Percentage of thousand sons that were psykers?

[Laughingman]

Simple question, what percentage of the thousand sons were functional psykers? The original lore spoke of a large portion of the legion not being psykers, but in Thousand Sons most of the Thousand Sons appeared to be in one of the sub-cults associated with a specific type of power?

[SW1]

Can they be in a cult without being a psyker?

 

In the fluff there's plenty of human members of cults/covens who don't have powers but are still used for chanting things and such. Would it be any different for marines. They could still research and help out in the process behind the psychic powers.

[Jackalwolf]

Well psycher in lore is much more grey than Mastery levels 1 to 5. Someone who you could call incredibly lucky or intuitive today could very well be identified as a low potency or latent psycher in our universe, so I'd argue all of them but I wouldn't say more than one in four is able to manifest powers at a Mastery Level one minimum, and this is an absolute guess.

[Angmarred]

I'd say the vast majority of them have some psychic ability. With the percentages decreasing drastically as power level goes up. I think Inferno actually captures this really well. Basic troops have enough to, as a squad, generate the Cult ability. Veterans have enough to be a Brotherhood. Any officer has enough to be ML 1. True Librarians have enough to be ML 2. And Captains have enough to be ML 3.

[Laughingman]

Another question:  Osiron dreadnoughts are an upgrade from a regular contempter dreadnought, does that not indicate that at least some interned before the creation of the Osirion Pattern chassis were in fact non-psykers?

[Memento Of Prospero]

I remember the 1 out of 10 figure. 

[depthcharge12]

I thought they were put into 4 different houses by a sorting hat...?

[Xenith]

I thought they were put into 4 different houses by a sorting hat...?

Corvidclaw, Hufflepavoni, Raptorador and Serpentstar?

[bluntblade]

It'd be interesting and useful to see stories dealing with your average Thousand Son psyker. The ones we've seen most of - Ahriman, Arvida, Khayon etc. are substantially more powerful than most of their brothers.

[Xenith]

Many of the TS were psykers, just not particularly gifted or capable, in the same way that most people can run, but not as well or as fast as usain bolt. The heresy rules ascribes the brotherhood of psykers rule to TS units, you can imagine the bulk of the chaff acting as a psychic battery for the squad leader.

 

GW/FW has kind of messed up their TS fluff with the 40k sekhmet release. The sekhmet were always called among the most powerful of the legions sorcerers, and the rubric turned only the weakest psychics to dust, yet we have sekhmet rubric marines. This means that they were still weak relative to Ahriman etc.

 

I find that it helps resolve with the fluff if you think of the psychic mastery levels as logarithmic rather than linear, so a level 1 psykers is 10, 100, and 1000 times weaker than a level 2, 3, and 4 respectively.

[Angmarred]

That logarithmic thing probably works in terms of number of each level too

 

1 Ahriman

10 - Captains of Fellowships plus a couple other high ranking officers

100 - librarians plus Sehkmet

1000 - lesser officer plus regular veteran

[Withershadow]

Considering only a small fraction was strong enough to survive the Rubric, and assuming the ones that survived Prospero were the stronger ones (minus a few self-destructing captains anyway), the percentage of psykers can't be that high.

 

We also need to define psyker, though, what's the cutoff given that you could have some baseline sensitivity without being qualified for Librarius training?

[depthcharge12]

Considering only a small fraction was strong enough to survive the Rubric, and assuming the ones that survived Prospero were the stronger ones (minus a few self-destructing captains anyway), the percentage of psykers can't be that high.

 

We also need to define psyker, though, what's the cutoff given that you could have some baseline sensitivity without being qualified for Librarius training?

Can you be possessed by a warp entity? Then yes you're a psyker. Lol

 

Though latency might bring up an issue, though I'd feel that Prosperian culture, along with Magnus' guidance, would have drawn out that power.

[Athrawes]

By the time of the Heresy, I'd Imagine close to 90% were psykers. 

 

Maybe 1 in 10 being manifest psykers, worthy of a ML 1+ in game terms.

 

The rubric didn't just turn non psykers into dust, it also turned weak psykers as well.

[Legionnaire of the VIIth]

I'm of the opinion that all Thousand Sons were psychic like all Eldar are psychic but not everyone can reach Mastery Level 1+. I would also guess 1 in 10 have enough power to reach Mastery Level 1+.

[Slips]

 

Considering only a small fraction was strong enough to survive the Rubric, and assuming the ones that survived Prospero were the stronger ones (minus a few self-destructing captains anyway), the percentage of psykers can't be that high.

 

We also need to define psyker, though, what's the cutoff given that you could have some baseline sensitivity without being qualified for Librarius training?

Can you be possessed by a warp entity? Then yes you're a psyker. Lol

 

Though latency might bring up an issue, though I'd feel that Prosperian culture, along with Magnus' guidance, would have drawn out that power.

 

Thats not necessarily true since Daemonhosts dont require Psykers (See: Eisenhorn) to be created. Also, not all the marines in the Exorcists chapter are Psykers and...well, their chapter name is prety self-explanatory.

[Charlo]

GW/FW has kind of messed up their TS fluff with the 40k sekhmet release. The sekhmet were always called among the most powerful of the legions sorcerers, and the rubric turned only the weakest psychics to dust, yet we have sekhmet rubric marines. This means that they were still weak relative to Ahriman etc.

 

In a cool nod though, it was said even before the Rubric the Sehkmet were like automatons (noted by Ferrus) single minded in their approach and methodically unstoppable. 

[Memento Of Prospero]

By the time of the Heresy, I'd Imagine close to 90% were psykers.

 

Maybe 1 in 10 being manifest psykers, worthy of a ML 1+ in game terms.

 

The rubric didn't just turn non psykers into dust, it also turned weak psykers as well.

Well that's the thing. If you cant manisfest, you are not a psyker. You are just warp sensitive.

[Athrawes]

 

By the time of the Heresy, I'd Imagine close to 90% were psykers.

 

Maybe 1 in 10 being manifest psykers, worthy of a ML 1+ in game terms.

 

The rubric didn't just turn non psykers into dust, it also turned weak psykers as well.

Well that's the thing. If you cant manisfest, you are not a psyker. You are just warp sensitive.

 

 

Disagree strongly.

 

(I'll use telekenisis for this example)

 

ML 1 or higher is a master psyker, someone who could throw a boulder with their mind and be skilled about it.

 

Under them are people who can throw things with their mind in an emergency, when adrenaline is pumping, but baseline, are maybe skilled enough to float a book over them reliably.

 

Both are psykers, only ML psykers have powers and control manifest enough to use on the tabletop/battlefield.

 

++++

 

I think that Inferno backs up my numbers and theory as well.

 

Page 143 says that even before coming to Prospero and before the fleshchange began at Bezant, "the Dominant Majority of the Legion were now fully emerged psykers of some form"  "And many of the rest seemed to harbor some lesser tendency"

 

I can only imagine that being reunited with Magnus, and having the psychic population of Prospero to recruit from would further increase the percentage of full psykers and lesser psykers within the Legion.

[Jareddm]

I would say if you're strong enough to be picked up by a Black Ship, you'd qualify as a psyker, and their lower cutoff can even include people with an exceptionally good sense of direction.  In that regard, I would describe 99+% of the Thousand Sons to be psykers.

 

I feel some details from The Emperor's Gift can shed some light on this.  I don't actually believe that space marine librarians need to be naturally strong psykers.  At least compared to Imperial Guard or Inquisition psykers.  The Emperor's Gift describes a process the Grey Knights go through known as the Unlocking (I think).  The description of it seemed to indicate that even a modestly weak psyker, say, of grade Epsilon, or even lower, could have their potential opened up, through a special psychic process, allowing them to train up to and operate at the levels that we see among battle psykers.  It's possible that a similar process is done by all chapter librarians, and may be have been done by the Thousand Sons to ensure the strength of those who would become part of one of the Cults., at least among those who had that kind of potential.

 

It'd be interesting and useful to see stories dealing with your average Thousand Son psyker. The ones we've seen most of - Ahriman, Arvida, Khayon etc. are substantially more powerful than most of their brothers.

There is a short story, known as the Wonderworker, in which Khayon goes to find one of the rare exiled Thousand Sons forge masters.  They have psychic communication with one another, and Khayon describes the marine's natural psychic talents and telepathic aura as almost nonexistant, the faintest of whispers compared to Khayon's, even during the Great Crusade.

[bluntblade]

Ooooh.