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[LordBaal]

Yeah, everytime you see a thing like that... a wizard did it. Because plot.

[Grim Portent]

Erebus made a possessed Pariah during the HH for example, which normally shouldn't be possible.

Shouldn't the pariah cause the possessing daemon to just... cease to be?

The pariah's presence should banish it back into the Warp, which is what normally happens to daemons in true null zones, but Erebus managed to bind a daemon in despite that, at which point the combination became something else, something worse. Spear, as I recall it being called, was in addition to being a potent assassin and a daemonhost, a psychic mirror. He could repel psychic energy back at his enemies.

It is worth bearing in mind that Erebus may well be the greatest daemonologist ever to exist, possibly even greater than Lorgar. A feat like this required the blessings of the gods, immeasurable will, hatred and ambition. I dare say no one else could do it, and even for Erebus it was meant to be a great challenge.



I've not yet read the HH novel the whole daemon-pariah thing happens in, but I've heard mixed things about it, so I'm not sure if it's any good.

EDIT: It's always good to remember that many 40k characters are defined by being abnormal or superior to others. Like Typhus, the only marine to fully bond with the Destroyer Virus, or Kheradruakh the four armed mandrake character with an unrivalled connection to the shadow dimension. Or the Blood Angels character who overcame the Red Thirst and the Black Rage.

A possessed Culexus Assassin isn't really that far out there for characters overcoming their inbuilt failings and weaknesses or breaking the bounds of what is normal for the setting.

[miauw62]

Can't all Culexus assassins use their weird headlasers to shoot psychic energy absorbed from their environment?

[Grim Portent]

Can't all Culexus assassins use their weird headlasers to shoot psychic energy absorbed from their environment?

Not the same thing really. What Spear was supposed to do was reflect the full might of any attack launched at him right back at his attacker, frying them with their own psychic lasers. He was made to kill the Emperor, whose power presumably exceeded any natural pariah's ability to overwhelm.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Can blanks have further mutations?

After all, not all mutations are due to chaos. Some pretty strange creatures have risen as a result of noxious chemicals and pollution in the belly of a hive, without chaos being involved (at least, it used to be that way.)

Chaos mutations and genetic mutations are entirely different things. If you're really unlucky, a genetic mutation can start to show in your phenotype (and do horrible things to you), but mostly they fail to take and only get passed on through gametes to your offspring. Chaos mutations, on the other hand, can result in you instantly developing things from tentacles to psychic powers to daemon traits. With a good enough microscope you can observe your DNA, but you can never observe the substance of these mutations because they're alterations to your soul.

This makes blanks kind of interesting, as like psykers their physical genetics do something to the formation of their souls. Blanks are no more resistant to genetic mutations than anyone else, but they're almost immune to chaos mutations. As blanks becalm the "pattern of Chaos" into flat warpspace, the mechanism for chaos mutation is destroyed. However, blanks can be overwhelmed by psykers more powerful than they are blank, and this implies that strong enough attention could make them vulnerable.

[DJ]

Possessed blanks make about as much sense as ork harlequins.

[Egan_BW]

The thing about your setting being the size of a whole galaxy is, pretty much anything you could imagine exists somewhere in it, regardless of how absurd.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I have seen some people suggest that the "possessed pariah" wasn't actually possessed at all, but literally surgically sown together with a summoned daemon.

[DJ]

Still doesn't sound very healthy for the daemon.

[Grim Portent]

It would probably be one of the most painful things a daemon can go through.

[Tack]

They feel pain?
Also wouldn't the blank just cause the daemon to discorporiate?

[Grim Portent]

They feel pain?

They do indeed, they can even be tortured and driven insane by those with the time and dedication.

Also wouldn't the blank just cause the daemon to discorporiate?

Normally yes, but Spear was a special case for some reason. It might have been because he was an experimentally modified Culexus, or maybe it was because it was Erebus doing the summoning and binding, or maybe the chaos gods happened to like the idea enough to try and brute force things through. Once bound into him though the daemon's essence would be trapped in his body and wouldn't be able to be banished back to the Warp properly.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Slaaneshi definitely feel pain, since they love it and all.

And yes, probably, which is why only one black pariah has ever been recorded. How exactly it was possible defies speculation.

As to if your typical daemons has pain, or other feelings analogous to humans, tough to say. They aren't all that eldritch and are formed primarily from the collective unconsciousness of humans (almost all of Chaos is human or posthuman by M41), so them being comprehensible to mortals is well within the realm of possibility.

One point of note is that daemons are universally noted to panic and show signs resembling fear when confronted with the psy-discipline warpfire, as it attacks them simultaneously in reality and the warp, which can kill them permanently.

[Tack]

I dunno when I think daemons I think bloodletters, of whom I somehow have the idea that only skulltaker is self-aware.

[Grim Portent]

I dunno when I think daemons I think bloodletters, of whom I somehow have the idea that only skulltaker is self-aware.

All true daemons are self aware, though there are lesser warp spirits that aren't.

The beast daemons like Flesh Hounds and Seekers are animals, albeit twisted and warped in their mindset, being gross parodies of real animals. The lesser and greater daemons are self aware, capable of speech and a reasonable spectrum of emotion, though they are mostly limited to those that fall under their gods portfolio they aren't entirely limited to them.