This is going to seem a bit weird, maybe, but what are some of the alternative ways in which a person of import can die, in 40K? Obviously, death by violence is the most likely, probably, for those who serve aboard ships of the Expanse, be they Navy, Pirates, or the Rogue Traders who fall in between, but what else might happen?

Some people, in 40K, can live for a long time, and for the rich, and well to do, drug treatments, cybernetic augmentations, and the frequent attentions of a Medicae, or Genetor, can keep them going for possibly even 300 years. I'm not entirely sure what strange, sci-fi ailments they might have, that we don't, so I'm not sure how powerful Imperium medicine is, to those with access to it.

For me, the crux of this issue is trying to figure out what happened to my Rogue Trader's father, and predecessor to the Warrant. in my head, it seems sort of unlikely for the acting dynast to step down, unless he is in the worst of health, and this certainly won't work here, as Antoss Qel-Drake practically hated his son, seeing him as a ridiculous lay-about, uninterested in killing xenos, fighting the God-Emperor's wars, and making a tidy profit off both. He certainly is dead, and his ship, sidearm, and body, are accounted for; Aedan uses the ship, and his father's body, and Dragon's Wrath , are in stasis, as is the spendy custom of the line. Thing is, he was an angry, dour warmonger, so I don't see him "just dying", he wasn't particularly old (maybe 130, maybe less), but he didn't die in a messy battle, either. Not much into drugs, or vices, and with a body left to be frozen in stasis, and viewable.

What other types of ways might people still die, in 40k? What might their medical tech fail to catch? To stop? He certainly did things to attract enemies, human and xenos, but I can't figure out, in my head, what to say he died of. Maybe a simple heart attack, but rich, and with doctors, or maybe something more like Guilliman, but tuned down, and he obviously didn't make it?

So, where this might actually help other people, and not just me, if you are playing the Rogue Trader, what usually happened to your predecessor? If you have their ship, and their Warrant, what occurred to bring this about? I figure it is a little detail you probably should know, unless no one is the RT, or you are taking distant orders from the personage, elsewhere. If you aren't the first to have your Warrant, what sorts of ways have you gone through to inherit it? Thanks much.

There are plenty of examples of warp-born diseases that the Imperium can do absolutely nothing against, aka the blessings of a certain generous Grandfather, which could easily serve your needs here if you want to go that route. Needless to say there are also certain Xenos poisons or even natural toxins that would cause horrific death as well, see Dark Eldar or examples of the more deadly "natural" toxins produced by the denizens of the Expanse.

If that doesn't fit the bill, an assassination is always an option, and the type of assassin or faction they belong/were hired by could prove important for the plot in general.

Or a plain old fashioned heart failure, massive radiation dose due to a space suit mishap or slipping in the shower. Anything that might kill a outwardly healthy man in his 40-ties or 50-ties in our universe could affect a patriarch, even with rejuvenation treatments.

No matter how advanced the medical treatment, it still has to be applied in time to matter. People drop dead all the time from innumerable biological failures that develop too quickly to be combated effectively. I also think of rejuve treatments as a genre of substances that mechanically force the body into changing. This kind of thing has to be done delicately, and I am sure the process involves numerous drugs that must be carefully monitored or else the subject may suffer from a wide range of negative effects. Combine a recent rejuve treatment with a strange new menu item, and now there is a toxic reaction happening in your bloodstream and the only treatment is immediate full dialysis. Unless the unfortunate person was hooked up to a machine when they were stricken, they would die in minutes.

A voidship isn't a safe place. Micrometeor hull breaches, 'glitch' failures of vitae sustainers, even a lighter crash during a shuttle flight are all quite capable - although most of those wouldn't leave an especially pretty body.

But certainly an accident leading to an internal injury could easily kill someone on a perfectly peaceful ship. It happens often enough on maritime ships today.