Running a Genestealer Cult

By ElThang, in Rogue Trader Gamemasters

So a while back my players made the 'bold' decision to go wandering through some space hulks they came across looking for shiny things. They were on their merry looting way when they discovered what made that decision so bold, and the seneschal and arch-militant were promptly devoured by genestealers.

I've since then made them aware that they didn't quite leave every monster on the dead ship, and that people have been disappearing from the lower decks. So far, they've been content to let them munch on the crew as they please, and have done nothing about the problem. A foolish choice to say the least, and one they'll come to regret.

One of these days, the cult is gonna have to make an appearance (assuming the Inquisition, the Eldar, and the navigator's lousy rolls don't get them first), but I'm a little stuck on how to make it play out. I've been thinking of having them show up in the Processional of the Damned (we're running Lure of the Expanse right now), wherein they find the remains of their own ship overrun by the cult. The books have some good profiles for genestealers, but no real info on hybrids. I'm wondering how strong these should be. Does making a hybrid make them stronger, or would that just dilute their already incredible strength? Would they be more cunning? Agile? Intelligent?

Let me know what you guys think! However I play it out, it needs to be the single most horrifying experience of their lives.

I don't know how it will play out, but I think the only solution for the captain and senior crew is to get a new ship and aim this one for the nearest star...after disabling the engines and thrusters.

In the meantime, I'd let it play out like an full-length version of Alien, with baby monsters bursting from peoples' chests, search and destroy missions becoming the hunted, and maybe a scene where some of the PCs find the nesting chamber and some of their missing crew acting as incubators...right before the jaws of the trap close and they become the newest test tubes.

Is your genestealer cult the 'old' type with the different generation hybrids? There are some home brew 40k DH rules out there which may be of use. I'll see if I can find them online.

Is your genestealer cult the 'old' type with the different generation hybrids? There are some home brew 40k DH rules out there which may be of use. I'll see if I can find them online.

I'll admit I don't know a whole lot about the cults, or the various re-workings of how they operate. Fortunately, my players know even less, meaning I should be able to use whichever version best suits my needs (read as 'makes their lives the most miserable'). The forums and wikis I've been crawling all talk about 4 generations to make purestrains, but the RT books cut that down to only one generation of hybrids before a purestrain shows up.

Dava100, this is everything I ever wanted and more. Thank you so much. Emperor light your path, sir.

The Link no longer works

Any other way i can get this?

This might be the same file Dava100 used, it can be downloaded from Dark Reign, that has many other nice things to download if you search through it.

Genestealer Cults

Got it, great.

Thanks very much.

So we're a few years down the road from when the last reply here was done, does anyone have either of those 2 links saved somewhere else? both the meetup link and the other one are down and I'd really love the info. Thanks.

2 hours ago, AkrOma2 said:

So we're a few years down the road from when the last reply here was done, does anyone have either of those 2 links saved somewhere else? both the meetup link and the other one are down and I'd really love the info. Thanks.

I have Genestealer Cults pdf. Link .

1 hour ago, Jargal said:

I have Genestealer Cults pdf. Link .

thank you very much!