[RPG] NPC Ships for Rogue Trader

First up, the Lucre Foedus- best thought of as a flying bordello/casino, built as a smuggler/ambush hunter on an Orion-class hull. The most notable features are that none of her weapons systems are detectable until they are powered up and used (the torpedo tubes are hidden behind false plating along the underside, and the box launchers of the Jovian battery are on "pop-up" turrets disguised as and hidden among the many spires and minarets poking from the top of the ship). Third hidden system, I forget. As an aside, I could have sworn I'd managed to juggle components enough to fit a "trophy room" as an actual casino floor in there, but evidently not in the version I wound up giving my players in that campaign. When last seen in game, the Lucre Foedus was riding at high anchor over Scintilla, with many of the crew and officers quietly deserting; the Rogue Trader was dead, and the terms of the Warrant required them to wait at the nearest Sector Capital for the succession to be ratified, and the player playing the heir kept not making it to sessions, so the heir was obviously having a slow warp passage.

Next up is the Tactus Quod Vado- actually the oldest of the lot in RL terms, as I conceived of her as a transport for a DH game I ran back when it was still printed as a Black Industries product; although I updated her (read- actually statted her out) after getting Battlefleet Koronus. She's a wee scout sloop modified for use by the Inquisition, and was a "black" asset of one inquisitor in particular, who was acting as the control for several groups I ran in the same shared campaign 'verse. Through bad luck and synchronicity, the group that had her suffered a TPK at roughly the same time/date (in game) that another group managed to get the Inquisitor killed, meaning the Tactus Quod Vado was effectively abandoned (and posing as the Free Trader MRS Yppei) at the L4 high anchor point over 41 Pry, as no-one knew who owned her. She was eventually seized by the harbour authorities, and auctioned off "as-is", meaning that the lucky people that get her not only have a very small, fast and stealthy ship, but one loaded with valid Inquisitorial codes, and listed as "confirmed destroyed" on the few Inquisitorial ship registry in which she appears at all…

Finally (for now), we have my players' current flagship, the HDMS Resolute, which they found derelict and devoid of atmosphere orbiting a gas giant in an uninhabited system off the Koronus Passage. The only signs of damage were some ricochet marks in the corridors leading up to the bridge. No sign of the crew whatsoever, and no sign that anyone abandoned ship. As far as they could tell, the Resolute hadn't fired a shot since she left port (virtually full magazines for the main batteries, a full load of torpedoes in their magazine, and virtually full loads of ordnance for her small craft… of which there were full squadrons). Essentially, all this particular grand cruiser needed was crew, air and food to be usable. Of course, they didn't have a sufficiently big ship to supply all that in one trip, and the Navy still wants her back (only listed as "Missing, Presumed Lost". Besides, it's a massive grand cruiser/fleet carrier). Of course, this one works better and with less house rules if you ignore how I worked it into my campaign (she'd been lost on the way to reinforce the Angevin Crusade. And because they found her as she was then, the fighters and bombers in her hangar bays weren't the Starhawks and Furies most ships had switched to at the start of the Gothic War, but old Thunderbolts and Marauders).