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[Cheesecake]

Alright, time for a change of topic.

How far can someone defer from the Holy Human Form? Abhumans are tolerated. Tech-priests replace most of their meaty bits for metal ones, but they're tolerated. Space Marines more or less transcend human, and so were the primarchs, and they're revered.

So how inhuman can someone be before they get burned in the pyre?

[Loud Whispers]

Tentacles?

[Cheesecake]

Tech-priests have tons of metal tentacles. Mechadendrites and loose tubing and stuff. :p

[Amperzand]

That's actually a really good question.

I'd imagine the Techpriests are tolerated because they started out as much allies of the Imperium as servants of it, so their religious disposition is a little odd.

[GiglameshDespair]

I imagine cybernetics don't tend to count. Servitors, combat and labour, tend to get modified pretty hugely, though I suppose they might not count as human anymore. Techpriests are also tolerated if nothing else because the Imperium wouldn't function without them. The rules apply until they don't when it comes to necessity.

I imagine that organic changes are much less tolerated than mechanical ones. Depends how well it can be hidden, how useful it is, and what your station of life is - if you're a rich and powerful noble you can probably have it dealt with and can conduct business through proxies, etc.

[TempAcc]

Yea, the whole idea is that the imperium is very pro science/technology as long its not heretek (AIs, etc), so cybernetics and all that stuff tends to be viewed as pretty acceptable and somehow not a deviation from the holy human form, specially sincle nobles and the ecclesiarchy go around sporting cyber implants, and servitors being a thing. Abhumans are tolerated because they're considered as some sort of "fallen" humans, but that are not beyond redemption by giving their lives to the emperor. Mutants in general are usualy viewed in contempt though, and the line between abhuman and mutant can be very thin, at times.
Space Marines are also well viewed in general, despite having been genetically, biologically and cybernetically enhanced, probably because it was the emperor that originally dictated it. In a way, anything the emperor likes is viewed as a human ideal, so space marines can sort of be seen as ~more human than human~ in certain ways, unless you're a certain type of inquisitor, obv.

It makes more sense if you think of it using a vertical evolutionary viewpoint. Abhumans are humans that have degenerated, but still belong to the human line. Standard humans form the middle point of the line, serving as a standard for everything else. Space Marines and primarchs are above the standard human line, and thus are "better humans". Emprah is the supreme, ideal human, above all else. Mutants are seen as humans who have deviated from that line, belong to a different category altogheder, and thus worthy of contempt :v

So:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Less Human <-------> More Human
<<<Glorious Human Line>>>
Abhuman <--- Normal Humans ---> Spess Mehreen ---> Primarch ---> Emprah
                      /                               
                    /
                Mutant

-+-Chaos dweeb line (may include humansheretics)-+-

===Xenos dweeb line===

[GiglameshDespair]

Really, I think a lot of things come down to practicality.

If something is against the rules, but it's necessary, the rules get tossed aside; such as all the times Imperial forces fight alongside xenos like the eldar against a greater threat, abhumans are useful enough not to be purged. If something needs to get done, the powers that be will get it done, as the alternative is worse.

[LordBaal]

The lines were clearly defined by His most Holly, the Emperor himself, millennia ago.

He made the space marines himself, following a template (more or less) that must not be deviated from (more or less), allowed deviations from the template are the ones that he also made or let slip.

Cybernetics and all mechanical cult stuff are allowed as well, since He Himself accepted all that when signed the treaty with Mars.

Abhumans are allowed as long those abnormalities are beneficial for the Imperium and are the result of regular, natural and true "pure" genetic mutation and environment adaptation, instead of xenos or warp (chaos) induced.

[Kot]

Also, a lot depends on wether the said mutants want to redeem themselves by fighting in His name. Back in the Rogue Trader, I think, we had actual furry beastmen that did so.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The Horned Rat

Description

The Great Hunger, the Vermin God, the Destroyer. All are names that have been conjured by in the worship of the Chaos God known principally as the Horned Rat. Said to be a godly refugee from a realm beyond the Milky Way, the texts of the Horned Rat often include mention of the loss of his "true spawn". What is certain is that in the 42nd millennium the Horned Rat has but one desire: to consume the universe, to pollute and defile it all and leave only a lifeless husk behind, weighed down under quadrillions of corpses. 

Domains

Entropy, Famine, Impermanence, Fecundity, Exhaustion, Finality, Pests, Malice, Trolling

Avatar

The True Rat is a towering beast with horns to threaten any Bloodthirster, covered for hundreds of feet in matted fur and sores, and with a tail capable of sundering Titans. The Horned Rat answers the call of his followers only once every century, that he may personally consume the most succulent world they can offer him, leaving nothing behind.

Greater Daemons

Verminlords are otherworldly 12-foot tall rat-things boasting powerful psychic abilities running the gamut of potential. The most powerful Verminlords are the source of the claim that the Horned Rat comes from another reality, as they will cheerfully boast to any who are present among the other accomplishments of their lord. To even be near a Verminlord is to invite ruin, as they carry with them a living entropy that pushes all things towards degeneration and filth.

Lesser Daemons

Simulacra are strange, somber creatures that do not fit the typical profile of the Horned Rat. Approximately human-sized walking rat-daemons, Simulacra have a uniform profile of claiming that they are "not real" and "mere reflections" of something else. They entourage mortals to consume and pollute the world around them into perpetual decline. Simulacra typically appear in hordes, and as the Horned Rat's power over an area grows these hordes will grow large enough to leave nothing untouched.


Cults

Cults of the Horned Rat are those of fate and destruction. They focus their justifications on the idea that all shall be dust one day, even the warp itself, and so those alive should consume the universe with wild abandon and allow all to be destroyed in a blaze. Dozens of children are born to the destruction of their mothers, nature is taken from until it falls in upon itself, and eventually only that which the rats could love for remains. Cults often take the form of planetary corporations, apocalypse seekers, and agri-communes.


Mark

The Mark of the Horned Rat is three bars upon one another in a downward facing triangle. Only rarely granted to humans, once a mortal has taken the Mark they have only a short time to attain daemonhood or die as the aura of entropy it grants destroys their own bodies.

[Tack]

He's the "Great" Horned Rat now that Slaanesh is dead/recuperating.

Also on the earlier question- Navigators have a pineal eye. It's tiny and sits in the center of their foreheads.
They are the hard limit of the tolerance the imperium has for mutation. That miniscule amount is tolerated because of their necessity.

Ergo imo, someone with an extra finger would straight up get reported and put down.

[Loud Whispers]

Why kill purple androgynous embodiment of /tg?

[Grim Portent]

Why kill purple androgynous embodiment of /tg?

He/she/it's not dead, just stuck in a box on an Aelf's shelf.

Personally I suspect that GW shoved him/her/it out of the way in AoS because they wanted to do more with the Horned Rat (Skaven were/are a popular faction) but wanted to stick with there only being four major chaos gods and Slaanesh was both the least popular and the least suited to the AoS aesthetic.

[TempAcc]

He's the "Great" Horned Rat now that Slaanesh is dead/recuperating.

Also on the earlier question- Navigators have a pineal eye. It's tiny and sits in the center of their foreheads.
They are the hard limit of the tolerance the imperium has for mutation. That miniscule amount is tolerated because of their necessity.

Ergo imo, someone with an extra finger would straight up get reported and put down.

Eh, maybe if you're in the death korps of krieg, but the imperium in general is way more acceptable of abhumans by comparison. While a nail slightly out of place will land you in a death camp in krieg, ogryns, who are dangerously strong, smelly as all hell, claustrophobic and stupid are tolerated in most of the imperial guard due to their propensity to undying loyalty and following orders blindly  (being strong enough to headbutt orks to death and having skin that can resist small arms fire is also a big plus). Navigators himself are actualy far weirder then just having a third eye thing and special psychic powers, they've sometimes been described as being downright monstrous in appearance, which is possibly made worse by the fact that navigators are subjected to inbreeding to guarantee that their offspring will also have their set of mutations, which is pretty rare.

[Tack]

Well there you have it.
The Space Wolves novels by William King had their mutations pretty uniform, but nobody really liked them, and they were a point of political contention.
Plus other spoilery stuff.