Abominant

"The Lumberglatch, they call it. I heard tales enough as a lad, and I always put 'em down to flights of fancy, just like the hooded mamzels tell you to. Since last night, I'm damned sure it's no story. We saw it, Dogged Loz and I, shuffling in the cathedrum like it was lost. Then it saw us, and it weren't lost no more. It got Loz, tore him limb from limb while I...went for help."

- Zogan the Scruff, recyc vendor

An Abominant is a mutant Genestealer hybrid who has been genetically reshaped by the will of its Genestealer Cult Patriarch to become a potent, hulking monstrosity that leads other Aberrants into battle.

The Abominant is psychically directed by the Mindwyrm Familiar that created it so that its line-breaking combat power is deployed during the Genestealer Cult's military actions to where it can have the greatest tactical effect upon the defenders' forces.

Role
The Abominant comes lumbering across the field with a rolling, lopsided stride. A champion amongst the mutant Aberrants of its cult, each is a misshapen wrecking ball of muscle and chitin that wields a heavy bludgeoning instrument as if it weighed no more than a switch of willow.

So hideous is this gene-cursed monster that Imperial soldiers recoil in revulsion at the sight of its bifurcated features and twisted, alien anatomy. Only when the roaring, demented brute crushes all before it in a spasmodic frenzy, crying out in a mixture of anger, pain and self-loathing, does the true horror of its existence become clear.

Like the Aberrants from which they are created, Abominants are born from a deviation in the typical Genestealer Cult brood cycle. Usually occurring towards the latter iterations of a cult's lifespan, an Abominant begins life as any other Aberrant -- a freak occurrence, a mistake that occurred during the implantation of the original Genestealer DNA or as a result of an interbreeding between its parents gone awry. After its unnatural birth, however, its power is fostered and nurtured to new levels, for such raw strength and destructive potential is not to be wasted by the cult.

In order to better herd its Aberrant shock troops to battle, the Genestealer Patriarch visits its blessings upon a chosen Aberrant in each gene-sect. He does so using a Mindwyrm Familiar, a diminutive xenos creature that is both progenitor and guide to the larger entity. A bio-psychic construct that is given life in the decaying slurry that gathers in the Patriarch's lair, it is the Mindwyrm Familiar's role to implant the soon-to-be-Abominant with a portion of its master's own biomass and genetic structure.

It does so with a strange echo of the Genestealer's Kiss, implanting its tiny ovipositor into the toughened hide of the Aberrant and placing a potent gene-curse within its cellular structure. Thus is an Abominant born.

Once the mutagen is implanted into the chosen Aberrant, the creature is reshaped over long and agonising nights of physical metamorphosis. Its already robust frame grows even larger and more powerful. Its flesh splits and its bones break under the strain of rampant gigantism. Such wounds are quickly healed by the Patriarch-bestowed mutagen infesting the Abominant's body, just as the blows of enemy warriors are shrugged off or rent flesh swiftly regenerated in battle.



The Mindwyrm Familiar does not depart after this strange gift is given, but continues to exert the will of the Patriarch on the Abominant. It uses the hulking thrall's bulk to break open enemy lines by shepherding it headlong into the most redoubtable foes, where its hammer smashes an opening by sending warriors flying. The creature's Aberrant kindred blindly follow the lumbering brute into the fray, incited to ever-greater acts of slaughter.

They see the Abominant as a saintly figure, a blessed disciple chosen by their god and anointed with his most blessed mutations. In truth the Abominant is no more emotionally or spiritually attached to the cult's masters than the hammer it wields. The creature is useful indeed, but with its intellect not much greater than that of a human toddler, the role of true war leader is forever denied to it.

If the Patriarch is the heart of the gene-sect and the Magus its psyche, the Abominant is its gnarled fist. It is its role to shatter, to crush, to destroy with brute force that which stands in the path of the cultists' ultimate victory. Before the day of ascension, these grotesque beasts are typically put to work in conquering an underground region or distant outpost -- for should an Imperial citizen see an Abominant roaming the streets in broad daylight, the subsequent panic might do the cult more harm than good.

When the gene-sect lies low, the Abominant is often given playthings to keep it docile -- the broken bodies of those the Magus has ordered slain, captured animals, or even simple toys taken from the houses of the upworlders. To take these amusements away from the Abominant is to drive it into a rage that can last for solar days -- all the war leaders need to do at that stage is to simply point the creature in the direction of those the cult needs crushed into a crimson paste, and its blind rage will do the rest.

When the cultists cast off their disguises on the day of uprising, the Abominant is given free rein to wreak destruction as it sees fit, its Mindwyrm Familiar hissing and rubbing its claws like a fly preparing to feast on a mound of rotting offal.

Wargear

 * Rending Claw
 * Power Sledgehammer
 * Mindwyrm Familiar