I was flipping through my RT Core the other day, and i noticed that Navigator is a talent instead of a trait unique solely to navigators. Does this mean that You dont necessarily have to be Navis Nobilite to be a Navigator? Because if that's the case, i've lots of ideas all of the sudden...

I have never read anything in the fluff that suggests there are any Navigators outside the Nobilite, and it is described as a stable mutation that breeds true, not a random one like those that affect the imperium at large. However it is known there are other people who can navigate the warp (Space Marine Librarian's have been stated to have the ability) and its a big Imperium out there so anything is possible.....

Chris

Gillam Harrow said:

It is a Talent only for the mechanics of the system.

Gillam Harrow said:

As Twwbm said, the Navigator gene/third eye is a mutation and should only be available to Navigator characters born with it.

It is possible for a non-navigator to navigate using star charts (which are always jealously guarded) that plot a relatively safe route through the warp. However, the big difference with a Navis Nobilite navigator is that you can only make very short jumps of about 4 light years. Real navigators make jumps that can bridge thousands of light years in a fraction of the time it will take a non-navigator to travel the same distance. There are very few real navigators in the Imperium though, so only the important ships will have them (e.g. those of the Astartes, Inquisitors, Rogue Traders, etc.). The rest will have to make do with star charts and prayers to the God Emperor.

The Tau don't use navigators and travel at the frontier of the Immateirum, never actualy crossing over but it is much slower.

You could use this as a travel means, your players as a 5th sence to know when to enter en leave that way. This leaves the horror of the warp gazing to navigator but allows a level of latittude...

On the other hand I can see the Navigator house Inite to kill such a "mutant" non-navis nobilitea...

Makes a great game as the Navis can navigate better, the ship is constantly battling crazzy odds.. Like in the 2nd or 3rd episode of BSG where they have to jump every hour or so.

You know, I could see some possibilities with allowing a character to take Navigator as an Elite Advance. Right off the bat I can imagine a campaign wherein one of the characters is secretly the illegitimate child of a high ranking navigator, and due to the vagaries of heavy-metal-sci-fantasy generics the genes didn't express until later in life.

Actually had that idea for one of my Rogue Trader characters (the class, not the game). Except I don't see why it couldn't manifest from birth.

Also, there are renegade Navigator houses. If a child of that house was born with exceptional religious fervor, he might decide to run away. In that case, he may have the Navigator gene, but not necessarily the skills to use it how the Imperium wants him to (now, blasting people he'd probably be good at). You could give him any career path you wanted, in theory (barring, perhaps, explorator and definitely astropath)

A third option. If you remember Magos Phayzarus, he was obsessed with Astartes organs and through experiments turned himself into a bastardized version of one (it was only temporary, iirc). You could do something similar, but with Navigators. Might even work for a PC. Let them take the Navigator talent as an elite advance whenever they discover the secret (and it works with Genetors too).

Another thing to remember with Pc's getting the navigator ability late in there career is that just because they can now see in the warp, doesn't mean they will be any good at it. Navigators are trained from birth to use their abilities, so someone coming at it late in the game would probably be rather overwealmed by their new ability too.

Chris

Also it is quite possible the Adeptus Mech would have a research project or two going to work out how to artificially make a navigator gene, or give someone the ability, since it is one area they are reliant on someone else for, which I can't imagine them liking much.

Chris

Something I'd suggest then, but probably doesn't really need to be said, is that if you take the Navigator Talent with another Career, the eye as a much lessended effect.

Since that's part of what the career is balanced against.

navigator as an advansed talent. no just no

if it was that relativly easy too have a navigator skill the houses wouldn`t be around. we wouldn`t need a navigator charator too begin with.

just becaus its there doesn`t mean everybody and there dog gets too use it. no matter how they try too explain it away

redhead222 said:

No one was saying it was easy, merely possible. And one of the reasons the houses exist is to protect the monopoly they have, and they ruthlessly surpress any other ways of navigating apart from themselves (there is a bit about this about an item in the Rulebook if I remember correctly). So another upshot of any other way of gaining some sort of navigator skill would be assassins or kidnappers sent by the navis nobilite dogging your step forever after

Chris

Twwbm said:

Chris, I want to play in that campaign.

I fear I am on the side of those who would not consider this possible. The background is quite clear about the Navigator gene that allows the third eye and the gift of warp sight to grow: it will only be passed by intermarriage between Navigators. As soon as a Navigator breeds with a non Navigator, the gene is lost. As such, it is not a latent ability that might be awakened later, but an essential part of who the Navis Nobilite are. Furthermore, there is the strange and still rather unclear (there is not that much written about the Navis) link between all the Navigators of a House and between all the Navigators and the Paternova on Terra.

So, in my opinion, it is absolutely impossible to take the navigator talent as an elite advance, it only is a talent for game mechanics.

Friedrich van Riebeeck, Navigator Primus, Heart of the Void

P.S. And yes, I know that I might be slightly biased as a Navis Nobilite (character).

I'd imagine that the choice of Navigator as a Talent is a purely games mechanic decision, as has already been pointed out.

There is a non Navigator character who already has the talent though, as I recall: that Chaos Captain in Edge of the Abyss had it, I think. This is not to suggest that he's a Navigator, merely that he's sufficiently changed and mutated by Chaos that he can traverse the warp in a similar way to a navigator.

Lightbringer said:

This was kind of the point I was getting at (in a round about, rambling way hehe). While the third eye and navigator gene is a stable mutation of the navis nobilite, it has been estabilished in the fluff that this isn't the only way to navigate the warp. However the Navis Nobilite would definately be out to silence anyone who found a reliable way

Chris

that chaos captain your talking about (as least i think you talking about) was a navis nobelity befor he turned too chaos and took over the schip he was serving on

There are undoubtedly fallen Navigators, who have sold their souls to the Dark Gods. They should still retain their third eye, but in howfar they maintain their other powers is unsure. A lot depends on the role the Paternova on Terra plays and there is not enough confirmed material to make more then wild guesses on this account.

But the disciples of the Dark Lords do not neccesarily need Navigators to sail the Warp, they can just 'ask' the denizens of the Immaterium themselves if they would please be so kind as to get them where they wish to be. The free adventure of the Black Crusade gives a good example of how this might work. In each case, you can expect it will involve strength and sacrifice and some nice runes on your ship that proudly proclaim to each warpcreature that messing with this ship will invoke the ire of some beings you do not wish to annoy.

FvR