My gaming group just got an inspirational idea of creating a 'guild' for RT's. A council of Captains, where the most important RT destined by the Emperor (the eight from the Lure of the Expanse are to be the destined ones) are going to try to wrest control lording over the other RT's who are obliged to pay a tithe...

I know, my RT is a bit soft in the head and imagines himself sitting at the Emperors right hand before he turns another decade, so from his point of view this whole crazy idea sounds like a good plan. It will offer at least plenty of diplomatic maneuvering, backstabbing and betrayal. Right now they are voicing their suggestions to the other Captains, two have responded with a "Intriguing idea but not sure if i liketo commit myself to a thing like that". Which he takes as a "Yes", using their names to convert other Captains. Even rivals. Though he has managed to erupt a lot of rivalry between Rogue Trader fractions now. Diverting their attention from him. By chance he has pitted two of the more aggressive players against each other.

Plenty of opportunity for profit and a lot of trouble but it all hangs in the balance of how many RT can be found in the Koronis expanse. Any idea how many there will apoximately run around in there?

Well, there are at least 300 canon Rogue Trader dynasties (FFG published a PDF containing the nom de plumes of everyone who got a collector's edition of RT, listing them as Rogue Traders) but it's anyone guess as to how many are operating in the Expanse. Twice as many as half the number, I guess.

Of course basing the amount of Rt on the arbitrary amount of special edition books doesn't sound like a reliable number

300 to me sounds like an awful lot of RT's. Even in a large sector there is only so much profit to be made.

from france

not so much rt in fact you have to remenber that the ships own by the rt range from the derelict cargo to the lunar class ship. some are not active too.

lure of the expanse show this pretty well.

so in fact you have to decide how many rivals they are.

but to be honnest i am no sure to have understood the plot? is it gloabl or limited to the expanse?

i also think that you should remnber that rt are not alone. they are other faction too. if you think in term of link you have point a) the one who push the rt in action, the rt and his action, the result of it. in all this step they are people who are not rt. just manipulate rt is to see only a part of the globality.

the bigning of the trip the trip the end of the trip.

One would imagine that there are several million sanctioned Rogue Traders. Seeing as how they act as scouts in unexplored areas, setting up trade routes, eventually they likely become noble families and stay in the sector they helped to found, or some might keep expanding.

I imagine that there is a Uber-Rogue Trader someplace. However, the largest private fleet is the navigator family Redonodo, with 47 ships owned. Not sure how the greatest RT dynasty will compare, but probably very similar.

You are right, for now at least it is about the Koronos sector. Though the character will undoubtly go Global if this succeeds.

Other factions might not approve of this idea of course. If enough RT assemble together, they will for example have a viable force that could endanger a sectors defensive fleet. I am sure that most outer factions prefer them to not form an united front.

Grand Inquisitor Fulminarex said:

Where is this from? It doesn't seem particularly reasonable given the size some of the merchent fleets must be, particularly for weathy merchent familes at some of the larger hive worlds.

Anyway, back to the OP, I've been using a much, much smaller number for my game. Based mostly on who showed up in Lure of the Expance (and the thought that any RT worth his salt would have gone) I figured that no more then a dozen or so full Rogue Traders operate in the expance at any given time (this doesnt include free traders or pirates). These arn't always the same Rogue traders, as some come and go as profit serves them, but there are never really that many at one time.

The info on Civil Fleets, page 316, 4th paragraph down from the heading. I assume that House Redondo was once a RT family in an unexplored sector, founded some good routes, then settle in and grew. House Redondo is probably a Magesterial House, as the other house types do no fit. However, canon states it owns the largest private fleet, but perhaps this is merely amongst the Civil Fleets.

I think that 47 ships is a fairly large number, and I would expect that there are some limits to how many ships the Imperium is willing to let private individuals have. If a dynasty with 40 ships decided to throw its weight behind a rebellion, it would be a problem. Also, since the Navigator families are always fighting, and have the the right to do so, the larger a threat you begin to be to another Navigator family would force them to ally together to bring you down.

Well, huh.

I mean, no argument that 47 is a hell of a fleet, particularly if your talking warships or ships avaliable for discresionary use, but it leaves a lot of open ended questions. Like size of ships, how much they're dedicated to particular tasks, if this includes client free traders, etc.

My current Rogue Trader, for example, has 1 ship. However, he has ~7 ships if you count free traiders operating under his dyansty's licence. These ships are all locked up doing traiding runs or other stable methods of maintaining PF, but theyre still techinaly part of the RT's 'Fleet'.

This goes to extream when you start dealing with merchent princes of big worlds. Many hive worlds get a fifty to 100 ships worth of food a day, which means they'd need at least around 300 transports just for that. With a few (like on necromunda) said to control the sourse of food, its hard to beleave that there isn't a noble family that owns at least 1/6 of those.

Wouldn't the general food shipping and such be done by the Merchant Fleets? Presumably there's enough holders of Free Charters to handle things like your rogue trader wanting 15 transport-loads of mining equipment shipped to their new colony.