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The title says it all. I get the feeling that what the Thousand Sons do and how they practice their power is different at the most basic level than Librarians.
How is it different?

Think of psykers as drawing from a well. Librarians can skim off the top and see nothing problematic.

Sorcerers reach deep into it, and start seeing things down in the well that they shouldn't.

Based on the sources that I have read I would assume that the major difference is in how they manipulate the warp. A psyker taps into a natural ability and channels the warp through their mind/spirit. A sorcerer uses rituals (e.g. sacrifices) and/or borrows another beings' power to utilize abilities they would not normally possess.

It's all Semantics.

 lord of corn wrote:
It's all Semantics.

It clearly isn't. Magnus damaged the Golden Throne by using sorcery to contact the Emperor. Regular psychic communication obviously wouldn't damage something designed to channel and direct the psychic might of the most powerful psyker ever born.

There is no difference.

Warhammer 40,000 Rule Book, 6e, page 66 wrote:Psykers are warriors gifted with awesome mental powers that enable them to channel the baleful energy of the warp. Whilst commonly referred to as psychic powers, such abilites are nothing less than sorcery - though it suits many races in the galaxy to pretend otherwise.

Codex Grey Knights, page 7 wrote:Truly, the separation between psychic power and black magic exists only in the minds of men and is wholly dependent on whether the observer views the wonders of the galaxy through the veil of science or sorcery.

It's a fine line, but sorcery generally requires pacts to be made with entities of the warp or the use of forbidden knowledge and arcana. Not all sorcerers are psykers after all.

Knowledge and pacts were pretty much the downfall of the Thousand Sons and one bit of evidence against them that they could not avoid.

Sorcery comes from rituals, deals with demons, sacrifices, manipulating the warp through emotions, and so on.

Psychic power comes from genetics.


A psyker is born a psyker. A sorcerer BECOMES a sorcerer. Mind you, many Chaos psykers use sorcery to enhance their power.

C:GK is patently wrong from an outside perspective. That might be what the GK (or whoever that is a quote from) believes, but that's not how it works in the setting.

Sorcery is "magic" as shown in a fantasy game. Spellbooks and eyes of newt and blood sacrifices and chanting with funny symbols painted on the floor and waving your hands about. It can, with the right rituals done with the right things at the right time accomplish truly impressive feats, of the kind that no psyker could ever hope to achieve (like trigger a Warp Storm across an entire star-system).

Sorcery can be learned by anyone with a sentient mind who is not a Blank. It does not require active psychic expression.

A psyker is someone with the inborn ability to channel the Warp through their minds and bodies to create a broad range of effects. These effects are given codified lists of "powers" in the table-top game, but in the fluff a psyker is capable of a very broad range of all kinds of things, centered around a broad variety of specialties (telepathy, telekinesis, pyromancy, etc.). One is born a psyker or one is not. If one is not already psychically active, there's (generally speaking) no way to become a psyker.

In a sense, Sorcery is a DnD wizard, while Psykers are DnD sorcerers.

Except instead of magic it's THE POWER OF HELL AND DEMONS THAT IS CONSTANTLY LOOKING TO ESCAPE AND DEVOUR YOUR SOUL, TURNING YOUR BODY IN TO A PAINFUL SCREAMING GATEWAY IN TO REALMS OF PURE TORTURE.

Psienesis wrote:C:GK is patently wrong from an outside perspective. That might be what the GK (or whoever that is a quote from) believes, but that's not how it works in the setting

It's not wrong, it agrees with the rule book. It's all Psycery. You can be born with sorcerous power, and you can learn psychic powers, if you pay the appropriate tuition. The difference lays only in how certain factions try to mask it.

 Melissia wrote:
Sorcery comes from rituals, deals with demons, sacrifices, manipulating the warp through emotions, and so on.

Psychic power comes from genetics.

This makes a lot of sense to me.

However, and strange as it seems, we are told that this is not the case. According to the quotes given by Animus, there is something else.

This has bugged me for years and I don´t know what does that mean. Perhaps the best solution is assuming that it is just a mistake or something without a particular meaning, but I always try to avoid a "the fluff doesn´t make sense because it is silly" explanation. The creators of the setting took a lot of things from quite good writers (Moorcock, Lovecraft, Tolkien... ) and some stuff is quite deep, so I try to get a meaning. I am failing in this regard so I will just insist on what we are told about the matter.

We are told: "Sorcery" and "Psionics" are the same. No distinction. It is only a name. If you want to depict it as science, they are psyonics. Caused by genetics, produced by a human mind gifted with special powers, with no external help. If you want to depict it as magic, it is sorcery. Caused by an external force, a Daemon or the Warp itself, on a human who has no particular genes in this regard, but is trying hard to do it.

Perhaps psykers are normal humans who have been able by themselves to create the proper set of emotions and will-power that allow them to contact with the Warp, and Sorcerers do the same by trying to replicate these set of conditions through rituals.

Perhaps Daemons lie and all magical power used by the Sorcerer has its origin in the Sorcerer, and nowhere else, with rituals being just theatrics.

This is where the human ability to repress becomes important, da001.

Please elaborate.

Animus wrote:

Psienesis wrote:C:GK is patently wrong from an outside perspective. That might be what the GK (or whoever that is a quote from) believes, but that's not how it works in the setting

It's not wrong, it agrees with the rule book. It's all Psycery. You can be born with sorcerous power, and you can learn psychic powers, if you pay the appropriate tuition. The difference lays only in how certain factions try to mask it.

Yes, it's wrong. You aren't born with the ability to be a Sorcerer, you learn to be a sorcerer. A psyker requires no such training. This is why the Black Ships exist.

 Psienesis wrote:
Yes, it's wrong.

Sorry, but I'll take the word of a codex and the rule book over your own thoughts on the matter.

 Psienesis wrote:
You aren't born with the ability to be a Sorcerer, you learn to be a sorcerer. A psyker requires no such training. This is why the Black Ships exist.

The point is that those psykers are sorcerers. Psyk is sorcery. Sorcery is psyk. You can be born with it, or you can gain it, but it is what it is and what it is is the same gak.

 da001 wrote:
Please elaborate.

See the wikipedia article on it.

Why is the Sixth Edition rulebook filled with garbage?

Every time I read some new piece of fluff from it, I want to strangle the cat living under my house.

Index Astartes made the difference between sorcery and psychic power abundantly clear.

Sorcery and psychic powers outside of 40k are different things, in 40k, they are not, they are the same.

You cannot summon a daemon in 40k (what some of you are attributing to sorcery) without having psychic talent, and we all know psychic talent in 40k isn't actually psychic talent, it is the warp infusing the person with power.

Now you can argue that psychic powers are not genetics as in some can and some can't, due to certain space marines of certain chapters later developing psychic talent after they have their implants (Thousand Sons, and Ahriman in particular is a prime example) but genetics as in everyone is capable of it, yet not many develop/culture it. On the flip side, you can argue in the case of a human it is a genetic mutation that allows said human to tap into the warp and then it is the further augmentation that triggers it.

Certain powers or rituals may be classed a 'psychic power' or 'sorcery' but they are both just in fact a person who is able to tap into the warp.

I also believe this is why 'non-psykers' can summon daemons, as chaos infuses them with the warp in reward for worshiping them and taps into their latent abilities to allow them to render the warp in real space and summon a daemon.

OR

Only psykers can summon daemons - you only hear in the fluff of successful or in progress summoning of daemons, never about the joe bloggs who loves nurgle but hasn't got the ability to summon a daemon as he hasn't got the powers.

EDIT/ADDITION: As good as my theory is (I believe to be anyway) that they are both just warp powers, it sort of doesn't explain Khorne, who hates it seemingly...

Abaddon isn't a psyker and he can summon Daemons, due to being taught Daemonancy by Lorgar himself.

Is your mind blown?

What, you mean how in my post it states that the chaos gods cast favor on certain individuals and allows them to tap in to the warp? Yeah, my mind is blown.

Also, again, psychic powers and sorcery in 40k are not psychic powers and sorcery, it is just tapping into the warp.

so deamons can extend favors to mortals that allow them to tap the warp then.

wouldn't that then be ya know.. sorcery?

the thing is in 40k, sorcery is somewhat poorly defined. it SEEMS to be defined, somewhat as making pacts and trafficing with the denzins of the warp. this seems as good a distinction as any.

I'd note that the referances in various fiction etc of word bearer dark apostles summoning deamons through rituals etc also seems to be a case of "non-psykers meddling in the warp"