In the dangerous and war-torn world of the 41st millennium, it is often fate alone, not skill, or wealth, or power, that marks the difference between success and failure, between life and death. Knowing – or better yet, controlling – one’s fate, from faithful readings of the Imperial tarot to forbidden bargains with the Ruinous Powers, thus is one of mankind’s great obsessions.
Only the Insane Have Strength Enough to Prosper (All Games)
This Elite Advance allows a character to tap the deep dark well of power found within the recesses of his mind.
Prerequisites: You must possess the Peer: The Insane Talent to take this advance.
Advance Cost: 300 XP
Effects: You immediately gain 1d10 Insanity Points.
Whenever you would use a Fate Point you may opt to gain 1d10 Insanity Points instead. You benefit from the normal effects of the Fate Point use, but the point itself is not considered spent.
You may only substitute this gain of Insanity Points for normal uses of Fate and not when burning it.
You may never reduce your Insanity Point total. If you ever do so, you immediately and permanently lose this advance.
Fateful Relics (All Games)
Charms and relics in general are known for the good fortune they bring. Some relics of the greatest Imperial saints, though, far exceed such trinkets in holiness – and power.
A fateful relic grants an additional Fate Point to its bearer. This Fate Point is bound to the relic. If the relic is lost, so is the Fate Point. If the fate point is used and the relic passed on to another character, the point still counts as spent. If the fate point is ever burned, the relic loses its power forever. Fate Points within relics refresh as usual (i.e. at the start of a gaming session).
Some fateful relics (such as the standard issue laspistol of St Macharius) have an immediate use beyond being items of worship (in the case of Macharius’ pistol this use is its utility as a weapon (use standard laspistol stats)). The Fate Point in such a relic can only be used in conjunction with the relic’s main use (e.g. to reroll a failed attack with the laspistol of St Macharius).
Great Reading (All Games)
The Imperial Tarot is a great and terrible thing in its complexity, in the truths and secrets it may uncover. This holds true even for quick and relatively minor readings. A great reading, the divining of not just a single event or a particular meaning, but of the course and purpose of a man’s entire life, is a truly terrifying undertaking. Long, arduous, and fraught with peril for both reader and subject, even the highest echelons of the Imperium regularly shy away from such powerful prophecy.
Being the recipient of a great reading is an Elite Advance.
Prerequisites: None.
Advance Cost: 1000 XP
Effects: You immediately receive 1d5-2 Fate Points. If the result is 0, you gain nothing. If the result is negative (i.e. -1), you lose a Fate Point.
If you possess the Pure Faith Talent, you receive 1d5-1 Fate Points instead.
Unwitting Marionette (Dark Heresy)
Tzeentch is the great manipulator. More often than not his pawns are not even aware of the roles they are to play in his games.
This Elite Advance marks an acolyte as one of the puppets of the Architect of Fate. It paves his way to success … and to damnation.
Prerequisites: None.
Advance Cost: 500 XP
Effects: You immediately receive 1d5 Fate Points.
Every time you use a Fate Point you gain 1 Corruption Point.
Pilgrim Coins and Coffin Ships (Rogue Trader)
This house rule may be invoked by any explorer, without needing a specific Talent or Advance.
Rogue Traders deal with various other Imperial institutions, not the least of which is the Ecclesiarchy. Supporting crusades, ferrying pilgrims, and reclaiming lost relics are just some of the endeavours an intrepid trader may undertake in the name of the Imperial Creed.
Most dynasties will do so in the name of profit as well as for the glory of Him on Terra.
Others may do it for faith alone though. Such pious Rogue Traders may choose to receive no increase to their Profit Factor from a fitting Endeavour (which should include at least one Creed objective), gaining an equivalent number of Fate Points (to be divided among the characters) instead. I.e. for a Greater Endeavour the explorers would receive 3-4 Fate Points, but no Profit Factor increase.
Yet others are willing to sell their souls and the lives of the faithful for worldly riches to swell their coffers, taking aboard pilgrims just to sell them as slaves, press them into crew work gangs, or simply pack them into cargo holds prone to lose atmosphere, keeping recovered relics to themselves, marooning crusaders on airless moons, or abandoning them without the promised orbital support. After completing such a heinous act of treachery, the explorers may burn 1 Fate Point to increase Profit Factor by 1 point.
Burning Demeanors (Deathwatch)
This house rule may be invoked by any battle brother, it does not require a specific Talent or Advance.
You may burn a Demeanor the same way you normally burn a Fate Point. The burned Demeanor is lost to your battle brother forever, and may never again be triggered (it may also not be burned a second time).
Burning a Demeanor in this way represents your battle brother overcoming some terrible ordeal, but only at great personal cost. The mental scars of his experience have robbed him of whatever part of his personality was encoded in his lost Demeanor.
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