!Work in progress, campaign starts fall 2025!

Foreword: Embracing the Warp

After more than two decades of running fantasy campaigns, I shifted into the far future of Warhammer 40,000 to explore its brutal, dystopian science fiction setting. What drew me in wasn’t just the endless war or grimdark tone — it was the psychic phenomena, the Warp’s chaotic influence, and the surreal, mythic potential that echoes through the novels and background lore.

Yet, as I dove into the RPG systems, I found that most official psychic mechanics were rigid, tactical, and narrowly focused on combat. They offered power, but little mystery. The spontaneity, fear, and improvisational nature of psychic power — so vividly described in the lore — were largely absent at the table.

To reclaim that lost depth, our group turned to a toolkit we’ve been refining over years: our Universal Magic Theory, a synthesis drawn mainly from Ars Magica and influenced by Mage: The Ascension, Kult RPG, and Call of Cthulhu RPG. This system prioritizes intent, narrative freedom, and metaphysical consequence — elements we felt psychic powers in 40K desperately needed. Also, you should be warned, it drives warpcraft characters to an endless maze of gathering the forbidden knowledge, hunting and excavating buried relics and forgotten talismans and constantly searching for new sources of warp essence, which all can be easily exploited by devious GM

By adapting, streamlining and canonizing that theory for the 41st Millennium, we created a Dark Heresy RPG 2. edition compatible system where psykers and daemons don’t just roll for forcebolts — they warp reality through will, instinct, and audacity.

Welcome to expanded vision of psychic power in the Warhammer 40K universe — may the Emperor (or something far older) guide your mind.

Basics of Warpcraft

Introduces the foundation of the system: how psychic powers are structured using Technique + Form (adapted from Ars Magica), the integration of Warp Essence, Perils of the Warp, and the narrative-driven emphasis on risk, intent, and consequence.

Warpcraft Rating

Psy Rating, Daemonic Presence, Occult Resonance and Pure Devotion

Projecting Psychic Powers

Describes the full sequence of a psyker casting a power: projecting intent, performing the Power Projection Test against power level, resolving Perils of the Warp, and determining effect outcome based on whether effect of the power is direct or indirect.

Types of Warp Projections

Categorizes psychic projection: Spontaneous, Formulaic, Ritual

Psychic Resistance, Wards, and Penetration

Explains how targets resist psychic effects using innate resistance, wards, and talismans and relics. Introduces Penetration (from Over-bleed) to overcome cumulative Psychic Resistance Total.

Base Effect Levels by Technique + Form

Provides guidelines for power-level baselines across all Technique and Form combinations (e.g., Create Warp, Destroy Mind), adapted from Ars Magica’s spell level system and contextualized for powerful Warp usage.

Range, Target and Duration of Psychic power

Outlines modifiers to power level based on range (Personal to Boundary), duration (Momentary to Permanent), and target size (Individual to Boundary),

Psy-Focus: Gestures, Voice, and Mental Disciplines

Fatigue

Affinities, Talents and Flaws

Explores how psyker specialties (Affinities) give unique strengths and narrative flavor—narrowing wide-range Techniques/Forms into distinctive power archetypes. Also introduces Talents (like Resist Psychic Powers) and Flaws.

Effects of Aura

Warp Essence

Details the psychic resource system: how Warp Essence is formed, extracted, stored, and used to fuel Rituals, charge items, and enable amplified powers. Includes harvesting methods, sources, and refinement.

Psychic Phenomena and Perils of Warp

Psychic Disciples and Powers

Psyker’s Sigil

Describes the psychic signature each psyker leaves behind—an imprint detectable via Warp-sensing or Psyscience. Covers how to detect, conceal, and manipulate these signatures in narrative play.

Talisman

Explains the highest order of psychic item—a lifelong personal artifact that requires Psyscience to activate, evolves over time, can house multiple powers, and is the psyker’s greatest legacy.

Psychic Familiar

Bonding with the warp-sensitive animals, lesser warp-entities, tech-golems or incorporeal beings through ritual cords

Psychically Charged Items

Covers three item tiers: Minor Charged Items, Relics, and Talismans. Describes power limits and creation process.

Daemonology

Details rules and narrative structure for daemon summoning, binding, bargaining, and banishment.

Necromancy

Psykers of the Humanity

Reviews the various classes of psykers within the Imperium

Longevity

Afterword

The Four Paths of Power:

Psychic Projections, Sorcery, Daemonic Maledictions, and Faith-Based Miracles

In the grim reality of a universe saturated by the Warp and the wills of gods and mortals alike, power manifests in many forms. Though they may appear similar in effect — fire from the sky, minds shattered, bodies healed or unmade — the source, method, and cost of these abilities vary drastically. To the untrained eye, a burning gaze and a divine smite are indistinguishable. To the initiated, they are divided by faith, fear, and forbidden knowledge.

Below is a clear distinction between the four primary categories of unnatural power wielded by humanity and its allies (or enemies).

---

1. Psychic Projections

The Soul as a Conduit of the Warp

Psychic powers stem from the direct channeling of the Warp through one’s own soul. A psychic projection is a pure mental exertion, focused willpower, and raw perception reshaped into force.

• Source: The Warp — drawn through the psyker’s soul abd boosted with external Warp Essence,.
• Method: The psyker opens themselves, becoming a conduit. The effect is shaped by personal talent and discipline.
• Cost: High — risk of Warp backlashes, daemonic attention, and mental instability.
• Users: Sanctioned, unsanctioned and xenos psykers

Key Trait: Power is inherent and grows with inner mastery.

---

2. Feats of Sorcery

The Science of the Damned

Sorcery is not instinctive — it is learned, practiced, and encoded in ancient occult sciences. The sorcerer does not channel the Warp from within, but rather manipulates warp essence externally using ritual, language, symbols, and components.

• Source: External warp essence, ambient or stored.
• Method: Chants, sigils, rituals, calculations — reality bent through formulas of unreason.
• Cost: Slow, deliberate, and easily corruptive — often involves ritual risk and moral decay.
• Users: Chaos Sorcerers, rogue warp scholars, cult arcanists.

Key Trait: Power is learned and technically acquired, not innate.

---

3. Daemonic Maledictions

Hexes of Desecration

These are powers granted, not learned. A daemonic malediction flows within a daemon instinctively — the might of a warp entity provides the power.

• Source: The Warp, channeled through the might of a daemon or chaotic entity.
• Method: Pacts, possession, blasphemies, cursed rites.
• Examples: Hexes, mutations, unholy fire, afflictions that defy nature.
• Cost: Utter corruption of body and soul, inevitable damnation.
• Users: Cultists, daemonhosts, possessed psykers, warlocks of the ruinous powers.

Key Trait: Power is instinctive and tied to the patron of the daemonic being.

Warpcraft modifiers

---

4. Faith-Based Miracles

The Emperor Provides

Miracles occur not by direct access to the Warp, but through divine intercession catalyzed by belief. The miracle-worker does not command power — they petition it through unshakable devotion. This belief taps into the collective psychic resonance of humanity, which the divine — or the Emperor — may respond to.

• Source: The Warp filtered through mass faith, or Divine Will.
• Method: Prayer, martyrdom, sacred rites, invocations of purity, litanies of hate.
• Cost: Depends on faith and belief — but the user is shielded from corruption.
• Users: Sisters of Battle, living saints, saints, martyrs

Key Trait: Power is bestowed by the strength of belief, not seized.

Warpcraft modifiers

• No spontaneous projections
• Devotion = Psy-rating
• May only use Warp Essence from Imperial relics
• Latent psykers who pass the psychic screening.
• Cannot be sensed through psyscience awareness unless manifesting divine projections.
• Can draw Warp Essence only from Imperial Relics and Imperial holy sites
• Power levels Adeptus Sororitas, saints and zealots of the ecclesiarchy 1-5, Living saints 6-10, the God-Emperor 10+
• As vulnerable to pariahs and null-zones as other paths

---

Final Comparison

Aspect	Psychic Projection	Sorcery	Daemonic Malediction	Faith-Based Miracle
Power Source	Warp (internal and external)	Warp (external)	Warp (via daemon’s might)	The god-Emperor construct (via belief)
Control	Self-discipline	Arcane formulae	Instinctive	Based on purity & faith
Corruption Risk	Medium – High	Minimal – Very High	High	Minimal
Training	Innate talent + focus	Study of occult lore	Increasing might	Devotion + Testimonials
Alignment	Heretical, indifferent or Imperial	Heretical, indifferent or Imperial	Heretical	Imperial