Quick question on Warrants of Trade

By Nerdynick, in Rogue Trader Gamemasters

Warrants of Trade are hereditary, but do they have to be to an actual biological child? Or can a Rogue Trader pass their Warrant on to anyone they deem worthy?

Individual warrants of trade tend to be colossal tomes, contracts many thousands of pages long and often stored in a protective environment or even a stasis field to preserve them through the ages (a huge number of warrants are a millennium or more old, afterall). It stands to reason, then, that an individual warrant actually contains the specifics of a legal inheritance as it applies to that particular warrant, much as it will also contain the particulars of that Rogue Trader lineage's duties to the Imperium. Such a matter should probably involve a return to the Imperium, if only to inform the authorities that the Warrant has changed hands so that records can be updated, and more than a little pomp and ceremony.

In short - it varies, with individual warrants requiring different procedures. For example, the Crusade-era Warrant in Legacy (the second Shira Calpurnia novel) requires that the warrant and the Rogue Trader's fleet voyage to Hydraphur (where the Emperor Himself created that particular Warrant of Trade) in order to transfer all rights and privileges to an appointed heir, where the matter is overseen by the Adeptus Arbites on that world (the novel is actually very specific on the fact that this is a particular condition of this specific Warrant). If nothing else, the legal matters associated with inheritance could easily be used as a plot hook or a route into a series of political/intrigue adventures.

It's also worth noting that not all Warrants of Trade, Charters and Letters of Marque are hereditary, even among those owned/held by Rogue Traders.

There was an example in Eye of Terror where Maynard Rugolo was reduced to bluffing and eventually had to sell and trade down to increasingly small ships because his Warrant lacked a hereditary clause, and was in the name of his deceased father Hansard Rugolo.

So yeah, what N0-1 said: it depends on the specifics off the Warrant (and since you're the GM, you can write the Warrant). I've had examples in my campaigns where the Warrant has stated that it belongs to the Captain of a particular ship (with a couple cases in the backstory of Successions-by-mutiny), and others where it has to be passed to a claimant of the Dynasty's bloodline, at the nearest sector capital (and pay the accumulated taxes and tithes of the previous holder of the Warrant, because as soon as a new Trader is installed, the Dynasty's immunity from taxation is reinstated. Unfortunately, the player behind the RT has dropped out, leaving most of the party trapped on Scintilla if the don't want to be declared pirates, and the Freeboota no way to jump in)

Hmmmm, so a loosely worded Warrant could be passed on to anyone ? What about humans that are "out of the norm" like psykers or mutants or even Navigators?

By *memory* part of the deal of navigator houses is that they're pretty much able to do whatever they want (barring heresy, sedition, etc.) and are all nobles, but they can't own ships.

So it would be difficult for a navigator to be a rogue trader.

I play a campagne with a Navigator-RT or "Mercator Navigatoris" myself. Therefore I am on the side of: Sure, why shouldn´t a (sanctioned) psyker or a Navigator be able to get a Warrant. Mutants on the other hand... well if it an invisible mutation, the mutant could hide it. An obvious mutation, then no. He wouldn´t be able to get a warrant.

It's worth noting that the Navis Nobilite do own their own ships, but the intention is that those ships are used as trainers for the next generation of Navigators. I believe they are prohibited from owning warships, though.

And, while yes, a loosely-worded warrant could be used to justify virtually anyone inheriting it, you would also need the right friends in the right places to make it stick. Or possibly just enough guns...

Nerdynick said:

Hmmmm, so a loosely worded Warrant could be passed on to anyone ? What about humans that are "out of the norm" like psykers or mutants or even Navigators?

Think of it like this. Warrants operate on the rule of cool. If you want it to happen, it can have happened. It's already canon that one of the Rogue Traders won his in a card game.

Errant said:

Nerdynick said:

Hmmmm, so a loosely worded Warrant could be passed on to anyone ? What about humans that are "out of the norm" like psykers or mutants or even Navigators?

Think of it like this. Warrants operate on the rule of cool. If you want it to happen, it can have happened. It's already canon that one of the Rogue Traders won his in a card game.

Well, I'd step away from tropes and attribute Warrant holding more to power. As long as your holding of the Warrant is not explicitly prohibited and no one can oppose you, it's yours. After all, Edge of the Abys s mentions rumors that Calligos Winterscale might be a fraud who is not of the Winterscale bloodline. However, the Winterscale dynasty's retainers treat him as legitimate and he has a great deal of power to command. So even if he was an usurper, it really wouldn't matter.

However, if an obvious mutant did get a Warrant then I'm pretty sure someone in the Imperium, probably the Inquisition, would dispatch assassins even if they did manage to claim it. Quite a few Rogue Trades have been knocked off in similar circumstances when they anger the Imperium. That's the main threat against an RT if he decides to make his own personal fiefdom free of Imperial obligations beyond the rim.