The Navis Nobilite

[Dosjetka]

Author's note: this is not even a rough draft of the final article so please excuse any inconsistencies and the mess that is present within this thread. If anything seems strange or wrong, please point it out and I will get back to you as soon as I can. Thank you.

 

As part of my contribution of articles to the Librarium for having failed the LPC twice, I will be writing an article about the Navis Nobilite, also known as the Navigators. For the stub article, please follow this link.

 

For the sake of simplicity, I've copied and pasted the information already gathered in that stub article below.

 

Known Houses:

• Belisarius³
  
• Feracci³
  
• M'edici²
  
• Locarno^1,2
  
• Hals-Viati²
  
• Sixtus²
  
• Davor-Jarni²
  
• Emed-Useli²
  
• D'Kark (eradicated by the Ordo Xenos)²
  

 

Organisation:

 

Each house is led by a Novator (also called Celestarch³). The Navis Nobilite is led by the Paternova, the most powerful living Navigator, who must not be confused with the Paternoval Envoy who serves and represents the Paternova and is often a member of the High Lords of Terra. The most powerful Navigator of each House is known as the Heir Apparent².

 

The current Paternova is Francisco M'edici XIV².

 

About the Paternoval Envoy:

The Navigators' representative among the High Lords has always been little more than a figurehead. [...] [He] is powerless because he comes from a relatively minor House with very little support from the more powerful ones. None of the great Houses would allow any of their rivals to take that position. At least none of them has managed it in the past two thousand years. It would signal their pre-eminence among the Houses. The rest would have tended to gang up on anyone who looks like they might swing it. A weak man from a weak House can be influenced by anyone. And he can be counted on not to do anything that would upset the balance of power.

 

About Navigators' genealogy:

[...] Navigators[...] are all related: they only marry other Navigators. They do this to preserve the bloodlines that give them their gift. But no Navigator can marry within their own House, for reasons you can well imagine - although I have heard it has happened anayway. [...] They marry who they are told. All marriages are arranged with a view to keeping the bloodlines strong. There are great books of genealogy detailing each bloodline's strengths and weaknesses. The Navigators procreate in the same way people breed dogs or horses. [...] It is their way,[...] and the Navigator Houses predate even the Space Marine Chapters, so it must work. [...] Some would say it has served them well.

 

Sources:

¹ - Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, p.150-151 - Rick Priestley.

² - "The Return of the Imperial Navigator" - Warwick Kinrade - Citadel Journal #18

³ - Wolfblade - William King - Black Library.

 

The Navis Nobilite - also known as the Navigator Houses is an institution which predates the Imperium by many thousands of years. It is the most ancient of all human organisations. It was founded sometime in the Dark Age of Technology and survived through the Age of Strife to the present day. The Navigator mutation is not a spontaneous or natural one, but rather the result of genetic engineering. The navigator gene can only be preserved by inter marriage with other Navigator Houses.

 

Source:

White Dwarf 140? Space Fleet Rules

 

That in itself, is already quite good, but the Lexicanum entry for Navigators seems to have more information (that I will try and double-check) and also has entries for personalities of the Navis Nobilite, but also for other things concerning the Navigators, which I will be using to complete this article.

 

If any of you, before I post my second post with more information found, would like to add anything, then please feel free to do so :blush:

 

Cheers,

 

Ludovic

Edited January 5, 2012 by Battle-Brother Ludovic

[Dosjetka]

So, I've gone through a few Lexicanum entries about the Navigators/Navis Nobilite and I've found the following information.

 

About the Navis Nobilite in general:

 

A new House appears in Bleeding Chalice by Ben Counter (Soul Drinker Series) called Jenassis. Two other Houses (Helmsburg and True) are also named in Wolfblade by William King.

 

Each family is very close, very large and the different families are either allied through marriage or rivals.

 

The families are organised into Houses and have their own unique traditions and positions dependent upon their own histories. For instance; House Belisarius is led by an individual referred to as the Celestarch and has its own standing military trained by the Space Wolves

 

Still according to Lexicanum, the Navis hold a unique position within the Imperium and so have quite a bit of leeway to do whatever please them. However, they do usually abide to most rules due to the mutual benefits gained through cooperation. Also, the members of the Navis are bound by oaths of service towards the Adeptus Mechanicum, who then distribute the Navigators throughout the Imperial Navy and the Merchant Fleets.

 

However, they are not hidden from the eyes of the Inquisition and apparently, it is the Ordo Malleus which looks out for signs of corruption and heresy among the Navis and then acts accordingly. Due to the brute force employed by the Ordo to swiftly execute any wrong-doers and to confiscate anything that comes to hand from the Navis, most affairs are dealt with internally (like the Adeptus Astartes).

 

The Navigator sub-species is so ancient their exact origins have been forgotten. It is known that their origins go back to the Dark Age of Technology, to a time of genetic experimentation when many kinds of mutants were engineered to fulfil roles envisaged by their creators.

 

The unique powers of the Navigators are passed down through each generation. The navigator gene itself can only be preserved by intermarriage - it is lost when a Navigator breeds with an ordinary human. This factor has led to the development of the closely-related Navigator families.

 

These Houses have four broad categories:

 

- Magisterial Houses are those most closely related to the original Navigator families, they are the wealthiest and most traditional and will have holdings in the Navigator's Quarter on Terra. Due to the maintenance of their bloodlines, they are less susceptible to the symptomatic mutations of being a Navigator

 

- Nomadic Houses have relinquished their properties and have taken entirely to spaceborne lifestyles; they are perhaps the most skilled of Navigators but have difficulty relating to planetary cultures

 

- Shrouded Houses have somehow lost their status in relation to other houses and exist in a state of decline; sometimes referred to as Beggar Houses by other Navigators. Individual Navigators have little support from their own families, making them quite resourceful, while their Warp Eye often becomes more perceptive

 

- Renegade Houses are those families that have been rejected by the Paternova either by turning from their ancient traditions or have been exiled due to conflicts with other houses. They are unable to maintain their genetic purity and often suffer the most mutation but can also benefit from new strains that might occur.

Although individual Navigators are not controlled by the Imperium, every warp-capable craft in the Imperium has at least one Navigator who acts as the warp pilot.

 

Sources:

White Dwarf 140 (UK) - Jervis Johnson, Andy Jones, Simon Forrest & Rick Priestley

Codex Imperialis

http://www.specialist-games.com/assets/Navigators.pdf

 

About the Navigators themselves:

 

They are responsible for guiding ships through the Warp with their Third Eye and the Astronomican (more about that later). They are a sub-species of the human race. They are divided into families.

 

They are mutants, possessing the Navigator Gene, which gives them the ability to guide ships through the Warp. Because of this ability, they are an absolutely necessary part of the Imperium, as without them, the Imperial ships would not be able to travel through the Warp relatively safely and so the Imperium would just fall apart.

 

They all have a third eye, also known as Warp Eye, on their foreheads which allows them to perceive the psychic light of the Astronomican. Their ability to sense the currents of the Warp is considered as psychic, but they have never shown any powers beyond those gifted to them by their Warp Eye.

 

They have a lifespan of around 400 years and as they get older, their powers become more powerful and their eyes become black orbs.

 

Due to the fact that they are mutants and psykers and that the large part of humans distrust such beings, they are safely kept away from the masses of Humanity. Most humans don't even know of their existence.

 

In some Navigators, the only differentiation from humans is their third eye, but with others, they seem utterly alien due to large amounts of mutation. While mutation and deformity are commonplace within the Navigators, they are restricted to certain traits, such as tall and spindly bodies, pale (almost translucent) skin, scaly skin, large eyes without irises, ill-defined facial features and ridiculously large hands and feet (sometimes webbed). Most Navigators are completely hairless.

 

Except in extreme cases, no Navigator would possess all of these traits and Navigators who show heavy mutation at birth are often hidden away or killed at birth.

 

Navigators gain a variety of powers from their Third Eye, but by far the most vital one is the ability to steer spacecraft through the Warp. The Warp Eye allows the Navigators to see the currents of the Warp, and using the psychic beacon of the Astronomican as a guide, they are able to direct the ship through the dangerous environment, allowing Imperial ships to make far longer and accurate jumps than otherwise possible. They are the only ones, man or machine, with the ability to do this. Because of this unique talent they collectively hold a vital and powerful position within the Imperium.

 

Of course, the unique ability of the Navigators has its limits also. Outside the range of the guiding light of the Astronomican the Navigators are far more limited in their ability to guide a ship through the Warp. During the Macharian Crusade the grand conquest almost ground to a halt as the sight of the Navigators failed, when they could sense only darkness around them. Furthermore, there are places the Navigators avoid at almost every cost. Navigators will shun the Eye of Terror for thousands of light years around it rather than risk a minor deviation in course which might take them into its boundaries. Most Navigators have personal experience of close encounters with Chaos near the Eye of Terror, and many more can recall the names of others who travelled too close to the Eye in a foolish attempt to cut days from their journey time only to vanish forever.

 

The eye has other powers too, although these are employed far more rarely and are the subject of some mystique. These powers develop with the Navigator's experience of the Warp, so that they are most developed of all in the Heirs Apparent. It is said that the eye of a Navigator has prophetic powers and that it can literally see into the future. Navigators are very reluctant to talk about their powers, and it may well be that only the Paternova, leader of all Navigators, understands the full potential of a Navigator's abilities.

 

Not least of the Warp eye's powers is its deadly ability; any one meeting the Warp eye's gaze will be agonisingly killed; mainly due to this Navigators keep their third eye covered with a bandanna or something similar, causing many people to doubt that the "third eye" even exists.

Edited January 5, 2012 by Battle-Brother Ludovic

[Leofric]

Additonal sources to consider might also be Exterminatus magazine issue 7 - 'Seeing the Warp' article: information and rules for the Navigators for Inqusitor and includes background on the Paternova (overall ruler of the navigator houses and sometimes a High lord of Terra) and trade wars between the rival Navigator trading cartels (Article written by Graham Mcneil) - this may be the source identified as http://www.specialist-games.com/assets/Navigators.pdf as page does not seem to exist any more.

 

Also FFG's Rogue Trader RPG gives the names of a number of additonal Navigator houses - although its focus is on the Koronus reach and the houses with influence there rather than the wider Imperium.