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I was wondering if there could ever be a unit of Mutants in an Inquisitorial army? I don't know if they'd be tolerant enough, what are your opinions.

Brotheralexos wrote:I was wondering if there could ever be a unit of Mutants in an Inquisitorial army? I don't know if they'd be tolerant enough, what are your opinions.

If they don't worship chaos, and pay the tithes than the Imperium could care less.

Alexzandvar wrote:
If they don't worship chaos, and pay the tithes than the Imperium could care less.

This.

Take notes that Psykers and Navigators are mutant to some sort and are tolerated by majority in Imperium.
In short - if they are not hostile and if they are useful they will be largely accepted.

The better question is: How useful is your mutation towards the Imperium?

A great many of the books of fluff I read, societies kill off mutants at birth. Should they not be destroyed as such, and don't worship Chaos, they probably find some measure of acceptance, but barely. Mutation is, again, the first sign of heresy according to inquisitors right?

Radical Inquisitors have no problem using mutants. What sort of mutations did you have in mind?

Basically, mutants are second-class citizens but not usually killed on sight.

Mutation is strongly linked with evil in the eyes of the Ecclesiarchy, and mutants appear to be generally considered inferior. They get the dirty jobs, worse pay, no-one treats them well, and if something suspicious happens they will be the first to be blamed. Being a mutant in the Imperium is, to draw a quick-and-dirty analogy, something like being black in 1920s Alabama. It isn't pleasant, but you PROBABLY won't be lynched. . . too often.

Some specific mutations are widely accepted, or just too useful to go without. Navigators and Astropaths are the two obvious examples. Abhumans (which are mutants) are used by the Imperial Guard and presumably the Inquisition as well, but they are still definitely second-class. Psykers are uniformly feared and usually despised as well; being a psyker is the most dangerous mutation you can have, and the least conducive to living a long and healthy life.

Whether a particular mutant or group of mutants could find work with the Inquisition depends on a lot of factors; what their mutation is, the personality of the particular Inquisitor in question, how pious they are, and the exigencies of the specific situation. It would be unlikely, but certainly not impossible.

Thanks for the replies, I'll try and answer/reply to everyone.

@Alexzandvar & Brother Coa: Thanks for the straight-up answer, I probably should have been a bit more clear on what I meant.

@Void_Dragon; Another straight-up answer, I'm talking about mutations that aren't necissarily huge, but noticable. Things like, One arm is bigger than the other, or I have an extra limb.

@iGuy91:They do see it as Heresy, but I'm wondering at what point are they acceptable.

@BeRzErKeR; That's actually a pretty good analogy.

@Beaviz: I was thinking that these Mutants wouldn't be OTT with their mutations, like I said above, and would get those crap jobs.

I was thinking of a group of mutants that are repentant (Think Old-school Imperial Beastmen), and therefore are allowed to live. They're basically used when the Inquisition's fighting enemies that cant be stopped by skill alone. Like and Ork WAAAGH! or a Tyranid splinter fleet. Things that need bodies more than they need training. I was wondering if Inquisitors would do this?

Brotheralexos wrote:@Void_Dragon; Another straight-up answer, I'm talking about mutations that aren't necissarily huge, but noticable. Things like, One arm is bigger than the other, or I have an extra limb.

If it can be useful to the Imperium, or at least won't be a hindrance and isn't too huge, sure they can be in an Inquisitor's retinue.

For Radicals sure, but be a tad careful Beastmen is looked down on as a whole.

Alexzandvar wrote:If they don't worship chaos, and pay the tithes than the Imperium could care less.

Don't you mean couldn't care less? Otherwise it implies that they do care.

On some worlds mutants are used as a slave race for working in the lowest levels of Hive cities, as with everything in the Imperium, is all depends on the planet. A slightly radical may employ them to bolster the ranks and as a meat shield.

Besides special cases such as Navigators and Psykers, mutants in Imperial world are treated extremely poorly if discovered and often are forced to live in the lowest level of Hive Cities and so on. People are really white-washing how bad it is.

Some mutations can possibly even be looked on with favor on certain worlds - mostly cosmetic ones, like exotic coloring or fancy hair for example. Something as useful as night vision could also be seen as a desirable thing in some cases.

As with everything, the worse it looks the worse people will treat you.

It depends entirely on what sort of world you're talking about.

If it's a Hive World, where there are sprawling ruins/slums/Underhives or similar areas where they can be cast out to/run away to, then this is where they end up.

If it's, like, Planet Iowa or any other standard Imperial World? Killed at birth. Mutation of the flesh is a sure sign of the corruption of the soul within. Kill the mutant, burn the heretic, purge the unclean. Generally, anyone who gives birth to a mutant will kill the child themselves. If they don't, well, once their neighbors find out, it's time for an old-fashioned witch-burning, as the family is obviously in league with the Ruinous Powers.

Shrine Worlds and other Ecclesiarchial places? Oh, instant incineration.

Feral World? Depends on how common mutations are amongst the populace, and how strong the Ecclesiarch's presence is on the world. If the answer to the former is "a lot" and the the answer to the latter is "not much", then a mutant might actually grow to a place of prestige and honor on such a benighted world. Having a third arm lets you wield another weapon, or throw two spears at the same time, or, you know, if you can breathe fire, or fly, or teleport, or stab some fool in the chest with a poisonous scorpion tail... well, it has its advantages.

Thanks guys for the replies on the whole Mutant tolerance idea, and I'm sorry to change topic so abruptly, but I have been wondering if there's any artwork that depicts what a Space ship's plasma stacks/ hive's Plasma power generators look like? I am thinking of building some terrain, but I don't know where to start.

re: generators, I'd bet that Necromunda has something like that, I know they have vague schematics of the hive city.

re: mutants, there have, at times, been plenty of rules for abhumans and mutants. I'd say, as long as they're not crazy chaos dudes, you should be fine playing them as conscripts or penal legion

You mean the actual engines inside the ship, not the thrust-cones sticking out of the back with some color or another of light/flames shooting out of them?

Nothing canonical. All the Imperial units in the various DoW RTS games can build plasma reactors, so that's a good a place as any to start. Personally, I envision them as like, one part giant steam-boiler, one part giant turbine, with huge bands of glowing blue light around it.

BeRzErKeR wrote:Navigators and Astropaths are the two obvious examples. [...] Psykers are uniformly feared and usually despised as well; being a psyker is the most dangerous mutation you can have, and the least conducive to living a long and healthy life.

As an aside, all navigators and astropaths are psykers; they're just very specific types of psykers (others include biomancers, pyromancers, telepaths, diviners, telekines, etc, and a very specific rank of psyker known as Primaris).


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Psienesis wrote:You mean the actual engines inside the ship, not the thrust-cones sticking out of the back with some color or another of light/flames shooting out of them?

Nothing canonical. All the Imperial units in the various DoW RTS games can build plasma reactors, so that's a good a place as any to start. Personally, I envision them as like, one part giant steam-boiler, one part giant turbine, with huge bands of glowing blue light around it.

Pretty much how I envision them.

They use magnetic force to create plasma which then heats up water or some other liquid to turn a turbine, the liquid is cooled down and then reboiled using the plasma again.

From what I gathered from "Rocks Aren't Free", the liquid is Hydrogen Peroxide.

In one of the books in the Eisenhorn trilogy (by Dan Abnett) the Inquisitor goes undercover in a mutant-dominated area. The residents are treated as second class citizens, slave labor as it were. The conditions are really bad. Based on the information in that (and in Scourge the Heretic, by Sandy Mitchell) I don't think the Inquisition would be cool with mutant units (unless they were strictly controlled). That is, of course, just my opinion. As to the pictures of the plasma gubbins, I have no clue. I can't think of anything I've ever seen.

As long as they're recognizable as human-related, and serve their purpose, they'll be fine.

Psienesis wrote:From what I gathered from "Rocks Aren't Free", the liquid is Hydrogen Peroxide.

I'd love to see the chemistry of that, but I doubt they'd go that in depth.

H2O2 is not a stable chemical unless it is EXTREMELY pure.

Ogryn and ratlings are a slightly different kettle of fish. They are a "stable" mutation which means that each generation would be the same and that they arne't going to randomly grow a third leg over night.

Twists, as mentioned in the Eisenhorn book, are most likely to be people that were mutants from birth and havn't changed since. I would imagine they are only really tolerated where there's a need for lots of labour.

I would also imagine anyone that starts to change later in life would be hunted down and killed.

Melissia wrote:

BeRzErKeR wrote:Navigators and Astropaths are the two obvious examples. [...] Psykers are uniformly feared and usually despised as well; being a psyker is the most dangerous mutation you can have, and the least conducive to living a long and healthy life.

As an aside, all navigators and astropaths are psykers; they're just very specific types of psykers (others include biomancers, pyromancers, telepaths, diviners, telekines, etc, and a very specific rank of psyker known as Primaris).

Yes, I know; but the Imperium certainly treats them as separate categories, and Astropaths/Navigators are specific sub-categories of psyker who don't necessarily have any other powers. That being so, for the purpose of discussing the treatment of mutants, it's useful to make a distinction.

Different writers and the wide array of locations available across the imperium leave a pretty open spectrum for how mutants are treated. In some places they are completely abhorred and massacred, in others they are flat out slave labor and in others they suffer from Jim Crow type policies of discrimination.

An interesting note in Abnett's telling there are some mid-hivers and those of the upper class who like to go to bars mimicking mutant bars, playing mutant music, etc. He portrays mutants like many disenfranchised real life minorities in that parts of their culture are considered dangerous and "cool" and are often embarrassingly aped by clueless members of the upper classes.

My two cents:

It's important to remember that the Imperium is an empire made up of many allied kingdoms. The Imperial Cult is almost as diverse as the kingdoms (and principalities, and protectorates, and trade zones, and so on) that follow it. There are places where mutants are shot on sight, places where they are tolerated.

The Imperium cares for mutants ... and their remains

@Kroothawk, You'll have to make that larger so I can read it, it looks interesting.

@ Electric Paladin, I like the take on the imperium being a number of kingdoms that are allied. I might just use that.

@ Oakenshield, which Eisenhorn book is that? I hear references to that all the time, but none have said wchich book specifically.

I'm currently toying around with the idea of an entire army of mutants, so I'll be asking about a lot of stuff. Hopefully I can re-name the thread, and try to enlarge the conversation from simple Q&A to something more energetic.

First things first, I have read a lot of background on the Inquisition, but I feel I'm still missing a lot. Do all the Inquisitors get training on how to identify Chaotic activity? Do Inquisitors pick which branch they end up in (Like, Xenos, Hereticus, and Malleus, not the smaller sub-factions)?

I am thinking about actually doing this thing, and I need some opinions on the following: I don't know what codex to use for these guys, and I was thinking that to tie in with the background I should use the GK Inquisition list. I need to know if you can still combine the Inquisition and Imperial guard like in the Witch Hunters old codex? I want an Inquisitorial aspect to the army, but still need the Horde advantage. I have some story in the works to explain how I want this to feel, and I'll probably have that uploaded sometime tommorrow. I want to be able to discuss everything from Transport to Armoured backup here, so any and all ideas are welcome.

Thanks in advance,
Alexos

How tolerant is the Imperium towards mutants? It isn't. They're all killed, straight away, as they are abominations that exhibit the corrupting influence of chaos. There is an entire branch of the inquisition dedicated to hunting down and destroying mutants and heretics (which, for the purposes of the imperium are the same thing).

The only exception to this are psykers. Most humans with this mutation are still just killed straight away, but a very select powerful few are kept and rigorously trained to the point where they can become fuel to feed the flame of the astronomicon.

Only a fraction of a fraction of psykers (which, themselves are only a small fraction of all mutants), are given the ability to lead a relatively normal life as a navigator or battle psyker in the guard, but these are pretty rare.

Every other mutation, however, is relatively useless, and thus are purged along with all other unclean things like demons, heretics, and xenos.