Probably because there is an official released "Tau Character Guide" supplement for Rogue Trader .

Is it just me or does the term "Tyranid Career Path" make you want to giggle?

I'm imagining a Gene Stealer with a stack of resume's, wandering from Space Hulk to Space Hulk trying to hire on.

A little ripper, coming back to the reclamation pool after a long day's work only to find his beer in the breakroom fridge is all gone because some other ripper consumed it.

A Gaunt desperately brown nosing a Tyrant in hopes he'll be promoted to Carnifex.

TravellingStroyteller, thank you for the compliment! I continually check the posts I've made to answer questions just as I promised in the guide, so a month is never too late. Eventually I have in mind a few more projects for the system, but Tau was never one of them due to, as Spatulaodoom said, the offical release of the Tau Character Guide, and my desire to not step on too many toes with conflicting options. I might revisit that at some point in the future, but I've got a few more plans in the works at the moment, though time constraints have prevented me from getting to work on them. I'll definitely see about adding it to the list of projects, as having the various castes available would make for an interesting supplement.

Spatulaodoom, I like where your head is at! That's the whole point of the Tyranid and Necron guides, they're meant to be an option to explore those races in as serious or ludicrous a manner as you wish!

Thanks to everyone for continued questions and interest! I'm still always happy to hear of any feedback via here, private message, email, or comment on the site!

Lodge, I made a post on my dark reign site to spread awareness to your site and guides. ^^. keep up the awesome work

Well it is certainly some very polished and professional looking work.

I haven't had a chance to go through it with a fine toothed comb yet, but I'll probably use the Eldar guide to build the NPC Eldar Corsair my players have foolishly allowed to join the crew. *Cackles over steepled fingers*

Well it is certainly some very polished and professional looking work.

I haven't had a chance to go through it with a fine toothed comb yet, but I'll probably use the Eldar guide to build the NPC Eldar Corsair my players have foolishly allowed to join the crew. *Cackles over steepled fingers*

I smell a "Just as Planned" here.

This stuff is quite magnificent, I only today happended upon them. I went and downloaded all of them, even though I doubt I will ever let a player take a Necron char *shudders*. I would love to know some of the stuff you plan to make in the future. The Eldar and Tyranid guides are really awesome, I kinda want to make a Ymgarl PC just to watch my fellow players squirm at its cthulu-ness XD

Cogniczar, Thanks for the reference! I really appreciate the extra exposure. Glad you're liking the guides!

Spatulaodoom, let me know how the Corsair fits in with the rest of the group, it'll be fun to hear how it stacks up!

Filliman, I'm glad you like them! I actually just finished up with a Deathwatch Guide entitled "The Traitor Legions", there's a thread over in the Deathwatch House Rules forum as of today.

Future works, I'm not sure, but I've been considering trying to put together a "Legends of the Expanse" book which would function like Ascension and give Rogue Trader characters the two ranks they're currently missing. Also have been toying around with an Abhuman guide, but at present Something Other than Human works great, and mine would only add in Beastmen since the other minor abhumans have no details of any real help for making one. I have also been thinking about a "Lesser Xenos Races" guide, which might include playable stats for some of the less remembered Xenos races.

Thanks for the feedback everyone, I still appreciate it an enormous amount. I'll let you know when the next series of guides is set to be posted, though it may be a while. I've got a huge amount of real world work coming my way in a couple of weeks, and it needs to get taken care of.

I would download the expletives out of a Lesser Xenos Races guide. I will check out your Traitor Legions one too.

EDIT: Added "Would"

Just read over the new material:

First off, the fluffy bits and the art are both great.

One really nitpicky thing I have though is that you used the same picture twice for the Black Legion.

Under Alternate Ranks on page 62:

"An Loyalist equivalen"t.

It would seem under the context "A Traitor equivalent" is what was meant.

Other than those nitpicky bits I see no issues with it, lookin good!

Thanks for the feedback! I honestly have no idea how I managed to use that one image twice. It's been swapped out for a different one, which I imagine was my original intention.

You're completely right, "A Legion Equivalent" is what I meant to say. The Guide has been updated there too.

Any thoughts on the advances and squad modes? Do they match up with the lore and army tactics of the Traitor Legions or am I off base on any of them?

Finally, a new guide update: I've been looking through the books and seeing which alien races I might want to include in a "The Alien: Lesser Xenos of the Koronus Expanse" Guide, and so far there's pretty good stat references for Rak'Gol, Sslyth, and Stryxis. Still have a lot more books to go through though. Any Xenos Races that those here might want to request for such a guide?

Well it is certainly some very polished and professional looking work.

I haven't had a chance to go through it with a fine toothed comb yet, but I'll probably use the Eldar guide to build the NPC Eldar Corsair my players have foolishly allowed to join the crew. *Cackles over steepled fingers*

I smell a "Just as Planned" here.

Yuuuup. The group has been without a skilled/PC pilot from the start, so it made a very tempting offer when I dangled one in front of them, even though I repeatedly mentioned the duplicitous, capricious, and violent nature of Eldar Corsairs. At this point whatever happens is on their own heads. Should make for a glorious mess.

Spatulaodoom, let me know how the Corsair fits in with the rest of the group, it'll be fun to hear how it stacks up!

Future works, I'm not sure, but I've been considering trying to put together a "Legends of the Expanse" book which would function like Ascension and give Rogue Trader characters the two ranks they're currently missing. Also have been toying around with an Abhuman guide, but at present Something Other than Human works great, and mine would only add in Beastmen since the other minor abhumans have no details of any real help for making one. I have also been thinking about a "Lesser Xenos Races" guide, which might include playable stats for some of the less remembered Xenos races.

I'll let you know, but it will likely be a while. We only play 2x a month on sundays, alternate weeks are another system run by someone else. My first look over the guide doesn't show any glaring errors, but ATM I'm semi zobied out due to a (temporary thank the emprah) 6.5 day work week with varying start times.

Finally, a new guide update: I've been looking through the books and seeing which alien races I might want to include in a "The Alien: Lesser Xenos of the Koronus Expanse" Guide, and so far there's pretty good stat references for Rak'Gol, Sslyth, and Stryxis. Still have a lot more books to go through though. Any Xenos Races that those here might want to request for such a guide?

I would love to have playable Stryxis: They are one of my famorite Koronus natives. They are to similar to the goblin mercants in Changeling the Lost not, with the paranoia that they all could be servants of the Fae included.

Another Xeno of which I would want to know more are the Nagorna from Faith and Coin with their Emperor worship.

For the other books you mentioned, what will you do with the career ranks of Legends of the Expanse? Will they be like Ascension careers (transition packages and everything) or simple continuation of core careers? And will they be only for humans or for xenos too?

About your guide for abhumans have you in mind to make Afriel Strains?

And how is your publishing brochure? Wich book will come first, if you know it?

I would love to have playable Stryxis: They are one of my famorite Koronus natives. They are to similar to the goblin mercants in Changeling the Lost not, with the paranoia that they all could be servants of the Fae included.

A playable Stryxis career has already been created. It can be found here: http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/82273-complete-playable-stryxis-career/

To the OP, having looked at both of your player guides (pertaining to this thread), I am generally impressed.

The shape-shifting xeno in the party idea is one that could be quite neat (if done properly), and I've been working on adapting the Warp Vampire from 1st Edition Rogue Trader to FF Rogue Trader and Black Crusade for exactly that same reason (though as both Warp Creatures and Xenos, I generally see them as more appropriate for Black Crusade than FF Rogue Trader). Now that I've finally read what you created, I see you've beat me to the punch as far as creating a playable means of pursuing that general concept, though I never planned on going as highly detailed or as professional as you have in the rules and guide creation.

I'm surprised you didn't include rules for how to play a 4th Generation Human Genestealer Hybrid in the Guide you made (of any type, normal or Ymgarl). Of all the Genestealer life-stages, the 4th-Gen Broodlings seem the most appropriate and easiest to adapt than full blown Genestealers, given how human they are, especially if they are lone-survivors separated from their brood. You did good by choosing the Ymgarl due to its noted ability in fluff to shape-shift (thus hiding its nature, and making it plausible to play as a character), but for those who don't want a full-blown Genestealer as a character, I figure a 4th-Gen. is the most likely type of Genestealer to play.

If applied as a template over the top of a normal human character (in much the same way Ogryn or Rattling is in Only War, excluding certain careers of course), I figure they wouldn't be too difficult to write either.

@aleandro01: The first guide I'm working on is the Xenos Character Guide, not sure where I'm going to go after that. The Afrel strain is actually already possible to play with the Gland Warrior alternate rank. I know that it's technically the refined version of the process, but because of that I wasn't planning to include them in the guide. I've done a bit of research, and the ones that are presently on the docket are:

Beastmen

Ogryn

Ratling

Squat

Troth

Longshanks

Pelagers

Felinids

Neandors

Admittedly it will require writing up fluff for the lower five, both planet and personality are fairly poorly defined in official lore.

So to answer in a roundabout way, the current plan is: Xenos Guide, Abhuman Guide, then Legends (Rogue Trader Ascension.)

I'm not sure how I'll be doing the last guide, but I'm leaning towards just being progressions of the base careers with some new talents to make the classes have some interesting but hopefully balanced abilities. And I will look into those Xenos and see what I can find about them, they do sound interesting.

@WeedyGrot: Not a bad guide at all, but I'm still going to be doing my own take on it. I approach these guides with the goal of making it possible to make any of the Xenos in the existing books from the career path and to practice my game design, so I'm going to be giving my own spin to the Stryxis.

@Crow Eye: There is actually a reason for that. No matter the generation of normal Genestealer, they are still subject to the broodlord's and then the Hive Mind's inexorable pull when a hive fleet gets near. From experience, the worse thing a GM can do is take away player agency, and while I had considered doing something along those lines, it was that that made me stop it. Regular generations of Genestealer would eventually run into a stronger influence than their own, and their control over their character would be taken away, which is an incredibly frustrating experience at best.

Also, that's basically my plan for the Abhuman guide. It will give stats for several cultural aspects of the abhumans (effectively like the Ork or Kroot version of the origin path in Into the Storm), but will utilize regular Rogue Trader career progression ranks. Now I just have to actually sit down and write the fluff that's missing from all but four of the races.

Thank you so much to everyone for the great feedback and questions, I really appreciate them. Apologies for taking so long to get back, it's been a hectic past month, and I haven't had too much time to come back and give a status update!

@Crow Eye: There is actually a reason for that. No matter the generation of normal Genestealer, they are still subject to the broodlord's and then the Hive Mind's inexorable pull when a hive fleet gets near. From experience, the worse thing a GM can do is take away player agency, and while I had considered doing something along those lines, it was that that made me stop it. Regular generations of Genestealer would eventually run into a stronger influence than their own, and their control over their character would be taken away, which is an incredibly frustrating experience at best.

Also, that's basically my plan for the Abhuman guide. It will give stats for several cultural aspects of the abhumans (effectively like the Ork or Kroot version of the origin path in Into the Storm), but will utilize regular Rogue Trader career progression ranks. Now I just have to actually sit down and write the fluff that's missing from all but four of the races.

True, an approaching Hive-Mind could take away character agency, but at least within the Koronus Expanse (the general setting of Rogue Trader), there aren't any Hive-Fleets to do so. Even then, some genestealers are clever enough to abandon the planet before the arrival of the Hive-Fleets to continue their mission, as opposed to getting absorbed into goo. Not many, but they have been noted in fluff. It could give a character reason as to why they may want to go the other direction if they sense the Hive-Mind is near.

As to brood-minds, if the genestealers are of a separate brood, I wouldn't see the player suddenly losing agency of their character when confronted with another brood and their brood-mind. Granted, I couldn't see a 4th-Gen genestealer-hybrid from one brood actively working against those of another brood either, which could make things difficult in the event a party encounters genestealers, but I wouldn't see them as having to lose character agency. Different brood, different genes, different family. They'd certainly hear the whispers of the other genestealers though.

I'd probably force Willpower checks for the player to knowingly do anything detrimental to another genestealer brood, and even if they succeed them, they then have to RP or rationalize this decision as being better for their agenda in the long-term as it pertains to spreading their genes to more worlds. If the player can't think of a reason why working against these genestealers is better for the long-term goal of their kind as a whole, then they can't take action against them, regardless of rolls. On the other hand though, I'd rule that any genestealers encountered would be non-hostile to the player up until the point they knowingly take action against them, and if a Magus is trying to mentally dominate the character with psychic powers, I'd make them take a penalty to resist domination.

Given enough time away from a brood-mind or hive-mind, I could see a 4th Gen developing a bit more agency and creativity than other genestealer hybrids given their ability to think and act human, but only to a certain point of course. I couldn't see them ever deciding that genestealers are natural enemies, and regardless of their goals, I'd always see them as wanting to spread their genestealer dna wherever they go, from among the ship's crew, every port they wind up in, etc.

Well, Lexicanum says that the Afriel Strain and Gland Warriors are two differents things.

@Crow Eye: Officially no, but there are official tyrannic genestealer incursions, and those could appear and arguably exert the same kind of agency removing effects. More importantly, the Genestealer brood mind draws the Hive Mind to it, so I wanted to make sure that that would not be an unavoidable conclusion of playing the character. It's purely to make sure that it leaves the player who chooses that race with lots of room to choose their path and not be shoehorned into following something against their will. I also wanted to make it so that the character wouldn't feel compelled to keep infesting populations, as genestealers are wont to do. This makes it so that if the character wants to explore that particular facet of Tyrannic biology, they can, but they aren't shoehorned into doing so from the start.

@aleandro01: They are indeed, but mechanically they would seem to function the same way with only minor differences. It seems like a combination of the Gland Warrior and other combat-specific alternate ranks would do the trick, and that can be done with the current system using the Arch-Militant and some role-playing. Their luck running out even matches with combat centric characters having to burn through fate points. That's the reason why I'm not sure if I'd be doing the Afrel strain as a separate abhuman or not. I'll have to read up some more but as it stands I'm not planning to, though that might change more towards the end of the design.

Ok, I understand

Okay, a status update for everyone. The Xenos Character Guide is officially finished and available for download here . It includes 5 Xenos Races, the Lacrymole, Loxatl, Rak'Gol, Sslyth, and Stryxis. There are a series of new skills, talents, and traits, and the Rak'Gol and Stryxis sections include rules for making their particular brand of starships.

As always, any feedback is appreciated, and I hope it meets expectations!

I've read the Xenos Character Guide. First thing, thank for sharing it. I haven't playtested it yet but I've noticed that the Skills, Talents and Gear of the Rak'Gol are those of the Loxatl. The Rak'Gol Tecno-Shaman text is incomplete. It says, in fact:

These creatures are terrifying destroyers, blurring the line between mind and machine and unleashing brutal torrents of invisible annihilation from strange, crystalline implants that seem to have grown also claim that these abominations have theability to corrupt machine spirits to their own destructive ends

While it should be:

These creatures are terrifying destroyers, blurring the line between mind and machine and unleashing brutal torrents of invisible annihilation from strange, crystalline implants that seem to have grown into their bodies. Some superstitious voidsmen also claim that these abominations have the ability to corrupt machine spirits to their own destructive ends.

Thanks for the feedback! I completely forgot to finish the Rak'Gol section as it turns out, so the proper skills, talents, and traits have been put in. Those two lines were lost in trying to get formatting to look good, but have been added back in! Thanks for the fast response!

I'll be getting to work on the Abhuman Guide over the next few days, and I'll keep updates coming on the site starting and here once I've made more headway!

It's been a while since I've been able to post in this topic, but here's an update! I've been working on a massive number of revisions to all of my guides, and have completed a major overhaul of the Necron Character Guide and Tyranid Character Guide. They've been given a major graphical overhaul and have some minor rules changes throughout. I've also included the sources for the various tidbits of lore present in the guides so that it's easier to differentiate between official lore and my own material.

I have now finished the Eldar Guide revisions and would love feedback. I've eliminated the Bonesinger alternate rank due to the inclusion of three new Psychic Disciplines: the Bonesinger, Shadowseer, and Spiritseer. Hopefully these powers fall in well with the existing ones and are a good representation of the abilities of each of these Seer's abilities. Shadowseer was the easiest to create as the Phantasmancy Psychic Discipline was recently included in the Harlequin supplement. This also allows the base Seer Career Path to become any of these Psykers through the Eldar Psychic Talent. I hope you all enjoy the new guides!

As always the guides can be found here .

Hey Lodge, absolutely love your guides!!! With regards to the Eldar one, just a few quick comments:

- Is the Forceshield meant to be protection rating 75?

- The Shadowhunter is missing the special rule that allows it to fire on ordnance and small ships without penalty.

- You're missing the rule for Eldar Phantom Lances (used by Shadowhunters)

I'll keep looking and checking to see if more things stand out to me

Thanks for the response fr05yu I appreciate the feedback! The Eldar Force Shield stats are taken directly from Into the Storm, so it is indeed meant to be 75. You're right, I completely missed the special rules for the Shadowhunter and the Phantom Lances, I'll add those in on the next revision. I'm currently working on writing up a few of the games that I've run to start posting adventure logs so it may be a few days. Thanks again for the help, it's very much appreciated!