I finally got my copy of Rogue Trader from Amazon today. (Took them long enough!) Since I'm the one who bought the book, I'll be petitioning our GM to let me be the ship captain.

I'm trying to come up with a decent backstory for my Rogue Trader. My DH Adepta comes from a noble background, and my Star Wars RPG character is a noble, too. I'm trying to figure out a feasible way to not be a noble this time around. I'm thinking of having her come from an Imperial world, but how would she have gotten control of a ship with a Warrant? I'm leaning toward a Vaunted birthright. Either that or Child of the Creed, since our DH Inquisitor will have an ongoing relationship with our Explorers to find relics for him that will play into storylines for our Acolytes. (In any given game session, our GM said that we could be playing either our DH Acolytes or RT Explorers.)

So yeah... how would a non-noble end up captaining a rogue trader ship?

Some ideas:

- Your character is related, but not noble. Then the dynasty has every single person who has a better claim to be heir dies or renounces their claim, leaving your character as the most credible heir when the current holder meets the same fate.

- The charter has really strange conditions for who it passes to.

- The dynasty wants the next heir to grow up away from nobility because he/she feels that it would be better. Maybe you were being hidden from those that would try to kill you.

- The child grew up aboard one of the Rogue Trader vessels to stay close to his/her parents. This only applies to void-born though.

- You have proven yourself very loyal and competent to the current Rogue Trader while the heirs have proven to be very useless and untrustworthy. So he arranges things so you inherit it.

Warrants are sometimes given out as a reward for exceptional service in the Navy, or other military bodies.

They're also used to get rid of a controversial figure too connected or beloved to simply be killed. A heroic general who expresses doubts about the High Lords for example.

Inheritance is more normal though, and it works in strange ways. A non-noble could simply be working in a factory, when an imposing figure arrives and informs you that the Starship Glorious Revenge was lost in warp, along with a large portion of the Gharn dynasty. They have traced the lineages, and you stand to inherit the Warrant.

You work your way up in the merchant fleet, and purchase a Warrant with your vast, self-made wealth!

...not sure if this is 100% koscher with the Origin Path. If not, see if you can fudge. It means you'll have to start out with tons of PF and a lousy ship.

Etepete said:

Except that you don't "buy" Warrants, they are political appointments. Now, if you could get hold of something someone who had the power to appoint a Warrant wanted.... that's different.

When it comes to Rogue Traders, what's the different between a payment and a bribe, really?

Attila-IV said:

Exactly! The difference between a filthy, dodgy-dealing, drug-running opportunist running a gang of low-lifes and smugglers, and a fine upstanding imperial citizen providing the life-blood of commerce and industry to the toiling masses of the sector is the amount of PF you sink into the local Administratum coffers

There are a number of ways to get a non-noble captain (one thing to consider is that the captain need not be the Rogue Trader: The rogue trader may simply be travelling as "owner-aboard". Aside from that though...). According to the Origin Path chart, it is possible to start from all the way across as a Void-born stubjack, assuming no free rows, although that locks in your entire origin path.

Fluffwise though? Maybe the Warrant stipulates "Bearer", rather than be passed by bloodline, or it can only be passed between third cousins along the maternal line. My personal favourite is a variant of the "bearer": you were a ?savant? member (or in the employ of) a ship-owning concern (maybe a spire house from a hive world, or a large imperial world merchant combine), but there's a glass ceiling. You need to either be an aristo by blood, or a ship captain. So you either con or murder the bearer of a warrant controlled by your bosses, bribe the administratum to fudge the paperwork and take their ship along with your trusted hired bodyguards. Obviously, that'd piss off either the captain you conned and/or his heir, not to mention the crew (potentially), so that gives Vendetta, unless you covered your tracks well. Dark Voyage is a possibility, if the heirs and some officers loyal to the previous are still aboard during your first trip out...

As it happens, one of my players from my DH campaign ended up with a variant on that, with a Noble background. His Charter is a fairly limited one from the Ecclesiarchy, rather than a full Rogue Trader Warrant, and he ended up murdering his cousin for it (maybe cousine, I forget precisely what relation we decided upon) in a rather gauche manner (not one, but two syringes left in the relative's back, either one of which contained enough raw stimulant (Barrage) to deliver a lethal overdose).

Thank you for your suggestions. You've given me some delicious possibilities to consider. My entire knowledge of the 40k universe was from DH until November, and creating convincing fluff is important to me.

"So yeah... how would a non-noble end up captaining a rogue trader ship?"

On the Origin Path, you pick an option besides Noble Born ... ;¬)

Acquire or inherit massive power / wealth (much the same thing, especially in 40K) but without actually being a scion of a noble house, then persuade the Administratum to grant a Warrant of Trade (or else acquire it from your ancestor without yourself being of a noble line). There are also the usual fictional things such as saving the life of a Lord of Terra (somehow) or rendering great service to an Inquisitor, yadda, yadda. Truly, only your imagination limits the ways it could have come to pass.

I think I've decided that my character came from a long line of Imperial Navy officers, and she was expected to follow in the footsteps of those who came before her. She does rise to the rank of second lieutenant, but before she be promoted any further within the Navy (her father was a Rear Admiral), a twist of fate (which I'm still sorting out, but will have to do with some feat of heroism during a naval mission) found her presented with a Warrant and at the helm of her own ship as a Rogue Trader.

How about the ever-popular "was involved in a matter of great service but huge potential embarassment and privy to information never intended for one so junior, her position as both a Naval officer and scion of a long line of loyal servants, not to mention daughter of an Admiral inclines 'The Power That Be' to err on the side of generosity rather than ruthlessness and a Warrant of Trade in the fashion of 'expensive exile' is conjured up for her."

Hehe. I like that. I may just have to run it past my GM, who has informed me that he won't stand in my way of being our party's Rogue Trader, but to make sure I'm aware that the buck stops with me if anything goes wrong, and I can't just run off and find work on another ship like the others could. I told him I'm up for the challenge. Your idea gives me plenty to play with as well if I do happen to run afoul of anyone important.

Etepete said:

Exactly! The difference between a filthy, dodgy-dealing, drug-running opportunist running a gang of low-lifes and smugglers, and a fine upstanding imperial citizen providing the life-blood of commerce and industry to the toiling masses of the sector is the amount of PF you sink into the local Administratum coffers

Actually in our case our drug lab making obscura and tranq is out of normal imperial space and we just delgate the movement of such high demand products to a small union of free traders with a wider sense of commerce, lets say, at wholesale prices where they're responsible for the product and dont necessarily need to know where it comes from.

Quite a lot of being a rogue trader is knowing where the line legally begins and ends too!

Flesh it out with details and run with it then. :¬)

As for drug running and so on, people keep asking about where their fleet is and so on... well, maybe it's right there, where your profit is, but it's probably not void capable and certainly not suitable for deep void exploration or combat. The one ship you start with (in most cases) is simply the best ship you have for the job in hand, not necessarily the only ship you have access to.