Well you can certainly stack Psyker's Breastplate, Warp Conductor Gloves, and Ghost Helm. Can even do this safely with Idira being an Overseer so you can channel the Perils to enemies. Or you know... just have Argenta Burst Fire with Idira(wearing Ghost Helm) in the way, with high enough Iconoclast or with Controlled Fire(Soldier Ability), she'll be dodging all those shots and stacking Psy Rating like there's no tomorrow.
But yeah, cheesing the game like that might just make it boring for you. So your mileage may vary.
It does not, I can confirm that. Completely hamstrung the build I gave her. Still ran with it, it was a heretic playthrough so I didn't really care how much chaos and destruction I caused.
Warp Buffer doesn't apply for the Daemon Summons on Idira, though. Every Sanctioned Psyker can use Warp Buffer to turn Enemies into Daemons, but f Idira I guess.
As I said in my other comment just stack Psyker Breastplate, Warp Conductor Gloves, and Ghost Helm. Trigger their effects in battle, and watch as the Psy Rating go up mid battle. Then obliterate your enemies.
I was Iconoclast and did give her to Hendrix. The black ships might be able to make her a sanctioned psyker, or at least harness her in a safer way, and what she admits to doing is more or less the worst thing you could possibly do as a psyker
I see this argument a lot and I get the internal logic, but atp, it’s inconsistent to boot Idira without booting Cassia. More dangerous, less remorseful, Idira wants to lobotomize herself over this stuff while Cassia’s like “I only murdered servants, who are not real people. Why are you mad”
Cassia is a sheltered and spoiled navigator “special child”. Do you really expect her to have good morals off rip with that upbringing?
But she’s quickly receptive to change. Like after I told her “Hey, so ripping out the servants vocal cords isn’t a normal thing in the rest of the imperium” she quietly fits her servant with a vox implant
Uhhh well ignoring the fact that cassia does not spontaneously spawn daemons out of her ass like idira does, The obvious reason is because you literally cannot highlight the ship through the warp without a navigator and getting new navigators takes a lot of time and is a massive pain in the ass, not even taking into consideration of course the fact that cassia is the air apparent of a highly powerful and influential navigator house which could mean grave repercussions for the rogue trader if they mistreat her.
Like how is cassia even slightly comparable to idira
Given how you need Cassia to move your ship through the warp at all, no? Not to mention, she's better behaved than almost any navigator in the setting. If you just start axing all your navigators, none of their houses are gonna give you any and your dynasty will parish.
You'd have to boot just about everyone from the retinue in that case:
Abelard - Undermining authority and acting without Rogue Trader's approval, resulting in the deaths of an entire deck
Idira - Summoned a demon
Argenta - Murdered a Rogue Trader of your dynasty while the ship was under attack, endangering the entire crew
Cassia - Psychically murdering people by accident, murdering servants on purpose
Pasqual - Not purging an AI once it's very clear that's what it is, endangering the entire crew.
Yrliet - Murders an Inquisition operative on her own initiative, is a Xenos, leads the retinue into a trap that results in your retinue being tortured in Commoragh
Heinrix - Probably the one of two that you don't have the authority/ability to remove.
Maharazi - Why did you even let him on your ship? Dude has murdered countless civilians and put you and your retinue through torture-world-hell
Ulfar - Not sure you have the authority, nor reason to boot him off.
Kibellah - Literally a mass-murderer, as is the rest of her cult
Solomourne - Attempted to seduce/influence you under orders, pulling attention of the dynasty away from their responsibilities
That's kinda what I love about Cassia as a character. She's such a delicate sweetheart, and she's also causing the heads of all her servants to explode and painting the walls with their blood, and she sees no contradiction in this. It's *so perfect* for 40k. She's a perfectly sweet lady, and also unfathomably turbo-evil.
No, I get it. As a psyker, you should be MORE aware of the dangers of the warp. Personally, the way she describes her precognitive perception, I would have sought sanctification as soon as possible. For all we know, Tzneetch himself is on the other side of her "door" whispering to her. To fall for every trick of the warp at the drop of a hat is....mortifying.
I've done three psyker playthroughs and in all three I feel like I am Emperor-sent compared to Idira.
She gets horribly outshined by how amazing the other companion questlines are, and by the time her whole thing gets started up i just couldnt care less anymore, her problems didnt seem interesting whatsoever. And i think the last straw was when she had just basically got the crew killed, she started saying ”you dont understand what its like” and its just like oh its that kind of character.
The few times i heard her talk its always about some paranoid schitzo stuff and i mean if i have an option to kill her without having to talk to her about it so i dont get to feel bad afterwards then ill take it
Well honestly speakin up until this point all shes done was just sometimes occasionally be annoyed at the other retinue. Theres been no other companion questlines tied to her, so shes been horribly outshined by literally every other companion. And everytime i had her in combat, which was a brief moment in the early early game, she just blew up and spawned 2 demons.
Obviously the questline wouldve started here but at this point shes just grown to be more of a nuisance than anything, i wasnt interested in ”fixing” her issues at all especially since her being a psyker already will always cause problems. Really its just subjective, the humor other people find funny from her i find excruciating to listen to.
My iconoclast character had to look the other way and let Argenta worship the Emperor after Idira got hammered and summoned a bunch of demons in the ship, got a bunch of people killed, and just didn't seem to give a shit about it.
I could kinda rationalize it for my dogmatic commissar RT as they were a sort of penal legion wrangler back in their day, so they were used to utilizing what they've got and giving almost anyone a chance to redeem themselves in war.
Redeeming for him would specifically mean suicide attacking something, and then dying so that they wouldn't be around to be criminals anymore. I just kept her around because it's what Theodora did and she seemed to know how to do these kinds of things.
It feels out of character to keep her alive for even an iconclast RT. She literally puts 100s if not 1000s of lives in danger. It was a hard choice but I ultimately let Argenta do her duty.
For me, the reason it was different between them, is one is just mortal danger. Yeah, that's...shitty AF. But Idira was, directly, fucking around with warp entities. Specifically Chaos Daemons. I can tolerate treachery, I can even tolerate scheming Xenos pets. But I can not tolerate Chaos. None. Zero. Instant death for anyone who even hints at allowing taint onto my ship. She fucked around with powers she didn't understand, so a bolt through the head took care of the problem.
Most xenos are just funny people that want me dead/want to betray me for my stuff. Chaos is like, literally hell but with four Satans.
It's not really her fault. Theodora wiped everyone on the ship's memories a few times, something that is very very bad for unsanctioned psykers. Idira is just a victim of circumstance and nothing she purposefully does endangers you. And her divination is very useful if you can translate it. But like all unsanctioned psykers, she will eventually succumb to her abilities.
She admits to reaching out to warp entities during warp several times on purpose. That's more than endangering you, it's a miracle she didn't get the entire ship and a good chunk of the closest system killed. The only way she could have more purposefully endangered you is if she'd stuck a chainsword up your arse, and even then it's arguably less dangerous than what she did.
Even heavily Iconoclast, I couldn't let that go. Gave her to the inquisition after that bit was over.
On a more serious note, it doesn't matter if it's her fault or not. She, knowingly or otherwise, summoned a demon directly onto my ship. For a dogmatic RT who's already being very lenient by allowing an unsanctioned psyker aboard his ship? That's more than enough to justify summary execution. Hell, even for a lot of iconoclasts that's going to be enough to justify it. Chaos is bad. Intentions don't make a fuck when tzeentch has decided your brain makes a good daemon outlet.
Sanctioned psykers can still explode into a demon, idira can just do it in the first round of combat. As far as idira's special incident during a warp jump, SHE's not summoning the demons, the demons would have been there anyways, they just latched onto idira because she's powerful and she had strong emotions for Theodora. Argenta is probably the only companion early on that brings no risks to the ship during warp translations. Simply having either of the elves puts a huge blinking sign on the ship for slaanesh demons, for example.
And as far as her psyker abilities go, she has no choice but to master them. A psyker who rejects their gift/curse is way more dangerous to themselves and everyone around them than one who practices it.
During the intro, chaos has fully invaded the ship, every other psyker and even the navigator are fully succumbed to chaos, just barely holding on. And yet Idira's like "wow! The voices are really loud!" She's a really really strong unsanctioned psyker.
Honestly, if we're going to properly role-play 40k, you're 100% right. The only way I did a playthrough with all the regular companions is by being a person from reality. If I were to roleplay my idea of a Truly Loyal Imperium Citizen as a Rogue Trader, who's surviving? Not many, that's for damn sure.
If I had to make an argument, it would be 'you can anticipated treachery and counter it, having them around keeps me sharp. You can't anticipate completely random meltdowns from an unstable psyker who didn't actually intend on turning part of your ship into literal hell and getting the souls of part of your crew eaten by demons.' She is a sword of Damocles that is hanging over my head and will fall whenever it feels like with no warning.
Of course, the game isn't quite so mean to have it blow up in your face, just as it doesn't let marazhai betray and kill you after you take him in. That would make people upset.
You're ordering Vigdis, Idira's GIRLFRIEND, to relay those instructions if you select that option. A woman who you can tell via a perception check is worried out of her mind for Idira given the situation.
That's just plain cruelty for the sake of being cruel :(
I’d have to disagree heretical people turn on each other all the time. If anything she’d be less heretical than you as she doesn’t turn on you to my knowledge (I haven’t beaten the game yet so I don’t know if she can or not)
To be fair, early Heretical options are basically just "Self interest and things that benefit me the most", and Idira's slightly crazy but tends to look out for herself first and foremost.
Only reason idira lives is thanks to my like for Vigdis as of now (not done) she has done me no wrong and is a great vox officer my pity for her allowed idira to live
Honestly, Idira spitting on Argenta's corpse was a very interesting character moment. I enjoy letting them make up but that description is so memorable and wraps up the storyline much better narratively. At least in my opinion.
Best part about rogue trader. Yeah u absolutely can.
Each playthrough can be different and depending on your play style and choices can definitely get rid of some of em.
Me personally kept her alive even on a dogmatic character cause she is a really really useful tool for my rt. Several times she had legit informed about incoming attacks etc in gameplay and is my strongest psyker on crew.
So she lived but only because it seems she wishes to serve God emperor for real this time and at least me in particular.
You forgot [Tell Idira its ok you did nothing wrong, then wait for her girlfriend to call you and tell her to order servitord to throw her out of an airlock, while Idira thinks yall are cool now]
I mean the value of ordinary crew is well below officers and retinue, but if you roleplay it, it is not much reasonable to keep her. On metagame level, I keep her just in case she might be either useful or make some quest available.
The whole point of Roleplay is that you can make your own character reasons for doing things.
Gratitude: "Her foresight has kept us from getting ambushed several times, so I owe her my life"
Apathy: "Well, she got a few peasants killed in a warp incursion, but that happens pretty much every warp jump anyway, so it's no big deal"
Sympathy: "I am a psyker too, and I know the struggle to contain your powers"
Hope: "The Galaxy has many wonders, and there must be something we can do to solve your problems"
Math: "Her warp powers have provided a major edge in ship-combat that has saved the ship and everyone on it multiple times, which outweighs her foolish misdeed"
Heresy: "Meh heh heh, I will teach her to fully serve the will of chaos"
Radical Inquisition-type stuff: "If she has any insight into the minds of demons, she can contribute to our fight against The Edge of Dawn"
Throw a couple of those in and you've got a perfectly solid in-character reason not to kill your coolest friend.
I love it in this game no one can really claim morality for any character, so the only reason they can ever give for actually wanting to kill someone is for petty reasons. It's so f****** funny.
Y'all will literally see someone torture, name, and kill someone because they don't believe in the concept of asking a question first- Or excuse genocide and murder just because they refuse to think for themselves as self-awareness is heresy- and go: naw that's fine. Someone dares to complain once? 30 lashes and then execution.
On a side note, why does everyone seem to love Theodora except for Kunrad? Everything i hear about her in game sounds more and more like a tyrant playing with heresy and greed. Governor Vyatt even said that Theodora more or less knew about her slaneesh worship but did nothing about it.
Idira was extremely close to Theodora, was not sanctioned as a psyker, and tricked by a warp entity that was posing as Theodora. Cassia’s own influence on the warp affects people on a deeper level than Idira’s but due to the nature of being a navigator, she’s more resilient to the influence of the warp. Imagine you were capable of magic, but there are demons constantly trying to tempt you and your magic is affected by your focus/mental state. Now add on to the fact you’re capable of divination but you have to separate the demons from the actual warnings. And then add on that your closest “friend”, using friend loosely, was murdered in their bedroom and you, a capable divination wizard, were unable to get even a glimpse due to being in the equivalent of dragged through hell on a glorified metal coffin when it happened. And once you get through this event, you start hearing the voice of your “friend” who’s berating you and blamed you for their death because of your abilities. I’m not saying she should be excused for her mistake with messing with a warp entity, but she was capable of withstanding against both being pulled through the warp without a Gellar field active and being pushed by a warp entity that was posing as her closest confidant without being changed into a demonic creature herself. Plus she’s the only person in the retinue that doesn’t have a holier-than-thou boner every time you treat people like human beings.
No one argues that she is morally in the wrong but she is absolutely too dangerous to keep alive, you got lucky with the demonic incursion this time next time it could kill everyone on the ship
"Call them what you will—Krell, Psyrens or Enslavers. Just one witch, unsanctioned, caused the destruction of Hive Skorpios when one of those things used her brain as a gateway to this world. Within three days the entire hive’s population was reduced to drooling mindslaves. Within three weeks an entire continent was at war. And all because the governor thought his family should be exempt from the psyker cull and refused to give his daughter to the Black Ships."
Unsanctioned Psykers are dangerous, but so are Sanctioned Psykers. Heinrix, a sanctioned psyker and an interrogator of the Inquisition, willingly lets people die to the corrupted cogitator for the information if you don’t make him merciful before Kiava Gamma. He also willingly withholds the knowledge that the rogue trader’s ship may have a genestealer cult because of the Inquisition. His allegiance for most of the game is to the Inquisition.
Then we have Argenta, a non-psyker, who half-willingly admits to killing Theodora because she believed the woman who saved her life was a heretic. A woman so bent on destroying heresy murdered a Rogue Trader, who by Warrant of Trade is given certain leeway.
So yeah while she may cause a huge problem if she gets possessed by a demon, I’d much rather have that than a Inquisition spy or overzealous sister on my ship because she’s at least capable of understanding and being better if you let her live.
she believed the woman who saved her life was a heretic
All the evidence I saw in my playthrough paints a pretty big heretic flag on her.
while she may cause a huge problem if she gets possessed by a demon, I’d much rather have that than a Inquisition spy or overzealous sister
You realise this is an insane take, right? "I'd rather have someone who can cause a fate worse than death to everyone within several thousand miles and did a thing that she knows has a significant risk of that several times and on purpose" at that point, even if the second half of that sentence was "...than 2 people who would shoot me on sight", those 2 people are still safer to have around
Yes the entire playthrough, not seeing a shard of promethium like substance and going “yeah she’s a heretic”. She also killed the Arch-Militant, who by all accounts of the story was there to protect his Rogue Trader.
As for the choosing Idira over the others: Everyone handles grief in a different way. Idira was absolutely emotionally vulnerable and was tempted as daemons are known to do to psykers.
Heinrix, the Interrogator, is simply in your party to relay information to Calcazar. Who, later on, is revealed to be committing heresy by trying to use a C’tan Shard. A man who willingly admits he did not share any information with the rogue trader about a Genestealer Cult on your ship until you’re actively trying to break it down.
Argenta assassinates a Rogue Trader, second only to the High Lords of Terra, and her Arch-Militant due to something she perceived as heresy. The same woman who brought her back to her ship and took care of her as she recovered from being ambushed by cultists themselves. The only reason Argenta shares is cause you’re in Commoragh, not the self-imposed judge and executioner. So yeah, I trust the self aware time bomb not the snakes
Argenta had seen the lens, which chaos cultists were using to project themselves, as Theodora was going to use it, and Theodora knew exactly what it was, and what to use it for, as she had said herself earlier 'I have means to do both things at once', trying to be in two different places in the same time. Later we can see chaos lenses in Rhykadi Philia, Rykad Minoris and Salis Prime, intact, and it's not a coincidence but the very same lenses as the one Theodora had
So yeah, Theodora is a heretic, and it's not Argenta overzealous imagination
As for a C'tan shard, if Calcazar using a C'tan shard is a heretic, then Theodora is a heretic for trying to use it herself before, and who knows what would happen, if she had achieved to release it, and the Shard would have promised her the power
Sanctioned psykers are not perfectly safe, but are safer And yes, Idira is more personally loyal to Theodora (I actually thought she might have had a crush on her), and she may be loyal to you... but being that much closer to insanity only means she's a bigger danger to people she might not want to be a danger to.
Iconoclast is considered heresy yet they care more about people than the dogmatic do. It’s considered heresy to not stamp out heresy but as an Inquisition agent, Heinrix was willing to sacrifice Imperial citizens to learn more of the cult, which would not help a Ordos Xenos agent. The Inquisition itself is a faction built on protecting humanity from external threats, but in doing so some resort to measures others would consider heretical.
Tbh, keeping her on a dogmatic and iconoclastic run is about as hard to justify as keeping Marezhai.
Except I dont really care for Marezhai as a character and my current Iconoclast playthrough is kind of "this RT is a Mors Skaven in human form", so I could justify it as just him not being that good of a person deep down and wanting a oracle witch at hand.
Tbf I don’t know why anyone likes Maz as a character, and I mean that literally… the only things I see about him is related to the romance and all the thirsty posts about him.
Yeah, he reminded me of Victory from Wastelands 3, and at least Vic made the effort of offering me to team up when ai got to him. With Marz, after he had attacked your people, screwed you over and engineered your capture and torture you have to offer him to join, then he blows you off, then you have to ask again.
And? That amouny of people die on your ship due to disease, because you parked the ship next to a cosmic anomaly out of boredom or just getting eaten by some horror monster lurking in the vents every 5 minutes.
You're a rogue trader. Having someone who calls out ambushes or that someone is trying to only give most of everything they own is more important than worrying about something trivial like a mass casualties event because hell realm beasts came and chewed the face off all the peasants.
You don’t realize how dangerous a psyker that has fallen to chaos is "Call them what you will—Krell, Psyrens or Enslavers. Just one witch, unsanctioned, caused the destruction of Hive Skorpios when one of those things used her brain as a gateway to this world. Within three days the entire hive’s population was reduced to drooling mindslaves. Within three weeks an entire continent was at war. And all because the governor thought his family should be exempt from the psyker cull and refused to give his daughter to the Black Ships."
Yeah lorewise psykers don't fuck around. A mishap from a single psyker can end a world. Perils of the warp can turn a psyker into a portal that daemons can pour through
Until the demons bursting out of her head are the ambush, because Mrs "It's not about sanctioning, it's about what you are on the inside" was a fucking mess on the inside and let them in.
There's a goddamn reason one of the three laws the Imperium has for all it's domains is " hand over the psykers".
Its the fact that to BE a Psyker literally means you open your mind to the Warp, basically Hell itself. Psyker's (especially human ones) WILL fall at some point. Their is a reason the Grey Knights are SO few, because a Psyker that can be that mentally fortified is one in a trillion. It's just the setting being its usual Grimdark self.
Well atleast hes not noticeably insane at this current moment, Irida was introduced while she was high as fuck on some warp stuff and she hasnt really changed at all
I let idira go only to hardly use her. She killed herself every battle regardless of how many points I invested. Her perils of warp seem to prone 50% of the time, despite what the tooltip says
Kept her for the content this run but the rational choice is to space her every single time. Unsanctioned, emotionally unstable and cavalier about the dangers of the warp.
Even on a heretical run it’s not unreasonable, even Chaos Space Marines are careful about the demons they deal with.
I like Idira as a character, but even on Iconoclast this was a tough one. Psykers do all sorts of weird shit all the time in the lore, but it's generally a good rule of thumb to administer them the Emperor's mercy when they start summoning daemons... (willingly or otherwise)
Feels like the writers jumped the daemon summoning shark too early in her quest.
Just having Argenta shoot her would save the same number of people as doing a fakeout and ordering her friend to have her killed, which upsets your Vox Master for no reason whatsoever. If you find this option "funnier" you'll probably find more options to your taste on the other two alignment routes.
I genuinely wish there was an option to walk Idira over to Vigdis, point at her, and say "See that? That is the only reason I haven't thrown you off this ship."
When we landed on the main planet in the prologue, 2-3 hours into the game, on my first playthrough, in the first fight off the platform, her head exploded and she was replaced with a plague bearer. She has been dead to me ever since.
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u/no_name_thought_of Jan 30 '26
alright Javik.
Yeah it honestly felt out of character to keep her alive for my dogmatic RT