Corruption and Faith

One of the great primordial truths of the universe is that Gods (or at least supernatural entities indistinguishable from what human mythologies treat as Gods) are very real. There are terrible things that exist beyond the veil of reality in the warp that feed on the soul of humans, and, if their claims are to be believed, all souls come to them, eventually. However, it is from the souls they can twist and bind to their service that they get the finest meal from. Unsurprisingly, they constantly whisper, constantly beckon in dreams, and in the silence between lies. Your dreams and your lies, Agent.

Corruption is represented by a process of temptation - before each event you will be issued a set of four Corruption Cards. The face of each corruption card contains two important entries: the first is the Temptation, and the second is the Threshold.

Temptation is a power often triggered by a need for just a -little- more power to do something. Very likely for the best reasons, like protecting a friend from harm, or saving innocents. The power offered by the temptation will give you that push each time you call on it to succeed - and that is where the danger with these things lies: it's’ easy to give in when there isn’t an obvious price for it.

On lower level cards, this power will be subtle, as are the results, and they will not draw too much attention -- but as you fall more into temptation, the ‘gifts’ become more powerful, as well as far more obvious to others.

The Threshold is the number of times you can use a power before the grip on your soul gets tighter. The exact Threshold depends on what power has taken an interest in you -- certain falls are faster than others. Not all corruption is necessarily related to Chaos, however - for there are other things - other dark, dangerous things - out there in the universe that wish to draw you away from the light of the Imperium. But regardless of what thing comes from you, all corruption is deeply personal.

Corruption comes (as noted) in levels of progression: each time you reach the Threshold on a card, you must progress to the next level of Corruption. It is possible, however, for a character to be desperate enough to need to go straight to one of the higher tiers. In this case, they can use the card, but at the price of progressing past the Threshold of all previous levels, with the card’s level becoming their current Corruption level. Do note this can mean that your character becomes irredeemably corrupted, as higher levels of Corruption are hard to remove.

Progressing through your Corruption cards is always consensual: other than accessing a Temptation of higher level, the only way to advance in Corruption level is to willingly deal with the Dark Gods and their Daemons, or to handle and utilise Corrupted Objects. At this point, the Game Team may decide you have to push you up to a certain level of Corruption, to represent having done significant damage to your soul. Still, you can always choose not to make such deals.

The levels of Corruption are:

Brushed > Tempted > Touched > Marked > Overwhelmed

While a character who is Brushed or Tempted has some sense of the wrongness they are tapping into, a character who becomes Touched or Marked is actively under the influence of something terrible, and mentally do not want to give up what they have been given: either because they are willingly turning to the service of the source of their power, or because their perception is so twisted that they become arrogant enough to believe they can get away with it.

You should look over your four first cards in advance, to plan how you might roleplay them when they are activated.

The Price of Corruption

In addition to the four cards that were issued to you previous to the game (and that you can read beforehand), at the event, all players will be issued with a fifth hidden card: this is known as the Overwhelmed card, and is revealed only when the character passes the Threshold of their Marked card.

The Imperium says that the price of temptations are always paid in full when the end comes… but the Imperium is dogmatic and hidebound. Perhaps the powers beyond are far kinder, and all you will get is your just reward for being less blinkered…

Faith and Fire

A character that purchases the Faith and Fire trait replaces their Corruption cards with Faith cards. This is a trait that represents utter and total devotion to one's faith. Where Corruption is a comfortable path, littered with rewards that will lead (according to the Imperium) to damnation, walking in Faith brings pain and suffering, and its rewards reaped only at the end.

Mechanically, Faith cards are identical to Corruption ones, with a Trial (instead of Temptation) that represent the trials and manifestations of Faith as they devote themselves to whatever they worship, as well as a Threshold that, when reached, will progress the character to the next level of Faith.

The thematic difference is deliberate: while Temptations freely gives you powers to immediately help yourself and others, Trials only grant benefits in response to negative triggers - and their rewards are far more subtle then their corrupting counterparts.

Characters with Faith will also be issued with an Overwhelmed card, representing the promised ‘reward’ for staying true to their path.

Unlike Corruption, a character can never choose to increase their level of Faith willingly to reclaim a higher reward - there are no shortcuts with Faith. Additionally, the Threshold of the “Marked” card may not be numeric, but may have a specific condition that must be met before the character becomes Overwhelmed.

Note that, while this section on Faith -presumes- worship of the God Emperor, alternative focuses of Faith can be discussed with the game team.

Damnation

The Imperium bandies the term ‘Damned’ around casually: a true scholar of the warp would refer to the Damned as those whose souls are so tainted that they are irretrievably promised to the powers they have accepted the gifts of.

There are three ways a character can become Damned:

• A character pursues their Corruption track until they are Overwhelmed.

• A character with Faith and Fire abandons their Faith to willingly deal with dark powers. When such individuals fall, they do so by their own choice, with nobody to blame but themselves for being too weak as there will be no dark whispers in their dreams.

• Finally, both the hardest and swiftest method: a character with specialised knowledge of daemonology can make a deal in which their soul is offered as the price in exchange for power, damning themselves instantly.

Being Damned carries a number of effects:

• A Damned soul can never be a Penitent one; there is no redemption offered by the Imperium that can fix the damage done. This does not mean that the character has been turned by the Dark Gods, they may even be sorry for their actions - but even if they spend the rest of their days being saintly, they are always aware that their soul will go to the Dark Gods upon death.

• A Damned character's Corruption or Faith cards are replaced by Damnation cards, these are potent powers given by whatever has corrupted them - they are still consensual, as a Damned character still has a choice not to give in and use them.

• When a Damned character reaches the Threshold of their Marked Damnation card, they cease to be treated as a player character. This represents them fully embracing Chaos, and becoming a Cultist. From this point on, the character is an NPC working against the Imperium and the Inquisition.

Redemption

Characters who are on any level of Corruption up to Touched can still be saved from the corruption clinging onto their soul. This healing process is called Repentance and involves the character suffering Penance or an Exorcism depending on the severity of their taint.

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

Characters who are Damned or have Faith tracks cannot seek Redemption in any way. Only those with Corruption tracks can be redeemed.

A character can only benefit from Penance once per event. The guiding theme of Penance is that a price must ALWAYS be paid by the character - in some mental or physical fashion - to restore the sanctity of their soul.

After a character has completed the penance (following the roleplay guidelines below) they may drop their Corruption by one level (i.e Marked->Touched). A character who has undergone Penance may not use any of their Temptation powers until the next Sunrise - unless they actively attempt to make a deal with whatever power has been seeking their soul.

Roleplaying Redemption

The process of Repentance is a combination of a character seeking Guidance and undergoing Penance.

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 penance. Within the Imperium, those trained to deal with situations such as this are traditionally Priests of either the Machine or Imperial Cults (this 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 (as well as other pillars of Imperial authority) might also serve the same purpose. There is no specific Trait required to oversee a character’s Penance.

Penance represents that there is no ‘easy way’ out of ridding yourself of Corruption 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 Penance, as it affects the character quite deeply on either a mental or physical level, or both.

Though the process of the Penance does not have to be public or ‘shouty’ in itself, the resulting impact (mental or physical) should be noticeable to other characters (ritual scarification, brands, heavily impacted functioning for a number of scenes, etc.) that the Penitent character has undergone some form of suffering.