They will be lured in with hypnotism from the gene stealer, and it will give them a
kiss with its ovipositore and inject them with its blessed DNA.
As we said earlier, there's yikes.
Mommy gene stealer.
No, no, that is not the intro.
I swear to God, we're not having mommy gene stealer.
It's the intro.
You foul man.
Mommy big forehead.
If someone made an image of this, I'm going to be so upset.
I hate it so much.
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Lore crimes.
Today we have a very special episode for you because we are going to talk about the worshipers
of the star children, that and many other names, those fine folk who love to tear you
apart in the death watch video game.
We are talking about the gene stealer cults today.
Yeah.
Before we begin, Hal has something he'd like to ask all of you.
Yeah, before we get into the, I call them Levi thieves as a name because it's obviously
gene stealers.
If anyone enjoys that.
I know.
Yeah, total pun.
So if you are new or you've been watching along for a little while, we want to try this
new little cheeky thing and we want to hear a little bit from you, the audience.
So we'd like to pose a question to you and we'd love to absolutely hear your response.
The spicier, the better.
Maybe not too spicy.
Let's be honest.
Try not to swear.
Hopefully.
I think YouTube might give us a big no-no.
If we, maybe a bit, bit strong there.
So, yeah, so we, we loved, we want to ask you this question and we'd love to hear your
responses.
The funnier, the better.
And the next podcast episode, we will read the funniest ones and we'll obviously all
try and behave like mature adults, like we all really are.
We will dissect that and enjoy that.
So the question we'd like you to answer is what's your hot take on your least favourite
Primark?
Hashtag hot take in the comments if you want to participate along with this Tom foolery,
shall we say?
And yeah, we want to, I mean, the funnier, I said earlier, the funny, the better.
And if you win, we'll give you a big shout out and you will obviously tickle all of us.
That sounded really bad, didn't it?
Tickle our humour.
There you go.
That's it.
Saved it.
Tickle how?
What?
Not in the contract.
This is not us.
I can hear the sirens already.
So yeah, the funnier, the better.
Don't be afraid to go a bit crazy.
Obviously try not to swear, but we'd love it if you would participate in this little
Tom foolery.
That's all I'll say.
Leave it at that.
Tom foolery.
Let us know why Perturabo is the worst.
Oh no, he's my favourite.
Any way of spelling Lorgar there?
Oh, okay.
I'm getting tickled already.
But that's not what we'll be discussing today because today we are discussing a little insidious
faction, shall we say within the Warhammer space.
Little shadowy, I would say spooky, scary skeletons, but not quite.
But today-
Sussy barkers.
A lot of sussy barkers.
Levi thieves.
The nicknames are coming out immediately off the gate.
I haven't even said my damn words.
There are gene stealers among us.
Oh my god.
Son, please, where was it edited?
It has to put like the sus among us.
Oh my gosh.
So today we are talking about gene stealers slash gene stealer cults, boys.
Yeah, it's going to be a fun time.
Strap yourselves in, prepare for some not quite heresy, but some shenanigans, some Xenos
love today and let's get straight into it.
So if anyone here is new or is not quite familiar with gene stealers in Warhammer, we'll give
a little bit of a brief kind of description of what gene stealers are.
So gene stealers are a kind of cultist, Xenos slash kind of human, human like hybrid race
that infect so many of the worlds in the 41st millennium, unfortunately, nothing.
Filthy mutants.
Absolutely filthy.
Definitely scum.
And they are kind of these weird like chitinous, multi-limbed, bulbous head creatures.
They have a lot of human characteristics.
I wouldn't say they look, they definitely don't look human, but they're kind of recognisable
and they are very much intimidating.
A lot of them are quite, quite a few of them have like purpley kind of sickly skin and
a big point, as I said, just a second ago is the multi-limbed part.
I put a big point here to mention that, sorry, I need to stress this a lot, that all of their
hairlines are socially distancing because none of them have hair.
As bald, all of them are bald.
The thing is, I was thinking a while back, you know, like the first Pokemon game, there's
that bit where Bill goes into like a thing and he gets turned into like a Pokemon mix.
I was like, imagine him and then Ekans.
That's basically a gene stealer.
There you go.
That's actually quite a good idea.
When you said Pokemon, I thought you were going to mention the part where like, who's
the guy who sends Ash on the quests?
Professor Oak?
Yeah, yeah, Professor Oak, but people make the joke that he just sends him away so he
can be with his mom.
Ash's mom is with Mr. Mime.
Oh my Lord.
Okay, we're not going there.
They are all continuing the trend in Warhammer.
All evil characters are bald.
So therefore all gene sealers are pretty, I wouldn't say evil, are pretty good to a certain
perspective, but we'll get more into that in a little bit here.
And so if you are kind of a little bit new or maybe you've not really dabbled too much
in Warhammer, but it might be cool to learn that gene sealers themselves are actually
inspired by H.P. Lovecraft.
I finally get to talk about it.
My favorite thing.
The king in yellow comes.
He does.
And I am super happy we get to talk about this because not often we get to talk about
the creepiness of Lovecraft work in Warhammer, but they kind of, gene sealers themselves
are inspired by the story of the shadows over Innsmouth and they're kind of a play on what
was the deep ones, the kind of these underground fishy people that looked very human.
They're kind of gross.
Whoever's doing the edit on this will see a picture and they'd be like, oh, and they're
not going to enjoy that.
And the gene sealers are kind of inspired by that.
So if you do know Lovecraftian horror or any of that work, it's definitely like, oh, oh,
this is going to sound a lot, sorry, it's going to sound very familiar to you as we
sort of get into the nitty gritty.
So we're going to talk about gene sealers now with the good old, the beginning, the
absolute, I would say Chad, but I've nicknamed him Senator Armstrong slash Edward Scissor
Teeth as a nickname for the, this is the pure gene sealer.
So this is the Xenos race in Warhammer and this is the origin and this is the guy who
basically starts it all.
So this Xenos is, as I mentioned earlier, it's like a multi-limbed kind of chitinous,
bulbous head, like weird.
Do you want to ask guys, do you think they're ugly?
I think they're kind of ugly in my opinion.
I might have to talk to the local Magus about what you've been saying lately.
You just don't fit very well into the congregation.
My apologies.
All of them are beautiful.
In the interest of not demonetizing the channel, I won't go into what I find attractive.
Oh Lord.
I know, they're very ambidextrous.
That's all I know.
We'll leave it at that.
Imagination is more powerful.
Mommy Magus, Mommy Magus.
What is monetization?
So the Genestealer itself is a kind of infiltratey, creepy, multi-limbed Xenos and this is like,
it definitely is, I'm trying to think of the primogenitor, that this is the whole, this
is the one that gets the ball rolling.
So a Genestealer will infiltrate and I put quotes, infect a victim.
It's implied that they kind of do, it's not anything racy, shall we say, but there's like
an infection of a, typically a human victim and this will sort of start to spread the
genes and this sort of original Genestealer becomes the patriarch.
You know, he becomes like a beacon for a certain, I guess, hive mind, shall we say, and he becomes
the origin of the Genestealer cult within whatever little area it's infesting.
These ones actually, often at times when they've kind of done their little thing, they've had
their go, they've had their cigarette and they're like, oh, I'm having a bit of a rest
now.
So they actually get like a bit monstrously obese and they become even more psychically
powerful and they kind of sit in the dark spaces.
They're kind of a bit scary, but that's when we move on to what is the next generation
of the Genestealer cult.
So this is, forgive the names by the way, cause I'm going to mess up every name because
they all got awful naming.
Cause like, I don't know how to pronounce them, but it's called a Contagy with two I's at
the end.
Yeah, a little bit.
Contagy?
Contagy.
That makes a lot more sense.
Contagy, I'm trying to remember back to like Rome, total war where they'd scream like triorei.
Maybe it's like Contagy.
Triorei, I'm not sure that was the inspiration, but it makes sense to be fair.
So this is the, the Genestealers come in and this is the person that's been infected by
the Genestealer.
And I put in brackets so people can remember if you're new, this is the Austin Powers of
the Genestealers.
Cause this one is it's horny baby.
Yes, I actually made that joke.
Yep.
This is the usually like a regular human and they've just been infected and they essentially
want to go and procreate, shall we say.
So this is the person who's like, wow.
So this is the Austin Powers generation.
Makadababi.
Pretty much.
Yes.
The next generation of a Genestealer cult is called the, oh my God, the Malygenese
or Malygenese.
I think it's like Malygenese or something like that.
It's very, again, words hard.
And this is the first generation that's born to the previous one, the Contagy, the first
infected victim.
And this one is just a beast of a thing.
It is an ugly, just, yeah, we said a bulbous head earlier.
This thing is like, oh, it's like, could ram a brick wall down.
Like it's pretty big.
You can imagine them getting bullied at school.
Right.
Rhino head.
Like, what did you call me?
My naming for this stage, I call it Patrick from SpongeBob.
Because as I imagine their sound, they're not very intelligent.
And I put a little kind of a little quip here, a little thought I had, which was they're
only useful for synchronized grinning because that's how stupid they are.
Just going in on them.
If anyone's thinking, let that sort of mix with you guys, synchronized grinning.
Who'd win in a spelling, the them or the O'grins?
Oh, that's a tough question.
Probably them, but they wouldn't, they can't actually, they can't really speak these ones.
So probably the O'grins, but they win by just the attempt.
So they're pretty much like the foot soldiers essentially.
And the next stage we get in the Geneseed of Cults are the slight, this is like the
generation born to these like enormous hulking beasts.
And these are the more slightly human looking ones.
They're called the hybrid generation.
A lot of these have like multi limbs still.
They can actually speak, which is obviously scary.
And they're pretty much a very, like when you look at it, you'd be like, that is clearly
not human.
But again, it like looks slightly human.
It's like Lovecraftian inspiration there.
Like things that look slightly human often appears more scary.
A bit uncanny.
A bit uncanny valley sort of thing.
I nicknamed this one the Sacha Baron Cohen, because that guy could inhabit any role.
And I thought, I was thinking of like Borat, Bruno, I'm not saying that the Geneseed are
like Bruno, if anyone's seen that film.
That's a bit, a bit overstimulating, shall we say.
But they are essentially, yeah, they're pretty, they're in between what a original Genesee
or multi-limbed one is, and you know, a bit more human.
And this is when we get to the next stage, which is the true hybrid.
So this is the one where this is the first time they can actually blend into human society.
They are, again, it looks like slightly off.
It looks a little bit off.
The person looks a little chunk, shall we say, a little bit chunk.
A bit uncanny valley kind of feel.
Pretty much, yeah.
This one, you'd have to have like a, you'd have a double take, if you know what I mean.
It looks like Emperor, what's his name, Grand Moff Tarkin in Rogue One.
You're like watching it like, that's not Peter Cushing.
There's something off.
I don't know.
There's something, doesn't quite work.
A little bit like that.
A little bit like that, yeah.
I nicknamed this sort of group the Modern Warfare 2 Lobby back in the day, because they are
like slightly, they are human, obviously, but you can tell something's slightly off.
So I thought that might be the, does anyone have any controversial opinion about that?
I think they might be okay there.
And I think the, so the last generation we get here to is called the Primacy, which is,
this is the one which is, it's literally could be human.
This is the very much, oh, this is the person who will infiltrate higher ends of society.
And if you're say like a typical human like us, unfortunately, you will probably encounter
or that this is the one that will be that the face of a Genestealer cult.
Nicknamed this group the Elon Musk simps, because I figured like they're pretty much
99% human, but they've got a little bit of a weird behaviour.
So I thought that that might be the sort of tick, if you know what I mean.
So we have a, you know, sends at Armstrong's to the Austin Powers, to Patrick from SpongeBob,
Sacha Baron Cohen, Modern Warfare 2 Lobby, and then Elon Musk simps, if everyone's following
along.
Well, it's a good thing we don't have a Twitter account for this channel.
Very much so.
But I thought people might enjoy that because it says that there are, Genesteals are a nice
like kind of undercut.
They're like, can be scary, but also a little bit funny.
So you know, I thought it's nice to have a little bit of humour in Warhammer eventually.
And we get to funny enough, the most human looking Genestealer will then produce the
Puri which is actually original Genestealer at the end of it.
So essentially, it's spelled P U R double I again, was I think it's not a pure like
a P pure right?
Not like a P pure you have with you.
Genestealer puree goes great with pizza.
And not like something you have with your mushy peas or anything like that with a fish
and chips get your cultural reference in now.
Two of you guys have no idea what I'm on about.
It's perfect.
And yeah, I like fries, fries, chips, chips, fries, fries, love me puree.
Susan made dinner.
Lovely.
Oh man.
And yes, they kind of basically the cycle begins again.
And everyone is like, oh, you know, oh, no, the Genestealer has returned.
And all the new generations will spawn from that one.
Now you've said it like that.
I'm just thinking about Elton John's, it's the circular genes just like the disgusting
way that that doesn't that hits wrong.
That hits really wrong.
Oh my god.
So for Genestealer cults themselves in Warhammer, where you'll typically find these disgusting,
sorry, excuse me, enlightened places, Eli, excuse me for being so misguided.
Enlightened places.
A lot of these are like found in like Hive cities, space hulks.
A lot of the time they're kind of hidden in, I think I put it like they're very like the
downtrodden areas of the Imperium, of the Imperium, a million worlds, obviously a lot of places
for Genestealers to hide and they often will put themselves in places where the Imperium
will say security is light, shall we say, they're security is diet, diet security there,
because it's just not something they want out in the open yet.
And a Genestealer cult itself will often, as I said, just a second ago, they'll be underground,
they're kind of, as most cults things do, they're kind of hoping to infiltrate and spread.
So they'll start from very underground, you know, they won't be, they won't be open at
all.
They'll be recruiting, I say, I'm going to say recruiting, I mean, spreading the gene
see, the genes.
So they'll be spreading the genes and they will kind of lead into their genes like margarine.
Very much so, and they'll eventually lead into a sort of a open rebellion and war.
And this is a big bad no-no for the Imperium in Warhammer.
They're not having it.
Yeah, it's not, it's not good.
It's not good.
They're not happy with that part.
All the parts before that to be fair, but that's like the big kind of thing, like when
a Genestealer cult essentially unleashes itself.
And the kind of first time that Genesteals in Warhammer were found was an event called
Gossar Quintus, called the First Contact.
So this was a mining colony and this is sort of where the, I think Colin might have mentioned
this even just before we started, but it's where the, I think it's the Xenos, who's the
space marines who fight Xenos in particular?
Deathwatch.
Deathwatch, excuse me, Deathwatch, law crime there.
So the Deathwatch, they first encounter Genestealers there and the Imperium was just not happy
after that.
It was not a good time.
And just a few little spicy names of some of the cults, because they're quite well organized,
unfortunately for humans.
And a lot of them have like kind of, a lot of them have like really cool names.
I'm actually quite a big fan of them.
So ones like, some of the more famous ones like Bladed, oh sorry, Bladed Cog, Hive Cult,
Inner Worm, Pawper Princes, I actually like that one, probably my favourite, Rusted Claw,
not a fan of that one because it makes it sound a bit dodgy, Twisted Helix, Cult of
the Four-Armed Emperor, Cult of the Second Son, the Brotherhood and the Sons of Jormungandr,
which actually to be fair, that's the most, but that one slaps hard.
That name goes hard.
Sons of Jormungandr or something like that, with a proper accent would be better.
Norse mythology, yeah.
That one, that one hits hard.
I like that one.
And sort of the unique powers of the Genie Seals, because they are obviously not a carbon
copy of anything, shall we say.
We'll get to spoilers later.
But they do have like some unique powers within their race.
So they, a lot of it's like focused around manipulation, influencing, a lot of the, all
of the cult members, even ones which was the infected one, the Contagi, we said earlier,
even they all have this kind of link to each other.
They feel like a psychic pull, and so they all follow a kind of greater consciousness
that is projected out, or should I say, beaconed from their patriarch, as we mentioned earlier,
but we'll go into more of that later.
And particularly if you're playing on the tabletop or you see that little models, the
really cool part of them is their technology, which is essentially Mad Max.
If everyone, I think everyone might agree with that.
It's essentially a copy of Mad Max there.
And so it's all like kind of salvage material.
It's all a bit run of the mill.
They kind of all found it.
They often use actual Imperial arms, I think like las ground and things like weapons like
that.
Like there's a cool model, oh sorry, my voice went there.
There's a cool model of like a buzz saw, I think as well, which is actually quite grim
dark because I don't think he uses it only for war.
But he-
Texas chainsaw massacre.
Yes, it's pretty, they're pretty like gnarly, I'd say.
They have like a sabotaging equipment too.
And the kind of, so if you would like encounter a genie seater cult, which obviously won't
happen anywhere in the real world, but they're kind of big thing.
Like if they were encountered by humans, you see their worship and their whole shtick,
they worship like a doomsday event.
Like every one of them, or the various names I mentioned earlier, they're all kind of hoping
for, I guess, a rapturous event.
And they all worship this multi-limbed, four armed emperor character, which is kind of
creepy.
Actually more than kind of, it is very creepy.
And it's, sorry, not creepy.
Sorry, like, excuse me.
It's the perfect representation of the emperor.
I have to remember this, excuse me.
My heresy there.
And this kind of rapturous event, this day of ascension is what they're all building
towards.
Their patriarch will tell them, they'll all rise up when this day comes and all the cults
will be singing their praise.
And it's essentially when that day arrives, that will be the end of the cult.
But we won't spoil that just yet.
But does anyone have any questions or quips about genie sealers so far?
Does everyone okay with the nicknames I used?
I was going to say, I thought when you brought up the, like, the first one, they're like
fat and good at grinning.
Synchronized grinning.
Only use that for synchronized grinning.
You said that and I thought, I don't know why, I thought a Janemba from that Dragon
Ball Z movie, like the first one where he's big, fat and yellow and stupid.
That's genius.
That's hilarious.
That's the only kind of quip about them.
They're not the smartest, essentially, but they are.
They're chunk though.
They're pretty dumb and chunk.
Is that the rapturous awakening when Gogeta comes and beats the hell out of them?
If only.
I still unlock Ultra Instinct for that moment.
Oh, this is just not happening.
Does anyone else have any other questions or little comments?
Is there like, are there ways, do they have the equivalent of like operating feytans for
you to rise up if you have so much money to get into the certain hierarchy of the cult?
Little Scientology joke for you there.
I was about to say, I wasn't, I'm not sure we're going to name drop that, but I can actually
confirm there is, I think I mentioned there's like cult of the four armed emperor, David
Miscavige.
No, the Scientology, obviously famous one we're all familiar with, but it's that they
don't really have a kind of complex system like that.
It's more like a, I can feel you're powerful.
You will do good.
Go do the thing.
There's no Gene Steeler, like Tominius Cruzes or something?
No Tominius Cruzes.
No, who's the guy from Greece?
John Travolta?
There's no Johnius Travoltaus.
He sounds like an ultramarine though.
Or Willius Smithius, because there's no Willius.
That was one there.
But yeah, so if anyone has any other questions or quips before we move on to the expert section?
Yeah, I think I'm, I think no.
That's for now.
Perfect.
So we'll hand it over to our esteemed, our leader, our cultural guide in the ways of
the Gene Stealers, Eli.
So Eli will take it away with our expert section.
Go ahead.
Indeed I will.
We will learn about the Gene Stealer cults from the perspective of a true believer.
So starting from the top.
I did alright.
Starting from the top.
The Gene Stealer itself, as Hal said, it's a xeno species of a divine race known as the
Star Children.
The Star Children are led by their gods, who aren't really named completely, they're just
the Star Children.
We originally see the Gene Stealers on the moons of Ymgaro, and they thought they were
separate from the Star Children, but then would eventually find out that they aren't.
They're part of the big massive conglomeration of the nomadic race that they are.
When a Gene Stealer makes a planet fall, because the Star Children send them out far and wide
to grasp all of their sons and daughters and their wide arms to one day bless them with
ascension.
But the Gene Stealer goes to ground immediately when it is upon a planet.
It goes into hiding, because obviously the Imperium does not quite understand the divine
properties of this being.
This is so much propaganda guys, I have to say.
The Imperium understands just well enough where to put the Boltershells.
Can I have a question?
Do they ever like, I have an image in my head that they, you said like they are like they
rocket towards like a planet.
Does someone like throw them like a javelin?
Like just yell like yeet.
Like B2 in Titanfall 2.
I think they're just sent out from the ships.
That's a funny image.
They spend a lot of time in, what do they call, space hawks.
There's a lot of them in space hawks, but overall they're just sent in their little
spore packages basically.
It goes to ground, it hides, and then eventually when a lucky individual comes by, they will
be lured in with hypnotism from the Gene Stealer.
And it will give them a kiss with its ovipositore and inject them with its blessed DNA.
As we said earlier, there's...
Yikes.
Mommy Gene Stealer.
No, no, that is not the intro.
I swear to God, we're not having Mommy Gene Stealer.
That is the intro, you foul man.
Mommy big forehead.
If someone's made an image of this, I'm going to be so upset.
Like it's just going to be like, hey there.
I hate it so much.
The Gene Stealers themselves are...
They have six limbs, as we said.
Two of them usually end in like talons or something spiky thing.
They're very...
That's right, many-armed mummy.
That's right.
They're very fast.
They're extremely fast and extremely cunning, very intelligent.
They're an apex being in general, wherever they go, basically.
And one could say that they're probably the biggest threat to the Imperium, which I know
is probably said a lot about a lot of things.
But compared to Chaos, the Gene Stealers are far, far more widespread and dangerous.
So our blades of grass will be fine.
So, once the Gene Stealer gives its blessing to this individual, the individual and all
of its offspring forever now will be under the angels' guidance, let's say.
They're all linked together in one brood mind.
And as the generations go on and this thing is fed psychic might, it will become a beautiful
and immensely powerful being known as the Patriarch, who is the four-armed Emperor,
sent by the Star Children to liberate their people and bring them into the Embrace on
the Day of Ascension.
It's what people were talking about.
Me and Eli said this before we were...
We had a joke, like, is this what they mean by take down the Patriarchy?
Because it's an actual Genesee, like, because that makes a lot more sense in the world.
Can you spin on Patriarchal Tyranny if I ever heard one?
Is literally there.
So, the first gen...
Well, I guess the pre-generation, I wouldn't...
I don't know if we'd call it the first generation, is the Contagia.
As we said, they're just regular people, live in regular lives, and all of a sudden they
really want to have a family and settle down.
And so they do.
And then they give birth to probably, potentially one of the most blessed generations of the
Oppressor's children.
For they...
Hang on a minute, I thought this was Gene Steelers, not Slyneash.
They are far more angel than they are human, usually coming out of the womb with five to
six limbs, and eventually become acolyte hybrids, which lurk in these shadows waiting for the
Day of Ascension, because the Oppressors often misunderstand their blessings for corruption.
So, they cannot be revealed, and often the great aunts and great uncles of the Congregation
will hide away in tunnels and secret passages until they are allowed to come to lights,
climbing on walls and hissing.
How far the Imperium is from the truth indeed.
Next!
With all the rest of the vermin.
Fitting, maybe, in the tunnels.
I was going to say, I'm going to joke, just like my aunt.
I'm so sorry, Auntie.
She's not walking on the walls hissing, I swear.
Moving forwards, we have the basic hybrid, who is similar, but a human form is slowly
starting to ebb through.
They can speak in mutters and utterances of low gothic.
They still have the extra long arms, purple skin, but they start to stand a little taller,
instead of hunched over like the originals.
But they're far, like all the generations, they are faster and stronger than the non-believers.
Thirdly, we move on to the true hybrid, who now pen passed as a mutated human in most
of the overpopulated and poorly treated societies, where a lot of mutants already are.
And as much as the Imperium hates its mutants and stuff, on hive cities and planets with
like hundreds of billions of people, or however high the populations get, mutants are pretty
common and generally aren't that out of place in the really lower class and under hive and
all that stuff.
So they can kind of walk among society, depending on where the cult is at the time.
But a lot of the heroes of the cult will come from the third and fourth generation, which
we'll get into later.
There's a lot of different forms of beings that come from the brood, and they're all
blessed in their own ways.
But now the true hybrid obviously stands straight up.
The only difference between them is a little bit tinted skin, yellow eyes, and a lot of
them, most of them, will have a third arm, which is awkward for balance, but I'm sure
they get used to it, and it's quite handy.
Sixthly, fourthly, sorry, this is my sixth point, but fourthly is the...
Primarchi, or whatever we said.
Primarchi, okay.
Yeah.
They pass as fully human.
They're just dudes, usually with the yellow eyes as well, sometimes a little bit tinted
skin, but generally they just look like pure humans.
Are you telling me they're not Elon Musk simps?
Because I feel like I've got that really wrong.
They generally look pretty normal.
They use Neuralink, but other than that, you know.
Little bit of headcanon.
What's Mark Zuckerberg's thing he's making with the virtual world?
What's it called again?
The Metaverse.
I think it died pretty quickly.
Oh my God.
I feel like they use the...
These guys use the Metaverse like 100%.
Mark, he does look a bit like a gene sealer, doesn't he?
A little bit.
Oh, that's a bit unfair.
I think that's a bit unfair.
You're going to have to do everything like the Sharple Tang is going to do.
Whore are we offending?
Faceball?
That's true, that's true.
Multi-millionaire?
Oh, don't bully him.
Yeah, I mean, I think he's fine.
Unfair to the gene sealers.
They are more glorious.
Yeah, that's right.
That's what I was going to say.
They, the...
Primarchi use these things that I should have written down the name of because I don't remember
what they're called, but they put these things under their fingers and their skin kind of,
and it mimics the signals that tech adepts have and stuff, so they'll infiltrate places
and get through doors and register as normal to all the tech guys.
I really wish I remember what they're called.
Maybe if you know in the comments, if you read The Day of Ascension, it's a good book.
You can tell me there, I guess.
Anyways.
I can't hear the flood and their logic plague.
I need more Halo lore.
Halo's good stuff.
Anyways.
And then lastly, as we said, an angel is born to the congregation and a pure, strange gene
stealer in all its beautiful glory arises and is usually sent away on the holy quest
and pilgrimage to the stars to become yet another emperor for a bent and battered and
oppressed people to save somewhere out there.
Yes, there's only one emperor and only one type of angel.
The angels are deaf.
That's Susan with dinner.
There's only one phoenix king.
Oh, Finnebar.
Malekith is not a phoenix king.
I think I'm not sure.
I think it's a bit of a handover to me here because I get to talk about my favourite thing
again.
We're going to talk about the HP Lovecraft inspiration, boys.
Yes.
My favourite thing.
Yeah, you don't sound too excited.
So this is a bit more about what the shadows over Innsmouth story is because once I think,
again, as I said earlier, once you hear a bit more of it, you go, I see.
So the shadows over Innsmouth is a Lovecraftian story which is about the kind of worship of
the old one called Dagon.
And this is done in the town on the East Coast of America.
It's a really rundown, like kind of even the towns described like an ugly place.
And the Innsmouth people over time, they kind of their whole shtick is that shtick, sorry,
I don't know why that's there, but they slowly become more fish like and their eyes like
start to bulge.
They have like pallid skin, like sickly spots.
They have like scales and things like that.
Is this the same story that they got?
There was a game on the original Xbox called, I think it's called of Cthulhu and it was
like a village.
Oh, that's, there's like a kind of link to that where they make a nod to what's called
an Innsmouth.
And it's like a really good horror game for it becomes a really bad first person shooter.
Yeah, actually, I almost bought that game, but I'm glad I didn't because people said
it was like, it's better to watch them play it.
So I, we're never going to get a good Lovecraft game and it makes me upset.
Darkest Dungeon.
Oh, that's just a good point.
That's a good point.
Trick of the light.
As I was saying with the, so the Innsmouthers, the people who live in Innsmouth, the town,
they are kind of described as having what's called the Innsmouth look.
And when someone, if someone ever said to you in real life, you have the Innsmouth look,
someone is calling you ugly because they look...
It's what they meant.
Oh, God, I'm going to make a phone call after this.
Yes.
These, these like, they look like fish people.
It's kind of, so these are the whole kind of secret that they have within them is that
they were, they are hybrids of the deep ones, which like the original kind of fish people
I mentioned earlier.
So back in there, like, so they, I guess their genes were messed with, shall we say, and
they were stolen.
They were stolen pretty much.
And eventually over time, like the people who live in Innsmouth, they would slowly transform
into deep ones.
And like eventually that they'd basically be a fish person.
But like, you know, the people who say the mermaid thing, but the mermaid is like not
the bottom half, but the top half.
So they have legs, but they have the top half fish.
Family guys.
Yeah, that's, that's essentially what it is.
And eventually when they're fish people, they join their gods in the very deep ocean, like
in underground cities.
And even in Innsmouth, like the people who live there, even before they become deep ones,
they have the cult of Dagon, which is spread throughout the town.
So I'm pretty sure you're seeing the, obviously the link with gene sealers themselves, and
they worship the deep ones and father Dagon, shall we say.
And they kind of, the whole thing is they look down towards the depth of the sea and
obviously gene sealers themselves look up to the heavens, shall we say, for the day
of ascension, as we mentioned earlier.
And I'll chuck it back to Eli to describe their amazing living habitat.
You know, they're a nice apartment, shall we say.
Sure.
That wouldn't say it's overly comfortable.
But most cults can be found in human populations, especially hive worlds, but humans are not
the only race lucky enough to receive revelation.
The orcs and Eldar and Tau and the likes are all accepted by the star children's embrace.
Human civilization is just a lot easier to infiltrate because they are extremely overpopulated
usually on places like hive cities.
And usually the Imperium is fairly, or maybe a little more than fairly, oppressive towards
their people, depending on the world, most worlds.
This one here.
And living conditions usually kind of suck in general.
But more than that, the security, it's very hard to police billions and billions and billions
of people in such a gigantic place.
And as you may know, a lot of hive cities have under hives, which are already just like
crime dens and nothing, no police are ever going to go down there, Arbeedes, whatever,
I guess.
Space hawks, common sight for the gene sealer brood, of course.
But also, other than the human civilizations, we do have minor Eldaric craft worlds.
It doesn't really work that well though, because the Eldar are a lot more vigilant.
I think Colin, Colin, how we have to ask how you feel about them touching your precious
Eldar because I imagine you are not happy.
Good luck to the one who tries because he's going to be Kentucky Fried Gene Sealer in
short order.
Yeah, that is unfortunately usually what happens.
It takes a lot of extra breeding cycles to get the gene stealer stuff going in the Eldar
because their genetics are a lot more refined.
Yeah, refined.
That's a good word.
Refined.
And their societies obviously a lot more vigilant.
Vigilant is the word I'd probably think of.
Vigilant in general, yeah.
Yeah, so the Eldar are kind of hard to get.
Orcs also kind of hard to work with.
We'll talk about that later though, I guess.
I'll keep going about the general living habitats.
Oh, like, orcs are born through mushrooms.
Surely that kind of interferes with the process.
It makes it harder, but it's still possible.
The gene stealer goes just like, I like a challenge.
Flecks in front of mushrooms.
Gene stealers try to avoid the orcs, but like, if a gene stealer has been waiting like centuries
to find a good host population and orcs are the only things that are around, then they
might as well try.
Take what they could get.
For humans though, hive worlds the best, egg-free worlds are also actually pretty good because
there's a lot of open field in general, so the populace are kind of like spread out in
tight clumps, I guess.
And if the cult can take over the egg-free world, then they have a very convenient way
of spreading the gifts of the emperor to the stars in the form of corrupted or, well, not
corrupted enough for us, of course.
Extra ingredients in the food that they send off.
Just let's say that, so that they can spread the genes throughout the stars in rations
and whatnot, in livestock.
So that's pretty nice and convenient for most cults who are on egg-free worlds.
Shrine worlds are somewhat susceptible as well.
They're the religious kind of crypt worlds, the worship worlds for the emperor, so there's
a lot of ecclesiarchy going on and a lot of robes are worn, which is very convenient for
hiding a third arm and other such blessings.
I like the idea that on the agri-worlds it's really difficult to get a hoodie.
Just can't find the attire.
All they can find are very large sun hats.
They find like a sack of potatoes, they put the potatoes in and they're like, well, this
will do.
But on a Pope Benedict world there's like plenty to go around.
There's also lots of crypts and tombs in those worlds of nice underground maze type places
to live in.
Also though, the populations on shrine worlds are used to having great reverence for a divine
entity, albeit the wrong one.
But they're halfway there, so they just need a little purple push, let's say.
Purple push is a nightmare by the way.
Purple push?
I don't know if I can sleep after saying that.
Sounds like a new variety of Vimto to me.
I'm thinking of like one of those like push pops or something.
I'd quite like a purple push.
What's a push pop?
Is that like a frozen?
Yeah, it's like this little frozen ice cream kind of thing where you push it out of the
container as you're eating it.
Oh yeah, we don't have the same brands, but we have the equivalent in the UK.
They're pretty cool.
Yeah.
Sorry, we're doing GCNs and not ice cream.
Delve worlds lastly are a good place to go.
Like Gozar Quintus was, they're called their mining worlds, just some called Delve worlds
I guess.
For pretty obvious reasons, there's a lot of places to hide on a mining world with tunnels
going literally everywhere.
And also the conditions on mining worlds are like, you can't get much worse than that.
So it's pretty easy to find downtrodden and oppressed people on places like that who are
already pretty willing to rebel.
They just-
North of England in the 80s.
Or Florida, as we said earlier.
They just need a couple extra arms to get the job done.
Lucky for them, there's some extra arms to be spared.
We'll talk about Gozar Quintus soon though.
But we'll talk about, for now, I suppose, the stages of a cult.
It's not overly complicated.
I mean it is for them, but the actual ways of doing it.
So the genie stealer shows up, blesses some people, and the generations start to spread.
Obviously, this starts out really slow, and they have to be really, really, really careful
to not be found out, otherwise the whole thing could just be burned away.
Oh, my dog's barking.
I'll have to pet the genie stealer.
Sniffed out a genie stealer.
They operate in extreme secrecy the whole time, but especially in the first beginning
stages, they have to be really careful.
Because if the Inquisition finds you, then it's kind of over.
Well, it is over.
And the planet's probably over too.
All the Grey Knights, we've got a problem.
They're just in the vicinity.
Are we going to get any demons?
We'll sort this out while we're here.
So they will continue to spread angel blood throughout the population ever so slowly.
Eventually, it proliferates very quickly though, obviously, as you can imagine, as more and
more people are touched by the Emperor.
And they can soon spread after a few generations, sometimes even hundreds of years, they will
spread across the entire world.
And sometimes maybe just the Hive City, if we're in a Hive City.
The entire world is now running around in tunnels, being cool and blessed and whatnot.
But the Day of Ascension, which is the end goal of every cult, it can be triggered early
if it has to be.
It's not ideal ever.
Usually, sometimes I guess they can trigger it early if they need to.
You don't want a premature cult.
Yeah, pretty stupid.
So inconvenient, am I right?
If your Day of Ascension lasts more than four hours, make sure to consult a doctor every
day.
So I guess I should say they remain secret until the Day of Ascension, obviously, when
they rise up from the tunnels and underground and take the planet for themselves.
But this can be triggered early, because it usually only triggers when the Star Children
are near.
If a foreign invader comes to the planet, like say the Tao invade an imperial world,
and the patriarch feels that the planet is in risk of being taken by the Tao, then the
Ascension will be sprung early and they'll actually fight against the Xenos alongside
their imperial brethren.
And then when the day is won, unfortunately, the guns will turn and in a shocking revelation,
the imperial dogs will crumble beneath the might of the forearmed emperor.
Even the sirens are kicked off.
Good days.
I think we kind of mentioned it already, but the oppression of imperial people in general
is very widespread and is very easy to find on most worlds unhappy people.
Working conditions suck depending on if your tech adept is good enough or not.
Usually they're not very good though and all they care about is, what's the word,
proficiency, productivity, there you go.
So they'll do everything in their power to increase your productivity, when I mean, one
might think that means having a happier workforce, but usually it means using dangerous chemicals,
slave drivers, the likes.
The Imperium's classic go-to's to just keep the war machine running.
Two to maybe three meals a day, you pray to the emperor, that's all you need.
Two to three meals a day is a great luxury.
You'll get your one corpse bar and like it.
One corpse starts in the Warrens down below the earth and all your people are dying of
lung cancer from your coal mines and whatever.
That's fake news.
There's nothing going wrong.
It's absolutely fine.
Everyone has absolute respect and feeds them well and there's no problems ever.
There's puppies and ice cream for everyone.
We have therapy dogs in the mines every day, just to be sure.
Shakespeare's in Karl Marx.
So the star children of course hear the cries of all of these poor people.
So they send their glorious angels and patriarchs out to save them and unify them as the cult
to one day rise and be blessed by holy union with the gods above.
So as the cult grows larger, they will slowly try to infiltrate positions of power, especially
just political stuff in general.
The planetary governor, maybe the planetary governor's advisor is secretly a cultist
type of thing.
Things like that.
And many of their children will likely be taken by the tithe to the imperial guard.
And this, depending on when they want to ascend, can be a good or bad thing.
Bad because they're losing manpower for the time being obviously, but good because this
is giving some of them combat experience and they can spread the word of the emperor throughout
the stars wherever they end up getting shipped off to.
If they survive and come back then it's good times.
If they die then it sucks, but at least they've spread some word.
Or they might become part of the planetary guard, which is really great because that
means we're primed and ready for the day of ascension and they have easy access to stolen
goods like las guns and the like.
Real nice weapons.
Sent them all that good stuff.
Very safe and OSHA approved vehicles.
Was there a gene stealer in the Kifers Kane book?
There's a couple books where they...
I don't know, spoilers.
No one has read Kifers Kane.
It's not too much of a spoilers because the premise of some of the books is just, yeah,
Kane's fighting gene stealers.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Shout out to Pancrasnowork for his excellent video on Kifers Kane.
My favorite answer in a pub quiz, shall we say.
My lore crime.
My poor lore crime.
So, yeah, like I said, they're joining the Imperial Guard.
They're infiltrating the upper echelons and now in the factories, if they're working in
factories when overseers aren't looking, they'll start stealing scraps and putting together
makeshift firearms like shotguns and stuff and stowing them away under their belongings.
Well, they don't own anything.
Who am I kidding?
But stowing them away where they can hide.
That caught me off guard.
I thought you were saying they knit as well.
So they knit secretly or something.
But nah, they don't own anything.
But they store those away and start to stockpile these refitted weapons and civilian mining
vehicles often.
Often these vehicles will be quote unquote lost and refitted for combat.
There are some famous ones that are pretty general for all the planets.
But yeah, the cult makes do with what they have depending on the planet that they're
on.
A factor one planet will obviously be easier to make firearms and get the technology.
Whereas an agri world, probably not.
You're gonna have to just, I don't know, do what you can.
But also an agri world is probably not gonna be...
I don't know.
This might be wrong.
This might be lore crime.
I assume that they're not overly heavily defended.
Maybe that's wrong.
But there's a lot of ground to cover where there's just like farm.
I just like the idea of them herding cows and like these will do.
We use them as weapons.
I will say that for agri worlds, I guess they have access to genetic experimentation, which
we'll learn a little tiny bit about with the twisted helix and some other ones.
You know how they're trying to genetically modify all their livestock and what nots and
be efficient in that way.
They have access to labs and stuff where they can splice genes and do more genes to their
shenanigans.
Yeah.
So here's some cool skin.
Yeah.
But as we continue, the cult is quickly growing now.
It's very big.
They have lots stockpiled.
They're waiting for the day of ascension.
But if they're on a very protected planet, they have to be really careful and they need
to meticulously perfectly plan the day because we have to remember they are just civilians
with very little combat experience other than the specific bioforms that are made for specific
tasks and a lot of the hybrids are good at fighting, but still the large majority of
the cult are just regular people.
So even if there's a ton of them and they have a ton of equipment and weapons and the
element of surprise is still winning is not guaranteed.
They could just be turned upon by the Skitarii or the astromelotarm and just guns down and
killed.
But usually the fail safe for that is that there is broodkin within the astromelotarm
and Skitarii.
The Skitarii can be infected and no matter how many layers of code and falsehoods that
they put in the heads of the...what's the right word here...just the Skitarii.
They've been lied to a lot obviously.
The cogboys.
Yes, the cogboys.
They've been lied to by the ecclesiarch.
They have codes placed in their brains or their logic engines and whatever so they have
to follow what the tech adepts say.
But those who are blessed and then later reawakened at times by a magus or other powerful individual
can actually break these shackles of the false emperor and ignore any orders and codes given
to them from tech adepts which is cool.
And he's not happy about the false emperor.
I'm even going to say such blasphemy for the omniscihe.
He's one of my favorites as well.
I say without too much spoiling that is in a Caiaphas Cain book as well.
Some followers of the omniscihe find out that they're not quite as safe as they think just
because of machinery.
There is a cult that follows the true omniscihe as well.
But that's true.
There's only one omniscihe.
Yeah, it's Vol.
Get out of here.
Even I'm not with you on that one.
He's not omniscihe.
Oh my gosh.
Back to what I was supposed to be talking about, I went a little off topic there.
But the cult's growing, we have equipment, we have lots of stuff that we need, and now
tales of heroes, folk heroes in general, start to arise as forms such as the kelemorph emerge
from the breeding cycle which is a three armed vigilante who sparks the need for adventure
in the criminal and a desire for freedom in the oppressed.
We'll talk about her a little later.
Kelemorph is like the fan favorite, I would say, of the general gene-stealer believers.
So there's lots of heroes now.
They're going to get some guidance from bioforms such as the primus being made who is a very
straight backed military officer, strong type guy.
But yeah, so they have lots of people to look up to and there's really, really starting
to have their claws deep into much of the imperial hierarchy and system in general.
You're going to start seeing graffiti of the great worm form or depictions of the four
armed emperor throughout the streets and the majority of the plant society will eventually
be blessed.
Typical, typical, Xenos mutants.
Not only are they, you know, dismerging the imperial, vandals as well.
Worst of all, loitering too.
No lollygagging.
That's the Skyrim guy.
It's every five minutes.
I just imagine the video of the guy in the swimming pool who did like the NPC, you know,
the NPC, it's like, you there, stop there, criminal scum.
Just like swimming, he's in the swimming pool and it's like, ah, why won't you die?
I'm thinking of a video where someone dives at a pool and then a panther, you know, there's
a sign that says no diving, that some guy tries to, Batman beats the snot out of him.
This is no diving.
That's a good, that's a good Batman voice.
What the heck?
All right.
Thank you.
It would be interesting to say that production rates and the compliance in general of these
planets usually in the latter stage of Ascension are actually increased because the workforce
is working fervently and they have hope in their hearts that soon all the pain and all
the slavery will be taken away.
So they work tirelessly to ensure that they are not discovered and with great energy as
they are so close to the blessed unions as the angels draw near to their planets and
their shackles will be torn asunder by the beautiful saviors.
So I think that's for now about the stages of the cult.
When the star children come near Ascension day will happen, which we'll talk about a
little bit later.
It's very exciting, very momentous day when the shackles of oppression are thrown off
and violence erupts and everything goes crazy and they either win or lose basically.
I feel like we should stay at this point.
This is very heavily from the perspective of the gene sealers.
No one has gotten that yet.
Because I just like the idea of when you were getting started with the different stages,
like imagine the parent gene sealers having the talks, right?
When a mommy gene sealer or a daddy gene sealer love each other very much.
There's this date, then there's this date and this, this, this, and this having a Venn
diagram to explain to the child like this is where you fit in here.
This is where you build the lasgun in the factory.
He's like, what the hell, what's that got to do with the love part?
It's like, what do you mean love?
I like to imagine that's how some inquisitors find out there's gene stealers.
It's like things are too productive here.
You guys are working too hard.
Something's not right.
It's a very good point, isn't it?
Yeah.
There was, I remember when you were mentioning bits, like bits of the kind of uprising and
such though, there's a really good episode of Hammer and Balter called A New Life.
And if anyone has Warhammer Plus, go and watch that episode.
Because I remember like the whole series, I'm like, it's kind of okay.
But that episode in particular, it's about the gene stealer cults and it's really good.
Nice.
I should go watch it.
I haven't seen it.
I've only seen the Eldar one.
It's the most recent one at the time of recording.
RIP Avatar of Cain.
Yeah, literally my face when Avatar gets killed by ten balters.
For the fifth time.
Really slowly as well.
Yeah, he just sits there while they shoot at him.
At least the striking scorpion in that shot.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
Baller.
Should be called Cain, should be called Victim because the lore writers just keep ruining
it.
Oh man.
Well, speaking of Eldar, why don't we talk about gene stealers in Xenos races and other
races other than human.
And then we'll talk about Gosa Aquintis a little bit.
So like I said, you can find gene stealers in basically every race.
I don't think it works in Necrons.
I'd be pretty surprised.
I haven't heard of it working in Necrons, but I mean, if the Flayer virus can spread
in Necrons and the Destroyer virus.
Or if Lucius the Eternal.
Lucius the Eternal can emerge out of a Necron for some reason.
We can get gene stealer.
We can't get gene stealer Necrons then too.
That'd be cool.
It'd be wild.
All right.
Anyway.
But usually the way of infection for other races, it's good in like merchant ships and
rogue traders for a gene stealer to hide away in secrecy while trades are being done.
Oh no, your box of, I don't know what's a funny thing to be in a box.
I have no idea.
Your box of stuff.
Definitely not Hentai.
Okay, we had to blow that part.
So beat that out.
Your box of stuff all of a sudden has a gene stealer in it instead of whatever you were
supposed to be getting.
How convenient for the Star Children.
Tau fleets are very susceptible because as some might know, the Aircast are really usually
the only ones who stay awake when Tau go places because they don't have warp travel.
They just have, they have faster than life, last I checked, but they don't have warp travel.
So it still takes some time and Tau life cycles are pretty short.
I think they live like 60 years on average or something.
Yeah, unless you're a Farsight, he's a G.
Just like the Chad, like at the start he's like, I live to be however long until I'm
sharp.
It's amazing.
Oh yeah.
I wonder how old Eldred is.
Huh?
Yeah, yeah.
Younger than the Emperor.
He's using a lot of hair dye at this rate.
Yeah.
So the, yes, a lot of times the Tau, the Firecast and Earthcast who are sleeping in status,
status might just wake up to a completely new society that's just gene stealers or
they won't wake up at all.
That's probably the actual reality.
Did you lot always have four arms?
Yeah, I was just thinking, we're going like one, two, hmm.
And like I said earlier, the Eldar are a lot harder to get into.
They like it's, it almost never really happens because they find the hybrids right away and
just dead.
Wasn't there once, there's only like 15 of them.
So they'd probably be like, hang on, you're acting a bit weird.
I know you really well.
You didn't have three arms yesterday.
What happened?
Wasn't there one where they'd let them, is this like an obscure piece of law?
They let themselves be, do you want to say that?
You probably know more about it Colin than I do.
May I tell the tale?
It was basically, I don't remember the name of the craft world, but it was before Spirit
Stones had gotten around to the Eldar.
So they had no way once they died to keep their souls from going to Slynege.
So they figured, yes, the perfect way to do it is to instead let Jean Steelers infest
the whole craft world.
That way our souls will not go to Slynege when they die.
Which I, you know, I can't say, I can't say I follow.
They work?
Well I don't remember, but I do know the Yanari wiped them out.
Oh, that makes sense.
I mean, to be fair, the soul stones I think were in millennia 32, 33 they were invented.
And the Yanari weren't till the end of the 41st millennia.
I mean that's a solid 8,000 years of just chilling to be fair.
That's true.
Just like the idea that the Yanari came in and was like, we are ending this science experiment.
No, this is whatever Eldar Heresy is.
Bugs and burns on the table like burn it all, no more.
Whatever the Eldar version of Heresy was they found it that day.
I guess it's not on my nose, but it would make sense to me that Eldar Corsairs are probably
the best bet to go with for the Jean Steelers.
I would assume, right?
Like they're just, they're just, they're probably the patriarchs hiding.
Especially because a Corsair band can be anything from, you know, Yriel with his tens of thousands
of ships to one guy who decides I want to be a pirate now.
Yeah, literally.
So them and maybe some outcasts, Yield Rangers and whatnot.
Probably not Exodite Worlds because they're already so antsy, all that stuff.
I assume they would just, they get it.
Tegzin's Gildar.
I'll never forget it.
Oh my god.
Plus their worlds are alive so the trees themselves would be like, you don't seem right today.
Yeah.
I like the idea that the trees dobbed them in.
Speaking of...
You're like, shut up, Teg.
Speaking of not feeling right, we can go to the orcs.
And orcs can be infested by Jean Steelers.
The Jean Steelers kiss the brood cycle will go through the spore reproduction.
So it still works with the spores.
And sometimes they get away with it.
Very rarely.
But actually, the less civilized orc society, as funny as that might sound, but the the
federal orcs who are infected usually...
Is that the snakebites?
The ones who are a bit more tribal?
I think they are.
Just in general, like planets with orcs who are not evolved.
Yeah, like some of the orcs, like after a while ends and it's just spores left, they
don't grow into like, I say less advanced orcs like that means anything.
Like Lurehammer fantasy orcs lost in 40k.
That's what I was gonna say.
They're the perfect orc, as imperfect as the host is.
They are the perfect way to do it because they're not quite as connected with everything.
And the societies that they're in don't notice quite as quickly that something is up.
Do they end the whole thing of like, have you ever seen a purple orc?
And they're like, ah, sneaky orc.
I think, I don't know if you're gonna touch on that, but my favorite part about them infiltrating
orcs is that they never usually make it in orc society because they're not aggressive
enough, isn't it?
They always get crunked.
The genes of the orc, because it's just not orky enough.
So it's just like, how about we just take a minute and we sit down and we wait a while
and then maybe in another generation, then we'll do a while.
And then we'll be like, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.
Yeah.
Were you gonna say something?
I was just gonna say like, yeah, they can tell he's not right orky enough.
They know something's not right with this lad.
Exactly.
And the gene stealer, it's like a connection distorts the waa field and they'll be kind
of disconnected from the waa.
So they can just inherently feel that around them, that there's something wrong with this
lad right here.
And then they eventually find out that they were taken over by the bug eyes.
Thanks to that waa.
The they do work sometimes though.
Freebooter bands are great.
Freebooter bands are perfect.
And they become green broods as they kind of float across the galaxy as freebooters
do being orky.
But generally, Earth society, also bad.
So the good ones are Tau.
And even the Tau aren't great.
Like the actual Tau society wouldn't go well, but Tau fleets are great.
And humans.
But it does make it very fun for the tabletop.
Because if you want to, you can make gene stealer Sektari or gene stealer Tau or like
convert any models you want.
There's a lot of opportunities for doing that stuff on the tabletop, which is really cool.
Do you reckon we're gonna see a gene stealer leagues of Voton thing at some point?
Probably.
I wouldn't be surprised.
Make him interesting.
I still haven't looked into the lore.
I'm not gonna lie.
I uh, without, you know, uh, a hold off on why we might not see that till the end.
But I do have some reasoning why that might not be too likely.
Good thing that's your later.
Yeah.
So let's talk about Ghosts Arquintus.
The first contact, well, first discovery of the gene stealer cults.
There was a high chance that they weren't the first and they were already there, but
it was the first and it was around the time, pretty sure of the first emergence of the
star children into our galaxy.
Because that should be good to mention the star children aren't even from our galaxy.
They're truly divine beings coming from the ends of space to help our galaxy.
Because they're so privileged to see them here.
But yeah, Ghosts Arquintus, it was the first imperial world to be found blessed by the
formed emperor by the star gods in general.
And it was a Delph world.
It was a mining world.
So a great starting area to start.
They also shipped a lot of things from this world.
So even better.
We'll see that in a little bit.
The population was very well behaved.
They performed their duty to a high degree.
In fact, they produced a fifth more on their tithes than was demanded.
And were content to live off the gross rations and tasty nutrient pills that are provided.
Yeah.
The great beliefs of the cult slowly spread until Inquisitor Shagrin, I think is his name,
he took notice.
And he believed it to just be some form of twisted imperial creed.
He didn't know what it was quite at first, but then he showed up and was like, oh, something's
very wrong here.
Unfortunately for him.
Well, maybe not unfortunately for him.
Unfortunately for the Imperium.
The last communication that he ever sent off was that the planet's ruling dynasty was doing
a great and diligent job and that nothing's wrong.
And then they never heard from him ever again.
And a year later, just a regular kill team was sent to further investigate them.
And then they were also lost.
The large pit of the world.
What was it called?
I think it's just called the Great Pit.
Yeah, I think that's it.
Just a really big hole in the world.
They went down there to investigate.
Yep.
It literally is though.
They went down there to investigate and they never returned.
And so Mr. Chaplain of the Altar Mains, Ortan Cassius, famous guy, he picked out his very
own kill team, defined the truth.
He would, sadly, they would slay the patriarch and kill lots of people.
But it was too late.
He was the savior of imperial celebrations.
Savior of imperial celebrations.
It was far too late.
It was far too late because when they checked the shipping logs, the gut wrenching truth
was revealed to them that the cult of the four armed emperor had spread possibly to
literally half of the entire galaxy.
Nice.
Oof.
Big oof.
We've got enough bolters for all of them.
It's fine.
I picture that last transmission the guy sent where he was like, everything's fine.
I picture the scene from Episode Four of Star Wars where Han Solo's like, everything's
fine.
You don't need to check on it.
How are you?
I was imagining a little at the end of the message, just a little smiley face, just to
be like, fine.
They're like, hmm, that seems a bit weird.
But it's like your parents doing texting and the emoji's not used at the appropriate time.
It's a bit off.
And the receiving message goes, where's my kisses?
And you go, oh, come on.
Kiss, kiss, kiss.
It's like someone with like someone, like a screenshot of someone saying like, oh, you're
like, so you're, so yeah, grandma, grandma.
Skull emoji.
Oh man.
Oh boy, yes.
This is the reality of the Star Children.
They will win.
The galaxy is theirs for the taking and it is primed for their embrace.
Then they will come and the false emperor will not save you except the embrace of the
true emperor or be condemned to death.
And I might as Calgar might have a few words to say to be honest.
One as Calgar can only fight so many gene stealers.
We got plenty of other Astartes.
I also have remind me earlier, you were talking, we were talking about the other races.
There's also the sected Kamara that knowingly infected themselves with gene stealers because
they're not any funny.
They want to see what happens.
Oh my gosh.
That must be really bored.
I mean, they are the Dark Eldar.
So now we can go on to the different cults.
How do you have your favourite cult?
I picked a favourite cult because there's quite a few and I picked one that's a little
bit, a little bit of a different flavour, shall we say.
So my favourite gene stealer cult is cult Tenebrous.
So the kind of unique thing about them is that they were essentially infested with someone
else's influence, shall we say.
So they were in a bulk lander and it was swallowed by a warp storm and it kind of left them essentially
in the worst place, the smelliest place in the galaxy on the edge of the garden of Nergal.
So you can imagine, I mean, I don't know what the, what's the city that everyone makes fun
of in America, Colin?
Like, is it Detroit?
Detroit.
I think it's like Detroit, but twice as bad as Detroit.
Detroit become Nergal.
I think that's a bit rude to Nergal's garden.
And so essentially the gene stealer cult, so sorry, Eli, but they discovered a new way
of thinking, shall we say.
They became enlightened to a new master and they were now infected by good old grandfather
Nergal's plagues and they essentially have re-emerged back into real space and they are
essentially a gene stealer cult that serve chaos.
I think they're quite a nice like bit of spice, a bit of a different flavour.
Are they the only one who does that?
There's not like a corn one.
I mean, that'd be kind of rubbish.
They just run around smashing people with their claws, I suppose.
It might have happened in other gene stealer cults.
I can't, I might have a minor one.
If you think of a gene stealer cult, that could be a thing.
It probably is, honestly.
Slaneš's gene stealer case is a lot less safe.
Yikes.
I'll hand it back to Eli because he's going to talk about some of the more popular, the
main cults that you can buy.
What was it?
The little transfer sheets.
A lot of these ones you can play in your actual games of 40k.
Yeah.
So the main ones with rules in the codex.
We went through a lot of names earlier.
We'll go through them again, might as well.
But we have the cult of the four armed emperor originating from Gulsar Quintus.
As we said, their specialty is tunneling and surprise assault.
I think I forgot to mention that earlier.
In the planning of the cult, they spent a lot of time with their mining equipment and
stuff, making tunnels to their own...
It's an underway.
It's like the Skaven Underway that they basically make.
Or the gene stealer Great Escape.
Just like they're more standing in a tunnel doing their mining with their hard hats on
and then just being like, hmm, tunnel.
And then that was just the inspiration, just standing there for hours and then it just
clicked and they were like, ah, perfect.
Then we have the Hive Cult, who are just like military experts.
They're all a bunch of warriors and a lot of the astrum militarum consists of their
cults.
They're pretty epic.
We have the Twisted Helix, who are a bunch of mad scientists...
Oh, I'm sorry, I don't know, mad scientists.
Genius scientists who specialize in kind of genetic splicing and they have these really...
They have a lot of aberrants, these gigantic monstrous beings that have been blessed with
incredible strength and a small mind.
Let's see.
Imagine what Fabius could do with some of them as samples.
Probably quite a lot of...
Yeah, yeah, I don't know what Fabius...
I don't really know what Fabius would do with this.
They wouldn't be his new men.
They'd probably be like the old, the very old, old, old men because we're not going
backwards towards that.
Oh man.
Yeah, but the Twisted Helix basically blends human flesh with angel blood and void stuff
and all this conglomeration of just wild, wild, crazy stuff.
Moving on though, so we can say there's specialties in melee.
They get good rules for melee on the tabletop.
I think they're like a fan favorite on the tabletop because you can bring pure strange
genie sealers and they're really good.
The Hive Cult doesn't have good rules sadly even though they're really cool.
But anyways, the Epopper Princes are probably the most fanatical and religious of the cults.
They have living saints just like the Imperium does and the followers of the Epopper Princes
will go to any lengths.
Any cult will go to basically any lengths to protect their superiors, but the Epopper
Princes will go to new heights that you could not imagine.
Those and droves, just people running in front of their truly blessed beings to protect them
and serve them as they should.
We have the Rusted Claw who are survival specialists.
They have lots of biker gangs and yeah, that's pretty much it about them.
I don't remember this much more.
There's not a lot of lore, I should say, unfortunately, about the different cults.
There's not a lot of lore in the Genie Stealer cults in general.
We're basically covering literally everything today.
But yeah, that's the Rusted Claw.
They're cool.
They're very tough.
Then we have...
What else do we have here?
We have my favorite personally, the Bladed Cog who are a mix of Omnissiah worshipping,
our children worshipping things.
The cult is very analytical and the initial day of ascension was undergone by a blessed...
What's the word for them?
Skatari guy, Skatari Alpha.
So the regular cult has meticulous planning, but these guys are even bringing it all the
way further.
It's great.
You know how...
Out to 11.
Yeah.
They already have...
They run the numbers.
They're bunched in the numbers perfectly.
And I'll give that to a Genie Stealer cult.
And it's like the perfect uprising.
They...
It reminds me of that thing where there was that chess grandmaster went up against a computer
and he lost.
It's like, that's them.
They're the computer.
Yeah.
They mesh their blessed flesh with machine flesh, the forearmed Omnissiah as he wills
it.
And there's lots of really scary things in the Bladed Cog, just like animalistic half
living thing, half machine.
You can just imagine the scariness of regular Ad Mech in Warhammer and the grim darkness
of that.
And then just put Genie Steelers on top of that and you get even better.
Good ol' Warhammer stuff.
It's actually pretty intimidating.
I have one pitch in my mind.
Yikes.
Yeah.
And then those are the major cults, really.
And we have some minor cults.
There are six of them that I have here for you all.
We have the Inner Worm, who I believe their patriarch came from the inside of a void whale.
So they're very like guts oriented.
They're like guts and slaughter.
I'm going to make a particularly interesting entrance.
Yeah.
I find that's the beginning of a Your Mum joke there.
Like, Your Mum is so big, she come from a void whale.
We have the Star Kindred, who believe, I believe that when the angels come, the star will be
revealed on their ever dark planet.
We have the Blessed Wormlings, who to be like their ancestors, I guess we can say, they
eat worms and they feed people to these big giant bugs and then they eat the big bugs
and it's really weird.
Eww.
The circle of genes.
We have the Cult Hydraic.
I don't remember their thing really, I think they just spread everywhere because they're
a Hydra.
That makes sense to me.
We have the Sons of Jormungandr, I said earlier, I like them a lot.
They instead of coming from below, they come from above and they infest a large amount
of space stations.
Oh my god, I just thought of fucking Randy Orton.
You know, like, he comes from Randy Orton slithering out.
Here comes the Patriarch with the steel chair.
They come from a string of infested space stations that stretch across the Black Nebula.
So it's relative peace and privacy.
It's a very good place, bred obviously, because there's not much resistance.
And they take inspiration from the nomads of Star Children that they witness in the
area.
And those Star Children take asteroids and fill them with stuff and send them down to
planets.
So like them, the Sons of Jormungandr infest cargo ships and stuff and go down to planets
and then burst forth and take it over or alternatively infiltrate the planets to start the revolution
and spread the word from there.
I like them quite a lot.
The world's most horrifying ODST.
I think one of my favorites, which this is kind of a spoiler for the Day of Ascension,
I guess, but there's a cult in Ultramar and they're called the Behemoid Undercult.
They all stab their eyes out.
They stab one eye out because they worship none other than Old One Eye.
Old One Eye literally has his own cult, which is awesome.
Yeah, I assume, do you guys know who Old One Eye is?
Oh yeah, from the...
The artifacts?
The Battle of Macragge as well.
The Moilers?
Magnus the Red?
Yeah.
That'd be a weird thing for them to do.
Old One Eye, for those of you who don't know, the altar means fought, a war against the
Star Children.
And Old One Eye has remained, he's just this immortal, invincible angel that they've left
behind and he has his own cult now.
He's making his way downtown, he's walking fast.
Like Old One Eye, these guys believe in a creative physical strength and aggression,
and they have big giant armored engines that are big, like an aberrance.
Talk about those soon, that are just living battery rams basically.
That's awesome, they're awesome.
There's a few other random cults that don't really matter though, that I've never even
heard of.
They're on my list, but I don't even know what they are.
Yeah, there's an infinite number of cults, literally.
If you could think of one, if you could home for one, it's logical enough for it to exist,
to an extent I guess.
There are, I should say, there are an infected space marine chapter, I forgot to mention
that, I really like that, they're called the Sides of the Emperor.
Oh yeah, I remember that.
It's not in my notes, I'm just going off of memory here, but basically they've been
affected by the Gene Stealer's kiss.
So they wear psychic hoods to keep out the call of angels and Star Children, foolish
space marines.
But yeah, they wear hoods also to hide themselves from most of the world, because Gene Stealer
space marines sound pretty scary to me, but that's cool.
Kane again, and without too many spoilers, they do take precautions because space marines
very much can be infected.
That was a big worry in one of the Caiaphas Kane novels, dealing with the space hulk,
they all had to be safe because they didn't want the operation to end and then uh oh,
some of those marines came back with a few extra bits.
If I remember correctly, maybe remember correctly, the Sides of the Emperor set off the Pharaoh's
beacon, I think.
No, they are, chaters are assigned, they're assigned to protect it.
Yeah, and they have the heraldry of Barabastantiak on their, their like armor with the skull.
Oh no no no, that's silver skulls.
Yeah, I always get them confused because they have the look, but yeah.
As the Emperor, it's because they, the people who lived on the planet with a Pharaoh's beacon
is they had like these big scythes that would, they would use to cut their um, not wheat,
but like, you know, wheat equivalent, shall we say.
And so it was like the people of that world and so they basically took that like their
badge of honor.
One of them helped Belisarius Kull as well when he was trekking around and was dispatched
as like his little bodyguard.
Was he, I think he was involved with the, the little match that Belisarius had with
a katan shard, I think.
In the, Belisarius, his book, The Great Work.
Yeah, maybe.
He's definitely on the cover.
I did not know that.
Well, we'll talk about that in another video when we talk about Belisarius Kull.
Yeah, I believe Hal has a fun little story to tell.
Yes I do.
I've been dying to talk about this because this is just to talk a little, like an interesting
thing in the lore that happens to a genestealer cult and it was to deal with your main man,
not Ranny Savage, but um, Trezin the Infinite.
So in Trezin the Infinite's book, spoilers for say now, there is a, a small cameo, shall
we say, of a genestealer's and it was on the world of Serenade.
It was, the whole book is essentially around Trezin and his rival, Oricon the Diviner.
They kind of, they were forced to work together and they're trying to unlock the secrets of
the world of Serenade and they're like, sitting in this human amphitheatre, they're watching
a play happen and it's a little play called King Mischief.
It's like a special performance of the planet where they have a little ventriloquist doll,
I think it's called, is that ventriloquism isn't it?
And it has like a puppet and it requires like a third puppet hand to help perform the magic
tricks which is really funny because it's like, it's, so I should perform the mischief
and I put in brackets here, apparently it's a comedy because apparently people find it
funny that there's a little puppet.
And him and Oricon are just like in disguise, just like, you know, jab, you know, throwing
jabs at each other, talking smack.
And there's a point where Oricon notices that the performer's third arm is not a fake arm
or a puppet arm.
And this literally unveils, I'm sorry, unveils a genestealer uprising in the middle of it.
And the reason this happened was because centuries earlier, Trezin, for a laugh, took a genestealer
out of his like collection and he threw it at Oricon because he thought it would be funny.
And so that led to the genestealer surviving, running off and essentially starting this
cult that then takes over the world of Serenade.
And Oricon is like not happy because he's like, bro, we need this planet.
And that jokey pool two centuries ago has messed it up.
That was like a, I love that little part because it just shows, you know, essentially they
are in, there are like little cameos in other parts of different stories, but it's so funny
in that book.
It shows that necrons are goofballs, basically.
Oh, Trezin is definitely.
Yeah, they truly are.
I gotta read that book still, frick.
And we're going to briefly talk about their powers.
So I think I'll hand it back to Eli just to talk a little bit about their strengths and
stuff like that.
Although I think I might go first, to be fair, because I want to talk about a particular,
I'm just talking about one particular unit, which is called the Magus.
Funny enough, I just did a Magnus stuff.
So, and Magnus has caused the Magus of Prospero.
So that's quite interesting.
So a Genesealer Magus is essentially a Genesealer hybrid Psyca.
This is the one that is, I think you see a lot like art.
There's a lot of art for this one.
It can be like a man or a woman on the face of it.
Again, bald hairline gone.
And they are kind of, they're often the face of the cults.
So these are people who be like, oh, that kind of semi-famous person if you're a regular
Imperial citizen, you'd be like, I've heard of that person.
That's the person who leads that like weird sect or something like that.
And they have like a special role within the cult.
So like they're ceremonial leaders, diplomats, things like that.
But they also have their own like psychic abilities, which allow them to be even more
effective at, I guess, manipulating people.
So they have manipulation within the cult, but then they can also do it on other people
as well.
They also act like a beacon to what's called the call in the warp.
I think we mentioned that a little bit earlier too.
And that's like a boost to that.
A little funny part, I think I'm just remembering is that other Maguses, they actually compete
with each other in terms of like who could be the better Magus, which is quite funny.
They're not like working together.
Essentially, they're a little bit like Trezinn and Oricon in a way, because they're very
much.
I would say they're not independent thing, they're not independent thoughts.
Is that the way I say it?
But they're very much a highly motivated agent of the cult and they are deadly.
They are pretty, I mean, you don't want to face one in battle pretty much.
And I think I'll hand it back to Eli to talk about some of the other special members of
this beautiful star children race.
I should say, Mommy Magus wears, literally wears high heels.
No, I should all that you ruined it.
Oh my lord.
Yeah, I'll talk about some cool units that the Gene stealer called has also correlates
to how freaking expensive they are on the tabletop.
But because there's a lot of unique units.
Unfortunately, depending on where you live, characters can be pretty expensive.
Anywho, the blessings of the form Emperor are many, and there are a large amount of
unique forms which emerged from the breeding cycles usually around the third and fourth
generation, especially when the star children come near, they can kind of the disturbance
in the warp and all the turbulence will make these wacky genome start to sprout sprout
forth from the brood.
I can mention earlier, everyone's favorite basically is the color morph, which was going
to a little more detail.
They are three armed gunslinging hero.
They have from the third generation of the local cult, and they are genetically designed
there specifically designed to symbolize the glorious freedom fighting cause of the star
children.
They will three liberator auto stubs and can fire them off like unlimitedly.
Basically, they get to fire twice on the tabletop.
It's fun.
They're a one man army with guns blazing away and they waved through enemy lines with
their enhanced reflexes and strengths.
They're specifically made to exploit the human psyche, or I suppose whatever race of psyche
they were going to be around.
But as I kind of said earlier, they bring hope to the oppressed and adventure to the
criminal and something in the human brain just kind of like sparks when they see the
color morph.
They are blessed with heightened senses, speed and strengths.
And at times before the times shortly before Ascension, they are like they're literally
just a folk hero.
Being a hero to the people, a defender to the weak and a savior to the downtrodden.
No governor or overseer is safe from these stealthy skilled assassins.
And the color morph plays a key role in slaying the oppressors and figureheads of the world.
And when the day of Ascension comes, they stand with the armies being a great inspiration
to the masses as they cut down swaths of enemies with a hail of bullets.
They can even be equipped with ammunition called Wormtooth rounds that can destroy heavily
armored vehicles.
Cool stuff.
I get this is your favorite I feel.
This might be I think it's probably I think it's probably it's like everyone's favorite.
I don't know what my favorite is.
It's kind of hard to choose.
There's so many.
I like the color morph.
I like the Sanctus a lot as well.
I like the Jack of Elf because he rides a motorcycle and looks cool.
But there's so many cool ones.
The Nexus is really cool.
I'll talk about next.
He's literally the big brain of the cult.
His head is gigantic.
Literally.
Oh, that's the one of the model where it's like their brain is swelling, isn't it?
Yeah.
Oh, that's disgusting.
Yeah.
Sorry.
It's so many names.
They are blessed with beautiful, incredible intelligence and a knack for strategy and
pure memorization.
If you have a photographic memory, take that and times it by literally a million.
And it's these guys.
And their specific blessing and genome allows them to absorb thoughts and images from individuals
simply by touching them, if I remember correctly.
And these thoughts are then stored and I forgot, I don't know the word, search for the sea,
whatever.
They're stored.
Categorist?
Something like that.
Search for the sea and then I know I think.
What's the name of the unit again?
Compartmented.
There you go.
What's the name?
Compartmented.
Nexus.
N-E-X-O-S.
Nexus.
Oh, because I thought we could probably count that with like we throw a colon at it and
be like, read his mind and see what he has seen.
That's the thing.
It must be distracting.
You're like all of a sudden you just brush someone's shoulder by accident.
You walk in front of them and see everything they think about you.
You go, oh, bleach, bleach.
More of a curse.
You brush past someone's mind and in the course of three seconds, the entire B movie is filtered
in earring.
Oh my gosh.
It does originally, it does sound like a curse at first because like how could anyone have
that much information in their mind and not just go crazy.
Why have I now got that video in my head where like someone's like watching B movies like
I think that woman's going to F that B.
Sorry, sorry, sorry.
Okay.
So they are genetically made for this though.
So it's like second nature to them.
They don't mind.
They're not actually in pain or anything.
They just look wacky.
They're big fans of the B movie.
It's fine.
Their main task and job for Ascension Day is to create a replica map down to every single
tiny meticulous detail of the entire area where they'll be ascending.
So sometimes literally the entire planet.
They make these really wacky, cool 3D modeled planets.
The model for Warhammer actually is really neat.
They're over this little map thing from, yeah, anyways.
They do this to the tiniest detail and so incredible are they that usually the cult
itself knows more about the environment and the place and the planet they're going up
to fight on than the actual like planetary guard and military knows about it.
People who have lived there forever potentially.
That's the Nexus.
He's cool.
On the tabletop he gives you free command points and stuff and gives out tokens and
whatever.
The Sanctus, which is the last one I'll talk about in length because there's like literally
10.
But Sanctus is the main assassin of the cult.
They're masters of stealth, obviously.
But unlike most of the cults, they're very reclusive and they don't talk and mingle with
the congregation like most people would.
And they generally only hang around the patriarch.
Very privileged indeed.
They wield an atrophic blade, which is distilled using the Genesis pool of the cult, which
has all the fallen brothers and Broodkin and the psychic might of all of these individuals
pooled together in this goop.
And then that's used to make this blade, which is also probably used from the patriarch's
throne.
Could one call it like a poop knife?
Yeah, the Sanctus has a poop.
This is the closest I'm ever going to get.
Come on boys, let me have it.
Three armed poot.
Oh gosh.
Three armed poop knife oosie.
Let's just get them all out of the way right now.
Oh my god.
Oh, Megusy is, yeah there you go.
Next oosie.
Oh my lord.
So the poop knife, when it touches somebody, their heads explode basically and their brains
are reduced to slag as they're filled with the psychic shock and screams.
So stupid.
The poop knife inserts the entire Bee movie into their brain at once.
Literally, literally.
The Bee movie poop knife reduces.
Oh, that's just gross.
What's the deal about poop knives?
You like ass?
They also carry sniper rifles, which usually fire like toxic poisonous darts that are designed
by the cults Biofagus.
The Biofagus is like their doctor kind of and scientist.
They're effectively, they're especially effective against psychers.
Certain toxin will overload their brains and allow the psychic fortress that is the angels
and the star children to just have full consumption of them.
And as they're overloaded with this insane psychic might, their heads also explode.
There's a lot of exploding heads going on, I guess.
But yeah, they're pretty good.
They usually running around with them is a little familiar.
That the patriarch is like handmade and the patriarch can see you through the familiar
and give extra orders to that.
The patriarch will also psychically stamp an individual.
Oh, that's not the right way to describe it, I guess.
Each individual has their own psychic scent and the patriarch will give this to the next,
the sanctus.
And so like they basically can't hide no matter where they go because it has their scent picked
up on their trail.
They wear these fancy three-eyed goggles as well that they usually make or steal that
sees in whatever every vision.
They never miss that type of thing.
On the tabletop, they actually literally never miss their attacks automatically hit.
Pretty neat.
Oh, that's pretty cool.
Nice.
Yeah.
Some honorable mentions, which are basically just all the other ones, are the primus, who's
a strong-backed military leader, the biophages, who's the genius scientist, doctor type, the
aberrants and aberration.
The aberrants are basically purple three-armed augrins with big hammers and the aberration
is slightly smarter.
The aberration model you might have seen, they have like two heads and they're splitting
off from each other.
It's pretty wacky.
The clamviss is a propaganda slash truth machine who can upload basically like this wacky screen
thing to all the Vox networks and make people's ears bleed and brains melt and stuff.
The reductus saboteur.
The Alex Jones of the...
Turn the freaking frogs into...
The reductus saboteur is a cool one.
They're a genetically designed domestic terrorist.
That's fun.
That's a hell of a sentence.
There's a quote right there.
The demo man, but with three arms and also purple.
They are masters at making bombs and blowing things up and that's it.
Basically they can like squeeze through pipes and stuff though to get to the pristine location
to blow it up.
They make the cults explosives, which kind of moves us into the technology section.
After I say this one last one, which is the Jackal Elfus, who's a bike ganger sniper guy.
Moving on to the technology of the cult, what they use to fight with, which is also a reason
why they're fighting with a disadvantage.
They have to be very, very meticulous in their planning and have the perfect strategy because
most of what the cult fights with are just repurposed civilian vehicles and handmade
weapons.
Something like the Hive cult is going to be better equipped obviously and take their Lehman
Russes and Basilisks and all the hijacked stuff if they get.
Other cults might be lucky and have enough sleeper agent types in the astromelotaur,
but usually it's just salvage technology, stuff they put together, like literally buzz
saws and mining equipment, which sounds funny at first, but when you think about it in the
41st millennium, mining equipment is pretty efficient and it's pretty dang good at cutting
through the hardest materials that the galaxy has to offer.
So these buzz saw look at things and power tools and slice through power armor and they
definitely get the job done.
Before we go too far from the tabletop stuff, could I say two things about it really quick?
Of course.
One would be, well I haven't looked too in depth on them yet, the Gene Stealer Combat
Patrol box is actually one of the better ones for what you get.
The only thing that looks a bit redundant might be the Magus.
Everything else you can more than certainly use multiple copies of.
So for repeat buys it's definitely one of the better boxes.
The other thing was, I absolutely love that the aberrant hit two more damage than the
custodians.
One of them is just wielding a yield sign and you rip it out of the ground.
So on the one hand you have a perfectly crafted demi-god of war, crafted to be God's personal
bodyguard, and in the other corner you have Steve from mining with stuff that's ripped
out of the ground and Steve hits harder.
They're lots of fun.
We can talk about the aberrants for a second.
The aberrants aren't born as aberrants.
Their origins are kind of debated actually by Imperial scholars.
Some might think that they just emerge because the angels are close.
Sometimes it's a bio-phage just tinkering with genetics.
But basically certain individuals of the cult will undergo this huge, very painful transformation
over the span of like a week or so.
And they'll end up these gigantic, like Colin said, gigantic nine feet tall purple beasts
who are capable of tearing men in two like paper.
They're basically augrins though.
They can be entertained by a children's toy and just are just nice.
But when the day of ascension comes and it's time to fight, they are not to be reckoned
with for sure.
Usually a lot of times they're led by the bio-phages who helps in their ascension.
Back to the technology.
It's not a lot more to say.
It is really just basic stuff usually.
There's just enough of them to make it work.
They have like handmade or homemade flamers, like little pistol flamers.
The most famous of their vehicles probably is the widespread generally used mining vehicle,
which is the Goliath STC design.
There's the Goliath truck, which they use as a transport.
And then there's the Goliath rock grinder, which is made to grind, like I said, the galaxy's
hardest materials down to dust.
So it's very good for running into people and buzz sawing them into little mushy bits.
The kit for the game is a freaking pain.
It's literally a hundred pieces and it's not even bigger than a camera.
Oh lord.
But yeah.
That is woe to you who buys the GeneStealer cults kits.
They are quite the pain to build, but they're cool and fun.
If you're good at building it, it's pretty fun.
Oh yeah, they're the perfect meat grinder.
They're designed for extreme terrain and hazardous places, so they're pretty tough.
You don't have to worry if they're only going 80 kilometers an hour at most, maybe like
60, I don't know.
They still hit hard enough and can run through vehicles and stuff like that.
So lastly, right before we get to the Day of Ascension, I can touch a tiny bit on how
they worship.
It's also not overly complicated.
It's just a congregation of people.
They're very tight-knit community.
They help those in need in the community and pick them up.
They laugh when others laugh, they cry when others cry.
That's from the Bible.
Sorry.
Did you just quote the Bible on a G-State?
I paraphrased.
I very much paraphrased.
I don't know if that's a law crime or something.
A real crime.
Or if it's a Bible crime.
But yeah, they're very, very tight-knit community and they're led by the Magus in their worship
usually.
The angels sing to the Magus and she can hear them.
As they get closer, she can really hear them.
So they all sing hymns to the four-armed emperor and have their own ways of worship.
Yeah, it's a grand old time in the underways of Jean Steeler cults.
Nice little cozy community going to Sunday church.
Yeah.
Committing untold amounts of heresy.
That's one way to look at it.
So, they have the day of ascension, which is the grand finale.
What the cult's been waiting for, what they've been promised for generation after generation
and it's finally here.
They will finally be freed from oppression and taken into the embrace of the star children
in a holy union.
And depending on how you look at this, that is true.
It is true.
I have a quote here, someone can read.
Who wants to read a quote?
Who's filling out for that one?
I haven't posted it yet.
I'll read a quote if it's okay.
Yeah, I legally put it in the regular chat instead of the fancy chat.
Toe her horsely.
All right, I'll have to, I got to get my voice nice and hoarse for this.
It's a tech ad up to them.
Gotcha.
Unfortunately, I can't speak like a speaking bell.
So I...
You're one zero.
Yeah.
You're making, I'll do my best.
You're making a mistake.
He told her horsely.
The things you want to call out to, they will consume you.
They're not angels, they're monsters.
Her face was beatifically calm when she answered him.
What makes you think?
She said that they are two different things.
Yeah, she then proceeds to put the pistols of the tech ad up's head in.
It blows brains out, it was awesome.
That's major spoilers to The Day of Ascension.
I guess you should have been expecting that though if you're watching this.
The Day of Ascension is an awesome book, you should read it.
Can we say the fun word yet?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
They come.
The Star Children, the gods, they have finally arrived and it is the Tyranids.
The great, vast, monstrous, all-consuming, Xeno species from beyond our galaxy.
The four Fetishists.
I should have gotten a second quote though.
The Sekiri, no not Sekiri, what's her name?
I don't know, the main character of this.
She is not allowed to be part of Ascension sadly.
She has to go on and spread the truth amongst the stars.
So she leaves the planet as Ascension Day is coming and she sees the Tyranid biofleet
emerge above the planet and sends spores down to the planet to reclaim their children.
To her it is just as she imagined.
All the spines and teeth and tendrils, it's beautiful to her and it's quite glorious.
So not everyone, it's not bad for everyone.
Basically the Tyranids come and conveniently the planet's military has been killed and
destroyed and now all this biomass is free for the taking.
So the cults and the planet and everyone with it is consumed by the Tyranids in glorious
union with the Star Children.
Hooray.
This isn't to say though, this isn't to say that cults always die when the Tyranids come.
Usually the very general case is that they eat.
They would always die if they didn't have other options.
Yeah.
9 out of 10 times.
Yes, but 1 out of 10 times they aren't, well I don't even know if 1 out of 10 is the right
probably like 0.1 out of 10.
There have been reports though of ships and cultists leaving the planet with the Tyranids
which is crazy.
Sometimes the cults will join the Imperial defenders and believe that they've made a
mistake and help fight off the Tyranids.
Usually though they'll just fight with the Tyranids to destroy the Imperials or whatever
world they're on.
Is that if the Patriarch is killed because the signal's worse?
Probably, it probably helps.
The call of the Tyranids.
The angels of death series.
Yeah, they do not look happy.
They're like oh you run away, yeah go and run back to your house.
I was going to ask that because I think sometimes, because obviously the Tyranid hive mind is
sending out a signal the entire time.
Obviously that's what's kind of, the Patriarch is boosting that signal for the cult.
I think sometimes it just goes I don't need to blast the signal anymore.
Sometimes it's devouring and then they go oh no.
That's when some of them realise what's happened.
Yes.
Sometimes the cult believes that they've made a mistake.
Sometimes they don't.
In the end they do truly become unified with the Tyranids, with the star children.
They are biomass that is then used by the Tyranid fleet to create other organisms and
return to their pilgrimage amongst the stars.
And they are freed from the shackles of slavery and oppression and all the pain is taken away.
That's one way of putting it I suppose.
Wow that was a lot of propaganda.
I have to say.
Thank you.
Propaganda is based.
The faction you like the most is always in the right.
That's right.
That's freaking right.
That's actually kind of true.
The best factions are the one I like.
Yep.
Thank you.
Oh, was that what you were going to say?
No, you can keep going.
I was going to say.
It called me awesome.
Thank you so much Eli.
That was a, I think we, we got, we are the experts on genusialis now.
We can actually.
What?
This is the first time I've been.
That's like basically everything.
I actually feel like an expert now.
I'm going to go rob a Levi's store now.
That's the only reason this is a joke.
Did you guys have any, any questions or comments?
Do you have like a particular favorite maybe unit, a favorite cult or a favorite type of
genusialis?
You know, the center Armstrong, Austin power, Patrick, one more thing to lobby Elon Musk
simp, you know what I mean?
I really liked the idea of like, like there was the, what was its name again?
The one that started worshiping Nergal.
So I'll T I know.
Coltenebrous Coltenebrous.
I like the idea of that happening with other like deities.
And I like, I, this really funny image in my mind I have of them accidentally going
full circle and a gene sailor cult starts worshiping the actual emperor.
Like if you like, I don't know how this happened.
The two armed emperor.
How holy is he?
Like accidentally it's just like, it's some inquisitor goes like, I feel like I should
do something about this, but I'm not going to.
Or an inquisitor finds a way to like mess with their like signal and turns them against
and goes, right.
Use our emperors.
Yeah, that'll work.
That'd be good.
The two leg, two armed emperor.
Does the idea of what they actually are, is that clear enough?
Do you think we might have to do a tyrannids beginner to expert one of these days for all
those newbies to really understand what the tyrannids are?
I think, yeah, I've got a really good grasp because they're, they're quite a, like a
unique flavor, I think in one as well, because they are a bit, they're not like orcs where
orcs are a bit, you know, they're common, but like, they are pretty much a, again, like
I said before, it's like a different flavor.
It's like, it's so opposite to what a space Marine is nice.
They're like, they're a good enemy.
If you know what I mean, I enjoy, I enjoy that.
Yeah.
Oh, sorry.
I was, I like how they're like, obviously, Jesus, as a whole are a pretty big scale threat,
but like individual gene sealer cults, they're really only a problem for the planet they're
on.
I like that it's smaller scale than Abaddon rocking up to blow up a star system for the
10th time.
Yeah.
And I guess it should also be said that like, sometimes the tyrannids don't even show up.
Like that's the thing, sometimes the day of ascension happens and they win.
And then they just, it's just like a deadbeat dad is like, okay.
This is like, you know, when black Friday, like, and then started out and it was a big
thing.
And then now black Friday and like, you know, the people, the videos, like people opening
stores and like, no one's rushing in because they already know that they've already hiked
up the price.
I remember just Amazon or cyber Monday buying.
The cults, like, you know, a lot of people don't like the faction because they think,
oh, like all my cool characters just die in the end.
I mean, like, yeah, but they do.
So does everyone.
Everyone dies eventually, right?
Like these aren't immortal beings like the Eldar or space Marines and the towel characters
only live because they get put to sleep every time they come out and like that's not going
to happen.
Spicy poop knives.
Yeah.
Also guys like the sons of Jormungandr, they don't even live on planets, they live in space.
A lot of cults will spread to the stars in general.
Like I said, from the day of Ascension, the girl leaves with the skitarii alpha to go
spread to other places.
So it's not always the end for everyone in the cult.
It helps them like with the tabletop aspects of Warhammer because like with like with the
immortality thing, like, you know, we're booted Gillam it like the Primarchs aren't going
to age to death, but in the context of a war game, there's nothing stopping him from some
random towel rail gun or tabling him turn one of them mad.
And then narratively, that would be the fate of the Primarch of the Imperium.
Some guy in a rail gun, a hundred feet away blew his head off.
Versus, you know, with the gene stealers, it blends with them being a war game faction
in a way because yeah, their end result is they joined the star gods, they get eaten
by tyranids, but it makes them more war game in a way.
I have to say thank you so much, Eli, because you did a lot of research there.
We appreciate that a lot.
That was a we are experts.
100% I feel like at the end of the day.
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It helps help us please.
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We do have eight arms in total.
It's just a multiple of four.
We have the eight armed emperor.
And tune in next time for our next episode.
We'll be doing, we're turning a little bit to Horace Heresley, Horace Heresley, Horace
Heresy, era slash 30k, we're talking about the, the giga chads themselves, the Primarks
little dabble into all of them.
He likes robot girly man.
Oh, don't forget to if you made it this far.
Thank you.
Firstly, and also the question we did at the beginning where what's your hot take on your
least favorite Primark hashtag hot take for your comment there.
And we'll see you all next time.
Thank you so much for listening and watching everyone.
Well, blessings upon you.
Love you all.