I've started GMing my second Rogue Trader campaign. The first one only contained a voidmaster, a navigator and a rogue trader.

This new group is a rogue trader, explorator, navigator, and astropath. For the most part, things are going great. The rogue trader is working towards becoming a bounty hunter and agent of revenge for nobles and others for those who've been dishonored, the navigator has become enamoured with warp magic and is secretly studying sorcery, and the explorator is gathering up bits and pieces of archeotech to build himself a small contingent of elite battle servitors.

The problem is the astropath. From the first game, I could tell she wasn't enjoying herself as much because she was having trouble coming up with motivation. Basically she's an imperial-born savant who's hated by the Ecclesiarchy for her strong reliance of logic over faith. Beyond that, neither of us really knows where to go with her character. I've never run an astropath and she has no experience with 40k.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Being hated by the Ecclesiarchy is kind of a big deal. IF they know about her and her position on the ship, that is. The universe is a big place... However, perhaps there are members of the church who are trying to find her, or have tipped off an Inquisitor about her heretical ideals (maybe they even made it sound a bit worse than it was.) Also, she's a member of an Order, and as such has at least a nominal connection to a chain of command. Perhaps the people she's burned have made things a bit rocky with her direct supervisors, if you will. Maybe she'll be called upon to prove her loyalty or justify her beliefs. In this universe, people are executed for much less than than denying the divine nature of the Emperor! Also, as a Soul-Bound psyker, she would have some first-hand knowledge of just what the Emperor's power truly is. Perhaps she made a comment that a powerful psyker does not a god make in the presence of the wrong people. There are all sorts of feathers to ruffle in this stodgy and suspicious culture. I would capitalize on those things. She should decide if her personal beliefs are worth airing to her possible detriment, no?

i found the easyest way to deal with astropaths in my campaign was to forget to begin with that they are astropaths and focus on the character side of things then add the soulbinding intergalatic phone / fax sevice at the end

She could take on the role of the menacing taskmaster / interrogator of the group. Perhaps she has become enamored with seeing different emotional states in the people around her. She may even try to entice people to enter certain emotional states just so that she can "see" something different for a change. This could lead to an addiction that can only be sated by various means... not all of which are wholesome.

For example:

Your group decides that they want to Intimidate the next contact they find in the Cold Trade to discern some valuable information. After finding this contact, they refuse to give up the local broker without paying a ludicrous sum of money. Instead, your Rogue Trader decides to kidnap the contact and bring them to the seedier side of the Hive world... the following ensues...

Rogue Trader: "So, you don't want to talk without charging us a ridiculous fee, eh? Well then, you leave me with little choice... may the Emperor have mercy on your soul."

<the door to the room opens and the Astropath enters, the Rogue Trader leaves the room>

Astropath: "Do you know what it's like to see you in the Warp?", the Astropath pauses as if waiting for an answer. When nothing forthcoming or correct is said, they continue. "No, I suppose you wouldn't know that.... no one knows what they truly look like in the Warp... except for me.... ", coos the Astropath in a sardonic voice.

"The Warp is the domain of emotions... and right now, all I see when I look at you is fear ", the last word spit as if in contempt of the emotion that the cold trade contact has.

"I'm here to give you a choice... a choice that I never had." The Astropatch approaches the contact and places her hands on the sides of his head.

"Either you willingly cooperate and tell me what I want to know, or you will never feel anything other than what I choose to leave undamaged. You will be a puppet, a living embodiment of the raw emotion that I leave intact, for my pleasure...."

I'm sure that the contact would give up what he knew... perhaps to the disappointment of your Astropath. After all, she was sooo looking forward to having a new "doll" to add to her growing collection that she already has.

Thanks guys. These are great ideas. I was wondering if there was any way for an astropath to make a living intercepting other astropath's messages and use that as a means of information collection?

I would have to imagine that is either impossible or steps have been taken to prevent it, otherwise (since ALL communication goes through astropaths) no one could ever send sensetive information.

I wouldn't say it was impossible (though you'd have to be inbetween the sender and reciever), given that there are instances of broadband messages being sent (intended to be picked up by anyone in range, such as distress calls), but I would imagine most messages would be sent in cyphers and code, where both the receiver and the sender knew the codes to use ahead of time.

Well the ciphers are certainly some of the most underused skills in my opinion so that is something I'd like to continue to explore.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, for my astropath's motivation, she chose pride(we let career choice be separate from the origin tree) and ended up with with the reliquary of a saint. We've decided that the reliquary was actually stolen by one of her ancestors years ago and forgotten about, as the shrine that originally contained it was destroyed by heretics. I'm not sure what to do with the idea of a stolen reliquary, but it feels like it has so much potential.

SpawnoChaos said:

Am I the only one who thinks this sounds a bit like a slannesh follower ?

A little bit, yea or at least the temptation is there to go deeper.

Really, you can just treat the astropath as a normal person. Other people might not treat them as such, and they might not look as such, but personality-wise there's no reason she can't be just like any other person.... except with psychic powers

The astropath in my playtest games, for example, is one of the main socialites of the group, using her telepathic abilities to help nudge people into liking her and enjoying her company. Suffice to say, she's brilliant at getting information She also uses the blind swordsman concept, with her being amazing with her fractal blade!

intercepting information is easy cracking to codes to read it if your not the intended recipient no so much but it can be done with a lot of research and a few throne gelts in the right coffers....

as for the relic.... didnt you say the church didnt like her much....... theres a whole can of who do steal that from right there or the wrong people want it so desicrate it or if you really want to play with it it may be blessed but dont ever take a look at whats inside because that my friend certainlly is not sanctified by the emporer, just held prisoner

lord inquisitor revan darksoul said:

There is a good example of this happening in the Ravenor / Eisenhorn / Gaunts Ghosts novels... I can't remember which. They received a high priority message that was encoded Vermilion, and their Astropath burned themselves out trying to relay the message before their ship was destroyed by a chaos raiding vessel that was attacking them.

Astropaths broadcast their messages through the Warp with an intended designation in mind, however, that doesn't mean that if you "listen hard enough" that you can't hear other messages flying past you that are intended for other locations.

Some messages are purely broadcast to the general area, and anyone can easily decipher their contents. Others are encrypted with cyphers that need many hours or months of study to crack the message.

As far as my prior suggestion sounding a little Slaaneshi, well, that depends on your point of view. Would you consider a MIssionary that enjoys causing pain in aliens he interrogates (such as in the one Ultramarines novel) being someone who is drawn to Slaanesh? He would disagree.

You could roleplay her as having a great deal of justifiable scorn for the Ecclesiarchy. What do they know of they God Emperor when you share a bond with him stronger than blood? To make it interesting you could have a bit of the Emperor pop up from time to time. Nothing great or obvious, but perhaps when the players situation is grim she says some insanely inspirational words that bring tears to the eyes of the crew. All in all though, this obvious favor with the Big Guy up top should mark her out as a threat to more mundane priests of the Imperial Faith.

(oops, double-post)