Okay so the rulebooks are filled with funny little hints to many xenos races. Yet we know little of them. Let us compile what we know, what we can find, and what we can assume about such alien species as:

- Ghanataar

- Hadrus Skin-Weavers

- Kharve

- Noisome Reek

- Hrud

- Yu’Vath

These are from Dark Heresy, Deatwatch and Rogue Trader. Do you know more about them? Places on the interweb where we can read up on them? Did I miss some xenos here?
(ps this thread is not intended to discuss well-established aliens such as Eldar, Kroot, Tyranids, Orks, Necrons or even the Slaughth)

The Yu'Vath are a new FFG creation, and the only info we have on themso far is the Rogue Trader Books.

The Hrud have been around for years, but with conflicting ideas and concepts. One version (the one I prefer)is they are more or less space Skaven while the second is that they are some sorty of creepy double jointed carapaced insectoid type thing (as seen in the book Xenology).

You can find info on them on Wikipedia and Lexicanum I believe.

The others (one suspects) are likely throwaway creations that might later get developed. This is what happened with the C'Tan, who were originally just a name on a page of flavour text. ("The quiescent peril of the C'Tan")

Well, that and the C'Tan phase knife the Callidus Assassin had.

All I can find of any of those you've listed is the page on the Hrud from Lexicanum, which was already mentioned...

Just go to Lexicanum and search Hrud. I would post the link, but these **** boards STILL CANNOT BE PASTED INTO!

Peacekeeper_b said:

Not quite true. Mentions of the Yu'vath have appeared in Dark Heresy as well, in the timeline of the Calixis Sector at first, and more substantially in The Radical's Handbook (one of the two Xenos worlds in there is covered in Yu'vath ruins).

I remember reading in the Deathwatch corebook reading about a mysterious unknownn xenos species unsuccessfully attacking hethgard on page 343 and describes them as non humanoid and utilizing black spherical war machines to move around in. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but this really sounds like the "Umbra" that are featured in "Xenology"....Which, by the way, I enjoyed SO much, that I plan on crafting into an actual adventure for my players before they move on to ascention.. There are SO many awsome handouts to be had in this awsome tome. Xenology is, by far, one of the finest 40k publications put out, IMO. It even has maps!

Mithras said:

Other then its destruction and ruination of the Hrud I have to agree. Though their Inquisition book and the book on chaos (Liber Chaotica) as well as The Sabbat Worlds Crusade are also dandy.

All of the BL background books were good.

I'd rather spend £20 on one good background book than buy 3 works of fiction set in the 40k universe. As soon as the recession started, BL immediately moved away from high-production, art heavy background books to concentrate on the cheaper -to-produce, pulpier fiction novels. I think this was a mistake.

The fact that Forge World can successfully produce huge £45 pound books, and that FFG can sell a £172 collector's edition of its new RPG and countless copies of its relatively expensive supplements shows that there's a market out there for high end background material set in the 40k universe. Recession or not, I'm going to keep buying background books, but even if there's a boom to end all booms there's no guarantee I'm going to buy every work of fiction produced by BL.

Demiurg!

Check out my latest on them over at the Dark Reign forums. Not quite finished by any means, but it's quite good as a 'here's a look at them'. Loosely based of the original tidbits floating about from GW. The latest I've found on them, noting their utter absence from Deathwatch, is in Gav Thorpe's "The Path of the Warrior" in which an Eldar Exarch views a pile of skulls containing, amongst other things, a Demiurg skull. To me, an avid reader, this was *serious news*!

The Hrud are in the Xenology book by BL

They're a secretive tribal group of tribal scavengers and troglodytes that travel between worlds by being stowaways on imperial (and presumably other species) vessels "between decks" which they can manage to do by a biologically generated distortion field which obscures them from enemy eyes. Physically they're able to compress their bodies to the point where they can slip through small gaps, they have a poor sense of smell, excellent hearing and eyes with extreme sensitivity to light. They have a thick dermal structure made up of dead tissue in the form of silica scales, artifically introduced waste products and a fungus on "scales"- the nasty thing about this is the bacterial infestations on these scales also generate heat (like a compost pile) for the Hrud to survive and are a hotbed of toxins and viruses that the creature can channel into its upper limbs to attack its prey with. In some cases they're also known to use those toxins to enslave others with a massive drug-dependancy that will kill the dependant if they're seperated for a long period of time (2 months)

The skeletal structure has a few load bearing bones but mostly its like a vertebrae structure which can lock to support upright movement, its a silicate like the external scales. They're an ambush predator naval ratings call "Bendies" and "Shadow Creepers", once a colony gets too big they send out a portion of their population to re-populate another ship or planet. They have a religion which is based on the Hrud being created by a pantheon of benevolant gods, said gods ended up in a war with the "Yaam-Khoh" and were slain/crippled and only one remained- Qah 'he who lingers' and instructed his children to remain hidden until they would come together in a final war with the Yaam Khoh. Most of the religious aspects seem to be based on actual events like ancestor worship. They do have a written and spoken language.

MKX said:

Yeah. Personally I just pretend the "Inquisitor" in Xenology simply incorrectly labelled those things as Hrud, as it doesnt match the picture in 3E Table Top rule book or the description in the Kill Team novel. I dont mind these "compost" ceatures, I just prefer my hrud to be space skaven! LOL

Yeah, I really like the gas mask wearing skaven like figure I saw in my original Rogue Trader book next to an Eldar Rogue Trader. I always thought that creature was a Hrud, myself.

Don't read the novels and didn't play 3rd Ed at the time due to being a broke ass uni student. For what its worth, I'd probably just make up an entirely "new" species of space-rats based on the Skaven and terrorise PC's with warp-infused musket shot and poison knives in the dark following their own chaos god.

"Hey, its a cute little xeno rat with a musket" *BLAM!* "Armour has no effect! Run awaaaay!"

Personally, neither version of the Hrud particularly intrigues me.

I didn't take to the Xenology "Creature from the Black Lagoon" version. The write up was pretty good, and the dissection picture was nice, but the "uncloaked" picture just seemed too " '50s sci-fi alien" to me. I know I'm not the only one who thinks this.

Then again, I didn't like the idea of actual giant space rats either. Skaven to me seemed to fit far more clumsily into 40k than, say, Squats (Dwarfs) or Ogryns (Ogres.)

The archetype of scavenging, messy and selfish junk-obsessed aliens is an interesting one, though...Arguably the Styrxis from the Koronus Expanse play better with this archetype than either interpretation of the Hrud.

I love all of the other aliens in Xenology, though. Especially the Q'orrl and the implications for who is really behind the Tau...

Who or what are the Q'orrl?

Sadly, never got Xenology.

-Thulis

Dark Heresy might be a good setting to re-launch the Slann (reptilian psykers from 1st-Ed 40K)...

Thulis said:

Sorry, it's Q'orl, I mispelled it.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Q'orl

http://wh40k.lexicanum.de/mediawiki/images/thumb/9/93/Qorl_body.jpg/180px-Qorl_body.jpg

They're a textbook "minor" 40k race. Basically short-lived giant insectoids with a moderately high level of technology who lack warp engines, and who are seeking to expand their (minor) empire through the aquisition of human warp drive technology and Navigators. Xenology hints that they have been manipulated by/warred with the Eldar at one point several thousand years ago.

More importantly, after helping them with a chaos-based disease, the Eldar stole their queen- kinda a big deal, since they're a hive race with only one queen for their entire species. Luckily for them, there was a queen larva to be raised into another. The Eldar claimed they wanted the queen in order to create a chaos-resistant "hive."

The species maintains it's unity through a scent gland that turns out to be identical to the one found in members of the Tau Ethereal caste.

Adeptus-B said:

If you hunt around a bit there's probably some Lizardmen done up for WHFRPG, that might save you a lot of work, I dont remember them being in any of the official books but I know some people have done up fan material for them in the past. Quite a lot of the WHFRPG stuff transfers over fairly easily for rudimentary NPC's that PC's are probably just going to start a fight with anyway.

Somewhat related to the topic when I made up a Ordo Xenos Inquisitor the other day to order about, harass and bring culture to some Angry Mareenz in a part of the galaxy, far, far away. There isn't much in the FFG material to support a Xeno Inquisitor.

Figured I'd make it about 15% radical and 85% puritan in "leanings" and dug through all the alternate, elite advances through there to see if I could find any that can actually speak/read some of the more common xeno languages and get a bit more than +10 in Forbidden Lore xenos. There's Heretek Savant, but thats limited to Tech Priests and it also cant speak any languages, the only one that could was the Calixian Xeno Arcanist and thats only any good if you're willing to play an Adept. There wasn't any others, which is annoying because...

-Lots of careers with Forbidden Lore- Heresy, Warp (ok they are a bit cover-all for a lot of things so I dont mind) and about 4-5 elite advance careers & backgrounds where Forbidden Lore- Daemonology seems to be just a little too popular.

-Not even a couple of really simple backgrounds or careers related to xenology aside from the ones I mentioned, fair enough I can expect to kick over a hab-block and a couple of at least vaguely Heretical types will fall out, but I kick over any rock on some bumhole planet and chances are I'll find an expert on daemonology and sorcery quicker than I'll find anyone who knows anything about a xeno! (Let alone can speak to one)

A bit of diversity wouldn't hurt to give the Ordo-Xenos a bit of love. Yeah, I know bugs arent as super-hardcaw exciting as Malleus and sure you don't get the same powersuited bleach-blonde cheerleaders as you do with Hereticus, but someone's got to understand how to beat the crap out of an alien and make him squeal where his mates are... so you can go burn them too!

Slightly off topic.

The Angevin Crusade crushed several Xeno empires throughout its duration.

Anyone have any ideas on what those empires might be? I welcome home brewed ideas and discussions.

Bladehate said:

The Dark Heresy timeline makes oblique references to "the Bale Childer," whoever they are. They could be one of the Xeno Empires. The Yu'Vath are also potential candidates. One would imagine that Orks also ruled a few small Orky Empires in the region - they usually do.

The Enoulians in Creatures Anathema would be one of the races nearly destroyed in the crusade. The Rogue Trader handbook also has a powerful weapon developed by the Crux, one of the races annihilated in the crusade.

Lightbringer said:

Actually, the Yu'Vath have been identified as being one of the races/empires known to have been warred upon during the crusade, and believed expunged. The Andranti (sp) Empire was also wiped from existence for their genetic heresies; they were derived originally from human stock as I recall. There are several other "lesser" races, such as the Children of the Kingdom mentioned in HoDaA in Disciples . There are the Slaugth, classified as Xenos Obscuros , little known to the Holy Ordos, yet battled against by the Deathwatch at some point. The Cryptos might have once held far greater sway within the pre-Imperium days.

-=Brother Praetus=-

The Slaugth are noted on a couple of 'pre-Calixian' points.

Both are 'conspiracy' related.

- Haarlocks (The Rogue Trader Dynasty)
- Storm Wardens (Little Known Calixian Astartes chapter)

The Haarlocks, if memory serves, had a long history of being 'anti Slaugth', for some reason the Slaugth were afraid or bound into inactivity by the Haarlocks. If the Haarlocks were properly, completely defeated, then the Slaugth could roam free again. Or something like that. I don't recall the details.

With the Storm Wardens, their history is that they prosecuted a very focussed campaign against the Slaugth once upon a time. Presumably we'll need a tad more from the Deathwatch peeps.

The big five, as best I understand it, seem to be: The Slaugth, Adranti, Enoullians, the Yu'vath and the Crux. With some plenty others out towards the Halo Stars/within/beyond the Koronous Expanse.

About right?