Warhammer 40K Fluff Discussion XVI: Where the Ordnance is Hand-Delivered!

[LeSwordfish]

Why do we have a fluff thread and a tabletop thread? Well, because, to put it bluntly, arguments about fluff can take up a lot of space. And that makes it hard for people to get critiques on their list. So, if you need to find out what's a good colour scheme for your custom Dark Angels Successor chapter, argue the morality of the setting yet again (Oh, how we wish you wouldn't), or even share fluff you've written for your army, here's the place.

Just remember, in the Grim Darkness of the far future, there is only pointless bickering!

Previous Threads
I: Warning: No Fanboys Allowed ()
II: Heresy Grown From Idleness
III: You're Emprah? Well I didn't vote for you!
IV: Warhammer 40K Fluff Discussion IV
V: WARNING: May Contain Heresy
VI: They see me Ward'en, they haten
VII: There's A Codex Entry For That
VIII: Khorne's Most Favourite Thread EVER
IX: Post-Human Centipede
X: Yippe Ki-Yay, Heretic!
XI: Juggling Idiot Balls
XII: DIS FINGY GOT NO SQUIGZ IN IT
XIII: You Must Smash Additional Pylons!
XIV: The Emperor Floats Those Who Float Themselves
XV:You Must Be This Tall To Witness The Grimdark

Last time in the grim darkness: anyone got any updates on how the emperor's doing these days? And is Ciaphas Cain too silly for our very grim and serious series of books about small plastic spacemen?

You can figure out my answer to the last question from how I presented it, really.

And another topic: we've had a bit of a chat about how to cast Eisenhorn himself, but who would you go calling to for the other characters? Aemos, Maxilla, Fischig, and Bequin? Tilda Swinton would be excellent for Stately Book-Three Bequin but even adjusting for society etc etc is probably a little old to play her in book one.

[DataNinja]

And is Ciaphas Cain too silly for our very grim and serious series of books about small plastic spacemen?

Ciaphas Cain is too silly. Ciaphas Cain, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM! is exactly silly enough.

[Forum Explorer]

So I'm going to go out and ask if anyone has any recommendations for good Warhammer 40K fanfiction. Also on that note, what even counts as 40K fanficiton. Like if I write a story about a bunch of OCs in 40K fighting a hive fleet (or something) is that actually a fanfiction or is that just a 40K book I'm releasing for free?

[DataNinja]

While I don't have any fanfiction recommendations (I don't tend to search it out), I would say that despite the whole "everything is at least tangentially related to canon", you'd need to go through one of GW/BL/whomever's official publishing channels, or one of their related sites (such as the Regimental Standard) in order to have it strictly non-fanfiction.

[Voidhawk]

If you're in the mood for something short and silly, here's Ciaphas Cain in the afterlife: Poker Night.

[Renegade Paladin]

So I'm going to go out and ask if anyone has any recommendations for good Warhammer 40K fanfiction. Also on that note, what even counts as 40K fanficiton. Like if I write a story about a bunch of OCs in 40K fighting a hive fleet (or something) is that actually a fanfiction or is that just a 40K book I'm releasing for free?

This is fun.

[Destro_Yersul]

So I'm going to go out and ask if anyone has any recommendations for good Warhammer 40K fanfiction. Also on that note, what even counts as 40K fanficiton. Like if I write a story about a bunch of OCs in 40K fighting a hive fleet (or something) is that actually a fanfiction or is that just a 40K book I'm releasing for free?

There's always PbPs. I've got a pretty long-running Rogue Trader game, and a handful of Dark Heresy things that are now finished.

And another topic: we've had a bit of a chat about how to cast Eisenhorn himself, but who would you go calling to for the other characters? Aemos, Maxilla, Fischig, and Bequin? Tilda Swinton would be excellent for Stately Book-Three Bequin but even adjusting for society etc etc is probably a little old to play her in book one.

No longer possible, but Rutger Hauer would've made a good Fischig.

[Artanis]

So I'm going to go out and ask if anyone has any recommendations for good Warhammer 40K fanfiction. Also on that note, what even counts as 40K fanficiton. Like if I write a story about a bunch of OCs in 40K fighting a hive fleet (or something) is that actually a fanfiction or is that just a 40K book I'm releasing for free?

I'm not sure if it quite counts as fanfiction, but The All-Guardsmen Party is really good.

[Platinius]

I am always a sucker for fanart

[Drasius]

You are in luck, cause the only good fanfic ever, about anything, just so happens to involve 40k (of course it does).

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.p...ndWarhammer40K

Apologies in advance for wasting anyone's day due to TV trope related browsing.

[The Glyphstone]

Since Bequin was brought up regarding the series, how do people imagine/see the Blank aura affecting non-psykers? Bequin causes physical pain to Gregor when he's near her, IIRC, but he's a psyker. Ferrik Jurgen in the Cain series doesn't seem to bother Cain himself at all, though, and he repels other people more from being slovenly and smelly than through any sort of pariah effect.

[comicshorse]

Since Bequin was brought up regarding the series, how do people imagine/see the Blank aura affecting non-psykers? Bequin causes physical pain to Gregor when he's near her, IIRC, but he's a psyker. Ferrik Jurgen in the Cain series doesn't seem to bother Cain himself at all, though, and he repels other people more from being slovenly and smelly than through any sort of pariah effect.

Isn't there the theory that Jurgen deliberately skimps on hygiene so people assume the revulsion they feel is from that rather than from him being a Pariah ?

[The Glyphstone]

Isn't there the theory that Jurgen deliberately skimps on hygiene so people assume the revulsion they feel is from that rather than from him being a Pariah ?

Possibly. Though I also remember a theory that it's the other way round, that his poor hygiene is in fact how people perceive the Pariah aura. Based on the scene in...Death or Glory...where the refugee column finds an oasis to wash in, and even after washing Jurgen has somehow immediately picked up a patina of grime and body odor.

I'm not sure Jurgen himself is smart enough to do it the deliberate way, based on his PoV short story. He doesn't really understand his own 'gift' even after Amberly tries to explain it, just accepts it's a blessing from Big E and helps him kill witches.

[Voidhawk]

how do people imagine/see the Blank aura affecting non-psykers? Bequin causes physical pain to Gregor when he's near her, IIRC, but he's a psyker. Ferrik Jurgen in the Cain series doesn't seem to bother Cain himself at all, though, and he repels other people more from being slovenly and smelly than through any sort of pariah effect.

Talking about how blanks work, eh? Luckily I have my post saved from when we last had this conversation, back when a Culexus assassin murdered Aun'Va:
Voidhawk's Guide to the Warp: Pyskers, Daemons, Tau, Blanks and Pariahs.

[The Glyphstone]

Talking about how blanks work, eh? Luckily I have my post saved from when we last had this conversation, back when a Culexus assassin murdered Aun'Va:
Voidhawk's Guide to the Warp: Pyskers, Daemons, Tau, Blanks and Pariahs.

Yeah, but all we have from canon is, as you quote, 'a great unpleasant feeling' without any specifics. Is it some sort of of vague, generalized unease? Is it rationalized individually like Cain interpreting Jurgen as dirty even after a bath in the lake? I haven't read Eisenhorn in a very, very long time, so I don't have depictions of Bequin's effect on non-psykers to contrast against.

[Wraith]

Isn't there the theory that Jurgen deliberately skimps on hygiene so people assume the revulsion they feel is from that rather than from him being a Pariah ?

It's a mix of both. He is repulsive because he's a blank, but he really does carry old food around in his pockets and is generally a scruffy, sweaty person. It's certain that what people THINK is his bad smell is actually his blankness causing them to feel distressed as well.

He probably doesn't do it deliberately; he was malodorous and poorly groomed even in the first story, long before he ever met Inquisitor Vail and was "diagnosed" as being a blank. It seems to be a genuine coincidence.

And another topic: we've had a bit of a chat about how to cast Eisenhorn himself, but who would you go calling to for the other characters? Aemos, Maxilla, Fischig, and Bequin? Tilda Swinton would be excellent for Stately Book-Three Bequin but even adjusting for society etc etc is probably a little old to play her in book one.

Eisenhorn: Mark Strong, with "Old Gregor" VO'd by Toby Longworth. Some people have suggested Mads Mikkelson, which is an interesting idea, but I find it hard to think of him as anyone other than Hannibal Lector, a villain. Maybe as the voice of Pontius Glaw? That'd be good.

Fischig: I'd like someone with the same physique and general appearance of Dolph Lundgrun. Fischig should be the tall, blond, "All American Hero" that would normally mark him as the protagonist of the story, were it not for the presence of an Inquisitor.

Aemos: James Hong.

Maxilla: Maybe Johnny Depp *if* he can be persuaded to play the role seriously and not just as a copy/paste of Willy Wonka. Benedict Cumberbatch, if not.

Kara Swole: I'm having a hard time thinking of anyone other than Scarlett Johansson. Kara is basically Black Widow, but with shorter hair.

Harlan Nale: Tom Hardy, easily.

Bequin: This one has me genuinely stumped. It might be someone stunningly beautiful and - if the books are to be followed - likely to be of different ethnicity to the rest of the cast, as Bequin immigrated from another segmentum a little bit before she was first introduced. Maybe someone like Elodie Yung (she played Elektra in the Daredevil/The Defenders TV show) as she has done a lot of choreographed fight scenes and can do eerie/outsider pretty well.

[Grim Portent]

It's a mix of both. He is repulsive because he's a blank, but he really does carry old food around in his pockets and is generally a scruffy, sweaty person. It's certain that what people THINK is his bad smell is actually his blankness causing them to feel distressed as well.

He probably doesn't do it deliberately; he was malodorous and poorly groomed even in the first story, long before he ever met Inquisitor Vail and was "diagnosed" as being a blank. It seems to be a genuine coincidence.

I got the impression Jurgen's atrocious personal habits and hygiene were also symptoms of his being a blank. He lacks empathy and emotion, doesn't concern himself with the impressions of others an so on, so he doesn't care if his behaviour/appearance is gross or unsettling.

So I think it's kind of a self reinforcing thing, people perceive him as gross because he's a blank, but he is also actually gross because as a blank he doesn't much care if he's gross and disturbing.

[The Glyphstone]

It's less Jurgen specifically I'm interested in and more how his precedent, and Bequin's, reflect what normal people feel around blanks. This is important for an upcoming Rogue Trader campaign I plan on running, where the Explorers will be encountering a 'lost' human pocket empire with an immensely disproportionate number of untouchables/blanks in its population. Getting across the feeling of a civilization where everyone is either Blanked to some degree or somewhat inured to it from generations of exposure, and what that looks like to outsiders, is more valuable than just narrating "you think everyone here is unnaturally creepy". If I can personalize the PCs' reactions to a Blank aura, or have different Blanks manifest the effect in different fashions, it'll make for (IMO) more immersive descriptions.

[Wraith]

So I think it's kind of a self reinforcing thing, people perceive him as gross because he's a blank, but he is also actually gross because as a blank he doesn't much care if he's gross and disturbing.

This is probably it, to be fair. The books don't specify either way, and mostly hint that although he smells bad, he doesn't smell AS BAD as people think he does, due to his blank aura upsetting them.

He's also depicted as being fairly unintelligent, occasionally being praised for his lack of imagination when obeying orders and his "direct approach" to problem-solving - which is possibly meant to indicate that he lacks the ability to process cause and effect.
While there's always the theory going around that Jurgen is actually a savant who is hiding in plain sight and biding his time, personally I don't think that the books mean to portray him as something so deep; the joke is that he is the Chosen One who saves the galaxy from monsters and daemons time and time again with his God-Emperor-given special abilities... but unlike typical protagonists he's also just dim-witted, unhygienic and kind of creepy on top of everything else.

It's less Jurgen specifically I'm interested in and more how his precedent, and Bequin's, reflect what normal people feel around blanks. This is important for an upcoming Rogue Trader campaign I plan on running, where the Explorers will be encountering a 'lost' human pocket empire with an immensely disproportionate number of untouchables/blanks in its population. Getting across the feeling of a civilization where everyone is either Blanked to some degree or somewhat inured to it from generations of exposure, and what that looks like to outsiders, is more valuable than just narrating "you think everyone here is unnaturally creepy". If I can personalize the PCs' reactions to a Blank aura, or have different Blanks manifest the effect in different fashions, it'll make for (IMO) more immersive descriptions.

Ah, okay - that makes sense. In which case I'd like to ask: Do your players know what Blanks are? And do their Characters know what Blanks are?

The precedent for Blanks is sparse because they have rarely been depicted outside of the Abnett-verse. A few minor characters pop-up in the Horus Heresy series, but generally they're not very important.

"Blank sickness" has many effects, some of which don't make a lot of sense. For Jurgen it manifests as a bad odour and an appearance of being slovenly - he almost certainly is those things himself, but it's amplified by his aura and people who don't know that he is a blank just assume that he's inherently repulsive.

Bequin's, on the other hand, is more subtle. Despite being beautiful and dressed promiscuously as a prostitute, her blank aura is just an intangible sense of wrongness. People just feel worse when she's around, become irritable and are more prone to lashing out when provoked. Her backstory features a lot of abusive situations, since she's constantly around people who are "short-tempered" and take it out on the nearest available person who has no recourse - her, since she has no social standing to protect herself with.

Then there's the Culexus Assassin who killed Aun'Va. His blank aura was so strong and further amplified by his gear that it was causing Tau Drones to implode and security cameras to short-circuit just by walking by them. The Tau themselves were spontaneously soiling themselves and collapsing with migraines, clenched bowels and other symptoms of what sound vaguely liked extreme fear and stress-related sicknesses.

To reflect that in an RPG, I would recommend that it's quite subtle most of the time. You should describe Blank NPC's in strictly negative terms without using the word 'blank'. Everyone should be surly, condescending or stand-offish in a way that suggests to your players that they are unlikeable. You could also make some of them be simply "bad people", like when you meet a stranger for the first time and you "just know" that they're unhinged or dangerous by the strange look in their eye, or the threatening way in which they move.....
Randomly inflict -10% penalties on persuasion or haggling rolls, or anything that requires social interaction. Don't answer directly if you're asked what the penalty is for, just allude to the NPC being unreasonable or uncooperative - if your players or their characters don't know that they're dealing with a blank, they should just come away with the distinct impression that everyone they have run into lately is a vindictive ******* or is deliberately trying to antagonise the party.
Use the word "oppressive" to describe an atmosphere, and "claustrophic" and/or "unnerving" to describe locations. They should probably be feeling a mixture of both in any setting where a Blank is nearby and openly manifesting their aura.

....Unless any of the characters are Psykers, of course. In which case they don't see people but just sucking black voids of darkness where a soul should be, and should constantly have all of their skills and mental attributes afflicted with some kind of penalty. Inflict Fatigue and/or the Sickness status on them if they ever get touched by someone, but again don't ever say the word "Blank" until you're ready to dump exposition on them. Until that point they should just think that the area is giving them radiation sickness or something similarly insidious.

[lord_khaine]

Bequin's, on the other hand, is more subtle. Despite being beautiful and dressed promiscuously as a prostitute, her blank aura is just an intangible sense of wrongness. People just feel worse when she's around, become irritable and are more prone to lashing out when provoked. Her backstory features a lot of abusive situations, since she's constantly around people who are "short-tempered" and take it out on the nearest available person who has no recourse - her, since she has no social standing to protect herself with.

Her aura wasnt stronger than that it was something that could be overcome or adjusted to.
She became fairly popular among Eisonhorns crew.

Then there's the Culexus Assassin who killed Aun'Va. His blank aura was so strong and further amplified by his gear that it was causing Tau Drones to implode and security cameras to short-circuit just by walking by them. The Tau themselves were spontaneously soiling themselves and collapsing with migraines, clenched bowels and other symptoms of what sound vaguely liked extreme fear and stress-related sicknesses.

This meanwhile were utter BS from a writer who had forgotten to read up on blanks.
Tau with their minimal warp presence should hardly have been affected at all. And unless it was psyker drones floating around, then they should have been shooting the dumb (censored) walking down the hallway.
Not blowing up.

[Voidhawk]

You know, this is why I posted my explanation; so that everyone wouldn't continuously conflate Blanks and Pariahs, or complain when Tau get affected by psychic/anti-psychic things. Because it's all laid out pretty clearly through the few times they show up.

Short hand: a Blank has an Absence of soul, and is unsettling and irritating for normal humans to be around. A Pariah (of which Culexus are an extremely powerful subset) has a Negative soul, a howling anti-warp hole that sucks your soul out just by standing near them, and makes most humans want to kill them on sight.

Bequin and Jurgen are both Blanks, Bequin the stronger of the two. You can tell they're not Pariahs because most people they meet don't immediately try to kill them.

EDIT:

This meanwhile were utter BS from a writer who had forgotten to read up on blanks.
Tau with their minimal warp presence should hardly have been affected at all. And unless it was psyker drones floating around, then they should have been shooting the dumb (censored) walking down the hallway.
Not blowing up.

As Cheesegear pointed out the last time we had this discussion: Pyskers frequently have an explosive/EMP effect on electronics, so why shouldn't a particularly powerful Anti-Pysker have a similar effect? Rather than overloading them with too much energy and making their sensors blow up, it drained the energy from them and made it so any sensor pointed at them registered nothing.

They also had a piece of gear that let them phase through walls, as well as being a backflipping-ninja, so I'm pretty sure "just shoot it" would have had minimal effect anyway. Might as well say "just shoot Batman".

[Wraith]

Her aura wasn't stronger than that it was something that could be overcome or adjusted to.
She became fairly popular among Eisonhorns crew.

I've always read it that her aura could eventually be adjusted to unless you were a psyker - even a hundred years later, Eisenhorn couldn't tolerate touching her and would still be affected by headaches if he spent time around her. This isn't different to Jurgan - Cain mostly acclimatised to his presence, even using it to his advantage in order to annoy/disturb his rivals who hadn't had the same sort of exposure.

That being said, Eisenhorn's coterie were able to adjust to Bequin because Eisenhorn more or less ordered them to - she was his new operative, and they weren't asked if they liked it or not. They were forced to spend time around her until it didn't bother them anymore.... And if it did bother them, tough luck; the boss says "deal with it".
In her normal day-to-day life, Bequin was rarely if ever able to spend enough time around anyone for that to happen - her johns and random people in the street met her, were put off, and avoided her thereafter. That's why she immigrated to the planet Hubris in the first place - she was more or less 'run out' by her local population and she wanted to start over again.

This meanwhile were utter BS from a writer who had forgotten to read up on blanks.
Tau with their minimal warp presence should hardly have been affected at all. And unless it was psyker drones floating around, then they should have been shooting the dumb (censored) walking down the hallway.
Not blowing up.

I'm not disagreeing with you; it's pretty dumb. But then, there was a lot of dumb stuff in Warzone Damocles, and just because it's dumb doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

It's there, if Glyphstone wants to use it. I recommend that he do so very sparingly, if at all, but that's up to him; incredibly powerful blanks can, if he wants them to, physically disable non-Psykers that they choose to focus upon if they have the gear to help them do that.

Bequin and Jurgen are both Blanks, Bequin the stronger of the two. You can tell they're not Pariahs because most people they meet don't immediately try to kill them.

I feel that you might be unintentionally conflating pariahs with Pariahs. The one with a capital letter is an monstrous amalgamation of blank and Necron technology, the lower case one is a synonym for 'blank', of which Culexii are particularly potent versions.

Hence the book entitled "Pariah", which stars... well, Bequin.

So baseline humans can and do have adverse affects to being in the presence of a pariah, they just vary in intensity.

[lord_khaine]

I feel that you might be unintentionally conflating pariahs with Pariahs. The one with a capital letter is an monstrous amalgamation of blank and Necron technology, the lower case one is a synonym for 'blank', of which Culexii are particularly potent versions.

As Wraith says.

As Cheesegear pointed out the last time we had this discussion: Pyskers frequently have an explosive/EMP effect on electronics, so why shouldn't a particularly powerful Anti-Pysker have a similar effect? Rather than overloading them with too much energy and making their sensors blow up, it drained the energy from them and made it so any sensor pointed at them registered nothing.

They also had a piece of gear that let them phase through walls, as well as being a backflipping-ninja, so I'm pretty sure "just shoot it" would have had minimal effect anyway. Might as well say "just shoot Batman".

If i did not agree on that last time, why do you think i would now?
I though it super stupid back then, i think its even more super stupid now.
We dont have any sort of description of blanks being an energy void before whatever hack who wrote Warzone Damocles came up with this.
I cant see why it would suddenly apply now.

The Batman Analog were kinda good though. It felt like the assasins had about the same level of plot armor.
All the same, shooting would have done more than not shooting.

[Cheesegear]

Hence the book entitled "Pariah", which stars... well, Bequin.

No it doesn't.
It stars someone we've never met, named 'Beta Bequin', who definitely isn't Alizabeth Bequin.

[LeSwordfish]

I suspect that this is another one of those subjects 40k is so abundant with where there simply isn't one canon answer, because each writer is interpreting it differently. (For one thing, i'm not at all certain there's much textual support for Blank and Pariah being separate things: we're just clustering a whole bunch of unconnected datapoints around two things rather than one. Happy to be proven wrong, though - am I right in thinking there might have been two elite character classes for it across the DH1E books? Even that doesn't mean much: look at the Sororitas stuff.)

In the name of rule of cool, I would just have them all have different effects. One shuts down machines sometimes, one makes bad smells, if another one touches plants they die... this is Warp Stuff, it can work how you want. (Though I can't see a half-Blank society as something other than a YA post-apocalypse book with the outCaste in the GreyLands or something.)

[The Glyphstone]

To reflect that in an RPG, I would recommend that it's quite subtle most of the time. You should describe Blank NPC's in strictly negative terms without using the word 'blank'. Everyone should be surly, condescending or stand-offish in a way that suggests to you players that they unlikeable. You could also make some of them be simply "bad people", like when you meet a stranger for the first time and you "just know" that they're unhinged or dangerous by the strange look in their eye, or the threatening way in which they move.....
Randomly inflict -10% penalties on persuasion or haggling rolls, or anything that requires social interaction. Don't answer directly if you're asked what the penalty is for, just allude to the NPC being unreasonable or uncooperative - if your players or their characters don't know that they're dealing with a blank, they should just come away with the distinct impression that everyone they have run into lately is a vindictive ******* or is deliberately trying to antagonise the part.
Use the word "oppressive" to describe an atmosphere, and "claustrophic" and/or "unnerving" to describe locations. They should probably be feeling a mixture of both in any setting where a Blank is nearby and openly manifesting their aura.

....Unless any of the characters are Psykers, of course. In which case they don't see people but just sucking black voids of darkness where a soul should be, and should constantly have all of their skills and mental attributes afflicted with some kind of penalty. Inflict Fatigue and/or the Sickness status on them if they ever get touched by someone, but again don't ever say the word "Blank" until you're ready to dump exposition on them. Until that point they should just think that the area is giving them radiation sickness or something similarly insidious.

This is exactly the sort of atmospheric advice I was hoping for. I don't have much hope of fooling the players unless I am extremely subtle, they're all experienced 40k veterans. Whether their characters know about Blanks will depend...Lore(Psykers) or Lore(Warp) seem the relevant fields to watch for there.

[Wraith]

No it doesn't.
It stars someone we've never met, named 'Beta Bequin', who definitely isn't Alizabeth Bequin.

Spoiler

Show

Beta is an in-vetro clone of Alizabeth. They're both Blanks. Eisenhorn himself remarks on how closely Beta resembles Alizabeth. They're both Bequin. Fight me.

I don't have much hope of fooling the players unless I am extremely subtle, they're all experienced 40k veterans. Whether their characters know about Blanks will depend...Lore(Psykers) or Lore(Warp) seem the relevant fields to watch for there.

However much they know about 40k, they're also roleplayers and thus are paranoid herd animals. Make a big deal about the food they're eating or the weird quality of the air, and how they've been feeling "off" ever since they shook hands with that guy with the pale face and sweaty complexion. None of those things are remarkable in a slum or Hive city unless the DM keeps mentioning it for some reason, but it might be enough to send them down the wrong path for a little while.

There doesn't have to BE anything wrong with the food or air, but just because you haven't SAID the word "poison" doesn't mean that they won't think it....

[lord_khaine]

No it doesn't.
It stars someone we've never met, named 'Beta Bequin', who definitely isn't Alizabeth Bequin.

Yeah that bit kinda made me a little sad.

In the name of rule of cool, I would just have them all have different effects. One shuts down machines sometimes, one makes bad smells, if another one touches plants they die... this is Warp Stuff, it can work how you want. (Though I can't see a half-Blank society as something other than a YA post-apocalypse book with the outCaste in the GreyLands or something.)

Well.. thats kinda the point though?
Blanks/Pariah isnt warp stuff. They are the opposite of warp stuff.
So it should be limited just how different they can be. Except in the size of their zone.

[The Glyphstone]

Spoiler

Show

Beta is an in-vetro clone of Alizabeth. They're both Blanks. Eisenhorn himself remarks on how closely Beta resembles Alizabeth. They're both Bequin. Fight me.

However much they know about 40k, they're also roleplayers and thus are paranoid herd animals. Make a big deal about the food they're eating or the weird quality of the air, and how they've been feeling "off" ever since they shook hands with that guy with the pale face and sweaty complexion. None of those things are remarkable in a slum or Hive city unless the DM keeps mentioning it for some reason, but it might be enough to send them down the wrong path for a little while.

There doesn't have to BE anything wrong with the food or air, but just because you haven't SAID the word "poison" doesn't mean that they won't think it....

Yeah, if I can get them to meta-game misfire and assume "CHAOS EVERYWHERE", I'll call it a victory.

As far as different effects, IMO that should be more of a subjective thing. No blank is going to wither plants or shut down machinery, as those are physical manifestations of Warp power, but every non-psyker is going to perceive and interpret 'Blankness' differently, filtering something their brain feels but can't comprehend into a stimulus it can process. Sounds might be annoyingly loud or lights painfully bright. Food tastes 'off' or the air feels cloying and thick. An odd, unpleasant smell they can't trace the source of. People who seem irrationally hostile or rude. Every blank will produce the same reaction in a specific individual, but different individuals might react differently to that blank.

[snowblizz]

This is exactly the sort of atmospheric advice I was hoping for. I don't have much hope of fooling the players unless I am extremely subtle, they're all experienced 40k veterans. Whether their characters know about Blanks will depend...Lore(Psykers) or Lore(Warp) seem the relevant fields to watch for there.

I immediately thought you should make the weather, air, literally and figuratively, the atmosphere seem off. Toss in some tidbits how strangers are just not well regarded and considered suspicious already say due to some quirk of the Imperial Creed practised. So ppl will treat them generally negatively but you got plausible denial.