I have seen some fan-based content online here and there incorporating Dune into RT 40k universe, which to me is cool no problem...

This is how I approached it

Arrakis and the whole of the Dune fluff is in the Andromeda Galaxy - some sort of anomaly jaunted Humanity there and thus no record or such...

If/when introduction of that caste is desired - well they are just arriving to the halo stars from points outside of our Galaxy!

Seeing as they have Navigators, this event (i.e. when they disappeared) could be associated to many varied events from the Thulians to the Haarlock business (House Nostromo)...

Time is not a factor - say they disappeared X-years ago, for them that may have been Thousands of Years ago, but when they arrive now - they just left a few centuries ago - thus time paradox fun!

I only use such inclusion in my campaign like for a one-off encounter or adventure - this by no way plays to dominate the great 40k Lore that comes default by the Core Rogue Trader book.

Anyone else like and use Dune stuff?

Morbid

P.S. this concept could be easily applied to Star Wars - we've received reports of something called the Jedi captain on Solace Encarmine ?! ROTFL

Without a doubt, the creators of 40K borrowed many ideas from Dune, and not just Navigators.

And while I don't use Dune, per se, I've certainly borrowed my own share of plot lines. Ever read the old FASA Traveller supplement Uragyad'n of the Seven Pillars? Good 40K stuff there, and not just RT. That old standard could easily be used for DH, DW, or BC. It just needs tweaking.

Yeah, I've essentially used Dune's sandworms in the background for an Only War supplement , though its take on them mostly focuses on a smaller larvae state - and they live in ash wastes instead of a desert.

I'd never copy an entire location or organisation 1:1 for fear of chipping away at the immersion, but a lot of things are very easy to adapt -- and as has already been mentioned, 40k as a whole is basically just one huge collection of pop culture references that were cleverly combined.

Yeah, one of may favorite things in movie-Dune would be in the Sci-Fi Channel set, Children of Dune (they lump Dune Messiah and Children into one movie), when we meet Guild Navigator Edric. I MUCH prefer his appearance, and that of the weird, blue aliens we see in J.T. Barlowe's Guide to Aliens (a book that got made in the 80's-90's that illustrated various aliens, though we hadn't seen a Navigator before that, so Barlowe was working off of notes) to Dino de Laurentiis' bloated fetus that fit better in Blue Gender. I like the SFC version enough that, when I need to describe the appearance of one of my NPC Navigators, Novator Deadelus Volaris, Edric is the image I describe. Fortunately, most of his mutations are right there on the table of Navigator mutations, and any little extras are fine for an NPC.

Always sort of wished that there was a drug in 40K that assisted with navigating, sort of like the ones that enhance psychic power. Maybe one could flub that it would "enhance" their warp sight, being a pseudo-psychic power, but they either see the Astronomicon, or it is obscured, and I suppose much of the rest of it is steering.

Always sort of wished that there was a drug in 40K that assisted with navigating, sort of like the ones that enhance psychic power. Maybe one could flub that it would "enhance" their warp sight, being a pseudo-psychic power, but they either see the Astronomicon, or it is obscured, and I suppose much of the rest of it is steering.

I'd say just run with it - the Astronomican is, in the end, just a psychic bonfire, right? If it has been growing dimmer and dimmer and in some areas of space is entirely obscured, a psychic drug could help make it more visible, sort of like low light amplification. It'd only become necessary on the frontier, but maybe some Navigators also use it to hide their own power growing weaker from whoever employs their services:

Now, wouldn't that be awkward if it happened to the Navigator in service to your RT?

Thing is, with the exception of lasgun/shield interactions* and the Butlerian Jihad nuking Earth to the point of totally sterilising the biosphere (which I believe is only canon in the Kevin J Anderson novels, and hence can likely be happily ignored), the entirety of the Dune mythos can be dropped into the backstory of 40k without any problems- Dune takes place in the year 10191 after the Butlerian Jihad (191.m21, by the 40k Imperial Calendar), with the death and reincarnation of Leto II Atreides taking place in mid m23 and early m25. This happily lines up with the transition between the Golden Age of Technology and the Dark Age of Technology, so Omnius et al map very well with the Men of Iron, Leto's Diaspora with the sudden expansion of human colonies, even the rise of prescience and other psychic abilities fits surprisingly neatly (plus, of course, the Navigators of the Spacing Guild, as mentioned before). It even neatly explains the Imperium's apparent disgust of cloning (the ghola of the Bene Tleilax).

Sure, unless you find a stasis chamber or a hidden Tleilaxu outpost you're not going to meet Duncan Idaho or the Baron Harkonnen out there, and most of the knowledge of that period will have descended into myth and legend (if not be just plain lost), but it'd be interesting to see what 15 millennia have made of the Fish Speakers, or the Honoured Matres...

*Easily explainable with the words "wheee! Archeotech!", or in long form by introducing the Holtzmann Field as a specific form of shielding that went out of fashion with the rise of las-weapons.

And Baron Harkonnen simply has a flip belt As sci-fi fantasy angles go, it's a rather easier stretch than numerous others. Also, Drusus was a ghola! I hope his first name wasn't Duncan. Sort of a shame no Navigators in 40K are THAT good, though; the ones in Dune could easily prosper, even under Navis Primer's rule set, and travel takes minutes/hours, rather than weeks, months, or "what do you mean they never arrived?"