Techno-Shaman
Techno-Shamans are psychic members of the Rak'Gol species, often found alone or in small groups aboard their ships. Techno-Shamans are terrifying fighters, blurring the line between organic mind and a machine,[1a] with their body fused with technology in unknown arcane ways.[1b]
Role in Rak'Gol hunts
While they are rarely deployed, they take the lead of any hunting party, considered superfluous due to Rak'Gol superiority to any prey they hunt, as available Imperial records fail to reason for this different approach to the hunt. They are known to unleash brutal and invisible torrents of power out of crystalline implants stolen from Yu'Vath constructs, that seem to slowly grow inwards in their bodies,[1a] and bathe them in arcs of the foul energies.[1b] Those Yu'vath crystals,[1a] called Resonator Implants,[1b] are considered to informally be a reason for the deployment of Techno-Shamans, a conjecture emergent from hurriedly relayed transmissions shows a pattern of attacks on those carrying the ancient lore and technology of Yu'Vath. Any researcher of this xeno species of yore seems to be a target for a Techno-Shaman party, whether the data they carry is in their hands or in their mind, the purpose of this acquisition of data is not precisely clear.[1a]
Abilities
In line with their race's bloodlust, a Techno-Shaman's psychic might rises proportionally to their hunting frenzy.[1a] While their primary powers are those of technomantic origin, they possess others, although due to their race's crude brutality, they are used mainly to telekinetically maim opponents or rend their flesh in a horrifying bloodbath. At the most powerful, Rak'Gol defy reality, unleashing pure warp energy or flaying reality's very fabric while imposing their own view on it, not only due to the alien thought processes of Rak'Gol or maddening minds of psykers, but also due to the inherently incomprehensible perception of barely organic cyborgs[1b].
The characteristic power of Techno-Shamans is the ability to merge seemingly disparate machines into coherent and functional systems, combine seemingly mundane devices into deadly killing automatons, which serve this xeno psyker — any automated defence aimed at a Techno-Shaman ends up targeting their former masters.[1b] Some superstitions of voidsmen claim that above their psychic mind the presence of a Techno-Shaman corrupts machine spirits,[1a] although this is dismissed by Explorators as ridiculous, further claiming the idea to be of heretical nature. Rumours circulate that the machine spirits in some of the components salvaged from Techno-Shamans attacks have begun to share stories of the Rak’Gol among themselves, only the few Explorators who have interacted with the damaged devices know this for certain.[1b]
Other characteristic of Techno-Shamans is their incorporation of technology within their bodies, due to known underdevelopment of Rak'Gol medical knowledge it is assumed that the fusion of organic and cybernetic comes as an effect of their psychic powers, with the oldest and the most powerful of the Techno-Shamans resembling giant mechanistic golems with flesh so interwoven within the machine that it's inseparable by sight alone. Many Inquisitors and apostate Tech-Priests offer extreme bounties for capturing a live specimen of those.[1b]
