I was thinking about a mash-up RT and BC game where the pc's would basically be chaos renegade pirates. Suddenly it struck me though, how does chaos worshipers traverse the warp? Do they have their own corrupted navigators, some kind of strange chaos tech, use sorcery or what?

All your answers would be correct, depending on the particular ship. Some have enslaved/corrupted Navigators, some utilize sorcery to divine their way through the Warp, and some rely on arcane technology provided by the Dark Mechanicum. Some may even use bound daemons.

EDIT: And if you mean in rules' terms, all it takes to navigate warp ships in BC is the appropriate skill at the moment. If you want the more complex rules from RT for that, you can assume any character with the Psyniscience Skill and the aforementioned Navigation skill counts as a Navigator for the purpose of plotting the course. That, or wait for a supplement.

A navigator who has turned to chaos is a very intriguing and frightening thing.

Navigators are already frightening as is, Chaos worship doesn't really change much in most cases. They are still arrogant and annoying.

The chaos navigator in the Night Lords trilogy has learned to see the warp differently, he didn't need the astronomican, he used some kind of shadow path system.

In Black crusade, there is no shortage of fluff for a character to have access to Navigation (Warp). The crunch is simple: Navigation (Warp) is a skill that any character can take with the GM's permission.

There are Gifts of Chaos that (fluff wise) mimic a Navigator's eye:
Eyes of Chaos (pg 294)
Nerveless Ennui - Tzeentch (pg 296)

Warp Sight (pg298)

Blasted Senses (pg292) has some potential as well. Lose one sense and gain another. In Rogue Trader, Karrad Vall's spiteful vassal Sendak Voltrasse possesses the ability to see into the Warp like a Navigator (Prowl the Warp). His eyes are gone, torn from his head. He is blind, but possesses UnNatural Senses and his warp sight. He's found in RT "Edge of the Abyss."

In my game, bound daemonhosts will be the common replacement for Navigators aboard Chaos vessels. While some Psyker and Sorcerer characters are theoretically capable of doing it themselves, it's far too dangerous for the most part. Even the daemonhosts have to be replaced when they build up too much mileage.

Hi,

While the existing Archetypes are quite flexible, a darkside navigator seems possible as a new archetype base, maybe for a future BC supplement?

According to the fluff, Navigators back to the Dark Age of Technology. This would tend to imply that they were commonly used during the Great Crusade and would have been aboard most major space craft during the Horus Heresy. If that is so, and there is no reason to think otherwise, then a fair number of Navigators must been corrupted, joined to traitors, or at least been taken captive by them. That would mean that there should still be navigators, the descendants of those navigating during the heresy, who are aligned with Chaos.

A related question might be how Chaos communicates, since they don't have the Adeptus Astra Telepathical and don't have soul bound Astropaths.

I have a feeling that both Warp travel and communication should be easier for Chaos forces, as they are going through a friendly and not a hostile medium.

Sergeant Brother said:

The Warp is not necessarily any friendlier to Chaos. Chaos is just a bit more free and open in how they exploit the Warp, but it still kicks them in the teeth just as hard when control slips.

Navigator can fall to Chaos, just as every mortal can, and a corrupted Navigator would have a frightening understanding of the Warp and travel. There are some complications for them though, such as their probable incapability of using the beacon of the Astronomicon, but on the whole they will probably get better at navigation.

But Chaos worshippers have far more ways to navigate the warp. As I understand it, one of the main ways to navigate is daemonic. The right rituals and sacrifices will allow swift and 'reliable' travel without any navigator being present, with the obvious disadvantage of being the subject of the fickle whims of the Dark Powers. This is one of the reasons some ships appear ages after they entered the warp. Chaos ships do not use regular gellar fields either, but rather runic fields that 'warn off' the denizens of the warp rather then keep them out.

In an adventure, both possibilities are interesting. A fallen Navigator seems to be -strangely enough- quite rare, possibly because they guard themselves/are guarded very tightly, knowing they are open to the temptations of the Warp all the time. Add to that the fact that the navigator gene can only be passed amongst navis, which makes the birth of new Navigators amongst fallen lines unlikely unless they have a stable 'breeding'group, and you get the result that a fallen Navigator will be a rare breed in chaos ships. The most likely way to navigate the warp is as such the second type, rituals and sacrifices and pacts with Daemons. Unless you have a player impersonating the fallen Navigator, that might be preferable, as it will allow your players to directly affect the Warp travel through interesting RP (who doesn't like RP'ing daemonic pacts?), stresses how deep they are fallen (adjust the horror of the sacrifices they have to make to what your players can handle, but go as deep as possible) and allows you as GM to have a delightful final say as whatever your players do, they are fully in the hands of the Dark Gods.

FvR

There is some text about navigator houses in core book (page 313) and it states that 'renegates dedicated to the ruinous powers utilise both rogue navigators and soecerers with analogous powers to steer their vessels.... steering not be the sickly illumination cast by the astronomican, but by other, more powerful beacons only they can look upon'.
We probably will hear more of it in some supplement, along with navogator archeotype.

ShadowRay said:

It seems like Chaos Navigators, or other psykers who could see into the Warp, would be able to see the Astronomican just like a normal Navigator does. Though I could also imagine other methods of navigation that could work as well. Like contacting a daemon to act as a guide or manipulating the Warp itself to help move you through it.

Yikes, that copy and paste didn't work out nearly as well as I wanted it and it wont let me edit it either. I guess to read my post you can highlight the white part.

Keep in mind that navigators are fairly rare within the Imperium as well. Many trade vessels still use calculated jumps. That is also an option that renegades could use. Although I find the 5 ly range a bit small considering a navigator can plot 5000 ly. I would assume that a calculated jump could go at least 50 ly. Makes navigated jumps still better as they are still safer and faster, but makes travel not only possible but feasible for relatively short distances.

theshadowduke said:

Rare sure, but so too are Space Marines, and Chaos has thousands of the brothas so it's not hard to imagine they might have plenty of navigators too.