Okay, I have no likelyhood to actually run this anytime soon, sadly, but I'll frame it like I might. I had a thought where the Explorer group found what could be the greatest haul of their Dynasty's career, if not at least their generation of it; a full-fledged battleship, the Emperor's Deliverance. Before this seems way to nice, though, it isn't in the most pristine order (J. Bond's Q = ). Here's a bit of story:

"During the earlier part of the 38th Millennium, one of the Imperium's greatest, most lauded ships of the line was launched; the Battleship Emperor's Deliverance. The Deliverance was exactly what any military force would want; a huge, mighty warship, teaming with macrobatteries, bristling with torpedo tubes, carrying numerous fighters and support craft. What almost everyone didn't know, though, was that it also carried a secret, a prototype superweapon, in the form of a Human-made Warp Cannon (think Activated Blackstone Fortress ). A small group of "renegade" Adeptus Mechanicus had worked tirelessly to forge this component, and integrate it into the vessel without anyone else knowing, as it would not have been cleared by the higher-ups of the Mechanicus. The Deliverance was launched, with its escort fleet in tow, and journeyed to bring about the Emperor's justice upon His enemies, but a tragedy occurred. The forces of Chaos DID know about the Warp Cannon, and they feared what the Imperium's newest ship could do with such a potent weapon, so they launched what might have been the largest single fleet of that whole millennium, and moved to destroy the Deliverance. During the cataclysmic battle, the Deliverance's escort fleet was destroyed, but the Deliverance herself inflicted horrendous casualties to the Ruinous Powers' fleet. Whole cruisers were demolished in single blasts from the mighty Warp Cannon, and it seemed that the ship would win the day, but such was not meant to be. Eventually, one of the Combat Choir psykers powering the WC was possessed, becoming a Daemonhost, and he struck down the other psykers, depriving the Deliverance of most of its remaining defense. It then moved to the plasma generator, tearing a swatch through the ship as it moved, hoping to cripple the vessel, or maybe even destroy it, while several of the remaining Chaos vessels gave it their all, ramming the Deliverance, and depositing their boarding parties . Both failed, but the damage was done. Most of the Deliverance's crew was dead, exposed to the void, or killed by Choas boarding parties. Finally, the last of the Chaos forces were neutralized, but the ship was teetering on the brink of oblivion. Deciding to risk it, the Lord Admiral ordered the ship to jump back to its launching site, where the necessary equipment existed to fix his ship. His Astropaths sent a message back saying as much (leaving out the size of the enemy fleet, and the use of the WC), and the ship jumped. That's the last recorded instance of anyone seeing or hearing from the Emperor's Deliverance. Until now."

Somehow, the party will be informed by one of their scouting pickers of a possible super-haul, and they will discover the Emperor's Deliverance, in real space, after almost 2,000 years lost in the Warp, drifting under only maneuvering thrusters. A cursory analysis will show that she has sustained catastrophic damage to many of her systems, including weapons, engines, and internal superstructure. What will make it still a good, worthy haul is that the overall frame of the battleship is still intact,, and most of its systems COULD be repaired, with enough money and care. It also carries numerous small craft of the 38th millennium, which could be useful for any of a handful of reasons. Most importantly of all, though, the Warp Cannon still functions, and is undamaged. If they could hold it, the Deliverance could be a perfect base ship, much like a space station, where they could launch numerous missions from. If various handfuls of systems could be remedied, it could be a potent base, a powerful carrier vessel, or, if they poured tons of money into it (probably over a few generations, but maybe in their own lifetimes, they could even get the ship fully restored, giving them a fully enabled battleship, something that would make any other RT group think twice about challenging them. Of course, they could always choose to sell it back to the Imperium/Adeptus Mech.and make an incredible profit, and some new friends. The hitches, of course, are as daunting as the rewards are miraculous. The Deliverance is in ROUGH shape, and it might take around 100-200 Profit Factor points, over time, to get it fully up and running (maybe a dozen to get a single system back to full power/functionality), and there are potential hazards aboard, such as an Unbound Daemonhost trapped in the primary reactor room, who might try to summon another daemon into the primary core cogitator, given a chance. The area the ship is drifting through is littered with various asteroid fields (as if she hasn't suffered enough exterior damage), and populated by Orks, who would gladly swarm the derelict craft and strip its resources, or make it their own base ship. The Imperium might try to take their ship back (though the RT group could have a pretty strong case for getting to keep it), maybe after letting the Explorer's group pay for a chunk of the repairs. The AM still are in the dark about the Warp Cannon, and should such an apparatus come to their attention, there's no telling how they might respond. Lastly, the ship's captain (the Lord Admiral) has, after a fashion, survived all this time. His body is mostly dessicated, being kept alive by barely-functioning life support apparatus in his command throne, and is comatose, but his mind has been "uploaded" as it were, into the ship, allowing him to walk around the as a holographic-like image. While he has absolutely no objections to the Explorers laying claim to his ship, and will gladly tell them anything they wish to know about it (with so much damage to the ship, he has very little control over it, himself), even sharing details about the Warp Cannon with them, he feared that the ship would not be found by Imperials, or would be passed up as too much work to bother, and has set a course for the Graveyard of Ships (The Procession). Once there, he feels the Deliverance will be beyond anyone's ability to misuse. He'll halt the course for the party, if they think to ask, but only after he is sure that they mean to make some use of the Deliverance, whether it be salvage, or if they plan to partly/fully restore the vessel.

Warp Cannon
The Warp Cannon might need some extra details. A small cadre of the Adeptus Mechanicus thoroughly studied the Blackstone Fortresses, discovering their Eldar-crafted Warp Cannons. Seeking to possess these supreme weapons, they tried to duplicate them, but failed repeatedly. Even fully intact ones, like those on the Fotresses, could not be activated, and only their power sources could be tapped, to power the additional apparatus the Imperium piled onto the Talismans of Vaul. These AM thought to surpass such efforts, and forged a Human-made Warp Cannon, to be powered by a collective of psykers.

The cannon is operated by a group of psykers, with one lead individual channeling the power of the group through the cannon. The cannon's Psy Rating = the head psyker's PR + 1 for each additional psyker (PR 1-3) or 2 (PR 4+). Its damage is 1d10 per PR with a Pen =

Range: LoS; Damage: 2d10 damage x cannon's PR; Pen: 5 x cannon's PR. To calculate PR from turn to turn, each psyker must make a roll to manifest a power, as normal. If they fail, then the cannon's PR doesn't include them. However, the more minds involved, the more likely something bad will happen. For each additional psyker beyond the leader, the range of Psychic Phenomena increases (thus with three psykers, each one rolls for psychic phen. on a roll of 7, 8, or 9 when checking for their addition to the PR). Thus, it can be a powerful weapon, but the lack of understanding of how such a system works shows through.

Warp Shield
When not firing shots of death, the psychic power of the Combat Choir can also be used as a defense. This option grants the ship additional Shield Points equal to the PR of the cannon. Due to the passive nature of the shielding, Psychic Phenomena rolls are not modified for this option. These are in addition to the "regular" shields the Deliverance sports, which are already considerable.

So, what do people think of this long-winded rant? Anyone think it could work?

to bloody powerful imo.

This is a lvl 6-8 thing at least imo. Think of what a group could do with this thing. They could go raid and destroy Iniquity, Undred Undred Teef, pretty much anything they wanted really.

I like the idea, but i'd drastically scale down the power.

Oh yeah, I see how powerful it COULD be, but I am also trying to figure how much trouble it could be for them. Could they hold it? It's in empty space, more or less, right now, moving at maneuvering speed, with numerous hull breaches, few operational systems (both warp and conventional drives are offline, as well as her weapon batteries), and numerous potential foes. There is at least one powerful creature, in the form of an Unbound Daemonhost, already aboard, and several options for outside attackers, be it Orks, enemy Traders, or what have you. It could be really hard, and VERY expensive, to fix it up, assuming they could hold it that long, and would possibly take a fleet of their ships to defend. Resources would need to be brought in to the site, or it would need to be dragged to a repair facility, revealing its existence to those many potential foes. If the Mechanicus (if they learn of the cannon, or have interest in its millennia-old tech), or even Segmentum Command of the Navy found out that they had it, it could cause skirmishes.

Certainly, I wouldn't drop this on a low-level game, but for a higher-end one where there is little room for character growth (in XP), it could be really fun. My only problem there would be that such a group has more chances to have a high Profit Factor, thus making it less challenging to repair the Deliverance. Still, it could lend numerous good opportunities to develop rivalries between the Dynasty and several potential agencies of the Imperium, as well as enemy Rogue Traders and Xenos.

Except for the obvious problems of how to balance out battleships in a campaign and the practical problems of orks, daemonhosts, competition and the 'mere' challenge of getting the systems online, there seems to be a nice additional sting in the tail. If I am correct, it is not possible to legally claim a ship whose commander is still alive and aboard...as it is here, even if the said commander is at minimal life support. Imagine the general surprise of the party when they tow this ship into Footfall after many a hazard faced and discover the Imperial Navy nicely says thank you for recovering our ship. Without even considering the eye of the Adeptus Mechanicus on the incredible technology aboard.

Friedrich van Riebeeck, Navigator Primus, Heart of the Void

van Riebeeck said:

Nice! I like that. Tough choice. Does the Rogue Trader truly go Rouge to keep the ship & carve out his own little empire? The almost dead captain sends out a distress message & the party winds up trying to outrun the Astartes & the Inquisition in a crippled battleship!

Alpha Chaos 13 said:

The quirk here is that the Lord Admiral is a bit wiggy in the brain. He's lucid, mostly, and willing to interact with the players on a decent level, sort of acting more like a ship's AI from Andromeda, speaking through it, and moving about like a holo-phantom, but he has no problem with the Rogue Trader crew taking his ship; he wants them to have it, so it can serve the Imperium (and he sees that, at least on paper, that's what Rogue Traders are SUPPOSED to do), and wouldn't send the distress call. The closest thing he's doing to resistance is being on a course to a very bad place where, if nothing interrupts his SLOW progress (no warp jumps or much for impulse), it will be obliterated. If they want it, or anyone else of the Human persuasion, he'll let them take it. In a way, he'd become yet another NPC servant of the Dynasty, and a Battlefleet would have to come claim it, if the Deliverance were at all fixed up. As it is, right now, it would be more like the party has acquired a space station, rather than a ship, and it has (empty?) guns aplenty, and hangers for lesser craft (busted up at present), but is barely mobile, with minimal life support. It could be a nice base, as it were, but getting her completely mobile again, and armed, and kitted would cost a tremendous amount, and yeah, attract flies to the corpse (the Navy, the Mechanicus, the Orks, maybe the Eldar for the gun, if anyone knew). If anyone came to fight them there, it could own, but its not going to the Teeth, or Malfi, yet, to carve out empires, and getting resources to fix it would have the effect of alerting people that a lot of resources are going somewhere shadowy, and those people would start sniffing around, maybe find it.

I don't know, it was a cool thought I had, and the only way I saw where a Rogue Trader might get the biggest ship. In Lure of the Expanse, you find a battleship, but its infested with idiots, and the looney captain wants to jump it into oblivion, so you could never keep it. If you don't fix it up, you can't get the Dread Pearl data needed to get to that world, while if you do, Captain Crazy immediately begins prep for a blind jump to nowhere, that you can't stop. This was more of a "you can have it, but at first, it's not really useful, a bit more of a drag on resources", but it would be another incentive to excel on missions, and a tactile one, more so than "hey, let's get one more cruiser, and a cargo hold full of power armor suits", since serious cred, and maybe good in-the-shadows role-playing, will be required to fix it up, and in the long run, fixing it up might just be worth it. It could be a nice long-term secondary goal, and occupy years, maybe even be inherited by the next generation RT. It couldn't be that much worse than the Dynasty with 5 grand cruisers. Oh well, it was a thought, anyway.

As far as I remember a Lord High Admiral has a vast amount of rights and priviliges, but I doubt that handing out one of the God-Emperor's battleships to a third party is one of them. It is not so much his opinion of what should happen to his ship as the opinion of the Navy that counts, and I would not doubt long that they would consider it a truly exemplary deed from the Rogue Trader to salvage this precious ship. Obviously, there would be salvage fees (compare those to the classical prize money in the British navy), but there would be a host of adepts and assessors ready to make any legal possibility of the Rogue Trader keeping this ship a very unlikely scenario. Unless of course they take the offensive and go for a monumental bribing and using influence tour.

This reminds me of the Empire in Flames campaign I once ran. The players had delivered the Ghal-Maraz and had recieved a note from all the surviving Electors that they could act with their approval, so guess what, one of them wished to use it for...well, very unfitting purposes. Luckily, the player holding said note decided it would be completely unethical and bloody unwise to anger the Electors by abusing their note. Result: you have faced dragons and liches, but fear that lawyer! It remains one of the ultimate challenges to throw at a party that can face about everything else.

FvR

Warp cannon? Similar to an activated Blackstone? Oh, no. No no no. Per the fluff, the Blackstone fortresses were built with a level of warp technology that surpasses even the Eldar. That is thoroughly in "things man was not meant to know" territory.

The only human who has built anything even close to that was Abbadon the Despoiler, with his Planet Killer. (Note to self: must stat up the Planet Killer some day.) Daemons were bound into the hull to make the thing work... so using it might not be prudent.

Now, if you had said the warp cannon was based off of a cultist silver tower, or better yet, an Orky Weirdboy tower, then I'd have gone along with it. Those two options don't have game-breaking power, don't break the fluff, and most of all allow you to do creatively evil things to the players when they start mucking about.

Cheers,

- V.

Vandegraffe said:

The Deliverance Warp Cannon was built in a way similar to if I put someone in front of pictures of a device they'd never even seen, before, and told them to duplicate it. The Mechanicus group had records to go by, from studies of the relics conducted by others (and maybe some divine guidance from Him on Terra), but had no idea what all the parts did, or what would be needed. They also didn't have some of the esoteric pieces (Dr. Venture used up the last orphan child on the scene ). They knew what they wanted to create, a powerful psyker gun, and were able to figure out how to put several psykers together, in sequence, and it neatly emulates a Zoanthrope Warp Lance, on starship scale, but again, they didn't know how the original worked; they couldn't get access to the original, and the AM who previously did have access didn't know what the weapon did, either. Without such, they had to improvise. What they got was a weapon that could harness the collected power of a "psyker battle choir", and channel it together as a beam (again, like a zoanthrope from MotXenos). However, since they didn't know what all they were doing, it's a dangerous gun (Vaul was clever, talented, and knowledgeable; the Mechanicus was trying to duplicate something a god made, to kill other gods, and humorously, the one the Mechanicus worship) to use, with P.Phen/Perils very likely (and in their case, even created a DHost).

Out of fluff, I also wanted a way to make something cool, and that used Imperial psykers who aren't astropaths, even though it is Rogue Trader, but worked kind of like their choirs, for PR boosting. Also, after flipping through Deathwatch, I wanted to make something that worked like Warp Lance/Blast. The idea of a Human being able to have an attack that says PR x # for pen or damage appeals to me, and having psykers be able to do something at ship scale, too. I HATE Orks, so I wouldn't use their fluff, and a cult tower would smack of heresy, but the Fortresses were already being incorporated into the military, even if they couldn't use the Cannons (still heresy, but not overt).

How I would handle this is to make it the final climax of the campaign. Once you know the end is in sight start plotting, let the players know about this and let run them through the adventure to recover it. Then while they are working out how to pay for the repairs to it start foreshadowing some terrible event to come, initially dont clue them in to whats going on, just rumors and whispers. At some point drop the bombshell that something big and bad is coming to the expanse soon then it becomes a race against time to have the ship up and running for the final confrontation as they realise only the Deliverance can possibly stand against it.

If they fail too many of the missions to fix the ship then its game over by default, if they manage to get it finished ahead of time allow them to rally some more Rogue Traders to their banner from the sheer magnificence of the ship they can now field, then go all out on them with a battle against some force approaching the power of a greater demon prince with a damned fleet at his back. If they fail campaign over if they win its also campaign over but they will have written themselves indelibly into the pages of history.

Simply put I would say this ship is too powerful for general play but integrated like this the players still get their moment of glory and its put to good use as a campaign finisher

DarianBlood said:

Warning: Prepare for what will seem like nothing more than my pointless, injured whining. It's not supposed to be, but it will sound as such. Now, I further move to defend my idea.

My only complaint there; while I certainly see how a full battleship could be too powerful for a party to have (yet the battlefleet is still spread too thin), if they didn't get it till the end, and I pulled some Chaos Primarch (Magnus) and his fleet/Abaddon's Planet Killer + fleet/Tyranid Hive Fleet (if they didn't make the cannon stop working), chances are there wouldn't be time to get her up and running. The Deliverance is in crap condition, and while not quite to "just build a new one" state, it takes a century+ to build a battleship, if my reading is accurate, so stripping and repairing her fully, after she's been adrift in space/the warp for a millennium, taking asteroid/meteor hits, warp storms, solar winds against her unshielded hull, etc, in addition to the catastrophic damage that took her out, in the first place, could take years which any threat they know about wouldn't wait that long. The thought I had was more "you have several leisurely years/decades to get it fixed, unless you die along the way" and it wasn't going to be this big, sector-toppling weapon for them any time soon. It's a secondary money trap, and maybe a stationary base to moor other stuff (I figure every RT has to have a home base somewhere, and they can't all own their own conquered planet). They'd go do other missions, like LotEx, leaving from the Deliverance (wherever they chose to stash her), and conduct missions as usual. Some would be unrelated, just for money/fame, while others might involve looking for ancient parts to fix her up with, or other systems to add/replace lost ones. Some might even be to throw off inquiries as to what it is/what all the parts are for. When they were done with a mission (say all of Lure), they'd be able to, at the end, look at the total amount they were able to raise their PrFac by, and allocate some or all of it to an unknown figure/quantity held by me, whereby they would be paying for parts/services, and probably some discretion, toward improving it. The more they paid, the better the Deliverance would get to be, but the less other stuff, even for the ship, they'd be able to buy themselves later (say working ships or suits of power armor), as they wouldn't be able to pass as many Acquisition tests, while if they keep more PrFac, they will not be able to fix the ship up as much, and then it's still no terror. Play DoW: DC sometime; it's sort of like the Necron Monolith. At first, it's immobile, and a defenseless base/builder site. You need to erect defenses around it, build guys to guard it, and foray off to kill enemies, gather resource, and kill research time. Over the course of a game, you SLOWLY upgrade it, research more things, pour more resources in, and eventually get the best tank in the game, which still counts as a building for teleports, and still makes/carries units (and then the game ends). It's sort of supposed to be the same here. Before that group retired, maybe, they'd have the bragging rights of such as ship to their character. If I was describing a space station with a super cannon, I don't think people would be as quick to say "holy crap, that's too much", and for most of the run, that's what she'd be. Someday, they might finish fixing her, and she'd be an unmitigated power, but they'd have to fend off numerous interested parties, and do everything else RTs do to conduct business before that, possibly dying, and never even finishing it, or retiring, and leaving it to the next generation. Hell, for all I know, if I sprung this idea on a party, being money-grubbing people (most Rogue Traders), they'd just say "hey, let's sell this back to the Imperium, for a hefty profit, and let them deal with it." Arrange for a large kick up in PrFac, and then tell the Imperium where to find it. As it is, I don't have a group playing (not enough friends who know enough about 40k ). A full battleship with a super cannon/super shield could be terrifying; I'd like to see the Battlefleet devote one or two to cleaning up a few galactic Tortugas (Pirates reference), but if I flub that the engines have to go last, its effectively a space station, and then its only a threat for a siege-army come to claim it, if the holders could fix up her broadsides, or get psykers to power the main gun (and not suffer another terrible Perils result).

No matter what else, though, i gotta say I am happy I drummed up a bit of interest. It is nice to get to discuss this as a game aspect, and get to air the pros and cons, and get input from others who know as much, or more, about 40k, and have certainly done more with this system than I have. Thanks very much, and please feel free to keep commenting. Any other bits for this, if i ever get a group together, and think to give them this option, would help greatly. Also, as the mail has been slow for me, and my BF Cal book hasn't arrived, I do have to hope that it at least mentions bits about Battleships and/or Space Stations, so I can get an idea of how much stuff (fighters, raiders/frigates, troops, what have you) it could carry/hold.

venkelos said:

Stance supported. I've been a 40K fan since the late eighties. I don't claim to know everything about 40K fluff, but I can confidently say that I'm well-versed. That being said, the spirit of 40K has always been "have fun & don't be afraid to create your own rules & scenarios". You have a creative idea & you should have fun with it. I myself always try to work within the "canon" of the universe, but if I have a cool idea that's a little "out of the box," I'll run with it.

Have fun!