In the past we've had Warp Encounters and the like, but how about stuff for profit? One thing I would have liked to see more of in Hostile Acquisitions is a listing of potential Cold Trade items a GM could drop into their game. So, maybe we can come up with some? (I've also posted this over at rpg.net)

Mine aren't the best, but its a start I suppose.

1. Ntharian Brightleaf
On the independent agri-world of Ntharis, remnants of ancient Mechanicus terraforming engines stand like silent watchers. Larger than a hab block, they have long been robbed and scavenged of their secrets. A particular strain of xeno-crop grows here, known to make powerful lho-sticks. Import of this crop to the Calixis sector is forbidden, and profits are slim, but rumors have started claiming that it was engineered by Man long ago. The Biologis have taken an interest in these rumors, and are eager for samples.

2. Captain's Lament
These smooth bottles of wine are clearly xenos in manufacture, though even the most learned Xenongrapher's cannot determine their origin. The liquid inside glows a bright blue and appears to have a life of its own. Impossibly sweet smelling, many claim to see hallucinations form out of the vapor that curls out; often in the form of tentacles. Recovered from an unknown hulk in the year 811.m41, there are precious few of these bottles in existence. They fetch prices in excess of the finest wines of Quaddis, and Lady Bellefonte, the invisible Vertess of Port Wander, is known to have several in her possession.

Grot Juice

produced by the orks of 'undred 'undred teef. some traders have made contact with some of the more opened minded tribes. marketed through out the expanse and beyond under a verity of names, this potent drink leaves most humies in a stupor after a single shot. what the imbibers don't know is where it comes from or that it is "milked" from specialized squigs by grots.

phase swords

it is unknown weather the stryxis, the yuvath, or some other xeno race from the expanse created them. these swords are forged from a substance that is neather metal or crystal but has properties of both. these swords seem slightly out of touch with the "real world". they exist in both this plane and the warp. hard to contain, each comes with a vat grown, Stryxis scabbard that is alive. this is due to the swords passing through anything that doesn't have a soul or atleast an aura of life or lifeforce. these swords pass through armor and ignore it, striking the target as if he were wearing none. these swords are also able to strike an opponent in the warp. this can only be done when the wielder is either in the warp, or can see into the warp, to target an opponent.

exquisite agony

this strange drug is produced by the dark elder. it switches the sensations of pain and pleasure in the brain. the effect is that a night with a "good time girl" becomes torture, and a night with a torturer becomes one of the best feelings a human can experience. thousands of people have died, including several noble children, from self inflected wounds. each body is found with a smile on it's face and cover in cuts burns and other damage. it is unknown who is importing this drug into port wander and beyond, but the Inquisition are extreamily interested in finding out who it is, administering a large dose to them, and placing them in a pleasure amplifier and a stasis chamber.

6. Psymica.

This exquisite black silicate is produced as an industrial waste product by an unnamed pre-Imperial species who lived on the outskirts of the Ixianad sector. It is fragile, quite beautiful, and has one particularly valuable property: it is wholly psy-opaque except from one direction. It was originally brought into Imperial space by the Vaal dynasty, who kept its origin a closely guarded secret to try and maintain their monopoly, until they found themselves caught in a four-cornered bidding war between the Houses of the Navis Nobilite (who wanted to provide safer eyries for their Navigators), the Adeptus Astra Telepathica (who didn't want to have to shine a massive beacon saying "daemons eat here free" every time they sent and received astropathic messages), the Ordos Malleus and Hereticus of the Most Holy Office of Inquisition (who wanted a way to gaze into the Abyss without it gazing back… and possibly to make prison cells for daemons and psykers) and the Adeptus Mechanicus (who wanted… something. Presumably the opportunity to poke something new and dangerous with a stick).
Predictably, the bidding war became an actual (if brief and relatively low-key) war, which ended with the destruction of every member of the Vaal dynasty who knew where to get it, and the tacit agreement that no-one should be permitted to trade in psymica to prevent this sort of thing happening again. Needless to say, this makes it a very profitable cargo…

7. Long Slow Red

A bright blue liquid in a little glass vial, Long Slow Red is a powerful surgical-grade analgesic, powerful enough that under its' influence you could have your arm crushed, set on fire and then amputated with a rusty, malfunctioning, blunt chainsword and never feel a thing. It's also understandably addictive, granting its users an incredibly euphoric rush. It would, in fact, be the making of anyone who could secure a supply, if it weren't harvested from the from the pituitary and hypothalamus of human adolescents by the Cdlvii, a species who traffic in multi-species intoxicants.

8. Vyr'tykk brood chamber.

This odd device of unknown origin is a large, egg shaped structure of milky crystal, with a base of flexible, dark metal that looks grown rather than wrought. There are sockets for power, water, and nutrient lines to be connected to the base, and the metal will flex to accommodate a wide variety of attachment points. Once connected, the crystalline egg will iris open…

Tavern tales in Footfall claim one nameless colony in the Expanse found several hundred of these devices. The colonists found that if genetic material from a man and woman was placed into the egg, it would close. Six months later, it would open again, revealing a healthy baby with the child's DNA just what you'd expect from the mother and father. For a time, the colonists made modest use of these devices, mostly in cases where a married couple had proven infertile. But, they soon noticed something unusual about the 'chamber kids'… The children born from the devices were all free from flaws. There were no mutations, no bad eyesight, no crooked teeth, no allergies, no baldness… Even serious hereditary diseases like haemophilia simply ceased to exist in the child's genome. To top it off, all the children were also attractive, and of above average health and vitality. Once this was discovered, use of the devices skyrocketed, and for an all too brief time, the colony flourished; the stigma of mutation from their hostile environment completely banished by the brood chamber.

But, all came to ruin thanks to one incompetent chirurgeon's assistant. He got distracted partway through his duties, dosing one chamber with two sets of DNA, and the next with none. Worse, he neglected to wash before his shift, so several of the other chambers got contaminated with animal hair, fungal spores, and pollen from outside. Except for the one chamber that received no DNA at all, *all* the chambers produced viable offspring, offspring that shared DNA with every parent, and offspring that were attractive, vital, and intelligent transgenic abominations of science… Predictably, there was a horrified response among the colonists, with more puritan elements immediately seeking to destroy the abominations and the brood chambers. The hysteria spread like wildfire, with the colonists soon seeking to destroy all the 'chamber kids', even those with two human parents. The rioting and violence left a third of the colonists dead and vital colony structures razed. The colony died a slow, lingering death, with the colonists succumbing to mutation and madness in the hostile environment. Still, rumours persist of an intact brood chamber appearing every now and again…

Effects: Item is size hulking, and weighs about two tonnes. when hooked to appropriate sources of water, power, and nutrients, it acts as an artificial womb, constructing a child out of whatever DNA samples are placed inside. There must be at least two parents, but there can be as many as eight; parental gender is irrelevant, by the by. If all of the parents are the same species, the child will be attractive, smart, and healthy and have inherited traits from all the parents. If the parents are of different species, the only guarantees are that the child will be viable and will inherit traits from all of the parents… Needless to say, there are many, many ways this can go wrong, or work too well.

This device is highly anathema to members of the Ecclesiarchy and to any puritanical Inquisitor, as it can splice the sacred human form with something else. Some of these Inquisitors even go so far as to claim the brood chambers resonate strangely in the Warp. However, there are a few radical Inquisitors, and some heretical cults, who might be very interested in getting their hands on such a device…