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Pretty sure this has never been expanded on in fluff, but, what do the people here think of a Pariah manipulating his signature in the warp the same way as a Librarian? I know the Culexus use the Oculumn, but that's manipulation via technology. Could a Blank theoretically focus their signature to, say, destabilize a daemon rather than just by proximity? Could they see a warp power in use and "cut the switch"?

This could raise some interesting potential. -If Culexus can manipulate their Pariah gene with tech, could a Necron Pariah do the same? Would be interesting to see what Necron technology would be capable of. They can already build machines/materials that cut off the warp - how well could they manipulate a biological power?

Well, I'm not sure if Pariahs actually exist any more in the fluff.

Necron Pariahs are not in the current codex, but they may still exist to some extent in fluff.

Human Pariahs most definitely exist in the fluff. I was trying to think of some interesting rules for human pariahs in inquisitorial armies, but never got that into it.

I don't remember the fluff of the Necron pariahs but I assume they're pariah ability is given to them by some form of technology and is therefor limited by that technology. If it does function similar to human pariahs then basically any psychic abilities would be nullified within a certain area. And I suppose could simply "cut the switch" as you put it.

Pariah's wee harvested from humans that had the "Pariah" gene - which was implanted in human DNA by the C'Tan as part of a master plan.

Necron pariahs may still exist as Thomas MacAbee hasn't't been retconned out of existence, but they are likely just battle capable curiosities made by crypteks out of boredom rather than elite combat units that see regular battlefield use. They'd also likely be second class citizens in a necron dynasty.

 Kain wrote:
Necron pariahs may still exist as Thomas MacAbee hasn't't been retconned out of existence,

I wouldn't be so sure. The Necron codex doesn't mention them at all. Good old Tom may be retconned, which is truly tragic.

And the answer is yes, IIRC, a Sister of Silence focused her UNTOUCHABLE POWAH to destroy a Bloodthirster in combat.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 Kain wrote:
Necron pariahs may still exist as Thomas MacAbee hasn't't been retconned out of existence,

I wouldn't be so sure. The Necron codex doesn't mention them at all. Good old Tom may be retconned, which is truly tragic.

And the answer is yes, IIRC, a Sister of Silence focused her UNTOUCHABLE POWAH to destroy a Bloodthirster in combat.

Well, the Kronus campaign and the Cain books, both of which feature pariahs seem to be canon, but perhaps we can rationalize them. The Necron Lord at Kronus may have still been under the spell of a shard of the nightbringer, and was thus favored by greater access to blanks to turn into pariahs, which could be something utilized only by C'tan loyalists. Or perhaps his Cryptek started converting humans into new Necrons as part of a recruitment drive. Something similar could also be said of the Simia based Necrons, and to be fair they only had a single squad of them on the entire tombworld, so it'd fit with the theory that Pariahs are now mostly an experimental curiosity.

And yes, it would be tragic if the good Doctor was no longer a part of 40k canon, he was spine chillingly terrifying.

You can rationalize pre-existing works to fit in with the new fluff, but that doesn't make it not a retcon, IMHO.

He's basically my favorite character in the series, with basically my favorite line in the series, as seen below.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
You can rationalize pre-existing works to fit in with the new fluff, but that doesn't make it not a retcon, IMHO.

He's basically my favorite character in the series, with basically my favorite line in the series, as seen below.

True enough.

And I couldn't agree more, he sold me on the oldcrons. I love how he so casually deconstructed the ideas of each faction while simultaneously crushing their hopes in each stronghold mission. Well, except for the Chaos stronghold mission where the Necron lord himself verbally smacked Eliphas without even saying anything intelligible. (Up there with Eliphas futilely trying to get his messages across to O'Kais)

Really Dark Crusade was just so chock full of awesome characters. But my favorites definitely had to be Tom, Gorgutz, and Kais (just for the chaos stronghold dialogue) in that order.

Ferros wrote:
Pretty sure this has never been expanded on in fluff, but, what do the people here think of a Pariah manipulating his signature in the warp the same way as a Librarian? I know the Culexus use the Oculumn, but that's manipulation via technology. Could a Blank theoretically focus their signature to, say, destabilize a daemon rather than just by proximity? Could they see a warp power in use and "cut the switch"?

This could raise some interesting potential. -If Culexus can manipulate their Pariah gene with tech, could a Necron Pariah do the same? Would be interesting to see what Necron technology would be capable of. They can already build machines/materials that cut off the warp - how well could they manipulate a biological power?

Such tech is most definitely in the fluff: they're all throughout Eisenhorn. He recruits and creates an organization of female blanks, plus the new trilogy is about a female blank.

Blanks naturally repulse those around them, and can have "limiters," technological devices, that dampen the repulsing effects of their blankness. By switching off such a limiter in the presence of a demon, they can indeed all of the sudden render it powerless / banish it. The limiter lets them hang out and be merely meh, rather than repulsing those around them for reasons the offended couldn't specify...

DarkApothecary wrote:

Ferros wrote:
Pretty sure this has never been expanded on in fluff, but, what do the people here think of a Pariah manipulating his signature in the warp the same way as a Librarian? I know the Culexus use the Oculumn, but that's manipulation via technology. Could a Blank theoretically focus their signature to, say, destabilize a daemon rather than just by proximity? Could they see a warp power in use and "cut the switch"?

This could raise some interesting potential. -If Culexus can manipulate their Pariah gene with tech, could a Necron Pariah do the same? Would be interesting to see what Necron technology would be capable of. They can already build machines/materials that cut off the warp - how well could they manipulate a biological power?

Such tech is most definitely in the fluff: they're all throughout Eisenhorn. He recruits and creates an organization of female blanks, plus the new trilogy is about a female blank.

Blanks naturally repulse those around them, and can have "limiters," technological devices, that dampen the repulsing effects of their blankness. By switching off such a limiter in the presence of a demon, they can indeed all of the sudden render it powerless / banish it. The limiter lets them hang out and be merely meh, rather than repulsing those around them for reasons the offended couldn't specify...

If the Imperium can create blanks why does it not just create a legion of space marines that are blank and send them on a crusade against chaos?

I'm not sure the Imperium can actually create them, just that it can build the limiter devices that allow them to deactivate their blank traits.

However, seeing as Eisenhorn had the resources to recruit enough blanks to set up an academy for them (and he's just one Inquisitor), it does beg the question of why the High Lords of Terra don't instigate an initiative to start creating blank Marines.

Blanks can certainly be extremely powerful...Jurgen has essentially acted as an off switch against every psyker and warp creature he's gone up against. Seems like they might have "power levels" like psykers. On the other hand, Eisenhorn's sidekick Bequin was powerful, but she still came up against an opponent whose sheer psychic strength was enough to KO her.

As Fezman stated, they can't create blanks as there is a 'limiter,' field of technology.

As I recall, Eisenhorn, though being just one inquisitor he was something of an uber-inquisitor with enormous resources (undersea bases, a small space armada, holdings on luxury worlds, etc.), and, I may be wrong on this, but his Distaff (the blank organization) was groundbreaking/cutting-edge/new, which explains that whole "why no one else have blank academy?" thing away, sort of.

I'm still wondering: what are the blanks/pariahs? What is the 'grim harvest,' that I see tossed around (the Necrons having implanted the pariah gene for a sinister harvest or somesuch)?

They repulse normal entities, and blank out psyker powers as well as Demons. It seems like a gene that, if applied through gene-therapies species wide, would make us all grumpy but free us of the threat of chaos.

Will the harvesters really be the C'tan, whom would have a perfect worship race free of the warp?


EDIT: I forgot like the whole plot of Pariah. There ARE Blank academies. Its extremely hush-hush, however. Einsenhorn had one of the only, I think the only imperial one mentioned in the fluff. Others exist, usually in service to Chaos/w/e.

 ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:
Well, I'm not sure if Pariahs actually exist any more in the fluff.

Pariahs / Blanks / Untouchables / Soulless exist still.

They do not, however, necessarily have any "powers", aside from a complete immunity to psychic powers and the energies of the warp, and a tendency to make it harder on psykers trying to use their powers around them (or just harder on psykers in general).

As far as "Blank academies" go, there's only one that I know of in "modern" 40k (M.41), and that's the Culexis temple of assassins. Their "powers" are actually technology which makes use of their Blank status.

Lexicanum states that the Imperium can "vat-grow" them, but it doesn't list a source so I can't say how accurate that is.

As it lists no source, it's safe to assume it's fan-fiction.

Lexicanum is tighter on that stuff than 40kWiki is, but some still slips through. For a while, they didn't have any citation on the lines about there being only a single Sister that had been corrupted, for example. Still not sure if they did (it was a short story about Miriael Sabathiel and a fluff excerpt on the TCG that they tried to release, if memory serves).



edit: Ah ,there it is, "The Invitation", by Dan Abnett.

If a psyker appears in only 1 out of every 1 million human births in the Imperium, Blanks/Untouchables appear in only 1 in 1 million of these. They are incredibly rare.

As far as the Distaff goes... well, Inquisitors are wealthy, wealthy people. The Inquisition itself is wealthy beyond mortal comprehension. It's really not unusual for a veteran Inquisitor to have holdings on several worlds, a personal transport craft, several "blind" bank accounts, alternate identities (that exist for almost all purposes within the Administratum), and all the other trappings of being, basically, James Bond in the 41st millennium.

Untouchables themselves, though, just generate an aura that is a canceling out of the Warp. They have a negative Warp signature (if psykers glow in the Warp, Blanks are black spots) and cannot be directly affected by psychic powers or daemonic attacks. They can even sever a Warp creature's link to the material universe, causing them to be banished. Of course, a daemon in a physical host body cannot be banished without a rite of exorcism and, though it cannot use its magic powers against a Blank, nothing stops the Daemonhost from simply walking over and pulling the Blank's head off of his neck.

A Blank's powers also does not stop a Telekine from picking up a piano or a car and dropping it on the Blank from a very great height. Squish.

Nor does it stop someone from simply shooting them, because nobody likes the soulless freaks.

Maybe the reason know one makes a Chapter of Blabks is because of the power they would have. They would so difficult to deal with if they decided to go renegade. They would be just as powerful militarily as another chapter, making it costly to outroght destroy them using Imperial Guard. A single other chapter couldn't do it without themselves taking equal or more casualties. The aura of whatever would inhibit the enemies somewhat and prevent their Librarians from properly joining the fray.

Nd what if Abaddon or someone managed to enlist their aid. There goes the GK. Sure, the Daemons wouldn't be around but without their Warp Connection the GK are at a severe handicap even with all their shiny stuff.

Everyone likes Bequin.

Abnett forgot that people are supposed to hate blanks 30 mintues after he introduced her.

Abnett frequently mentions that it takes Eisenhorn rather a long time to get over his initial impressions, and the Untouchable nature, of Bequin until he can see her for the person she is.

He also mentions, in the couple of scenes where Gregor and Bequin are in close physical proximity, that she causes him physical pain to be so close to. This is why the two of them never hook up.

Plus he should be vomiting on the floor because of her presence, and my interpretation is that you when you are in contract with a blank wants to kick her ass.

Most people react badly to Blanks because they have something undefinable about them that makes them, well, a pariah. This is theorized to be because they're utterly soulless, which is something that, no matter how much you may like or dislike about another human being, you at least have something fundamentally in common with them. Not so with Blanks.

 Deadshot wrote:
Maybe the reason know one makes a Chapter of Blabks is because of the power they would have. They would so difficult to deal with if they decided to go renegade. They would be just as powerful militarily as another chapter, making it costly to outroght destroy them using Imperial Guard. A single other chapter couldn't do it without themselves taking equal or more casualties. The aura of whatever would inhibit the enemies somewhat and prevent their Librarians from properly joining the fray.

Nd what if Abaddon or someone managed to enlist their aid. There goes the GK. Sure, the Daemons wouldn't be around but without their Warp Connection the GK are at a severe handicap even with all their shiny stuff.

Abaddon would freak out at the mere presence of a chapter of blanks as they'd suppress if not outright destroy his blessings of chaos and his blade.

 Psienesis wrote:
Most people react badly to Blanks because they have something undefinable about them that makes them, well, a pariah. This is theorized to be because they're utterly soulless, which is something that, no matter how much you may like or dislike about another human being, you at least have something fundamentally in common with them. Not so with Blanks.

I'm sure you mean Pariahs not blanks as the last sentence.

The Pariah really have hell as a life.

The non-Necron Pariah is what a Blank or Untouchable is often referred to as. They may, indeed, be soulless, as they lack any capacity to be affected by Warp-born abilities. The anti-social aura that Blanks put off leads to them being pariahs.