Some lore questions

[Isghamor]

I'm trying to write a stroy set in the warhammer universe but there are some minor details that are not well explained or totally miss from the wikis:

 

1) Does the Adepta Sororitas have a maximum age after which you can't join anymore?(could someone in his 20s join)

 

2) How does civilians travel on a planet (by car, by hovercrafts, ecc.)?

 

3) Is chaos corruption a slow and steady process or it can reach a critical point(like the black rage) from where you can't go back anymore (being conscious about reaching this limit)?

 

Thanks 

[Grotsmasha]

1-if i recall correctly, the Apdepta Sororitas recruit young children from Imperial orphanges, quite often children whos parents are kllled by their work for the Imperium.

2- it depends. The rich travel by air car, but in every instance ive read, the poor use mass tranaportation, usually mag trains.

3- Menatlly, the fall to Chaos can be slow, and perhaps turned from, but ojce physical symptoms appear, theres no coming back.

 

Cheers,

Jono

[Tarvek Val]

1 - I believe Grotsmasha is right about this.

 

2 - Civilians do have cars. Rogue Trader originally came out with the "City Car", which is a four-wheeled ground vehicle comparable to cars today. Rich civilians are likely to own their own cars / have chauffeurs and all, poor civilians are likely to use mass transportation as Grotsmasha mentioned. Rural communities are likely to have farm vehicles and equipment of some sort.

 

3 - Oftentimes, Chaos corruption occurs slowly and the person does not even realize what is happening to them until they are a servant of the Dark Powers. In the Word Bearers omnibus, a guardsman who is captured by the Chaos Marines clings to his faith in the Emperor. He is devout, he thinks... But when he is the last one of the Word Bearer's slaves alive, he realizes that his faith and sanity are gone. He falls to the lure of Chaos and gains the attention of so many catharses that the Word Bearers are jealous! So, while it is possible for someone to resist the lure of Chaos, it is unlikely. And! If the Inquisition, Sisters of Battle, or Space Marines suspect the taint of Chaos in a person / populace, they will stop at nothing to eradicate it, even if their victims are *mostly* innocent.

 

Hope this helps.

[Isghamor]

Thanks for your answers :)

 

1-if i recall correctly, the Apdepta Sororitas recruit young children from Imperial orphanges, quite often children whos parents are kllled by their work for the Imperium.

for example let's say A needs the help of the Sororitas to do something (let's say to overthrow B,which has committed crimes against the sororitas but he's a powerful politician) could the prioress decide to help A as long as she joins the sororitas helping them in a difficult campaign(A is very good at fighting)?

 

I know it sounds contorted but to explain the full situation it would take a wall of text ;)

[Grotsmasha]

Thanks for your answers

 

1-if i recall correctly, the Apdepta Sororitas recruit young children from Imperial orphanges, quite often children whos parents are kllled by their work for the Imperium.

for example let's say A needs the help of the Sororitas to do something (let's say to overthrow B,which has committed crimes against the sororitas but he's a powerful politician) could the prioress decide to help A as long as she joins the sororitas helping them in a difficult campaign(A is very good at fighting)?

 

I know it sounds contorted but to explain the full situation it would take a wall of text

 

The Sororitas are the Militant wing of the "Church" (can't recall how to spell correct name), so if A could prove/misconstrue B's crimes as "religious" crimes then securing the Sororitas aid would be easier, vs if it was a straight up political fued.

 

Cheers,

Jono

[Doctor Perils]

1- grotsmasha is correct about the orphans being recruited, generally from the Schola Progenium: http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Schola_Progenium

I'm sorry to say I don't believe a person in their 20s would be able to undergo the indoctrination of the sororitas, and therefore wouldn't be able to become a battle sister. To join an order on the battlefield would be entirely feasible, and depending on the hierarchical level of the character and their fighting strength, providing them (temporarily) with power armour should be possible

2- it depends so heavily on the world that there is no way of having a hard and fast rule - grotsmasha's guidelines aren't bad but there'll always be exceptions

3-I personally find the gradual erosion of will and corruption leading to chaos is more interesting, but there are other examples of a "snap" corruption

[Res Ipsa Loquitur]

Re 3- from the lore there's a general pattern that so-called 'corruption' by Chaos happens in one of three ways;

 

i) deliberately by personal choice

ii) insidiously via 'false prophets'; and

iii) instantly by possession.

 

So in response to your question, you can legitimately write about whatever kind of 'corruption' your story needs.

 

I'm not aware of chaotic 'corruption' ever being halted or reversed in an individual, however.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

There was the Fenrisian Inquisitor from The Emperor's Gift who had a redeemed cultist for a henchman with benefits. Does that count?

[Mileposter]

There was the Fenrisian Inquisitor from The Emperor's Gift who had a redeemed cultist for a henchman with benefits. Does that count?

Next on Vox-Arbites: Redeemed Cultist, or Corrupted Inquisitor? YOU DECIDE!

[Iron Father Ferrum]

 

There was the Fenrisian Inquisitor from The Emperor's Gift who had a redeemed cultist for a henchman with benefits. Does that count?

Next on Vox-Arbites: Redeemed Cultist, or Corrupted Inquisitor? YOU DECIDE!

Considering she was operating eith Grey Knights and Hyperion psychically touched her mind on multiple occasions... I'll go with redeemed cultist.

[MARK0SIAN]

Specifically in regards to possession and whether people can turn from the path of chaos. There are examples of people banishing the daemon themselves. Sometimes this is temporary, where they regain control just long enough to do something like sacrifice themselves to prevent the daemon causing a worse problem. Sometimes this is permanent. The Exorcists Space Marine chapter for example is made up of marines who were possessed and have exorcised the daemons.

 

In either case though, the person concerned is normally a formidable individual with great faith and/or willpower like a Space Marine, inquisitor or Sororitas.

 

Edit for spelling :)

[Slave to Darkness]

Specifically in regards to possession and whether people can turn from the path of chaos. There are examples of people banishing the daemon themselves. Sometimes this is temporary, where they regain control just long enough to do something like sacrifice themselves to prevent the daemon causing a worse problem. Sometimes this is permanent. The Exorcists Space Marine chapter for example is made up of marines who were possessed and have exorcised the daemons.

 

In either case though, the individual is normally a formidable individual with great faith and/or willpower like a Space Marine, inquisitor or Sororitas.

Was mentioned a few times in the Inquisition trilogy, Zephro Carnelian (The Harlequin Man) was possessed at one point. Im sure it was him anyway, it has been a few years since I read it.

[Plasmablasts]

1) Not an expert, but there was a similar question in the Sororitas forum about possible local recruitment and the clear consensus was that the lore indicated that all Sisters were recruited from the Scholae and trained on either Terra or Ophelia. I suggested that some Orders might accept “Lay Sisters” to bolster their numbers of warriors, and that seemed to be acknowledged as plausible and could be a solution for you here.

 

2) We’ve seen pretty much every possible means of personal conveyance in the fiction. I second the suggestion of reading Abnett’s Eisenhorn and Ravenor books and also suggest his Gaunt’s Ghosts: quite a few take place on inhabited worlds, allowing you a glimpse of “normal life”.

 

3) Falls to Chaos seem to take almost all forms. Many of the best descriptions (in my view) are those in which you follow the protagonist’s perspective, not really aware of how they’re falling, until the narrative takes a step back and suddenly you realise that they’ve committed some atrocity. Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s The First Heretic pulls this off very effectively. Also, consider the in-universe view: much of the conflict within the Inquisition is about whether one Inquisitor’s actions mark them as corrupted. Is a radical Inquisitor using the tools of Chaos (sorcery, tainted artefacts, daemonhosts) or are they now themselves a tool of Chaos? I refer you once more to Eisenhorn...

[40Kcollector]

If that person were say a death cult assassin, a priest, possibly an Inquisitor or maybe even a living saint said Sororitas Prioress may probably request help or help in certain Adeptus Ministorum situations

[Isghamor]

Thanks for the help. Just to satisfy my curiosity: how can an entity (like for example the aeldari gods, but on a lower level) be born?

[MARK0SIAN]

The warp is emotion, it is a reflection of all the emotions (good or bad) in the galaxy and particularly significant emotional events can create individual entities in the warp. For example, in Master of Mankind, there is a great explanation of how a particularly powerful daemon is created by mankind’s first ever act of murder, such was the significance of the act.

 

The biggest example would probably be the birth of Slaanesh who was slowly created by the increasingly hedonistic and depraved lifestyles of the Eldar before their fall.

 

If you want to create some sort of entity in the warp it needs something emotionally significant/grand enough to happen in the real world for it to feed off.

[Lord_Caerolion]

Just to nitpick, but no, someone in his 20's could not join a female-only organisation, no matter his age. :p

 

The transport question has been answered, in that 40k is such a wide-ranging setting, that there are Hive and Forge Worlds where (at least some of) the population has access to amazingly advanced tech, down to the Feudal and Death Worlds, where the population might be stuck relying on domesticated animals for transport. It really depends on the planet in question, and even in the same planet it can vary dramatically (much like our own), like in Hive Worlds, where the aristocracy and other "spire-dwellers" would have access to flyers and other such wonders of technology, while the sump-dwellers and others lower down would be lucky to have some sort of barely-functioning car.

 

As for an "entity" being created, probably the best analogy would be something along the lines of a vaguely-independent Daemon Prince, anything more than that and you're reaching god levels. Otherwise there's the example of Ynnead waking up, but even that took basically the coagulation of souls within the wider Infinity Circuit to occur. However, due to the way that the Warp operates, unless you've got the backing of an entire races beliefs behind your new entity, it's pretty much going to be assimilated within the Chaos Gods.

[Beta galactosidase]

Yeah that entire race / grand event factor is key. There were always people who were hedonistic and deprived, enough to be chaotic. It didn't turn into an actual god until an entire the fate of an society was affected by it.

 

That also went backward to split up a god. When elder society disintegrated, it coincided with their war god disintegrating. That works because when Biel-tan gets taken over by shedding blood, that obsession can't infect anyone on Iyanden.

 

Realms of Chaos describes explicitly how a daemonic patron can be created for your renegade warband. It's mass suicide, but everyone who dies has to be fixated on the same very specific feeling. E.g. Everyone is obsessed with bloodshed against a sleeping blood relative due to suspicion that they are infected with a disease and are plotting to betray the killer over food. This will create a greater daemon of murdering sleeping blood relatives etc and related concepts. Obviously this daemon will be fairly strong unless it can convince people to power it up.

[Lord_Caerolion]

You mean 'weak', right, Beta? A patron created from a few dozen servants and warband members might be roughly on par with a Daemon Herald.

 

The stuff about Khaine disintegrating more had to do with the fact that it was an Eldar God, like Lileath, Asuryan, etc. They all got consumed by Slaanesh because it usurped their position as "the Eldar God" within the Warp, with Khaine only getting fractured rather than consumed because it was equally as much a War God, so got split between Khorne and Slaanesh.

 

As such, any new entity is going to have to deal with those same "pulls" towards the Chaos Gods, unless they have enough of a "base" (like the Orks do for Gork/Mork, the Infinity Circuit for Ynnead, etc), they're going to be assimilated into the Chaos God that most matches them. So a War god would become part of Khorne, a fertility god is either going to Slaanesh or Nurgle, etc.

[Isghamor]

Could a strongly psychic Planet be enough  as  base?

[Lord_Caerolion]

Probably? The Exodite Eldar have their World Spirits, which act like miniaturized Infinity Circuits. We haven't really seen any examples of "psychic planets" outside of that, other than daemon-worlds, but those aren't really psychic in themselves, more just pseudo-possessed. I'd say it'd work, though.

[Beta galactosidase]

Yes I mean weak, idk hownthat got in there.

 

Yeah, a coven of cultists can turn itself into its own very specific daemon but it should be fairly weak until its specific profile starts influencing the material plane

[Jape]

Thinking out loud and no idea if it would even be relevant to your goal Isghamor but a single person of immense power/drive can impact the Warp. Perhaps a Saint, seemingly imbued with the Emperor's blessings and called to lead his armies to battle however they are plagued by doubt in themselves and even in the horrors of the greater Imperium. Their major pschic presence and their evem greater physcological impact on the faithful creates a powerful 'ripple' in the warp which becomes an entity, weak and primordial but it is there and it latches on to the Saint's doubt, feeding on it. Slowly it breaks them down before making its mark on the Materium, turning one of Humanity's greatest heroes into an agent of Chaos.

[Eddie Orlock]

3) Is chaos corruption a slow and steady process or it can reach a critical point(like the black rage) from where you can't go back anymore (being conscious about reaching this limit)?

Much of chaos corruption is clinically the subversion and replacement of the subjects soul by a malevolent entity of the warp. Which can happen bit by bit, or catastrophically. Anyway, the subject has fallen to Chaos when the demon exerts control, effectively the subject is lost and all that is left is a flesh puppet hosting the demon. All sense of the previous personality is also lost, but the replacing demon may be a skilled pretender, especially if it happened gradually.

 

Now, before control is transferred, and some sense of the original self is still maintained, it's possible to renounce chaos. Even after the onset of initial mutation. This path is really difficult though, because once chaos has a hold on the soul it keeps sucking at it. There are some incredibly rare things that can purge the touch of chaos from a soul, like the gentle touch of the Emperor. Good luck getting your mutant an audience though.

 

Just as the warp reflects real space, real space reflects things in the warp. Mutations are an example of this, as the soul is subverted the demon warps the body to better suit its nature.

 

Civilian travel depends on the tech level of the planet in question. Might be by draft animal and wagon on regressed worlds.

 

Sororita are exclusively recruited from the Schola Progenum. Ergo they had to have been orphaned while the Imperium would still consider them 'minors' and joined the Adepta when they 'came of age', probably in some kind of ceremony or rite. So, most likely some where between 15 and 21 depending on the cultural traditions assumed of the greater Adeptus.

[Isghamor]

Thanks for the answers :) btw a eldar's world Spirit could include human souls? And can It pour its entire Essence into an avatar should the Planet be blown up?