Enslaver

The Enslavers''' are a race of psychic entities originating in the Warp. They look like a hybrid of Terran jellyfish and arachnids. Enslavers will mind control any psychic being they can in order to turn them into a living portal for more of their kind to pass through. The Enslavers were responsible for sending the Necrons and C'tan into hiding, during what was known as the Enslaver Plague, and also led to the extinction of the Old Ones.

Enslavers are other-dimensional beings that do not possess true physical bodies but appear to exist in Warpspace for at least part of their life cycle and are known to pose a terrible threat to all living creatures when in the material realm. Their true appearance in the Warp is unknown, but once they manifest in the material realm, Enslavers appear as barrel-shaped or basic spheroids that measure approximately 2 metres in height and possess a tough leathery skin. They are able to change the colour of their skin at will though they typically appear a leathery brown when not consciously altering their pigmentation. A single large "eye", coloured either red, pink or orange, sits at the very top of the body, though its unknown if this is a proper eye or rather just a useless part of the creature's anatomy.

Around the upper portion of the body is a cluster of pale white or pinkish tentacles that range between 8 to 12 in number and are all 1.5 metres long. Typically, two of these are longer than the others and end in suckered pads. The tentacles serve as the primary sensory as well as manipulative organs for the Enslaver. Though Enslavers lack legs, they do move about their environment by floating and sometimes use their tentacles to aid them when they wish to move quickly or with great precision. An Enslaver can float up to 3 metres high but are incapable of true flight.

Enslavers are slightly larger than a grown man, however other size ranges are possible. They have sac-like bodies which contract with movement and are almost completely transparent. The front of the Enslaver is recognizable by the numerous tentacles originating from the anterior end of the organism and extending down to the posterior surface of the creature's body. The face of the Enslaver is an arachnid-like visage with numerous eye-holes of differing sizes.

Effect on Psykers
Their attraction to the minds of psykers dictates the movements of the Enslavers through the Warp into reality, as they are naturally drawn to the potent and easily traced psychic emanations coming from unprotected human psykers. Human psykers have potent minds but often lack the training or the mental control maintained by more refined psychic species like the Eldar which allows them to prevent Enslaver assaults. The psychic emanations of powerful and newly emergent human psykers can be detected by an Enslaver as far away as ten light years in reality. When such a potent potential source of psychic energy is detected within the Warp, three Enslavers often merge into a predatory group to create a mental bond with their prey. Victims of Enslaver attack are often unaware of the Enslavers' control over their actions, but in time gradual changes are forced upon their body's biochemistry. Soon after the Enslavers have dominated their mind, a victim often becomes lethargic and tired. Their skin will become discoloured and approximately 50-75 hours after the Enslavers secured effective control over the victim psyker's mind, their physical forms will swell as their body tissues disintegrate and reform into an organic Warp Gate of ruptured, pulsing flesh. The trio of controlling Enslavers will then travel between the Empyrean and realspace through this gate without restrictions. Once in the material world, the creatures begin to enslave more psykers who are turned into similar gateways that permit more trios of Enslavers into the Materium. Upon the death of an Enslaver-possessed psyker, the body is destroyed and the Enslaver or trio of Enslavers emerge into the physical world, the psyker having served its purpose as a gateway into the material realm for the creature. On a world with many psykers, the population of Enslavers can quickly grow geometrically through this process.

An Enslaver also has the abilty to phase in and out of the material realm as it manifests from a possessed psyker's host body. The creatures possess the mind of a psyker as a daemon would, yet Enslaver-possessed psykers do not show any outward signs of possession as their daemon-infested counterparts usually do until they begin to transform into a living Warp Gate. Instead, Enslaver-controlled psykers work clandestinely and unconsciously to further the Enslaver's own ends -- which is ultimately always the possession of other psykers to allow the passage of more Enslavers into the material universe.

Unlike daemons, Enslavers can also psychically enslave or possess non-psykers, whose minds they can consume, furthering their own power and allowing for the control of more potential slaves. Eventually, with enough Enslavers in one place or with one Enslaver of extraordinary power it may be able to psychically control an entire hive city and then spread across the planet. Once this geometic expansion of the population of Enslavers occurrs, the only remaining recourse to stop the spread of the infestation is for the Imperial authorities to issue an planetary Exterminatus order against the affected Imperial world.

The Enslavers cannot possess Sanctioned Psykers as easily as unsanctioned or Renegade psykers due to the preparation and training their minds have undergone and their soul-binding to the Emperor of Mankind, which strengthens their mental discipline. An Enslaver can be overwhelmed if enough psychic minds are present as it will have too many minds to try and assimilate at once. Unfortunately, the immunity to Enslaver attacks that Sanctioned Psykers possess is temporary and if enough pressure is brought to bear upon one's mind, he or she will break and become a pawn of the Enslaver. Even so, the resistance of a Sanctioned Psyker would be great enough that the psyker and any compansions would have a short window of time in which they could mount a physical attack upon the creature or its possessed host.