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My first thought is probably not, but I haven't read all that much lore compared to some of you.

I assume the loss of psychic ability, if possible at all, would need to involve the loss of one's soul (or at least part of it). Consciousness in the 40k universe does not appear to be stored in the balls soul, so I surmise one could conceivably lose their soul without dying.

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-Guardsman- wrote:
My first thought is probably not, but I haven't read all that much lore compared to some of you.

I assume the loss of psychic ability, if possible at all, would need to involve the loss of one's soul (or at least part of it). Consciousness in the 40k universe does not appear to be stored in the balls soul, so I surmise one could conceivably lose their soul without dying.

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Not sure about the interaction with psychic abilities, but sisters of silence describe themselves as having no soul.

I’m quite probably thinking of something else, but there’s something nagging at the back of my brain that there has been at least one example.

Not from loss of soul, but perhaps a brain injury or….I’m thinking of X-Men. Bollocks.

Anyways. Having one’s soul removed in 40K is, to the best of my knowledge, is an inherently fatal experience for the corporal meatsuit body.

Blanks, depending on the source? Are soulless or possessed of negative soul. Either way, it’s something genetic and intrinsic to that person.

Now I think about it, the closest we’ve seen would be the Necron Pariah Nexus. An area of space where, thanks to suitably aligned Blackstone, real space is all but closed off from warp space. A place where most mortals tire easily and fall into some kind of coma.

And that harkens right back to the earliest days of 40K, where every living thing has a connection to the warp, however weak. And it’s that connection that is called a soul.

So perhaps if we look to the Pariah Nexus? Psykers might die of shock, as a fundamental part of their being is suddenly switched off.

I’d need to read the Pariah sourcebook again though.

From what I recall, Psykers (depending on ability) tend to go nuts and then die a very horrible death in the various Pariah Nexuses.

While you can use Null fields to suppress a Psyker's abilities, outright removal seems impossible.
It's not like any other sense that can be damaged as the less control a Psyker has over their abilities, the more dangerous they get.
So while you could remove sight by blinding, giving a Psyker brain damage would just remove the dam that blocks the flow of psychic power.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Anyways. Having one’s soul removed in 40K is, to the best of my knowledge, is an inherently fatal experience for the corporal meatsuit body.

Aren't Exorcists marines functionally soulless or like, artificial blanks or something?

While not quite the same as "losing" psychic ability:

* There's at least one Thousand Sons character whose psychic abilities were dramatically diminished rather than enhanced by the rubric.
* According to the Thousand Sons, certain types of psychic powers wax and wane over time. Ex: the raptora being much better at seeing the future one century and then worse the next. Maybe this was Tzeentchian trickery though?
* Eldar children have their powers suppressed/sealed to avoid getting their souls eaten by Slaanesh.
* Eldar on the path of the seer can leave that path, presumably re-suppressing their psychic abilities at least paritally.
* There's that novel where they artificially create psykers through surgery/implants. I'd think that suggests that surgery could potentially be used to accomplish the opposite.

Another avenue that might mimic losing your powers would be if a demon were feeding off you. So you've not lost them, however what power you have is being fed upon and thus you cannot access those powers.

Chances are that this would also come with other problems over time, such as mutation, since it seems most interactions with Warp creatures have side effects (or the feeding demon gets bored)

While not really discussed as far as I am aware, I do think that loss of psychic powers due to a psychic wound of some sort appears plausible.

It was also mentioned in the Dark Eldar 5th edition codex that their psychic abilities had atrophied to the point of uselessness, but this was voluntary. The only use they had for psychic power was basically drinking soul and feeding from pain and fear to heal their own damaged souls.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Anyways. Having one’s soul removed in 40K is, to the best of my knowledge, is an inherently fatal experience for the corporal meatsuit body.

Aren't Exorcists marines functionally soulless or like, artificial blanks or something?

While not quite the same as "losing" psychic ability:

* There's at least one Thousand Sons character whose psychic abilities were dramatically diminished rather than enhanced by the rubric.
* According to the Thousand Sons, certain types of psychic powers wax and wane over time. Ex: the raptora being much better at seeing the future one century and then worse the next. Maybe this was Tzeentchian trickery though?
* Eldar children have their powers suppressed/sealed to avoid getting their souls eaten by Slaanesh.
* Eldar on the path of the seer can leave that path, presumably re-suppressing their psychic abilities at least paritally.
* There's that novel where they artificially create psykers through surgery/implants. I'd think that suggests that surgery could potentially be used to accomplish the opposite.

Exorcists are artificial Illuminati - they’re immune to daemonic possession but not blanks.

On the subject of blanks in one of the Ravenor books a blank managed to have their blankness burnt out by an overload of psychic energy, so it seems reasonable that the opposite could probably happen somehow.

Oh also lets not forget the Shadow in the Warp cast by the Tyranids which can drive back the Warp and drive psychers insane as they lose their connections to it.

yes it can and it can also be actively shut down and removed entirely by the psyker as we see in outcast dead.

Since psyker power come from the warp in 40k, it seems anything that messes with the warp (Aka Sea of Souls) or YOUR Soul would affect psyker abilities. Yep, these include, but not limited to: Necron Pariah Nexus, Shadow in the warp- but it seems if you lack a soul, you're a blank. We see this with Aeldari in that solitaires become a blank once they "sell their soul" directly to Cegorach, and all space elves are psychic to some extent. On the other hand, "selling your soul" to Tzeentch for magic pretty much just makes you a puppet.
An example of someone losing Psyker abilities due to physical circumstances is Angron. All primarchs are psykers to some degree, thanks to Big E's genes- Angron's was the ability to calm and empath with others, which allowed his fellow gladiator slaves to sleep. This carried over to the World Eater librarians, but the Nails cut him off from that.

I thought the nails made them explode? Possibly their powers going into overdrive and manifesting as a sudden rush of kinetic force/raw aggression?

Vandire was able to strip the Master of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica of his psychic powers using a Culexus assassin.

cody.d. wrote:
I thought the nails made them explode? Possibly their powers going into overdrive and manifesting as a sudden rush of kinetic force/raw aggression?

The Librarians never got the nails b/c in the Gehenna massacre, they found a way to implement the Nails legion wide. All the Librarians and a minority were against it, and wanted to take Angron to Terra and have big E "fix" him with the new intel. But Kharn wanted to be just like daddy, so :pound pound pound: goes the hammer.

 TheChrispyOne wrote:

cody.d. wrote:
I thought the nails made them explode? Possibly their powers going into overdrive and manifesting as a sudden rush of kinetic force/raw aggression?

The Librarians never got the nails b/c in the Gehenna massacre, they found a way to implement the Nails legion wide. All the Librarians and a minority were against it, and wanted to take Angron to Terra and have big E "fix" him with the new intel. But Kharn wanted to be just like daddy, so :pound pound pound: goes the hammer.

No no, some got the nails and they indeed lost Control on their powers and did exploded, fried their fellow WE etc and thus it was over, no more nails for the psykers

The master of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica had their powers permenantly removed by careful exposure to a culexus, so yes it can happen.

Doesn't happen often or easily, but it is possible

It can happen. In Path of the Seers (which I absolutely hate), removing parts of the brain can severely hamper psychic abilities. Being cut off like that is the highest punishment for the Aeldari. The story mentions how traitor and tyrants face this sentence.

bibotot wrote:
It can happen. In Path of the Seers (which I absolutely hate), removing parts of the brain can severely hamper psychic abilities. Being cut off like that is the highest punishment for the Aeldari. The story mentions how traitor and tyrants face this sentence.

This might be more practical for Aeldari who are all born as stable and very powerful psykers. In human, it might be more complicated since the psyker mutation is unstable and then there is the possibility of psychic powers being the result of daemonic pacts and the like.

Has the entirety of the Dark Eldar effectively lost their psychic ability?