Delirium Trellis
The Ordo Xenos has unearthed a handful of madness-inducing xenotech webs in the Jericho Reach, and dubbed them Delirium Trellises for their effect on humans. The devices cause subtle distortions in the warp, which seem to cause different malignant reactions in different lifeforms. This variance has led to theories that the creators of the Delirium Trellis were either immune to its effects or capable of constructing protective measures.[1a]
Contents
Overview
A Trellis takes the form of a looming yet delicate array of shifting images until activated. Once this happens, it quickly rots away, leaving no physical sign of its existence, but intangibly blighting the surroundings for dozens of kilometres. The number of Trellises necessary to blanket an entire planet with dementia is easily hundreds of times the total count of devices ever discovered, nor do any known accounts exist of the phasing used to conceal the Delirium Trellises on the planet of Baraban. Perhaps this indicates that their application on Baraban is unique, for the alternative, is that other thousands of these weapons still lie dormant in dark corners of planets across the Reach.[1a]
When this information reached Watch Fortress Erioch, the Omega Vault revealed a trio of Archeotech Luminators.[1a]
A flat, uneven arch towers over the glade dark panels of shifting images stretch between splayed pinions of inactive xenos circuitry. Some of the swirling shapes are discernable: Sometimes an eye or the trail of a comet, the ones that see it have the constant sense that they are seeing only part of a larger pattern.[1b]
Effects
- Mortal Delirium
A Delirium Trellis reaches into the human mind to seek out whatever thoughts are most oppressive and terrible. Then it conjures a state of Delirium where those nightmare people and creatures walk. However, Adeptus Astartes are no longer entirely human. Just as fear affects them differently than common Imperial citizens, the visions produced by the Delirium differ as well.[1c]
- Visions of The Immemorial
The mind of a Space Marine is laced with the history of his Chapter, and indeed of mankind. If he is affected by the Delirium, he may see people or memories that recall his own personal failings, or the Delirium may reach back into an ancestry equally fraught with pain. Space Marines so affected may experience horrors witnessed by dead members of their Chapter, their Primarch, or even the Emperor himself. The mental trauma of such experiences manifests in a temporary affliction of their Primarch's Curse.[1c]
- The Dream of Unity
While not necessarily sorcerous, the technology behind the Delirium Trellises involves at least a small amount of immaterium manipulation. Its effect on the warp-removed T'au is therefore diminished, but not absent. Any who fail to resist do not experience fear, but rather the pleasant delusion of having achieved their driving goal: universal acceptance of the Tau’va, the Greater Good. A T'au so afflicted treats anyone he encounters as a trusted member of the T'au Empire (since in his mind all races are now one with them). This is not to say that his perception of an individual cannot be altered by that person’s words or deeds (particularly hostile ones), only that he assumes all people, including humans and Space Marines, follow the Greater Good until given reason to doubt.[1c]
- Return to the Wilds
The Kroot are not so far removed from the savage world and mindset in which the T'au found them. Kroot under the delirium revert to a savage and animalistic state. All other life forms become simply a source of food in their eyes. The Greater Good and the T'au Empire are no longer even a distant memory in this feral state.[1c]
