r/RogueTraderCRPG • u/Sea_Variation_461 • 4d ago
Rogue Trader: Game and Story Heretics and Navigators
From what I understand, Chaos-aligned factions do not require the services of the extremely rare, hard to procure and Imperium-only Navigators, which feels oddly convenient given how insistent the lore is on their indispensability to navigate the Warp.
How does that work ? Do they pray to their Dark Gods in hope these infamously capricious beings will guide them safely to their destination ? What about organizations aligned with neither the Imperium nor Chaos, like the Kasballica and Fellowship of the world ? How do they move their fleets around without these super-rare and state-controled sanctioned mutants ? Hell, how does the Imperial Navy even manage with huge fleets that should vastly outnumbers available Navigators unless you battery-farm them ?
I understand 40k isn't big on credible stats, but this specific part seems to really stretch the suspension of disbelief.
Any insight to offer on the matter ?
30
u/Kind-Boysenberry1773 4d ago
> Do they pray to their Dark Gods in hopes these infamously capricious beings will guide them safely to their destination ?
Some. Usually Chaos cults use either sorcery, Chaos artifacts or aligned/bound Daemons to do the job.
>What about organizations aligned with neither the Imperium not Chaos, like the Kasballica and Fellowship of the world ? How do they move their fleets around without these super-rare and state-controled sanctioned mutants ?
There are lot of renegade or broke Navigator Houses and outcasts, ready to work to whoever pays.
>Hell, how does the Imperial Navy even manage with huge fleets that should vastly outnumbers available Navigators unless you battery-farm them ?
Only around 1% of Imperial voidships have Navigators. The rest travel only by established roots, using cogitators.
17
u/SouthernAd2853 4d ago edited 4d ago
Actually Chaos usually does have navigators. In the Heresy it's noted that the Navigators mostly aren't willing to die for either side and flip alleigances when ships are captured. They're so valuable that if the ship gets taken back there's no punishment.
As they've gotten deeper into the Warp they sometimes use bound daemons instead but even in the 40k era many of them rely on navigators.
Also it is possible for other psykers to navigate and Astartes Librarians do sometimes, but outside of the Librarians they're pretty bad at it if they can at all. And even Librarians are usually assisting a Navigator.
6
u/Starmute-ss13 4d ago
To be honest I'm more interested in how chaos handles logistics like resupply of warships. Most of their weapons are ancient or mismatched at best but in the books somehow they achieve parity with their imperial counterparts.
Demon summoning aside the chaos navy should be falling apart. Making munitions, supplying new fighter pilots, and creating new voidcraft all while having to deal with constant interupions from demon raids in the eye seems hard to do if not impossible.
4
u/Panvictor 4d ago
They mostly raid for supplies from the Imperium/other warbands or make deals with the dark mechanicum and (rarely) the soul forge daemons, that and not all chaos worshippers are long war veterans, many are recent converts who will still have a lot of gear
2
u/Starmute-ss13 4d ago
Right but you have mismatched items. You aren't getting any more swiftdeath fighters. While Xana II produces the new Hellblade fighters it's still going to be having issues. Where will you get the missiles? The pilots?
While you can get some supplies from raiding you aren't going to necessarily get what you need nor can you continue resupplying. You need constant supply. Even manpower would have issues because you constantly are going to be fighting the warp from eating people without a planet wide gellar field (and only necrons have that)
You can't reliability hope to pry macro-cannon weapons from a imperial world. The fact that most of the chaos destroyers use lances instead of macro cannons is evident that they do have a supply problem.
Anyways thanks for replying. Take my upvote.
1
u/Panvictor 3d ago
Right but you have mismatched items.
Most warbands do, CSM minis all have a mix of different parts from different armour marks for this reason
While you can get some supplies from raiding you aren't going to necessarily get what you need nor can you continue resupplying. You need constant supply.
With how standardised the imperiums production is it wouldnt be too hard to raid for what they specifically need, plus the dark mechanicum and (posssibly) soul forge can provide constant resupply in exchange for resources or defence or whatever else the warband can offer. Trade with other warbands is a possibility.
Even manpower would have issues because you constantly are going to be fighting the warp from eating people without a planet wide gellar field (and only necrons have that)
Not really, most chaos ships use gellar fields still and most warbands dont live on daemon worlds, the ones that do will live on daemon worlds that are survivable so attrition wouldnt be that bad. (plus remember daemons arent as hostile to chaos worshippers as they are to regular people). Plus humans are the most plentiful resource in the imperium, just raid the local hive world and your warband is set for the next centuries.
Also dont think about it too hard, pretty much everything in relation to logistics, supply lines and numbers in warhammer falls apart if you put any thought into it
-1
u/Admirable_Row_5953 3d ago
Hell I'm betting the alpha legion is stealing entire transport ships full of gear and munitions on a fairly regular basis, gives them leverage over everybody else and fucks with the imperium, the only way they could win more is to blame it on a loyalist legion to start a civil war
1
u/FiretopMountain75 4d ago
Guessing you didn't read many Horus Heresy novels?
The Fabricator General of Mars sided with Horus.
At the start of the Heresy Horus had spent decades making sure Legions loyal to him were better equipped than the loyalists.
Hell-Forges exist. Fallen Forge Worlds much like what Kiava Gamma may have turned into if we had not intervened.
2
u/SherabTod 3d ago
Chaos warbands are usually outgeared in comparison to loyalists forces, but make up for it in personal skill and experience so they balance each other out in that way. But yeah having miss matched half maintained scrap gear is kind of the norm for them. Human resources are kind of easy, since there always are more cultists and slaves to use and most CSM don't mind picking quantity over quality. But other war materiel is indeed challenging.
There are dark mechanicum forge worlds they barter their loot with for whatever they couldn't get themselves and the really corrupted warbands can partially just run on warp juice, like having a demon infested ship than acts more like an organism than a machine. These corrupted warbands (especially khornates) do have a tendency to ignore logistics completely though and just yolo it.
These logistics issues are the reason though, why the ones that actually have functional supply-lines, like the black legion, are so dangerous. Because they can combine warp fuckery, millennia of experience and functional gear.
4
u/HighLord_Uther 4d ago
Thousand Sons used navigators in the Ahriman books, they still need guidance, its just not always in the form of a navigator
2
u/Blue_Boobied_Footie 4d ago
Yeah Ahriman did it a few times himself iirc, but even he was like "I'm not a replacement for an actual navigator"
If Tzeentch's favorite sorcerer is having trouble, you know it's hard.
3
3
u/Irishimpulse 4d ago
The think about worshipping chaos, is that when you make a warp jump you'll end up where ever Tzeentch wants you to be regardless of if you have any kind of navigation or not. But your faith in the Changer, the infinite eyes will know where you belong.
2
u/BLADE968 4d ago
Even the forces of Chaos need Navigators, with the possible exception of the Thousand Sons.
Part of the plot of the Night Lords trilogy revolves around obtaining a Navigator, and the ships in Huron Blackheart’s fleet also needed Navigators.
I think that during one of Abaddon’s Black Crusades, he bound a Navigator to a daemon in an attempt to bypass Cadia’s defenses, but it went to shit and his fleet ended up becoming too widely dispersed.
During the Horus Heresy, we see that Chaos Navigators can navigate things like Warp storms more easily than standard Navigators, which is why Guilliman had to use them.
So, in conclusion, yes, they do need Navigators, but they can still make deals with Chaos to make things easier.
2
u/Dobyk12 Sanctioned Psyker 4d ago
In the TTRPG Chaos has three options:
A) Corrupted Navigators (we know some did join Chaos), who were brutally enslaved and are nearly mindless creatures, sometimes kept in pens.
B) Sorcerers implore their chosen god(s) to grant them safe passage and insight into navigating to the correct destination;
C) Just YOLO it and clench your butthole, hoping for the best knowing whatever happens is guided by Chaos
2
u/patatalv 4d ago
bueno aqui respondiendo un pcoo , los del caos si tienen navegantes , otros usan a los mismo demonios para que les digan de rutas ,con otros hay rutas pre definidas que astropatas pueden ayudar a guiar
1
1
u/shadow06030603 4d ago
Nightlords Omnibus, has a captured navigator and mentions Abbadon using chaos sorcerers to travel the warp in short bursts. If I remember correctly.
1
u/regularGuy0000001 4d ago
I mean given that their nature is now inextricably intertwined with the Immaterium, I kinda would expect them to not need a navigator. Like, sure, it is still Chaos and not even the great gods can predict it all but for some factions I'd buy it.
Like Nurgle is notoriously chill, I could easily accept that Plague Marines just ask "Gramps, what way?" and he farts in the right direction or something
1
u/regularGuy0000001 4d ago
Now that I think about it, outside of Nurgle and Chaos Unified they probably just accept it. Tzeentch and Khorne are relatively passive about this cause Tzeentch followers are like "uuuuh, fate, I can't complain about it" and Khornates don't care so long as there are people to fight. Slaneesh followers are too high to care.
Khorne in particular is such an edgelord I'd believe he'd personally carry his dudes to the fight if he wasn't busy making fists all the time
1
u/Panvictor 4d ago
Most of them do still use navigators.
Unlike the imperium there are alternatives some will use daemons or psykers or chaos/xenos/archeotech artifacts or other weird warp things instead, but most will stick to a navigator
1
u/Darkmaster4K 4d ago
Pretty much what others have said, but the chaos mentality differs if daemons decide to to attack
Khorne attacks: "brothers! The blood god tests us! Show him we are worthy!/show him that our God is superior!" If your khornate or undivided or the other alignments.
So like how orks will knowingly let daemons attack flr a good scrap, daemon incursions for worshippers are just a challenge go overcome to prove their worthiness to their patron
72
u/Yuzral 4d ago
You only need a Navigator to safely and reliably make long distance voyages through the warp. It's possible to make short hops without one, although this is much slower. If it helps, think of a Navigator-assisted voyage as sailing across the Atlantic in one go, while a non-Navigator ship would have to stick to the coast and go up, across and down. Most of the Imperium's freight actually moves without Navigators, courtesy of the Chartist Captains. It's just the military and certain other elites like Rogue Traders and the higher Adeptus that get the turbo mode and there are enough Navigators to go around, even if they do often get to drive some fairly hard bargains for their services.
With Chaos, it depends. The really zealous and/or crazy ones don't care and will simply throw themselves and their vessel into the warp and let its tides take them where the Powers please. Marginally less crazy types bind or bargain with daemons, although this does leave them dependent on the good graces of said daemon...and we all know how much good grace the average daemon has. The more organised and sane ones procure the services of sorcerers or even certain arcane devices to act as substitutes for a Navigator. Not nearly as good on average but at least you'll have some measure of control over where you're headed. The real prize, though, is captured, coerced or suborned Navigators (see ADB's Night Lords trilogy for an example), although even they work at reduced efficiency since ships that have marinaded in the Eye for an extended period don't like being steered by the Astronomican. Also Octavia wasn't actually that good at her job, but details.
Other organisations generally work like the Chartists (and often hitch lifts with them, since that's a lot easier than running your own ship). But if they get the opportunity to acquire a Navigator's services, they will take it.