Will there be any official Xenos PC in the game? Is that also likely to work within the 40k backdrop?

I mean it could be plausible to have an eldar ranger, tau or other minor racling along for the ride (as you may have different races in wfrp) or will it be out of the question and that the majority of the crew would be too xenophobic to tolerate an alien on board?

It's not entirely out of the question. Orks, Eldar, and Kroot have been known to work as mercenaries with humans and the Water Caste Tau are merchants. Some craftworlds are on speaking and trading terms with humanity, others aren't. Harlequins follow their own agendas. Rogue Traders are liscenced to deal with aliens and that includes trade and mutually beneficial relationships. So it's possible.

My guess would be that we won't see it in the core book, but it will be covered in other Rogue Trader books.

I hope, that the game introduce xenos-races as option to the players, finally it will bring more deep to the game and another insight to the fluff.

No thank you to Xeno PCs. Aliens should remain exactly that in my opinion, alien. Now Abhumans, that I can get behind. Ratlings, Spooks, Squats, Beastmen, Afriels and others with restricted career options that the normal PCs have but perhaps with their own Careers as well. Thats the only way I could see it working with Ogryns if they included them. They would be restricted to one career which would have very expensive options to purchase. Perhaps even remove characteristic advances for Ogryns as well.

Anyway. I will not be allowing Xenobreeds of any type as PC options in any games I run. Perhaps allow a colorful and very singular Xeno crewmen into some Rogue Trader vessels but they would be NPCs. You also have to take into account that like DH, Rogue Trader will take place in a particular section of the galaxy. The Halo Stars I think. You will not be seeing any stats for Tau or Kroot. They've also made it pretty clear that Eldar involvement in the sector is very rare as well. Well, at least Craftworld Eldar. I suppose Eldar pirates are another situation. Orks are possible. They do not make good mercenaries in the long-term however. The only thing we've ot to pay them in is guns and when they have the uns they are inclined to use them on you. Quite possibly out of boredom.

If there are Xeno PC options, I think it is likely that they will be of races invented for the game. Perhaps one or two familiar creatures.

Beastmen haven't been considered "Abhumans" for over 15 years. The Horus Heresy books explain this as a chaos mutation.

Makes sense, really.

When I said Beastmen, I was refering to something that makes more sense from an evolutionary standpoint. Goat heads aren't going to form on people without some other influence, but a race of Neanderthall look alikes might. I wass just using the standard derogatory names Imperials give to Abhumans.

I myself wouldnt mind seeing the Abhuman races serving the Imperium included in the RT rules- that way the crossover to and from DH would be feasible. But that wouldnt work with Xenos PC's in my opinion. If they opened up say Eldar for RT you would see Eldar Acolytes everywhere in DH. So I doubt Xenos races will be included.

The fact that it hasnt been addressed by those in the know yet leads me to believe that its still all human-ish like DH. That change would be as newsworthy as the new classes and ship roles.

Getting back to the original post. It would be interesting and certainly keeping with the theme that Rogue Traders are often a law unto themselves (so long as they stay on the fringe of Imperial space or out of it) and are social outcasts in some sense. As for whether it's doable? It depends on where RT is set (Halo Stars region,) where all the major alien players are relative to that location, and how close that space is to Imperial influence.

In short, I like the idea but I wouldn't mind waiting for a supplement or PDF addon, the core game would be enough.

I WANT ELDAR IN ROGUE TRADER. I wanted Eldar in DH, and now finally I can use them as NPC'S. I want to be able to generate Eldar characters. I see no reason why two or three career paths for Eldar could not be included. I am not so interested in the other races, but having an Eldar Ranger as a guide on a Rogue Trader is fully feasible. The idea that loads of Eldar would suddenly be running around is RETARDED, since YOU as the gm decide what happens in your setting. This isnt WOW after all. UNBELIEVABLE

Considering that even having Xenos artifacts or in some cases even contact with a Xenos race is a crime in the Imperium I think it would be unbelievable to expect Xenos races to play a realistic role as an acolyte. Rogue Traders of course have contact with aliens (as do radical Inquisitors) and could have one in his retinue as an interpreter or guide believably. Not only is is not WoW it isnt D&D either. Hiding a little mutation and corruption is one thing (and could still be deadly), hiding a Xenos is another. Very believable. But as you said its up to the GM. So you are open to play your half-genestealer grey knight secret agent assassins if you really have to.It would be kewl.

With the untold amount of Xenos how could we pick just one or five to make PC's and give them seperate trees? I do think the Eldar are the best choice though. But then again any race opened up in RT would have to be able to crossover to DH and that wouldnt work as well. Yes I admit it could be done (along with the half-genestealer blah blah blah) but I disagree you Grand Inquisitor Fulminarex on how they would fit in DH.

It has been confirmed in a recent podcast that there will be no playable xenos in the core book. It was stated that there was a lot of demand for xenos (as well as Space Marines) but he couldn't say what the future held.

Another thought has come to me on the subject of Eldar PCs. If they ever do release anything on the subject than there would have to be rules about changing careers. If an Eldar prgresses down a path for so long it is impossible to come back from it. They become Exarchs. In the tabletop game we only see two paths, the Path of the Warrior and the Path of the Seer, but there are many more paths to take in Eldar society. Path of the Bonesinger, Path of the Artist, Path of Husbandry and so on and so forth. Becoming an Exarch and being trapped on the path is not a decision to take likely. Exarchs lose all sense of self. They retain only what relates to the Path they are on and lose everything else. This biological quirk of theirs is probably what led to Slannesh being born. He/she is the God of Excess and what is more excessive than to give your entire life to one particular thing? Probably a few odd Exarchs back in the old Eldar empire. Exarch of plumbing, exarch of gardening and others.

Any idea how this could work as a mechanic in-game? The option of becoming an Exarch if you play as an Eldar should be open and it would have some very good benefits, but it should also have some drawbacks as well. Perhaps you lose certain skills/talents you've aquired in exchange for some different ones and there would be a limited skill/talent pool to buy from as a downside. Perhaps characteristic advances should cost less and there would be more of them as an upside. And for Eldar that do not want to get stuck on a path, they should all have the ability to take a rank in another career when they rank up. Whether this rank should be the matching rank of the career that the Eldar would have or the first level of the new career but with the experience requirements for leveling up that their appropriate rank would have.

On the one hand, if an Eldar were to switch careers mid-way he may be barred access to some of the skills/talents that require earlier skills/talents from ranks he did not have. But does the Eldar deserve to have the chance to learn these skills? Its all very confusing. Balancing the Eldar obsession with a more fluid career rank system with options of becoming an Exarch would probably be a very difficult thing to do.

Well, aliens are creatures with a choosen human trait emphaziesed. The only alien worth being called alien are either Necrons or Tyranids and they are unplayable. You could argure that it would look good and fitting with the physical differences on the ship but other than that I can't see to real reson besides being able to have different stats. There is nothing about most of the races that just as easily could be done with a humans. They can be strong and angry like orks or wise and all-knowing like the eldar.

The Eldar would make an interesting sourcebook. If it's done (presumably for Rogue Trader) I imagine it'll focus on the Eldar (either Craftworld or a combined arms approach - Craftworld, Dark, Maiden, Harlequins, Corsairs and those guys who turn up to parties) as adversaries, artefacts and allies (NPCs) rather than protagonists, but with a section (reccomending against it) as in Nights Dark Masters. That said Eldar would be the simplest of the races to include, though Kroot, Tau and Orks are all feasible (depending on location).

Myself I'd prefer to see the Abhumans covered. It has more utility and should convert to Dark Heresy simply. By the way, what are te Spooks and Afriels?

Another thought has come to me on the subject of Eldar PCs. If they ever do release anything on the subject than there would have to be rules about changing careers. If an Eldar prgresses down a path for so long it is impossible to come back from it. They become Exarchs. In the tabletop game we only see two paths, the Path of the Warrior and the Path of the Seer, but there are many more paths to take in Eldar society. Path of the Bonesinger, Path of the Artist, Path of Husbandry and so on and so forth. Becoming an Exarch and being trapped on the path is not a decision to take likely. Exarchs lose all sense of self. They retain only what relates to the Path they are on and lose everything else. This biological quirk of theirs is probably what led to Slannesh being born. He/she is the God of Excess and what is more excessive than to give your entire life to one particular thing? Probably a few odd Exarchs back in the old Eldar empire. Exarch of plumbing, exarch of gardening and others.

I don't think there would have to be rules about that. Sure, Eldar do change their paths, but exactly how often? "Frequently" for an Eldar may still mean "less than once in a lifetime" for a human, making the whole thing a moot point for your average RT campaign.

I get the feeling that I'm the only one who spaces out the missions an acolyte recieves by months or even years. Once a particular mission is over my PCs go into "reserve" which is when they spend experience and pick up all their skills/talents. It made sense to me. An acolyte isn't just going to be able to learn these things so quickly, esspecially if there isn't any down time between missions. It seemed to work this way in the Eisenhorn/Ravenor books too. In my opinion, the amount of in-game time from the lowest rank to the highest rank should be decades. 50-60 years and a tiny but of jeuvant treatments.

I figured that amount of time would be plenty for an Eldar to change paths.

William King, "Farseer" - Eldar using a Rogue Trader for their own purposes. Could be used as rationale for Xenos.

Inquisitor large scale battle game: Eldar in an Order Xenos retinue.

Teh fluff has Rogue Traders with many odds and sods in their Retinue. I hope Xenos will be available at some point.