Removing Chaos Taint?

[Brother Captain Andrew]

Hi everybody, I've been looking at background for IA:Nemesis and for individual characters and was wondering how the taint of chaos is removed?

 

There are weapons like the gauntlets of ultramar or the axe morkai that used to be chaos weapons are used by the Ultramarines and Space Wolves so obviously chaos weapons (not daemon possessed obviously) can be "fixed". What about larger things, like heavy armor and space ships? I haven't been able to find anything one way or another yet, but my guess was that as long as it wasn't possessed then the item in question was valuable enough then it would be possible to bring it back to the imperium's use.

[Ecritter]

Being Tainted by Chaos, for non-possessed items, for the most part is just in the heads of the Imperium in my opinion. So, going by that a complicated 'purging' ceremony by Chaplains or perhaps Inquisitors would work. This would have to be a long, drawn out affair with lots of chanting and whatnot ... but in the end just for show.

[soddinnutter]

In the book Only In Death by Dan Abnett there is a soldier who took the weapon of a soldier of chaos. He believed it to be a weapon chaos of whose machine spirit had felt the touch of damnation by the way it would occasionally not fire or discharge all its ammunition in one blast. It was no more than his brain playing tricks on him and the fact that it had had years of no real maintenance in the care of its previous owner. But to him it was real.

 

Also if it is something smart enough to have a computer and an actual Machine Spirit (Titans, Land Raiders, Space Ships not sure about Power Armour) then the deamon could be very real and be occupying the hard drive like it would a human brain. For these things the only way to be 99% sure and safe is to melt them down back into their base materials by a foundry/forge-priest of the Machine God and start again. Cleansing effects of the flame and all that.

[Heru]

...the infamous Night Hag was formerly the flagship of the darkly fated Rogue Trader house of Revvokan which fell to Chaos before being wiped out by the Imperium, and the ship itself was refitted and claimed as a prize of battle by the Executioners Chapter.

 

In the aftermath of the battle, the Executioners took the Night Hag as their prize. With assistance of the Archmagos masters of Gryphonne IV they successfully purged the mighty warship of taint and refitted it to the Chapter's purposes. In return the Magos were allowed to remove certain relic-technologies from the vessel and were granted free access to the ancient and unique lore stored in it's data-tabernacle.

[SnakeoilSage]

Another way of looking at it is the changing mentality of humankind. Willpower and belief are what shapes the Warp. The weakening veil between Reality and the Immaterium is creating a galaxy where a powerful will can shape the universe as he sees it, at least in minor ways. The Grey Knight Codex reflects on this: its greatest heroes are men who seem to bend reality to their will: of incorruptible warriors wandering the Warp, of a warrior summoning up ghosts to fight at his side, of a swordsman wielding a daemonic blade but denying the entity within. They are clearly wielding sorcerous/psychic powers, but deny the baser elements of their nature that allow the darker elements of the Warp to take hold.

 

My point is that a weapon of Chaos can be tainted by it, because its wielder believes it is tainted or is tainted himself. The Warp alters it to reflect that belief. But then Space Marine comes along, slays the wielder and claims the weapon, purifying it with rituals until he believes it is cleansed. The Warp then alters it further to reflect the purity the wielder believes it possesses.

 

The Warp, in and of itself, is not evil. Even the forces of Chaos believe this: the Chaos Gods aren't evil, they are just as they are, powerful figments of base human emotions given form and sentience, receiving godlike power from mortal beings because we feel Khorne's rage, or Nurgle's nihilism, or Tzeentch's deviousness or Slaanesh's vanity. Conversely when we feel justice, or righteousness, or hope or compassion, elements of the Warp that are fueled by those beliefs gain strength as well. Since the Emperor is used as the symbol of those feelings in the 41st Millennium, it stands to reason that he (or a Warp entity that thinks it is him) gains power from it.

 

So while it is accurate to say that Chaos taint and Imperial purity are "just in the heads" of the people who believe such things... that doesn't mean such things aren't real.

[War Angel]

Well said brother