Hi everyone!

Okay, so this is actually my first time playing RT, rather than GM-ing. I have never dealt with the Egarian Dominon in the 2 RT games i've run, so I have two big questions:

First: What is actually in there, besides giant crystal corn mazes and stars? Are there any actual hazards in there besides whatever my GM could invent on the fly?

Second: Beside the obvious answer "The Cold Guild" who else would be interested in artifacts and materials from said xenos realm? The corebook only explained that the Imperium has a somewhat more relaxed attitude toward ED stuff, so would offering trade to the Admech/Port Wander be pushing my luck, or should I just stick to the Cold Trade?

Answers/scathing criticism welcome XD

It's deliberately left vague, however the Egarian's love of Crystal technology mimics that of the Yu'Vath's warp-tainted crystals, so they likely share an origin. In my campaign, my long and overly complex backstory has the Yu'Vath being Egarians that fell to the Warp, and they came up with some nasty stuff. See the Koronus Bestiary, or the free Dark Frontier scenario for some of what THEY came up with. I picture Egarians being mostly peaceful until stuff happened, and also quite foreign (their stuff is literally activate by specific frequencies of light), but we know they came up with giant solar-system maps that are transmissable into people's minds, so probably psychic stuff.

SPEAKING OF PSYCHIC STUFF if the Egarian crystals are naturally warp-active then the Astra Telepathica might be interested in some of their examples, as might the more heretical members of the Inquisition. Seriously, launching a SandSlime onto an enemy vessel is basically a death sentence. If you could figure out how it works, and the Imperium is slightly lax towards Egarian stuff because it doesn't seem to do anything, then maybe the Adeptus Mecahnicus as well. Keep in mind if you figure out how it works, then the Imperium will start caring more and it becomes much more illegal.

I didn't use the Egarian much, but like Erathia I tied them to the Yu'Vath, though I made them one of the many slave-races of the Yu'Vath. I like the proto-Yu'Vath idea, though.

Maybe the Yu'vath are trans-egarian, like transhuman in Eclipse Phase, except the Yu'vath used psychoactive crystals and the Warp instead of nanomachines.

The idea I had are that the Egarian came first, giant insect-like creatures that communicated through generating their own bio-luminescent, slightly warp-active light. Thus all their technology responds to specific light that's essentially a language which is why it hasn't been decoded yet.

Then they ran into the Slaugth and were being mercilessly slaughtered so they engineered a new race of warriors that were tougher, stronger, but also slightly insane. These were the first Rak'Gol, and their pale waxen skin is a sign of the "battle-hardening" that they went through. Eventually the Rak'Gol managed to beat back the Slaugth, but now the Egarians were left with a large part of their race driven insane. They tried a number of methods to turn them back to normal, before trying implanting their crystal technology directly into the skin in an attempt to force them back to normal. Too bad they went warp-mad and turned into the Yu'Vath.

The Yu'Vath then wiped out the Egarians because they are notoriously territorial and only liked having a few numbers. Ironically they then embraced the conquering mentality of the Slaugth, but took slave races instead of extermination. Then Saint Drusus rolled around and killed the Yu'Vath, but a small pocket of Rak'Gol survived and have only now regained enough strength to set out again. They've been so warped they are raiding Egarian ruins in an effort to find a still living Egarian, and a method of transforming one into a Yu'Vath again.

Welp, prepare to have all of that stolen into my personal lore. *shwoop* anyway, that's a really neat thing. I can't just have my Rogue Trader go "what if the crystals are psychoactive?!" but the admech might still be interested in a crate of egarian shard grenades and whatever else i dig up. if i don't just harvest the walls of the hive-cities themselves. Now there's an idea......

EDIT: Steal it if you don't mind of course, I should make that clear.

Go ahead, my players never really explored it so it's a big chunk of lore that I never got a chance to use.

They did however begin strip mining an Egarian city in order to give one of their cruisers the fancy Shard armour to protect against lances.

Shard Armor? where is this in the books? Or was it home-brewed because its brilliant?

I feel like I had gotten it from a book, but I can't remember where. The idea behind it is that you decrease a ship's armour by 2, but it gains 3 armour against Lance attacks. On a critical hit the armour "cracks" on the side that the was armoured and its lance protection is reduced by 1 until it's repaired.

In my head the Egarian cities are in reality giant memorials to their culture, ready to share the secrets of a culture that endured for millennia and only hoped that their legacy would be their knowledge. My players are effectively strip mining a library and gluing it to their ship and they don't even know it.

Attaching what is essentially an crystalline alien library to the hull of your ship so you can diffuse the laser light of a lance weapon somehow seems sadly poetic to me.

Even more upsettingly ignorant: what if my mad scientist Arch-Heretek made a gun that fired said crystals? I kheel you wis Mah pretteh creeestalllhhssss!! That would be a cool idea, maybe kinda like that sword in the corebook that leaves shards in people it wounds.

@Erathia: I don't think thats official stuff. I did, however, find something in the house rules forum: http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/65540-egarian-void-armour/

@Filliman: That gun exists. Look at the Egarian Shardcaster in Into the storm. ^^

@Redbeard

Then I suppose I shall do the sensible thing.

Insist that they stole the idea from my mind using illegal psykers and insist that anyone who sells such a weapon pay me royalties.

Making money at gunpoint and based on wild claims? It's the Rogue Trader way! ^^