasp the world in both hands so that they can direct their cult in tearing that world apart.

Power Bases: Other Cults
“No seriously, what do you guys really believe... oh.”

The Imperium has a lot of cults in it, and in any particular place it may well be that one or more of them is recognized as part of the “official” Imperial cult. Here are some of the literally thousands of officially recognized cults that the characters may have to deal with:

• Church of the Four Armed Emperor – Genestealer/Imperial Cult
• Mechanicus – Cult of the Machne God
• Haemovora – Death Cult given to blood drinking.
• Flagellanti Victor – Death Cult given to self mutilation
• Redemptor Imperialis – Death Cult given to setting fire to people
• Emperor's Blades – Death Cult given to stabbing people
• Imperator Savior – Imperial Cult
• Church of Blessed Silence – Imperial Cult given to sewing mouths closed
• The Hand of Man – Imperial Cult that has a strong xeno policy
• Church of the Pure Emperor – Imperial Cult with anti-technology bias
• Thorians – Resurrection Cult
• Resurrectionists – Resurrection Cult
• Monodominatus – Succession Cult
• Amalathius – Imperial Expansion Cult
• Xanthitus – Imperial Cult that harnesses Chaos power
• Horusians – Imperial Cult that worships Chaos
• Recongregatum – Revivalist Cult
• Istvaanians – Imperial Cult that break things and cause trouble
• Apocalypticus – Apocalyptic Cult
• Galacto Terminatus – Apocalyptic Cult

But it's not just Impeial cults you have to worry about. Your cult is just one of many cults that are under constant threat of inquisitorial purge. Likely there are other cults on your planet and they will be serving other gods and competing for the same disaffected people. Every unemployed miscreant looking for something to believe in is both a potential convert and a potential foe (if he joins some other cult first). Other cults may attempt to get the inquisitors to come down on your cult just as you can attempt to get the inquisitors to come down on theirs. But this is a dangerous operation, because the inquisition is all too happy to kill tremendous numbers of people and hunt after cults of all kinds. Unless of course, your actual plan was to get people angry at the Empire in order to drive them to dissident sects...




Objectives and Influence

As a cult, your primary purpose is to get others to accept your beliefs as being the correct ones. And your secondary goal is to actually implement those beliefs. As such, it is entirely possible to be a relatively successful cult even if your beliefs are totally unworkable in practice. Different cults appeal to different demographic groups, and different cults gain traction and influence in different groups.

Cultic power is measured in Influence, and Influence is measured separately across different demographic groups. Influence is a measure of what percentage of people in a group would listen if your cult made a pronouncement. Roughly every point of Influence represents 10% of the people listening to you. As a general rule of thumb, when you are in a position to give a speech to influence a group of people, make a Command (Oratory) test. If you get at least 3 hits and more hits than you currently have Influence, your Influence goes up by 1 among that group. Opportunities exist to raise your influence by more than one, but only when you would be entitled to make more than one speech.

Speeches:

Backward Progress: Remember that cults get more adherents because people have a reason to believe that the things they are saying are true. These reasons fit broadly into one of three categories: The Cult has been right about other things; the things the cult is saying are things that people want to believe; or the consequences of failing to believe are scary if the cult turns out to be right. This means that Utopian and Apocalyptic cults don't actually have to be right about their predictions ever (just look at Christianity: did you know that they straight up predicted that Jesus would return, conquer the Earth, and end Death by the year 100 CE? How has the massive failure of that to come true affected the church as a whole?) and still get new recruitment. But with all the resurrectionist movements and death cults going around in official circles it's rather hard to stand out giving statements about salvation and retribution. You have a lot of competition in the Imperium. So the best way to be taken seriously as prophets is to make predictions and have them come true. Which brings us to the idea of backwards progress: your Authority scale goes up when you successfully predict things, not necessarily when things that are good for your faction in other ways happen. Predicting an attack against your people gives you more Authority (and thus, more people), even if you lose people to that attack.

Military Juntas: Coups can happen within a city whenever there is a coup excuse. Once fighting breaks out, control of a city is really anyone's ball. A city has a number of “objectives” in it. Whoever has the most of these objectives under their control is considered to be in control of the city. The objectives are:

• Admistratum The government building of the Adeptus Administratum is the seat of command for the city. Whoever sits in that seat can make a very good claim to be the local commander.
• Chapel The monument to the Ecclesiarchy is the seat of religious power in the city.
• Generatorium What power is there without power? The generatorium provides literal light, and without it there is literal darkness.
• Curia Arbites The administration of civil law is an oft overlooked but vitally important function in maintaining control over a populace.
• Epistulatorum Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the discourse, controls the past. The Epistulatorum transmits all approved information in the city.
• Space Port The space port contains not only those materials needed to ship things onto and off of the world, but also the temple of the astropaths whose job it is to send and receive messages from off world. Whoever doesn't control the port is without support.
• Crypta Munitorum The city's armory in many cases holds firepower sufficient to reduce the rest of the city to ash. Whoever holds the armory may get the last word.

An Imperial city has seven objectives. Control of four of them at the end of a coup is sufficient to win a victory. Control of five or six is a major victory, and control of all seven is a total victory. Common coup excuses follow:

• A large number of people have been ordered to die by the current rulers.
• Any department capable of doing so (Inquisition, Astartes, Arbites) has countermanded the order of the local governor on any issue no matter how minor.
• Any major official or cleric is assassinated or put on trial.
• Any faction fires upon any of the city's objectives.

Demographic Groups in the Imperium

Administrators: The administration of the Imperium is completely out of control. The bureaucracy has long since lost the usage of computers and insists on keeping records by hand. And they keep records on just about everything. Throughout the empire, roughly one in twenty people is part of the bureaucracy that is ponderously directing the other 95% of the populace.

Agricultural Workers: While the Imperium does have Ag worlds where virtually everyone is sent to work the soil all the time, and it has planets where most food comes from space ports or even food replicators that crank waste carbons and ammonia into digestibles at the cost of enormous amounts of energy at the behest of technicians – the vast majority of Imperial Worlds feed themselves with small to midling amounts of food excess that is occasionally tithed by armed space craft in the name of the Emperor. Imperial agriculture is usually somewhat less impressive than modern Earth's agriculture is, as a lack of scientific rigor has weighed it down for ten thousand years. While farming techniques were at a very heightened state, they haven't been adapting themselves in a scientific manner while climates continue to adjust. To put this in perspective: ten thousand years ago on Earth, Libya and Iraq were fertile grasslands. Mot Imperial worlds have about 50-60% of their population making food, which is somewhat more than that of the 21st century Earth's 36%. In most worlds, the people who farm fish, mushrooms, algae, grain, and the other food stuffs can broadly be considered to be the same demographic group because they all have similar fears, needs, and products. However, there are many cases where individual planets have stark differences between for example cave dwelling rad fungus farmers and surface dwelling meat tree farmers that are sufficiently irreconcilable that they count as distinct demographic groups. But perhaps most importantly of all, on most Imperial worlds, about one in three people working agriculture is actually a slave rather than a free worker, which makes their demographic demands extremely different.

Clergy: The religious infrastructure of the Imperium is incredibly formidable, and frankly totally out of control. Employing a roughly equal number of people to the entire administration of the Empire, the Ecclesiarchy maintains shadows of the government and military at all times, ready and eager to take over the moment that temporal leadership fails. Church officials keep separate documentation on how everything is and should be done. Ecclesiarchical records are not shared with civilian or military leadership, but rather kept entirely separately by a church organization that often as not has had no real experience with government since the big revolt seven thousand years ago – so in many cases the records they do have are shockingly out of touch or useless. The paramilitary units that the Ecclesiarchy fields see rather more action, but while battle sisters and inquisitors are frequently quite competent, the clergy's general attitude towards martyrdom (it's good) and faith (it's better than training), most of the clergy's militia is roughly as useful and controllable as mujahadeen.

Industrial Workers: The Imperium cares an awful lot about its vast armies of tanks and space ships, its huge edifices of neo-Gothic architecture, and its tremendous stockpiles of metals. So you might think that the Empire would employ a lot more people in the Industrial sectors than is proportional to the modern world. And you'd be wrong. While the Empire does highly value its mines, its factories, its power plants, and its construction sector – it lacks the infrastructure to actually operate them at peak efficiency. Less than 20% of the people on most worlds are employed in industry, and nearly a third of them are slaves. The fact is that large amounts of people in the Imperium live a wild west existence where they don't get power on a daily basis. Many factories have lain fallow long enough that even if the administration did send people into them again there would be nothing they could produce there.

Military Personnel: The Imperium is hyper militarized to the point of unsustainability. However, even this potent and ridiculous expenditure on ever increasing military still only accounts for approximately 1% military service and an equal amount of paramilitary personnel. This may not seem like a lot, but remember that this is equivalent to the nation of China producing a joint armed services of thirteen million people and an equal amount of police. Remember that roughly a third of the paramilitary are actually clergy and demographically consider themselves as such, so a good standing within the Guard, PDF, Arbites, and special planetary military and paramilitary organizations of a planet collectively only accounts for about 1.6% of the world. It is important to note that while organizations like the Space Marines exist and are religiously and politically important, that they do not comprise a meaningful demographic percentage even on planets that they exist on at all. A chapter of space marines is seriously only a thousand marines and a total support staff that's roughly five times that. The entire organization is literally eclipsed several times over by modern Zoroastrians. Even on nearly lifeless worlds like Macragge the space marines compose less than 1% of 1% of the population. On civilized worlds, the space marines could not mount a single member for every major city on the planet.

Service Workers: Most Imperial worlds have extremely attenuated service economies, with many people doing their own cooking, cleaning, and even making their own clothing. Transportation, while truly impressive when it gets done at all, is often left undone. Railroads and freighters are considered to be relics that are literally worshiped in the Empire. The service sector is incredibly attenuated compared to what it is in modern times, and less than 10% of the population s actually employed in those fields. However, this also means that what service personnel there are, are extremely important. Communications and trade are often left undone, but there often as not are no replacements available. If an astropath walks off the job there is usually no one to take their place. If the teamsters take a day off, shipments are delayed for a day.

Unemployed: Unmployment in the Imperium runs at 5-10% most of the time. The Empire tries to keep unemployment down by drafting, enslaving, or murdering people without jobs, but the perpetually stagnant economy makes those policies little more than yelling at the wind.

Slaves: Slavery exists within the empire, and while there are a handful of enlightened planets that have forbid the practice, roughly one in four people on any particular world is likely a slave. Slavery takes many forms in the Empire which range from impermanent penal labor all the way to arcoflagellation. Slavery is anything but standardized, and there are examples that can be found of slaves who are moderately OK with their lot in life – for example there are places with administrative thralls like the old Ottoman Empire, where being “enslaved” in that manner is likely better than other life paths. In the vast majority of cases however, slavery is an appalling abuse of humanity that would turn the stomach of anyone who was not already hardened to the reality by repeated confrontation with the inhumanity of Imperial society. Many slaves are given the ancient deal where they work hard for no money and are beaten or killed if they attempt to run or flag in their efforts – their status as slaves marked by something as simple as the color of their skin, tattoos or brands, or even just tags. Other slaves have their loyalty enforced by high tech torture devices, drugs, psychic domination or massive brainwashing. And perhaps most horrible of all: some slaves have their free will literally removed with cybernetic implants, biological graphs, lobotomies, or daemonic possession. People become slaves because of birth, “crimes,” or even just convenience. Slaves can usually have their attitudes described as “bitter and resigned.”

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Getting What You Need

The characters in Warp Cult are presumably goal oriented. This means that they will be attempting to accomplish something, which means in turn that they will need to pursue a number of secondary objectives in order to get into a position where those goals become attainable. These secondary objectives usually involve getting equipment or people or the information needed to get equipment or people over to your side. But remember that there are also other cults whose goals are not compatible with yours, meaning that you will also be at times working merely towards the secondary objective of thwarting the plans of other groups that would use some portion of their gains to thwart yours.

But where do you get that stuff? While it is true that there are occasionally trading posts and such to be found, the vast majority of stuff worth having is either relics or contraband or both. Meaning that unless you have the serious scratch to hire Indiana Jones or Catwoman to get stuff for you, that you're going to have to go find it yourself. And that means, adventure. But it can also mean that you don't know where you should be going to get stuff done. So here's a list of places you can shake down for information, manpower, or swag. It is by no means intended to be comprehensive.

The Censorium Every Imperial planet, every Imperial city, and every Imperial outpost is expected to maintain a Censorium. It's like a giant filing cabinet. It maintains records on everything it can manage to keep records on. And it keeps them in paper and ink format because the Imperium doesn't official make or use computers any more. This means first of all that there is a lot of useful information in there that people don't know about – some it dating back thousands of years. This also means that even the operators of the Censorium have little in the way of methods of discovering tampering with the data. After all, when data pages get old or damaged they are recopied by other scribes. Falsifying data in the Empire isn't even hard.
“The bureaucracy has expanded to meet the expanding needs of the bureaucracy.”

The Digs Imperial worlds have largely speaking been in a state of gradual decay for the last ten thousand years. This means that technological items that were garbage back when the Emperor was traditionally alive are treasure today. No one has been able to make a graviton gun from scratch since Horus was Warmaster, but back in the day it was all the rage to throw them in the dumpster if some of the dials were busted. The landfills of the past are the archaeological sites of today in every era, but in the 41st millennium there is a not-inconsiderable chance of finding crazy awesome crap in those sites that are far superior to anything we have today. It's kind of like if Egypt's Old Kingdom was actually run by the aliens from Stargate. That's how valuable the digs are.

The Guild Officially speaking, only the Imperium's very own space fleet is allowed to traverse the stars. In practice, this is a rule so obscure that most people don't even know about it. The warp is a dangerous place, and even the limited success with warp travel that the Imperium's Navigators get is largely due to the power of the Astronomicon that mostly pushes the influences of Chaos out of the warp of Imperial Space. But the thing is that the entire idea that only Imperial psykers can utilize the Astronomicon is a lie. It's entirely impersonal as an effect, and anyone who trains themselves to spot its presence in the warp can use it to navigate. And that's exactly what The Guild does. Some of their pilots are ex-Navigators and others are taught from within the organization. The Guild is referred to by the Inquisition as a group of “rogue traders” because they conduct trade off the Imperial books, but also because The Guild has commerce with aliens. Not only do Guild ships trade with Orks, Eldar, and Tau, but strange races are even members of The Guild. The Guild remembers its friends, and if you do something nice for them, they might just be able to get you some stuff your people have never even heard of.

Military Surplus The logistics chain of the Imperial armed forces is frankly jacked up. There are many stories of Guard units being sent to battlefields unarmed to try to scavenge weaponry so that they could fight an enemy all Stalingrad style, but there are an equal number of stories of Imperial units being given far more than they need of one thing, only to be shafted in another department. Many a lasgun has been traded to a civilian in exchange for boots or food. While the Imperium frowns on selling military surplus, honestly who is going to know?

Slave Pits If you need manpower so badly, why not buy it? The Imperium is a completely unapologetic slave holding society. And you can jolly well get in on that action yourself. Or you can “free” them by attacking the slave holders. Since the slaves will then be escaped slaves (punishment: death), this is a lot like purchasing them lawfully because they now have basically no recourse but to work for you until they die. Except the purchase price is shooting all the guards rather than whatever it is that the owners wanted. Slaves in the Imperium vary tremendously in worth. Many slaves are just like the historical ones where they are people given just enough protein to not die but not enough to become strong and clear headed. Others become cybernetically modified into strange man/machine hybrids made to perform a certain function in industry, agriculture, or war. In the Imperium, men have their arms replaced with drills or swords.

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Adventure Seeds for New Cults

Life as a starting cult is full of possibilities. You'll want to set up a clubhouse somewhere, you need to get more followers, you have to identify your enemies and start undermining them. You're badly out gunned by the world in virtually every way. You need to do reconnaissance on multiple organizations, refine your sales pitch, sabotage all kinds of things, make some public predictions so that they can come true later on, and so on. You should be able to self generate adventures ranging from appropriating imperial equipment to taking out government officials to performing public performances and then escaping from the cops. But if for some reason you need the CO to generate some action:

• You're minding your own business in the café, but the man across the room keeps staring at you. Eventually he works up his nerve to come over and talk to you. He says...
• “I dug up that data you wanted. Or rather, I know where it is. The Censorium's a big place, but I can draw you a map...”
• “A lot of people around here come to me for Spur. You come for Spur? You better not be trying to put one over on me!”
• “Have you accepted the Emperor's Golden Way? It's a five part plan for salvation...”
• “You're my contact on the outside, right? I've got the goods on the smugglers, just get me out of here!”
• “I've been feeling like there was a big void in my life spiritually. I've heard that you've been talking some sense.”
• “I'm with the Ministorum. You sir, are a heretic. And I can prove it.”
• “I got kids for sale. You want 'em?”
• “You're not from here. That means we have a problem. A fist sized problem.”
• “I'm with the Ministorum. We're doing an investigation on some heretics in the area, and you sir just got selected to aid the Emperor.”
• “The arbites are cracking down man! This whole place is gonna be swarming with them in minutes!”

Adventure Seeds for Expanding Cults

You've gotten yourself a sweet set up: you have convinced some people to donate to the cause, you have your very own compound, you've even gotten yourself a pretty good fashion designer to make your high priest's awesome outfit. And honestly, you should probably be able to figure out more things to do. You can lead raids on hostile cults. You can publicly embarrass other spiritual or temporal leaders. You can attempt to attract new members, merge or infiltrate with other organizations, or propagandize society to be more accepting of memes conducive to your cult. You can try to acquire weaponry, supplies, land, information, artifacts, or technology that will help in your plans. You can attempt to do impressive things to get your cult known to others. But if you can't think of something to do proactively, you can always let things happen to you.

• One of the newer recruits brings an interesting piece of news. It's not definite, but it seems highly possible that...
• The Children of the Unblinking Eye have successfully conjured some kind of chromatic monstrosity, giving their claims to legitimacy more weight.
• The Governor is planning to lower the grain ration in order to increase off-world shipping. There will be riots in the streets by St. Gavin's Day.
• The mining camp at Culex Ridge had to shut down production because they found some kind of xenos device. A large xenos device.
• A famous Redemptionist preacher is gearing up for a holy war against unbelievers. Again. Only this time, he has mentioned you guys.
• The PDF is going to be drafted up to triple standard size in response to a visit from an off world dignitary.
• A call for martyrdom and flagellation from the planetary archbishop has driven the church towards death cultic beliefs. This has massively increased the number of militia that the church has at its disposal but driven many moderates to openly question the Ecclesiarchy.
• Fires in the Censorium have eliminated many of the official planetary records.
• An Arbites judge refuses to let his hand off of a sword and is has demanded to be allowed to personally execute all the penal slaves.
• The Guild is offering an unofficial trading contract to someone who can get a secondary space port set up on the Northern Fringe.
• Work stoppages plague the textiles industry and bad leadership is blamed.

Adventure Seeds for Major Cults
Perhaps the most dangerous time for a cult is when they have nowhere left to grow that is still in the shadows. Maybe you've secretly inducted some major officials and have several cells all over the planet. There are entire businesses that are just a front for your activities. But now you pretty much have to get yourself into the public arena. It's time for grassroots organizing or taking out political ads. But if you can't think of a first next step, you could always just let that next step find you.

• You've been having people scan the Epistulatorium and rumor mills for likely ins and one of them seems to think they've found something...
• There is a major falling out between two of the more important bishops over handling of a sex scandal.
• A catastrophic planning failure has caused the miners to run out of food. Riots are predicted momentarily.
• The head of the Arbites has had his skin turn to bronze and begun a one man anti-crime rampage that has the news readers quaking in fear.
• An inquisitor is making the rounds and setting fire to a large number of supposed heretics. And it's not even you guys.
• The governor has locked himself in his palace suite with a bunch of kalma and some children.
• The price of power is going up as another of the generatoria has gone off line.
• The belters are flat refusing to send materials down the gravity well until their demands are met.
• Dozens, maybe hundreds of people have gone missing in a wave of kidnappings and murders that the government seems too inept or disinterested to solve.
• A powerful artifact has been located in the sea, and the officials are starkly divided as to what should be done with it.
• An amazing painting has been unveiled, attaining a status of cultural significance immediately. But some leaders are saying that it is obscene and should be destroyed.

Adventure Seeds for Planetary Cults
So you just got an open cult member elected planetary governor. Maybe you have cult prayers on plaques at the heads of classrooms, cultic chaplains in the planetary guard, and a giant statue of your warp patron in the capitol. You think you're done? Heck no. The galaxy is huge. And perhaps it's time for you to mount a crusade to spread the wisdom of your religion to other planets. Or perhaps it is time to consolidate your power base while you play Civ. Or perhaps it's time to just sit in your newly impressive cathedral and wait for something to happen?

• The astropath finishes writing the message, the messenger runs it to you with such haste that the ink has yet to dry. Even as the gothic script runs together, you can plainly see that it says...
• The Guild is offering competitive rates for the export of isotropics from your sulphuric swamplands of the lesser Southern continent.
• Black Ships are on the way, and the expected levy is... excessive. Frankly you don't think there are that many psykers on your world.
• Some jagoff inquisitor has declared Exterminatus on your entire planet.
• The Archbishop of Alnitak VIII has declared a crusade against your planet to convert your people by the sword.
• A warp storm is coming. A very large warp storm is coming.
• Deep space scanners have detected an incoming Orky space hulk on an intercept course with your planet.
• The belters have found a huge device that they describe as a “fortress” in the fringes.
• An Astartes Legion is coming to recruit people from your world into the marines. Yes, it really says that.
• The shadow in the warp looms large and there will be no off world communications for the foreseeable future.
• The governor from the Meissa system is suggesting a binding alliance and defense pact between your planets.

[Username17]

Sample Characters

Gregor Spatz: Guard Veteran

Gregor Spatz was recruited on a world far away from the one he is on now. Having been caught for a minor crime, his draft notice was sealed before the trial was even over. Fortunately on campaign against the greenskins his commanding officer was illiterate, and he ended up placed in a normal line rather than being thrown into the meatgrinder that awaited the penal legionaries.

After the Imperium declared victory and withdrew he was among the lucky ones who still lived, and he had advanced to the rank of Corporal. This entitled him to being resettled with some land on the first world the ships happened to refuel at. Gregor finds that he doesn't really understand the culture on this world, and they don't especially understand him either. But mostly he finds that he is not now and never has been a farmer, so he's really not sure if he can get the whole growing plants thing to work before he dies.

From Gregor's point of view, the only thing that has kept him from being killed several times over by the incompetence of the empire is the incompetence of the empire. So it is not surprising that the message of the cult would find root in Gregor in a way that the strange blue seeds the Imperium left him with will seemingly never find root in the soil of his pension lands.

S: 4 A: 3 W: 4
D: 5 I: 3 C: 2 E: 3

Skills:
Firearms(Lasweaponry): 4 [9/11] Pilot Vehicles: 3 [8]
Stealth: 1 [6] Larceny: 2 [7]
Martial Arts: 3 [7] Athletics: 1 [5]
Endurance: 2 [6] Heavy Weapons: 2 [6]
Investigation: 1 [4] Logistics: 1 [4]
Perception: 3 [6] Tactics: 2 [5]
Technology (Plasma Physics): 2 [5/7]
Artisan: 1 [3] Medicine: 1 [3]
Command: 2 [6] Faith: 1 [5]
Survival: 2 [6] Intimidate: 1 [5]
Camaraderie: 1 [3] Persuasion: 1 [3]

Perks:
Evade; Calm Under Pressure; Quickdraw

Traits:

Guard Veteran; Linguist (Ork); Alien Technologies (Ork); Certainty; Ambidextrous
Pervert; Lazy; Criminal History; Day Job; Hot Blooded

Equipment:
Lasgun; Laspistol; ax; flak armor; slugga; shovel; canteen; imperial ID; tractor; farmstead; plasma engine.

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Alekzandr

...was a troubled boy, disenfranchised by the iron heel of an Inquisitorial purge that robbed him of his father, and dismayed at the number of late night “guests” his mother entertained to keep bread on the table. His only solace against his nightmarish life was his fantastic dreams, filled with the magic of his friends.

It was only when his mother died at the hands of her Priest that Alek’s “friends” shared their secret magic with him. They told him that they were Angles of Change, charged with his “proper” upbringing to fulfill a wonderful and fantastic destiny. Destitute and alone from the loss of his family to the uncaring Ecclesiarchy, he threw himself into his secret studies.

Now, his initiation completed, his “companions” lead him to a fateful meeting with like minded cultists, just as planned…

S: 5 A: 2 W: 5 P: 5
D: 2 I: 2 C: 5 E: 1

Skills:

Martial Arts (Str) 5 (Blades +2) [10/12]
Empathy (Awa) 5 (Warp Perception +2) [7/9]
Perception (Awa) 1 (Visual +2) [3/5]
Deception (Cha) 5 (Fast Talk +2) [10/12]
Command (Will) 5 (Oratory +2) [10/12]
Faith (Will) 1 (Cult +2) [6/8]
Invocation (Pwr) 5 (Hallucinate +2) [10/12]

Perks:

Calm Under Pressure May buy hits in stressful situations, such as Combat.
Ghastly [Mutation] His visage causes fear to leak out from the Immaterium.
Hallucinate [Invocation] (Drain: (½ Force) + 1, Range: LOS (A), Duration: S)
Heal [Invocation] (Drain: Force, Range: Touch, Duration: E)
Lightning Arc [Invocation] (Drain: (½ Force) + 0, Range: 10 cm, Duration: I, Damage: Force)

Traits:
Psyker (***) He is a Sorcerer of the Changer of Ways.
Special Training (**) Taught by Daemons in his dreams.
Brave (*) Fear effects treat him as if he were berserk.
Certainty (*) Everything he is “forced” to do is against his principles.
Interesting to Chaos (***) For good or ill, marked by Tzeenech.
Unlikable (**) He is simply unlikable as a human being.
Distinctive Style (*) He always tries to electrocute his foes.
Silent Mutant (*) He has a subtle mutation that may only be detected psychically.

Equipment:

Eviscerator, Psychic Hood, Vox Caster, Battery Pack, Water Tank, Shopping Cart, Je'Ze'Brl the Familiar (tunnel dwelling static mouse).

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Fat Vincent

Vincent Stoat started out as a greedy, corrupt businessman. However, it didn't take long for him to get promoted to a greedy, corrupt politician. Running a small part of the hive, he kept good contacts with the criminal element, while continuing to eat more than he really should.

Eventually, the time came that he would go out of power. Luckily, he was as rich (and oily) as mayonnaise by then, so he still had his flunkies. A year later, he was introduced to the cult by a friend of a friend, and was interested in the prospect of getting back everything that was due. The fact that he was beginning to develop growths, being in actual fact tainted by Genestealer influence, meant he had to hurry, too, because while they allow a man to squeeze the money and life out of those under him and crush peasants beneath his heel, they don't approve of mutants and tend to cure the ailment with fire.

Now, hoping to turn the place upside down so that he can start afresh in a place of power, or at the very least end up in a situation where people don't try to set him on fire, Fat Vince takes his wealth and power to the cult.

S: 4 A: 3 W: 4
D: 1 I: 4 C: 3 E: 2

Skills:
Athletics: 1 [5]
Endurance: 4 [8]
Martial Arts(Rip & Tear Fu): 3 [7/9]
Firearms(Bolt Pistols): 5 [6/8]
Larceny: 2 [3]
Logistics(Bureaucracy): 4 [8/10]
Investigation: 3 [6]
Tactics: 3 [6]
Deception (Forgery):3 [6/8]
Camaraderie (Shmoozing): 1 [4/6] (5)
Persuasion: 3 [6]
Command: 2 [6]
Faith: 1 [5]
Intimidate (Coercion): 2 [6/8]
Survival: 3 [7]

Perks:
Cool and Callous
4* Carapace (much of his bulk is actually caused by this)
Natural Weaponry: over-head scything claw

Traits:
+Hard Knocks Diploma
+Rich
+Socially Connected
++Noble (he was always in a pretty good position of power)
-Ugly (he's very bloated by this point, and always sweating)
-Lazy (this helped to cause the above trait)
--Criminal History (it didn't used to matter, but now...)
---Malignant (it's beyond hiding now)

Equipment:
Personalised Bolt Pistol with silver-coated barrel and his initials engraved into the handle. A flak coat that would be very baggy on most people, but on him... A gold time piece on a chain. Barrel of carbon fuel. A limousine. I'm not even kidding.

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Liang Liang

One in thousand humans are undetectably tainted by the warp. One in a thosand of those can be detected and purged by the Imperium. In a thousand of those, one escapes and continues to proliferate it's vile essence.

Liang Liang has lived up till recently sheltered and bared from contact with anyone other than her mother. Lovingly housed and cared for in a cellar by her dear mother due to her combination of obvious deformities and chronic illnesses. In her spare time, of which she had an abundance, Liang Liang focused everything efforts to returning the care she recieved.

But her loneliness and adult urges have peeked, and she sought to become part of more than one life, even at the cost of her own. Fully understanding that her unique traits would bring her demise, Liang Liang does very much wear extra clothing to hide her form, and does even more to keep her form out of sight. But the allure of companionship draws her to seek out those that would accept her. Or shape the world to accept her...

S: 4 A: 1 W: 1
D: 4 I: 4 C: 4 E: 5

Skills:
Athletics: 4 [8]
Endurance: 4 [8]
Martial Arts: 4 [8]
Stealth(Shadowing, Hiding): 5 [9/11]
Artisan(Scavenging): 4 [8/10]
Medicine(First Aid, Long Term Care, Diseases): 4 [8/10]
Deception(Disguise): 5 [9/11
Camaraderie(Schmoozing): 5 [9/11]

Perks:

Jump Up, Free Running, Tentacles, Carapace (2)

Traits:

Positive: Certainty, Brave, Ambidextrous, Rich, Blank
Negative: Silver Spoon, Unhidable Mutation, Stupid, Sickly

Equipment:

Cynthia doll, a mop, kitchen implements (pots, pans, tongs, spatulas, a cleaver), two bars of good soap, a MedKit, heavy robes, Infragoggles, fuzzy mittens, a “cunning” knitted cap with earmuffs and a pompom.

---

Titania Volkvar

Titania is an Imperial Arbites technician, and she has a lot of pride in her work. Raised in space, she has been on world for about 10 years. Titania carries the Pariah Gene, which means that her mere presence shorts out psychic powers and becalms the warp. But this has little impact on her day to day life, or it didn't until recently. And she has been a fairly loyal and productive citizen.

The turning point for Titania came on a relatively recent security detail that she was working on for the Ecclesiarchy. The local bishop was performing miracles of the Emperor and Titania was nearly as impressed as the unwashed masses. As she edged through her compatriots to get a better look, the bishop's workings simply stopped working. The sermon was cut short and the bishop demanded technical assistance from the assembled Arbites – and naturally enough she was volunteered.

The bishop took her aside and asked her to repair his miracle machine. And to her horror, she found that she could. The so called “miracles” were simply archeotech warp inducers. She could “fix” them just by putting a piece of shielding between the device and herself. Titania became an apostate on the spot. Titania now despises the Imperial Cult and derisively tells anyone who will listen about how her personal abilities are stronger than the false Imperial Miracle Machines.

S: 2 A: 3 W: 3
D: 2 I: 5 C: 3 E: 4

Skills:
Athletics: 1 [3]
Endurance: 1 [3]
Heavy Weapons: 4 [6]
Martial Arts (Police Procedure): 1 [3/5]
Firearms: 1 [3]
Larceny: 4 [6]
Pilot Vehicles: 1 [3]
Stealth: 1 [3]
Artisan: 4 [9]
Logistics (Supply): 1 [6/8]
Medicine: 1 [6]
Technology (Warp Technology, Power Supplies): 5 [10/12]
Investigation: 5 [10]
Perception: 2 [5]
Tactics: 1 [4]
Deception: 1 [4]
Camaraderie: 3 [6]
Persuasion: 1 [4]
Faith: 4 [7]
Intimidate: 1 [4]
Survival: 1 [4]
Perks:
✦✦ Blank (creates a negative 2 Warp Environment out to 4 meters from her body)
✦✦ Spacer Family (The Volkvar family is well represented on space stations throughout the sector)
✦ Linguist: Kroot (Titania speaks the language of the Kroot)
✦ Linguist: Paoan (Titania speaks the language of Pao)
✦ Certainty (Titania is so sure of herself that the threshold to force her to do things increases by 1)
Silent Mutant ✦ (Titania carries the Pariah Gene)
Day Job ✦ (Titania works for the Imperium and is expected to appear on a regular basis)
Fanatic ✦ (Titania is annoying about her convictions and will tell you about them constantly)
Hot Blooded ✦✦ (Titania escalates conflicts for no real reason)
Arbites Contact ✦✦ (Titania has a long work history with the Arbites)

Traits:
Dowsing: The Scavenging Thresholds are reduced by 1 for Titania
MacGuyvering: A weapon or other piece of equipment which has stopped working can be made to function in the middle of combat with a Primary Action and an appropriate Artisan or Technology test.

Equipment:
Spanner, Sonic Screwdriver, Tool Kit, Stun Maul, Storm Shield, Shotgun with both Stun and Executioner Shells, Flak Armor, ID Card, Clip Board, Can of Grease.

---

Unyuun

Raised from the biomass of dozens of orphans during an Adeptus Mechanicus experiment, Unyuun only wants to be given love and affection, as well as receive it for themselves.

After Unyuun's "birth" from a biomass tank, the collective psyche's of the orphans that were used to create their bodymass somehow maintained trace elements of their most powerful emotions at death. Primarily fear and a sense of abandonment. Unyuun's primary motivators are 1) not being alone, and 2) receiving near constant affectionate physical contact from others.

As a result of Unyuun's psychological profile, it was deemed thoroughly unsuitable for the assault role that they had been intended for. Instead Unyuun was used as a guard for various biomass processing and storage facilities in the bowels of the cult's territory. The appearance alone drove many potential thieves from proceeding further into the AdMech supply depots.

Unyuun would have spent the rest of their life as a behemoth dwelling deep in the bowels of the Hive, if not for the fact that a large amount of supporting structure in the upper levels gave way and destroyed the bulk of the installation that had created them. When their caretakers went to investigate, Unyuun wanted to follow, but the access tunnels were so strewn with debris that they were unable to follow.

Abandoned with tanks and tanks of Biomass, Unyuun had enough food to survive for several weeks before a scouting party from another Cult, intent on scavenging the now defunct laboratory's supplies, found them. Unyuun latched, literally, onto the first member of the scouting party and proceeded to give them many hugs and affectionate licks on the cheek.

Unyuun now lives in a nest deep in the cult's territory with at least one other cult member who they considers to be part of their extended family there at all times. Unyuun is used as a heavy when the cult needs to take out enemy forces. However, they are usually unwilling to engage in combat, or anything else for that matter, unless her nestmates are in danger or are harmed.

S: 5 A: 2 W: 1
D: 3 I: 1 C: 4 E: 5

Skills:
Athletics (Climbing): 5 [10/12]
Endurance (Strain): 5 [10/12]
Heavy Weapons (Flamers): 5 [10/12]
Martial Arts (Natural Weapons): 5 [10/12]
Stealth (Hieds!): 3 [6/8]
Technology (Bioengineering): 1 [2/4]
Intimidate: 2 [3]

Perks:
Carapace (x6), Extra Arms (x2); Ghastly, Natural Weaponry, Free Running, Sprint, Tentacles (Long crab-claw arms)

Traits:
+++Multidextrous (Uses many arms at once, can carry the flamer and attack with two claws from round to round)
++Bionic
+Brave
+Certainty
-Orphan (Also, made from orphans, so, like double orphaned)
---Unhidable Mutation (S/He's covered in armour plates, has 2 arms, 2 giant crab claws and can spit fire, you try to pass that off as human)
-Ugly (See above)
--Dumb (Unyuun speaks in an pidgin of some sort)

Equipment:
Flamer, Giant blankie (industrial strength tarp), necklace (assorted metal junk tied into a wire loop).

[Username17]

Rogue's Gallery and Beastiary

Frateris Militia

The Ministorum is forbidden by law from having men under arms. This has been interpreted to mean that they can't officially pay, quarter, or train militants who happen to be men. They skirt these rules on every side. And so it is that the Frateris Militia have come into existence. Untrained, unpaid, and not specifically tied into a command structure, the Frateris are an undisciplined rabble who are scarcely better for their side than nothing at all. But the Ecclesiarchy regards these prospective martyrs as free.

S: 2 A: 2 W: 1
D: 2 I: 1 C: 2

Skills:
Athletics: 1 [3]
Martial Arts: 1 [3]
Firearms: 1 [3]
Larceny: 1 [3]
Perception: 1 [3]
Faith: 4 [5]
Intimidate: 3 [4]

Equipment:
Autopistol, Ax, Purity Seals.

---

Redemptionist Zealot

The Redemptionists are a death cult that wants to set everything and everyone on fire. The theological basis is that fire burns away impurity and thus it is that with sufficient amounts of Fire you can cleanse the galaxy and make way for the Emperor. What would actually happen if they burned enough things is a matter of vigorous theological debate, but honestly when a member of Imerialis Redemptor is running at you with a chainsaw and a gas can, this is quite possibly the least of your worries.

S: 3 A: 1 W: 3
D: 2 I: 1 C: 2

Skills:
Athletics: 3 [6]
Martial Arts (Hacking and Dismembering): 4 [7/9]
Heavy Weapons (Flame Weapons): 2 [5/7]
Larceny: 1 [3]
Perception: 1 [2]
Persuasion: 2 [4]
Faith: 4 [7]
Intimidate: 2 [5]

Equipment:
Eviscerator with Exterminator, Redemptor Mask, Pocketful of Fingerbones, Wicked looking Knife.

---

Scavie Cannibal

The Scavies are disease addled cannibals that live off the grid in the shadows of the Imperium. They are quite mad and universally reviled. Scavies congregate in groups and hunt in packs. They are not all capable of speech.

S: 3 A: 2 W: 3
D: 1 I: 1 C: 1

Skills:
Athletics: 1 [4]
Martial Arts: 2 [5]
Endurance: 5 [8]
Larceny: 4 [5]
Stealth: 3 [4]
Investigation (Tracking): 2 [3/5]
Perception: 1 [3]
Intimidate: 2 [5]
Survival: 4 [7]

Perks:
Iron Stomach: A Scavie can eat ghastly materials and not die. Scavies do not get food poisoning.
Nurgle's Favor: Scavies do not die or suffer damage from their diseases.

Equipment:
Butcher Knife, Dog Corpse, four or five diseases.

---

Plague Zombie

Those afflicted with Tomb Rot become hideous necrotizing abominations that usually don't live for long. But while they still persist, they seem driven to spread their pestilence everywhere and to feast on the flesh of the living. They don't seem to attack Scavies and the Scavies often drive them into battle or use their shambling attacks to drive pinkskins into their traps.

S: 7 A: 1 W: 5
D: 1 I: 1 C: 1

Skills:
Martial Arts: 1 [8]
Endurance: 5 [12]
Perception: 1 [2]

Perks:
Iron Stomach: Plague zombies are marked for death anyway and nothing they can eat will change that fact in any way.
Slow: A Plague Zombie's movement rate is only 5 cm.
Strength of the Dying: A Plague Zombie is subject to Frenzy at a rating of 2, and always ignores being on fire.
Plague Bearer: Anyone damaged by a Plague Zombie's close combat attacks is subjected to Tomb Rot. If they suffer a Fatality from it they become a Plague Zombie themselves for some amount of time before actually expiring.

Equipment:
Flies, their own unarmed attacks.

---

Flesh Hound

A Flesh Hound is a daemonic beast. It is incapable of possessing anyone.

S: 8 A: 3 W: 1 P: 4
D: 8 I: 1 C: 1

Skills:
Martial Arts: 4 Investigation 1
Faith: 13 Athletics: 6
Endurance: 12 Intimidate: 11

Perks:
Evade; Natural Weaponry; Enhanced Senses

Equipment:
Collar of Khorne, Nasty Sharp Teeth

---

Ork Boy

The Orks are a species that lives for combat. They are not unintelligent, and are actually fairly sociable. They do however literally fight all the time. Orks regard combat to the death as friendly, and they love making friends. The official stance of the imperium is that Orks are kill on sight. However, such is the limits of information dissemination in the Empire that many citizens don't know that and trade exists with Orks in some places.

S: 8 A: 2 W: 4
D: 2 I: 3 C: 1

Skills:
Athletics: 1 [9]
Martial Arts: 4 [12]
Endurance: 5 [13]
Heavy Weapons: 1 [9]
Larceny: 3 [5]
Firearms: 3 [5]
Pilot Vehicles: 1 [3]
Technology: 4 [7]
Artisan: 4 [7]
Perception: 2 [4]
Tactics: 2 [4]
Faith (Conviction): 1 [5/11]
Command (Inspiration): 3 [7/13]

Perks:

Waagh! May make Faith checks with Strength when making a Conviction test, and Command checks with Strength when making an Inspiration check.

Fungal Body: An Ork never dies of their wounds unless they suffer a Fatality. An Ork heals at the normal rate even when incapacitated. Essentially, an Ork is always stabilized instantly and effectively when they are incapacitated by a Deadly wound.

Equipment:

Slugga, Choppa, Flak Armor, Spanner, Bag of Hammers, Back of Electrik Bitz.

---

Gretchin

Gretchin, or “Grotz” as they are lovingly called by their oppressive orky masters, are smaller and no less green than proper orks. Strictly speaking, they are the same species. Orks are fungal, and a Gretchin is just what happens when there is less of that fungus in one place.

S: 2 A: 2 W: 1
D: 3 I: 2 C: 1

Skills:

Athletics: 3 [5]
Endurance: 8 [10]
Martial Arts: 2 [4]
Firearms: 2 [5]
Stealth: 4 [6]
Larceny: 4 [6]
Perception: 2 [4]
Artisan: 3 [5]
Technology: 3 [5]
Faith: 1 [2]
Deception: 4 [6]
Persuasion: 2 [3]

Perks:

Fungal Body: An Ork never dies of their wounds unless they suffer a Fatality. An Ork heals at the normal rate even when incapacitated. Essentially, an Ork is always stabilized instantly and effectively when they are incapacitated by a Deadly wound.

Equipment:

Knife, Scattergun, rat nibblins, shiny plastic thingy.

---

Squig
“Squigs are part animal and part fungus, but mostly claws and teeth. ”
Squigs are small, aggressive, generally bipedal creatures that resemble fleshy soccer-balls with legs and very large teeth. Many different breeds and kinds of squig exist, but all share those same common characteristics. Omnivores in the extreme, many squigs live in the wild, where they feed upon whatever is unlucky enough to cross their paths. Though squigs are not Greenskins, they grow from fungus in a similar manner. There are many, many different varieties of Squig. Most squigs are less than a meter tall and used by the Orks for everything from war to food.

S: 3 A: 3 W: 2
D: 3 I: 1 C: 1

Skills:
Athletics: 6 [9]
Martial Arts: 2 [5]
Investigation (Tracking): 1 [2/4]
Faith: 1 [3]

Perks:
Natural Weaponry; Enhanced Senses

Equipment:
Nasty Sharp Teeth

[Username17]

This space left intentionally blank.

It may get filled in with some sort of afterward of playing as Eldar Seer Cults or something. And it might just get overwritten altogether if it turns out that I need more space for infilling another chapter.

-Username17

[CatharzGodfoot]

You font sizes got a bit borked in the third post.

Other than that, looks awesome. Like Cults Across America, but not a board game, and good.

[Koumei]

This is so awesome. I'm tempted to go and whip up a game of it on IRC, taking a look at the cultist point of view.

[Judging__Eagle]

Freaking awesome. I was actually holding off from posting until you had put up all of the posts that you wanted and thought you might want 2 blank end posts. I'm betting I'm not the only one.

[Maxus]

I've got a friend who's a total Warhammer junkie.

Bricks will be shat over this.

[Username17]

Normally I'd just sit on this until it was "done" but since I don't actually have any proper collaborators on this project, and some people are using this as a template to make their own games, I figure that it should go up as it is finished.

-Username17

[Hicks]

FVCK YEAH!

---

I have been... eagerly anticipating this. Thank you Frank.

[Hicks]

Whelp... Lets see what I can do with this.

---

Alekzandr
"The voices in my head don't like you."

---

...was a troubled boy, disenfranchised by the iron heel of an Inquisitorial purge that robbed him of his father, and dismayed at the number of late night “guests” his mother entertained to keep bread on the table. His only solace against his nightmarish life was his fantastic dreams, filled with the magic of his friends.

It was only when his mother died at the hands of her Priest that Alek’s “friends” shared their secret magic with him. They told him that they were Angles of Change, charged with his “proper” upbringing to fulfill a wonderful and fantastic destiny. Destitute and alone from the loss of his family to the uncaring Ecclesiarchy, he threw himself into his secret studies.

Now, his initiation completed, his “companions” lead him to a fateful meeting with like minded cultists, just as planned…

Attributes
Strength 5
Dexterity 2
Intelligence 2
Awareness 2
Charisma 5
Willpower 5
Edge 1
Power 5

Skills
Martial Arts (Str) 5 (Blades +2)
Empathy (Awa) 5 (Warp Perception +2)
Perception (Awa) 1 (Visual +2)
Deception (Cha) 5 (Fast Talk +2)
Command (Will) 5 (Oratory +2)
Faith (Will) 1 (Cult +2)
Invocation (Pwr) 5 (Hallucinate +2)

Positive Traits
Psyker (***) He is a Sorcerer of the Changer of Ways.
Special Training (**) Taught by Daemons in his dreams.
Brave (*) Fear effects treat him as if he were berserk.
Certainty (*) Everything he is “forced” to do is against his principles.

Negative Traits
Interesting to Chaos (***) For good or ill, marked by Tzeenech.
Unlikable (**) He is simply unlikable as a human being.
Distinctive Style (*) He always tries to electrocute his foes.
Silent Mutant (*) He has a subtle mutation that may only be detected psychically.

Perks
Calm Under Pressure May buy hits in stressful situations, such as Combat.
Ghastly [Mutation] His visage causes fear to leak out from the Immaterium.
Hallucinate [Invocation] (Drain: (½ Force) + 1, Range: LOS (A), Duration: S)
Heal [Invocation] (Drain: Force, Range: Touch, Duration: E)
Lightning Arc [Invocation] (Drain: (½ Force) + 0, Range: 10 cm, Duration: I, Damage: Force)

Equipment
Rune Coat Armor Attacker must re-roll hits
Force Weapon (Sword)
Psychic Hood

[Koumei]

Hooray! I knew I could get this all posted up just by asking an unethical question and saying "Looking forward to the next installation of Warp Cult".

Also, I love all the silly little references, even the "become an hero".

I shall now make up a character, and it will not be my usual style.

Fat Vincent

"Bugger that for a laugh. Grease 'em, boys."

Vincent Stoat started out as a greedy, corrupt businessman. However, it didn't take long for him to get promoted to a greedy, corrupt politician. Running a small part of the hive, he kept good contacts with the criminal element, while continuing to eat more than he really should.

Eventually, the time came that he would go out of power. Luckily, he was as rich (and oily) as mayonnaise by then, so he still had his flunkies. A year later, he was introduced to the cult by a friend of a friend, and was interested in the prospect of getting back everything that was due. The fact that he was beginning to develop growths, being in actual fact tainted by Genestealer influence, meant he had to hurry, too, because while they allow a man to squeeze the money and life out of those under him and crush peasants beneath his heel, they don't approve of mutants and tend to cure the ailment with fire.

Now, hoping to turn the place upside down so that he can start afresh in a place of power, or at the very least end up in a situation where people don't try to set him on fire, Fat Vince takes his wealth and power to the cult.

---

Strength 4 (30)
Dexterity 1
Intelligence 4 (30)
Awareness 3 (20)
Charisma 3 (20)
Willpower 4 (30)
Edge 2 (10)

Skills:
Athletics 1 [5] (3)
Endurance 4 [8] (12)
Martial Arts 3: Rip & Tear Fu [7/9] (11)

Firearms 5: Bolt Pistols [6/8] (17)
Larceny 2 [3] (6)

Logistics 4: Bureaucracy [8/10] (14)

Investigation 3 [6] (9)
Tactics 3 [6] (9)

Deception 3: Forgery [6/8] (11)
Camaraderie 1: Shmoozing [4/6] (5)
Persuasion 3: Propaganda [6] (9)

Command 2 [6] (6)
Faith 1 [5] (3)
Intimidate 2: Coercion [6/8] (8)
Survival 3 [7] (9)

Traits:
+Hard Knocks Diploma
+Rich
+Socially Connected
++Noble (he was always in a pretty good position of power)
-Ugly (he's very bloated by this point, and always sweating)
-Lazy (this helped to cause the above trait)
--Criminal History (it didn't used to matter, but now...)
---Malignant (it's beyond hiding now)

Equipment:
Personalised Bolt Pistol with silver-coated barrel and his initials engraved into the handle.
A flak coat that would be very baggy on most people, but on him...
A limousine. I'm not even kidding.

Perks:
Cool and Callous (5)
4* Carapace (much of his bulk is actually caused by this) (20)
Natural Weaponry: over-head scything claw (5)

---

Initiative: 4 dice (Dexterity 1 Awareness 3)
Attacking:
-Bolt Pistol: 13 dice, Damage 4, Range 10cm, Ammunition 6, Accuracy 5
-Tail: 9 dice, Damage 6, close combat, no disarming, 12 dice w/ pistol
Close Combat Threshold: 2 (1 when dual-wielding)
Damage Soak: AV 1, SV 11

[Username17]

Note: when I put Alekzandr in there I toned down his equipment a lot. Force Weapons and Rune Coats go to proper Warlocks rather than cultists most of the time.

-Username17

[Hicks]

OH-MAH-GAWD! I'M CONTRIBUTING! I'M REALLY, REALLY CONTRIBUTING!

I'm so happy I could... Words fail to express my elation, and Interpertive Dance loses somthing in its transition from movement to text; therefore I am forced to use the last possible recourse: Emoticons.

X 9000 + 1

My warhammer-fu is weak, sensi. Your adjustments are honorable and uplifting to my spirit.

[Bigode]

Some more happiness for Hicks - I think one adjustment was for the worse: un-separating positive and negative traits. While negative isn't always bad, they are 2 different beasts, made from 2 different pools to boot.

[Hicks]

I know it's currently unfinished, but... When do amunition checks come into play? And what is the relationship between those checks and the "ammunition" value of a weapon (number of hits on a logistics test to have it, artisan test to build it, firearms test to load it)?

[Username17]

The idea is that the Ammunition numbers work like Necromunda Ammunition numbers. I just put in a placeholder rule. Seems to work a lot like the Necromunda version in practice. May need some tweaking.

-Username17