Yes which was kind of my point, no Animus Specurium (?) for your run of the mill untouchable hence no auto damage / kill from contact.

I find it quite interesting that when a rule is more or less repeated twice (null version in GMs kit and Nulls in DotDG) people say things like "rule continuity", "consistency" and what not, but when I mention a concept like publishing the free PDF rules as a book I get responses like "got it free, why pay for it?" and "only if you add new stuff to it". Granted DotDG did add new stuff to it, but it kind of sounds to me like saying "If I paid for it once, I will buy it again, but if it was free, fat chance of paying for it at all."

I understand that there are loads of other factors here, other then those paragraphs the two books are very very different. 
 

And Im just venting, so Im not expecting replies. I just wanted to shred that thought off my chest.

Now back to reading the Pilgrims of Hayte, who I personally think are just too damn unimaginative. Almost as bland as the Murder Room/Red Room thing.

Definately think the Malleus section is a weak point in the book.

I still don't have my copy of Disciples yet, but some of the comments on the first couple of pages of this thread make me somewhat uneasy. I'm not comfortable with the idea of "levels" of potency in untouchables. By definition, they are humans who LACK a presence in the warp (or a soul), and hence the ability is actually a lack of ability. I don't see how there can be grades or levels of absence. It's not analogous to psykers, whose souls "burn like candles in the darkness of the warp" and with which description one can conceive of varying levels of brightness.

Steve

Being the lore monkey that I am I have decided to illuminate the people here on pariahs/untouchables/blanks.

It was mentioned by a few that the cause of the untouchable trait is unknown.  To the Imperium it is sure, but GW has in fact told us where it comes from.  The simple answer is the necrons (Well the C'Tan) gave it to us when they added the pariah gene into our early devolopment.

Of course there's more to it, so if you wish to, read on.  As a backdrop I'll introduce you to the war of the heavens (feel free to skip this part of verbosity on my part.  Its not essential, just me going on and on).  It is a ancient ancient war which essentially created much of what we know of in the 40K world.  Eldar, Chaos, Human psykers, orks, enslavers (Well not created them, just twisted) etc.  The Nids were actually not created from this (We beleive), but everything else seems to have had some influence from this.  This war was fought between the Old Ones (Race of Alpha level psykers.  The warp back then was much calmer but harder to access though so alpha level isn't as powerful as it is now) and the Necrotyr.  It has been infered that the Necrotyr were actually created at one point by the old ones, but that is inconclusive.  The Necrotyr were an absolutely unpsychic race that lived on a nasty little hellhole with a faulty star that spewed deadly radiation.  This star would kill any necrotyr before his 40th birthday.  It also messed up their genetics cause them to carry the flaw on their seed ships (They didn't yet have access the FTL, nor much of the Necron uber tech.  Except living metal).  The Old Ones were of course flying around the galaxy, living thousands of years, and generally being happy.  the necrotyr were jealous and tried to kill them.  the old ones for the most part ignored them.  Then the Necrotyr discoverd something in their star.  It was a being that had been leeching energy for millenia (It is beleived to be the Nightbringer).  They beleived this entity a god and made contact with it and several other C'Tan.  They gave these C'Tan bodies of living metal known as necrodermis.  One of these C'Tan, who had discovered that souls were really tasty, decided to offer to make the necrotyr like themselves.  The Necrotyr agreed.  They were all put it metal bodies and their souls were eaten.  EG Necrons.  The C'Tan, using their ability to warp reality, built a whole lot of fancy tech and attacked the greatest threat to them, the Old Ones (Since the only thing that can kill a C'Tan is another C'Tan or the warp).  The Old Ones started to loose.  So they created races better adapt at fighting and who were very powerful Psykers.  The Eldar and Orks are the most successful.  This unfortuantly had an adverse affect on the warp, weaking thebounds between reality and the warp and driving the enslavers mad.  Ironically it was the enslavers that destroyed the old ones, possesing and bringing them down.  The Enslaver plagues also caused the Necrons to go into hibernation due to the mass die off of sentient living races.  Oh and most of the C'Tan ate each other and went mad. 

Now that that is down I'll tell you were this applies.  During the war the Old Ones came across a planet with the potential of sapient life.  Earth.  They saw this and tampered with the genetics of our ancestors, inserting a certain gene that would ensure that humanity would devolope into a psychic race.  Not too long after the necrons showed up too.  Now the C'Tan had a choice, destroy the species, or insert their own genetic code.  The C'Tn, being long visioned beings, decided to insert the pariah gene in hopes that it would dominate.  If it did this race of untouchables would be a very very deadly weapon against the warp.  Of course the old Ones were better geneticists and so far the psyker gene is winning out. 

You missed out all the interesting stuff about Untouchables, like how they almost blocked out the Astronomican and were culled, their connection to the Adeptus Mechanicus and how the Culexus temple was formed.

angryboy2k said:

Your inability to see how it's possible doesn't stop it being possible

Heh I have no idea how the culuxes formed, and I am assuming you mean the necrons connection to the Mechanicus, because I don't think untouchables actually have anything special with that.  Yes there very well may be a C'Tan sleping in mars.  We don't know that though.  We do know for a fact that the pariah gene is necron based.  I was also unaware that the untouchables were blocking the astronomicon.  There'd have to be a fairly large critical mass to do something tyhat extreme though.  I'm going to say that it probably isn't true.

As for levels of power, there certainly are.  Some untouchables have a stronger level of untouchableness and a variation of range.  Jurgen strikes me as very very powerful, enough to mess with the hive mind.  Ravenor's Untouchable (Smokes lots of Lho sticks) has his power degraded and eliminated by... well its really hard to say way, super charged psyker boy I think (The boy was barely psychic till he got a full demonic warp blast in his face.  Seemed to do something to him.  Other then iduce a coma).

Stratigo said:

Normally I'd take offence at that, but today I'd rather just laugh at your ignorance. and I wasn't referring to the Necrons at all.

"lore monkey" indeed...

Charax said:

Either that lore itself is really really old or really really new.  I have not ever run across anything to do with the pariahs blocking the astronomicon, To me it strikes as something that would require a lot of untouchables to accomplish.  More then there actually are.  A noticeable amount of them.  I didn't say you made it up I meant that the lore you read was itself probbly not true not that it didn't exist at all.  40k is filled with that kind of stuff.  Ask the Zoats.  Or maybe the archives have been purged of the event and the inquisition is currently heading to your house for a handy mind wipe.

As the the Mechanicus, well they have connections to all sorts of things. I wouldn't be at all surprised if a certain Mechanicus group is studying untouchables.  But it just doesn't strike me as something the more ancient adapts that lead the mechanicus would speand more then a passing thought on.  Unless this was an abstract reference to the dark mechanicus, which i am sadly lacking in details (hopefully when I finally read the book that'll remedy this.)

Stratigo said: