Corruption and Faith

Corruption is the ever-present temptation faced by characters to call upon the dark things beyond the veil of reality, things that whisper promises of power in their dreams, or just beyond hearing. Corruption cards offer great powers unique to the character’s nature, but for the price of the slow moral degradation of the character’s soul until it is finally twisted towards some dark purpose of the chaos gods.

There are five levels of Corruption, representing increasingly severe states of the characters soul. The cards are read in the following order:

Tempted > Brushed > Touched > Marked > Overwhelmed

You should look over the first four cards in advance, to plan how you might roleplay them when they are activated; the final Overwhelmed card should only be read when it becomes applicable. The standard anatomy of the card looks like this:

Descending into Corruption

The process of becoming corrupted is the slow degradation of the soul as a result of personal choices. The methods by which you can increase in corruption are as follows:

• The first and easiest way to increase your Corruption is to use the ‘Corruption Power’ on your card. Doing this ‘cues’ you to increase your corruption. If you look at the ‘cue’ section on your corruption card you will see the number of cues it takes to increase you to the next level of corruption.

• The cue [Target(s)] I test thee can be resisted by expending a single point of Willpower, however, if you have no Willpower remaining you increase your Corruption one full Level (e.g. Brushed→ Touched) and should approach a Game Team member for an additional warp effect. In certain situations failing to resist this can have far worse consequences.

• Sometimes, in a moment of true desperation you might want to Beseech the Warp for Aid by willingly reaching out to the powers beyond the veil of reality, and seek the unholy intervention of the Dark Gods or one of their Servants. You may immediately access all the powers available via your Corruption Track, you can use these up to three times before you can recuperate. You may also approach the game team with a specific request for a specific boon - this boon may be given, but be careful how you word your wish. Your character immediately becomes Damned. Even if you have no additional requests after you have Beseeched the Warp for Aid, and used the power, you should seek out a Ref for additional consequences.

Faith and Fire

Faith and Fire is a trait that replaces a Chaos-related Corruption track with an identical path related to the specific god-like entity that your character has pledged themselves to. Most commonly this is the God-Emperor whose power is vast but not entirely complete in the same way that the Dark Gods are. Unlike characters with Corruption, characters with Faith and Fire cannot 'beseech' their chosen entity for aid and so only advance their tracks by resisting the cue [Target(s)] I test thee or by using the powers on their cards.

Characters with Faith and Fire do not become Damned as such but are at risk at becoming Transfixed by the strength of their Faith this grants them a unique trait similar to being Damned but with little risk of being driven -so- insane by faith that they will become unplayable but increasingly irrational.

Becoming Damned and becoming a Cultist

When a character reaches Overwhelmed by Corruption' or Beseeches the Warp for Aid if they survive their soul is considered to be Damned this is a permanent state for them representing that they were weak enough to invite the powers of the warp in, and that they have an indelible stain on their soul now it has its benefits, and its curse - but most importantly it replaces the 'Corruption Track' with a 'Damnation Track' - this is similar, however Damned characters are incredibly vulnerable to possession and can be randomly effected by whispered compulsions (represented by Would you Kindly? calls) from daemonic influences.

Should a Damned character Beseech the Warp for Aid' or reach the end of their Damnation track they will become a Cultist of the Dark Gods as the influence over their actions becomes so profound as to be indistinguishable from breathing or sleeping. A Cultist is effectively an NPC.

Saving Souls from Corruption

Characters who are on any level of Corruption up to Touched can be saved from the corruption clinging onto their soul - this healing process is called Repentance and involves the character suffering an Ordeal or an Exorcism.

Only Exorcists have any chance of rescuing a soul that has become Marked or Overwhelmed.

A soul that has been Damned can be saved, but the act of purification is normally utterly fatal (traditionally it involves burning the individual at the stake).

A character can only benefit from an Ordeal once per event. The guiding theme of Ordeals is that a price must ALWAYS be paid by the character in some mental or physical fashion to restore the sanctity of their soul – the process of repentance is a combination of a character seeking Guidance and undergoing an Ordeal.

The need for Guidance represents the need for a character to reach out to an individual of significant spiritual importance to guide them back to the ‘path’. A character seeking this should approach one (or more) other characters, who will serve as the ‘anchors’ who will aid them through the ordeal. Within the Imperium the figures who are trained to aid citizens suffering like this are traditionally Priests of either the Machine or Imperial Cults, which is why most branches of the Imperium have some kind of chaplaincy. It is important to believe strongly in the spiritual guidance of the other individual, and Commissars and indeed other pillars of Imperial authority might also serve the same value. There is no specific Trait required to oversee an Ordeal.

An Ordeal represents that there is no ‘easy way’ out of ridding yourself of Blight and it should have a deep impact on the character undergoing it. Though the ordeal itself doesn't have to be performed with great fanfare (though it is allowed and encouraged to do so), you should roleplay the price paid in an obvious and distinct manner. A change should occur in the character between the moment before and after the Ordeal and it should affect the character quite deeply on either a mental or physical level, probably both.

Though the process of the Ordeal does not have to be public or ‘shouty’ in itself, the resulting impact (mental or physical) should be shown in such a way as to be clear and distinct to other players (ritual scarification, brands, heavily impacted functioning for a number of scenes, etc.) that the character has undergone some form of suffering after which you drop your Corruption one level (i.e Marked->Touched).