Norn Beast Lore

• 10th Ed Codex [Tyranids]:

"Norn Emissaries, Norn Assimilators and other examples of these monstrous bioforms are being sighted with increasing frequency. Unusually for Tyranids of such apparent neural autonomy, these creatures do not appear to fulfil a leadership role. Instead they operate alongside the swarms in a way that suggests independent thought and goals. The Norn-beasts do exhibit varying levels of synaptic capability. Yet these seem to be employed by the towering monsters not in aid of the wider strategic picture, but simply to spend lesser warrior organisms to aid them in concluding their own hunts.

such bioforms subjected to after-action battlefield analysis by strategos have been identified as pursuing their own - for want of a better term - missions. These tasks are atypical of the ways in which the vast mass of Tyranids prosecute their predatory wars: the abduction of individuals: the theft of significant intelligence or relics: the sabotage of installations and so forth. The Norn-beasts demonstrate a frightening degree of intelligence and guile in their single minded pursuit of their goals, not to mention an agility and swiftness that seems wholly unnatural in creatures so large.

The origins of these terrifying bioforms remain as mysterious and provocative as the questions of what higher purposes may be served by their deployment. Some Imperial biologians theorise that the organisms are fashioned by the Norn Queens themselves to act as extensions of their - and by proxy the Hive Mind's will, perhaps even in the literal sense of detaching themselves from the greater mass of the Queens' physical forms and returning to a conjoined state when their duties are done. So grotesque and darkly suggestive a notion is this, that it has triggered several minor conflicts and numerous accusations of heresy between cabals of the Ordo Xenos. So does even rumour of the Tyranids true nature spread fear and division amongst those who should stand united against their endless hunger."