The 40k Lorecast - Episode 22 - Rogue Traders

Episode Date: February 20, 2024

On today's cast me move away from regimented canon to more "rumor" lore, with our coverage of the Rogue Traders. We cover what a Rogue Trader is, how they become one, and how they function within the imperium (they are very critical). We also dive into some of their models and ways to play with them in the 40k Universe.PatreonMerchandiseDiscord Link:Our WebsiteRetro RecallOur Sponsors:* Check out BetterHelp: https://www.betterhelp.com* Check out Pebl: https://hellopebl.com* Check out Pebl: https://hipebl.ai* Check out Shopify: https://shopify.com/loreAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Welcome to the 40K lore cast. Welcome to the 40K lore cast with me, John Barcotti and Brad Chester. This guy. All right, Brad. We've done a bunch episodes about heavy canon, incredible stories. Let's do some fun bits because it's... I heard there's a video game out. I actually didn't realize it after I started writing this program.

I didn't useless, but... It's called Rogue Traitor. It is called Rogue Trader. But anyway, that's fair. And actually, I keep looking. I'm actually, unfortunate, at a point in the year with my job, where you can't add a video game because I don't have that kind of time.

Like, Balthorsgate 3, I still haven't played because I've been so busy since it came out. I know, do you have no idea how much that I want to play? But I look at it and go, if I click download, I'm screwed. Yeah. Look, your children, your child, he can get by without a dad.

Oh, no, it's more my company might respond back with. Like, did you just not work for a month? Maybe. I like that he just went, Max will be fine. I can make it up to him. It's more my company being like, hey,

did we just lose like a quarter of production out of you because you download? I assume that he's also going to be a game when he gets older. And you're going to be like, I didn't see you for a while. He's like, Baldur's Gate 3 came out. He's like, you know what?

That's a fair point. That's fair point, man. I see what you're coming from. God, can you imagine if Final Fantasy 7 came out right now? Like, the world would have stopped. Yeah.

Thank God, it was all nerds and we were all young. Anyway, I will say, though, so Road Traders actually speaks is really, this is one of the parts of the lore of the game that actually really eats and gets into my soul because one of the first video games

I ever fell in love with was Wing Commander Privateer, which man, did I just let everyone know how old I am? Because most of you are saying, I've never heard of that. Few of you might think, well, isn't that the game where you fought weird lion things? No, before that, there was a game.

Now, I will say there was some guys, man, this is a tangent. But anyway, there was a period of time about a decade plus ago where you could download an updated version of Wing Commander Privateer. I was able to took it on themselves to rewrite it. Also, those people are chance. If you're one of those people, you're a champion.

Oh, yeah. If you take Abandonware games and make them so I can play them now, wear a shirt that you do it. I'll hug you in public and buy you. I would definitely buy you. I will buy you a food and hug you. 100%. You make, when you let me relive moments of my youth that I thought were forgotten, I love you.

Champions. Yeah, I love you. So anyway, rogue trade. Rogue traitors are just fun. I like the idea of small bands of people. It's also a wildly encompassing term, though. Because rogue traders can be Firefly, or it can be a guy that grabbed a spacehulk and cruises around the galaxy with it. They're so, I'm a road trader.

What does that mean? It means I'm either Microsoft or a dude with a lemonade stand. Yeah. We're somewhere in the middle. I just love Rogue Trader because what you have is, I like the idea. We talk so much about the lore of 40K, life in the Imperium, life, you know, for a Zenos, all this movement. And I like these people who kind of are on the edges of it. And that's what Road Traders are.

Road traders are having to fly through these giant space wars, all of this stuff, and just kind of navigate their way through a world. I don't know. It's just, I think it's just, I think they're just cool as shit. So let's do rogue traders. So we'll start off with. I just want to throw that my, I have two paper tiles in my pocket right now, and I spilled wine on a table, and I used my sleeve to wipe it out. Yeah, you may have, you guys may have heard of a switching sound, picked up the camera.

That was Brad. I was watching, do it, spilled a drop of wine on a black table. Decided that that, that's not good, and it actually cleaned it up. First, use his hand, which is, those are. Didn't work at all. They're just super absorbent and then used his sleeve. Again, paper towel in both my pockets. Paper towel in both pockets.

That's how he's... By the way, this is who you're listening to. Genius. Yeah, exactly. Like, anyway. Rogue traders are... Rogue traders are literally the PCs in any game system.

I'm sorry, they just are. That's the best way to describe them. Because they're pirates. They're privateers. They're merchants. They're... They're explorers, and they are loyal servants of the Imperium, cough, cough, kind of. Stated loyal servants of the imperial.

The funny part about it is they legitimately have a plaque that says that they are loyal servants of the Imperium. That's not a lie. They have it stamped on their ship. Yeah. So that allows them, which is another weird one. It's stamped on the ship. You know what you can't see in space very well? Inside of the ship.

A stamp on a ship. Yeah, it makes no sense whatsoever. But they do have a stamp. They literally have a plaque. And the thing is, is that these guys encompass, cough, cough, please, Henry Campbell, do some stuff with this. Because you can literally touch, they touch every race. These guys are just free-for-alls. You have guys, they talk to elder, they talk to Tal.

They've literally encountered orcs. They've ran away from turnheads. They've- In those stories of them have. having orcs buddies. They trade with the grots. This is a real thing. They do,

you like, hey, man, we need this. And it will give you whatever weird thing that you want, which is usually, I was to say, it's mostly teeth.

Like, that's going to be a weird trade. We're like, all right, we have to go buy this thing from the orcs. Well, where do we go?

You're that really weird dentist on Eicholon 4? Yeah. Yeah. We have to go see him for a bit. And the thing is, is that some of these guys, And this is why I said that the road traders are, when I said they're Microsoft lemonade stand,

because some road traders hold sway. And they are like, like wildly, but they're not just wealthy. They're influential in the sectors they travel through. Because a lot of these guys also provide the things that you're not supposed to get. Yeah. That maybe your city is powered on that. But like, get there to man. Yeah.

So let's start with just, I think. if we're going to do road traders, let's just start with kind of how they function and what a road trader is. So at their core, they are part of the imperial. Yes, and they're 99% human, or at least they claim their. They are all, it's a weird one. They should all be human. They're wild. Get to a second. Yeah, we'll get in a little bit how that can change, but they are originally, the first rogue trader of the dinosaur, the dinosaur, the dinosaur, was pure human. In the charters for them, if you list the people that are part of that charter are all

humans, even if you walk on board and you're like, there was one guy that was human. Yeah. I met seven Drew Carrey. Yeah. And the former succubus was weird. I like that you just went with weird. You're like, yeah, we'll leave it at that. Yeah, in a cool way, but not in an awful way.

It got pretty weird. Yeah, I have thoughts about it. Shane a lot of all over the jokes. Yeah, exactly. So they do, what they do is their official charter is the act of the imperium's behalf, primarily in ways the Imperium would be limited to do. Which is wildly weird because they state that they're basically ghost ops. Yeah. But they have a certificate of ghost oping.

Yeah. Yeah. It's like, we will definitely deny you exist. You're like, you literally printed me off a thing. You printed me off thing and you said, Gilliman signed it. Like, it's just one of the emperor's signed. Yeah. Okay, sure.

But what they're used for is kind of is espionage, illegal arms trading, claiming new worlds, spreading the word of the emperor. They do. One of the biggest things is espionage. The rogue traders are supposed and because, again, and we'll do more episodes in this, because of the fact that the Imperium is literally laughable, it's supposed to be the worst things of bureaucracy, because the Imperium. accidentally blows planets up sometimes because someone pushed the wrong. Right. Is literally how things happen. Or you get reinforcements 1,000 years after you ask for them.

Those are all things that happen in the Imperium. But what the rogue traders are supposed to do is go do these go-stop things and then come back with information. The first piece we should jump on road traders is what allows me a road trader, which is the warrant of trade. They're black. Which is not a subtle homage to a letters of, a letter of Mark, which is, if anyone knows history, letters of Mark were things, are things that a king primarily would give through what we're called private teams, which was independent ships.

Which is just people that did shitty stuff that weren't. It was pirates. Yes. It was, you became a legal pirate for one half of the law. But you were only allowed to be, you got to pirate not our stuff. Exactly. And so they became, so GW, and I'll be, I think, GV. This is not one of those bad GW writing things. This makes complete sense. When you think about the setup of a 40K universe and what the Imperium would need,

of course they would need some like this, people who work just on the edge, just outside. Well, because you have a large portion of the Imperium that just says, Zenos must kill them immediately, burn them. You're like, but, but also could we grab some of their stuff? We got some other stuff. One, a couple pieces of warrants of trade that I think are important is one, they are hereditary? This is what when we talk about, like, are road traders human? And so I said originally, yes. Because the first person who got one was.

Talk about this. Some of the people that are road traders have been road traders. When you talk about a family business, we're talking about, hey, man, I have 10,000 years of being family of being a road trader. That's a real thing. Exactly. This is, there are the current rogue traders. There are rogue traders. So a warrant of trade is signed by, you know, some, some person of authority within the Imperium. You might have Melchador's signature on your thing. Or the emperor. Yeah, the emperor himself. Have the emperor's signature on their, on their warrant of trade. So, yeah, been in charge for a while. So this is a key thing of rogue traders. They are, some are, some are new, but a lot of them could be, I mean, what is, what is a thousand years in generations? Several?

How about that? I'm not wrong. A few 300 generation deep of rogue trailer. And the thing is, is that the best part about this is they still do the original function, kind of. Because of the fact that the Imperium is bureaucracy hell. Yes. They still do what they're supposed to do, but they kind of don't because the Imperium's kind of a trash fire. Yeah, you can kind of, if you're really, if you're really,

If your rules are written to play on the edge of the Imperium's rules, you can fudge those pretty well. And we have to go with this. The Inquisition didn't exist when rogue traders started. Yeah, and they don't love each other. No, they think that love each other would be a little bit too light. The Inquisition wants to put every rogue trader to the torch. Well, there's a couple of rogue traders who spread the word of the emperor. So those ones are allowed.

True story. There is a couple that had inquisitors on them, to be perfectly honest with you. But for the most part, they're like, you guys are heretics. Now, being a rogue trader is amazing within the imperial, because not only do you, are you able to acquire extreme amounts of wealth, but you also, as we've been saying, the bureaucracy goes away. You ought to pause on that, though. I don't think we're stressing them enough.

Some of these rogue traders are, like, might as touch. like Monsamusa kind of, they have all of the monies. In some of the stories, it's just crazy because they have like system wealth and some of these road trade. Some guys are just guys. John and I in a shitty ship

with three guys we picked up with the last port and others are, I have enough money to buy this system. Like, there's so much of a wild difference in these. And that's what makes road trade is so cool. So much so that the Lord, the high lords of terror, are known for this, where, or they will actually grant road trader warrants of trade to their

enemies because you can't turn it down. Because whatever aspiration I had that was annoying was the High Lord of Terror. Sorry, looks like you get the honor of getting the hell out of here. You get the hell out of here with no rules to go make yourself incredibly wealthy. That's how powerful a warrant of trade is. So these things are, who. And the cool thing about it is that for those few, we're going to talk on narrative later,

I think from a narrative standpoint, Rogue Traitor is the coolest part of the game. Because you get to be a pirate without space marines murdering you for being set pirate. Also, I have downloaded this game, but I haven't played yet. Yeah, it looked really good. And I just was like, no, no. It makes me sad.

But the thing is, is that you can be, let me give you the options for Rogue Trader. Oh, check all. Yeah. You want to be a pirate? Cool. Do you want to be an explorer? Cool.

Do you want to be a traitor with Xenos races? Cool. Do you want to get into wild adventure? Do you want to be the richest person in the galaxy? Yeah, you could be, yeah, better go. Why not? You're a rogue trader. Yeah, you're a rogue trader.

You literally have endless, again, Cavill, make this happen. Because you can literally do episodes of. That's what a lot. Yes. If Cavill did, it's actually a point. If this was the, it's Amazon, right? It's doing this. If Amazon did it.

If you circled it around a rogue trader, you're the best story of possible who gives you the massive diversity. This could be like firefly on steroids. It's just, there's infinite stuff. So they actually started literally during the Great Crusade. This is like, again, this is 11,000 years of road, of official, not just rogue traders.

We're not talking guys that were out there. We're talking officially stamped. Yeah. Rogue trade. Warrote rote. And they're still out there right now. There's multiple stories of, some of the original, you don't know who was the first, but just original, like I was my,

my great, great, 50 times exponentially, great grandfather was a great, you know, a rogue trader in the Great Crusade. And I got this from here. And the thing is, some of them are, this is how they do business with things that they're not allowed to do business. Well, I think these are the ones, if we talk about wealth, when Brad was talking earlier, the guys who have system-wide wealth, it's peace. And the reason why is because the emperor, and this is a weird, I'll get to this a second, Mike, I'm going to bitch by this in a second. But effectively the problem is that the imperium is expanding out from Seoul. They know there are planets out there that they have to, that some of those planets are going to be cool. Let's be, let's be honest. Some rogue traders

are dicks. Because their whole thing was they went, let's, that up this great trade route. And then I went, hey, there's a super cool planet over here that you should murder. It's Zenos. They don't even count. Yeah. You're like, didn't you just trade with these guys? Yeah, but like, I'm going to.

But I got what I do. Yeah. They want me dead. So if you could make them gone. But effectively, the original part of this was the emperor needed scouts. And what road traders do, the thing that's important about this, this is more probably actually also affects the modern world is if I send my space. base Marines to a system.

And that system just blows them the hell up. I have to then go and kill that system. If I send Eric and his five buddies the system and they blow Eric up, I can take a look at how badly Eric got blown up and then make my call of do I give a shit today or not. So that's what the rogue traders were originally. To be honest, let's be honest, though. Also, you know what motivates people? is it loyalty?

Is it the Great Crusade and how my morale is going? Or is it just you can make a shit ton of money if you go that way? So they went that way. But my note here really was, you know, basically it marked into one of three categories, hostile, friendly, first legion. Those are the emperor's options of what got back to him from the rogue traders. You're like, yeah, I'm going to make these uninhabitable. planets. Yeah, these planets over here, the first legion is going to go there because they're

uninhabited and they want to make sure that they're uninhabited. Or at least they will be when they leave. Now, I did have a note to myself here. It's also what John is confused. Because the emperor is the most powerful cycle in the galaxy. Why didn't he just know where all the planets were? Look, man, don't ask questions. I'm just throwing out there. It's a cool story, but there was that moment of like, hey, if he has, I write, we write notes for these things. You're kind of going there like, wait a minute. That doesn't make any sense. Well, then you would ruin my story. Thank you. I wouldn't be able to take this adventure if I wouldn't have known. But what happens is at this era, this is the origin of the rogue traders. This is, as we said later, later on is when

the idea of being a warrant of trade is this incredible deal. The first ones were, in my mind, just loonies who were like. Oh, these guys were crazy. These are, these are, these are, these These are literally the original prospectors, trailblazers. Remember, again, there is, we're at the start of warp during, which are reemerges of warp travel. We've got, I mean, these guys are going from FTL drives to going into a galaxy. They have no idea what's out there. They are literally yolo-swagging warp jumps. Yeah.

And then hoping for the best in the system they end up in. They have no idea. And this is, there's no, they don't know anything about the universe. I mean, they don't know orcs exist, let alone Eldar. I mean, let alone dark elder art. Yeah, I mean, you are late, you could all of a sudden end up in somewhere. Well, let's talk about the fact that even in this thing, these guys get more crazy because when they know it, modern day rogue traders know that Ternids, Necrons, Dark El Darius exists.

And they're like, yeah, I'm still going to go that general direction to see how things go out. One of my favorite parts, we haven't probably told them with this, I like Tarynids a lot, like the story of Tarynids a lot. They've retcon Tiranin so many damn times. But some of these rogue traders met Tyrannids. They didn't get to tell anyone about it. Negotiations were swift. But they did, because as we discussed, the orcs discovered Tyrannids and made them pets.

So the tyranids were somewhere in the galaxy, and rogue traders probably went to, hey, that ship looks weird. Why is it kind of breathing? Let me get closer to it. And then things went badly. Yeah. We'll be right back after a quick break. But within the rogue traders themselves, they kind of fall into what I have seven-ish categories.

I wrote these out. And some of them are combos, to be honest. I thought about this last night when I was looking through this. And this is when I said I would disagree with some stuff. Yeah, I agree. And here's why. We're going to say this. Also, ready for this?

Screw you guys. Rogue traders aren't canon. They exist as canon, but they have a bunch of random little stories everywhere else. There is no rogue trader codex. There is no rogue trader anything. There is rogue traders are mentioned constantly. Yeah, because also there was the first way he played was rogue trader. Yes.

Additional one. None of us played that. I mean, maybe one of you listening to this day. Yeah. But the road traders, there's so much conflicting lore, and I think it's awesome. Well, is this. It's why rogue traders are awesome because it is. It's just a piece of it.

They almost becomes me, you can make up your own version of it. But effectively, the categories they fall into in Brexbrate, these overlap a lot. You've got road traders who focus on trade, road traders who focus on kind of diplomacy, I called them envoys, but of diplomacy. They're basically going on the original trader of their trade diplomacy of go find things for the imperial. Exactly. Then you have the zealots, which came in, which are the more than modern ones, which are spreading the word of the emperor. The regular, my favorite ones who were the exes,

explorers are the guys who were just like, I just want to be where there's no people. I do want to put the thing is, is envoys and explorers sound like they're the same, but they're not. No. Because envoys are specifically just trying to expand the might of the Imperium. And explorers are just, I'm going to find some shit. Explorers are like, hey, what's over here? Yeah. Usually chaos.

They have what I called pseudo-pirates. They're not pseudo-pirates. They're just top pirates. They're full-blown pirates. militias, which are the pseudo-pilots pirates with a bit more organization. Which is, here's, the militia one is a big deal. Because the militia one, I really think, is the people that are generationally, they have the stamp. And then they're literally warlords with ships.

Yeah. And they just kind of walk around with, I'm allowed to do bad stuff because it says so. Yeah, this charter says I can conquer your planet. But we're not, we're part of the Imperium. Are you? Basically, it's other space burns nearby, no? Cool. Yeah. There's nobody that's tough enough to stop me.

And the last one I wrote here, which is actually very not canon, but we all know is true, corrupted. This is actually in the VR Sisters game has a corrupted. There we go. Yeah, we are going, I listed corrupted only because in the world of Warhammer 40K, there is no, version of humanity where there is not some level of corruption. So I'm not willing to accept that rogue traders somehow avoid the corruption of chaos when their entire life is this. So, but let's dive into them kind of individually as kind of more of a quick hit.

So the first one is the traitors, which is, again, rogue traitors. I'm clever. I just, well, okay, we're going to move all of that. There we go. They trade. But it sounds lame, but actually, to me, of all the functions that the rogue jurors serve, this actually might be one of the most important ones. It's such a big deal on this because they're, they don't talk about it as much.

It's in a lot of stories, though. Yeah. It's in a lot of the Xenos books, actually. There we go. The Tao book is big on this where they, there's, I'm sorry, but there's like so many rogue traders that just trade. I don't hate Tao this much. There's so many people that trade with Tao, but there's also a shit ton of people that trade with Eldar. Yeah.

And there's also a lot of. of Imperium worlds that are powered by Eldar technology. Let's call a spade of spade. You know what? Plasma technology doesn't blow up? How? Yeah. You can actually use it and shoot it and not have the roll of one.

Not have the not roll of one afterwards. Eldar. You know who's got energy sources that just don't deplete ever? When a power entire planet out of like, you know, 40 square feet, sure, go to Eldar. And you're good to go. Like literally the rogue traders keep a lot of worlds alive. because they still need their trade with the Eldar to get whatever the hell they need from the Eldar, be it technology fixing, whatever, wraithbone, whatever they want.

It's a big deal on that. And these guys make that happen. They are, the trade that the road traders do, which just sounds like a stupid phrase, but it works, is critical. It's also, by the way, there's also, I mean, Brad's talking about from the positive side, There's also the dark side where I'm a super rich guy and I want and I see a super cool sword. I want to I want to own a super cool Eldar sword. I can't really go down to the freaking pawn shop to get that thing up.

You know what I mean? Like there's no Amazon Prime delivering me. I also don't want an inquisitor at my house. Exactly. So what do I do? I go to a rogue trader and I overpay for said sword and then I get the coolest sword ever. You know, these something. Or I'm an imperial scientist and I want to kind of.

kind of do some experimentation on an orc body. This is, it gets a little bit dark, but it's a road traders do some, also do some weird shit. Yeah, I mean, because road traders also trade with covins and stuff.

Yeah, they trade with Drew Carrey. I couldn't find a story of rogue traders actually entering Gamora. I don't know if they're allowed. I don't think that they can, or if they, or even them entering any of the,

um, Kraft runs. Any of the craft rolls. I don't have any of those stories, but I do know the work because they do trade with them. They do trade with both. It's a question of how much acts they get. They also trade with orcs, which is, I'll tell you what, man, you want to what balls are?

Balls are flying your little piddly ship to meet with free Buddhas. First trade. Oh, no way. This goes south. But you can actually come out pretty big on that because you gave them teeth and they gave you giant tanks? Yeah, they gave you a squig off. Yeah. This is yours now.

It seems mean. Yeah. figured out. The next group, though, are the envoys. And this is, again, the challenge is the Imperium hates Zenos. Well, they, well, they hates. On paper. I was to say on paper, but also the emperor is a psycho-racist.

I'm sorry, guys. That dude's a bad person. He's super powerful and he's super smart. But he's not good people. He's shitty. Yeah. And he hated anything that wasn't him. Very human.

And this becomes the problem is that you have Xenos all throughout the galaxy. How do you negotiate? I mean, so for. You can't unless you send the guys that have a piece of paper that literally says, hey, man, does this paper still say that I'm allowed to do stuff? I'm not allowed to do? Why did you write this down? It feels like.

This feels incriminating a gerbby. I feel like this is Exhibit A in your trial. But if you think about it from the standpoint of the Imperium, if you have to get somewhere, and that somewhere involves flying anywhere near a Tao, Eldar, et cetera, fleet, it's impossible. It's automatic war. But the road trader's the ones you can actually negotiate safe passage. Safe passage.

And that's one of the biggest things they do. To be honest with you, they've done it with the orcs several times. And they basically just convinced the grots to go, tell everybody else to go the other way when we want to go this way. Basically, none of us are good fighters. There you go. That's how you negotiated it. It won't be a good fight. Who cares then?

These guys are weak. Yeah. And so these guys, the envoys, they seem kind of lame. Like, again, if I was making a character in a video game, there's a one percentage. I would pick. These guys are definitely. Definitely NBC's. Yeah.

It's not a fun. This is the guy that you talk to that has a exclamation point over his head to start a quest. And he tells you information. Oh, my God. It's so accurate. That just is. So accurate. Now, the next one, though, are my least favorite, which are the Zealots.

Fair. But the Zilots always suck. As always. So some of the road traders, now remember, road traders' wealth is basically comes via contract. You're either trading things, getting paid, exploring, getting paid for your information. You get basically getting paid for something or you're stealing. Or don't forget, some of these guys have literally thousands of your contracts where they're just getting bank from the Imperium because they're doing this.

Exactly. And so the zealots are the ones who are newer, obviously the rogue trader group. And they're being paid by the Inquisition and the like to spread the world. word of the of the imperium to what are most likely hostile worlds. Yep. And they're also authorized to spread the word of the imperium. And if they don't like the word of the imperium, shoot them in the face. Yeah, they're not, they're not the best group here. They're, we'll do it a cast in the inquisition. But these are kind of, end up. I'm reading this, though. So one of our notes is big fan. Everybody should worship the emperor.

for sure. Yeah, that's their thing. Big, big fan of the emperor. Like, everyone totally into this. And I think my note was like, sometimes people don't want the hear the word of the emperor. And then those people get shut. Twice.

Yeah. Double tap. That's definitely the zealant rogue traders. My favorite group that will do that, which is the explorers. And I just... Cough, cut, make a TV show about them. Oh, God.

I love this concept. Again, you're living in a galaxy of violence. It is not, Current explorers are the best. Old explorers were also awesome, but not as cool as these guys who literally go, hey, if I go to the wrong place, I instantly get killed. My soul might actually be stolen. Let's talk about how extreme this is.

If you are on a planet in the Imperium that is run by the Imperium, protected by the Imperium, all these things, you still probably got a one and three chance of getting murdered, right? And these dudes are going, what if I fly my little piddly bullshit ship into the middle of nowhere and just find out what's there? You're like, hey, man, it could be infested with Ternets, orcs, dark elder heart. Yeah, race that we haven't added to the game. Yeah, it's these people are awesome. Or just all chaos. It could be.

These guys are awesome. And they're just out there because what they're doing is doing, they have two jobs. One is they're filling the one when you, if you survive, you fill in the map basically for the Imperium saying, hey, I went over here and this is what's there. But the other one they get to do, which is why they do it, is they get to plunder. So they might get out there. They might find a world that was a like, I don't know, paradise world just up until the dark age of technology. Everyone has now died and they just get to go down and say, here's dark age of technology stuff, which is just letting you know. pretty goddamn valuable.

Yeah. Oh, I found an STC drive. I'm just going to go call ADMAC and get all of them. All of the money. All of it. And or sometimes you'll get the Inquisition. You might get the bullet. Yeah, you might get the boulder.

Yeah, you might get the boulder. But you also might get some of the other part of the Inquisition will just give you money to hand that over so they can throw it in the fire. Never, ever, ever, ever speak about it. These guys are cool as hell. They're my favorite part of Roeke's. traitor. They are. If you're playing, if I was playing an NBC character, this is what I wouldn't want to be. They're amazing. And this is one of, this is probably my favorite note that you made.

Because at the end of the Great Crusade, while they had made huge swaths of territory, the galaxy was still had a bunch of areas where it just had a picture of a dragon that said, unknown, scary. Like, there was just lots of, I mean, again, the galaxy is so big. The Eldar were just living there and ignoring a giant empire that was expanding because, man, he didn't come near me. They're in a space. Galaxy's big. And these guys are cool as hell.

Now, post-heresy, the rogue traders also get to go to the systems that were on the map and have now come off the map. Yeah, that is not great because nothing good happens. It's never, hey, man, we just forgot to send a message. It's never that. Thank God you guys are here. The lights went off a short while. ago. It's the, all right.

Which awful force has ruined this planet? Something. You're landing on best case scenario. It happened a while ago and they're all gone. You're praying that I'm glad I wasn't here for this. If a world went dark, what's the best

case? I actually think if a world went dark, your best case is tyrannids because they're no longer there. They do actually move the entire force and just leave. case scenario is tyrannus. Yeah. I mean, you don't want chaos because it went dark and they're just there. There's hanging out and waiting for people.

And you don't want like Dracari because they might have just put like a stuffed animal with a beacon and they're like, touch this. And you're like, I feel like bad things are going to happen as soon as I touch this. And our meters here. Awesome. Yeah. They're like, just get inside. You know what's going to happen. So the next group we kind of jump and do is actually almost as cool as they explore as I wrote Pirates Light because

they're pirates, they're totally pirates. They don't attack the Imperium. They're also like kind of Jack Sparrow pirates. Yeah, exactly. They've got a code. It's actually suggestions. It's all suggestions. And they,

this is some of the fun stories because you get guys that are kind of bad guys, but they do good things. They don't, they're not looking to put people out, but they're also like, hey man, if you've got really expensive stuff, I'm going to probably steal it. Yeah. And the pirates, We call them pirates. They're pirates because what they're doing is within reason.

They're never going to go after an imperial cruiser or an important imperial city. But if you're just kind of a ship with a bunch of loot going from one spot to another, and you don't have space marines on board, they might show up. A lot of what they do, too, is that they're plundering abandoned space hulks that may or may not be. abandoned when they get there. Which is, by the way, one of the most dangerous things ever to do. Oh, yeah.

So why are there always gene stealers on spacehawks? Because that's, yeah, you're right. It actually is a good point. Because actually they named the game after him, but that's a side note. Always jean stealers. It's always jean stealers. So many jean stealers. Yeah, and so they're kind of cool. I mean,

yeah, I literally wrote the note, space hulks are dark, cold, and terrifying. And these guys go, yeah, let's go into that thing and see what happens. It's probably going to be good. Yeah, it's probably full of. Did everybody get killed by Gene Steelers every time we've ever been on a spacehawk? Yeah. But we got stuff sometimes.

But some of the pirates are a little bit clever and others because you could go up for this spacehulk. Or you go to the place that has heat, lights, you know, food, and just go raid a very small colony. And this is a wild. This is a pretty big group of chaotic good to chaotic. evil guys. Yeah. Because there's some guys that are just like, I'm kind of just living my way in the world. And then there's other guys that are like, I just kind of want to take your things because

I don't want you to have things. Some of my favorite stories of these types of rogue traders is they rob each other. So you constantly have like pirates robbing pirates. And I just had this idea of the imperial just watched it happen and goes, whatever. Like also anybody that's considered an imperial and this is a pretty big label though. Imperial. I'm going to do huge air quotes, criminal because lots of people are considered imperial criminals because somebody didn't like you. Same thing we talked earlier when they give you a charter and you didn't want one.

There's lots of planetary and system governors that will just be like, John's my closest rival. He's wanted. you're like, why? Yeah, he just broke some laws and they just put it everywhere and they just like, I guess I'm now on the run? I'm on the run and the rogue treaters showing up

because the thing is, if you're wanted and you can convince enough people in the Imperium of that, that means if someone were attacked to attack, you wouldn't have the protection of the Imperium. And we talk about protection of the Imperium.

I have a Guard Army. Don't think it's the wrong way. No one's that because of them by the Imperial Guard. It's a Space Marine Legion dropping out of warp and going. They also really don't ask for a long discussion. Exactly.

Like, it showed up on my display that you were wanted. And you would like to explain to me, and you got shot in the head with a bolter. So these road traders actually play in this world a lot, where they're going, oh, such and such system is in noncompliance. Therefore, I can go there and take whatever I want. It doesn't count anymore. Yeah, I can kill the imperial governor. take all of his money and then hand the system over the Imperium.

So I get all of the money and paid by the Imperium for doing the thing. Yep. Kind of a win. So these guys are kind of cool. Also, they're kind of super violent. Yeah. The next group, though, is the ones who take the piracy and decide to say, yeah, go bigger, go home. Now, these guys...

These are the militias. I know the militias, but like, some of these militias aren't just militias. Like, they are like system crushing armies. Yeah, we're not talking militia, like, you know, eight guys who get together in the weekend. We're talking like what actually fought the British. Yeah, like these are like a lot of guys with warships. Yeah.

And they, a lot of times are people with real skills, like going down and messing shit up. They're coolest shit. Like, these guys, these are basically forces of rogue traders. They're not, again, they're not imperial force. We don't compare with the Imperial Navy or any of those things, but they can control a system. Yeah, but if you're on an agro world, a hive world,

they will wreck your resistance. Exactly. Like pretty quick. Yeah. And these guys are, for me, they are the outlier, because everything else is a rogue trader. You're a corporation. You're a tiny hot dog stand.

You're at Explorer. These are the offshoots. Like these are the outliers. Because to me, these guys exist, but that's not rogue trainer. These are. Yeah, these are rogue traders who've leveled up enough to the point. I'm not going to long trader anymore. They're kind of, they've definitely got the imperial governor.

They definitely got an expanded class. You know what I mean? They got, they went up. It's like I said, these guys aren't, these guys aren't interesting to me to be honest with you. Yeah, I'm with you. just they exist for covering them. The last group, though, is hilarious to me. Probably should be, or they're corrupted.

Because... Oh, this is wild, though, because they can be anything. Yeah. The argument can be made that the origin of the... Why, can I remember the typhus disease, the zombie plague, but it's something, it has a real name. But... World leader, no.

No, it's... But one of the things, one of... I actually read a story about this. It was a home brew. I mean, somebody put it on YouTube. But it was originally a rogue trader that started the plague. Because he went down and gave gifts and then kept giving all of his goods were corrupted. And spread the plague through it.

But they've had, they've actually, actually canon stories of corrupted road. This is a real thing. I think this is canon. This might be another fan thing. But they did a Zinch one where they had a Zinch Road trader. and he was basically spreading totems all over the place. So he could access. I think I brought this one.

I think this is canon, yeah. Yeah. He could access different parts. And this is where, and the thing is, this is one of my favorites. This is the insidiousness of chaos. This isn't,

you show up and it's a nine foot tall guy with pus flowing out of him or a Zer cutting everybody's heads off. This is just a guy. Like, he looks, well, this is. But he looks the same. as everybody else. That's that that is the actual that's when you get I think it actually gets

exciting. You know what I mean? Like it's yeah because like you're like oh well that guy's clearly the enemy it's a nine foot tall guy with an axe. You're like no this is bill. Yeah. Bill Brobby this is like Stephen King type writing Twilight Zone writing. This is what it is. It's how does corruption infect the uncorrupted this is how and row traders are kind of would fall in that category like he said, guy comes to town. with some goods. And he just has corrupted regular shit. That's the best part.

It's not wild. Opening a wheel of time. That's what this is. This is a great way to kind of spread through. Tolkien does too. It's a great way to spread within. And these guys, the corrupted rogue traders are actually legit. They're scary.

It's super legit. I mean, I mean, from every one of them, too, because you have guys that follow all of the gods and are just very low key. It's the everyday guy that's ruining your stuff. And this is where when we talk about

like corruptions and you could actually make the argument, this is probably where much of the corruption comes from in the Imperium, where you bring a totem that has power and you just leave it. Someone will pick it up. And that's the game. Also, they can ruin supply lines, not by

killing the supply lines, by undercutting the supply line. And then when And the time comes, they just don't supply you anymore. Yep. Like when it's time for invasion, then it's like, well, I just don't give you the stuff that you need. Yes. And you no longer have, I'll just say coal as far as they,

but you don't have whatever runs your factory, you know? Exactly. And I think that that's where, what's interesting about these guys is that when we talk about corrupted, you think about like corrupting, like, oh, they're, you know, like, like, pus-filled because they're from Nergal or they're under the influence of corn, so they're just running through town slaughtering people.

No, these guys actually are more. espionage level for chaos. So they just spread the chaos and create the so. Well, especially the corn. Corn, corn gets weird because, like, these, the corn wouldn't like them,

but corn loves them. Because these are the guys that will, like, set upon the Hatfield McCoys, they will get them going. Like, hey, you're going to let that guy do that to you?

That's ridiculous. Like, I would never let that slight happen. You're like, you know what I heard is, or so-and-so's other plan did this about that. Right. And it's game time.

So that kind of breaks us through the types of rogue traders. We should definitely spend some time on what road traders actually are. We'll be right back after a quick break. I don't know how much any of you have interacted with Rogue Trader in the game. It's always been kind of the thing on the level you play the game. But as I've been really, they're primarily human because the first, the main trader. They're supposed to be human. He might be a bit mutant.

You do have a few stories of that because, again, the ones who've been. Well, they're on the brink of galaxy. also running the, hey, have you checked the reactor lately? Yeah, it's probably shielding. And 10,000 years of your genetics being next to the reactor. Not great. Yeah, it's possible you might be. I've played fallout.

Now, the warrant of trade gives them a bit more leeway here as far as who the crew can be. And this is where road traders from a narrative standpoint get freaking awesome. Well, they're supposed to be human. However, if you've been operating, I don't know for the last 11,000 years, possibly, on the fringes of space and you keep having to replace your crew, you might have several. Well, you know what? I'm just going to shit talk now because I can't. They can, so the warrant of trade allows you to go to any imperial city and grab imperial guards. And they can't say no.

They can't say. You get imperial guards. You're like the Inquisition on that. They just go, you have to go. There are stories of road traders who have orc freebooters and their crew. What would you rather have guardsmen or orc freebooter? That depends whether the Ork Frieder wants to fight me every day. I guess that's true.

I'm about saying or Drew Kar, same problem. Eldar, Jokero. Like there are. Can I get some Jokarer weapons miss? That's the point. That's the thing. These guys get amazing. They have people.

in their crew where you're like, look, I just need the best fighter that exists. So maybe I grab an Ogren. Maybe I grab one of the guys that fights in the dark city in the arena. Yeah, I'm going to grab, I'm going to grab a witch. I'm going to grab a member of the witch cult. Yeah. Cool. What's she going to do?

Oh, you don't want. A lot of murder. Yeah. Just amazing options. Random Eldar Ranger because, hey, I just knew, what if we encounter bad things? Let's got to just kill it from further up that you've ever seen your life. Also, he's got some pretty good information on scouting because he's been doing it, I don't know, a thousand years.

And that's what makes road from me. We're kind of moving to move. We're going to move a bit of this into more why we love rogue traders. And this is one of things we love. Rogue traders get to basically have crews that are the best of the galaxy, which, right now are both D&D people. This is D&D 101.

It is a thousand percent. You have literally got together a motley crew of characters that all do something great. Unless you're that weird person who makes a crew in D&D, that's all fighters. Gavley, which none of us like you. Just please stop. No, none of it's like. But it's the thing. It's like, hey, I need someone, I need to heal.

Cool. He's a priest. I also want to cast fireballs because it's awesome. All right. Well, the best part is is if you don't meet a hardcore person, if you don't meet a hardcore person of the Inquisition, everybody turns a blind eye to this. Yep. They don't, you're, by the way, you're not allowed to do this.

You're just nobody does anything about it. Yeah, so it's like, it's one of those like you're not not allowed. You're definitely not allowed to go anywhere very imperium with that crew. Yes. But. But also no one's allowed to say anything about it either. Exactly. And it is these, that's where we'll dive into a bit further,

some like the way these guys have manifested in the game. But this is what makes Rogue Trader super cool because they are. They are, it's D&D. This is you have you an adventure party and you're going on an adventure. So they can have really. anyone on their crew. They also will occasionally have like former assassins, former Inquisitors, former sisters. Well, those are super not, that's not allowed, but they do have them. Yeah, that's that's a point. Because you have to, if you're looking to get,

you're looking to get out of the mob, which is kind of what that is, because those are lifelong positions. You just, until you die doing what you're doing. You don't get to stop being an Eversore assassin because you got bored. Right. Like, these are people. people that found out like, hey, man, I was on my last mission. I noticed that everything doesn't suck every day. And I was like, maybe I should do that. Yeah. Like, no, they're not super cool.

They don't have a retirement plan. Yes. And you have to go to a place where, where can I go where they just won't instify me. This is it. You get a lot of literally wanted, highly wanted. That's why I gave the firefight thing. Yeah. You're like, they're looking for her all the time.

You're like, in the rogue traders, like, I got like nine people on board that are just like that. Like all the humans want this one. All the elder want the person in Cabin B. Yeah. You know, it's like, and like what else you got?

Yeah. I have somebody that every race wants one of. Yeah, exactly. We're gold. Next problem. It's a big, and it's awesome in the fact that you have pretty much unending stories. One of my favorite on Road Traders,

there's actually another. This is a fan. I'm not even going to put these out, because we'll get canned by GW for it. But there's another fan, like a full series of, that's three different authors, and they put it together where they do a rogue trader thing. They do a series of stories.

Oh, cool. I know this, yeah. I'll give it to you, but I'm not going to give this to you because I get a... Yeah, we don't want to get banned. I don't want to get GW thrown me in a boss. They are, this is what makes, if you guys can't figure out why we're doing this episode,

this is why rogue traders are so cool, because it is D&D adventure. adventure. You build a party and you go out there. And that probably should just drive us right into the next topic. We have just the life of a rogue trader. And what is it their world is like? And it's everywhere.

Yeah. That's the problem. When I read this, I literally went, what is the life of road trader? I go roll the dice. Yeah. Because it can be, it is again, D&D, because it could be anything. Mm-hmm. Because some of the road traders, again, are Midas.

They're well. Some of them are actually, why? Because they're a boring life. They live in a giant palace, surrounded up. by wealth, and they have all their subordinates doing a bunch of work for them, like, and they continue to bring in residuals. And then there's others that are literally exploring the galaxy in a ship that's held together by duct tape.

Yeah, just being, just running away as like gene-stilers are chasing them through. And then you've got another that are almost the same, which can be any of those, those categories that we gave them into, but they've got an outcast from a craft world. They've got assassin. They've got a Dracari. They've got a Tao. And that can become their mission. This is what's, again, this is more, sorry,

is me diving in a narrative, which I love. The stories you can make around Rotators where it's, yeah, I've got this outcast of a craft girl who's trying to get back to the cross world by proving that the reason he was cast out was wrong, and we're on a mission to do this, this, and this. And while we're doing the mission, we're going to come up, we're going to find a bunch of wealth.

They're really cool. This is what, this is, these guys, because they're living this little adventure inside of a universe of adventure. And it's just fun. Now, the downside is they tend to die a lot. I mean, if you're not the main character in the story, you probably as a rogue trader gets smoked pretty quick.

Rogue traders are, by definition, expendable from the, literally by what they got. Your little plaque that you got was pretty much a go get killed, but hopefully be useful before you got killed. Go do stuff for us. If you get into trouble, don't call. Yeah. We're not coming.

So, yeah. Now, one cool thing about them is, and we've touched us about it, but I want to dive in hard, the road traders are critical for the imperial. And depending, that's why I gave my sigh. Yeah. Depending on who you ask, you either can get infinite resources or you could get shot by the Imperium. That's true.

That is true. So it's really, you are legit. This is another D&D thing because you're living and dying by D20 rolls at this point. Oh, yeah. You need to make a check real quick. I mean, you're either going to get a full Legion of Space Marines to help you out, or there's going to be an assassin right behind you that's going to shoot you in the back of that. Yeah, rogue traders, and there are stories of rogue traders who do get a little big for their britches

and get introduced to a company of space marines. Pretty quickly. are a lot bigger in their britches. But you can, if you are lucky and loyal quotes, of course, you can get effectively infinite resources from the Imperium because you have your little piece of paper. You've got your plaque on your ship that says, I am an envoy of the Imperium.

You have to help me because I am doing Imperium business. and by doing Imperium business, it means that the Imperium has to help me. And you basically keep pointing at that and hope it works. And really hope that they send the Dark Angels. Yes. Angels, oh, my God,

who are in so much trouble or Death Watch, not the Inquisition or Grey Knights. Some of the things that they're used for by the Imperium, though, is, yeah, you want to scout an area. Honestly, it's easier to send a road trader than to send an entire armada. Oh, wildly so. It's so much faster.

You need special tech, you know, plasma mostly. I mean, we know this is admec, by the way. They say, oh, the rogue traders are used to acquire special technology from aliens, from aliens. This is 100% the admec going like, hey, we want

this thing and the Empire said no. I love me. You're like, there's people that want it. You're like, so we're still talking admec, right? It's still the people who want this. I just want to make sure you can pretend what it's my buyer is secret. You're like, so it's Edmack. It's totally admec, right?

Yeah, it's admec. Okay, cool. But that's what they do. They would go and they trade because the admec would, I mean, we'll use tau plasma. There's no question the ad back saw a story about tau plasma. It doesn't explode. No. Seems better.

Seems better. Can I get some of it? But they're the enemy. Yeah, yeah, totally. But can I get some of it? Like, you know that fucking there's about half of us that are still chaos? Yeah, exactly. Like, you really don't want to visit Mars, do you know?

Mars gets real weird. There's a necron on it. Like, I'm going to start C-Tan. on it. Yeah, we're pretty inclusive. Yeah, like, that's not. Of all the parts of the impairment, you don't open the wrong door,

I think Mars might be the worst one. Oh, you can open a door and go, oh, come on, man. Jesus, guys, like, this is literally written down as a no. Like, just put a lock on the door already. You are so weird. But as we touched them before, one of their biggest ones is actually keeping tabs on people.

They're spies. Because they have to, because the problem of the imperial spies, if you think about imperial spies, you've got assassins, you've got, you've got inquisition. Not spies. These are extreme levels, but what if it's just a simple thing of like, hey, someone else acts a little funny, I want to keep an eye on him, or probably what I think we're just going to use more for is,

I am warlord, Lord of Terra, those are the same thing. You know, whatever it is, and I've got a rival, and I just want to keep tabs on him, but I don't want anyone know I'm keeping tabs on him. You'd hire the rogue trades. You'd just give you information. Exactly. You hire a rogue trader. What's going on here?

Exactly. And they're allowed to, and this way they can work outside of official channels. Because the truth is, like, if you're, we're going to use this,

if you're corrupt, but not like chaos corrupt, if you're not a great person and you've got a rival, you can't use the inquisition. The second you mentioned, like, hey,

I think they're there with chaos. You just don't want inquisition poking around because they might. Because they also might kill you because they're like, you knew about corruption, so you have to be,

cleansed all. So you're like, you guys are real weird. And what I'm up to is really kind of not above board. I can't use imperial agents. So road traders are what come in. And this is one of the cool things on road traders. They're used for that. But my favorite story in all of the road traders that is actually Kahn, Gilliman uses road traders. Like a lot, actually. The absolute, the primark of bureaucracy and rules recognizes the need for the off the off books. To be fair,

G-Man might be the biggest purveyor, purchaser of our traders. That's what, that's why I find cool about this. Gellman sits there.

Gilliman loves rogue traders. Now, he views them largely as privateers, to be honest, for the Imperium, but he loves rogue traders. They're information. And he's all about information. The king of bureaucrats, is all about information.

And these guys provide information. Be honest, you also go, you know, who doesn't like the Inquisition? Bobby G. Not at all. Not at all. And so it works really well. It's just a cool thing.

We talk about these guys. When we say they sit on the edge of the imperial government, they do and they don't, because the most powerful and influential members of the government openly use them. So that's why rogue traders, they're not this like shadow organization by any means. The last little bit I want to dive into was more,

I think for people listening to this castor, well, Roe Traitors, this is cool. How do I play them? How do I enjoy them? And unfortunately, I mean, the tournaments are called Root Traders. Yeah, they haven't been a key part of the game ever. I don't believe they've ever had a code.

They've always been. outside of the game. That's why the game was originally called Roe Trader. Because they're the things that are around and they're weaved into the game, but they aren't the game itself. I mean, I'm going to note here where it's like, you know, it'd be weird to have a 2,000 point army of rogue traders, which I'm now, as I'm saying that, realize that someone out there is saying either A, yeah, I've run that at an event. Oh, I'm totally running that in an event. And to both of you, good job. I fully support.

Their rules are usually pretty fluffy. They're not great. It's just rogue traders. But they've had some cool elements. They're always part of the Imperial agents. One cool game that existed for those who played Blackstone Fortress, which was during the 8th edition, really fun game. It was actually kind of almost an RPG-style game where you had.

a group of rogue traders going into a Blackstone Fortress to kind of dilute it. They had weird rules because it depended on what you chose is they had a, that's where you chose your cards and you got to, you had to choose. We didn't even choose. You actually got shuffled to go. It objective. It was a good game. It was a really fun game. Unfortunately, they did allow the rules in the 8th edition and there was this Tao sniper that all of us who played hated. Kill team works like that though. But yeah, in Kill team, they're awesome in Kill team. So if you're looking to play, if you want kind of have the road trader,

Kill Team, they're perfect for it because they're not meant to be a 2000 point army. They're meant to be a small little... They're supposed to be a D&D party. And they're really, really great in it. It's Ellucidian, I think it's what they're called, the Star Striders. They're cool in Kill Team,

but I will say, if you go to the website and look, these things, look up this model line, it's just, it's one box. They're amazing. Like, if you want a model, they look cool as hell. And it's just a really,

nice. It's a cool, if you really more into painting and building, the Elusidian, Elycdian, Elycdian Starstiders are top. For all our modelers out there, I do want to say this, though, the limited edition and the one-off boxes and games and stuff like that usually have really cool one or two off models that you can only get in those things, like really cool things. They're always amazing. Road traders also allow you to kind of build random. If you want to just have kind of a random collection of things that are just a pretty model, but you wouldn't have a purpose, you make road traders.

If you want to build a joke arrow from scratch, there is a model for it. It's hard to find. If you want to build one, you could. But I have a great. So I've got this orangutan holding a rocket launcher. What do I do? It's just fantastic. It's just so cool.

But then you could add them to like a succubus that you're like. If you just have a few models here and there that you want to build and put together and just have and give them some cohesion, you make them a rogue trader. And they're cool as all hell. It is an amazing, they're, I love rook trader. You guys like this. You can obviously tell you. I love Rogue trader. And for those people who want to play the game more from a narrative standpoint, narrative, this is the way, man, you can have a lot of fun with this.

If you want to basically merge 40K with D&D, Rogue Traders are how you do it. Oh, it's great. It's amazing because it's all the same, all the best parts of both worlds. They actually had a 40K is a role playing thing, and it played basically Road Trader. Yeah. That's what you're going to have to do. If you're playing 40K and you want to have an RPG, you're stuck in a good way. You're going to go Rogue Trader.

It's hard to make an RPG of like the white scars. No. You know, we showed up and we killed all of the locals. Yeah. You're like, there was a rival gang boss. You're like, what happened? We just sent one guy and he killed everybody. It's also because it's like the problem of space Marines is they are,

they're not independent bodies. There's not a lot of, all those things. But rogue traders are cool as hell because you get to have that awesome. Like, yeah, I've got this one character who's human and there's also an auguring with them. And then there's a, it would not be homoculus. No one's going to ever be friends with homoculus. Not even a chance. Not even like just no way you're too weird, get out.

But maybe there is a, I don't know, a cabalite warrior pushing it, but possible. You know, any member of the Eldar, you mean, you can even have an Eldred in theory could be hanging out with some rogue traders. That's what's so cool. They've had a lot of people. They've had actually a lot of elves that have been part of rogue traders and a lot of stories because there's a lot of people. Because elves, Eldar, as a race that exist,

are people that were dissatisfied, which is a very small word from what they were, but with what was going on in Eldar civilization, what their society was. And there's still, there's a lot of people, because you can remember the craft worlds themselves, I know I'm going a little tangent here, but the craft worlds themselves are wildly extreme views on life and how to live life. And there's a lot of people that are like, yeah, I wasn't super down with the weird people. but you guys are just crazy people. Where do I go? And I'm wandering the galaxy by myself as an Eldar.

And eventually I meet this traveling spaceship and you join in. You know, all of Guardians of the Galaxy. And it's a cardinal galaxy. It's literally a carnival row. It's just a... It's cool as hell. This is where if you're looking for a way to play 40K on what I would call a small-scale narrative, rogue trade is a way to do it.

Yeah, they're great. They're fun. Because they're, they're human-sized stories. Exactly. Space Marines have, space Marines and a lot of the Xenos have galaxy-sized stories. It's what's crusades, all these days. You're like, hey, man, what about like regular people problems that road traders have? The game Blackstone Fortress was great because that's what it was.

I found this derelict, I mean, it's not spacecraft. It's a space Hulk. It's pretty big. And I'm going to find my way through it. to basically loot it for some stuff to take back and make some money. That's what the game was. The game was, that was a pre-written narrative. You and your friends can make your own.

And why not? That's one of the, I mean, it's coming from two D&D RPG guys. Yeah, it's probably like, you're just like, you know, you might be like that was Dragonlance I've played in my life. But it's just, and the thing is that, you know, this is what I'm ending with. In the game, play the game however the hell you want to play the game. And I'm talking about it on the table, too. If you're playing competitive 40K,

don't let anybody tell you what you're allowed to bring. Don't let anybody tell you what's cool and what's not cool. Yes, gargantuan squig off, I know. I was more saying, like, there are rules of what you can't bring. No, no, I'm saying. As far as like the models that you bring and everything else, don't let be fun. Yeah.

Just that's it. It's in the end, we're playing with toys. Enjoy yourself. And that's the biggest thing. And that's what this is. So from there, we'll break. call it an episode. I hope you guys enjoyed our coverage of rogue traders. I think we're going to do some more. These are the future. This is kind of fun for Brad and I to do because it lets us

explore the more of it more and joke about how much we like to be dorks and RPG. Exactly. Please again, come to the website, 40KLorcast.com. Like and subscribe to the podcast. It does help us a lot. Join Discord. All these links are available in the show notes. So please just go there. But once again, I'm John Bar-Sy. This is Bradchester. This guy. See you guys next week. You know,