Psyker

A psyker, in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, is an individual with psychic powers, capable of accessing the Warp. This is both a blessing and a curse; though psykers are often able to achieve spectacular feats with their abilities, the Warp is a perilous place, and whenever a psyker uses their abilities there is a chance that they will be subject to the Perils of the Warp. Death is one of the milder results of this; extremely unlucky psykers might actually be raped in countless ways by Daemons and used as a gateway from the Warp into the physical world.

Types of Psyker

The different races of the setting perceive psykers in different ways.

• The Imperium of Man regards most psykers as extremely dangerous because of the threat of Chaos possession, and thus the Inquisition hunts them down so they can either be sacrificed to the Empra or sanctioned and made to serve the Imperium (under an inquisitor's watchful eye). Such Psykers appear as a unit in the Dawn of War games and like to scream incomprehensible one-liners so mind-numbingly loud that they may very well actually make your head explode. Just as planned. Space Marines make their psykers Librarians, who in turn compile records in the Librarium, serve to assist in battlefield communications, and test their brothers for Chaotic contamination. Imperial Guard Sanctioned Psykers combines Psychic Powers with Standard Issue Balls of Steel that every Imperial Guard members have; they have a nasty reputation for being BLAMMED by Commissars. Rogue Psykers are often hated by more puritan worlds, in extreme cases being hunted down and killed, but on most worlds being sactioned (assuming you survive and don't mind the side affects) gives an air of authority and orthodoxy to an otherwise hated thing. People still hate you, but instead of hating you like a conservative hates homeless people, now its more like how no one really likes the auditors. Astropaths are beyond such hate, because they are less prone to possession and because they are a planet's only way of communicating with the greater Imperium. People still feel uneasy around them, but even Black Templars and monodominant nazis have to cope with them and make nice faces. Pointing out that the Emperor was a psyker usually results in the person struggling to make a retort for a few moments before beating you to death.
  • .Probably because Psychic Powers (and any other Superhuman powers, unless performed with strictly technological equipments) are the bane of Humanity Fuck Yeah... Or not. A sanctioned-psychic human killing the enemies of the Imperium is still a human killing the enemies of the Imperium (until the daemons get them, of course).

• The Eldar are a strongly psychically-attuned race, and their most powerful psykers become Farseers and leaders of their people. They're ridiculously powerful psykers because of that deep imprint in the warp to draw power, combined with their Spehss Ehlvan minds and willpower. They just need to be fucking careful and never use their full strength unless they like the feeling of tentacles.

• The Dark Eldar however, avoid using Psychic powers due to their whole "I own your soul" gig with Slaanesh. They do have extra fun torturing, killing and then weaponizing psykers though. The only psychic power they do use is some sort of emotion-vampirism ability that can replenish their bodies and souls. And kamehamehas, for mandrakes.

• The Tau have almost no presence in the Warp owing to the fact how their race is incapable of producing psykers. Although some of their vassal races have psychic abilities.

• The Necrons can't manipulate the warp with their minds and have no presence in it, but they have managed to conquer the warp with technology, fucking up the warp and psykers with gloom prisms they mount on their spiders, Cadian-like pylons or even giant city-sized mechanisms that cut entire planets from the warp. Problem, demons?

• The Orks have their own "psykik" energy in the power of the WAAAAAAGH, which they tap via Wyrdboys and they're one of the most powerful psykers in the universe considering that this psychic energy actually makes their stuff work just because they think it should work like that. That, and it has an amusing tendency to make people's heads explode with absolutely no warning. Unlike other races, the Orks draw psychic energy from each-other and themselves, not from the Warp, which makes them virtually immune to chaotic influences, although they do have a pretty serious presence in the warp in the form of Gork and Mork.

• The Tyranids are innate psykers but they use the energies of the Hive Mind rather than the warp, the same way a Wyrdboy would tap into the WAAAGH. Save for the Zoanthroape which is the only Tyranid specie capable of weaponizing the Hive Mind's psychic energy to fire tank piercing mind-lasers, Tyranid species cannot readily use pure psychic energy to attack their opponents like how human and Eldar Psykers fire bolts and mind bullets. They instead use it as a form of control called "synapse", which keeps the Tyranid horde from going feral and killing everyone and everything they see. The main problem is however, is if the Hive Mind gets driven away from the horde it's supposed to be controlling or gets killed, the Tyranid synapse link collapses and everyone turns feral, how Zoanthroapes still manage to remain psychic despite loosing their link the Hive Mind is still not understood either. Also, before Genestealers got retconned into being Tyranids, Genestealer Magi DID use the power of the warp to power their abilities and could dedicate themselves to Chaos. There's an image of a Khorne Magus in one of the 2ed books...

• The Squats that grow very old are called "living ancestors". They are extremely rare, and develop psychic powers by communing with the spirits of their predecessors. And you could put them in an egg-shaped terminator armor, then onto a trike, with a bolt-firing cavalry lan...

Psychic Power Hierarchy

The Imperium of Man uses a twenty-four point scale to determine the comparative psychic power of an individual, unfortunately this gets very confusing in the fluff, especially where Alpha-level psykers seem to be a dime-a-dozen and show up all over the place... Or when established characters are canonically given a very high rating (Brother-Captain Stern = Beta / Ravenor = Delta [retconned back from Alpha-Plus in the fluff]), but then are completely over shadowed by some other character. All of this "logically" leads Neckbeards to reach the flawed conclusion that their favourite character on the tabletop MUST be Alpha level or greater.

Not only that, it is canon that psychic assignments can change over time as powers increase with practice or atrophy due to lack of use. So generally, the fluff is quite useless for determining who is greater than who; and without evidence of a direct psychic battle between the two comparing how they match up to each other is pretty pointless using this method.

Nevertheless, here is the scale:

Alpha-Plus

• Alpha-plus does not represent the top point of the scale, but in fact are completely beyond the scale entirely, these individuals operate on a completely different wavelength from normal people and are owners of completely alien mindsets. In terms of power they are akin to weapons-of-mass-destruction (depending on their particular discipline; for instance a Alpha-Plus Pyromancer is entirely different from a Telepath) However, in theory there is nothing that a trained Alpha-Plus psyker cannot accomplish through force of will; from snapping a Titan in half to summoning a legion of Greater Daemons.
• There is the tacit assumption that this category contains the Emperor and his "notably-psychic" Primarchs (unlike Corax & Sanguinius who may or may not have been psychic at all) but even he admitted there were limits on his power, specifically that one could not be both All-Seeing and All-Powerful at the same time.

Alpha // Beta

• Exceedingly rare and dangerous. The Imperium believes that human beings have not sufficiently evolved enough to contain Beta and Alpha levels of psionic talent without going completely bat-shit mental. (though exceptions do exist)
• Canon Imperial Alpha level psykers who still have their mental faculties happen to be Grey Knights (Epimetheus & Hyperion [Stern is listed as Beta])
• It is very much assumed that the more powerful fluff characters, such as Eldrad or Ahriman are Alpha-Level

Gamma // Delta

• Approximately every 1 per 1,000,000,000 human births you get a Delta / Gamma level psyker who represent the "useful" upper limit of psychic potential without being too dangerous to let live, though it's up to the Inquisition to be the judge of that.

Epsilon // Zeta

• These represent your ranks of relatively "powerful" psyker.

Eta // Theta // Iota

• Iota represents the first "true" psykers, and are able to manifest and control psychic abilities with a modicum of training. These are the people that find their way into the various Imperial institutions.

Kappa // Lambda // Mu // Nu // Xi // Omicron

• You get a broad range of people who can manifest psychic talents either unconsciously or so subtly as to be beneath the notice of everyone but the Inquisition, such as performing minor "magic" tricks or divinations. Most of the time they are quite useless but still represent a danger since they can be possessed.
• Despite the Inquisition being too busy to sort out everyone at this level, the Imperial public is conditioned well enough to spot and ostracise these witches if the truth ever came to light. (read Gaunts Ghosts)

Pi // Rho

• Basic Humans, neither psy-active or psy-inert. A generally safe place to be.

Sigma // Tau

• When you start descending below the scale of humans you start going psy-inert. At the earliest point, when psychic effects start manifesting subtle phenomena that everyone describes as "something feeling wrong" these people can't even tell anything is happening.

Upsilon // Phi // Chi // Psi

• Subjects with varying degrees of immunity to psyker powers, not true blanks, but quite possibly enough to reduce an incoming power from absolutely lethal to something survivable or are much more difficult to mind-read than normal.

Omega

• Usually referred to as Untouchables, Pariahs, or Blanks. Not only are they immune to psychic powers, but they can also inhibit the powers of psykers around them and/or neutralise effects on an area around themselves. The fluff is a bit inconsistent on the exact limit of this ability, but that's fine, as in Dark Heresy Untouchables represent a broad range of effects and can be different from person-to-person, much like high level psykers can have different powers and disciplines.
• True Untouchables have such a psy-negative effect that even normal people can sense it, and manifests in an irrational loathing for that person, though in some cases it can be passed off by either a good personality (Elisabeth Bequin) or an odd character trait (Gunner Jurgen). For psykers, however, Omega level persons are physically and mentally painful to be near.

Other Factors

When you get further into the details, not only is sheer psychic potential a factor to consider in determining how powerful a psyker is, there are other things to consider when trying to figure out mechanically how one differs from another.

This is easier to do outside of the tabletop setting, which focusses on a d6 scale, where a minor difference in a single statistic can create one power tier an order of magnitude more effective above another.

Level of Control

The Willpower (read: control) of a given individual holds almost about as much sway in saying who is more powerful than who, so just because a psyker has an mid-high psy rating, if their Willpower is low (say: 30) they're less likely to successfully manifest but are more likely to create a powerful effect when they do. Inversely, a low-mid rated psyker with a strong willpower (say: 60) is more likely to successfully manifest and is also more likely to be able to resist/counter incoming psychic effects.

That said, even in the mechanics of the RPG rules, once a psy-rating reaches epic heights then they should have no problems casting even with a low willpower.

Sorcery

The second thing to consider is the whims of the Chaos Gods, (particularly Tzeentch). Sorcery is entirely separate from Psy Rating/Assignment and even a non-psyker with the correct rites and incantations can pull off similar (if not the same) manifestations as a true psyker. Back during the Horus Heresy, Erebus (and 30k Word Bearers with Burning Lore) is an example of this.

A true psyker with access to sorcery can increase his power levels even higher and can easily outstrip more powerful psykers than himself, though Sorcery comes with its own perils and generally leads to Damnation and Corruption (no wonder big Emps put his foot down at the council of Nikaea)

Furthermore, certain favours gifted from the Gods also increase psychic output. It used to be that in days gone by, the Mark of Tzeentch used to enhance psychic potential on the tabletop. Nowadays it doesn't, but in the RPG it still does. But obviously once you've been marked by a God of Chaos, you're in their pocket forever, and you best do your utmost to keep them happy or you end up becoming a Chaos SpaGLARBLLLLAAARRGGBBLEEAA

Pushing

Separate from either issue is the fact that Psykers can theoretically increase their assignment rating for a brief instant in order to grant themselves more power.

In both the rules and the fluff there are common instances of psykers being able to boost themselves and create larger effects or to overcome more powerful opponents. This is not so prevalent on the 40k tabletops (although with the 7th Edition advent of the shared Warp Charge "Pool" this may be untrue) and not all psykers have the ability to do this to the same degree.

One method is to "Push" their powers further, basically taking a gamble and temporarily adding MOAR power to their manifestation.

• Bound psykers (that is to say, nearly every Imperial psyker who has undergone a Sanctioning process [Including Librarians] or Soul-Binding) can only push themselves so much and they are at greater risk of something bad happening (ie: Perils of the Warp) when they do so.
• Unbound psykers (Rogue Psykers / Sorcerers) on the other hand can reach even higher degrees of power but shit WILL hit the fan.
• Daemonic psykers who attempt to push their powers can go yet higher, but are considerably more likely to cause dangerous psychic phenomena. However since their mere existence on the material plane can be considered a dangerous psychic phenomena they are less likely to be bothered by it unless it is a straight up Perils of the Warp.

Psychic Disciplines

There are five "basic" psychic disciplines in the grim darkness of the future:

• Biomancy is about flesh/life force manipulation and shooting lightning, somehow.
• Divination is about predicting and tweaking future.
• Pyromancy is about KILLING IT WITH FIRE.
• Telepathy is pretty much self-explanatory - reading and translating minds. Mind control and mind rape goes there.
• Telekinesis is also obvious - moving things with a mind. Here also goes psychic shields and somehow dimensional gates.
• Daemonology is a sixth common discipline, although it's by no means basic, being much more difficult to learn and dangerous to use. It's split into two sub-disciplines - Malefic is about summoning daemons and using their power, and Sanctic is about banishing them and killing things with the refined unshaped Warp energy.

Besides those six, other disciplines exist, although they are mostly faction-specific:

• Chaos psykers and daemons use their own specific disciplines, dedicated to one of the three gods who doesn't hate sorcery:
  • Tzeentch is mostly about killing things with warpfire. Unlike Pyromancy, however, this fire does not burn things but rather twist and mutate them. It's kind of funny how Tzeentch, being the god of trickery, deceit and just as planned ended up with the most straightforward spells.
  • Nurgle is like a sick(er) and evil(er) version of Biomancy, focusing on weakening and poisoning enemies.
  • Slaanesh Sorcerers tend to be the trickiest, focusing on illusions, causing pain, ecstasy, end generally fucking with the victims' minds (sometimes literally).
• Eldar use runes as a proxies to manifest psychic powers, so they wouldn't get mind fucked by Slaanesh Daemons the moment they surge in the warp for the power, and they created two disciplines to utilize those runes:
  • Runes of Fate Used by Farseers is kind of like Telepathy and Divination mixed together and shaken a bit - same kind of future telling and mindrape in a slightly different form. Except for Eldritch Storm, which looks like it was pulled form the Sanctic Daemonology
  • Runes of Battle Used by Warlocks and Spiritseers feature a set of powers that can be used to buff allies or debuff opponents, most of which doesn't fit into any of the basic disciplines.
• Orks Weirdboyz have their own discipline, that runs on the Waaagh! energy rather than Warp, and can only use it. Surprisingly, Waaagh! powers are quite powerful and some of them are tricky, although they are mostly focused on pumping the boyz around the Weirboy with buffs, getting them closer to enemies or killing shit with a green lightning stuff.
• Similarily, Tyranids, whose psychic powers also runs on collective psychic field have their specific discipline, which is moslly a Telepathy with a bit of Biomancy and an odd Zoanthope mind bullet power thrown in.
• Space Wolves Rune Priests use a discipline called Tempestus (although they refuse to admit it's a psychic discipline at all, since they're hypocrite assholes) - it involves quite a unique powers that mostly revolve around ice, earth and storm - think WoW Shamans ported into Grimdark.
• Blood Angels and their successors claim to have their own discipline called Sanguine but it's really just a bunch of Biomancy, Telekinesis and Telepathy powers thrown together and given fancy names. Except the Blood Lance - that shit looks like a legit Chaos sorcery.

Comparing Psykers

Addendum: This list is relative in the extreme. Trying to compare the Psychic powers of so many characters is kinda fukkin' stupid.

• 1. God-Emperor of Mankind
• 2. Magnus the Red
• 3. Malcador the Sigilite;
• 4. Lorgar; Eldrad; Azhek Ahriman;
• 5. Hyperion; Eldar Farseers; other Alpha level psykers
• 6. Rubric Sorcerers; Tigurius; Sevrin Loth; Mephiston; Swarmlord; Zaraphiston.
• 7. Chaos Sorcerers; Grey Knight Librarians; Njal Stormcaller; Ezekiel; Ravenor.
• 8. Regular Librarians, Zoanthropes;
• 9. Primaris Psykers; Eldar Warlocks, Hive Tyrants;
• 10. Wyrdwane/Sanctioned Psykers; Ork Wyrdboyz.
• 11. Regular Grey Knights; Astropaths (they are powerful, but their powers are normally so specialized on being a cell-phone, most of them are no match for 'true' psykers).
• 12. Regular Eldar.
• 13. Regular Orks.
• 14. Regular Humans.
• 15. Blunted Humans; Tau.
• 16. Necrons
• 99. Blanks/Pariahs
• 100. Culexus Assassins/sisters of silence - farthest from Psyker as possible, soulless anti-psykers.

I'm not sure about the place of Greater Daemons here; also, Tyranid psykers.

Gallery

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  You should never invite psykers to your poker night.

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  Culexus assassins are psykers' worst nightmare, though they are very friendly.

• Psyker Dredd knows you were gonna say that.

  Psyker Dredd knows you were gonna say that.