Background Mutant

Starting skills
Acrobatics or Athletics, Awareness, Deceive or Intimidate, Forbidden Lore (Mutants), Survival

Starting talents
Weapon Training (Low-Tech, Solid Projectile)

Starting traits
One of the following: Amphibious, Dark-sight, Natural Weapons, Sonar Sense, Sturdy, Toxic (1), Unnatural Agility (1), Unnatural Strength (1), or Unnatural Toughness (1)

Starting Corruption and Mutation
A Mutant character begins play with 10 Corruption points. Instead of rolling as normal for malignancy or mutation, roll 5d10 on Table 8–16: Mutations (see page 292 of the DARK HERESY Core Rulebook) to determine a starting mutation for the character.

Starting equipment
Shotgun (or stub revolver and great weapon), grapnel and line, heavy leathers, combat vest, 2 doses of stimm

Background bonus
Twisted Flesh: A Mutant character can always choose to fail any test associated with resisting malignancy or mutation. Whenever he would gain a malignancy, he may roll on Table 8–16: Mutations to gain a mutation instead.

Background aptitude
Fieldcraft or Offence

For all but the most privileged of Imperial citizens, there is
little hope for anything but lives of misery and death. The
diiculties presented by the insurmountable constraints of
station and birthplace, and the punishing cruelties of disease, xenos
raiders, and endless war are enough to sap the will of most men,
but there are wretches who have been pushed deeper into the well
of hopelessness. Alicted by abhorrent deformities of the lesh,
mutants are denied even the comparative paradise of drudgery as
forge workers or faceless soldiers. Marked by inhuman deformity,
they are shunned by those around them at best, branded as living
vessels of corruption and destroyed at worst.

Role within the Imperium
Mutants are almost invariably seen as afronts to the Emperor’s
vision for Mankind, though their origins can be from many sources.
The Ruinous Powers often twist and bend the forms of mortal to
“bless” them with unnatural lesh. Some mutants are twisted in
body and mind through exposure to Warp-stained items or even
from reading forbidden texts. Others might be the product of
poisoned environs or random accidents of birth instead. In the 41st
Millennium, though, any rational explanations fall to the insanities
that permeate these dark ages, and a loyal citizen is unwilling or
unable to draw a distinction between these factors. The Imperium
believes that mutation cannot be anything but a manifestation
that an individual’s soul is also proportionately tainted—and in
most cases, this is correct. Fear and distrust are the norm in most
human worlds, and mutants are rarely given a chance to make an
accounting of themselves. Because of this, the role of most mutants
in the Imperium is that of a scapegoat for ill-fortune or an object
for violent and cathartic release at the hands of others.
Many mutants succumb to their sufering; some turn to dread
endeavours, even seeking the favour of dark powers for revenge
against their tormentors. There are, however, mutants whose
existence is beneicial to Mankind. Some serve the Emperor out of
a sense of duty that remains true in their hearts despite the maladies
that twist their forms. Others accept servitude as a less painful
alternative to the miseries of their daily lives. Still others are forced,
or at least shepherded, along a path to serve. The most notable,
and among the most accepted, of these are Sanctioned Psykers and
Navigators—mutants prized for their abilities to combat Chaos on
its own ground or to guide ships through the Warp, respectively.
Most are not as fortunate though. They have no mental gifts
to ofer, and must provide physical labour in exchange for their
forestalled termination. Perhaps their bodies have swelled with
muscles expanding to degrees impossible to achieve for even the
most physically it of untainted men and making them ideal beasts
of burden. Others may be immune to pain, making them perfect
troops to form the beachhead of an assault.

Mutant characters
When an Imperial citizen inds himself in the presence of a mutant,
often the wretch lives only for as long as it takes to draw a weapon
and squeeze the trigger. There are some, though, who occasionally
ind uses for the tainted. Desperation, unique circumstances, or
simply a more Radical approach can stay the hand of an Inquisitor
and grant a mutant a chance to earn a few more moments of life.
A mutant’s deformities usually ofer it something unique—
something that afords it a chance to survive where humans might
not. He might have skin hard enough to delect small arms ire,
bizarre sensory organs, additional limbs, or even leathery wings
that allow him light. The variety of mutation is endless, and for
a mutant who is willing to turn his perceived weaknesses into
advantages, life can take an unexpected turn. It is even possible,
paradoxically, that he might be of use to an Inquisitor.
An Inquisitor can hold up his mutant Acolyte as a symbol of
his power over corruption in a variety of situations where a pure
human would not suice. He can use a mutant to iniltrate Chaos
cults and debased sects where others would be easily detected,
or pose as a captured prisoner to allow a warband a favourable
reputation among local Enforcers. Regardless of the speciic duties
assigned to the mutant, he is a valuable asset for any Inquisitor
willing to look beyond the stigma associated with such a deviant
and turn his purpose toward the beneit of the Emperor and the
survival of Mankind.

Sample mutant
Background: the Jarvin Spawn
Deep beneath the processing plants on Desoleum’s Hive Jarvis, a
series of huge chambers processes the foul Iokian bile-ly paste into
rations that feed millions. The conditions are inhuman,
even compared to the similar facilities
within the planet’s other hives, and
so only the inhuman labour here.
Some of the mutants come from
the increasingly arid tunnels
beneath the hive. Others may
have once been men, but years of
exposure to the decaying larvae
and the native rocks lining
the insect breeding pens have
twisted them into misshapen
forms. All know they can have
no other fate but to work and
die, but there are tales of a
small few who aided a group
of ofworlders and were never
seen again—still destined to
die, but now in a much more
important duty.