Play as a Navigator

“To gaze into the Warp is to look into the abyss. To understand insanity itself is to become insane. Worst of all is the knowledge that while you are gazing upon it, the warp is looking back at you.”
–Kartr Hollis, Nobilite Emissary

You can take on the role of a Navigator, bearer of a special mutation that allows you to steer a spaceship through the raging tides of the warp. Only a few amongst uncounted trillions in the Imperium can boast of such power. Rogue Trader ships must defy the dangerous tides of the warp—a treacherously random, unstructured dimension of energy and unfocused consciousness. Only the unique talents of a Navigator enable the ship to successfully utilise the warp to make jumps between points thousands of light-years apart.

A Navigator walks with pride and caution, the descendant of the most rarified of all Imperial nobility. Secrets and intrigues attend you—those of the warp, and those more natural to societies of men. The Navigator must guide a path through both worlds, with the fate of thousands of souls resting upon your continued success.

The description of the navigator makes me think that he might now have psychic powers, as in a psy rating, because they describe his powers as comming from a special mutation. Perhaps his powers are more like the "powers" of the Tech Priest from DH, that is he gets acces to a bunch of special talents that only Navigators can get. Or maybe he gets both a standard progression of psychic powers and special Navigator mutatiions, perhaps his psychic powers progress slower than the Astropath. As the Astropath sounds more like the main psyker in Rogue Trader.

What do you think the navigator will be?

Not even worried about it. Ill find out in August, not that much further away, 4 months.

But Im hoping they make sense as PCs and not shoe horned into the role just because they are in Rogue Trader fluff.

They managed to include a navigator as a main character in the Inquisition War novels by Ian Watson, so I wouldn't worry about them being playable characters.

In terms of powers/abilities, there's a fair amount of detail in those novels and in the original Rogue Trader (1st edition 40K). I wouldn't expect too much variety though, according to the background all the navigator families are hideously inbred in order to maintain these abilities which tend not to vary at all between individuals.

All their abilities are linked to their third eye which gives them the ability to see into the warp, and will also kill anyone who looks into it. Not true psychic abilites, more like VERY specialised mutations.

Yeah that was kinda the thing i imagined ChaosChild, i think they are gonna go with the talents thing.

And PeaceKeeper i am only speculating, not worrying about anything.

Back in the Day, Navies had spechial Navie Powers and also had a Chance of being a conventional Psychic as well, Given how Navies are a Psyker sub type in DH their is a chance they will be the same in RT.

I dunno. I'm just not seeing it.

In most of the fluff, the Navigators never leave their quarters. Furthermore, they almost never accept guests into their quarters unless the Lord of the ship insists on it. The older they get, the more disturbing their physical mutations get. The only reason their mutations are tolerated is because they're essential to space travel.

I guess it's possible for a Navigator PC but I tell you what... If I was a Rogue Trader there is NO WAY I'd allow the Navigator shore leave. Anything happens to him/her and you're stranded. The Navigator is literally the most important person on the ship. During Warp travel, they're in command. They have the power to tell the Captain/Lord/Admiral/Rogue Trader to bugger off if it's a ship safety issue.

Well, if Navigators are suppose to conduct their trade, to navigate, they must be able to "hear" the Astronomicon. That is a psykic beacon meaning that they must be psykers, otherwise everyone else would hear it too. Which I don't think they do.

Robban-O said:

They can have sort of mutation that allows them to sense the immaterium that doesnt have to be psychic. Though I assume (and always have assumed) navigators with a mutant-sub species of human that was warp sensitive and psychic.

The issue is them adventuring. Junior Navigators have to get out and get experience tuning thier powers, but once they are powerful enough to navigate a huge star ship through the warp, I doubt they leave the vessel often to explore and fight orks.

Peacekeeper_b said:

But that still does not explain how they can hear/feel the Astronomicon unless they are psykic.

Peacekeeper_b said:

That is a valid point and also a argument to way they would be psykics. If they are, there is a incitament for them to get off the ship and join the fray. With those power they would be a valueble tool for the captain to use when bringing the emperors light of freedom to some illiterate savages in need of enlightment.

Robban-O said:

Actually it does. Human ability to see/feel the warp/astronomicon is usually a psychic connection with the warp, which is a mutation. Navigators are mutants that have an extra eye that is fine tuned to the warp. It doenst guarantee they are "psychic" like astropaths or other standard sanctioned psykers, but it does give one leway and a sense of presedence that they can be considered psykers, but not that they have to be. Some "natural" critters in 40K can sense and feel the warp and are not necessarily psykers, under human definitions.

Robban-O said:

But again, as they become more powerful and thus more important to the ships travels and warp surfing abilities, they would get off ship less and less. Any Navigator PC, in order for them to be more useful as PCs, would have to be students, acolytes and servants of a ships true navigator.

Peacekeeper_b said:

But is not a connection to the warp the definition of a psyker? The navigator eye is for looking into the warp, which no normal human can do without going insane. The Astronomicon is on the other hand a psykic beacon powered by the astronomicon choir (I know the emperor is somewere in there also) which is a concentrated psykic signal. Don't you have to be a psyker to hear it? Astropaths needs to be psykers to both recive and send psykic messeges. Should not the same apply to the signal from the Astronomicon?

From Lexicanum

"Navigators are a very particular form of human mutant, possessing the navigator gene, which gives them the unique ability of navigating through warp space. This ability makes them absolutely necessary to the Imperium's continued survival.

All Navigators have a third eye, commonly called the Warp Eye, on their foreheads, which allows them to perceive the "psychic light" known as the Astronomican, enabling them to fully use their powers in guiding ships through the currents of the Warp. Their ability to sense the tides of the warp is considered psychic, although Navigators never possess any psychic abilities beyond the powers their warp eye affords them.

Navigators possess natural life spans of as much as four hundred years. As they increase in age, their abilities increase in power, and their physical appearance changes: the white and iris of the eye gradually disappears, leaving only a hardened black orb. "

So according to the fluff as is, they are not "TRUE PSYKERS" but have a mutant organ that allows them to see "WARP AND PSYCHIC EMANATIONS". If they were psykers they would most likely get possessed in the warp by some nasty evil stuff.

More then likely they are adding the extra psyker stuff to the PCs in RT to make them "more useful" in non ship uses.

Peacekeeper_b said:

Not really big news, IMO. When the Navigator model was released for Inquisitor, the accompanying rules had it able to wield psychic powers. Similarly, the Navigator NPC in Disciples of the Dark Gods...

...ah, that would explain it. I had honestly never noticed that the Navigator NPC had been removed from the final version of Disciples of the Dark Gods. Still, he had psychic powers as well.

It's a shift in the background these last couple of years; "the powers their warp eye affords them" is something beyond solely allowing them to look into and navigate through the Warp. It's an expansion of the old idea that Navigators covered their third eye when not using it, because it was psychically dangerous for normal humans to look into (something to do with "the reflected light of the Warp", I can't remember in any more detail just at the moment).

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Still, doesnt necessarily make them true "PSYKERS" if they get additional psychic powers, they are just derived mutation gifts from their third eye. The difference is simple. Psychic powers are abilities controlled by mental energies and interaction of these mental energies with the warp. A mutation that gives psychic like powers is a physical ability to interact with the warp.

I would say the Navigators will get various sense oriented powers, such as limited precog/postcog, x-ray vision, thermal vision, see aura and so forth that would make them useful for boarding and away parties as well as enhanced senses (vision) and a few other physical mutations.

They of course will work and function like psychic powers, just to keep the system the same, but they may grant additional bonuses or penalties to resist or may not work on some psychic vulnerable minds or work on some psychic immune minds as they are not true psykers.

That was wierd!!!!!!!

Peacekeeper_b said:

I see there being an incredibly fine line between the two - afterall, being a psyker is as much a matter of genetics as the unique qualities of the 'soul'. It could be argued that being a psyker demonstrates a physiological capability to interact with the warp.

Peacekeeper_b said:

The NPC to which I referred in my previous post had a Psy Rating of 2, Favoured By The Warp, and the powers Precognition, Psychometry, Resist Possession, Sense Presence, Time Skip, Weaken Veil and White Noise. This is in addition to the Warp Eye trait (which, aside from conferring Unnatural Intelligence x2 and Unnatural Perception x2 for the purposes of navigating and piloting in the warp, acts as a Psy-Focus, and can cause insanity, stunning and, in extreme cases, death to those who look into the eye unprotected). Some are perceptive powers, certainly, but others suggest that the Navigator background has changed in recent years* to allow for some minor channelling of the power of the warp, using their third eye as a focus or conduit for that power.

In Inquisitor, their powers were more unique and more specific - aside from "The Lidless Eye", which represented the horrors of their gaze, they were sometimes able to direct blasts of raw warp energy through their third eye ("Warp Gaze"), interfere with the flow of time to a limited extent ("Temporal Distortion"), or disrupt the tides of the Warp in the immediate vicinity to deny other psykers easy access to their powers ("Inertia") - each effect was a different power, collectively presented as "Powers of the Navigators", with all Navigator characters having a minimum of The Lidless Eye and one other, while Novators (the most experienced and capable of the three levels presented) had all four powers.

*While writing this post, I've also been reminded of an even older source on Navigators which sheds further light on their nature: an article from the Citadel Journal (Issue 18, published in 1996) written by Warwick Kinrade (a man who now does much of the writing for Forgeworld's Imperial Armour and Aeronautia Imperialis books). Aside from a more detailed look at their origins (suggesting that they were created by the Emperor himself during his long period of guiding mankind from behind the scenes), the article presented rules for them in 40k (2nd edition, admittedly), which presented them has Psykers, complete with their own list of psychic powers... powers called The Lidless Stare, Warp Gaze, Temporal Distortion and Inertia, funnily enough. It seems as if "recent years" covers publications over a decade old...

Interesting.

But I am assuming they wont have the typical psyker like powers of telepathy, empathy, telekinesis, mind reading, mind control and so forth.

So that does raise the question, that if they are "psykers" in any sense of the word, are they prone to possession and other negative effects of the warp.

Is there any fluff supporting Navigators being Chaos Touched? Would help with an adventure Idea I have at the moment.

Their first incarnation (RT rulebook) they weren't psykers as standard, just had a special mutation, but they had just as much chance as any other human to be a psyker, and had access to all the standard psyker powers (the only ones which were special being the ones for Astropaths, most of which actually had no tabletop effect, yet were listed anyway). Combined with the other things mentioned, it looks like that Lexicanum article is just wrong about them never having other psychic powers.

borithan said:

I would not say it is wrong, only that the topic is open for discussion. After all, that article says that no one know the full extent of the eyes powers, only perhaps the paternova. But ok, the powers of the navigator is concentrated around his third eye. That does not mean his not a psyker, just that they use the powers of the warp in a different way. The eye could be the thing that protects navigators from being possesed. I don't think that is to far fetched since they can look into the warp with it and other people can not. A personal gellar shield.

From the old Rogue Traider:

"Navigators are mutants of a very special kind, and although their appearance can vary a great deal they always have the power to navigate through warp space. Although this is a psychic ability, navigators never have other psychic powers and are no more vulnerable to psychically attuned warp creatures than any normal human ." (pg 150)

Also, they could be space marines. Woot.

Action_Carl said:

Yes, yes, we've established that Rogue Trader said they couldn't be psykers... but then, Rogue Trader also included Space Marines with shuriken catapults, half-human/half-Eldar hybrids in positions of authority in the Imperium, hoverboards, Harlequins running around with looted Land Raiders, and an Inquisitor named Obi-Wan Sherlock Clouseau.

Just because it says something in Rogue Trader does not automatically make it the undeniable truth...

N0-1_H3r3 said:

And much of that stuff was dead on silly.

So can we just agree that as of now there is no official line on how psyker a neavigator is? Even in that blurb about Navigator's on the Rogue Trader page there is no reference to psyker powers.

SO we are assuming they will have psyker powers now?

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Yes it does, because everything released since then has has succeded only in turning a creative and dynamic universe into a bad heavy metal album cover that takes itself way too seriously.

Action_Carl said:

Oh, you're one of those people. In which case, I won't argue with you, because you're opinion is likely too tightly-held to see anyone else's (based on previous encounters with people who despise anything written for 40k after the 1980s).

Personally, though, I feel that if even half the background in the Rogue Trader rulebook was republished today, it'd look like a half-assed parody of what 40k is at the moment.

And, when people complain that a setting "takes itself too seriously now", it's normally because they miss the humour of the older version, failing to remember that humour is inherently subjective and will not appeal to everyone universally. It's one of the reasons that most RPGs don't include deliberately humorous elements anymore - because what the writer's find funny isn't necessarily what the readers will find funny, and because most of the best RPG humour comes from the interactions of the individual players within a group, not from the setting itself.

There, I've said my piece, and I'm leaving it at that.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Seconded.

I find the early 40K stuff to be so silly that I cant even look at it. I think they have done a marvelous job in turning a second rate sci-fi pot-pie of ideas into a sound, stable and coherent setting that is strong enough and consistent enough to be a good foundation for a RPG, a TT game, a series of Video Games, a comic book series, a series of novels and several specialist games. Hopefully the continue to refine the universe and it matures enough to hold its own film or series.