# How solid are daemons?



## joechip (Mar 4, 2010)

I've read that daemons are made out of psychic energy. So when they enter the physical universe without possessing someone, like through a warp rift, do they solidify into physical forms or are they still energy beings. If a Space Marine was to empty his bolter into a Bloodletter's chest would the bolts pass right through because he's only energy or would they blow him apart?


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## Serpion5 (Mar 19, 2010)

Daemons in the materium are a physical manifestation of their patron`s ideal, so they are vulnerable to conventional attacks. Though the lack of any conventional anatomy makes them somewhat resilient, the simple fact is that if you hit them hard enough they will fall.

Of course, by fall, I mean dissolve back into nothing and be reabsorbed by the warp... metaphor and all...


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## Giant Fossil Penguin (Apr 11, 2009)

It might also vary with the amount of warp energy available. If the warp is overpowering, then the daemons will be overpowering as will how they can fight. As the amount of power diminishes, so does the daemon's power and, to my mind at least, how corporeal they are. So, at the end of a daemonic invasion, the last daemons will be more like ghosts and probably won't need to be actually shot, or chopped, but could even be dispersed like smoke. Although shouting, screaming, extremely angry smoke!
I would imagine that there are certain daemons who love this time; they aren't going to get shot at or hacked apart, but they can still cause trouble and give people a hard time. Tzeentch-ies I would imagine would revel in this type of mayhem!

GFP


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## rokar4life (Jun 21, 2008)

Solid enough to put a bolter through.

Edit: No, but seriously one of the Guant's Ghost novels says that the Daemons skin was cauterized by the lasgun fire so they at least usually have a solid physical form that can burn.


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## shaantitus (Aug 3, 2009)

I would say the more support(psychic) they have the stronger and more solid they are. If you have a couple of heretics dancing around a fire you might get a pretty soggy bloodletter. If you have 10000 crazies all chanting and frothing at the mouth you might get legions of bloodletters and bloodthirsters tearing everything apart and able to withstand considerable damage etc. It depends on how much support you have.


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## ThatOtherGuy (Apr 13, 2010)

shaantitus said:


> I would say the more support(psychic) they have the stronger and more solid they are. If you have a couple of heretics dancing around a fire you might get a pretty soggy bloodletter. If you have 10000 crazies all chanting and frothing at the mouth you might get legions of bloodletters and bloodthirsters tearing everything apart and able to withstand considerable damage etc. It depends on how much support you have.


If you have the democratic party to support you, then you could possibly house all the demons from the warp on your front porch step without a problem.


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## Primarch Lorgar (Jul 11, 2009)

sir, F you


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## Deathscythe4722 (Jul 18, 2010)

If my last Dark Heresy session was any indicator, they're at least solid enough to eat my chainsword out of my hand and backhand me off a balcony. 

In short: very solid.


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

I always thought that how solid they were was in direct relation to their invulnerable save. While it isnt as clearly spelt out as the necron phase shifter I thought that the 4++ of tzeentch daemons was because they were incorporeal part of the time, while the other daemons have less control over their corporeal state and so have a worse invulnerable save. It made sense to me that greater daemons get +1 to their inv save since they would have much greater control as they are much more powerful...


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## rokar4life (Jun 21, 2008)

I thought that most Daemons invulnerable save was from having no discernible anatomy and the inability to bleed/feel pain(or their indifference to it)


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## Belthazor Aurellius (Jan 16, 2009)

On the subject to how immaterial the immaterial are, read Horus Rising, when Xavier Jubal is posessed in the whisper mountains by Samus (Samael, the desolate one, son of Nergal, anyone?), the space marines open fire on the monstrosity, which, iirc, was somewhat translucent some of the time, and only half the weaponsfire actually impacted the daemon in any meaningful way. It was only when they fired on the host body to the point where it was pulp that the daemon was vanquished.


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## Lt. James O'neil (Aug 6, 2010)

Well i can definitely say that demons are not liquids.


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## darklove (May 7, 2008)

Considering the nature of the atom, it is not surprising that science does not even know, yet, why humans (or indeed anything else) is solid. We are all made of different energy waves that somehow become 'solid', Daemons are probably the same but that the energy comes from the Warp rather than the Materium.


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## Serpion5 (Mar 19, 2010)

@Belthazor: Hound of resurrection?


@Darklove: Subatomic particles are solid aren`t they? I thought the conundrum came from the fact that an atom was 99% empty space? Or am I mistaken?

Energy conversion to mass is one of those aspects of physics I couldn`t quite wrap my head around...


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## Lt. James O'neil (Aug 6, 2010)

Well my friends alwYs call me dense, so I kinda figured that's whAt makes me solid was my center of mass directed around a dense core of molecular ions. So my next question is can demons actually b killed?


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## Baron Spikey (Mar 26, 2008)

Lt. James O'neil said:


> Well my friends alwYs call me dense, so I kinda figured that's whAt makes me solid was my center of mass directed around a dense core of molecular ions. So my next question is can demons actually b killed?


No. Nothing except the God who created the daemon can do anything more than banish them.


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## darklove (May 7, 2008)

Serpion5 said:


> @Darklove: Subatomic particles are solid aren`t they? I thought the conundrum came from the fact that an atom was 99% empty space? Or am I mistaken?


Yes, the atom is almost completely made of empty space, but exactly what it is about an atom that gives it mass and makes it react to other atoms, with the affect of what we now call gravity, is not known. This is, of course, a very important part of being 'solid'. Fundamentally, everything is energy, even atoms.
The search for the Higgs boson is being conducted by many scientists to try to resolve this question, although this is purely a theory at the moment and there are also many theories that do not require the Higgs boson to exist.


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## Lt. James O'neil (Aug 6, 2010)

Cheers to that! Hoah! *runs into horde of tyranids without adamantium pants*


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## Serpion5 (Mar 19, 2010)

darklove said:


> Yes, the atom is almost completely made of empty space, but exactly what it is about an atom that gives it mass and makes it react to other atoms, with the affect of what we now call gravity, is not known. This is, of course, a very important part of being 'solid'. Fundamentally, everything is energy, even atoms.
> The search for the Higgs boson is being conducted by many scientists to try to resolve this question, although this is purely a theory at the moment and there are also many theories that do not require the Higgs boson to exist.


Ah, thanks for that. 



Lt. James O'neil said:


> Cheers to that! Hoah! *runs into horde of tyranids without adamantium pants*


... Good luck.


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## Lt. James O'neil (Aug 6, 2010)

Only fools put their trust in luck, I put my trust in the emperor. You know the dude in the big golden throne who hasn't moved in like ten thousand years.


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## darklove (May 7, 2008)

Lt. James O'neil said:


> Only fools put their trust in luck, I put my trust in the emperor. You know the dude in the big golden throne who hasn't moved in like ten thousand years.


Mystic superstition... yea, thats the way to go. Got a problem? then just get on your knees and hope that coincidence saves you.


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## Lt. James O'neil (Aug 6, 2010)

Yeah, no. That's not how I role, though my chapter pays tribute to him as the life giver my troops tend to think for themselves and about the bigger picture. A mutation in the gene seed that has left many chapters a bit suspicious of their motives, though when called upon they fight like any other marine but with the memories of the fallen chapters and battle brethren burning deep inside.


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## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

Lt. James O'neil said:


> Only fools put their trust in luck, I put my trust in the emperor. You know the dude in the big golden throne who hasn't moved in like ten thousand years.



He's mostly empty space too. Bein' a Skeleton an' all.

Midnight


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## darklove (May 7, 2008)

The strange thing is that the empty space in atoms and particles and everything else becomes solid because of the forces within and around. So Daemons are as solid as anything else, it just depends on the forces that make them up - which in the case of the warp is probably quite a lot of force...


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## Lt. James O'neil (Aug 6, 2010)

Guys I am well aware that the emperors a rotting corpse, but that doesn't change the fact that he is the most important humanoid man god in the galaxy.


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## darklove (May 7, 2008)

Lt. James O'neil said:


> Guys I am well aware that the emperors a rotting corpse, but that doesn't change the fact that he is the most important humanoid man god in the galaxy.


I think you mean 'known galaxy'. Large swathes of the galaxy are unknown to humanity, there could be anything out there...


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## Serpion5 (Mar 19, 2010)

Like the Emperor`s long lost second cousin. :victory:


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## Lt. James O'neil (Aug 6, 2010)

no, we found him about a millennia ago, turns out he was a mutant squrrel baby


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## Belthazor Aurellius (Jan 16, 2009)

Well, there's still two undiscovered primarchs and their abolished legions...


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## Waaagh_Bong (Aug 10, 2010)

darklove said:


> I think you mean 'known galaxy'. Large swathes of the galaxy are unknown to humanity, there could be anything out there...


nothin out there but more orks gettin stuck in!


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## Lt. James O'neil (Aug 6, 2010)

Agreed, if there not being devoured by warp whales there out getting lost in the vast emptiness of space.


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