So Into the Storm was a pretty nice book.

And in a couple days, I'll be participating in my first Rogue Trader game (as a player), and I've chosen to play as a Kroot. A few things I wonder about, however. I've never read any fiction where Kroot feature as characters, so I've no idea as to how they really act around humans. Our Rogue Trader and his dynasty are relatively mercenary in nature, which helps to incorporate the Kroot character and his Kindred.

Anyways, when I bought the book at the Fantasy Flight Event Center, the employee I talked to said there were rules for Kroot developing the characteristics of their prey after a while, and I was a bit disappointed to not see this. Maybe we could hammer out some rules for that in here, as well as having some guidelines for roleplaying Kroot.

The Last Chancers novel KILL TEAM has a section where the kill team meets up with a Kroot Merc band. I do not recommend the whole book, but that chapter or two may help.

One of the "Last Chancers" novels has some Kroot in it, and the Ciaphas Cain novel "For the Emperor!" has a Kroot character who speaks Low Gothic and seems quite friendly with humans. Those would both be quite useful.

Kroot always seem to come across as "noble mercenary savages".

Mostly honest, ernest, and strait forward, but able to switch to being vicious killers at a moments notice.

Being mercenary seems to be key to their psyke. They are tribe focused, but the heart of their culture is a mercenary one, selling their loyalty to supply their tribe. They don't really seem to hold grudges or anger towards their enemies, and are able to civilly fraternize with their enemies right up until they are ordered to kill them. While their loyalty is up for grabs once they have made a deal, however, they don't break it, and are willing to die for their employer.

A good example of this is their relationship with the Orks. At one point their home world, Peck , was the target of a Ork Waaagh!! and they were almost wiped out. In spite of this they seem to hold no anonemity towards the Orks and seem to be as willing to work for them just as soon as anyone else.

Most Kroot seem to be honest, strait forward, and noble, right up until they are ordered to go into battle, at which point they turn into cunning and violent killing machines.

In their society they seem to highly value personal strength, priding themselves on their minimalistic armor and weapons. This makes sense for such a mercenary, evolution obsessed society. To them proving your strength and being the best for the tribe is their reason for existance.

However a lot of that changes when you are dealing with a shaper. Shapers are shrewed, intelligent leaders responsible for guiding their tribes evolution. While they wont obviously renege on a deal they seem to be willing to if their previous employers are unlikely to find out.

For example, supposedly the Tau had extracted an agreement from the Kroot that they would work only for them and join the Tau empire. And in the Ultima sector this is the case. But Kroot seem to be much more widespread than the Tau, and what the Tau don't know wont hurt them. A Kroot seeker is much more politically minded and forward thinking than your average Kroot.

In the end their mindset is suitably alien. They are violent without hatred, can sell their loyalty to an employer while still being totally loyal to their tribe, fearless, adopt the newest offensive technologies while refusing defensive and augumentative ones, and can be friends one day and kill them the next, all the while being innocent, honest and noble about the whole thing.

Kromak said:

Regarding Kroot developing the traits of their prey... thing is, it doesn't actually happen like that - this was discussed quite a bit during development. Individual Kroot don't change to reflect the creatures they've consumed. Rather, they engage in a form of directed evolution, where consumption of prey DNA and selective breeding are used to ensure that the next generation of Kroot, or the one after that, have the desired traits. This is represented by the Kindred option for Kroot characters - the creatures devoured by their ancestors determine the traits a given Kroot possesses.

Is it your first time playing in the 40k setting in general? If so I'd recommend playing as a human for your first character. Theres a certain vibe that you get from the dark future of mankind thats lost if you play it from the perspective of a xeno.

Not at all. I've been kind of a 40k-phile since I was in grade school. I've been playing Dark Heresy off and on for maybe three years or so with a steady group of people back home, but mostly as a GM and never as a player. Most of the stories I wrote didn't revolve around xenos, so I didn't really consider their behavior much, let alone just Kroot. Now the group I've started playing with has a steady GM starting up a Rogue Trader campaign (which I've GMed once, just the Into the Maw adventure from the Core book), and immediately jumped at the xenos careers. It seemed a little more challenging, but also the Mass Effect I've been playing has influenced me a bit, too. I found it pretty odd that I had never even considered a xenos character before, disregarding it out of hand, and was surprised (but relieved) to see something official come around.

So, yeah. I'm not new to 40k, just to Kroot behavior.

I second the cipahs caine novel, it gives you a nice insight into the kroot behavior. as well as being one of the best bits of fiction written for the 40k universe (i think more of my inspiration for rogue trader comes from ciphas caine than from any other 40k source)

one idea i had for a kroot character is that whenever someone kills something and you are standing around the corpses the kroot asks politiely, "hey,hey, you gonna... you gonna eat that?" and then, CHOWTIME! i like the idea of playing a very good natured and friendly kroot, (at least with his employers) spending time on the ship at the bar, buying people drinks and having a blast. and getting into the occasional barfight, when people start talking loudly about the dirty dirty xenos....

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Spot on; and the Shapers help guide Kroot development.

Lure of the Expanse portrays the Kroot mercenaries you run into on Footfall as being rather difficult to communicate with (says they speak broken Low Gothic punctuated by lots of avian noises). Is this universal for all Kroot or is it just confined to this particular group?

Deadline247 said:

Deadline247 said:

Kroot are skilled mimics and pick up languages quickly (Kroot PCs can pick up the Polyglot talent at rank 1) - it may simply have been that those Kroot hadn't been around humans for very long, so were still learning Gothic.

Deadline247 said:

riplikash said:

Or they were just being tricky... pretending you don't speak the local language well is a great way to gain advantage over the locals.