Xenos - Minor Xenos Races: Not all sentient species are poised to seize the galaxy for themselves. Hundreds have failed to even prevent their own extinction. Despite this, the galaxy continues to offer a great diversity of alien life in a myriad of forms, all struggling to survive and leave their mark in an increasingly hostile and cruel universe.Below is listed a sample of some of the extinct and still-existing minor xenos species that inhabit the Milky Way Galaxy:Demiurg - An intelligent alien race of short, stocky humanoid traders and asteroid miners, they are almost purely space-borne in their massive and majestic commerce vessels. Their history is unconfirmed, as are their origins, intentions and current threat to others. All that is known about them is based at best on speculation. The Demiurg are known to have allied with the T'au, serving as trading partners of the T'au Empire. They were initially introduced to the T'au via their mutual relations with the Kroot. From the Demiurg, the T'au acquired their knowledge of Ion Cannon technology, which is now heavily used by the T'au in their armies and fleets. Two Brotherhoods of Demiurg, the Srry'Tok and Thurm, are known to have joined the T'au Empire outright.Diasporex - The Diasporex was a nomadic civilisation of Humans and aliens who lived aboard a vast collection of starships, maintaining a network of hydrogen collector space stations around various stars to fuel their vessels' power generators. They had been prowling the depths of space since the Age of Strife and their lifestyle may have evolved as a reaction to the horrors of that time on many Human-settled worlds. During the last days of the Great Crusade in the early 31st Millennium, the Iron Hands Legion encountered the fleets of the Diasporex. The Iron Hands offered the Human members of the Diasporex the opportunity to separate from their alien allies and to join the Imperium of Man. They declined, and so under standing Imperial orders had to be destroyed as a potential threat to the nascent Imperium. In the months that followed, the Iron Hands Legion fleet tried to destroy the Diasporex, but their fleets proved to be highly skilled and experienced in naval warfare: they easily evaded multiple fleet engagements initiated by the Astartes and even managed to damage an Iron Hands cruiser. At this point, the Emperor's Children Legion was called in as reinforcements for the Iron Hands. The combined Astartes force eventually made the discovery that the Diasporex used hidden space stations to collect hydrogen fuel from various local stars, which was the reason they had remained in that sector of space rather than just fleeing from the Imperial forces. The Space Marines assaulted these stations and thus forced the Diasporex fleet into open battle to protect them, where they were defeated. A brief shipboarding action occurred, in which the Emperor's Children Captain Solomon Demeter stole the glory of seizing the Diasporex flagship from the increasingly corrupted Primarch Fulgrim. The final words of the alien Diasporex flagship captain were, "We only wished to be left alone."Galg - The Galg are a frog-like amphibious alien species who often serve as mercenaries for the T'au Empire. Members of the Galg race are covered in green scales and appear to most Humans as large, humanoid frogs. The T'au Empire normally maintains a small number of Galg mercenaries within their ranks but Galgs can be found in the employ of many different factions across the galaxy as long as the price is right. As with most alien species, the Galgs hate Mankind, even when Humans serve as their employers, because of the Imperium's intolerance for all intelligent alien races.Gykon - The Gykon were an intelligent xenos species mentioned by the Warmaster Horus during the Great Crusade, when he debriefed Captain Garviel Loken of the Luna Wolves' 10th Company. Horus mentioned the Gykon after Loken reported that one of his Space Marines became a Daemonhost during a battle with the last of the insurgents on planet 63-19.Khrave - The Khrave are a dangerous species of psychically-gifted xenos that act like slavers and have been plaguing the Human race since the earliest days of the Great Crusade. Believed to have risen during the Age of Strife, little is known of the physical appearance of these aliens as all accounts of their Human encounters with them emphasise the Khrave’s psychic abilities and their dreadful technology. The Khrave are psychic leeches, feeding on the minds and souls of subjugated Human worlds they infiltrate and subdue. The Khrave also seem to possess some kind of natural affinity with the Warp as their preferred weapons are so-called Warp-glamours, blades forged from solidified matter of the Immaterium, easily able to cleave through Power Armour. The oldest and strongest Khrave encountered by the Imperium are said to have been able to rival a Primarch in bulk, although these exemplars are thankfully rare.Jokaero - The Jokaero are an intelligent alien species who resemble the orange-furred great apes of Old Earth known as orangutans. Though lacking any known form of language, they are capable of tremendous feats of technological construction and manipulation, and specialise in the development of weapons technology, particularly miniaturised weapons. The Jokaero are not a naturally evolved species, but were created by the Old Ones during the War in Heaven over 60 million Terran years ago for the purpose of aiding in their conflict with the C'tan and the Necrons, along with many other intelligent races of the Milky Way Galaxy such as the Aeldari, the Rashan, the K'Nib and the green-skinned Krork, the possible ancestors of the Orks.Kinebrach - The Kinebrach were a species of simian-like humanoid aliens who co-existed with the Humans of the Interex culture before the Great Crusade. Long before Humanity had spread across the stars from their homeworld of Terra, the Kinebrach ruled a large and mighty interstellar empire. However, by the time the Humans of the Interex made first contact with them, the Kinebrach empire was old and decaying. The Kinebrach, rather than go to war against a more vibrant and powerful species, decided to ally themselves with Humanity instead. Thus, the Kinebrach were taken under the wing of the Interex, with certain limitations placed upon them. The foremost of these was that no Kinebrach was allowed to carry arms, except in times of war. Those Kinebrach in the Interex military served as shock troops due to their strong, stocky build, which was similar to that of a bipedal gorilla. Kinebrach technology, at the time of the Interex's first contact with the Imperium of Man, was very advanced, in some ways more so than than that of the Imperium at its height - though their military technology lagged somewhat behind - and this was one of the reasons the Interex was able to progress so quickly as a culture.Kroot - The Kroot are a species of savage humanoids who are a member species of the T'au Empire and who evolved from avian precursors. A unique feature of the Kroot is that they evolve by selecting traits of their defeated foes to absorb by eating them, unleashing the only known form of Lamarckian selection ever discovered by the Imperium among a xenos species. Kroot who prey extensively on a particular species will begin to take on the anatomical and mental characteristics of that creature. When absorbing the DNA in this manner of sentient species such as Orks and Humans, they may also take on cultural aspects of that race as well. In order to gather genetic material from all over the galaxy, the Kroot offer themselves as mercenaries, and sell their services to anyone willing to pay them. They travel the galaxy taking limited contracts from both major and minor races and are regularly employed by the T'au.Laer - The Laer were a non-humanoid reptilian species dedicated to the worship of the Chaos God Slaanesh who in appearance were wildly diverse, engineered for each particular theatre of war or cultural function. There were winged, aquatic and all manner of other variations on the basic serpentine Laer form. They were often tall and sinuous, with a snake-like lower body common to their species, and muscular thoraxes sheathed in silver armour, from which sprouted two pairs of limbs. The upper arms bore long, lightning-wreathed power blades, while the lower arms wielded crackling gauntlets that fired lethal green energy bolts. Their heads were insect-like and bulbous, with glossy, multi-faceted eyes and jutting mandibles that produced a grating screech when they attacked. The Laer were first encountered by the Emperor's Children Legion's 28th Expeditionary Fleet during the Great Crusade, concentrated in a single star system on a single homeworld completely covered by a global ocean called Laeran (officially codified in Imperial records as Twenty-Eight-Three). Like the Emperor's Children themselves, the Laer prized perfection in all aspects of life. By the use of chemical and genetic manipulation from birth, individual Laer were best adapted to their cultural roles, whether they be workers, soldiers, diplomats, or even artists. The Primarch Fulgrim refused any notion of co-operation with the aliens, for as Imperial doctrine proclaimed, only Humanity was perfect. For an alien race to hold its own ideals to be comparable to those of Humanity was blasphemy in its most blatant form, and deserved nothing less than annihilation. In a brutal and bloody campaign the Emperor's Children wiped out the Laeren race. However, the members of the 28th Expedition who investigated the Laer's primary place of worship, a great temple dedicated to the Laer aspect of Slaanesh, were corrupted by the touch of Chaos. Over the next several months and years, Fulgrim and his III Legion -- indeed all those Humans who had been exposed to the touch of the Prince of Pleasure on Laeran -- were transformed unknowingly into the sadistic and hedonistic servants of Chaos who joined with Horus in his rebellion against the Emperor.Megarachnids - The Megarachnids were a sentient race of non-humanoid xenos resembling giant spiders that resided in the early 31st Millennium on the planet Murder, more formally known as Urisarach and One-Forty-Twenty. An extremely hostile alien species, they were an old enemy of the non-Imperial human Interex civilisation who, instead of committing xenocide, had exiled the surviving members of the species to the world they called Urisarach as an act of mercy. The Megarachnids were stripped of their interstellar travel capabilities, and weather control devices that created powerful atmospheric disturbances and interfered with Vox communications were constructed by the Interex in the shape of large "trees" across the planet to deter vessels from landing on Murder. A campaign of extermination was waged against them by the forces of the Imperium of Man many years later during the Great Crusade after several companies of Space Marines were lost to the Megarachnids' latent hostilities during the initial Imperial investigations of the planet. The war proved costly in Astartes lives, but seemed to be making steady progress by the sixth month. The campaign came to an abrupt end when the Interex arrived to see who was disturbing the Megarachnids' reservation world and first contact occurred between the Interex and the Imperium, as represented by the Warmaster Horus. Whether or not the campaign was continued after the destruction of the Interex by the Imperium in the final days of the Great Crusade is unknown, and the ultimate fate of this species is unrecorded in any existing Imperial records.Nicassar - The Nicassar are a non-humanoid, ursine-like xenos species of powerful psykers who are allied with the T'au. The Nicassar are driven by an insatiable curiosity to explore and travel across the galaxy. It was this drive which led a flotilla of Nicassar Dhows to make contact with the T'au, resulting in the Nicassar becoming the first non-T'au race to become an addition to the fledgling T'au Empire. Their contribution to the Greater Good is the provision of starships for the T'au Navy, particularly vessels involved with reconnaissance and exploration duties, which are often crewed by the Nicassar themselves rather than the T'au Air Caste. The propulsion and navigation of all Nicassar vessels stems from the potent psychic powers that define the Nicassar species. For this reason, the T'au have been careful to prevent the Imperium of Man, which is known for its extreme persecution of psykers, from discovering the existence of the Nicassar within their empire. The Nicassar are utilised by the T'au only for spacefaring; their own limited mobility makes them highly ill-suited for ground combat.Rak'Gol - The Rak'Gol are vicious xenos marauders and a relatively new threat within the Koronus Expanse of the Halo Stars adjacent to the Calixis Sector. The species was encountered by the Imperium first in the dim stars past the Alenic Depths in the 8th century of the 41st Millennium. A xenos breed of which little is known for fact, they take the appearance of rough-hewn and irregular stone reptilids, eight-limbed and over three metres long. Chalky white in colour and mantis-like in bodily arrangement, Rak'Gol warriors favour cybernetic augmentation to increase their abilities and replace lost limbs. Their point of origin remains unknown, as does the motivation for their sporadic attacks on Human-held worlds and vessels, other than to slaughter indiscriminately and steal minerals and weapons. Their rasping, screeching language remains incomprehensible, and no successful communication between the Rak'Gol and Humanity has been recorded; no Rak'Gol has ever been captured alive. Indeed, even their name is taken from children's stories of mythical monsters from the settlement of Footfall's slums, legends which they superficially resemble.Tarellians - The Tarrelians are a minor reptilian humanoid species. Anatomically they are narrow-waisted and possess broad shoulders, while they stand slightly shorter on average than Humans. Because of their long snouts and their predilection for working as mercenaries, particularly for the T'au Empire, they are often referred to as Tarellian "Dog-soldiers" by Humans. During the Great Crusade, Imperial expeditionary fleets virus-bombed most of the Tarellian homeworlds, almost wiping out the entire species. This has resulted in the Tarellians bearing a grudge and eternal enmity towards the Imperium that has lasted for ten millennia. In 998.M41, a Tarellian civilisation was devoured by the Tyranid Hive Fleet Moloch during its advance from the galactic north and the Kiltor Sector.Tushepta - The Tushepta are an alien race only spoken of during the Great Crusade by the Warmaster Horus during his debriefing of Garviel Loken, the captain of the Luna Wolves' 10th Company, after one of his Space Marines became a Daemonhost during a battle with the last of the insurgents on planet 63-19.Vespid - The Vespid are a vaguely insectoid species, though this narrow term is an imperfect one that fails to account for many aspects of their unusual physiology. Their bodies are encased in a chitinous exoskeleton and sport many lethally sharp barbs. They see by way of three pairs of eyes, one pair perceiving the ultraviolet range, one the normal visible spectrum, and the last the infrared. It is assumed that the Vespids see in all three ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum simultaneously, and therefore have a perception of their surroundings unique to their race. Vespids can fly by way of a pair of hard chitin wings, which also emit a continuous ultrasonic tone with which the species appears able to modulate and control the workings of their crystal-based technology. The Vespids are a member species of the T'au Empire.