Genestealer Patriarch

A Genestealer Patriarch is the massive Tyranid Genestealer bioform who is the original vector that created a Genestealer Cult on an infected world and becomes its leader. Lurking at the centre of a Genestealer Cult's web of lies is the Patriarch, father of a hidden dynasty. Twice the height of a Space Marine and with strength enough to slice an Ogryn into bloody chunks, this creature is a leering nightmare of tooth and claw. In a flurry of whipping limbs and diamond-hard talons the Patriarch can tear through platoons of heavily armoured warriors and even light vehicles. Yet it is the hypnotic psychic spell with which it binds its chosen hosts that mark it out as perhaps the most dangerous Tyranid yet encountered by the Imperium. The uncanny powers of the Patriarch make it a fearsome puppet master, a threat so pervasive it has a xenocode threat designation unto itself. By spreading the Genestealer Curse, this creature is capable of destroying not just warriors and warmachines, but entire worlds.

It is unknown what relationship, if any, there exists between a Patriarch and the similar Genestealer organism known as a Broodlord.

Role
Like the monarch of a dark underworld the Patriarch squats in its lair, glowering and licking its claws in anticipation of the day when it will rise up to make every sentient creature on the planet it now calls home its devoted gene-slave. Once, the beast was but a Genestealer, likely one of an identical brood and no more remarkable than any of the uncounted billions of such organisms abroad in the galaxy. Once cut off from the Hive Mind, a new genetic imperitive takes over. Upon reaching its prey world, perhaps as a stowaway on some nameless freighter or piece of stellar debris, the nascent Patriarch creeps from its vector vessel into the darkness of its new domain. There, it learns of the planet it has taken as its new home, and abducts the first of its victims. With the Genestealer's Kiss, the monster becomes the first of its brood to bestow its foul legacy upon a native host. In this rapacious action, it takes the first step to becoming a Patriarch.

As the strange alchemy of the alien's life cycle takes hold, that first creature to infect a host on a new planet grows ever larger and more potent. Much as an alpha simian of Terra becomes heavier and grows outward signs of dominance to mark its ascendance, the Patriarch's body bulks out, its claws lengthening until they are more like bony sabres than simple talons. The creature's mind develops too, filling with strange telepathic energies until its engorged cranium bulges fit to burst. At first, its instincts are only to survive and to procreate, and its abilities develop accordingly. Eventually, however, the Genestealer's uncanny ability to enthral its prey burgeons into a suite of telepathic abilities that can bind a person to its service with but a flicker of its cold, inhuman eyes.

To gaze into the eyes of a Patriarch is to gaze into the void and feel a fraction of the Tyranid Hive Mind staring back. One who faces such terrible power realises that he is no more than a speck of cosmic dust adrift in an uncaring universe. His shattered mind is then easily bound -- he will accept the Patriarch as the harbinger of an irresistible new order or be driven to insanity, his doomsayer rantings those of just another madman broken by the endless grind of life in the Imperium of Man. Those few individuals strong-willed enough to resist the Patriarch's dominion might raise a hand or blade to strike it, but this will invariably be their last act before the beast rips them limb from limb.

Wargear

 * Patriarch Claws
 * Psychic powers