Hello again!
i was looking through some of my 40K books, i've seen them before but haven't given much thought to it till today.

on these star maps that you find in the beginning of Rogue trader books you find all manner of interesting things. some of them mention Void drakes.
are they real, or just some "Sailors myth"? we know of the void krakens so... does anyone have any information on these void drakes, are they actual creatures or just pretty symbols on the map?

Rumor is they are like the void whales, and can be a danger to even Imperial capital ships. No official information that I know of has been published on them, like the void whales, so you are free to design them as you want.

Void whales!?
what have i missed now, please tell a bit more of those things

You can go to

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/115667-void-whale-stated/?hl=%2Bvoid+%2Bwhales

And/or

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/92772-void-whales-abound/?hl=%2Bvoid+%2Bwhales

For info in these forums. You can also search for "void whale" in the above search engine at the top of this page or google "warhammer 40k void whales."

Oddly enough, IIRC, in the RT or HA book in the endeavors section, it talks about the PC's wanting to hunt void whales for profit.

Hmm that sounds interesting. might put that into my campaign for the players to do when the group isn't at full strength

As much as I think void combat can go to pot with "twinking" and min/maxing players, especially if the GM doesn't occasionally optimize the enemy NPC ships, at least a bit, and that isn't as easy to do with "thoughtless" megafauna, in space, I actually really do like some of the ideas of "This is space. There are things that live in space. Some of those things are beautiful, some are oblivious to your bug-like presence, and some...will view your ship as prey " dumb, or not, one of my favorite episodes of Star Trek Voyager, a show I would otherwise pass on, much of the time, consisted of encountering a race of "space locusts"; a huge swarm of small ships, all interconnected electronically, that would fly in at big ships, hard to hit, and then anchor onto the hull, beginning to cut it to manageable pieces, sort of like a Borg Cube does, but totally different. Something sort of like a a lot more Hollow Men then the Processional usually throws at you. It would be irritating, but cool, and fun to see the "little ships" just be a total pain for the cruiser.

As much as I think void combat can go to pot with "twinking" and min/maxing players, especially if the GM doesn't occasionally optimize the enemy NPC ships, at least a bit, and that isn't as easy to do with "thoughtless" megafauna, in space, I actually really do like some of the ideas of "This is space. There are things that live in space. Some of those things are beautiful, some are oblivious to your bug-like presence, and some...will view your ship as prey " dumb, or not, one of my favorite episodes of Star Trek Voyager, a show I would otherwise pass on, much of the time, consisted of encountering a race of "space locusts"; a huge swarm of small ships, all interconnected electronically, that would fly in at big ships, hard to hit, and then anchor onto the hull, beginning to cut it to manageable pieces, sort of like a Borg Cube does, but totally different. Something sort of like a a lot more Hollow Men then the Processional usually throws at you. It would be irritating, but cool, and fun to see the "little ships" just be a total pain for the cruiser.

Swarm-AI?, this would be true "abominable intelligence" or not (HERESY) think that were an AI swarm that would repair any distressed ship, defending only when bothered. Think of case: " Lord Captain, Sir! That thing shot me with something that made me immobile. Just to fix that vox-unit, we've been struggling to repair. All this without a word..."

are they any other interesting void based animals out there that you can make use of?
we got the kraken, a Void whale, void drakes. anything else we know of?

Well, most of ST: Voyager was at least partial heresy, so that's their fault; I'd thin only Necrons could pull it in 40K, or maybe the Tau, in a few more decades of their drone research. "Swarms" of scaled up Necron Scarabs, running amok, across the hull of a ship, not so slowly rending metal apart, and lightning field-incapacitating underlying electronic devices, along the way, could be terrifying, and once on the hull, I'm not sure what, other than void-suited crew, could go deal with them, but if they are scaled to be a threat to ships, which in 40K means BIG ships, I don't know if "mere mortals" could really dislodge them, either. Not sure if it would be in Newcron behavior, but I can imagine all sorts of terrible things, in space, that they could be capable of doing.

My babble, so you can read, if you want, but nothing really to do with the topic

If 40K ships weren't so big, I'd think that they could have something akin to mynocks, from Star Wars; space organisms that would latch onto the hull, and sap power, but the typical ships of the setting could probably support hundreds, before the plasma drives started to flicker, so I don't know. Would be nice to see a natural space threat to a voidship that isn't an animal so big as to bugger all belief of it being an organism, and one never seen before, or celestial phenomena you have to "willingly" fly through, and it hurts. Might also be nice if it WASN'T a manifestation of Chaos.

I've been tossing up introducing animal based ship 'improvements' that you just kinda pick up and then have to deal with (or not).

Polyp/worm like entities that latch onto a ship's thrusters and feed on the emissions much like undersea volcanic vent life forms.

They reduce a ship's speed by one but also give a 10% bonus to silent running.

Sea anemone like entities that affix themselves to a ship's hull with their acidic secretions. They increase a ship's turret rating by one with their electrically charged tentacles but their secretions damage the ship's armor and reduce it by one.

Pillbug like entities which infest a ships hull and feed on detritus. Their armored bodies actually increase a ship's armor rating by one but they are not spread evenly over the hull so their uneven mass distribution reduces a ship's maneuverability by 5%

I hadn't quite worked out how ships could get infested by these entities and what would be involved in clearing them off. Probably donning vac suits and actually hunting them all down (including caches of eggs).

Aren't the Hurd supposed to be some sort of space nuisance that can build up on a ship and damage the power system?

Some fan created void creatures and the link is here. As for other creatures, you can use further tyranid organisms as ideas and concepts, or take some from movies or series as stated above. It's 40k, anything is possible.

Now that's great right there I don't care who you are. That there is cool.

Polyp/worm like entities that latch onto a ship's thrusters and feed on the emissions much like undersea volcanic vent life forms. They reduce a ship's speed by one but also give a 10% bonus to silent running.

Thanks, I haven't yet worked out the mechanics of how your ship catches said improvements.

It's likely to be something that can happen when you salvage components from derelict ships or a complication from the wrestled from a space hulk.

Thanks, I haven't yet worked out the mechanics of how your ship catches said improvements.

It's likely to be something that can happen when you salvage components from derelict ships or a complication from the wrestled from a space hulk.

Or a consequences from a Warp shoals encounter in the Aethyr...