Sanctus

"Epistolary Coloxus had been in command of the assault for days; his burning gaze had incinerated so many of the xenos things the air was thick with ash. I saw the dart that killed him. It struck just under his psychic hood. I cried out, but it was too late. His own white flames consumed him, and he was no more."

- Veteran Sergeant Altherius

A Sanctus or Genestealer Sanctus is a Genestealer hybrid who serves as the primary assassins of the Genestealer Cults. They are tasked with the elimination of any who present an obstacle to the cult's spread or represent a threat to its continued survival.

They are accompanied on their bloody tasks by a Soulsight Genestealer Familiar that serves as a direct psychic conduit back to the Genestealer Patriarch that created it.

Role
Sanctuses are the favoured blades of their Genestealer Patriarch, assassins whose task it is to eliminate any who oppose the cultists' ascension to glory. Like creeping shadows they slip into the most heavily guarded facilities, seeking out their targets and eliminating them with merciless precision.

Unlike the majority of the cult's bioforms, Sanctuses are solitary creatures, rarely interacting with their broodkin. Indeed, when not on the hunt they dwell close to their gene-sire's throne, lurking high in the stanchions above the Patriarch's lair to better observe all through their Tri-lens Goggles.



These multi-sensor eyepieces -- usually stolen from Departmento Munitorum supply yards or stripped from the bodies of slain foes -- track motion in the infrared and subsonic spectrums. When combined with a Sanctus' formidable olfactory senses, they render escape almost impossible for their prey.

The atrophic blades that many Sanctuses wield are gifts from their gene-sire. These are grown within bubbling genesis pools of psychoactive liquid that contain the psychic essence of slain cultists in liquid form -- the accumulated legacy of the Patriarch's genetic curse. Each is formed from alien biomatter and imbued with the same liquids contained within the genesis pools.

Beings struck with such a weapon who are not part of the cult's Broodmind are overcome with agony as the echo of a million formless voices explodes inside their minds. Unable to contain such immense psychic energies, many victims simply drop dead on the spot, their brain turned to boiling slurry.

Other Sanctuses prefer to kill at a distance. For this task, they utilise a marksman Sniper Rifle converted to fire needler rounds. Each toxin dart carried by the Sanctus is filled with an alchemical serum brewed by their gene-sect's Biophagus. Engineered from a pure sample of Genestealer blood, this mind-affecting poison can render its target a drooling imbecile in solar seconds.

Should that target be a psyker and its mind be connected to the psychic energies of the Warp, the serum induces a neural overload as it seeps into the victim's cerebellum, visiting the horror of the Hive Mind upon them. In this way, the Sanctus eliminates an individual who would otherwise prove a lynchpin of the enemy force's defence against the psychic onslaught of their Patriarch and the Magus.



When the Patriarch desires a target slain, it will suffuse its Sanctuses with a trace of the victim's psychic spoor, a telepathic scent that these assassins follow like bloodhounds across spire-towers and through winding sub-levels. No matter where their prey goes to ground, a Sanctus will always find them. They possess multi-jointed limbs and malleable musculature that allow them to squeeze through the tightest of apertures, and can move in total silence, slipping past sentries with ease.

On many occasions a pivotal figure in an infected world's government or military has gone to ground inwhat was thought to be a maximum-security bunker -- only for their ruptured corpse to be discovered solar hours later, an expression of indescribable pain etched across their face.

Sanctuses are accompanied on their missions by Genestealer Familiars that act as the Patriarch's ever-watchful eyes. When the gene-sire of the cult slides its loathsome form back into its genesis pool, it immerses itself in a flood of genetic memories.

Familiars themselves are formed from this psychic miasma, and when lurking beneath the surface of its bio-slurry, a Patriarch can see through the eyes of these scuttling psychic manifestations, better directing its silent blades towards the desired target.

Wargear

 * Silencer Sniper Rifle - The Silencer Sniper Rifle has been modified froma normal Sniper Rifle to fire Needler rounds.
 * Sanctus Bio-dagger
 * Soulsight Genestealer Familiar