Apologies for any rambling or hideous grammatical errors.

In my campaign Kroot are a common feature in the expanse with the PCs having a kindred on board, bands of them openly for hire on Footfall, and even the occasional warsphere showing up in certain systems.

I found the Kroot warsphere writeup on Dark Reign to be a good staring point for the BFG version, but I started pondering what a Kroot PC might get to command as the entire crew grows in power. Obviously a full sized warsphere was a bit much so I decided to try my hand at making a smaller 'transport' sphere.

While pondering that I also put my mind to the hows of Kroot warp navigation. By the fluff much of the kroot space faring capacity comes from instinctive knowledge gained by the consumption of ork mekboys. Supposedly this is how they know enough to make their warspheres, and also how they manage to fully navigate the warp. But this ability seems to be limited to moving to populated areas. So, how do they do it?

So first, a talent for navigation. I decided this would require a few shapers working in concert to summon up 'guiding spirits' to lead them towards their destiny, new prey, brunch, etc. I also think it would be more dependable the more shapers were involved, as well as the number of Kroot on the ship, and the population of the target system

SHAMANIC ABILITY: Walk the Spirit Path (talent)

Prerequisite: Shaper Career, and/or Shamanic Powers, A ship with a functioning warpdrive and either a gellar field or a shamanic ward.

Cost: 0 automatically useable by anyone meeting the requirements

The highest ranking shaper (either in career, or command ability) leads a ceremony of at least four other shamans. This ceremony takes approximately four hours to perform, and must be done aboard a vessel with at least 1,000 kroot. As the ceremony reaches its apex the shapers go into a trance wherein they commune with some manner of spiritual prescence that permits them to steer a vessel in a similar manner to a navigator.

STAGE ONE: Determine the length of the voyage as normal

STAGE TWO:

As the Kroot do not use the astronomican they must instead seek out a populated area of space to head towards. The base percentage to locate an appropriate system is 25%.

Add 5% for each shaper in the ceremony beyond the first 5 up to an additional 40%, and another 2% for every 5,000 Kroot on board the vessel up to a maximum of 20%.

Add another 5% for each of the following that can be found in the target system: A species the lead shaper has consumed, An active war currently being waged, Over a billion sapient species, more than 10,000 Kroot. The GM may add other modifiers that he feels are appropriate.

STAGE THREE:

As the kroot vessel is guided by the entranced shaper council the lead shaper must make an Ordinary (+10) Awareness check to follow the spirits guiding his kindred. This otherwise acts in the exact same manner as for a navigator in step three

STAGE FOUR:

With the Vessel drifting through the warp under the ,hopefully accurate and protective, guidance of the kroot's summoned spirits they now repeat the roll made in stage two. Consult table 7-3 or the off course result.

Since Kroot are guided to populated areas, their vessels will never appear in an empty area of space. Assuming they emerge from the warp it will near some manner of habitat (Space station, war fleet, space hulk), or planet with basic animal life (though not necessarily inhabitable to the kroot).

STAGE FIVE:The council must make a Challenging (+0) Perception Test to translate back into realspace. Success and failure are handled as per the rulebook.

STAGE SIX:

Carried out in the same manner as per the rulebook. However, kroot with the prophetic dreams talent are more likely to receive a useful dream if a whisper and dreams result is rolled. The head shaper, and or any player character shaper may add one temporary fate point for the duration of that adventure if this occurs

This was a bit long so I'll post up the Kroot Kinsphere transport after I get some feedback. If I missed something, please let me know.

Looks very interesting. I like the cooperative effort part I think it fits the Kroot.

A few things to think about adding in rules for.

As traversing the warp is a cooperative effort what would happen if some or all of the shapers involved were killed or incapacitated during travel?

Can the shapers do other things during warp passage or are they required to be in trance the whole way? Can they switch out with others?

Also requiring them to pop out in close vicinity to population centers may be ok for the big ships with the chops to defend themselves but it might be asking a bit much of a frigate class vessel. Though that might be a good reason why the smaller vessels are relatively rare, perhaps they are usually employed along known "safe" routes?

I'd probably just adapt the navigator tag team rules from Into the storm. Perhaps even allowing a number of normal kroot (100 or so) to substitute for a shaper if need be. I also imagine that completely interrupting the ritual would have the same result as blowing up that navigator's cathedral onboard an imperial vessel.

Also the whole having to come out somewhere populated is mostly a fluff thing. It seems that the Ork and Kroot instincts result in that particular phenomena. Though perhaps a harder test could be undertaken to go somewhere lacking in lifeforms. Though keep in mind that a system with enough of a biosphere to have a few fish and other primitive life counts as populated.

But yes, that would explain why the only canon style of kroot ship is absolutely humongous. But I imagine that the kroot might adapt to smaller transports in convoys if they had a good reason for it. Perhaps eating the stryxis inspires a new means of navigating? ^^

Though it may just be the fact that a warsphere is more of a colony ship than a warship. It's even capable of landing on a planet and burying itself to form a small town. The Kroot do not seem to have the same drive to fight in the void that other species do.

I'll do stats for my vision of this small style of ship later. I'm still poking at ideas for how it'll maneuver.

Hmm.. you might try giving it 1 dorsal and 1 ventral (north and south pole) weapon mounts with 360 degree arcs and have it fly in any direction IE 4 thruster banks situated around its "equator". Let it change its heading every 1/4 of its speed instead of 1/2 or 1. It does not turn it just thrusts in a new direction.

Well let's see what I can do as far as a ship.

Kroot Kinsphere

Dimensions 3 kilometers diameter, estimated

Mass: 8 megatonnes approx.

Crew: 15,000 Kroot

Acceleration: 2.5 gravities approx.

The Kroot kinsphere is at first glance a smaller version of the larger warsphere siblings. THe major differences is the central drive pillar is shorter, lending to the vessel being of a more regular shape than the ovoid of its sibling ships. It also tends not to be as densely constructed with many large open areas given over to livestock, agriculture, and various items that would seem more appropriate for a small planet bound town. This is because these vessels are primarily transports and mobile bases for kroot mercenary bands, rather than ships designed for exploration or combat. Some variants have even been constructed partially from small asteroids, making them appear like well made ork roks. In fact, many of the components used in the drive systems bear remarkable resemblances to ork technology.

Like most Kroot vessels the circular design gives the vessel no true front, and is quite capable of landing on a planetary body, then later reachieving orbit without serious structural damage. Because of the large number of radially aligned thrusters this otherwise slow transport is capable of surprising manueverability, able to adjust its bearing without the ponderous turning most other vessels require.

While each ship in this class is even more unique than imperial patterns, they almost all come with a configuration roughly equivalent to cargo bays, and barracks. These items, plus the larger kroot equivalents of essential components are already factored into the base stats.

Speed : 4 Manoeuverability : 0 (see special rules)

Detection : +10 Hull Integrity :45

Armour : 12 Turret Rating : 2

Space: after essential & standard components : 15 Power : Typically 35 total: 20 after essential & standard components

Weapon Capacity: 2 keel (may mount one lance battery instead. This battery uses up five additional space, and power.)

Void shields : 1

Essential Components : Kroot Equivalents of a Jovian class 1 drive, Warp engine, vitae pattern life sustainers, voidsmen quarters, and M-100 auger array. Additionally the ship has a series of shamanic wards and odd field generators that duplicate the effects of a gellar field.

Mobile Base : This vessel is considered to already have the compartmentalized cargo hold, and barracks supplemental components. the hull's space and power have already been adjusted for this.

A pilot can land this ship safely with an difficult (-10) piloting test. He can take off again with a challenging test, but liftoff takes several hours of preparation

Radial Thrusters : Kroot spheres space their drives evenly across the hull to permit easy manuevering despite their low speed. A kroot ship may make a Challenging (+0) Piloting check to immediately begin moving in a new direction. The vessel does not turn before moving (but may do so at the end of its move), and must move at least its normal maximum move that turn.

Tests to increase speed in any way are more difficult gaining a -10 modifier on top of any existing modifiers.

Given their function and size have you thought of increasing their crew and or including civitas decks or hydroponic (or kroot equiv) type components?

Also might think about different stats for the asteroid versions, maybe even slower but tougher.

Or make it a component.. something like.

Asteroid construction; due to all asteroids being different the exact of effect of using one to make a ship differs in each case. Add 1-3 to armor (roll randomly for each ship), add 1-6 hull integrity (roll randomly for each ship), reduce speed by 1-2 (roll randomly for each ship). Takes up 2 space and 0 power may only be added once.

Well I wanted to leave room for customization so I left out things like supply vaults, arboretums and other such components. That way it could be acquired then customized by a PC. Heck, it could even be a starting vessel for an all Kroot crew. Also I didn't include any numbers for the kroot in the barracks so depending on how one runs that components there might be well over 20,000 kroot onboard. But most of the transports in the core book have between 15 to 20,000 crew so I settled on a lower number.

Easier to add than it is to takeaway after all.

The random asteroid bit sounds good though. But perhaps that should be a seperate class of transport. I really just included that bit because of the link between kroot ships and ork technology. I just picked up frozen reaches as well so I'll have a gander at some of the rok stuff included there and maybe split kroot roks off into their own classification.

Or, I'll wait for battlefleet Koronus and see if they make any of this entirely redundant. ^^

Any thought on the lance battery option I uncluded? To good, or to much wasted room?

George Labour said:

The leaving room for customiztion sounds good and it fits the fluff.

The lances sound fine to me.. you are giving up 2 mounts to one lance battery. The fluff reason for lances only in the forward arc of frigates is because of the size problems. Since your ship is huge by frigate standards and of an unusual design I see no problems.

I second the motion to eagerly await BFK But that should not stop you from making stuff up now.

How do you aquire as a rogue trader alien vessels like eldar,styryx,kroot so that you can use it? Let say I take the ship in battle how do you repair the damage components,where to go(what shipyard to go),what type of tests should the players should take?

Er. Boarding Action and manage to capture the command crew alive? There's not really any other way a human would be able to control an alien ship. Plus you'd run the risk of getting shot down by pretty much everyone.

But in BFG rogue traders could take alien ships to their fleet.

thor2006 said:

Best way would be to buy it, or hire them as mercenaries.

llsoth said:

What kind of aquisition test (profit, other atributes tested) does the rogue trader can make to aquire it and what level of services(quests) is necessary if applicable to aquire an alien vessel?

thor2006 said:

Not something I can tell you, it would be entirely up to the GM.

thor2006 said:

There are stats for stryxis ships, along with more eldar and ork vessels in Edge of the Abyss.

In this case it'd be for a Kroot PC to acquire when/if the player group gathers more ships to their dynasty, or as a starting vessel for an all kroot crew. Which reminds me, I forgot to include ship points on this thing....

I'm gonna say 25SP minimal, but no more than 30.

AS for repairs for the kroot vessel you'd likely need a kroot to oversee some of it, but much of the technology is rebuilt from ork, and or human equipment. So say a -20 to anyone who's not familiar with the designs. Obviously the kroot crew could do their own basic repairs with no penalties but fitting non kroot components or major things would need the standard facilities described in the core book.

In my campaign the Breaking Yards mentioned in Edge of the Abyss service Kroot, and other alien vessels. This also gives my mixed species group a chance to replenish losses for all the crew types, or get rid of excess ones.

For Ork tech....you get scrap and can't fix it unless you're an ork as per the entries under ork ships in all their appearances. This isn't so bad as you're probably better off using them for spare parts anyways. Ork ships tend to gloss over details like surviving without power, and food storage.

Eldar ships are made from wraithbone...which is not repairable except by specialized eldar craftsfolk. Also, eldar will likely come to gank you just because a inferior animal with one of their superb vessels is an insult. Though you could strip the components off and use those , but your tech priests might need convincing. I'd say someone with trade shipwright at a -20 to salvage surviving components, and similarly difficult tests and several months to refit them to an imperial vessel. Needless to say you'd need a ship of similar size to take the sails, so no putting a destroyer's grav sails on a cruiser.

Stryxis...see the kroot reply for repairs and upgrades ideas. Their ships are a hodgepodge that appears to be a pile of junk that might just conceal some nasty surprises. They also tend to travel in convoy. Again, edge of the abyss has stats for a typical ship.

Oh and it's all up to the GM in the end. So caveat emptor