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Can assasins be corrupted by chaos? Well, I'm almost sure thaey can, but perhaps there's some special training or mechanism of resisting Ruinous Powers

I mean, if inquisitors can be turned to Chaos I would imagine most people can. Granted inquisitors spend a lot of time around Chaos, but so do some assassins.

I would imagine it would be more difficult to turn an Eversor since they are already bloodcrazed drug-pumped maniacs. Like, what's Khorne gonna do with an Eversor... make him angrier?

Well... Posess him with a daemon and launch him to kill loyalists, not his daemonkin?
If Eversor kills for Khorne it'll be more "food" for Lord of Skulls, no?

There's no evidence to confirm it one way or another. That said, it should be assumed that there is an element of extreme difficulty with assassins.

First of all, all assassins are deployed on a specific mission and then recalled back to their ships/temples once the job is done. Chaos would have a very limited amount of time to turn that person, who has an exceptionally strong willpower. There would not be time to wear them down with language and symbols, since the assassin is there to drop one guy and get out. There's no glory or politics in the assassins themselves, there's very little for Chaos to get its fingers into and hold with. Further, there are issues on the individual types of assassins.

Vindicares are snipers. How does a demagogue or sorcerer corrupt someone they are unaware of and is a huge distance away? While the gods may do something, that is really the only avenue to get to them, which carries a bunch of other stipulations to make it work.

As clamclaw said, Eversors are frothing lunatics already. And even if Khorne could get to them in the short time that they are out of stasis, the chemical cocktail in the Eversor makes them a ticking time bomb (I believe, though I have not recently checked this) before they blow up on their own. The rest of the time, Eversors are asleep and only activated for a mission.

Culexus are blanks and effectively soulless. It is quite possible that a daemon would have trouble sensing them, let alone tolerating any kind of prolonged contact. Remember that they are anathema to the Warp, just the presence of an Eversor is dangerous to psychic beings. Chaos would not want them around.

Finally, Callidus...they a probably the most vulnerable as they would have to infiltrate such things and part of that infiltration is adopting their habits and practices. This puts them in the greatest potential danger, but also marks out the quality of their willpower and training that they are sent anyway. Of all the assassins though, I would imagine that the Callidus raises the most potential for chaos infestation, more due to inadvertent corruption than giving in to it. The scene that comes to mind is a Callidus infiltrating a Word Bearers' cult, participating in some ritual to maintain her cover and that ritual opens her up for possesion.

Exalted.

 curran12 wrote:
As clamclaw said, Eversors are frothing lunatics already. And even if Khorne could get to them in the short time that they are out of stasis, the chemical cocktail in the Eversor makes them a ticking time bomb (I believe, though I have not recently checked this) before they blow up on their own. The rest of the time, Eversors are asleep and only activated for a mission.

There was a tread not long ago about picking up eversors. If they were time bombs it would be much more difficult. One-shot super killing machine is such a waste of resource.

Ah and I stand corrected. Eversors are only bombs once their vital functions cease. So chalk that up as a misinterpretation on my end. That said, the Eversor's MO makes corruption difficult I would say, as the guy is pumped full of drugs and has spent goodness knows how long being trained to be utterly loyal to the Imperium. Lexicanum says that Eversors are used frequently to purge corrupt elements, so it would stand to reason that the assassins are extremely uncorruptable.

I've never heard of a corrupted assassin and it does seem unlikely,but not impossible.

Chaos can of course train it's own assassins. Nemesis is a good read around this topic

And the follow-up to Nemesis, the short story Gunsight, shows exactly how a Vindicare can fall to chaos.

Death cult assassins often convert to Khorne. I suppose another question would be, do chaos have the means to create assassins, rather than corrupt existing ones. Maybe convert one and make up some fluff?

I think what Chaos has and does not have for resources is so variable in fluff. Some fluff Chaos is simply marauding warbands barely capable of speech.

My personally preferred fluff has them as plotting and intelligent warriors with infrastructure and tactics. In this version I would say they are capable of training assassins for their own goals.

 clamclaw wrote:
I think what Chaos has and does not have for resources is so variable in fluff. Some fluff Chaos is simply marauding warbands barely capable of speech.

My personally preferred fluff has them as plotting and intelligent warriors with infrastructure and tactics. In this version I would say they are capable of training assassins for their own goals.

A lot of Chaos IS just simple marauding warbands barely capable of speech *cough* Khorne *cough*, while a lot of it is also quite intelligent (see: BL, WB, Fulgrim, etc.) and more than capable of training assassins, however they wouldn't have access to the same level of resources that the Imperium can bring to the fore when it comes to arming them, training them, and indoctrinating them.

Spiritual corruption, or corruption of temptation, is something that is likely to be almost impossible for assassins. They would not have time, and they are so single-minded so it's difficult regardless.

Physical corruption is an entirely different matter. Being turned to serve Chaos forcefully is something that happened to an entire order of SoB (dragged into Chaos by a single SoB who succumbed to the above corruption type). Corruption of the sort that caused the disaster of the Abyssal Crusade could easily corrupt an assassin.

The Crusade met with disaster, and each of the Chapters which took part in it had their tale ended in great misfortune. On the world of Anathrax, the Iron Drakes were consumed by the diseased-ridden living vegetation and Plague Marines of the world. The surviving members became the Grey Death Chaos Space Marines.
The Sentinels landed on Oliensis, discovering that the entire Daemon World was the form of a morbidly obese man. Ambushed by a force of Noise Marines, they were eventually swallowed up by the planet itself. When they emerged back into reality, they had been corrupted into a cannibalistic Slaaneshi warband known as the Corpus Brethren.
In the Void Galathamar, the Knights Excelsior fought desperately against Daemon Engines on the distorted and disorientating world of Temporia. Eventually managing to escape back to their ships, the Warpsmith Valadrak created an electricity-Daemon and set it loose upon the Knights fleet. The Machine Spirits of the Space Marines ships rebelled, and with their fleet in disarray the Knights were overrun by pursuing Daemon Engines. Less then a year later, the renegade Magma Hounds emerged.

Or, what happened to the Blood Disciples, which is going to corrupt pretty much anyone short of a Grey Knight.

In 888.M37, the Emperor's Tarot indicated a great Chaos threat from the worlds of the Eye of Terror. The 8th Company of the Emperor's Wolves was dispatched to deal with the threat, encountering a twisted hermit known as the Red Prophet. Slaying the heretical preacher, all those touched by his blood instantly became devoted to Khorne. Eventually the entire chapter was exposed and they renamed themselves the Blood Disciples.

The Culexus are immune, being Blanks. Otherwise? Yeah.

They can, but Assassins ending up in Chaos hands would be near impossible because:

A.) They're brainwashed and brutalized by children to be absolutely loyal and devoid of emotion

B.) They have self-destruct gak and heavy monitoring

Getting brutalized by children cannot look good on a resume....

jareddm wrote:And the follow-up to Nemesis, the short story Gunsight, shows exactly how a Vindicare can fall to chaos.

The Horus Heresy is a very different time to "modern" 40k. We're talking about a timeframe when the only people who knew the truth about Chaos were openly courting it(Erebus/Lorgar) or at war with it(The Emperor and the Eldar)

JamesY wrote:Death cult assassins often convert to Khorne. I suppose another question would be, do chaos have the means to create assassins, rather than corrupt existing ones. Maybe convert one and make up some fluff?

Death Cultists aren't "Assassins", they're "assassins". The capitals make a difference in this case.
And they don't "often convert to Khorne", but rather Death Cults can be a front for Khornate cults when first established or it can take generations for the corruption of these groups to settle in.

As it stands, Chaos can certainly have Assassins--just not the same scale as what we see with the Imperium of Man, which has what effectively amounts to an "institution" whose job it is to produce these Assassins. Rather than a technologically enhanced madman in the form of the Eversor, you might see something similar to "Spear" from "Nemesis", a man bonded to a Daemon and sent forth to kill someone important.

 Psienesis wrote:
Getting brutalized by children cannot look good on a resume....

Exalted. Made me laugh loud enough someone came to my office. I had to tell them I got a funny text.