Spinning up to an active campaign featuring the crew of the Havoc-class raider known as the Redemption of Skoros, a former pirate vessel with a long and storied history. I'll be using this thread to post both crunch and fluff bits about the game as it develops. To start with, the crunchy stats for the ship:

Current Designation: RTV Redemption of Skoros
Previous Designations: Terrible Wrath, Defiler of the Faithful, Vengeful, EXPURGATED BY ORDER OF THE INQUISITION
Class: Havoc-class heavy raider
Speed: 9
Maneuverability: +25
Void Shields: 1
Detection: +26
Armor: 16
Turret rating: 1
Equipment: Jovian Pattern Class 2 Drive, Strelov 1 Warp Engine, Warpsbane Hull, Vitae Life Sustainer, Voidsmen Quarters, Deep Void Auger Array, dorsal Sunsear Laser Macrobattery. prow Titanforge Lance Battery, Tenebro-Maze, Observation Dome, Temple-Shrine to the God-Emperor, Murder-Servitors
Total SP: 47
Machine Spirit Oddities: Martial Hubris
Past History: Haunted
Maximum Morale: 94
Relevant Modifiers:
-15 to Maneuverability when attempting to escape combat
+10 to Ballistic Skill with ship's weapons
+5 to all Command from bridge
+10 to Command when defending against boarding/H&R
-5 to enemy Command when defending against boarding/H&R
+20 to Command when conducting H&R
+10 to Navigation (Warp)
+100 Achievement Points with Creed Objectives
+50 Achievement Points with Exploration Objectives

Very well-armed for her size and equipped with excellent sensors. The ship is a death trap for enemy boarders, and extremely effective at small-unit hit & run raids itself. She sports a sizeable shrine to the Emperor of Man amidships at the base of a majestic observatorium dome.

Blasted math errors, forgot the darned void shields. Revised stats:

Current Designation: RTV Redemption of Skoros
Previous Designations: Terrible Wrath, Defiler of the Faithful, Vengeful, EXPURGATED BY ORDER OF THE INQUISITION
Class: Havoc-class heavy raider
Speed: 9
Maneuverability: +25
Void Shields: 1
Detection: +16
Armor: 16
Turret rating: 1
Equipment: Jovian Pattern Class 2 Drive, Strelov 1 Warp Engine, Warpsbane Hull, Single Void Shield Array, Mark-1.r Life Sustainer, Pressed Crew Quarters, M-100 Auger Array, dorsal Mars Pattern Macrobattery, prow Titanforge Lance Battery, Reinforced Internal Bulkheads, Tenebro-Maze, Observation Dome, Temple-Shrine to the God-Emperor, Murder-Servitors
Total SP: 49
Machine Spirit Oddities: Martial Hubris
Past History: Haunted
Maximum Morale: 94
Relevant Modifiers:
-15 to Maneuverability when attempting to escape combat
+10 to Ballistic Skill with ship's weapons
+5 to all Command from bridge
+10 to Command when defending against boarding/H&R
-5 to enemy Command when defending against boarding/H&R
+20 to Command when conducting H&R
+10 to Navigation (Warp)
+100 Achievement Points with Creed Objectives
+50 Achievement Points with Exploration Objectives

Story stuff next post.

Double blast, max morale is 92, hull integrity is 33. Anyway, fluff, part 1:

A Brief Ship's History

Communion with the machine spirits of the Redemption of Skoros reveals a long history of service even by Imperial standards. The earliest files bear ident-codes dating back to the Age of Apostasy, although there are many gaps in the service records. The vessel was commissioned near the end of M36 and spent its first six centuries as a naval scout and escort operating in the Segmentum Solar. Discontinuities appear in the ship's data-logs after this period, but Naval records indicate that the ship was taken by mutineers and redesignated as the Defiler of the Faithful by Imperial authorities following its involvement in the destruction of the Temple-Ship Benificent Fate.

After nearly two millenia of service as a pirate vessel, the Defiler was crippled during a colony raid on the fringes of the Segmentum Pacificus and dragged back to Macano High Port as a prize of war. The ship's machine spirit was rehabilitated and the hull's wounds soothed over the course of the next century, after which the ship rejoined the fleet as the heavy raider Vengeful. The records from this time period are surprisngly complete, perhaps because her first three captains as the Vengeful were sons of the famed Saint-Admiral Nero Novarchus. Their father was not only influential but long-lived, and the half-brothers' dynastic captaincy lasted over nine hundred years.

The last of them, Andrum Novarchus, perished under mysterious circumstances, after which the ship was seconded to the Inquisition for an indefinite term. Exact details of what duties the ship and its crew performed are under Inquisitorial seal, but twelve years ago the vessel arrived at Scintilla with a skeleton crew, commanded by Inquisitor Omarc of Terra. After consultation with the local Conclave, he had the ship refitted, completely recrewed by a Naval draft, and renamed the Redemption of Skoros. The rechristened vessel was then awarded to the recipient of a Imperial Warrant of Trade, along with private instructions to perform a few small services in the Expanse.

Omarc has since disappeared without trace, and without making any explanantion of who or what Skoros is, or why Skoros needed redeeming. Research can easily discover a Halo Star world called Skoros that was encountered by Lord Macharius's last crusade, as well as a rebel leader from the Cynicrucius Belt by the same name. Skoros is also the junior family of a trading house operating in the Stresel subsector, a fruit cocktail popular on the paradise planet Demiphrane, and a stereotypical name for domesticated wingfish in the grav-cities of the Mephalian Ring. To further complicate the situation, Omarc was also known for his odd sense of humor as well as the customary Inquisitorial fondness for disinformation.

Impressions of a Starship

Redemption of Skoros is a modified Havoc-class heavy raider, 1698m from prow lance barrels to aft plasma vanes and 402m at the widest point of her hull. Seen from the void, she glitters with the countless hexagramic wards that stud her every armored plate and sensor boom. She sports an outsized forward lance battery and an array of heavy macrocannon turrets on her foward spine, as well as a small keel hanger bay for assault boats and cutters amidships. Her most prominent visual feature is the majestic observatory dome on her spine,capped by a 60-meter statue of the Emperor Vigilant. Running along the spine just aft of the dome are the spires of the ship's large temple-shrine to the Lord of Mankind, and behind those the fortified towers of the main bridge and officer's quarters.

Within the vessel, one quickly finds that this is a veteran warship, with more emphasis on combat effectiveness than comfort. The ship's internal layout is exotic, and seems deliberately obfuscatory in places. Cramped passages cluttered with armored braces and triple-vault pressure locks predominat in marked contratrast to the wide spaces and grandiose halls of larger Naval cruisers. The air in the working decks is often fouled by fumes and chem-fogs, making personal breath filtrators much-prized amongst the ratings. Officer Country is more elegant but still prone to stenches and thermo-flux, which can be an embarrassment when hosting guests. For most crewmen, the only escape from their spartan environment comes during services at the ship's temple-shrine. The temple and attached observatorium annex enjoy pleasant environmental conditions at all times, no doubt as a blessing of the Emperor himself.

The ship's crew is a composed of drafts drawn from a dozen different Imperial ships by order of the Inquisition. Their morale and training is somewhat variable, as some Navy captains seem to have taken the opportunity to rid themselves of troublemakers and incompetents despite the obvious risks involved. They also lack the cohesiveness and ship-lore of a generational crew, although most have been aboard for nearly a decade now and there have been a dozen confirmed births to date. Deck-chaplains do report an excellent degree of devotion amongst the ranks, although there is a somewhat worrying degree of Tolerated Superstition, both the phantom voices and apparitions common to any warp vessel as well as more unusual beliefs. No evidence of warpcraft has been found, but legends of the Walking Passage, Hungry Airlock, and Iron Ghoul persist.

Redemption's crew also includes a number of specialists. A small team of Adeptus Cyberneticus journeymen act as caretakers for the ship's cadre of murder-servitors. They rarely emerge from the armored cryo-vault hidden deep in the heart of the ship, preferring to spend their time in rites of techno-arcana. An equally insular family of junior navigators maintain cells near the main nav-blister, which is located just aft of the tertiary lance exciters on the ventral hull. This location is inconveniently distant from the bridge, so suite of rooms in Officers' Country has been set aside for the convenience of the ship's senior navigator. Lastly, the ship's temple is maintained by a team of Ecclesiarchal servants who stand aloof from the ship's regular chaplain corps.

The final element of shipboard life is the most ubiquitous. Redemption's pantheon of machine spirits is uncommonly alert and prideful, with a marked tendency to ignore imprecations and directives that offend its sense of martial honour. Certain fragments of the pantheon demonstrate surprising degrees of pseudo-personality, which remain unexplained. There is some evidence that they may toy with the common crew by employing sliding bulkheads and hololithic projections, a possible explanation for some shipwide superstitions.

The information above is available to any senior officer (ie the PCs) automatically. Players who wish to spend the time and effort can discover more details via suitable Skill Tests. For ex, an Ordinary (+10) test on Common Lore (Imperial Navy or Administratum) or Inquiry wil reveal the following:

General Crew Composition

The crew of the Redemption of Skoros was drawn from a dozen different Naval vessels of the sector fleet. The drafts were authorized by the Inquisition itself, but selection of personnel was left to individual captains. The resulting level of training, motivation, and natural talent is somewhat uneven by voidhip standards. Integration of ratings from different parent ships has been slow, and underdeck society is more heavily segregated than usual. The officer corps is more cohesive, as they are more professional and have more stake in the Rogue Trader's mission.

Donor ships and their contributions are as follows:

The largest group of ratings came from the 193rd Niax Patrol Group, a six-strong frigate squadron with a long and glorious history in the Calixis Sector. The captain's council of the 193rd provided a volunteer draft of generalists drawn evenly from all their ships, most of whom have proven to excellent voidsmen, well-trained and highly motivated. They still identify strongly with their parent squadron and are the most cohesive faction of the Redemption's crew.

Fleet transport Coinbelly delivered another sizeable contingent primarily composed of volunteers. Many of them are skilled in cargo handling, logistics, and small craft operations, and they have claimed the ship's hangers and supply vaults as their territory. Despite their skills they are a group that may need watching, as many of them have black marks on their service records for petty smuggling offenses and black marketeering. Opportunistic scoundrels can be tolerated, potential mutineers cannot.

The light cruiser Magnus Furioso provided the bulk of Redemption's engineers, all of whom are members of a single extended clan. This was apparently an effort to end a centuries-long family feud in engineering by removing one of the participants wholesale. Their quality seems fair, although like many generational engineer crews they will require monitoring for genetic health and mutation.

All of the macrocannon gunnery crews came from the cruiser Excellent Thunder, which was crippled in action off Harmony nearly a decade ago. The cruiser is expected to remain under repair above Calixis for at least another five years, and has been repeatedly plundered of trained ratings by more active ships over the years. Skilled and competitive, they have excellent morale and seem pleased to have left the Thunder behind. They are quite insular as a group, in large part due to the widespread and traditional deafness of battery crews.

Similarly, the lance battery is manned almost exclusively by personnel from the frigate Lord Janson Omegus XII, which is currently undergoing refit into a strike transport. The lancers are an odd lot, and not entirely comfortable with their new home. They maintain many underhive gang traditions from the hive world Macano despite the fact that none of them have ever set foot on the world, a classic example of generational inheritance among voidship crewmen.

Redemption was also sent small drafts of ratings by the frigates Nonesuch and Awful Fury. Both groups are poorly trained and unmotivated, good for nothing but the most basic scutwork and that only under close supervision. There appears to be a history of bad blood between their parent ships and the 193rd Niax, which may be a precursor to strife aboard the Redemption.

In addition, the Scintillan temple of the Adeptus Mechanicus has provided the customary congregation of adepts and servitors to maintain Redemption's tech-structure and praise its machine spirits. Most are generalists who can be found working anywhere on board ship, although the small cadre of Adeptus Cyberneticus journeymen that tend the murder-servitors rarely leave their cryo-vaults. Machine cultists generally show little emotion but there seems to be an uncomfortable distance between the two groups, perhaps because of some arcane philosophical dispute.

Redemption's temple-shrine is served by a dozen minor acolytes of the Calixis Ecclesiarchy, all of who seem to be uncommonly humble and devout, albeit rather distant when not performing services. They have little to do with the ship's usual staff of deck-chaplains, all of whom were seconded from Naval vessels.

The Navis Nobilite has assigned the Engosts to Redemption as junior navigators. Lady Hamura Engost is family head, and performs her duties along with her two husbands Hamuran and Moro. Unusually private even by Nobilite standards, the three rarely leave their quarters when not on duty. It remains a mystery as to whether there are any children in the Engost family, either aboard ship or off.

And of course you can fish for even more detail based on previous results. For ex, a Challenging (+0) Inquiry (or Interrogation, if you're paranoid enough to get rough) Skill Test when dealing with the ship's tech-adepts reveals that the keepers of the cryo-vaults are all members of the Perfect Thought movement, a subsect within the Machine Cult.

An Ordinary (+10) Forbidden Lore (Adeptus Mechanicus), Difficult (-10) Common Lore (Machine Cult) or Very Hard (-30) Inquiry test tells you that the Perfect Thought movement is an ancient techno-philosophy within the Adeptus Mechanicus. Its adherents believe that all Imperial machine spirits are directly empowered by the Omnissiah's will, and that by sufficient study of the Holy Writs of Programming they can gain insight into His very thoughts. The movement is widely but not universally regarded as heretical, and its most advanced teachings are certainly dangerous. Any PC with the the appropriate skills may study with members of the Perfect Thought movement to qualify for the following Elite Advance:

Master of the Perfect Thought (Talent)
XP Cost: 500
Prerequisites: Trained in Forbidden Lore (Adeptus Mechanicus), Security, and Tech-Use, plus knowledge of the teachings of the Perfect Thought movement
The character is familiar with certain core codes used in all Imperial machine spirits, and gains +10 to all tests involving them regardless of the skill used. This talent has no effect when dealing with deeply heretical or xenos machine-spirits, although it will function with most archeotech AI systems. The possession and use of this talent may have repercussions if it comes to the attention of the Adeptus Mechanicus or Inquisition.

Regarding the ship's navigators, a Difficult (-10) Forbidden Lore (Navis Nobilite) test reveals that the Engosts are a minor branch family of the Rullimarchs, an alliance of lesser Navigator families most active in the Segmentum Obscuras. Their lineage is unremarkable by the standards of their caste, and the wealth and power of the Rullimarchs as a whole are rumored to be on the wane. The extended Engost family is a small clan with less than a dozen adult, working navigators including Hamura, Hamuran, and Moro. The family has business and social ties with the Adeptus Mechanicus temples of Macano. Hamura is an accredited Master Navigator but her only previous service was aboard a Navis Nobilite transport. Her two husbands are rated as Journeymen Navigators with no service data available.

Anyone spending time with the Engosts and passing a Challenging (+0) Scrutiny test will get a strong impression that their aloof pose conceals some hidden insecurity. While clearly devout, all three are nervous in the presence of Imperial authorities, especially members of the Ecclesiarchy or Inquisition.

All three display mutations typical of the Navis Nobilite. Hamura and her cousin Hamuran move with eerie inhuman grace, while Moro is almost skeletally thin and stands more than seven feet in height. They are invariably polite but withdrawn when dealing with others.