So, this is one of those maybe pointless fluff questions, but I have a vested interest in knowing. In the distant past, the first Rogue Traders were given their power by the Administratum, the Warrants of some even signed by the Emperor, Himself. If a player group somehow happened to have such a Warrant, and I can easily make it make some sense why, even over 10,000 years, the Warrant hasn't racked up hundreds of PF points, how might He have signed it? When the Emperor was "just a man", albeit a superman, what did he use to sign things? Did lore regarding the compact with Mars, where they are allowed to maintain their religion, ever say what he penned as a signature? He didn't view Himself in the divine, and disliked any such terming, as the Word Bearers discovered, so it might be The Emperor of Mankind, without God attached, and I doubt he used a name, like your average person, but I am wondering if anyone actually knows, or would hazard a guess?

Thanks much

venkelos said:

It's actually mentioned in a couple of Black Library sources - a couple of novels dealing with Rogue Traders with such venerable warrants.

The Emperor's mark - along with a gene-print to go with it - is a simple symbol, consisting only of five plain strokes of the pen. A capital I, akin to that used by all manner of Imperial organisations (including the Inquisition), marked in the middle by an X.

In the second book of the Shira Calpurnia series by Matthew Farrer, think its called Legacy, there is a warrant signed by the emperor. I think the gene mark was actually a drop of blood.

Yup- Legacy has the most unambiguous description- a capital I (for Imperator) with two crossbars in the centre (five simple strokes of the pen), above a finger-smudge of His blood as a gene-signature. Nothing more needed, as even the least psychically sensitive and religious people felt His presence when they saw it- ten millennia later… I suspect some powerful psy-imprint was left with His blood.

I have no idea how that adds up to five strokes, the way N0-1_H3r3 described it.

If I got it right, it's an I with an X through the middle of it. That adds up to three strokes, by my count.

Anyone in the know that could take the time to just paint the symbol, to visually represent it to those of us that are apparently visualization-impaired?

Fgdsfg said:

A capital I has three strokes, the top, bottom, and middle support, while the two strokes/lines of the X make five.

venkelos said:

So, something like this, then?

I'd imagine the X and the crosses on the I would be bigger, making it look more like an hourglass.

So the Emperor of Mankind signs things the way any illiterate might… how truly unawesome.

HappyDaze said:

No being alive knows his name, so I don't imagine he'd sign his name. A simple symbol and the lingering feeling of his presence are sufficient to prove his identity… and that's all that you want from a signature - proof that you signed it.

Speaking of names, is there any sort of formula one must follow for their Dynasty? Does it have to be "House ________", like so many references, or can it have a different sort of name? In my fiction, whether it is an NPC Dynasty, or the one my someday-players might take, I have a group called the Silver Ravens, the Dynasty of one Edric "Boss" Korvallus. Would it be okay, fluffwise, to have the Dynasty bear the name "Silver Ravens", rather than "House Korvallus"? This particular Dynasty isn't known for passing to genetic/familial successors; in the past, the Rogue Trader senior would groom a protege who showed promise, sort of like an Inquisitor might, and that person could gain the Warrant, when the Elder retired. This successor wouldn't be Korvallus's child, likely (he has no children), so a huge game of "change the name" would have to occur, or it could just keep the name Silver Ravens. Korvallus's ancient Warrant sat derelict for millennia (no one is immediately sure why), and he received it, along with a ship he only rarely used (The Silver Raven, a Star Galleon) for his prodigious list of good deeds in the service of Battlefleet Solar and other areas. When he accepted the "promotion" from Lord Captain to Rogue Trader, rather than Admiral, he maintained command of his own vessel the Hammerfall (Dictator-class Cruiser), and gave the name "Silver Ravens" to his Dynasty, since it hadn't been of any family for thousands of years. At that time, it didn't have much to call on, so it was a bit more mercenary company/Battlefleet aide, and a bit less sector-spanning powerhouse.

Would this work, beyond "you're the GM, do whatever you want"? Has anyone here ever taken a more like this name, over House _______?

All that i've seen (which I'll be the very first to admit is not a huge sample so I could very well seem wrong) would indicate that the majority of warrants are dynastic in nature. The imperium is very much a feudal society so the presumtion would normally be tht once granted to an individual it would stay in their family (and it therefore behooves them to have kids or designate an heir". House Silver Raven does work but it's just as easy your character in question might-change their name to silver raven or take the honorific Lord-Captain Erdric Korvallus Lord Silver Raven

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Hell, if a document was signed by the Emperor just after (say…) Ullanor, He would be over 35000 years old Himself. He is now, today , into, or rapidly approaching His tenth millennium. I wouldn't be totally surprised if even He'd forgotten His original name by the time of the Unification Wars and the Great Crusade.

Another way to look at it is that He can afford to sign things simply, because there's no-one with the balls to try and forge His signature. At which point, a simple initial (of His title, no less, not even His name) becomes a statement of awesome personal authority.

There will always be people with the balls to forge powerful peoples seal or signature, which is probably what led to the genelock/psychic signature. What's interesting to me about that as he probably did it an anti-forgery device but it ended up leading credence to his divinity when viewed later, a divinity which he couldn't stand the thought of. Such go everyone's best intentions. This is all conjecture mind you.

venkelos said:

I always like the pointless fluff questions. Although the 40k setting is pretty meaty, a lot of fine detail of the working of the 40k universe has been so far passed over by Games Workshop and Black Library and I like to fill in the gaps.

I would say yes, many rogue trader houses still around would have hundreds of profit factor (though many others have been brought down and looted by greedy rivals). The universe is a big place though, so even such ancient houses will be forced to spread their resources thin at times. This means a group of players could start out as members of one of these first rogue trader houses but would have a smaller, speedier ship for scouting the borders of the dynasty's influence and a greatly reduced profit factor for being so far away from the dynasty's base of power.

I'm guessing the emperor had a personal crest that he signed the first warrants with. In my campaign the first warrants of trade are large over sized scroll-machines the size of a man with micro-circuitry laced into the parchment and blessed with holy power. Any man who attempts to alter it's wording finds his hands and voice crippled for a week.

Related Question:

Let's say that House Dumbjerks is one of the oldest in the Imperium. They even have a Warrant signed by the Emperor. Then they all die.

Would the Imperium re-issue that Warrant the next time they want to create a Rogue Trader? How would General Steve of the Imperial Guard deal with the fact that his freshly issued warrant doesn't say House Steve on it? Do warrants even specify who they're given to, or do they just say "Whoever holds this"?

I believe there is a long, administrative process, where the would be bearer must journey to Terra, and beseech the High Lords to change it. The alternative is that, since NO ONE may countermand the orders of the Emperor, a Warrant with no applicable bearers would simply be nulled, and stored in a file on Terra. If Steve wants a Warrant, and is found worthy, they'll make him a new one, riddled with the controls later snuck into the Warrants to make the RT slightly manageable. They aren't made out of anything special, such as Unobtainium, so it's no more work to write up a new one, and almost guaranteed less.

This statement sort of moots some of my own story/commentary, earlier. If the Warrant must be hereditary, then no one else can get it, just another one, and work to eat up everything the previous Warrant owned. If the bearer can name successor, and it needs not be family, then the new RT would get the Warrant, and, if his name is different, the prior might be able to request that the Warrant be edited, which is less a slap to the Emperor's face. Otherwise, just adopt the newbie, and they must accept that the Dynasty has a different name; this saves on getting all the towels remonogrammed, anyway, and capitalizes on the name recognition already present in said Dynasty.

This is partly why I wanted my Dynasty to be the Silver Ravens, rather than House ________, which became House Korvallus in 708.M41. If Korvallus has no children (and at around 300, I don't expect him to start the practice this late), and the Dynasty is known by the Company name, rather than House X, it would be easier to appoint one of his cultivated Lieutenants to succeed him, without all the hoopla of changing the Dynasty's name, or the Lieutenant's given name. Oh well, I suppose bits of this are the kind of stuff we just say "the GM says…", and let it work. GW isn't likely to show up at my house, and beat me with the new TT core book because I oopsed a bit, or slightly altered, their "established" canon.

Well the easiest answer is to have it be a bearer warrant that's passed down according to the organizations dictates. It doesn't HAVE to be House X, just that's the most common. My point is a hereditary warrant doesn't become a bearer warrant. If there's no one to claim a hereditary warrant it likely goes innactive. Now that's not to say that weird conditions can't occur but more often then not I would presume if the warrant doesn't have "The bearer of this warrant" then it will likely say "Spobodiy Necial and their descendants of the house of Necial." I don't think people edit warrants once their issued. That kind of goes against the purpose of a warrant as a inviolable document.

Now it is possible even likely considering the vast breadth of the imperium that a warrant could have been granted to an organization rather then a house and the rules for passing on the warrant within the organization worked right into the warrant of trade. I just think it's going to be the minority, that's not to say you can't build a campaign around such a minority.

Basically if it's an organizational warrant (similar to what probably empowers many guilds and noble houses though with much greater scope) it's different from a heredetary warrant and different from a bearer warrant. The Silver Ravens warrant could also effectively be their charter as much as their warrant.

susanbrindle said:

All warrants are written for a specific family, for specific reasons, with specific clauses and stipulations. It is unlikely that any warrant - written by the Emperor or not - would be "re-issuable", since the way it is worded and so forth would not apply. It's not as easy as to cross out an old name and write a new one on a piece of paper. Nevermind the fact such an old Warrant of Trade would likely be falling apart if you so much as glanced at it.

They might issue a new warrant entirely based on the old warrant, but it wouldn't be the same warrant, nor signed by the Emperor. Add to that the fact that not even the High Lords of Terra can change or countermand an order given by the Emperor, at least not formally - which is exactly what a warrant signed by the Emperor is.

And a warrant isn't really something you carry around with you, unless perhaps if it's an entirely fresh one, and as far as I know, all warrants are ties to a person or their family, and always hereditary. It doesn't mean that that is how it is in absolutely all cases in the vast universe of the Imperium, but I have never heard of it not being that way, so it's incredibly unlikely that it would work in any other way.

…which might suck for Space Marine Rogue Traders, I guess. On the other hand, such a Rogue Trader can live almost forever, I guess.. but yeah, whatever.

Fgdsfg said:

You are incorrect on this. Bearer warrants do exist in canon and have popped up in Rogue Trader materials. The one that comes most readily to mind off the top of my head is mentioned in Kronos Beastiary as locked in a sealed stasis doohickey presumably rolling around in a beasties gullet after it's last bearer got himself eaten.

Edit: Clarity and to make it sound less combat then it was coming off.

For that matter, there are non-hereditary warrants made out to specific people as well- case in point being the Letter of Marque of Rogue Trader Hansard Rugolo. Really screwed over his son Maynard when Hansard died (which helped set up the plot of Eye of Terror).

From what i have been told there is a copy of each and every legal warrant of trade stored in the vaults of terra in the event that an existing warrant is damaged or if there are claims of forgery. Also I have heard it theorised that some members of the Ecclesiarchy might actively hunt doen warrants signed by the Emperor, ether because they are holy relics to be preserved or because they are trying to suppress the fact that the God-Emperor was ever a "mortal" being in the first place.

truedragon5374 said:

Yes to the Ecclesiarchy hunting down Warrants signed by Him-on-Earth. Yes to preserve them as holy relics (and boost the coffers of whichever ecclesiarchal diocese that holds them); that formed one of the sub-plots of Matt Farrer's Legacy . Not sure if I've ever heard of an ecclesiarchal faction trying to suppress that He once walked around physically.

Matt Farrer needs to lay down some more Shira Calpurnia. Those are some of the best 40K stories I've ever read. The last one, 'Blind', had me thinking of the movie The Forbidden Planet.