I'll take "Some Imperium scientists do not believe the Obliterator virus exists because they think it's unworkable" as less than absolute proof.

As for Obliterators as starting archetypes, Tome of Fate's "advanced" archetypes don't strike me as out of line with an Obliterator. After all, at least in the old rules for the Obliterator virus, you had to absorb a weapon to get it, so they'd only get access to every heavy weapon in the game for free insofar as they could get their fleshy hands on it.

Lasgun hands seem to be about par for Bolt of Change to me.

Having read Storm of Iron I would suspect that the techno virus which turns people into obliterators would be an actual virus however I suspect that, in terms of infection rates, it would be more akin to something like the Ebola virus i.e. Very rare to encounter it outside of a particular environment like the eye of terror or maelstrom and even if someone were infected with it then it would be more likely prove to be fatal for them as opposed to them surviving it.    

A work-in-progress of my ideas for Obliterators (and, along similar lines, Mutilators and Warp Talons) that I've been putting together for my Forbidden Lore fan-supplement.

Advanced Progressions

Several distinct groups devoted to the Ruinous Powers are more than mere belief – their members are changed, body and soul, into something both more and less than what they once were.
Each such group is represented in game terms with an entry Talent, followed by a progression of abilities gained in place of one or more of the character’s Gifts of the Gods, meaning that these progressions allow Heretics to grow in power as they further embrace corruption and damnation.

Mutilators

Blade-Savant
Tier 3, Unaligned
Pre-requisites: WS 50, Ambidextrous, Two-Weapon Wielder (Melee¬), Blade Dancer, Blade Master, Corruption 20
Effect: The Heretic’s obsession with and mastery of the blade has reached a point beyond sanity, and his bond with the spirits of his weapons. The character may select a number of melee weapons equal to his Weapon Skill Bonus. These weapons gain the Tainted quality.

Mutilator Progression
A character with the Blade-Savant Talent may benefit from Mutilator progression in place of his normal Gifts of the Gods. This progression replaces three consecutive Gifts.

Gift 1 – Slaughterer
The Heretic’s bond with his weapons transcends physical limitations, and he becomes one with them. The weapons selected upon gaining the Blade-Savant Talent are physically bonded with the character, becoming extensions of his body. The character’s flesh fuses with the weapons he wields, making him impossible to disarm, and at any moment, he may take two of those weapons into his body as a free action. While carrying weapons within his body, they can be detected by technological means (a Routine (+20) Tech-Use Test with an Auspex or similar) or psychic means (a Challenging (+0) Psyniscience Test), but cannot be detected by the naked eye.

Gift 2 – Mauler
The Heretic’s flesh and the substance of his weapons become the near-indistinguishable impossible material known as fleshmetal. His armour and his skin become as one, and his mass and stature increase along with his capacity to absorb weaponry. The Heretic may no longer remove his armour (and may no longer don any other form of armour over it), gains +5 Wounds, and gains Unnatural Strength (2) and Unnatural Toughness (2), or increases those Traits by +2 if already possessed. Further, he may take any number of his selected weapons into his body.

Gift 3 – True Mutilator
The Heretic’s transformation concludes, and he becomes a living juggernaut of destruction, as much an extension of his weapons as they are of him. The Heretic doubles the number of weapons he may bond with, gains the Daemonic (2) Trait, and increases his Size by +1. However, the character may no longer Run, and suffers a –20 penalty on all Agility-based Tests (though this penalty is waived if the character is wearing – and this bonded to – Terminator Armour).

Obliterator

Cultist of Destruction
Tier 3, Unaligned
Pre-requisites: BS 50, Arms Master, Tech-Use +10, Corruption 20, Mechanicus Assimilation 1+
Effect: The Heretic pursues the ultimate fusion of living matter and lethal mechanism. The integration of weapons into flesh is an inevitable and deadly development, and one that sees the Heretic grow ever deadlier. For every level of the Machine Trait the Heretic possesses, he may bind himself to a single Pistol or Basic weapon. Any weapon so bonded gains the Tainted quality.

Obliterator Progression
A character with the Cultist of Destruction Talent may benefit from Obliterator progression in place of his normal Gifts of the Gods. This progression replaces three consecutive Gifts.

Gift 1 – Metal Storm
The Heretic’s mechanical nature allows him to spawn power, fuel and ammunition for those weapons he is bonded with. Any weapon the Heretic is bonded to may be reloaded without any external source of ammunition, though the Heretic gains a level of Fatigue if he does so. Similarly, he imbibes metal, promethium and other raw materials in place of conventional food and drink to sustain him.

Gift 2 – Son of Annihilation
The Heretic’s unification of flesh and metal continues, with pistons and plasteel merging with muscle and bone. The character gains an additional 2 levels of the Machine Trait, is permanently fused with his armour, and may choose to bond with Heavy and Mounted weapons, so long as he is capable of wielding them. Additionally, he gains +5 Wounds, and gains Unnatural Strength (2) and Unnatural Toughness (2), or increases those Traits by +2 if already possessed. Finally, his weapons have become integral parts of his form, and can be drawn into his fleshmetal form freely, and no longer inflict a level of Fatigue when being reloaded.

Gift 3 – True Obliterator
The Heretic’s transformation reaches its peak, and his nature ceases to be either living or machine, but something beyond both. The Heretic doubles the number of weapons he may bond with, gains the Auto-Stabilised and Daemonic (2) Traits, and increases his Size by +1. However, the character may no longer Run, and suffers a –20 penalty on all Agility-based Tests (though this penalty is waived if the character is wearing – and this bonded to – Terminator Armour).

Warp Talons

Sky-Hunter
Tier 3, Unaligned
Pre-requisites: Agility 50, Raptor, Operate (Personal) +20, Intimidate +10, Corruption 20
Effect: The Heretic is a shrieking, snarling predator of the skies, descending from the heavens in search of prey to terrorise and murder. His armour and his jump pack are twisted to create a horrific visage and herald their approach with inhuman roars and screams. The Heretic gains the Fear (1) Trait (or increases any existing Fear Trait by +1) on any turn in which he uses his Jump Pack. Further, the character may no longer remove his Jump Pack.

Warp Talon Progression
A character with the Sky-Hunter Talent may benefit from Warp Talon progression in place of his normal Gifts of the Gods. This progression replaces three consecutive Gifts.

Gift 1 – Ephemeral Predator
The Heretic ascends to greater purpose, hunting mortals in the material universe. The Heretic gains training in the Psyniscience Skill, and the Phase Trait. However, the Heretic’s distant, predatory nature is off-putting and ill-suited to matters of tact or intellect, reducing his Intelligence and Fellowship scores by –5 each.

Gift 2 – On Wings of Warpflame
The Heretic’s form is wreathed in a blaze of warpflame, heralding his arrival upon the battlefield. The Heretic’s melee attacks gain the Flame quality, and as a free action upon landing (whilst corporeal) can create a burst of Warpflame with the same effect as a Photon Flash Grenade. His aura of flickering wrongness further reduces his Fellowship by –10.

Gift 3 – Warp Talon Ascension
The Heretic’s transformation concludes, and he becomes a vicious, animalistic creature. The Heretic gains the Daemonic (2) and Deadly Natural Weapons Traits. Further, his natural weapons gain the Tainted, Tearing and Warp Weapon qualities.

 Wow, N0-1. That's some proper gorgeous work, I'd say. I'll certainly be using these ASAP.

Question on the Obliterator; does reloading his integrated weapons still require their usual action?

Plushy said:

Yes - it's partly to represent the fact that an Obliterator can't use the same weapon for two consecutive turns in the wargame.

As I said, these are an early version (along with a Warpsmith archetype and a few other things inspired by the new Codex), so there's still some work to be done.

 I simply can't wait to see it.

@N0-1

Nice ones. I was thinking myself that making the "virus" (or whatever it is now) progression part of the Gifts of the Gods would likely make the most sense mechanics-wise. That being said, it seems that the character is stuck with what he bonded with. What would you say about a T1-talent that allows the character to switch his load-out once? Reaching Mauler/Son of Annihilation while for some reason wearing carapace or even mesh would suck. Also, is the Corruption 20 requirement intentional? After all, it means that no matter the character's race, these will be the last three gifts for him and a human heretic could only start with his transformation at his third total gift.

 

Flaying of the Metal Skin
Tier 1, Unaligned
Pre-requisites: Blade Savant, Cultist of Destruction or Sky-Hunter

Effect: The heretic has undergone a painful ritual that separates him from the weapons and armour he was bonded to. When gaining this talent, he may reassign any bonds resulting from Blade Savant, Cultist of Destruction or Sky-Hunter or their respective gift progressions for one single time.
This talent can be purchased multiple times, each time allowing the Heretic to switch his equipment for one more time.

I like No-1. I also wanted to later to try and capture that feel of the Dark Mechanicus/Tech-Marines. In the older Codex the Obliterators stood apart from all Warbands and for a warlord to gain their favor they needed to provide them with some piece of technology or in a battle with a chance to uncover those secrets which the Obliterators would keep as their payments. I don't really see them as worshipping Chaos more as a tool to achieve their own transformation. Those with the talent progression from some form of the Obliterator Cult becoming something else upon reaching apothesis. Some kind of bio-mechanical form that they believe best recognizes the Omnissah.

 

For the Warpsmith I just look at idea's from WFB and the Chaos Dwarf Sorcerer-Engineers.

Personally I think treating the obliterator mutations as a virus is silly. If it was, and I was one I wouldn't even fire weapons. I would wander around a Hive city for a few days infecting the populace, and then go watch the effects. The fact that there is no epidemic breakouts of the obliterator virus kind of show that it isn't one IMHO. At least if it has the 1% chance to infect that is in the material. Seriously if one out of every hundred people you see caught it, then one out of every hundred all those people met caught it, etc. etc. There is no way it would be anything less then an epidemic whenever it is seen.

I prefer the idea that the obliterator cult is, well, a cult. With a specific patron bestowing these gifts on his followers that transforms the follower into an obliterator. If I was the GM I would make them figure out who the entity was, and then try to gain said entity as a patron. Also one requirement of said patronage would be that they must refrain from devotion to either of the four powers, and remain unaligned.

It is a cult but over the millennium spent inside the Warp they have fused into armor, man and daemon into something terrible. It is treated as a virus in earlier material for how it progressed through stages until in the final stage the armor could never come off as all three became one at last. Also they are freaking genius' when it comes to all things technology.

TheHeavenlyLily said:

Yeah, but it acting like a virus in any way is silly imho. As it involves warping your body into a fusion with your equipment, it sounds far to much like corruption. As the effects of corruption are measured in stages in this game, there is no reason not to use that as the basis, in my opinion. Besides, how many obliterators have you heard of that had non-obliterator mutations? It especially doesn't seem right to have them be just advances that you can take willy nilly.

Quick thing about the obliterator and mutilator's third gifts:

They're something to, more or less, avoid. Take it when there's only two more gifts to gain, for example. The second gift is great, to be sure, so the third one's drawbacks make you seek to avoid it there.

Autostablized and Daemonic are both kind of questionably useful [you probably have bulging biceps or appropriate equipment like suspensors and a lot of stuff negates the daemonic bonus, and chances are your obliterator is no psyker], +1 size mostly just makes you easier to hit and harder to squeeze in places, and the -20 agi [or terminator suit] basically kill dodge and you lose the ability to run. By then, you're probably not going to need more bonded weapons than the 4+ish you have at that point.

Cryhavok said:

 

 

I agree with you on this and i like to add that becoming a Obliterator should not be a reward of the gods, because of the abilities that you gain (look at the Chaos Space marine codex), ill put the Obliterator in "Apotheosis" destiny even if they say that you become a Demon Prince (maybe i am wrong but i think that it is one possibility.)

Phelgor said: I was thinking something similar, but not quite the same. My train of thought on it is this: it is an obliterator CULT. Why not have the abilities gained through membership in a certain cult. We know there are unaligned powers in the warp, one of them could be granting these abilities. Have the use of abilities cost corruption. Then it would be this unaligned patron luring in his victims by granting these powers. But not quite obliterator powers. The goal of the cultist would be to acheive apotheosis and become some kind of obliterator prince. The patron however would be giving powers that corrupt litterally, and if the cultist falls to corruption level, instead of chaos spawndom, you become a full obliterator, and become enslaved to the patron's will, similar to a lesser deamons relationship to a chaos god, so some autonomy would be possible, but not actual choice. This would be why obliterators are not common sights. I was going to bring in trusty old malal as the patron in question. My players would know almost none of this and finding out more than the powers being offered and the potention reward of apotheosis (which no one has ever reached) would be immpossible. But then I think letting players have access to the power of an obliterator should be as sinister as possible.

@TheHeavenlyLily: its your game so in the end its your choice on how your player become a Obliterator.

@Cryhavok: Your idea is great but i have some problem with it (If were taking the information from the Chaos space marine codex)

-First: : its is clearly stated that the oblitarator exist outside of the warbands, moving from one to the other, exchanging their services for the opportunity to      claim ancient technologies or capture exotic war gear from the Emperium and alien races. So for me the Obliterator cult wouldn't work,

-Second: About unaligned powers in the warp, i don't think it fit too, i mean if you choose to be Unaligned its because you don't want to follow an entity of the warp and that mean that your character will keep is soul (when you receive the mark of one of the four chaos gods, the soul of your char. will be claim for "eternity".)

Third: with what i said before,the corruption thing doesn't keep the road.

 

 

But in the end, its your game, not mine, so its your choice that count.