Hi I'm currently taking part in my first RT campain and am having a brilliant time doing so! I'm playing a Navigator and I'm looking for some extra information on them is possible. I've looked up the lexicanum and a few other places like that as well as read their section in depth in the Rogue Trader book so I know all the easily accessable information. What i was wondering is how are navigator children brought up within the houses, like how do their powers evolve and such and are they trained by their parents and such since birth? Also considering the rarity of the gene I assume they have large families as well? Also if there were to be a nagivator child born aboard a vessel would the house insist on it being returned there to be trained or would it be up to the parents in question? Mostly I'm curious about their upbrininging since I can't seem to find any information on it anywhere else.

Thanks in advance!

Ravingsohma said:

There isn't a lot of background information on this stuff that I'm aware of, so you're free to get creative, which is always nice! My take on the subject of raising Navigator kids would be as follows:

Given that Navigator marriages are often arranged on a dynastic basis, one would imagine that Navigator children are not necessarily raised like normal children. It may be that their birth parents have been pressured or manipulated into conceiving/siring/carrying the child, and may resent the intrusion. Alternatively, they may regard childrearing as a familial duty. Depending upon the inclination of the individual Navigator, they may find comfort in this duty, or they may find it onerous.

I would imagine that the majority of Navigator houses would raise their children in the same way that ancient noble houses or royal families did: with servants carrying out lots of the "menial" parenting. (wetnursing, diaper/nappy changing, playing, etc) The birth parents may remain distant (and, given their occasional mutations, terrifying) figures in the life of a Navigator child. Imagine a fondly distant Victorian father who would be absent for months at a time...but with flippers for hands. Imagine what kind of impression that figure would create in the mind of an intelligent, sensitive and impressionable child.

Perhaps the parents might resent the child enough to have nothng to do with him or her...the child might grow up surrounded by loving retainers who are entirely human, and might come to regard other navigators as threatening and weird.

I have no idea if a Navigator child is instructed from birth in the use of their powers, but it may be the case that their powers do not fully mature until adolesence. There is a lot of information to suggest that "normal" psychic powers develop like this, so perhaps Navigators are the same. There would certainly be a period of education or induction under a more senior navigator, though this need not be an actual parent, perhaps it might be a senior relative.

I agree it would make sense that a Navigator family would want to have a large number of children, so as to maximise their profits. This may tend to make female Navigators become regarded as "baby making machines" who spend a large proportion of their fertile years pregnant. Although given that Navigators are goign to be rich members of Imperial society, this may only be a minimal proportion of their lives, given rejuvenat treatment. One would imagine that female navigators wouldn;t be too happy with such an arrangement.

Perhaps this would make young female Navigators who have spent relatively little time in the warp quite valuable commodities. (One would imagine there is a trade-off though between time in warp (and thus risk of mutation) and lack of time in warp and unproven or poor navigational talent. Thus a young navigator might be relatively mutation free, and thus genetically stable, but might be a poor navigator and as such relatively useless.) Being regarded as a valuable commodity might be a pretty unpleasant experience.

Developing this idea, you might end up with something like this as a life cycle for a Navigator:

birth to adolesence: The Navigator is raised in opulent surroundings by retainers. Navigators family members are distant and terrifying figures.

-Adolesense and early teenage years: The Navigator is instructed (perhaps by an older relative) in the navigational arts.

-Late teens: The navigator is apprenticed to an older Navigator for part of their teens (indeed, such figures might be the "backup" navigators on a Rogue Trader vessel)

-Young adulthood: the Navigator becomes a valuable trading commodity as they approach breeding age. Dynastic breeding opportuities are arranged. These may never actually involve sex or marriage: they may be simple, mutually unpleasant artificial insemination processes, observed by retainers from both sets of navigator families to ensure the correct genetic material is used appropriately. "Loveless" wouldn't really do justice to such coldly commercial arrangements. Male Navigators are better placed to deal with these arrangements without them affecting their training, though some richer female Navigators may arrange for surrogate mothers for their offspring to ensure minimal disruption with their training. Presumably many navigator babies die before birth due to mutations, making a navigator birth a rare and important thing.

-adulthood: female and male navigators spend much of their time developing their skills in the warp. They may or may not play a role in the rearing of their offspring. At this stage the relative skills of navigators will start to appear: some will prove to be better and stronger navigatiors, and as such more lucrative breeding stock. Older female Navigators in this stage of their lives may no longer be capable of reproducing. Older male Navigators will continue to be viable, but long term exposure to the warp and the radioactivity of deep space renders fatherhood riskier as the navigator ages.

-dotage: other than the bizarre physical processes which may be triggered in an heir apparent iof a great navigator house upon the death of a Paternova, Navigators will presumably grow old and die like humans, though possibly at a slower rate given their time in the warp and wealth. They may become teachers or mentors for younger navigators, before possibly retiring in luxury to finally live out their long lives.

Just a few thoughts!

Wow thanks so much for your input and ideas! I've taken part in a few simpler role playing games before but never within the 40k universe so I find myself being slightly nervous about doing character backgrounds and such and the other players have a rather indepth knowledge of the universe and the last think I wanted was to come up with a really deep and convoluted backstory (and possible eventual future character ideas) only to be told that it would be completely wrong within the universe. I have only done rpgs in their own contained universe before (such a savage worlds) so it's a bit daunting to create a good (and correct) character in a universe that has so much background information and fluff already created. Of course, this is certianly what makes it great fun to create a character in Rogue Trader but for someone who has never played dark hericy/been involved in the universe before it's difficult to make sure you're getting it right, you know? =)

I especially had a problem finding the female standing of navigators in the Imperium in the book. I'm assuming that because of this I should be able to kind of tailor it towards what I want for my own character backstory but it's quite odd to be playing a female navigator as even in the book all I've seen are drawings of male navigators. I suppose this is because females are less likely to be allowed go on vessels until after they are of breeding age, and then they wouldn't have had the same practice using and navigating the warp as their male counterparts.

Considering the is a young navigator (this has been her first contract as full navigator on a ship rather then apprentice or a lesser navigator) I had already come up with the backstory that she had decided to run away from her house as she didn't want to deal with it when she returned from her last apprentice expedition so she joined the current vessel to defy her parents (oh super rebel!). By pure luck she's ended up being an amazingly good navigator (during my time playing her she hasn't failed a single navigation roll) and is extremly unmutated (all of her mutations are good, such as iron jaw, regeneration and strangely jointed limbs) so the family is furious because as navigators go she seems to be (by pure dice rolling luck) a prime navigator for breeding and such so I'm pretty sure thats as good a reason as any for her to run away! Finally she had made a deal with her house, since family is important to her, that she would meet suitors and pick a suitable one to marry as long as she could continue her contract aboard the ship as the captain of the ship would never let her leave for something as stupid as that. Althought the GM is perfectly happy with this (and has made up npcs for it and everything) I wanted to make sure there wasn't specific information that I was missing about navigators which would mean that this would never happen.

I never thought of the children being afraid of their parents because of how badly mutated they would be at that point but I have to admit I very much like the idea. I could have never come up with so many interesting ideas about how to both furter develop plot (i.e. Rogue Trader is currently very popular in my gaming group and when this campain is over I would be interested in maybe using one of her offspring for a future campain) and to create some very interesting backstory for the character. Thanks so much for your help! =)

You're welcome, happy to help!

If you can find it on the GW website, for the old "Inquisitor" game, there was an article all about Navigators, and had pages of info on how Navigator dynasties worked, how they interacted with one another, all that sort of thing. It's incredibly useful stuff to know.

I've always imagined a "version" of the navigators are similar to the original Dune movie Spacing Guild in some respects. They are peculiar group of mutants arranged in clans or great houses - as a collective entity they wield incredible power and influence. They are a functional part of the Imperium but strangely different and alien to most Imperial citizens, each house or clan has its own customs, language and ethics.

Citizen Philip said:

Yeah, I'd agree with that, Citizen P! However, I'm always keen to avoid deriving too much from the Dune interpretation of Navigators. While it's obvious that the 40k navigator concept owes a huge debt to Dune, I think it's important for 40k to "find it's own voice" in its interpretation of the basic idea.

The Dune concept is slightly different from the basic 40k Navigator premise, in that (as I recall) the spacing guild wasn't necessarily familial in structure, and the navigators spent a lot of time floating around in orange-gas-filled tanks. (David Lynch's incredibly mutated vision of a Navigator was one of the few things I liked about his movie version of the story, even though it wasn't particularly true to the books.)

I think it's important for 40k Navigators to actually move as far away from the Dune concept as possible, in the same way it's important for Space Marines to move away from Star Wars Imperial Stormtroopers: there may be an element of the original concept in each, but the gothic darkness of 40k should twist and turn that initial concept in as many arcane and weird directions as possible.

The 40k Navigators have all kinds of elements missing from the Dune navigators: I read these as successive attempts to differentiate between the two ideas by different writers. Long may this process continue! 40k navigators are idiosyncratically mutated, have three eyes, are prone to family feuds and vendettas...I always felt they had a slightly "Venetian Gothic" feel to them, a grand, rich, slightly faded and unique take on Imperial Nobility. Having recently read John Julius Norwich's history of Venice, I kept thinking that the ruthless mercantile approach of the Serene Republic in its glory days was a good fix for the Navis Nobilite families. You could actually plunder a lot of Italian history for ideas about the Navigators, from Venice to the Mafia, and you'd find a lot of it would fit really well...

This aristocratic guy with three eyes walks into a rogue traders office and says "I have this act that I think you'll love and if you just give us a minute of your time, I'll know you'll want to sign us up"

The rogue trader says, "Okay, you've got one minute to describe your act"

MILLANDSON said:

I spent about a half hour wandering through the GW website to see if I could find that article but unfortinatly no luck! =P Thanks anyway though!

Funnily enough when I think of the Navigator families the first thing that popped into my mind, as they're practially untouchable by anyone but the inquisition, was the good old mafia! Especially with the hierarchies, the shunned houses and so forth and that they just have so much control within the Imperium.

Ravingsohma said:

There's a throwaway line in the old Jaq Draco Inquisitor books from 20-odd years ago that springs to mind where (as memory serves) the Navigator character (Vitali Googol?) refers to how the Navigator families are not without means of protection, and Draco says something long the lines of "Ah yes, the infamous Navis Nobilite mafia..." So there is canon scope for Navigator crime syndicates, though that trilogy is showing its age a little now...

One would imagine that each Navigator family would have its own particular means of protection. They probably have their own house retainers, guards, assassins etc. And they're a commercial enough organisation to pool their resources for the betterment of Navigators as a whole... meaning there could well be inter-sector Navigator Houses that dabble as crime syndicates. It would also appear that Navigators have some sort of immunity from prosecution under regular Imperial law, as this is referred to obliquely in the Crossfire Novel: "Put up your weapons, men and women of the Adeptus Arbites. I will not fight you, and you cannot fight me." I'm sure this "diplomatic immunity" wouldn't give the Inquisition a second's pause, but it would prevent planetary governors and the Arbites digging too deep into the dirty secrets of the Navigator Houses...

from William King

http://www.trollslayer.net/essays/nav.html

In most houses, it seems, Navigators begin their apprenticeship around the age of 3. Their basic training lasts 21 years. This involved in its early stages seven years of training designed to discipline the mind through the medium of physical exercise and meditation rituals, and the study of basic martial arts for the same reason. Then comes seven years of mental training that involved the study of many disciplines including mathematics, hyper-spatial geometry, history, politics, economics. It also involves study of the design and construction of warp engines and starships in case the Navigator should be called on to supervise the repair of his vessel, and tactics of all sorts, for it is not uncommon for Navigators to become involved in battles, both in space and on the ground. Lastly there comes seven years of mystical training designed to stimulate the pineal eye, and open the mind to the paths of the Immaterium. In its last seven-year stage this apparently involves mysticism, drug use and study much like the forbidden arts of sorcery.
When a Navigator progresses to the next level, he continues his studies on the previous levels so that by the time he comes of age at 24, when his house may apply on his behalf for his Master Navigator’s ticket. It is at this point that as an Inquisitor your career and his may well intersect. Wisely the Ecclesiarchy insists that all Navigators are subjected to the most stringent mental and physical testing when they first seek their master’s ticket and every 5 years thereafter when they come to renew that ticket. Any Navigator whose travels have taken them beyond the reach of an Inquisitor for more than 5 years is required by law to present himself to the Ecclesiarchy or the nearest Inquisitor when he returns, as is any Navigator who has been exposed to abnormal influences, travelled beyond the Imperium in the company of a Rogue Trader or made contact with Xenogens or heretics of any kind. Any Navigator remiss in this duty may find himself handed over by his own house, most likely because if they fail to do so, they can be subject to a full scale Inquisitorial investigation.

also worth trying are the space wolf series of books as they have a lot on the navigators. Especially wolf blade written by William king

eyeslikethunder said:

**** you go there before me. The above article was developped by william king when he was fleshing out the navigators and much of the same material can be found in the oft overlooked novel FARSEER which despite the name the main character is infact a rogue trader. Infact the above site has a article on Rogue Traders. FARSEER was meant to be a Trilogy which never developped.

Does anybody know why William King stopped writing for GW? Nathan Long is making a good fist of keeping felix and Gotrek alive, but I feel that much of the early flavour of the fluff has now left GW when he left.

Which leads us to question us if GW no longer believed that William King had the right ideas about the way the background was heading. )After all its rather suspicious that the black Library rule on not writing Fluff from a Xenos point of view came in, after King left) and weather his ideas are any longer canon.

ALSO heres a transcript from SPACE FLEET that venerable early game about navigators. How much of it is 'CANON' Im no longer sure...

NAVIS NOBILITE
The Navis Nobilite - also known as the Navigator Houses - is an institution which predates the Imperium by many thousands of years. It is the most ancient of all human organisations. It was founded sometime in the Dark Age of Technology and survived through the Age of Strife to the present day.

Over this period of approximately 30,000 years, the fortunes of the Navis Nobilite have constantly waxed and waned, but its power has never been broken. Today it thrives as a vital part of the Imperium.

The Navis Nobilite is divided into many individual Houses or Great Families. Each House is a large related family, but it is also a literal house, a fortified mansion where the House leader - or Novator - lives together with his immediate kin and retainers. This mansion is regarded as the seat of the entire Great Family, even though it is only the hereditary ruling family that lives there.

The Great Families of the Navis Nobilite are uniquely composed of a particular form of human mutant called a Navigator. The mutation is not a spontaneous or natural one, but rather the result of genetic engineering conducted in the distant past during the earliest history of the Navigator Houses. This engineering created the Navigator Gene that distinguishes Navigators from ordinary humans.

The gene itself can only be preserved by intermarriage, as it is lost when a Navigator breeds with an ordinary human. This factor has led to the development of the closely-related Navigator families.

NAVIGATORS
The genetic creation of Navigators has a single purpose: to endow a human with the ability to steer a spacecraft through warpspace. Only Navigators can do this - no other human or machine has the ability to navigate warpspace in this way. It is this ability that allows human spacecraft to travel so quickly compared to alien craft.

Without Navigators to steer its ships, the Imperium would quickly fragment into thousands of separate stellar empires, each only a few dozen light years across, whose spacecraft would be obliged to use tiny and dangerous blind jumps to cover interstellar space.

The physique of Navigators is unusual. The feature which distinguishes all Navigators is the Third or Warp Eye situated in the centre of their forehead. Nearly all young Navigators traditionally work in space as pilots. Over the years they gradually increase their familiarity with the warp and their powers become stronger.

This mental maturation may take as many as fifty or a hundred years of space flight, but as Navigators can live for three or four hundred years this is not a great proportion of their lives. As they grow more experienced they also change physically. The white and iris of the Third Eye gradually vanished leaving a single black pupil. The eye itself hardens, and the eyelids shrink leaving a single staring orb.

Often the Navigator continues to grow more massive as he ages and his ribs enlarge, becoming prominent as internal gills develop in the chest cavity.

THE HEIR APPARENT
The most powerful Navigators in each of the Great Families are called Heirs Apparent. This signifies that they may one- day contend for the position of Paternova, the ruler of all the Navis Nobilite. The Paternova may come from any of the Great Families and from any social level within them.

The Heirs Apparent are usually the oldest Navigators, although not all develop in this way and some Navigators live out their entire lives without undergoing the physical changes described.

The Heirs Apparent are often bitter rivals who will even go as far as to try and eliminate each other if they get the chance. This sometimes leads to protracted personal vendettas or even family feuds between two Navigator Houses. The Adeptus Terra is fairly tolerant of minor skirmishing of this kind, although open hostilities between Houses are discouraged as much as possible.

Unfortunately, this keen rivalry sometimes draws Heirs Apparent into marginally unlawful or even outright illegal practices. Their personal ambition makes them vulnerable to all sorts of dangerous influence, from collaboration with aliens to dealings with the daemonic. These deviants are a minority - most Heirs Apparent conduct their rivalries without courting such dangers.

THE PATERNOVA
The Paternova is the leader of all Navigators and the most powerful of all his kind. The Paternova may live for up to a thousand years. When he dies all the existing Heirs Apparent begin to change - they begin to grow even larger and stronger. Their gill structure becomes fully functional allowing them to survive in hard vacuum as well us underwater or in normally poisonous environments. Most important, they start to fight.

They are drawn to combat with each other, building up a pitch of aggression that eventually overrides all other considerations. As Heirs Apparent are killed those who survive change even more until finally only one remains alive. It is this vastly changed and extremely powerful individual who becomes the new Paternova.

The Paternova lives in the Palace of the Navigators which lies on Earth in the centre of the zone held by the Navis Nobilite. Following his accession, the Paternova never leaves the palace. The existing staff, soldiery and other retainers of the palace are replaced by those drawn from the Patemova's own House. The chief amongst his servants is the Paternoval Envoy who becomes a High Lord of Terra and sits on the Senatorum Imperialis.

The role of the Paternova is an obscure part of Navigator biology although no-one doubts its importance. The Paternova is described as the guiding father whose powers transcend the warp itself.

During the interlude between the reign of one Paternova and another, all Navigators other than Heirs Apparent suffer a considerable reduction in their powers. Their ability to navigate the warp is impaired, warp journeys become longer, ships are unexpectedly lost, and younger Navigators may lose their abilities completely.

As soon as the new Paternova is installed the powers of Navigators are restored. However, not all are restored to the same degree. Navigators belonging to the same House as the Paternova find their abilities enhanced, as if their blood relationship were enabling the Paternova to transmit his powers more effectively. Navigators belonging to the House of the old Paternova lose this benefit, and so individuals may find their powers impaired.

THE NAVIGATOR'S WARP EYE
The unusual feature shared by all Navigators is the Third Eye or Warp Eye. Navigators normally keep this eye covered with a bandanna or covering which is itself often decorated with an eye. This has led many humans to doubt the existence of this Third Eye.

In fact the Third Eye is the focus of the Navigator's power. The eye enables the Navigator to see the shifting currents of warpspace and so to guide his spacecraft within the warp.

It is said that a Navigator can always see the warp even when he is in the material universe, and that it is this constant exposure to the unnamed horrors of Chaos that lends to their strange physical changes. It has been known for Navigators to react suddenly and violently to invisible things in the warp, and to collapse, lose their sanity or even die as a result.

The eye has other powers too, although these are employed far more rarely and are the subject of some mystique. These powers develop with the Navigator's experience of the warp, so that they are most developed of all in the Heirs Apparent. The uncovered stare of a Navigator can kill a man, and that of an Heir Apparent is said to ward off even the daemonic creatures of the warp.

Rival Navigators sometimes fight using the power of their eyes to blast each other - such open conflicts are rare but spectacular. It is also said that the eye of a Navigator has prophetic powers and that it can literally see into the future. Navigators are very reluctant to talk about their powers and it may well be that only the Paternova understands the full potential of a Navigator's abilities.

The SPACE FLEET stuff is pretty much the same as the stuff in the "Inquisitor" article on Navigators, so yea, I'd say that it's still canon.

MILLANDSON said:

Mostly...but what about the

"Often the Navigator continues to grow more massive as he ages and his ribs enlarge, becoming prominent as internal gills develop in the chest cavity."

I dont remember this later in the canon...or is it just one of their mutations? or a initial throwback to dune?

Captain Harlock said:

Notice how it says "often". I'd say it's one of their many mutations, as well as a throwback to Dune.

eyeslikethunder said:

Brilliant this was exactly what I was looking for! It seems I got a lucky roll for my navigators age aswell as she's 24 and if she had been any younger she wouldn't have actually completed her training cannonly! I has assumed that navigators would have had to go through tough training like this to become as powerful as they are and it would make it more obvious how different they are from normal humans given their upbringing and such. I will assume that even for void-born navigators that special teachers and mentors were brought it, but that would also make the character more social to humans as it would encounter humans on the vessel and probably play with children on the ship (obviously assuming that void-born navigators are rare enough considering the how birth rates/family influences to be brought to the houses and such).

Ravingsohma said:

Depending on how traditionalist and/or open-minded her Navigator House is, there's another way to appease the family : donating some ovum - or maybe even a whle ovary - to make sure her genes are available to the House no matter where she's going around. A paranoid House might event want both ovaries, getting teh additional benefits that she bring her genes out through some unwelcome mariage (thought when push comes to shove, cloning can get around the problem).

It can even lead to some rather nasty problems - imagine some rival house intercepting the package and replacing it with the equivalent from a totally corrupted bloodline (prone to over-the-board and negative mutations and mad as a hater...). The 'Ethan of Athos' novel is a good source of ideas about the sort of things that can happen.

In Soul Hunter by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, a pretty young female navigator is part of a rogue trader crew. Her first appearance is on an asteroid as she got bored and wanted off the ship. Her presence on a rogue trader in the first place may be explained to her house being near broke (think bottom of the heap shrouded house).

There's also some decent sections of Navigator fluff in some old novels/shorts. The Inquisition War trilogy was mentioned earlier (Jaq Draco et al), but there's also a fair bit of navigator involvement in Eye of Terror (Barrington J Bayley), and an excellent short entitled "Lacrymata" (last seen in the Let The Galaxy Burn meganthology, iirc).

Oh, and in re: Bill King leaving Black Library- it may only be rumour, but I heard he asked for a £1m advance for a book, and BL basically said "no, and we own your characters..."
Shame really, he was one of their better authors.

Greedy though, 1m advance is a lot.

I'm very interested now in starting to read some of the novels mentioned above. Is there any one I should start with or does it matter?