So, my campaign takes place during a crusade and one of the first big challenges my players are going to face is a genestealer cult amongst the crusade forces. I already have it set up that a General in high command is the magos, and he along with the other cult members are hiding the purestrains. The first mission exposing this has the players investigating a cleared enemy hive, escorted by a group of brood brother storm troopers that will take the chance to knock them off deep in the hive.

I was just wondering if anyone would have any useful insights, or comments on how a genestealer cult would opperate in the Imperial Guard.

Milova said:

As to "how"...i would be tempted to say "not at all". Here´s why.

To start a cult you need to have one person in contact with a purestrain. Lets assume this happens and it is not immediately detected. This persons reproductive organs are now converted and incorporates genestealer dna. His offspring will also carry this gene, will be slightly deformed hybrids and the parent will be emotionally forced to care for his child. After four generations, a lot of deformed cult members exist and purestrains will be born.

For your idea you would need a mixed regiment of female and male guards. They would need to be allowed to have children for you story to occur. And most importantly the magos rises only with the fourth generation and looks 100% nonhuman. The same applies to the patriarch if that was your next idea. Even if you assume that the commander is only a facade of an infected/indoctrinated puppet and the patriarch rules from the shadows, the operations of the imperial guard make it nearly impossible to hide purestrains among the troopers.

It would work with PDF though...possibly....they don´t have to move around in spaceships and if the planetary population is also infected they will be too. That is the desired outcome of genestealer cults, the goal they´re working to: Convert the population so that nobody fights back when the fleet arrives. Nothing is lost, the whole biomass is consumed, its not even nessecary to generate warriors. With a moving/traveling part of the imperial guard, thie whole point of infiltrating a nice large biomass is moot.

Ikkaan said:

However if an "infected" guardsman were to travel the sector and have liasons with ladies of Negotiable Affection or damsels in distress (I'm being polite) then you have a man able to infect half a sector over his lifetime, fast forward a few years and then the fun really begins when the rebellions start

Artaxerxes said:

Only if they conceive, and its Not in the Bordello House owners interest to have a girl out of work..

For a "Bit Of Fun" you Could have a Magos pretending to be a Saint (or Sensai if you have them in your game world) and impregnate a number of Sisters of Battle, who'd likely see it as a Great Honour to be carrying such a Holy and Revered figures child, only for the spawn to be taken in by corupt Adeptus Biologicus and kept out of the publics (or in this case the Monestary's) eye.

As the spawn gestates the mother is twisted through psychic and chemical manipulation to do anything to protect that child, what better reason to give the enemy your group will be hopefully fighting the Frenzy/Berserk options to use in combat...

Velvetears said:

Hence my reference to other things... trying to keep it PG you know

Ikkaan said:

I'd have to disagree on a couple facts do to my sources. I use www.lexicanum.com (fanmade wiki) and in this case the old genestealer cult codex. Both of which agree that the Magus, though he comes from at least fourth generation cult members, is the most human looking member since the initially inffected, but does/can have mutations that he hides through one manner or another. (See Ciaphus Cain: For the Emperor , which has the Magus hiding a second pair of arms beneath his robes as if he's grown fat and mishapen.) Also both of which state this directly corresponds to the fact that this is why the Magus is a public figure and acts as a mouthpiece with the cult and the public from the Patriarch.

The regiment having to be mixed, though not entirely necessary, I do agree would make more sense. In this case as well as the case of hiding the genestealers I would say that I take a bit from Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts series in which he refers on several occasion to the "hangers on" that follow every Imperial Guard regiment. These being the cooks, the clerks, as well as any other military associated civilian from their home world, that move from ship to ship taking up a cargo hold or two. In these cases, the hangers on form pretty much tent towns, but indeed are fully functional towns as they have restaurants, bordellos, shops, and homes. Though this can be argued to only be the Tanith First and Only since their homeworld was destroyed I'm pretty sure that Dan Abnett said all Imperial Guard regiments have them. I would also use this, though a slight stretch, to explain how the cult hides their hybrid and purestrain offspring. If not in tents, then in the bowls of the continent-sized vessels that carry them. Also, in response to the PDF, you are correct and I know that For the Emperor is a good example of this.

At any rate, citing my sources, I must say I disagree, that it is indeed possible. It should be noted that the crusade in which the forces are participating in is against the Tyranids, which is admittedly under strange and incredibly rare circumstances. (Hive Fleet destroyed by daemon, tyranids stranded on several worlds but keep cohesian because of a network of Dominatrices, which again according to my sources can operate as a groundside Norn-Queen should she die in orbit, and the imperials decide to retake them. And before you ask the hive fleet won't attempt it again because of the chaos powers at work.) In that regard I'm also using another rare occurance in that I'm allowing the Genestealer Cult to actually be connected to the Dominatrices-Network as to explain coordinated tactics on a sub-sector scale as well as any motivational issues.

I suppose I should have clarified the situation I am working under more, I appologize. Under these cuircumstances, would anyone have any advice?

Velvetears said:

Never thought about it. Lexicanum says a fifth generation purestrain can be the primarch of a new cult....otherwise it stays with a cult.

Your idea is to have a traveling fourth generation Primacii that tries to impregnate random women. Primacii have some identifyable marks, but it shouldn´t be too difficult to hide/correct that. Let´s assume he´s a womanizer that knows how to get what he wants...the next generation will be the fifth, bearing a purestrain.

What i don´t know is: Can a fourth-generation Primacii hypnotize its victims or is this an ability that only purestrains have ? Won´t the "victim" be horrified by her offspring and kill it immediately (baby purestrains are still ugly as hell)? Is this the reason why a cult needs a primarch to keep the Contagii willing to form a cult? Wouldn´t the few isolated Contagii be too few to form a functioning cult? They don´t have a synaptic link since they aren´t infected themselves, just carrying a child.

It looks instable without a primarch, just my opinion.

The idea with the magos as a saint, infiltrating a sororitas monastery sounds nice.

EDIT: Still not convinced that entering an imperial navy ship should be so easy-queasy for a purestrain, or a rabble of tricksters and thimbleriggers. I understand that runaways and mutants live in the bilges, but they stay there. There have to be security protocols, and i would imagine them to include scanners and psykers.

Ikkaan said:

What happens in Fight Club Stays in Fight Club.. Except when other Fight Clubs start up that is..

Ikkaan said:

Pretty much yup.
Immagine him having escaped (some how) a purge and ends up on a star liner, traveling from planet to planet, a new name and identity each time, and on each voyage collecting new Wives along the way.
Monogamy isnt a major selling point of the game, so you can Fluff Rule it and say "he believes this to be the mandate of the Emperor to go forth and Bear Strong Children with Many wives.." kind of thing.

Ikkaan said:

Proof of his Divinity (or Saintliness if you prefere..).
But with the powers of Mesmerism and no doubt other psykic domination effects he can easily bring people under his sway and impregnate them, by which time the 'stealer genus starts to affect the host and bonds with it creating a strong Brood Mother instinct where the parent will do anything to protect its child.
This is mentioned in some of the old Spacehulk stuff, possibly in the Deathwing book of short stories where the squad of marines infiltrait their old home world and see its controlled by a Magus.

Ikkaan said:

They have staggering powers of mental domination, including the Mesmerising eyes effect that 'stealers have, this is mentioned in a number of places thruogh out the many versions of 40k and its spin offs.

Ikkaan said:

No doubt cases exist where the Mother-Host is resiliant to the link, this Could be used as a starting point for game, the groups =][= tells them to check out a med-center on some back water planet, every thing looks legit and they talk to some of the "mothers".
They report back to the boss who sanctions the mission as cleared, and some point down the line a woman they met at the med-center bumps in to them, the group enquire after her child, she states she's never had one. The groups curiosity is piqued, and things go rapidly down hill from there for them

Ikkaan said:

They carry a link to their child-spawn, and are often mentally dominated by the Magus.
After a number of "spawnings" have occured over the course of three or four years (each mother spawning once a year unless some form of Hereteknowledgy is used to speed up the growth, which could lead to weaker strains and thus give the players a fighting chance to survive a city filled with 'stealers and hybrids) the numbes would be so great as to be pretty much the dominant force in either a Hive city or even on a planet wide scale.
This is pretty much what happens in one of the novels, either a Ciaphus Cain one or something else similar (i'm certain its in the Cain omnibus though), but also covered in the Deathwing novel.

Ikkaan said:

Ikkaan said:

Well, i won´t say it won´t work. I just say it looks unstable....i´m going to ask the same question over at warseer or relicforums out of curiosity.

Generally it seems that one thing prohibits the welfare of such a quick-start cult: The synaptic link is held together by the primarch who also controls it. Without a primarch the "cult" is just an uncontrolled rabble.

A purestrain morphs into a primarch in 200-400 years. The quick-start cult would be without a leader for this duration, which makes it unlikely that a single primacii (even if he´s a genius mastermind) would be able to lock up the uncontrolled purestrains for this duration and feed them. With him continueing his travels, the victims are just left with an uncontrolled tyranid organism that is admittedly not easy to catch, but easily identifyable as such.

This gets even worse with the guard, where i would see it as very strange if "traveling folk" attached to a guard regiment would (at least in my 40k universe) not be allowed to travel on the same ship. Its not like civilans are allowed to travel on military ships nowadays, and i don´t see a reason to change that in the future of 40K.

Well, it's too late to change much anyway at this point as the elements have already been implemented into gameplay. (The acolytes just took on a squad of brood brothers killtroopers.) Even so, I do take what is said in the novels as cannon, so I believe there is precedence even if a rare occurance. Oh well, so far it's fitting in well and I'll continue to work with it.