Processional of the Damned — A Sneak Peek

Lord Captains!

We know you have been eagerly awaiting insights into the upcoming Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader expansion. There is still some time until the warp route to the “Processional of the Damned” is open, but this does not prevent us from allowing you a glimpse through the veil.

Let us begin!

A Miracle of the Emperor

First of all, let us introduce Stella, your new companion:

Frail of body but resolute, Stella is a Miraculist — a unique individual whose supernatural abilities manifest as purifying flame and righteous divination. Her eyes bleed, and the cracks of her cold porcelain skin haemorrhage when she becomes a conduit of His will, yet such is the price of bringing retribution to the xenos, the mutant, and the heretic.

Raised by the Ecclesiarchy to be a living weapon, she is a unique asset — one whose life was never truly her own. Although, unbeknownst to them, the reality is that she is an unsanctioned psyker, her order does not see her as a witch or a mutant. For them, she is a miracle sent by the Emperor himself, bathing in His light.

When presented with the opportunity to bring her aboard your voidship, what will you choose to do with such a rare and unusual relic, Lord Captain? Will you forge her into an even greater weapon in the name of your ambition and the glory of the von Valancius dynasty? Will you decide to see a human in her, assist her in picking up her pieces, and make her your friend and ally? Or will you perhaps dive together, hand in hand, into madness and damnation, as you embrace her haunting visions of thousands of derelict voidships orbiting a dark star?

A Living Weapon

The Miraculist is a special kind of unsanctioned psyker whose powers are unstable, barely controlled, and dictated almost entirely by whim, religious zeal of the user or a change in their mood.

On the battlefield, they are as powerful as they are unpredictable.

Stella’s keystone ability is called the Psychic Trail. It is a psychic aura projected a few tiles around her — the worse the veil degradation, the greater the size of the aura.

Within its range, she is capable of unleashing spontaneous bursts of psychic energy via an ability called Psychic Flare by sacrificing a small percentage of her maximum wounds.

This energy then manifests in a form of random psychic abilities, either unique to Stella or belonging to the Pyromancy, the Sanctic or the Divination disciplines. These range from direct burst damage and debuffs to exotic buffs to herself and her allies. All of them are always of the area-of-effect type — none of them is ever single-target.

At the start of a battle, Stella’s powers will typically manifest as Pyromancy. But when the other psykers use powers belonging to the other disciplines around her, her own powers begin to gravitate to that discipline for a time. This allows a slight level of control over the direction of the Miraculist’s abilities and provides synergy with the other psykers in the group.

Naturally, the reliance on veil degradation, as well as the inherent instability makes the Miraculist very susceptible to the Perils of the Warp.

Eventually, as Stella trains and obtains equipment that helps her harness her abilities, the degree of control she has over her powers grows ever so slightly, but it will never reach quite the same levels of predictability as those of other psykers.

Not that one could call anything related to the warp truly predictable anyway…

The Zealot Archetype

With the new DLC comes a brand new first-tier archetype called the Zealot. It offers an entirely new melee-focused playstyle that relies on bludgeoning weapons, including an exciting option of throwing them at the enemy, as well as a wide selection of area-of-effect attacks and abilities.

While a full overview of the archetype is worth its own article (which will come soon), we can already reveal that Stella is indeed a Zealot, and her Miraculist abilities are specifically designed to synergise with the archetype’s close-range capabilities.

It is also worth noting that unlike the Miraculist, which is a special Origin reserved only for Stella, the Zealot archetype can also be selected by the Lord Captain during character creation.

A Path to Insanity

The “Processional of the Damned” DLC introduces a brand new feature called Insanity, which manifests differently for each companion. We will talk more about this feature in detail later, but it is worth noting that Stella possesses an extended, deeper and darker connection to Insanity.

The Darkest of Places

Many horrors lurk in the Processional of the Damned, and many entities, both familiar and unknown, reside here... whether willingly or not.

Be those servants of the Arch Enemy who have haunted the Imperium of Man for millennia and the vile monstrous machinery that accompanies them…

… or the elusive Aeldari of a Craftworld never previously encountered in the Koronus Expanse...

or even something else entirely.

Are you ready to take on this challenge, Lord Captain?

What Else?

There is much that awaits you in the “Processional of the Damned” DLC, including a brand new weapon type — the Grenade Launcher (for all your explosive needs!), a new romance option, new special events for companions, new items, new space exploration options, and much more!

Stay tuned.

The Emperor protects!