Cawydens Gaming Blog

Christopher Tester (Heinrix VA) - reading

Heinrix poem

Heinrix trying to write a letter after RTs disapperance

Heinrix mobile phone lines (video for the single files above)

Other stuff/ opinion/ answered asks

On how lonely Heinrix must feel

Kibellah and Heinrix content (reg. 1st DLC)

My opinion on Commorragh/Heinrix/Yrliet/Marazhai interaction

My opinion on romantic relationship between Heinrix/male RT

Heinrix smell

Heinrix as Master of Whispers and Xavier

Heinrix archetypes that fit him

Heinrix and romanced heretic RT

Heinrix and Sanctic Daemonology

About Biomancy (with quotes from books)

About psyker augments

About Heinrix and unplanned RT pregnancy (after commorragh)

Other art

Batman (by Sanzosin)

Batman practise (by Sanzosin)

Other games

Baldurs Gate 3

Emperor romance scene short video 1

Emperor romance scene short video 2

Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous Overview

Hand of the inheritor pictures

Hand of the inheritor - thoughts about act 4

Targona pictures

Party Banter

I do think they learn some basics - about the nature of the warp, demons, etc. but only what they are allowed to know, of course - what would help them to be careful, to remain stable.

Heinrix in Voidshadows DLC responds on the idea that he could do the ritual:

"He is right, {name}. I know some of the fundamentals, but this isn't my primary field."

It could be something Heinrix specific, but it is also possible that psykers learn at least some basics about other fields - maybe just that they exist, how to recognise them perhaps.

On Janus, Heinrix senses psychic powers and know it is a bewitching spell - but - it is possible of course, that he just sensed something and given the reaction of the rebels, came to the logical conclusion it has to be mind affecting.

"These people are not thinking straight, {name}." Heinrix stares at the tall, robed figure without blinking. "I can sense an influence. A bewitching spell. Sorcery known only to the strongest of the Aeldari — their Farseers."

Now, even given the sanctioning, training and, for sure, brainwashing that is going on there, I don't think every psyker is that devout and has such a strong belief that is required to make the sanctic discipline work.

You have to believe that it works, that the God-Emperor really protects you, to make it efficient and to make it work. So whenever Heinrix says (and he says it a lot) - God-Emperor protects - that isn't just a phrase; he actually believes it.

And in general, we do see him very much being devout, believing that their escape from Commorragh was a miracle sent by the God-Emperor, or in Voidshadows he isn't doubting that it was the Emperor sending them a warning.

So I think he already had strong faith, because I don't think that if he hadn't, Xavier simply asking him to believe would have worked that well. And since he said "master", it sounds to me more like he already used the powers of that field, but there was potential for more (basically, the higher-level powers).

And I assume he learned that during the training/sanctioning when they identified him as a potential candidate for that discipline. As a battle psyker in the Imperial Guard, he might already have had opportunities to use them.

Xavier then encouraged him to master them because they are so incredibly useful. They work against Chaos, as well as against enemy psykers and xenos. And in his service to the Inquisition, there was for sure no shortage of situations in which to use them.

My personal head canon is that the psykers in the game would not start with these few powers, that this is simply a gameplay decision, but instead would already wield higher level powers as well. I do think they can get even stronger over time; I think it was also said that through the warp rift more and more psychic people are born and that psychic powers are now increased, but maybe that is just for those worlds near the rift.

I hope that was what you were looking for - sorry, there isn't that much about it in the game, as you also already noticed.

Changing her whole body to steel

"Long ago, trapped in a cell-like chamber aboard one of the Psykana's Black Ships, Vykola Herat had had nothing else but enclosing steel and copper wire for company. She hat taken the lessons of metal into herself. Like most other forms of biomancy, the act of changing her substance had once been as easy as taking a deep breath."

"She visualised her body turning to living steel from the inside out, feeling her inner organs harden and grow cold in response. An old trick, but it had saved her life on more than one occasion."

Here, she is attacked by a Tyranid and she is shocked when she realises, that the creature is after her memories.

"She screwed shut her eyes, trying to turn away, but felt the pair of tendrils push against her face, probing for a way in. A moment of utter, blinding agony - a dam bursting, a timed charge detonating. A starburst, a galaxy of sensation exploding outwards from her soul. The creature froze, utterly still."

Both Vykola and the creature were now both clad in metal - fused to a statue. I don't want to spoiler too much, but this was not planned, she was herself surprised it would happen. So it was basically like a reflex that happened, the powers just broke out of her and not really controlled. How her feelings play into this is also apparent here:

"She felt something build inside her, a revulsion that the creature had inspired in her. It was more than fear. The idea of it taking her memories, using them to feed the swarm, to refine the invasion, made her shudder. With that spasm of revulsion, her flesh turned back from inert metal to pliable muscle and sinew, bone and blood. Thank the Throne, the creature stayed as a thing entirely of metal, dead as a dropped ingot. Keeping it that way was seomthing she had to concentrate on, channeling her anger into background noise of hatred. It was a little like keeping a count of spiralling numerals in the back of her mind as the seconds of a countdown ticked past, but as long as she maintained her focus, it would remain immobilised."

2. Healing

There isn't much explanation here unfortunately, just that she is so good at it that she can heal quite quickly and even restoring missing limbs or reversing aging is nothing problematic and quite fast:

"As the high commander watched, the scorch marks faded slightly, and the gouges that had been cut into her flesh began to close up and heal over."

"The bloody depressions the creature's claws had left in her shoulders hurt like whitefire, as did the ravaged mess of her nose, but they were already puckering and closing over ..."

"Her skin, once wrinkled and dull in its long battle agaisnt the ravages of time, was growing tatut once more, some of its youthful lustre returning."

"Her missing hand had already begun to grow back, as she had suspected it would - after all, of all the psychic disciplines, recuperative biomancy was the easiest to use with only subconsicous focus."

In "Blades of Damocles" by Phil Kelly she heals someone else:

"Vykola took the wizened claw in her long-fingered hands, and started to babble and yammer with a horrible, quiet intentisy. A red glow surrounded her hands..."

"Malagrea's skeleton became visible under the red-amber glow of her flesh, and the elderly astropath gave a keening whine of pain. She began to shake as Vykola's strange change reached a crescendo. Then it was done. Vykola took her delicate hands away to reveal Malagrea's crippled limb whole once more, hale and pink and utterly without blemish or wrinkle. If anything, it was more the hand of a young girl than the liver-spotted, veiny equivalent on the other side."

3. Other examples

"She fought away the instinct to send a pulse of biomantic force..."

She also uses her powers to escape from shackles:

"Only when they had made orbit did Herat lengthen her hands into spines, slip the cuffs off without a whisper of resistance, and ram two bony spikes through the back of her guard's neck."

There is also a healing scene in "A Thousand Sons" by Graham McNeill where biomancer Hathor Maat is trying to heal a woman from parasites in her head. It seems that the biomancer is "sensing" the parasite there, he even says "I see you". He also uses gestures like curling or spreading his fingers to help him to focus on what he is doing.

"'I see you' said Hathor Maat, curling his finger as though hooking a fish. Lemuel smelled a sickly aroma of something burning."

"'The tiniest fraction of a misstep and I may end up burning out the mechanism that allows her to breath or pumps blood from her heart. I have its body and am slowly boiling it alive.'"

"Hathor Maat dug his fingers downwards, spreading the tips wide and smiling as the smell of burning meat grew stronger. He worked within Camille's skull for over an hour before nodding to himself."

Heinrix - good at biomancy

As for Heinrix - why do you think it is interesting he is good at it? Did you expect him to be a weak psyker because he is also an Interrogator? Maybe you can explain that a bit more.

He is a sanctioned psyker, meaning he had to go through years of training and trials to be allowed to live and being sanctioned and he spent a few years in the guard (and survived!) so back then he was already an experienced battle psyker. When he joined the Inquisition, Xaiver was specifically interested in his powers to help with interrogations. He also spent decades healing himself and is still using his powers regularly in his duties as Interrogator.

So he has the training and the practice and a lot of experience. He does not have the usual psyker augments because Xavier wanted them gone - likely to have his full power potential available. The augments help psyker to control their powers, but they seem to also limit them to some regard (at least the usual psyker augments).

Has Heinrix medicae knowledge?

Heinrix does have some knowledge of anatomy, and has witnessed vivisections.

He mentions this on Santinals Pride:

"I once was witness to the vivisection of such a creature. These parasites are called Drukhari medusae. As long as its current host lives, a medusae has no need to attack and dominate your mind. If its host dies, be careful not to let it latch onto your head."

In DLC 1 - Voidshadows - if the RT decides to help with the investigations and to do the autopsy, Heinrix (if present) has to say this:

Heinrix bends over the corpse. "{name}, take heed, all these mutilations are a facade. They were inflicted postmortem, clearly a while after. He died instantly from a stab to the heart. He was killed by a professional, someone who knew exactly what they were doing."

I can also imagine that being a biomancer helps at least a bit to understand bodily processes especially after years of practice. He wouldn't know how to name a specific bone of course, so a conversation with a chirurgeon would be a bit limited, but he would likely know what an organ does, where it is positioned and how damage to it would affect a body.

Is medicae knowledge required for biomancers? How does biomancy work?

There is a very nice explanation in the book "Ahriman: Eternal" by John French:

"At their simplest, the powers of the psychic, the sorcerer and the witch were the same: they used the ether to change reality. No matter the root, that was its result. Formulae, spells, artefacts, subtle arts and training all were just ways to make an ideal real by will. Simple. But reality was stubborn. The greater the violation of nature, the more power it took, and that power writhed like a snake when grasped. So it was not enough to have power; to wield it you needed the will to focus the idea of what you wanted, and the will to make it so. The greater the idea, the greater the power, the greater the will... To stop a pebble from falling you needed to make the idea of the stone not falling more real than that of gravity."

Keep in mind that the game uses sorcery basically with the same meaning like psychic or psyker (e.g. soul touched by sorcery etc.)

Witch would likely refer to unsanctioned psykers - Heinrix also calls Idira that quite often.

I think for biomancy and other disciplines this is the same.

While it is not mention above, psykers have to be careful not to draw too much power as it could lead to the psyker losing control and perils of the warp. It is especially dangerous during warp travel:

"Heinrix's eyes narrow. "Why are we wasting time and entertaining the risks of using psyker abilities in the warp? For what? So that you can keep your pet predator? Isn't it about time you rid your menagerie of this exotic menace?"

We also know from Heinrix that he used biomancy involuntarily when his powers first emerged. It was triggered by a strong emotional response when he got bitten. It was uncontrolled and I doubt he specifically imagined the grink's and his aunt's blood to boil. That would be very odd, since he had no idea he had these powers. I think he himself felt a certain heat in his body by the pain and anger and since he was focused on those who had caused this pain - first the grink and then the aunt - it happened that his powers caused their blood to heat up as well.

Though to be honest - I am still not sure if with boiling one's blood really means a rise. In the Warhammer 40k Lexicanum it is described as rising of blood pressure.

"Like many psykers unaware of their curse, I found out when a strong emotional reaction triggered an involuntary response." Heinrix falls silent. Then he sighs and reluctantly continues, "My great-aunt had a pet grink. One day, it bit me, and I boiled it from inside out." The Interrogator looks away and adds more quietly, "And when my great-aunt slapped me for what I'd done, I boiled her too."

So based on this you don't need to specifically know or learn medicine to be able to use biomancy. But maybe it can help to get more creative with what you can do.

It is easy to notice that he is using or preparing his powers but apparently also when he loses for a moment a bit of control because then we get the description of sudden coldness appearing.

"What?" Heinrix stares at you in alarm. You feel the room grow colder, but perhaps your mind is playing tricks on you.

There are several times where he raises a hand - maybe that helps him to focus his powers. Here he was closing his eyes, because there is no danger around him, he can take the time to concentrate on what he wants to do:

"Heinrix hesitates for a moment, then closes his eyes and raises one hand."

But - there are also situations where he is very angry and then slips- here the RT destroyed the cogitator on Kiava Gamma and Heinrix is quite mad about this - since he stopps himself immediately afterwards I doubt he had planned to attack RT and to interfere with her heart or blood. It looks to me that this is a bit like before when he killed the grink and his aunt as a child - he is angry and that anger, that inner heat is now turning on RT. But luckily, he is more in control now and can stop it before real harm is done:

"Heinrix clenches his fists — and you feel your heart begin to beat twice as fast, and the sudden rush of blood to your head causes your vision to blur. "The results of this mission could have made all those deaths mean something, but you just rendered them worthless!"

Compared to when he actually intended to harm someone (although that could also still count as attack in affect as he is quite emotional in this situation as well, but he does not stop himself):

The Interrogator remains still for another second, then his eyes glaze over, his face twists, and the air around him turns icy cold. Marazhai twitches and coughs strangely, his pale face turning purple. He staggers and reaches for his blade…

But here it is planned (DLC 1 Voidshadows):

The Interrogator touches different spots on the prisoner's body, coldly commenting on the effects his sorcery is having on the writhing man. He makes his blood boil, then freeze, then boil again. He arrests his heart, makes it beat rapidly, then back again. At last, Heinrix steps away.

We also learn that he can "sense" his body:

"He gestures feebly at his eyes. "I can't see a thing. Give me a moment… to ascertain what they've done to me…" The air around him grows noticeably colder. "Blast it… I can't sense my body…"

He likely targeted the xenos in his mind but it was forced against himself:

"My fervent desire to boil a few hundred xenos in their own skin on my way out of here proved stronger than death."

"If I knew, I wouldn't be pondering the question right now, {name}. I think…" He pauses, seemingly listening to something. "The circlet on my head wasn't inhibiting my abilities — it was turning them inward. Binding them inside my body. They made me torture myself with warp energies… I was burning and mutilating my internal organs… Damned xenos!" Heinrix clenches his fists in fury and immediately winces from the pain."

And here an example where he can quickly heal RT:

"{name}… allow me…" Heinrix, quite bruised and dirty himself, reaches out with his hand. A chill makes the pain subside, and you feel the bone pop back into place."

So, to bring a long post coming to an end - a lot seems to be based on feelings and intuition and visualising what you want to achieve.

If a biomancer likes to heal a wound, maybe it is enough to look at it and imagine that it closes or that the flesh mends together - if it would take that much more concentrating on single cells than I would assume it would take much longer and not being "on the fly" as it is described in some books (-> of course, there we have often very powerful psykers and they wield their powers with ease, it doesn't mean that it is that simple or fast for other psykers with less power, so take my examples not too seriously).

We do know from Heinrix that he spent a long time regrowing his eye and also - nerve connections. But he did not managed to get the new eye to have the same iris color than his original one - so it isn't that easy, simply "wishing" things into existence.

"Xavier didn't care that I was a maimed freak — he needed me for my sorcery, nothing more. But I decided I would be more useful if I could start to look more like a human again." Heinrix brings his hand to his face. "Repairing my eyeball took the longest. Even the nerve connections took less effort. Years went by before I managed to eliminate all the visual aberrations and I could see as well as I had when I was a child."

I think biomancers can sense disturbances in a body, disruptions due to poison, illness, injury etc. The more knowledge they have about what caused this, it might help to heal it, but I don't think it is always required.

But depending on what you want to achieve, especially if it is dangerous or difficult, you would need much more concentration and strength of will and also power for it to work. And there is always the risk of corruption. Even powerful Ahriman asked the thousand sons to not resort to using their powers for mundane things - and overuse of their powers could also lead them to get corrupted (they call it flesh change).

"'No,' said Ahriman. 'I do not use my powers to accomplish things I can do without them. You should not either."

"Astartes first, psykers second,' said Ahriman. 'We forget that at our peril."

In any case, I hope that answered your questions or at least helped a bit.

I also have Heinrix's dialog from the game (including DLC 1 - Voidshadows) here, if you like to see if you missed something).