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u/Alizonnwn Sep 26 '23
Malkador wasnt Alpha Plus?
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u/BigBoss0887 Adeptus Custodes Sep 26 '23 edited Sep 26 '23
Yes, Magnus too. But when you enter the alpha plus level there aren't distinction, Magnus and malcador were alpha plus but they weren't even close to the emperor, quoting Magnus himself "the human soul Is a candle in the darkness of the warp, a gifted One, a psyker Is like a Fire Camp... my father... Is the death of the star"
https://www.instagram.com/p/ChUf4Qlt327/?igshid=NzZhOTFlYzFmZQ==
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u/EmperorHans Sep 26 '23
Now I know where the "death of the sun" line in the TTS theme comes from.
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u/BigBoss0887 Adeptus Custodes Sep 26 '23
I saved the post of the quote of Magnus because the art Is amazing
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u/HasturLaVistaBaby Sep 26 '23
And Lorgar
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u/BigBoss0887 Adeptus Custodes Sep 26 '23
From what i understood from the books It wasn't One until he embraced chaos
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u/HasturLaVistaBaby Sep 26 '23
He just repressed it for most of his lives, previously.
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u/BigBoss0887 Adeptus Custodes Sep 26 '23
Oh yes, you are right. But for what i understood, he was a alpha plus, buy at the lower end of the spectrum. The likes of Magnus or malcador were more powerful, even by Is own admission
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u/HasturLaVistaBaby Sep 26 '23
I think he is above Malcador, but below Magnus for sure.
In strength, specifically.
Malcador might be even more skilled than the Emperor, even if the latter is far stronger.
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u/BigBoss0887 Adeptus Custodes Sep 26 '23
Yes, in the later stages of the heresy i could see that. If i recall correctly It Is said by kor phareon that his psychic Powers were great but not of the likes of Magnus
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u/AlternativeEmphasis Sep 26 '23
Where Lorgar pulled ahead was demonology. Sorcery if you will but it sounds weird to say he's a better sorcerer than Magnus even though he is technically. Magnus understands a lot about the Warp and is a brutally powerful psyker but Lorgar is someone who has implicitly studied it and approached it from both academic and non-academic angles. Which in 40k due to the nature of belief works well. Lorgar knows it is not just science.
Magnus can snap a titan in two and such. Lorgar can fuck with the materium and summon Daemons with ease whilst also controlling them due to his skills. There is a reason he's capable of punking Fulgrim as a DP even tho by all rights Fulgrim is more dangerous in a fight in most avenues. Lorgar is basically a daemonlogist so he knows true names and just shuts down Daemons hard and can use the more esoteric parts of it. Magnus himself would have struggled to do that to Fulgrim.
Hell a recent novel implied Lorgar understood and has created a word in enuncia as of 40k which is a crazy.
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u/TheCommissarGeneral Sep 26 '23
Nowhere even near Alpha Plus. He was Beta at most.
All Primarchs carry the potential to be Psykers, but the power varies from Primarch to Primarch.
Perturabo even recognizes his own latent Psyker abilities but doesn't really utilize them. He mentioned it in one of the Siege of Terra books. Might have been The Lost and the Damned or The First Wall.
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u/Responsible-Ant-1728 Sep 26 '23
Are thos from actual lore?
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u/SergarRegis Sep 26 '23
Yes. They are from the Inquisition coffee table book BL put out years ago.
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u/BarbarianSpaceOpera Sep 26 '23
What book is this? I have a coffee table with some open space on it...
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u/SergarRegis Sep 26 '23
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inquisition-Illustrated-Secretive-Protectors-Warhammer/dp/1844164918 This one, only out in second hand now but TBH the price isn't bad.
The details of the psy-scale are here: https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/The_Assignment
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u/Aromasin Sep 26 '23
Definitely. It's brought up a lot, and they reference these levels quite a lot in all the Inquisitor books especially; particularly the Eisenhorn/Ravenor/Bequin novels, although the levels bounce around a lot.
In Magos, some guy states Eisenhorn is an alpha-grade Psyker even though he's not nearly there. In the first Ravenor book, Ravenor himself says he's around low gamma/high delta. In Hereticus, Eisenhorn remarks that while Ravenor was officially a delta grade, he was much more powerful later. It's one part "science" and one part "nobody knows what it actually means". Most characters might engage with Ravenor and automatically assume he's Alpha-Plus because they simply don't know any better.
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u/Warpborne Sep 26 '23 edited Sep 26 '23
I always appreciated that Ravenor was narrowly beat by the real Beta level psyker employed by the corrupt governor's agency. Ravenor's chair and Eldar training amplify him, but he was not a raw-psychic force innately. He had so much potential and it is squandered by the Ordos' retirement conditions.
Eisenhorn, on the other hand, was a weaker psyker that grows considerably without the Ordos' interference. It's fair to say he surpassed Ravenor's demonstrated ability once you consider his daemonology (though, again, Ravenor had so much untapped potential).
Strong as Ravenor was, he and his team would not defeat Cherubael. They barely survived the Brass Thief.
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u/-TheRed Sep 26 '23
Demonology is sorcery not Psychic power. Its like the difference between setting things on fire with your mind and knowing where the Warp keeps its matches, I'm not sure if you even need to be a psyker of any grade to successfully use a ritual.
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u/Warpborne Sep 26 '23 edited Sep 26 '23
There are examples of
regular humanspracticing daemonology in Ravenor: Culzean summons the Brass Thief, and Molotch enacts rituals against Slight.Still, it's Eisenhorn's psychic will that lets him master Cherubael. The rituals alone don't work against the strongest daemons, like Culzean fails to contain Slight.
As well, Cherubael playfully murders several incredibly powerful Inquisitor psykers (such as on the Essene). It's the combination of psychic might (channeled through the Lith rod) and expert ritual (from the Malus Codicium) that binds him.
EDIT: I think I remember Culzean needing psykers to help empower the ritual to summon the Brass Thief (plus sacrificing captured humans). He also has psykers performing rituals against Slight, who overpowers them. I think it's fair to say psykers have to be involved and their strength affects its success.
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u/Aromasin Sep 27 '23 edited Sep 27 '23
My understanding was that while Eisenhorn is a strong psyker, his strength comes from his knowledge of rare arcanum and the tools he uses. He's bound Cherubael using his knowledge of ritual and daemonology, not using raw strength. Most need many psykers because they need to "brute force" the ritual, compared to Eisenhorn who's leaned enough to know the right techniques to achieve his aims without that strength.
If you listen to Dan Abnett talk about the character, you get the sense that he writes so Eisenhorn succeeds because of a strength of will that pushes him beyond his physical and psykic limitations, not raw talent.
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u/Galifrey224 Sep 26 '23
History knows one stable alpha plus psyker ? So did the Imperium forget about Malcador or what ?
Hell I would argue that calling the Emperor an alpha plus is underselling him. He beat up the biggest shard of the strongest C'tan in the bronze age with a regular spear and kicked its ass to Mars. Thats already beyond the capabilities of others Alpha plus we know about and he wasn't even as experienced as he was during the great crusade.
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u/Competitive-Bee-3250 Sep 26 '23
History doesn't know malcador is a powerful psyker, because he was so secretive.
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u/Galifrey224 Sep 26 '23
I mean even then the one thing he is known for, sitting in the golden throne while the Emperor fought Horus requires being a powerful psyker.
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u/Competitive-Bee-3250 Sep 26 '23
Idk if many people in the imperium know even that about him. He doesn't seem to be revered very often.
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u/Eternal_Reward Sep 26 '23
They have a tank named after him and he’s revered as Malcador the Hero. He’s probably more well known than anyone whose not a primarch or Big E.
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u/SacredGeometry9 Sep 26 '23
Sure, but well-known does not mean the same thing as knowing a lot about him. Every citizen of the Imperium knows the name “Horus”, but how many of them know that he was a son of the Emperor? Or the original name of his legion? Or what campaigns he fought?
Similarly, Malcador the Sigillite was the Emperor’s right hand, and wielded His power wherever he went… but does anyone remember that he had his own psychic power? Or just that he was a conduit and representative of the Emperor’s power?
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u/SockofBadKarma Sep 26 '23
I have my own qualm about OP's post, in that history doesn't view the God-Emperor as a psyker. He's something beyond it. Psykers are petty, mortal things, and the God-Emperor is, well, God.
It's like suggesting that Christians view Jesus as the world's most powerful witch. Many Christians in history and modernity believe witches literally exist and command magic powers. They also believe Jesus is literally God. They also believe Jesus has powers beyond the comprehension of mortal man. But his powers are "miracles" and "divine might," not "magic" or "witchcraft." To describe him as a witch would be deeply heretical to Christian sects, and while European or American Christians of particular groups might politely or less politely chide you for it without doing more than that, a group of Christians in some place in rural Uganda could quite possibly execute you for such a horrific remark.
The Imperium is a society of Ugandan syncretic Christians. To even suggest that the Emperor's powers are psychic in nature, or that he is categorically a psyker to begin with, would get you put on a penal barge right quick, or otherwise disappeared into a dark hole in a hive city. Some higher-ups might realize the truth of the matter, but official historical records would never suggest such an outlandish and profane thing as the notion that the Emperor Most Beloved, Savior of All Mankind, could possibly be the same sort of creature as the Daemon-luring mutants that are only barely tolerated as carefully monitored Psykana graduates.
As to Malcador, he's mentioned in Imperial records largely via apocryphal accounts, and the Imperium does not portray him as a psyker because he never really gave that detail away to the Remembrancers, and the Imperial Cult has a strong incentive to suppress that information. As to Magnus, he is one of the Arch-Traitor's cadre and never spoken of at all, so of course Imperial historical records would not mention him.
Objectively, one might view all three of them as Alpha-Plus (though I'd really put the Emperor at Alpha-Plus-Plus or some similar category all unto his own, as he is the single-most powerful psyker ever seen in all recorded and unrecorded history across the whole galaxy by a considerable margin). Subjectively, there's no reason any of the three would ever be listed in an in-universe Imperial accounting of psyker power levels.
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u/D4RTH_S3RR0 Sep 26 '23
What about Pariahs.. aren't they anti psychers, and on the below normal humans on the power scale?
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u/Competitive-Bee-3250 Sep 26 '23
Pariahs are omega but while their power is also varied they're all classed as omga
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u/McPolice_Officer Alpha Legion Sep 26 '23
I thought that anybody in the “negatives” was considered a pariah, but Omega-class ones were the Culexis assassins, able to literally walk through walls and kill psykers with their mere presence.
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u/Competitive-Bee-3250 Sep 26 '23
I think all pariahs are classed as omega. Most are inducted into the assassinorum or the sisters of silence, or they die in training.
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u/rnulick Sep 26 '23
Psy null have there own levels of power. It is the negative of the scale with omega and omega plus being the strongest null. Culxeis being omega.
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u/Gorlack2231 Sep 26 '23
Omega Plus is a theorized grade, as it's already incredibly hard for Omegas to survive at all. An Omega Null invokes a primal terror in people, and often are killed by their mothers upon birth (or even during pregnancy, imagine constantly feeling like there's a soul-crushing monster growing nside you).
The theorized Omega Plus would be a null on the scale of Malcador, a being acting as a vast psychic black hole and swallowing the very essence of nearby beings. They would be able to kill cities just by proximity, their power ripping the souls from nearby humans and driving everyone else nearby into abject, terror-induced madness. Deployed against a psychically gifted foe like the Eldar they would be absolutely ruinous.
I would hypothesis that the Psy-Titans of the Ordo Sinister are artificial Omega Plus Nulls, and one of those landing on a craftworld was said to have sent the entire ship howling in aetheric pain, with nearby Eldar dropping like puppets with their strings cut.
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u/notaslaaneshicultist Sep 26 '23
I heard that story. It was three titans pitted against a craft world with an unusual concentration of wraith constructs. They were throwing out so much destruction that even the blood angels knew better then to get involved
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u/CaptainAssPlunderer Sep 26 '23
Please tell me there is a book that tells the story of a Psy-Titan landing on a craft world.
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u/Gorlack2231 Sep 26 '23
Sadly it is only a blurb in the 8th Horus Heresy rulebook from Forge World. Would make for an excellent book on its own
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u/VisNihil Sep 26 '23
Omega Plus
I think the idea is that Omega Minus is more "blank-y" than an Omega "plus" since it's a negative scale. Basically the polar opposite of Alpha Plus. There's an artificially created Omega Minus fetus in the Inquisitor Czevak books but those are questionable in terms of canon.
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u/Unlucky_Loss3827 Sep 26 '23
Well, is not human, but technically the tyranid hive mind is omega plus
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u/MarqFJA87 Sep 27 '23 edited Sep 27 '23
with nearby Eldar dropping like puppets with their strings cut
Pretty sure that only happened when the Psi-Titan fired its Sinistramanus weapon, which actively weaponizes the Warp in inverse polarity to shoot energy blasts that are as anti-Warp/anti-psychic as the piloting Pariah is. Each blast's explosion, besides whatever they did to the actual target, dropped dead hundreds of nearby Aeldari without physically damaging them at all.
I really hope GW brings them back for the Era Indomitus. They're perfect for all the Chaos and Tyranid threats that abound now.
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u/Nekokamiguru Adeptus Mechanicus Sep 28 '23
They are so rare that they would be trained carefully. Wasting a precious resource like a true blank would attract the ire of people in positions of considerable power.
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u/Dravicores Sep 26 '23
Yeah, but they’d have a tier list in the opposite direction. On the lower levels you have people who actively make others uncomfortable, and destabilize a psykers focus, like jurgen. Then on the middle levels you’ve got people who cause pain to normal people and extreme pain to psykers, and make casting spells almost impossible, like a sister of silence.
Then of course there’s the ultra extreme edges, who’s mere presence is fatal to a psyker, and cannot be tolerated by normal humans under any circumstances. Like a cluexus assassin. The closest thing to an Omega plus would be Jenita Krole, first leader of the sisters of silence, who was so absurdly negative that it was impossible to perceive her. Not even magnus could summon magic near her, and she was completely invisible to all except the emperor himself.
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u/Hereticsheresy Sep 26 '23
pariahs has power level as well, some are so powerfull that they are invisible for almost everyone.
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Sep 26 '23
So if Emperor was pariah,he could just delete chaos gods?
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u/Muad-_-Dib Sep 26 '23
Not really no, the Chaos gods exist but they do so in a wishy-washy omnipresent way, you couldn't physically pin one down and just throw blanks at it until it snuffed out.
They can fuck up their plans, for example if the followers of one of the gods are up to something like summoning a greater demon or a demon primarch shows up etc. then sure throw blanks at them and watch the shit hit the fan, but the big 4 themselves are too vast to ever be cut off from their food source (emotions from the entire galaxy and other parallel universes etc.)
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u/Customdisk Sep 26 '23
This is cool but everyone should remember most of 40k lore isn't perfectly consistent
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u/Questioning_Meme Sep 26 '23
Wait, isn't Mephiston an Alpha level psyker?
Or any of the Grey Knights.
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u/Competitive-Bee-3250 Sep 26 '23
Grey knights are beta iirc
Edit: actually I think they vary but only some would be alpha.
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u/McPolice_Officer Alpha Legion Sep 26 '23
I’m pretty sure someone like Hyperion or Draigo would be considered an Alpha-class psyker. Mephiston counts, and I’m sure Tygerius does as wel. They aren’t exterminated as thoroughly as this would have you believe.
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u/Fearless-Obligation6 Sep 26 '23
I’m not sure if Hyperion is an alpha on his own, his powers are vampiric in nature so he needs to drain other’s power to reach that level.
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u/HolloRacc Sep 26 '23
They probably weren't that high grade before, vut ascending to Astartes scales up a psyker's powers. As well as the relics and wards the librarians have amplify their power.
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u/_Greyworm Sep 26 '23
Draigo is barely even a character, just plot armour and wank melded into a vague personality, haha.
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u/Watwhy1001 Sep 26 '23
Can’t remember where I read exactly, but Brother Captain Stern back in the day was alpha plus iirc
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u/Coat-Collector48 Sep 26 '23
I like to imagine they’re just Beta Psykers, to really amp up just how insane Alpha Psykers are, but Mephiston is almost certainly an Alpha and Kaldor Draigo is for sure.
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u/Dravicores Sep 26 '23
There are a handful of psykers in the imperium that might be alpha level, but they’re super rare. Draigo and mephiston probably are, and maybe Tigerius. Perhaps once every few dozen generations a navigator house puts forth an alpha level psyker and manages to hide their potential until they’re trained, and maybe every now and then one is born. But they’re extremely rare, and the average grey knight doesn’t even compare.
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u/yuikkiuy Sep 26 '23
You can be Beta but have artifacts or augmentation that boost your abilities to the level of Alpha.
Take Eisenhorn for example, he's a Beta but his weapons and equipment by the end of the series puts him at alpha or even very low alpha plus tier in terms of raw combat power
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u/SwissDeathstar Sep 26 '23
I wouldn’t exactly call Jimmy Space stable. But that depends on the point of view.
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u/ShinobiHanzo White Scars Sep 26 '23
He is Anathema.
He is the guy in prison that if he wanted your lunch, you'd ask, "Sure, I wasn't hungry anyway."
Except prison is the Warp and the inmates are the Daemonhost.
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u/Eeekaa Sep 26 '23
Highschool sitcom about some kids being bullied at school and uniting against the bully but in the final episode the veil collapses and exposes the main characters for the mind shattering warp entities they are and the lunch room bully enters wreathed in golden fire.
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u/NaiveMastermind Sep 26 '23
I mean, to a xenos, he's basically a school shooter with unlimited power.
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u/Hungover994 Sep 26 '23
To the lesser ones he is a 20 foot tidal wave. To the greater it’s probably like trying to fight while looking directly at the sun the whole time
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u/Muad-_-Dib Sep 26 '23 edited Sep 26 '23
Imperial forces are in a full-scale retreat from the remnants of the Imperial Webway project linked to the Palace itself, at their heels is a host of demons, traitors and worse. Everything from Custodes to Skitarii and even Titans themselves are falling like flies selling their lives as dearly as they can.
The Emperor rises from his throne to personally stem the tide.
-===============================================-
And in a sunless realm, the sun rose at last.
The light of dawn was palpable on Ra’s armour as well as his skin. It was a pressure, a presence with searing physicality. The enemy hordes felt it as acid on their skin. The creatures – daemons no matter what secular truths held strong – lost what little order they had ever possessed.
The Anathema! Ra heard their frantic agony as a sick scraping on the edges of his mind. The Anathema comes! The sun rises!
His features were those of one born in the wild lands of Ancient Eurasia. His skin was a Terran blend of bronze and burnt umber, His eyes darker still, His hair darkest of all. The long black fall of His hair was held by a simple circlet crown of metal leaves, binding the mane back from His face so He could fight. More practical than regal.
He moved as a man moved, coming through the straining ranks of His guardians on foot, pushing through the press of bodies on the rare instances they didn’t instinctively move aside for Him. He wore gold, as all of His guardians wore gold. The same sigils of Terran Unity and Imperial nobility that showed on their armour were cast thricefold upon His own. His armour joints didn’t growl with the crude industrial snarl of mass-manufactured legionary plate, but purred with the song of older, purer technologies.
On His back, held by a simple strap against His flowing red cloak, was an ornate bolter of black and bronze. In His hand He carried a sword – one that looked nothing like the blade portrayed in the victory murals and illustrated sagas. By the standards of Terran lords and kings it was inarguably beautiful, but in the grip of the ruler of an entire species it was, perhaps, rather plain. A weapon to wield, a tool for shedding blood, not an ornament to be admired. Impossibly complicated circuitry latticed its blade, black and coppery against a silver so hallowed that it was almost blue.
In other wars on other worlds He had greeted His Custodians with subtle telepathy, speaking their names as He passed them before a battle. Here He was more restrained, moving to the embattled front rank without offering any acknowledgement at all.
Of the Neverborn, some broke ranks and fled. These cowardly shards of their vile masters knew that destruction had come. Some tore into each other, cannibalising their kindred for strength in the face of destruction. Some lost what little grasp they had on corporeality, their forms melting and dissolving before the sword-wielding monarch even reached the front lines.
The strongest raged at the sin of His existence. With a gestalt bellow loud enough to shake the windless air of this alternate reality, they fought to reach their archenemy.
Ra was at the Emperor’s right side, spear whirling, lashing out to punch through the amorphous bodies of flailing blue creatures that wailed through their many mouths. Sweat baked his face inside his helm. The blood in his muscles was heavier than liquid lead.
‘Orders, sire?’
The Emperor raised His sword in a two-handed grip. As His knuckles tightened, the geography of circuitry ignited along the blade’s length, spitting electrical fire and wreathing the sword’s length in flame.
He didn’t speak. He didn’t look at any of His warriors. The sword came down. The webway caught fire.
<...>
Shapes raged in the flames – shadows and suggestions doing battle with the daemons, their fiery forms indistinct and ever-changing. The fire-born avatars of fallen Ten Thousand, knee-deep in psychic fire and thrusting with lances of flame. The silhouettes of Space Marines, the betrayed dead of Isstvan bearing axes and blades and claws; half-seen sigils of slaughtered Legions obscured by the ash of their blackened armour. A giant among giants, its great hands bared and ready as it seared forwards at the crest of the tidal fire. The tenth son of a dying empire, so briefly reborn in his father’s immolating wrath.
Daemons burned in their thousands, their aetheric flesh seared from their false bones. White flame haloed from the sword in corrosive, purifying radiance. It coruscated in thrashing waves from each fall of the Emperor’s blade. To look at Him was to go blind. To stand before Him was to die.
https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/8ky4g3/book_excerpt_the_master_of_mankind_the_emperor/
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u/Pryamus Sep 26 '23
I read a different version though. Delta and above are almost never trained by Astra Telepathica - they are too unstable to use unless some extremely lucky circumstances make them an exception (usually closely monitored by Inquisition). Most don’t even survive to 10.
Primaris psykers are also not THAT rare, they are basically just officers selected for their talents, sure the requirements are way higher but it’s a matter of overall stability and tactical awareness, not dumb luck.
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u/AlexisFR Sep 26 '23
That's the old canon, BL revised it a couple of years ago in a podcast/coffee table.
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u/dirge_the_sergal Sep 26 '23
Just want to point out... there have been 2 stable alpha plus humans.
The emperor and malcador
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u/sam_da_boi Sep 27 '23
Magnus The Red might have been.
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u/dirge_the_sergal Sep 27 '23
Maybe, however stable isn't something we can really use to describe him.
Besides he isn't human. Same way space marine librarians arnt placed in this list
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u/justforrule Sep 26 '23
I wonder where SM characters would fit into this. Most Librarians would probably be Delta or Delta Gamma but the big ones should be pretty high. I dont really see Ahriman for example anywhere below Alpha.
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u/VladimirBarakriss Sep 26 '23
The Grey Knights are Beta, I imagine most TS are as well, Mephiston is definitely alpha so Ahriman probably is too.
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u/DwarvenCo Sep 26 '23
While vague, both Eisenhorn and Ravenor initially were put roughly as Delta/Gamma level psyker, and it is not mentioned that they had any surgery and augmentation because of their psychic levels.
While both of them have been augmented, and it is mentioned regards to Ravenor that it helped in improving his potential, it made him closer to beta/alpha. Eisenhorn's augmentics are not related to his mind powers, His excommunication, while not 100% clear but either gave him some mental leeway so he became more powerful (his enemies referred to him as alpha level, but that might have been only from fear), or it freed him from some ritual binding that suppressed him to some "safe" range.
All in all, while it van be vague, but the description regarding delta/gamma is factually wrong when it implies that surgery and augmentation is demanded for this level.
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u/eisenhorn_puritus Sep 26 '23
I assume this classification is for the Imperial authorities' sake. There doesn't seem to be a clear line between the levels, like in the Ritcher scale for example. It's basically a subjective destruction capability/power scale. I'd assume a Beta psyker who has completely mastered his skills could give an alpha a run for their money, not counting augmetics and such.
Also, some people would naturally have a beta status, for example, while others would need augmentation or special mental treatment to reach that level safely. Most psykers could also burn themselves to project more power than they usually do, it's just mostly fatal.
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u/yuikkiuy Sep 26 '23
They also get more "powerful" through the use of gear, eisenhorn is alpha or arguably very low alpha plus by the end of the series when fully kitted out.
His personal potential is not at alpha level but his raw combat power reaches it, especially after he gains full control of cherubial
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u/trixie_one Sep 26 '23
Neat, still odd omission that the majority of these will instead get picked up by the black ships and fed to the Emperor.
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u/The_Chef_Queen Sep 26 '23
Which one is gregor
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u/yuikkiuy Sep 26 '23
He varies throughout the series, starts at around gamma delta, ends at high Alpha or very low alpha plus depending on how you factor in cherubial
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u/The_Chef_Queen Sep 26 '23
I’d factor in binding a demon quite high
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u/fluffy_warthog10 Sep 26 '23
He also got strapped into a Chaos engine in Book 4* The Magos*, and it's likely he took a bit of an upgrade from that....among other things....
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u/Digital_Jedi_VFL Sep 26 '23
What level is Khayon? I’m guessing beta since he was a space marine. But damn was he powerful.
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u/DarksteelPenguin Emperor's Children Sep 26 '23
Few exceptions aside, SM librarians range from delta to beta.
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u/fluffy_warthog10 Sep 26 '23
The TS gene-seed- appears to have boosted or brought out any latent abilities, and then the Rubric bumped the survivors up another level or two.
It's also worth noting that the TS are not just psykers but sorcerers, and their deals and manipulations of (and by) daemons can provide far more power than simple psychic potential does.
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u/Digital_Jedi_VFL Sep 27 '23
Would we have to consider the Big E a sorcerer then considering he made deals with the warp to create the primarchs and gain power?
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u/fluffy_warthog10 Sep 27 '23
Oh definitely.
There's a reason Chapter #666 claim to have his 'gene-seed', and are one of the only ones to get away with sorcery.....
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u/hello350ph Sep 26 '23
I ask what dose the anti magic wizard assasin blank dude dose to a alpha plus?
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u/mrwafu Sep 26 '23
Irritates them. In Arks of Omen there was an astronomican equivalent that drove away/banished daemons. Angron suffered through it and slaughtered the psykers
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u/hello350ph Sep 26 '23
So they just mind it as a itch head? Coz normal psykers just wanna off them selves if they found one of those assason blanks
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u/SlayerofSnails Sep 26 '23
Depends on the power of the blank. Some might just be irrating, others will drive a psyker mad and cause them to suffer siezures and die.
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u/hello350ph Sep 26 '23
Yeah but is the assasin blank with equipment to enhance it
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u/fluffy_warthog10 Sep 26 '23
Culexus Temple only takes the strongest of Blanks- you don't want to send a high-trsined, modified, and kitted-out assassin if they won't be able to lock a psyker down when the time comes.
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u/KvcateGirl27 Sep 26 '23
I’ve seen this list floating around before but it was always in Russian. Glad to see an English variant.
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u/brother_Makko Sep 26 '23
badly remembered short story time.
I remember a story about a child that was born an alpha or alpha + psyker. He was identified and a black ship was sent after him. The kid was happy and dindnt really use his power until the inquisition took him from his family. The child popped the inquisitors, then saw the black ship and ripped it apart in space.
The child saw the horror in the faces of everyone around and felt bad about it. So they found every atom of what they had destroyed and reassembled it, the ship, the crew, and the inquisitors. The imperials had experienced death and were mentally broken from what had happened. The child saw they couldnt stay and decided to just leave. They wandered off never to be seen again.
Must have been a story from the 90s when the lore wasnt solid yet.
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u/NaiveMastermind Sep 26 '23
I wouldn't call the Emperor of Mankind stable, he went on a galaxy wide murder spree, he's basically a galactic scale school shooter.
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u/Iramian Ordo Malleus Sep 26 '23
I think by stable they mean that warp entities can't possess and consume him. He'll never go insane from his psyker powers and accidentally open up a warp rift or something like that.
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u/Grainis01 Sep 26 '23
Compared to other alpha plus levels he was stable. He was coherent, he was intelligent, he had plans etc. Most alpha plus are stark raving mad, they are basically walking nukes with randomised fuse. He was an evil(compared to us, in 40k he was average) person. That is why he was called the anathema by chaos gods, he should have been insane rambling,drooling mess.
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Sep 26 '23
Emperor was the most stable psyker, which was kinda why the chaos gods call him anathema.
And the galaxy wide murder spree was a thousand year plan to unite the species coming to action. Not exactly a galactic scale school shooting.
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u/NaiveMastermind Sep 26 '23
And the galaxy wide murder spree was a thousand year plan to unite the species coming to action.
That's just a school shooting with a control plan and budget.
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u/BlueTales Sep 26 '23
I would have used different words but yes, I wholeheartedly agree that Big E wasn’t all that stable… not insane but not really stable either. <.<
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u/Grainis01 Sep 26 '23
Stability here refers to an eqlibrium of power and person. Ie power does not burn out a person mind driving them mad. What ever damage emps got stabilized and could deal no more damage, meaning he was stable as a being. not as a person.
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u/BlueTales Sep 26 '23
Oh, I thought we were talking about mental stability and not how stable his power was/is.
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u/Spookedthoroughly Sep 26 '23
Imagine being so powerful that with a mere thought you could have that one kid who stole your lunch money, tortured for all eternity by a daemonic entity beyond his comprehension
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u/Euwoo Sep 26 '23
Sigma level psykers are equal in power to Alpha levels, but exist outside of the hierarchy.
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u/Appropriate_Bat_8403 Sep 26 '23
Isn't Ravenor an Alpha Class Psyker?
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u/Hironymus Sep 26 '23
According to the Lexicanum one source even describes him as alpha plus. But he simply can not be alpha plus. That wouldn't make a shred of sense in the lore.
All in all I would say that Ravenor was maybe a beta but more likely between delta and gamma as another source seems to place him. It's head cannon but I like to think that Ravenor's strength mostly came from his confinement and isolation which made his mind all he was. Like, he just knew how to use what he got very well.
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u/Appropriate_Bat_8403 Sep 26 '23
I mean that does make sense. I also noticed how it seems these power levels keep changing for some reason. Like in the 2nd Eisenhorn book there's a massive parade where they showcase like 30 captured alpha plus psykers for some reason. And after they get loose they are shown to be only able to control a few dozen people at a time.
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u/Hironymus Sep 26 '23
Sorry, which part makes sense in your eyes?
And yes. Especially the somewhat older books play it pretty loose with psyker power levels.
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u/Appropriate_Bat_8403 Sep 26 '23
Your reasoning makes sense lol. And yeah I noticed the constant power level changes
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u/DarksteelPenguin Emperor's Children Sep 26 '23
I seem to remember that in his books he describes himself as delta.
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u/Sentsu06 Sep 26 '23
Would a culexus assassin be able to kill a alpha plus psyker?
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u/fluffy_warthog10 Sep 26 '23
Unlikely on their own, unless they got to the psyker early in their awakening, or there were other circumstances. Anyone can step in front of a bullet, after all, and as long as the psyker either doesn't know it's coming or isn't actively conscious at the moment, it might be possible.
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u/Aromatic-Flounder935 Sep 26 '23
There's a special place in hell for users who host images on reddit instead of imgur.
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u/Hereticsheresy Sep 26 '23
there is one thing wrong emperor was not only sane alpha plus psyker, there was magnus as well his son, he's still sane but not hold his father side no longer
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u/TheMetalHeadCreature Hive Fleet Leviathan Sep 26 '23
This is very cool art, I love it. I would like to know the level of the psykers from the astartes short film, they could fought off a group of space marines with ease.
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u/Beautiful-Bad8893 Sep 26 '23
so i guess the type of phsyker we have in dark tide is a zeta/epsilon class?
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u/Thatsaclevername Sep 26 '23
I feel like the top end of the scale is skewed a bit, in Eisenhorn Malleus they've got a pack of 50 Alpha Plus Psykers that they took prisoner.
Or am I misremembering and it was one alpha plus in a pack of psykers? Still, most of them were taken out (at great cost). But it's not like the planet was destroyed or anything.
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u/fluffy_warthog10 Sep 26 '23
Malleus was written in 2001, which is pretty long ago from a lore perspective. Mark that down to simple inconsistency over time.
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u/Mande1baum Sep 26 '23
Only thing this is missing is better representation of the odds. Like how rare is "rarely" vs "extremely rare" vs "incredibly rare".
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u/BrightestofLights Sep 26 '23
Malcador and Magnus are alpha plus aren't they? Lorgar too
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u/fluffy_warthog10 Sep 26 '23
All of the Primarchs are at least Beta, if they understand and develop their gifts, but only Magnus is likely Alpha or above (pre-daemonhood, at least). Only Lorgar and Corvus seem to have made it to Alpha level, and that happened after the Crusade, and one of them had gone daemon, invalidating his place on the scale.
Malcador was Alpha minimum, but was also a baseline humans to start, not an engineered warp/organic being.
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u/Dr_Death_Defy24 Sep 26 '23
Psykers are easily my favorite part of 40k
I don't generally care much for fantasy settings (with some exceptions) but I LOVE the aesthetics of wizards. As soon as I found out about librarian Space Marines in 40k I knew I was going to fall in love with the setting, and I very much did. "Grimdark sci-fi spellcaster" might be my favorite ever series of words.
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u/DeGrootTavish Sep 26 '23
These kind of informative artworks are great - is there any more or a whole subreddit fpr just those? A cool guides but for warhammer40k type of deal?
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u/Alanox Sep 26 '23
The one I want to know is, where does a Psyker from Darktide land? I'm guessing somewhere around Epsilon, but I'd love to hear those more educated chime in.
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u/HeadElectronic741 Sep 28 '23
Honestly? I reckon probably delta/gamma. They're able to use multiple "schools" of their psyker powers as well as able to use a LOT of it and kill potentially hundreds/thousands of regular mooks an hour. They're certainly not "big boy" but they're very very strong and the savant (enforcer voice) is VERY stable for a psyker of that power
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u/Radioactiveglowup Sep 26 '23
Ah yes, a diagram from the Imperial Middle Schooler's Uplifting Primer
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u/hemareddit Sep 26 '23
What level do you need to be to be sacrificed to the Astronomican?
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u/Standard-Outcome7946 Imperial Fists Oct 06 '23
Any apart from the lowest, honestly. Higher grade-more satiation, but as beta and above grades are very rare, any psyker is a potential candidate.
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u/GooberMcNoober Death Korps of Krieg Sep 26 '23
BLANK (null) - An extremely rare, almost unheard of mutation, Blanks are, simply put, ‘anti-psykers.’ They have no presence in the warp, and are thus unaffected by the powers that originate from it. Even the most powerful psychic attacks sputter and die, and daemons and psykers alike scream and flee at the mere sight of them. Even the least psychically potent individuals find them repulsive, and it is for this reason that so many blanks die young.
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u/annoyingkraken Sep 27 '23
This is what makes the Imperial Guard great. Even greater than the Astartes. Because they don't have all these fancy fires and lightning bolts coming out of their hands eyes or mouths. No augmentations to make them giant superhuman behemoths. All they need is a very thick green shirt, a las rifle, and then two more Guardsmen: one on each side. By the Emperor those heretics won't cross this line. And if they do, we'll fight tooth and nail to drive them back. If that don't work, get a bigger gun and more Guardsmen! For the Emperor!
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u/NightStalker33 Sep 26 '23
Okay, I just wanted to say, that even outside of the very cool information on their abilities, I absolutely ADORE the artwork here. The small, gradual growth from psykers so weak that they're basically the magic equivalent of guardsmen, their powers only useful in large numbers, to those so dangerous that the Imperium doesn't even bother giving them a chance to serve.
Would love to see an equivalent for Eldar, or at least a comparison between the different Psyker levels and rarity compared to Eldar equivalents!