Retainers

In a rogue traders crew there are thousands of people if not tens of thousands of people and
although only a mere handful will be highly trained explorers there will be those amongst the
faceless masses that are a cut above the rest the rogue trader may want to recruit some
better trained crew to serve in certain areas on his ship for this he would hire retainers, highly
trained compared the run of the mill crew aboard his ship though not as trained or equipped
as his explorers.

Availability Gift of the Gab

In most acquisition tests it is your
commerce skill that is tested to affect
Average +10 Gangers(Scum), Scribes (Adepts)
your test but with retainers shrewd
Scarce +0 Guardsmen, Priest (Cleric) negotiation will only get you so far there
Rare -10 Tech-priest, Bounty Hunter (Arbitrator) opinion of you counts allot more. on
retainer acquisition you use charm as the
Very Rare -20 Sanctioned Psyker(Imperial Psyker), standard skill to adjust your profit factor
Assassin when dealing with retainers (this
Near Unique -50 Sisters of battle replaces the comers test you are
normally entitled to)

The Cost of Expertise

Scale serving on the bridge of a rogue trader as one of his inner circle is a
honour that only a handful of crew onboard a vessel ever reach
Negligible +30 Single Man (1) though the idea of doing so has over the ages inspired crews to
Trivial +20 Squad (2-5) perform above and beyond the call of duty, though the cost to their
moral when a rogue trader goes above their heads and recruits an
Minor +10 Platoon (10-30) outsider to fill one of these illustrious posts. Each crew can only
Standard +0 Company(50-100) process so many orders in good time so each vessel can give a
number of additional orders equal to the 10’s unit of their crew skill
Major -10 Regiment (500- ratting (a 30 skill crew could receive 3 extra orders a 50 skill crew
1,000) could receive 5) now usually these are given by members of the crew
Significant -20 Division (2,000- who have served with the rest of the crew for years, though the
retainers rules allow for more skilled people to take their place though
5,000) this adds expertise and skill to a rogue traders crew to the crew that
Vast -30 Army (10,000+) have served for years having an outsider come in an cut above them
is somewhat uninspiring so knowing there is no room for
advancement they will try slightly less. To represent this for each crew
slot on the bridge a retainer occupies the permanent moral of the
Training ship is reduced by one point to represent the fact the crew are not
trying as much.
Poor +10 Starting level Dark
Heresy Character
Common +0 Dark Heresy Character +1000xp, 1 Scarce Item and any umbiquous items
Good -10 Dark Heresy Character +2000xp, 2 Scarce Item and any umbiquous-
abundant items
Best -30 Dark Heresy Character +3000xp, 2 Scarce Item and 1 rare and any
umbiquous-Plentiful items
Elite -50 Dark Heresy Character +4000xp, 2 Scarce Item and 1 rare 1 Very Rare and
any umbiquous- Common Items
Example: Loken Kane wants to hire a personal honour guard to protect his bridge so he
decides some ex-guardsmen would be best, there are plenty of these in drinking holes and
dives though out the imperium so they are not that hard to come by (Scarce +0) he want a
full complement of 10 (minor +10) and he decides that he wants some real good people
guarding his beloved bridge (Good -10) so he adds up the total modifiers (for a total of +0)
and makes an acquisition roll on his profit factor (he may make a charm test to modify this,
see above) he succeeds so would generate them as Dark Heresy Character with an additional
2000xp to spend and equipped with 2 additional Scarce Item and any umbiquous or abundant
items he feels fit the concept.

Rules Written by Inquisitor Lord Gregor Firedrake ( robin_windon@homail.com ) Fantasy Flight forum user :- GregorFiredrake,
feedback welcome – Enjoy :)
 Crew Records
Retainers are minor NPC’s Controlled mainly by the players, in general keep them basic and standard with
some exceptions that stand out. So should a rogue trader higher a squad of crack storm troopers as his
bodyguard the easiest way to do this would be to generate one character and have that as the sheet for all
ten of them, if a player is particularly good at record keeping the dm may allow him to create some with
minor changes such as a sergeant or special weapons trooper, some dm’s may even allow each character to
be generated separately (after all it is the player doing all the extra work at the end of the day and if he
wants to generate 5,000 guardsmen why kerb that kind of enthusiasm  )

Rules Written by Inquisitor Lord Gregor Firedrake ( robin_windon@homail.com ) Fantasy Flight forum user :- GregorFiredrake,
feedback welcome – Enjoy :)