RT2

RT2 is a feeble attempt at bringing Rogue Trader up to date with the rest of FFG Warhammer PnP lineup mechanically. It is also meant to include a cleaned up equipment list, a homebrewed skill system, a Retinue mechanic inspired by the Comrades system as seen in Only War, and campaign-level mechanics.

Basic mechanics

Dice used, types of tests, degrees of success, etc.

Character creation

Character Roles

Archetype vs role played, the need for well-rounded characters that can shine both in exploration, ship-based and land-based adventure. Hierarchy as it applies to characters (with a link to Rogue Traders chapter).

Any Imperial vessel, no matter its traditions and order, has a complement of superiour officers, the ones in control of the most important of the vessel's functions. The vessel that the Player Characters find themselves upon is no different. However, by no means should Player Characters be limited to the roles dictated by the officer ranks and professions; indeed, a Player Character need not necessarily be an officer at all, nor every officer (including the ship's Captain) a Player Character.

For examples of Player Characters traveling by ship who are not seniour officers consider Jacques Paganel, Squire Trelawney, or any of the main characters of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea other than Captain Nemo himself.

RT2 offers a relatively freeform character creation system, much less narrowly focused or dictated by the archetype than the original Rogue Trader, so it is important for the player to consider the character's utility for the party and the parts of adventure when they will be shining. A ship-based campaign usually includes several parts that can roughly be described as follows: space exploration, where routes are chartered, alliances made or broken, and much of the planning takes place; space combat, where void ships trade blows and spacefaring skills are most useful; and land-based exploration and combat. Precise balance between these parts of adventure, naturally, differs from table to table, but a well-rounded character should ideally be able to get limelight in each one. That said, this ability is not solely dictated by the character build, but by the player's willingness to step forward and roleplay, as well: even the most anti-social Arch-Militant might have worthy advice to offer on the further course, and the other way round, even the least combat-capable Scum can become the highlight of campaign by pulling on his contacts or letting his past catch up to him.

An average Imperium-produced vessel will have in its roster most if not all of the officers listed below, although of course their particular titles and precise areas of responsibility might vary greatly, or overlap to a greater or smaller extent than suggested below.

Captain

The Captain is the Master of the ship, the highest ranking officer and usually its owner and the holder of the Warrant of Trade. It is the captain's responsibility to ensure every department of the ship performs to the requirements, and his word is law to every crewmember. However, this simple arrangement is not the only norms the vastness of the Imperium allows: on some ships, the Captain reigns but does not rule, as his orders have to be approved by a council of officers supposedly subordinate to him; on others, the title of the Acting Captain is rotated between several scions of the Rogue Trader dynasty on board, or even between the heads of the vessel's most powerful cliques, with the rituals for passing command ranging from simple to incredibly pompous.

A ship needs a Captain, but they needn't be a Player Character; neither need only a single Player Character in your campaign be the Captain. You can read on suggested ways to accommodate different modes of play in Into the Storm on page 44, and in Rogue Trader Core Book on page 291.

The captain's direct subordinates, other than the seniour officers of the ship in their own right, are Captain's Mates. While each Mate's responsibilities are formally defined in the Imperial Navy's Fleets, on the vessels of Rogue Traders, it's mostly a question of the Captain's preference and trust who gets to be a Mate, and who gets an officer's posting. Helmsmen, Gunnery Officers, and Pursers are the most common roles for Captain's Mates to hold.

Helmsman

Imperial ships, other than the smallest of their number, are not known for their agility, yet still they need a competent helmsman to escape the many dread hazards of the void, dock where needed, or land safely on a planet's surface. While rarely a seniour officer's profession in its own right, the role is important enough to be entrusted only to the most trusted of the Captain's subordinates, often making them Captain's Mates and leaving them the officer of the deck holding the fort while the Captain is personally engaged dirtside. The bridge crew are often subordinated to the Helmsman, and on many ships, over years of working together they learn to coordinate almost like limbs of a single organism.

Navigator

As dictated by the necessities of Warp travel, Navigators aboard Imperial ships are sanctioned mutants from the ancient houses of Navis Nobilite, said to created by the Emperor himself. Their third eye allows them to peer into the warp and steer the ship through it using the psychic beacon of the Astronomicon. There is usually but a single Navigator on each Imperial ship, which makes him critically important for the vessel's continued operation. As such, any sane Rogue Trader treasures his Navigator and keeps him as far as possible from any danger, especially should they happen to be outside the borders of the Imperium. Since baseline humans have little love for mutants with their deformities, sanctioned though they may be, normally the Navigators themselves are happy enough to be left to their own devices in their own little isolated domains on the ship called Navigator Sanctums. A Navigator Sanctum can be as small as a single cabin near the bridge, or as large as a sphere of solid metal stretching across several decks, never touched by anyone but servants of Navis Nobilite. Those servants, if any, are normally the only subordinates a Navigator has, and their only point of contact with the wider world; but on many Rogue Trader ships they're presumed to be the lowest scum possible thanks to the propensity of many Navigators for drugs and other mind-benders.

Chief Astropath

Astropaths are psykers soul-bound to the Emperor, and are thanks to that capable of exchanging cryptic messages between each other over interstellar distances. Small vessels might have but a single junior Astropath, the larger ones usually house a choir of several such psykers. Since an Astropath's psychic gift isn't necessarily limited just to communication with his own kind, many Rogue Traders enjoy their company both on the battlefield and in the ballroom, as much for the creepiness and unease they produce among baseline humans as for any psychic powers they might manifest.

Chief Enginseer

A ship's Chief Enginseer, also known simply as the Chief, is the Techpriest of Mars responsible for keeping the many ancient and arcane machines of the vessel running. As the seniour Priest of Omnissiah on board, all other Techpriests answer to the Chief; his direct subordinates are usually the Second, responsible for the plasma drives, the Third, responsible for the warp engines, and others yet who ensure everything from the vessel's most destructive weapons to its last air-scrubber perform to specification. The Priesthood of Mars is insular from the Imperium at large, and so are usually a vessel's Techpriests, keeping their own company and that of their servitors; only rarely do they resort to recruiting technomats from among the laymen. As such, the Chief is often the only point of contact between the scions of the Adeptus Mechanicus and the crew at large, which affords them even more power than their formidable knowledge, position, and most intricate implants would already grant.

Quartermaster

Just as often as facing the mysterious threats of the Void and the Warp, an Imperial vessel's crew might have to engage the more mundane threats in face to face combat. It is the Quartermaster who leads the crew's combat groups in situations like these, be it repelling borders, launching a raid of their own, or mounting a daring rescue operation for crewmembers kept by hostiles dirtside. Most Quartermasters are themselves as much powerful combatants and skillful pilots as cunning tacticians, since a Quartermaster leads from the front. This is why frequently Quartermasters are elected by the crew's combat teams themselves, and as such serve as the voice of the crew (or at least the most combat-capable part of it) before the Captain and other seniour officers. In their own turn, Quartermasters have juniour officers as their subordinates, both marines and enforcers who keep order among the toiling masses of the crew.

Gunnery Officer

The Imperium is a militarized society, and as such even its transport ships usually carry an array of weaponry. It falls to the Gunnery Officer to ensure these weapons are all well-maintained, operational, and stocked with ammunition. They are also usually the one to aim the guns when the time comes to bring them to bear, be it in space combat or in support of a ground operation. On larger ships Gunnery Officers employ numerous juniour aides, each one normally assigned to oversee particular weaponry operation: one to control the fighter bays, the other torpedo tubes, others yet lances or macro batteries.

Purser

While many Rogue Traders are as much warlords as they are traders, still their primary occupation, trade, is apparent even from the name. The ship's Purser is the one to aid the Captain in all their peaceful pursuits, be it resupplying at port with volatile plasma or establishing infrastructure for a new pilgrimage road across the sector. A Purser needs to be as much a people's person as they are a cunning mercantile mind, as little can be done in the feudal order of the Imperium without expert use of personal connections, bribery, and past obligations brought to bear. It also often falls to the Purser to control the majority of the ratings, from clerks, cooks, and stewards to cargo shuttle pilots, porters, and stevedores.

Chaplain

Void travel is incredibly dangerous in the Imperium, and as such, the crew's morale and religious well-being often stand to be boosted by a formal representative of the Ecclesiarchy. The Adeptus Ministorum gladly sends its priests to serve on Rogue Trader vessels, as it not only ensures the crews' devotion to the orthodoxal version of Church doctrine, but also gives the more charismatic shepherds a chance to increase the flock of the faithful as new worlds are settled or contact with lost colonies is restored. Furthermore, the Chaplain often tries to act as the Captain's spiritual advisor, promoting the best interests of Humanity, the Imperium, and, of course, the Ecclesiarchy itself; as well as counterbalancing the influence of the sanctioned but still borderline heathen Cult of the Machine. Every preacher in every shrine of the vessel answers to the ship's Chaplain; and feats of bravery and faith are all but expected from a good Chaplain in any combat situation to encourage the believers.

Chief Chirurgeon

Often subordinated to the ship's Purser or one of the Captain's Mates, the Chief Chirurgeon is still sometimes counted among the vessel's seniour officers, especially those of older or ailing Rogue Traders. As the foremost authority on Medicae, the Chief Chirurgeon not only commands the ship's doctors and medics and ensures the hospitals are staffed, equipped and running smoothly, but also makes sure the crew receives adequate, non-spoiled food that is not carrying any contagion; combats any epidemics that might affect the crew in its Warp travels or dockings in the Void; and ofttimes personally provides medical care to the ship's seniour officers.

Since Chirurgeons are often knowledgeable in drugs, poisons and other Chymistry, their use for the more delicate matters has become so common among certain bloody-minded Rogue Traders that the term "Chief Chirurgeon" has grown to frequently include other masters of subtle crafts, even if their familiarity with blades and needles is altogether different from a doctor's.

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Sidebar: the Question of Adepta

The Imperium of Man is a feudal society, with the lowest common authority over its many different Adepta being the Senatorum Imperialis on faraway Terra. As such, the interactions between Imperial agencies are governed by a web of more or less formal treaties, contracts, obligations and IOUs. As a Rogue Trader ship is a microcosm of the wider society, so is this situation reflected in the ranks of the vessel's crew and officers. The seniour officers needed to navigate a vessel over the interstellar void include representatives of no less than four semi-independent Imperial agencies: Adeptus Astra Telepathica, Adeptus Mechanicus, Adeptus Ministorum, and Navis Nobilite. More often than not, other seniour officers also have ties to Adepta, such as the Purser to Adeptus Administratum, the Chief Chirurgeon to the Ecclesiarhy's Orders Hospitaller or Administratum's Officio Medicae, or the Quartermaster to any of the militant Adepta. Furthermore, their loyalties may lie with any of the smaller Imperial organizations, from mercantile concerns even to pirate outfits; or with the more secretive institutions like the Ordos of the Inquisition or Officio Assassinorum. Needless to say, the interests of all the entities listed do not often align.

A cunning Rogue Trader knows to navigate this web of loyalties aptly, and use the connections these ties of their officers provide to their own benefit and that of their dynasty and crew. On the other hand, other characters might find their motivations conflicted as they weigh the loyalty to their organization against the loyalty to their captain and comrades.

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Archetypes

And their skill aptitudes

Ships

What's on a typical ship, as far as equipment is concerned? Ship crews: demographics, sociology, hierarchy, qualities for different social stratas depending on recruitment areas and established order on the ship. Crews as sources of Retinue. Spacefaring. Ship designer. Space-based combat.

Ship Size

The Imperium produces and employs a vast array of ships of all shapes, sizes, and purposes. For the purposes of RT2, they can all be divided into four categories by size:

Ship sizes

Size	Ship classes
1	Corvettes, Raiders, Frigates, Fast Transports, Blockade Runners
2	Destroyers, Light Cruisers, Transports
3	Cruisers, Battle Cruisers, Heavy Transports
4	Grand Cruisers, Battleships, Battle Barges, Bulk Transports, Space Factories

There are space-capable vessels both larger and smaller than listed in this table: attack craft and aerospace-capable aircraft are smaller than Size 1, while space stations are easily larger than Size 4. Many Space requirements for ship Components (see below) scale with ship Size.

Ship Components

Ships in RT2 are built out of components. Each component represents a particular set of machinery, not necessarily placed in a single place of a ship, but perhaps dispersed through its entirety, that performs a particular function, takes up valuable space under the thin skin protecting the insides of the vessel against the void, and consumes energy produced by the ship's generators. Essential components provide vital functions that no Imperial ship can go without; while supplemental components are not required for one to function.

Essential Components

Crew Quarters

While most Components help vessels navigate the Void and the Warp, fight back threats or generate profits, Crew Quarters provide the people manning these ships with the physical and mental comforts needed.

Poor Quarters: the interior of the ship is incredibly cramped. Ratings don't have any sort of personal spaces and sleep at their stations, either on the floor or at best in hammocks hanging in the corridors of their assigned sector of the ship. Petty officers have to share bunks with each other (three men per bunk is the usual norm, but four is not unthinkable, either), and even senior officers have to share a common room where their bunks are located. The Captain might be the only person on the vessel with a personal room. Food is consumed at the stations, same as medical attention, which is at best provided by a buddy system. With no designated places for prayer the crew has to make do with pectoral icons or Imperial and Cult Mechanicus symbols applied to the machines they service to serve as their focus for devotions.

Decent Quarters: the standard for Imperial Navy ships, decent crew quarters still include a hot bunking system for ratings, but even petty officers have their own bunks in designated cabins, while a senior officer might count on a small if tiny room (with perhaps a bed and a table) all to themselves, as well as a personal place at the wardroom. The rest of the crew gets to share designated eating areas, first aid stations, and small shrines in the rooms of whatever sector of the ship they're assigned to.

Rich Quarters: most commonly seen on Rogue Trader ships and Imperial Navy flagships, rich quarters dedicate a noticeable part of the ship to crew comforts. Ratings get personal bunks in common rooms, while even petty officers sleep in personal cabins. A senior officer's quarters are large enough to walk around in, or perform morning exercise without getting extremities caught in a fan or some other machine, and often even include a personal bathroom. The Captain's quarters are large enough to include several rooms and present a splendidly opulent sight. Common spaces for the crew usually include small dedicated mess halls, decently adorned chapels to Emperor and Omnissiah, dedicated sick rooms, and perhaps even a promenade deck.

Luxury Quarters: representing the height of opulence, luxury quarters are only seen in the fleets of the more extravagant Rogue Traders, on diplomatic vessels and personal vessels of the Peers of the Imperium. Even the lowly ratings have personal cabins, while each petty officer enjoys a personal quarters large enough to pace in. Senior officers have opulent quarters of perhaps several rooms, while the Captain might have a whole deck all to themselves, decorated to the most exacting standards. The crew dines in a grand mess hall, or in several smaller ones located across the ship. Its spiritual needs are provided for in richly decorated rooms large enough to be churches in their own right, or perhaps in a single grand room fit to be a small cathedral. Meanwhile, their physical well-being is ensured in well-equipped sick bays, where any crewman ill or wounded can be delivered in short order. The luxury of common spaces might include a winter garden, an observation deck with panoramic views of the void around (shuttered safely during warp jumps), or even more ostentatious displays like swimming pools or exotic aquariums running the length of the ship.

Still, even with Luxury Quarters, the shipboard hospitals included in these are large enough to address every ailment of the crew, but not those of even a small human planetary colony. Similarly, the praying spaces provided by this component are enough to ensure the spiritual well-being of the crew members, but not nearly magnificent or grandiose enough to impress a visiting heathen governor and ensure conversion to mainstream Ecclesiarchy doctrine.

Generally, the amenities provided by the Living Quarters component are enough to serve the vessel's crew, but will struggle to satisfy the needs of significantly larger numbers of people, so they cannot replace a dedicated component where one would be called for.

RT2 Campaigns

Profit Factor mechanic (and Thrones as its less abstract representation, awarded monthly, spent on ship, crew and Retinue upkeep).

The Galaxy in the 41st Millenium

Objects in space

Nebulae

Nebulae are vast clouds of gas, dust or small debris drifting in space.

They present a navigational hazard: flying through a dense ("dark") nebula requires a Difficult (–10) Navigation (Stellar)+Detection Test to stay on a proper course. For every degree of failure, the ship must spend an extra day getting to its destination. Any Tests using a ship’s auger arrays within a nebula are made more difficult: apply -10 for ordinary nebulae, -20 for dense nebulae, and -30 for nebulae that hold a significant static charge. A ship making a Silent Running Manoeuvre gains +10 to its Manoeuvre Tests. In combat, the maximum weapon range for ships in a nebula is limited by the nebula’s density (roll 3d10 at the start of battle, this is the furthest that all ship’s sensors and weapons will operate).

Most nebulae contain nothing valuable, only silicate dust or hydrogen. However, there are more precious, if less frequently encountered, nebulae. Some clouds, particularly ones produced by a nova explosion, might contain nitrogen, oxygen or water, which in a pinch can be used for life support, if the rogue trader's ship possesses the scoops to gather the material and clear it of accompanying impurities like ammonia and formaldehyde. Other nebulae, especially ones produced by a supernova, might contain heavier elements; in exceedingly rare cases going even to transuranics, which so many powers of the Galaxy from rebellious-minded governors to Adeptus Mechanicus lust for. Harvesting such clouds can be perilous, however, because of radiation belts and high-powered cosmic rays encountered in such star remnants. Exceedingly rare nebulae might contain even more exotic materials, such as remains of a space battle from the aeons past, or star-produced ethanol that can potentially be gathered, purified and served to the crew; or distilled and traded as an exotic luxury item.

Voids

Space voids are vast expanses of empty space between cosmic objects, such as between the arms of the Galaxy. Clear voids, ones devoid of nebulae, clouds of debris or powerful cosmic rays, are sometimes sought for by sentient races not despite their emptiness and remoteness, but because of them.

Techpriests of Mars stage delicate experiments in such voids, while other powers such as the Inquisition value cosmic voids for the secrecy and natural containment they provide. Most often, such secret installations aren't revealed by Imperial organizations to outsiders, yet sometimes circumstances dictate the need for competent aid, be they unexpected blasts of space radiation or warp disturbances cutting supply lines, conflicts between factions of the same organization flaring up, or simply the need to have a cosmic horror contained safely away from any matter usable before it hatches.

Precise navigation in cosmic voids is complicated by the lack of gravity wells for a Navigator to use as reference points. That makes the Perception Test to determine the accuracy of locating the exit point from the Warp two steps harder when journeying to an installation in deep void.

Planets

Rogue Planets

Rogue planets do not orbit a star or any other star-class object, drifting instead through the void, propelled perhaps by some ancient stellar catastrophe, arcane techno-manipulations, or predations of the Warp. Unwarmed by a sun, rogue planets are dark and, unless just recently ripped from its vicinity, frozen to the core.

Rogue planets are hard to locate and harder yet to get to, - the Tests to chart a course to one and locate the exit point from the Warp in its immediate vicinity are both done at -10, - but this is precisely what makes them valuable.

Some rogue planets still hold ruins of civilizations from untold millions of years past, others might have exotic matter created by the cataclysmic event that sent them wandering through the void; others yet serve as anchor points for hidden installations by the races of the Galaxy, much like cosmic voids, with the exception of much more building material available for whatever sinister purpose such installations might have. There's precious little that cannot be hidden under the frozen surface of a rogue planet, be it a cache of treasure from a lifetime of piracy, an enclave of survivors from the catastrophe that ripped the planet from its star, a dangerous weapon from the Dark Age of Technology, or a colony of subjects of cruel and secret genetic experiments.

Gas Giants

Moons; ice rings (as navigational hazard)

Types of Settled Planets

As backgrounds, as trading destinations, and as sources of plot hooks

Organizations

Imperial agencies (including Adeptus Administratum, Arbites, Ministorum (and Sisters of Battle), Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Imperial Fleet, Mechanicus, Inquisition, Adeptus Astra Telepathica, the Navigator Houses, with mentions of Senate and Officio Assassinorum), sector-level powers (sector governors, trading cartels, noble houses (including Knight households), large criminal and smuggling cartels), planet-level powers (governors, PDF, enforcers, local cults and gangs, including psykers and xenos), different types of xenos

Altogether focused in their potential role in a RT2 campaign, with plot hooks, if at all possible.

Rogue Traders

The role of Rogue Traders. Types of Warrants (with game-related effects). Dynasties, sources of income, and petty empires. Power dynamics in a dynasty, in a fleet, on a particular ship: absolute authority vs collective decision-making.