At last I come to you as a GM seeking advice, for I am finally running Rogue Trader.

So, I'm running the players through a variation on the core book's scenario, and at the end of the mission a ship of Locarus Ryn's fabled lost fleet is found by the PCs (not the Righteous Path itself, as I have plans for it, but one of the treasure ship transports). Now, this transport is shattered by its impact with the rock it is embedded to, but the holds still hold treasure aplenty, though the ship's cogitator cores and warp charts may prove to be a greater treasure in the long run if they lead the party to the flagship itself.

What I'm pondering, though, is what to stock the (remaining) holds with? I'm not overly locked to "+3 profit factor's worth of stuff", so if it ends up being more or less (within reason) I see little great problem .

Behind the stasis fields, in the shielded great hold, what remnant of past glory awaits them? For that matter, what sort of thing have your players crammed their treasure holds with in the past?

Could be anything - works of art ( IIRC correctly, of human origin, but that won't stop some customs officer seizing the lot as clearly being xenos in origin when you try and sell it - fun times); strange alien beasts, perhaps now extinct in the expanse but for which the Beast Houses and geneteks wold pay dearly (hope your ship has an Alienage to keep them alive in); an entire xenos temple transplanted in one piece to become an ornamental gazebo in the late Lord-Captain's garden (pray it wasn't an eldar structure); the human nobility of some conquered world, in stasis until they could be processed into amusing servitors ( that would stir up some dynastic fun on their home planet!); baroque war machine taken as trophies, but which would enrage the AdMech if hey found out; 300 stormtrooper veterans in Sus-An that the late Lord-Captain intended as a gift to his favorite granddaughter; a Necron Tomb Spider that's been waiting patiently for the stasis field to switch off so it can finish regenerating and vomiting out thousands of scarabs; some unfortunate psyker who's mind has been fully concious the entire time their body was in stasis ( dangerously insane and hideously powerful, if not completely possessed by now? you betcha); and so on.

Hell, even 400 three-storey hypermarble friezes of the late Lord-Captain 1)arriving at a planet 2) blasting seven colours of gak out of a planet and 3) stomping on the necks of the locals would be of value to somebody...

When I ran a group through that, they wound up with 300 Stasis Coffins filled with space Fremen (with archaic light power armour), a hundred high-level archeotech cogitator cores, and 5 archeosaur eggs (also in stasis, and viable).

There was, of course, vastly more to be plundered, but that was all they had time to grab.
For reference (and because they were **** fun plot hooks)- the time-frozen soldiers were astartes candidates, from a world long hidden in the Expanse. I had them as from the VIII Legion, although when they went to find them (using data painstakingly decrypted from the cogitator cores by the AdMech, for "a favour"), they found evidence of astartes on astartes violence, with the much of the world a shattered and radioactive wasteland. There were large yields of adamantium in the world's crust- from what appeared to be asteroid impacts.

And archeosaurs grow big enough to kill Warlord titans in single combat, with natural armour that can stop most weapons below starship- or ordinatus-grade, and the ability to generate and breathe fire almost plasma hot (the players were split on whether to sell the eggs to the Beast House, make omelettes bigger than Baneblades, or try and get servitor systems for them to turn them into riding beasts).

Human, but non-Imperial is the angle I'm taking here. A high gravity world of great mineral wealth and with a native population corresponding to the Ogryn abhuman phenotype, though markedly intelligent by the normal standards associated with such (merely thick rather than moronic). At the time of the conquest it was under the occupation of a group called the Artisans, small in number but with incredible technology. By supporting the ascension of certain clans with advanced technology they were able to rule the world without great effort.

Of course, the transport ship they find will not have this information. The intent is to give enough to start up a background endeavour as they try to track down both the lost world of Krystallian and the Righteous Path.

The remaining greathold includes:

Large numbers of advanced grav plates, each roughly 20 metres by 40 metres and half a metre thick. Analysis will indicate that they were set to produce a gravity of 1g in a high-grav environment.

Storage crates containing large quantities of uncut gemstones. Some of these are extremely valuable as components for various esoteric systems, the others would be valuable for aesthetic reasons.

Further storage containers containing smaller but still significant quantities of crudely cut gemstones, of a similar nature.

A dozen great blades, each large enough that even a Space Marine would find them unwieldy. Their crafting is the equal of the finest Lathe blades, and there are similarities in composition.

A suit of fully enclosing armour of similarly advanced manufacture, and similarly giant scale. Battle damage seems to indicate that this was taken as a trophy from a slain foe, the advanced construction implying prolific use of heavy weaponry. The proportions are similar to those of certain Ogryn sub-breeds. The armour is unpowered, and would not be suitable for void use.

Assorted devices, construction and (where relevant) scale indicating human archaeotech designs. In those cases where more than one item of a type exists each is unique in construction and detail, indicating either a sampling from patterns by a great many manufacturers or individual crafting.

Alasseo said:

You win