I have a group we've been playing for about half a year, so the characters in the group are well established.

They've spent all that time on one planet. At the end boss battle of this adventure, one of my players got hit by a energy weapon and landed on a body 10 critical hit. Which burnt him horribly, set off all his grenades, and melted his eyes.

Now my players want to change to rogue trader adventures, and focus on space exploration.

They've defeated a Greater Demon of nurgle , though in weakened form, recovered a space marine relic weapon, destroyed a nurgle cult, and lots of other minor victories. They have also collected a archaotech depository that can contain certain heretical or unknown patterns.

So at the moment, they have one favor available from a space marine chapter, they have done a great deed in taking down a greater demon, their Inquisitor has gotten a boost in his renown from his good acolytes. He is also a radical inquisitor.

They will get their hands on a ship either through the inquisitor or the space marines, most likely the Inquisitor. They will also need a navigator, so my thought was to maybe replace the character that lost both eyes with a bionic, xenos or heretek technology, what I am looking for is a as lore friendly a way of giving this player the ability to navigate the warp as I can.

I am quite willing to bend the rules, but I prefer not breaking completely with the lore, so I at least need a small justification for how this comes about. The archaeotech depository they have could of course contain a pattern or location of a set of bionic eyes, maybe pre heresy experiments, any thoughts about alternatives I could use?

The first thing I'd want to know is if that person explicitly wanted to play as the navigator. I would assume so, given your post, but I feel it's best to be sure. Anyway, assuming that's the case then honestly an easy solution is to just give the character an actual warp eye or two as a biological implant. Perhaps the previous owner's Navis Nobilite house is now persona non grata, or maybe this chapter previously had an "accident whilst travelling through the Warp, leaving only a skeleton crew remaining" that just so happened to kill the navigator on board at the time. If those don't work I'm sure you can think up something that's appropriately shady.

Now if it turns out that player isn't really interested in becoming a navigator, you could instead equip their ship with the cogitators necessary to make short but calculated warp jumps. (They're mentioned somewhere in RT but aren't terribly fleshed out.)

Unlike D&D the game herein straddles two areas; like D&D it has an emphasis on combat - or there wouldbt be half of the book dedicated to comabt facets of play / but it also feels sort of like a Whitewolf game whereby the emphasis would be RP and not combat...

Keep in mind when Whitewolf did do a more combat heavy experience it was done through the lens of Werewolf mainly - by vainnla the other product lines were played separately or provided window dressing against what you choose to play (normally a whole group was vampire or werewolves or whatever - by default design)

Back to FFG - here we have a game that wants to do both but does neither of them as well as D&D or Whitewolf respectively did in each of their "departments"

So here we are today mired in lots of "problems" problems I do agree with the posters most of the time on these forums - all I know is if we were face to face we'd all go on for hours about stuff that needs tooling, fixing, and or adjusting all over the place... lol

In essence the logic being - when your not solely focused your diluted

Morbid

Just a followup sort of rant

All the "roles" in DH should have been more along the lines of the roles in 4E D&D (which is an edition of the game I hate btw)

Though I dont mean to replace things like Seeker, Mystic and or the like - more like "add this" on top of that...

Leader

Defender

Striker

Controller

Then appended an RP component to each role in DH more along the lines of say Vampire the Masquerade's "Clans"

Instead of any combat oriented game facets - everything herein should affect social interactions,contacts, and even requisitions & player political titles they can inspire to!

Just saying FIN

Morbid

I've been talking it over with the player, and he is quite positive about getting navigator eyes, plan is to have them be hidden behind something that looks like a normal bionic eye, but where the bionic can be "opened" to let the warp eye look out on the players command.

I am going to use it as his Inquisitor wants to keep some of the missions he does hidden even from the Navis Nobilite, and by some means he has gotten his hand on an eye. Also thinking of staffing the players ship with mind wiped, and reprogrammed inquisition crew, to remove any chance of a information leak about a non navigator controlling the ship in the warp. At least to begin with, once they start taking combat losses, and have to get crew outside the inquisition the situation will become more interesting.

Also morbiddon i don't quite see how your posts related to my current question or problem solving at all, did you post in the wrong thread?

Grafting a Navigator Eye onto a non-Navigator is not only some extremely high-level heresy, but wouldn't even work per fluff. The character is lacking the proper genetics to use the eye or process the information in the same way. If the rest of the Inquisition found out, or even the Navis Nobilite, well... there will be lots and lots of fire involved. Now... this could lead to some good story threads, but still.

If you want a fluffy way to have your players navigate, get a piece of equipment called a Prognosticator for your ship. It allows regular humans to navigate through the Warp like a Navigator does. Now... unless you have From Beyond, it'll cause the character to gradually rack up insanity points, and the Navis Nobilite will try to destroy it if they ever find out you have it, but it's far less heretical to introduce into your game than a human with warp-interfacing bio-grafts.

How about - for giggles - your group gets a navigator in special stasis - think brain in the jar or body in cryo tube type deal - in essence the navigator inside is just a tool (no pun indeeded lol)...

Stay GAMING

Morbid

Grafting a Navigator Eye onto a non-Navigator is not only some extremely high-level heresy, but wouldn't even work per fluff. The character is lacking the proper genetics to use the eye or process the information in the same way. If the rest of the Inquisition found out, or even the Navis Nobilite, well... there will be lots and lots of fire involved. Now... this could lead to some good story threads, but still.

If you want a fluffy way to have your players navigate, get a piece of equipment called a Prognosticator for your ship. It allows regular humans to navigate through the Warp like a Navigator does. Now... unless you have From Beyond, it'll cause the character to gradually rack up insanity points, and the Navis Nobilite will try to destroy it if they ever find out you have it, but it's far less heretical to introduce into your game than a human with warp-interfacing bio-grafts.

I don't believe it's heresy per se. Instead it's merely (ha!) an affront to the Navis Nobilite, and thus politically dangerous. As for the genetics bit...I can't find anything that mentions this in the tabletop stuff or the wikis beyond "Warp eyes are weird, yo." Have a source from GW's literature?

How about - for giggles - your group gets a navigator in special stasis - think brain in the jar or body in cryo tube type deal - in essence the navigator inside is just a tool (no pun indeeded lol)...

Stay GAMING

Morbid

I don't believe that's what the player or GM were looking for.

If you want a source then read the History of the Dark Age of Technology, found in literally any 40k core ruleset in the fluff section. Navigators are a controlled mutation that was purposefully cultivated to result in beings that can sense Warp currents and guide vessels safely through that nightmare realm.
Nowadays this process has nearly been completely lost and Navigators must resort to more conventional methods of breeding with one another, again a staple of their lore. Even then all Navigators show signs of errant mutation on their forms that only become exasperated with age. This is partly due to inherent effects of channeling Warp energy but also of their now diluted bloodlines.

Implanting a human with a Navigator eye without the protection of decades of training and the added safety provided by the Navigator gene itself would invariably result in the individual succumbing rapidly to mutation as their body becomes a conduit for the Immaterium. They would devolve into a gibbering lump of misshapen meat, should they be so fortunate, or worse become a vessel for a daemonic spirit.


Oh and yes, genetic tampering and messing with Navigatir houses is gross heresy and worlds have burned for such transgressions in the past.

You want a real alternative to Navigators? Take a page from Chaos then and have a psyker train as a Warp Guide. Chaos Sorcerers are famed for their ability to guide ships through the Warp with the help of malefic rituals and sacrifices to daemonic creatures that show them hidden paths in the Sea of Souls.

Well my player does have a few heretical tomes in his possession, a slaaneshi tome, and a nurgle tome, and a nice sprinkling of corruption points:P

Hmm, maybe transplanting part of navigators brain as well then, maybe the visual centre, and maybe if their brain has any unusual things about it, transplant some of those as well,, and then add inn some info from the nurgle tome about how to channel the eyes, their inquisitor is a radical, so not outside his slightly insane minds idea of a good idea.

their inquisitor is a radical

A poor excuse to be frank, this sounds more and more like you already have an idea in mind and are just looking for legitimacy from the forum. Its your game so do whatever you want in it, but don't ask us for our opinions if you've already made up your mind.

The portion above that discuss how Navigators need to mate with one another could possibly bring in some fun elements and grimness to a game - say the PC Nav is obligated to an arranged "mating" - granted the focus is not in and of the mating but the politics that go with that act and how it was forced down upon a player... On another side of things NAV NPCs can have some sort of "problem" with their prearrangement and thus somehow involve the PC NAV into their situation aka "help me - we're of the same guild" type of deal... I can just see lots of fun with that was/is all!

Stay GAMING

Morbid

Use a chaos ritual to graft the navigators eye and 'steal' his powers. Nothing short of bargaining with the demonic will prove fruitful by such an act. Or try transgenic blasphemies to cause genetic changes to replicate the abilities.

Well I kind of want to give the player the ability to navigate the warp, but the method behind it is quite open, I kind of want to avoid chaos rituals, but tech heresy, biological heresy, is quite open. Hmm, what about using the archaotech knowledge they have found to give the instructions for how to craft a mechanical equivalent of a warp cogitator, can't remember the name used in the fluff for this device right now.

Or keeping a navigator brain in a "jar" and the player hooking himself up to it, to make the navigator brain do the calculations, and the player just having the eyes, basically the result I am looking for is giving the player warp navigation, but the mechanic behind how being open.

None of the players are planning to reroll, and I want to have a player in command of the warp jumps, and warp jump tests.

The part about their inquisitor being radical, is more about that he is willing to use methods beyond what is usually acceptable, not a allowance for him to do anything he wants, he is not a chaos cultist, or pure heretic, at least not yet.

This might be an ideal opportunity to bring in Daemonic pacts from Enemies Beyond.

A pact that allows him to both navigate the warp and possibly also gives him unnatural senses to make up for his lost eyes. Being given the power by a Daemon should overcome all genetic and sanity obstacles (maybe a potential one off sanity and/or corruption loss for dealing with a daemon). This saves you from trying to make everything make sense and justify it as Daemons quite often can be used for hand wavium, lets move on.

To me shoving a Navigator's third eye and part of his brain into the character sounds like it would just lead to a brain damaged (at best) character.

Being radicals they might just be open to the idea of a pact and it can also lead to potential plot hooks as the Daemon is going to want something in return and also the characters are going to have to try and hide this deal from more puritan elements.

Hmm, yeah that is a distinct possibility, my player is positive to that idea, so just have to wait till my enemies Beyond book arrives.

One of the players is a Ecclesiarchy devout, so this might get extra funny.

Hmm, a nice sprinkling of insanity and corruption should be a minimum of what I give him, and sends him further down the path to corruption.

Because I can't get the quote option to work properly on my piece of electronics, I'll just copy/paste...

"Posted Yesterday, 01:06 PM

"Well I kind of want to give the player the ability to navigate the warp, but the method behind it is quite open, I kind of want to avoid chaos rituals, but tech heresy, biological heresy, is quite open. Hmm, what about using the archaotech knowledge they have found to give the instructions for how to craft a mechanical equivalent of a warp cogitator, can't remember the name used in the fluff for this device"

I'm pretty sure I mentioned it already. It's called a prognosticator. It's in Rogue Trader. It will allow a character who isn't a Navigator to navigate the warp. It is either archeaotech, heritech, or both. It fulfills the requirements you have laid out.

Edit: The Prognosticator is in Hostile Acquisitions I believe. It will allow a character to make a Navigate (Warp) test as a basic skill. After doing it enough, you could then let the player pick up the full skill, and eventually improve upon it.

Prognosticators WILL cause insanity every time they are used. However, also within Rogue Trader (Into the Storm I think) is an elite advance package the player can buy into that will give them the option of purchasing the From Beyond trait, which makes them immune to insanity. The requirements of the EAP are to have seen or experienced some really screwed up ****, however, simply by using the prognosticator once, and seeing the unfiltered warp in all its maddening, wretched glory, they are more than eligible for it.

Problem solved.

Yeah, I will let the player choose between a prognosticator and a demonic pact, and will see what he finds the most fun.

They sound like the best two options.