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I'm pretty sure such a thing couldn't exist on craftworlds due largely to the act that the Eldar tech is a psychic based and would be picked up on fairly quickly. but what about the dark Eldar? anyone got any thoughts? how about Exodite worlds?

A cult would never form in any Eldar society with psychic potential, I'm sure they'd be able to feel the taint. And also due to Eldar reproduction being slow a cult wouldn't spread fast enough.

Dark Eldar are a maybe, but only in the slums or amoung the slaves, never amoung the spire dwelling Eldar. The funny thing is even if a cult did form, and its 100% plausible that it has, they'd simply be another run of the mill danger in low Commarragh. They wouldn't be able to call the Hive Fleet, if they drew too much attention they'd be decimated until they slowly regrow, and a Genestealer isn't much scarier then an Ur-Ghul.

God an RPG set in low Commarragh based on Necromunda would be ace!

Well, if they popped up in Commorragh, they last until Vect decides they're no longer useful as a tool for getting rid of Archons who rub him the wrong way.

 Robin5t wrote:
Well, if they popped up in Commorragh, they last until Vect decides they're no longer useful as a tool for getting rid of Archons who rub him the wrong way.

Lets be fair, Vect doesn't give a gak what's going on in the Null City or Port Carmine or any of the other slums around Commorragh. He might care who's in charge, but he won't really put much effort into a genestealer infestation. It's just simply not an issue, there are much worse things lurking in the dark of low Commorragh. Although I agree that if he came across the information it would 100% be filed under ''might be useful for a scheme one day'' so one day the Kabal of the Black Heart swoops down to the Null City, rounds up all Genestealers and purposely spreads them throughout an imperial sector he'd want to pillage .

I think it depends on the question. Is it possible? Yes. In the old books (and maybe still), genestealers could infect any species. So it is possible that there were/are eldar hybrids. Would a cult be likely to form and/or last long? Probably not, due to the reasons others have said. The hive mind has probably given up trying to infect eldar and their dark cousins due to lack of success and stuck with faster reproducing species like humans.

Exodites are a maybe. They live in semi-nomadic tribes that may not be in touch with each other very often so an isolated secretive group might be infected and pass unnoticed for awhile. However whenever there is contact, the innate Eldar psychic talents might be able to tell that something is not right with that group.

Exodites are a strange one to consider. Maiden Worlds are pretty much all you can eat buffet's to a Hive Fleet, but low population numbers and the already mentioned slow reproductive cycle of the Eldar means it would take a very long time for a Cult to form and build strength and in the end what would be it's purpose? Other than acting as a beacon to a Hive Fleet there's not much in the way of planetary defence, if an inhabited Maiden World gets attacked it would most likely be a Craftworld that does most of the defending (or more likely desperate attempt at evacuation and saving the soles trapped in the World Crystal).

Another thing to note with attempting to form a Cult in Commoragh is that the plenty of the Covens consider unraveling the mysteries of Tyranid DNA to be the holy grail genetic engeneering, a Cult comming to prominence would almost certainly be announcing open season on itself with the Covens.

Well, the exodites do often have a military capability themselves - eldar Knight clans were a thing, as are the dragon knights and megasaur knights, and the world spirit is sufficiently tied into the ecosystem that essentially an Avatar-style "weaponised ecosystem" is not impossible.

The cult wouldn't be able to build a great population, but (a) each individual eldar (or eldar hybrid) has a much greater psychic potential than an equivalent human, and (b) if they can corrupt the world spirit in some way you've got a planet-sized psy-amplifier.

A Genestealer cult on an Exodite world is going to run into a hell of a brick wall when they run into a worldsinger, though. An extremely powerful psyker who can exert complete control over pathogens and viruses is basically their worst nightmare come to life.

True. But such an individual under the cult's control is the planet's worst nightmare come to life.

locarno24 wrote:
True. But such an individual under the cult's control is the planet's worst nightmare come to life.

That's the sort of thing that generally ends in the World Spirit raging out and attempting to destroy the Webway, if past performance is any indication.

Don't forget the cults have a massively sped up reproduction cycle, so they could spawn relatively (for eldar) quickly on a craftworld

I think the old fluff mentioned it was possible and technically many eldar genestealer cults have been started. They just generally last an incredibly short amount of time as they're easily discovered in *all* eldar societies.

I doubt there has been any that have lasted long enough to result in their intended purpose. But who knows?

Eldar society and psychic potential tend to be the twin guards against truly large scale Genestealer Cults forming in Eldar societies.

That said, Eldar individually are just as vulnerable as any other organic race to being co-opted by a Genestealer's Kiss (the Valedor novel briefly touches on this) and in theory a small enough Eldar colony could well be overtaken swiftly (or subtly) enough that the untainted are outnumbered and/or outmaneuvered before they have a chance to react/escape/purge.

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:

God an RPG set in low Commarragh based on Necromunda would be ace!

Okay, that does sound legit awesome. Yes please.

Infecting a single Eldar on some battlefield would be possible, but the moment he'd set his foot on any Craftworld, his mates would kill him in an instant.

They suffer the same fate as ork genestealer cults. They almost immediately get discovered by outsiders as being infected. There is no way that a cult could hide their strange psychic anomalies long enough to do serious harm. I

Tau genestealer cults on the other hand might be interesting.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I don't even believe that they would go unnoticed in Commarragh. You simply can't try sending a psyionic beacon into the void without being as obvious a large open air music festival to any member of the eldar race.

No chance of it going unnoticed amongst dark eldar. They specifically forbid psychic powers, so the moment the broodlord exerts psychic control over his underlings, it'll trigger a crisis amongst the ruling elite.

SideSwipe wrote:
No chance of it going unnoticed amongst dark eldar. They specifically forbid psychic powers, so the moment the broodlord exerts psychic control over his underlings, it'll trigger a crisis amongst the ruling elite.

Dark Eldar use psykers as playthings and tools though (and have wargear options that contain bits of psykers & let them access their powers), so they aren't quite as freaked out by psychic ability if it's contained.

I wouldn't be surprised if some sick minded haemonculi, Kabal, beastmaster or wych intentionally breeding them for some reason.

Genestealer Cults in Commorragh are possible. They thrive in the Imperium's hive cities because there is a vast lawless underhive and oppressed class where the authorities' rule is tenuous at best. The same goes for Commorragh. The Kabals' hold on some areas is tenuous or non-existent and there are underhive like areas of neglect. There are slaves, alien mercenaries, corsairs, and all sorts of riff-raff in these areas and a cult could take hold there.

The Dark Eldar forbid psychic powers, but that does not mean some have not tried to get away with it anyway, and they do torture or use captured psykers for their own purposes. There is one Kabal that has hidden away weapons of mass destruction from the old Eldar Empire, and these rely on psychic triggers. They just don't use them because of Vect's rules against psychic powers, but the fact they still keep those weapons means in extremis they might still use them.

Also, as noted in Andy Chambers' Dark Eldar trilogy novels, the Dark Eldar have let their innate psychic abilities atrophy from lack of use. A Craftworld Eldar Ranger who briefly toys with the excesses of being Dark Eldar marvels at how psychically blind the Dark Eldar can be as they fail to notice something that even he, an psychically untrained Craftworld Eldar, can sense. The Eldar Harlequin Motley also notes how Vect's body double mimics Vect physically in every way, but fails to fool Motley for even a moment as he can intuitively psychically sense the body double does not have Vect's force of will and personality. So a Genestealer Cult could conceivably lurk in Commorragh so long as they keep a low profile and avoid any overt flashy psychic power use.