Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

The Drukhari make heavy use of them despite their psychic ability having atrophied, so I figure that maybe it's more of a technology than a psychic power?

But even so, lots of Eldar technologies rely on things like spirit stones and wraithbone, which I figure are at least psychic-adjacent.

.

Necrons used Dolmen Gates to breach the Webway and they have no psykers, so no

I think it's kind of implied that webway portals somehow detect specifically eldar presences? Like a DNA scan or something?

In both one of the carcharadon novels and one of the Mike Brooks books, it's noted/shown that you need to have an eldar present in order to get a gate to open. In the Mike Brooks case, it was sort of implied that the opening was maybe coerced or involuntary.

And we don't see webway portals randomly opening for psychic humans. So my impression is that the critical factor is that an eldar be present; not just a psychic. Although you could maybe make the case that the webway is detecting the presence of eldar by looking for their psychic presence. (Even in the case of atrophied warp presences like drukhari.)

In Atlas Infernal Czvak has a webway portal which he has dug up and put aboard his ship, which he is able to use.
Cue a plot which is like an episode of Stargate...

All Eldar are low key psychic, even the Dark Eldar. Whether this has anything to do with the Webway I'm not sure of.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
In Atlas Infernal Czvak has a webway portal which he has dug up and put aboard his ship, which he is able to use.
Cue a plot which is like an episode of Stargate...

Thinking on it, maybe it's that they tend to vanish/hide when an eldar isn't around, but that actually activating them just requires a psyker. In the carcharadon novel, they had their drukhari prisoner actively lead them to the location of the portal because they couldn't find it in the first place. And in Void Scarred, a warboss comments on how the portals themselves just kind of vanish once eldar finish leaving through them.

So maybe it takes an eldar to reveal the portal and a psyker to open the door?

As with most things in 40k, it probably depends on the gate, and there could conceivably be multiple types.

However, Lexicanum refers to the Wrath and Glory sourcebook as follows:

“Webway Keystones are triangular Eldar Wraithbone amulets that are easily mistaken for jewellery by lesser species. The psychic micro circuitry woven into their cores allow the wearers of Webway Keystones to detect, track, open and close Webway Portals.”

Fabius Bile has managed to access some parts of the webway but I think he “made” something that lets him interact with the wraith bone. I think Eldar designed it to be activated by psykers but that function can be replaced with other technologies

… and knowing Bile, it’s probably not a cute little trinket…

Da Big Dakka shows that you need an Eldar to open the gate. It doesn’t explain exactly what they do, but it does demonstrate there are lockouts available.

As in, it’s not just any Eldar that can open any gate. So there’s definitely further security where presumably some kind of code or special thing is needed.

Caveat that this applies specifically to Commoragh and the portals linking it together. So I don’t think we can take it as read “therefore all Webway Portals”. Modifications might’ve been made, or there may be different models of Webway Portal.

Bile uses a captured Eldar Corsair, aptly called Key, to both access the webway and control the wraithbone implants on his heavily modified frigate, the Vesalius.

While basically all Eldar technology is psychic in nature, it is still technological. If you know how to "push the button" you don't need to be a psyker, though you would need some method of interacting with the portal. You could effectively have a remote control of some kind that could trigger the portal.

Any psyker with some time and effort could probably figure out how to do it themselves if they had access to a webway portal. And maybe even craft some device that would allow it to be replicated by anybody.

I don't recall anything ever saying that Webway portals have locks or other safety measures to prevent access. The security of the webway seems to rely entirely on people not finding the portals and then not RNG figuring it out. Plus the Webway itself is a maddening maze so locking the doors is a bit unnecessary.