When You Aren't Human, But You Need to Travel...

By venkelos, in Rogue Trader

So, this is another one of those silly, pointless things, but being the ridiculous Eldar fan that I am, I find myself needing to ask, how would you use the rules we get for Human ships to travel the warp, but for the Space Elves? On the one hand, I know that they'd forgo warp travel, and use the Webway when they can, but I am not sure how they remember the ways, what with all the problems the Webway has had, and they CAN travel through the Warp, if needed, but they have no Navigators. How do they do this? (I could ask how ANYONE ELSE does this, when only Humans are likely to have Navigators, but this is for the Eldar.)

Would anyone be willing to go a bit through the steps of a warp jump, but alter things to reflect the Eldar making the trip, rather than the Rogue Trader's ship? I know that the Void Dreamers are sort of supposed to sub in for the ELdar as Astropaths and Navigators, but they neither have astrotelepathy (I may have missed it), nor a power that seems to sub in for "find the Astronomicon, measure the flow of the warp". I have a Void Dreamer aboard my ship, as an assistance in finding the Tau, but i don't know how she'd do what the Navigator would otherwise do, there or on her own ship. Any thoughts/help would be great, and thanks.

I haven't looked at the bestiary section of the Navis Primer extensively. I imagine the big clue as to how Eldar would navigate the warp is the Runecaster xenostech component. Predicting the path they should take as opposed to seeing it. As for the void dreamer, FFG could easily have left out skills, talents, and abilities that aren't related to personal combat. e.g. A NPC in the Soul Reaver who is singled out as a fantastic pilot has no pilot skills.

What you and decessor said plus this: I would assume from what I've read that most Eldar journeys in the warp are relatively short. They would take the webway to the nearest known exit point and sail the warp for the final bit. I tend to believe this is similar in concept to a calculated jump augmented by the void dreamer. In any case, the warp portion would be slower than that of a navigator equipped Imperial vessel. This is offset by the fact that Webway journeys tend to be MUCH faster and safer.

As to safety, Eldar vessels are created from Wraithbone, which is essentially solidified warp stuff. I imagine it grants protective qualities similar to a Gellar field or Hexagrammic wards. (Which it probably also has.)

I tend to assume the warp is reactive to the local minds. So traveling on a human ship through human colonized systems would subject the xenos to human based fears and nightmares. Traveling on an eldar ship through human systems... well probably some eldar stuff but still mostly human fears because of the massive pool of human thoughts tainting the local warp. Traveling through the 'Undred, 'Undred teef systems... well that would be a whole different ball game.

If you've read the Farseer novel there's a bit where the Eldar are on a human ship passing through the Warp, and the journey is more dangerous because the Eldar's highly-psychic souls are visible through the Gellar Field and attracts more daemons than normal. If they really need to travel somewhere new, they might just take normal sublight travel between systems, as they're long-lived enough that they can survive the journey and then establish a new Webway portal there (however that works)