BTB Liber Chaotica question

Hi,

we currently use the BTB setting & objectives for our Bloodlands campaign and there I stumbled over the rules for chaos artifacts, especially the Liber Chaotica.


Its rules cover 3 cases:

- the bearer is a chaotic (Slaanesh/Tzeentch/Nurgle/Undivided) spellcaster and therefore gets to know every spell of his dedicated list

- the bearer is no spellcaster and therefore gains a random undivided spell for each game

- the bearer has the Mark of Arkhar and therefore boosts his magic resistance


But what happens, if a non-chaotic (or Chaos Dwarf) spellcaster gets his hands on the book?

From a RAW view those bearers gain nothing from the book besides a huge headache if not chaotic in some way. But due to the fact that even a dumb Ogre would be capable of casting the random spell, why shouldn't real spellcasters be able to use the book?


So, would you house-rule at this point or just make fun of those poor spellcasters with their worthless Necronom... err Liber Chaotica?

Hmm... just throwing out the first thing that comes to my mind; In movies, all these somewhat careless heroes, unknowing evil fools and so forth, that comes across a spell book and succeed´s in reading the lines can cast the spell and create havoc (more often then on them self...)

That said, i dont play this game, just reads all about it!

The Liber Chaotica is (probably) the most heinously powerful tome containing Chaos lore.

If a regular wizard were to be interpreting its content then he'd end up damned, mutated or worse! He'd need to stash it away somewhere safe to avoid the effects. Sadly this is not an option, the artefact needs to be assigned to one of the models in your warband. An objective marker* is used for this in battles.

If the witch hunters lay their hands on it then they'll not be giving it up easily but it has no obvious benefit being held in their position.

Chaos Dwarf sorcerers are priests of Hashut. It might be considered blasphemy for them to entreat with the daemonic Ruinous Powers. Fire Dwarfs combine their sorcery with science to enslave daemons which they bind to weaponry and infernal machines in their forges. Perhaps you could house rule some kind of bonus if a Chaos Dwarf warband has a Chaos Engineer, one of the Daemon-smiths.

*In our campaigns we treat it that any warrior who carried a 'Tainted Item' during a battle must roll on the Warp-touch Chart (see Corrupted Characters PDF download on Liber Malefic) in the post battle sequence. Tainted Items might include Wyrdstone Shards (and the 'magic' Stones which Alchemists can turn them into when visiting him!), Wyrdstone Pendulum and Chaos Artefacts.

Regards,

Werekin

Thanks for your detailed answer.

werekin wrote:

The Liber Chaotica is (probably) the most heinously powerful tome containing Chaos lore.

If a regular wizard were to be interpreting its content then he'd end up damned, mutated or worse! He'd need to stash it away somewhere safe to avoid the effects. Sadly this is not an option, the artefact needs to be assigned to one of the models in your warband. An objective marker* is used for this in battles.

Hmm, Madness and Mutation for everyone - seems not so far away from Mordheim's main intention.^^ But I understand your point that most wizards would shun away from using it. Or use its power for a good purpose and we all know that power corrupts...

Quote :

If the witch hunters lay their hands on it then they'll not be giving it up easily but it has no obvious benefit being held in their position.

Regarding the rules, I found nothing which prevents the book's use by witch hunters to cast spells (like in the arcane lore skill's description). Nonetheless I would discourage any witch hunter players from using this unholy tome.

Quote :

Chaos Dwarf sorcerers are priests of Hashut. It might be considered blasphemy for them to entreat with the daemonic Ruinous Powers. Fire Dwarfs combine their sorcery with science to enslave daemons which they bind to weaponry and infernal machines in their forges. Perhaps you could house rule some kind of bonus if a Chaos Dwarf warband has a Chaos Engineer, one of the Daemon-smiths.

All Chaos rituals are written in the tome, making an Arkhar leader immune vs. them. But he's also immune to Hashut's prayers, so they seem to be included as well. But the Daemon-smith idea is great, I will definetely try to create something together with my rules advisors in the campaign for that purpose.

Quote :

*In our campaigns we treat it that any warrior who carried a 'Tainted Item' during a battle must roll on the Warp-touch Chart (see Corrupted Characters PDF download on Liber Malefic) in the post battle sequence. Tainted Items might include Wyrdstone Shards (and the 'magic' Stones which Alchemists can turn them into when visiting him!), Wyrdstone Pendulum and Chaos Artefacts.

Regards,

Werekin

That pdf is already in use by our gaming group, another good addition to the rules.