WH40k: Rogue Trader - Lore Primer

[Music] what's going on everybody morm here this time bringing you a lore primer for Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader which launches in less than a week from now but when the game was initially announced from alcat games its developer I knew I wanted to cover it because they had made one of my favorite previous games in the same genre but I didn't know honestly much of anything about Warhammer 40K just kind of one of those things that passed me by so I needed to do a bunch of reading and research and learn all about the setting which I have done but with this video I'd like to make that much easier for people who might be either in the same situation or just looking to brush up before the launch of the game itself I did want to mention a variety of important things here at the beginning to sort of set the stage this video is for people who don't know much of anything at all about the setting because reality is if you know about the setting you're pretty much good to go already if you're wondering what you as someone who is familiar with it might want to know ahead of Rogue Trader the answer is not much you might want to look up the coronus expanse where the game takes place and of course Rogue Traders themselves but realistically that's about all you need to know in terms of the lore so for everyone else who knows next to nothing about the setting what I wanted to do was take my experiences playing the game throughout Alpha and beta and a pre-release version get all of the Core Concepts together and explain those because another important thing to remember is that all I'm going to be covering in this video is some short explanations of the most important stuff this is far from everything there is to know about Warhammer 40K there's infinitely more this is just the stuff that is relevant to this game and the subjects that I'm going to go over are certainly not going to be complete in my explanation simply giving you a good idea of what they are thus priming you to either learn more about them on your own or simply get ready for what the game is going to throw at you so you can piece it together by yourself with that in mind the game does have an encyclopedia of Warhammer 40K terms and things in game and typically whenever a lot of these terms are used you can Mouse over them in the various text menus and see what it's got going on and what an explanation of that thing is which is yet another way you don't really need to be worried about learning about this game so with that out of the way let's dive into this a little bit further and talk about the general setting of Warhammer 40K what is it what is it all about well Warhammer 40K mostly centers around the Imperium of man its God Emperor and there many attempts let's say to con ER the galaxy in the face of dangerous zenos horrors of the warp which is a sort of parallel dimension of chaos that all could pose existential threats to the existence of human beings but where it gets much more interesting than that is that it's important to remember when it comes to Warhammer 40K that the entire thing is a work of satire it is meant to be Grim dark there are no good guys the setting is about taking things to the extreme in a way that makes both the system and the people persisting in it fun fundamentally broken because the Imperium of man in this setting is impossibly large and it is buckling under the weight of outdated bureaucracy systems that do not work all of which combines to make the cheapest resource in the Imperium life itself human beings are the single cheapest commodity around which plays into that Grim darkness and while that's true of the Imperium it's true everywhere there are no good guys in this setting every faction as a whole are not out here doing good things at the very best they're trying to protect their own interest which is usually also done in an incredibly brutal and warlike manner which makes up to settings tagline in the Grim darkness of the far future there is only War but it's important to remember that within just that barebones concept so much room is given to allow for stories of individuals to prosper because with the most recent lore a new Imperial Regent has come into play that has actually started setting the Imperium on the track to progress so to speak though that doesn't come up much in this game but even outside of grander things like that plenty of people within the Imperium of man could be good people but they are living in a system that is fundamentally broken where life is just frankly very cheap so in spite of the fact that there might be good people around at a zoomed out perspective there are no good guys but let's dig a little deeper into some of these Concepts and start breaking it down from there the Imperium of man was once ruled by the god Emperor however due to the events a long time ago known as the Horus Harris the emperor is now more of a corpse-like body sitting on the throne of the Empire that allows them to protect the Imperium from the threats of the warp and Chaos at large but they can no longer play an active role in the imperium's defense as a person getting up and doing things this is why you'll sometimes see the emperor referred to as the corpse Emperor because they are no longer a person that you could just talk to they're essentially a corpse sitting on a throne the emperor is still nonetheless up to to a few things for starters using their immense psychic power to project their protection from the warp and guide Navigators through the warp which is how the Imperium travels through space to all sorts of different systems and planets but that brings me back around to the term God Emperor these days the Imperium of man worships the Emperor as a God he is a Divine being as far as the Imperium is concerned however that is very much so at odds with what the emperor wanted before this happened when the emperor was a person up and moving around what he wanted was to push the Imperium of man forward with a big focus on science this being things like pushing forward biology which resulted in the creation of the Space Marines which are augmented superhumans which we'll get to alongside technological advancements which led to the development of void ships which allow people to travel through the warp or the immaterium the realm of chaos to reach other solar systems in a relatively reasonable amount of time but in spite of that after the Horus heresy the emperor becomes worshiped as a god which turns the entire Imperium into this deeply religious state that is incredibly xenophobic and seeks to punish any heresy with essentially death because life is cheap and this has resulted in the very stunted growth of the Imperium for Millennia on end which as I mentioned has only recently begun to change with only very small baby steps I might add and this results in a lot of people living surrounded by technological wonders that they barely understand and often approach with a sort of religious fervor now to really drive home the satire of the setting even this is done in some incredibly hypocritical ways for instance anything that might be seen as a deviation from mankind is typically shunned such as a mutant however at the very same time Navigators which are exactly that mutants but they have a third eye that allows them to safely Traverse the warp or as safely as could be done thus making them literally Absol absolutely required for the Imperium of man to function as it does are made into huge houses of nobles despite technically being a thing the Imperium says it hates and you'll find hypocritical things like that throughout the setting which relates back to Rogue traitors which we're going to get into but first I want to talk about the warp itself the warp is another big aspect of Warhammer 40K because it represents the immaterium the fear of the unknown besides just space because the warp is made up of purely psychic energy it's an alternate Dimension made from the psychic emanations of mortal beings tapping into the warp via psychic powers sometimes called sorcery or magic is what makes psychers people who have the ability to do just that this is inherently dangerous because the warp is home to the chaos gods or the ruinous Powers alongside their Legions of demonic servants so in tapping into these Powers psychers as they're known draw the attention of exactly that those demons and Chaos Gods who typically try to possess or control them in some way which leads to massive deaths on a planet-wide scale potentially even bigger sometimes which means psychers are not something general people are overly fond of however psychers can be divided into sanctioned and unsanctioned you see in order to keep the god Emperor or what is left of him sustained every day thousands of low-level psychers are brought into contact with the emperor and subsequently killed for their psychic energy this is done by rounding them up all on Black Ships who then ships them back to the emperor to essentially feed on however this is only done to most psychers but generally if any ability on your part is detected you'll be rounded up by one of these black ships and shipped off some of them however are screened to become sanctioned psychers people with the will to control their psychic ability to a degree that is useful to the Imperium but even this is only done after subjecting them to rituals that that connect them with the god emperor that allow them to Stave off the advances so to speak of the various forces from the warp that would try to kill them or possess them and lead to other problems so sanctioned psychers are both pretty rare and generally feared for their Space Magic whereas unsanctioned psychers are shunned and feared for their very likely and essentially inevitable fall to chaos that can lead to gigantic sweeping Devastation that can literally destroy planets but as with everything the hypoc continues because the warp is essential to the Imperium at the same time it's what they use to travel around because this is their solution to faster than light travel however due to the warp being a chaotic place the exact time it takes to get anywhere can change what happens along the way can change you can be way laid by these forces so even then it's not exactly a guarantee this is done by using a warp drive on a void ship and a navigator Navigators are a specific subsection of mutants like I said that happened have a third eye that lets them traversee the emerium one of which just happens to be a companion in our story and Navigators are all marked by their warp ey or a third eye on their forehead that allows them to perceive what is known as the astronomicon which is a big psychic Beacon calibrated and projected by the Emperor of mankind from their Golden Throne this is what Navigators look for with their third eye while traveling through the warp to navigate safely it is technically possible to do it without this but it is very dangerous and this makes Navigators essential to the functioning of the Imperium which has elevated them to Noble status now from there I want to talk a little bit about the powers of chaos truth be told you don't need to know a ton about this specifically for this game with the primary one being slanesh because she's relevant to a few others but the immaterium or the warp is ruled over by chaos Gods otherwise called the ruinous powers or the dark gods and while not technically Divine beings they are curiously enough Direct ly tied to the existence of mortal beings as the warp is a dimension of psychic energy that psychic energy is derived from the emotions and Collective desires of sentient beings throughout the Universe which means they simply would not exist without the very people they are trying to destroy so in theory if they ever actually succeeded in wiping out life Etc they would also cease to be there are four of these entities though technically more could be created which was the case for slanesh as originally was really only three and slanesh just so happens to be the most important to the story of Rogue traitor but a brief rundown as we have Korn the Lord of battle zch the everchanging architect of Fate nurgle the Lord of disease and Decay and slanesh she who thirsts or pleasure and excess to the point of perversion Each of which has their own Cult of followers as they often sway people by granting them Boon or changing them in some way though this usually is to their detriment as much as their benefit but some of of which are elevated to demonic princes which is done because again their influence in the real world is what grows their power in the warp and these gods are at odds with each other as much as they are with the immaterium so what they focus on at any given moment can shift just as chaos would but what's important to know and the reason I'm telling you this is that when followers of these gods or chaos die their souls go to that entity but moving on a little bit as the Imperium fights what is effectively an unwinable war against against both zenos and the warp itself let's talk about the religious branch of the Imperium the ecclesiarchy or the adeptus ministorum is the official state church or religion of the Imperium which mandates that the Emperor or the god Emperor is in fact a Divine being who must be worshiped and respected though this does lead to all sorts of parallels to real world things with religion like conflicting interpretation of the means or exact Dogma so to speak which is important when we talk about the deptus mechanicus soon the tenants or the Imperial Creed as it's known make up some of the biggest facets of the Imperium which is basically as I mentioned the emperor is in fact a God it is the duty of the faithful to purge Heretics such as psychers witches Sorcerers aliens mutants basically anything that isn't human and to never question or disobey the Imperium at large and the reason that that is not vastly more specific is because of the way the Imperium of man rules the Galaxy or or the worlds it controls each individual world in the Imperium can be vastly different from one another because as long as the tithe of each planet is paid to the adeptus administratum which is the bureaucracy of the Imperium then realistically those governors are allowed to rule that planet just about any way they see fit really driving home the fact that life is cheap and you're expected to do what you're told when you're told outside of a very select few now we're about to move on to the Inquisition but in case anything I just just said happens to Intrigue you about the adeptus administratum and the Imperial tithe and stuff while it doesn't come up much in Rogue traiter and thus I don't really want to add it to this video the Imperium is ruled by the high Lords of Tera which are the commanders of chosen sections of the government so to speak which are the master of the administratum which is like the bureaucracy the ecclesiarch of the ministorum the ecclesiarchy that we just talked about or the adep arbites which impose The Lex imperialis which is the broader system of laws governing the Imperium besides just the individual planetary laws but again we're not really going to dive into that here as it just doesn't really do much for this game but I do hope all of that has painted a picture of how fundamentally broken a lot of this system is as it is massively inefficient and wastes tons of resources which is again the point so next up I want to talk about the Inquisition technically this is a secret arm of the Imperium outside the normal administrative hire hierarchy their job is hunting down any and all of the threats to the stability of the Imperium this of course means things like chaos Heretics mutants Rebels aliens the usual stuff it's divided into three different arms each with their own militant order that accompanies them these being the Ordo malus zenos and hereticus the Ordo xenos is the one we want to talk about for rogue traitor as they defend the Imperium from Alien threats that lie outside of their normal borders we see a member of the Inquisition on our personal team hinr who is a member of the Ordo zenos now the Inquisition is generally regarded with a ton of fear like technically this is a secret organization as they are more or less secret police because while what they're supposed to do is protect the Imperium from all these threats reality is they're an organization that doesn't really answer to the typical people which means they can largely bypass just about everyone and do what they please as they don't even really respect the laws of the Imperium except when it benefits them them most of them are simply going to use whatever means that they have to Snuff out any perceived heresy real or not which usually just means they kill anyone and everyone they perceive as someone who might be a Potential Threat because again life is very cheap and worse come to worse they will literally wipe out an entire planet known as exterminatus though while the inquisition's methods may be over the top the threat they are facing is very real the warp demons Heretics Etc are things that are capable of sh up and wiping out entire planets on their own again proving that no one is really the good guy here moving on though next we have the adeptus mechanicus or the cult mechanicus Cult of the machine whatever you'd like to call it these are Tech priests the people in charge of the knowledge required to maintain and construct most of the imperium's advanced technology while much of the Imperium is sort of drowned in ignorance and again just the weight of all these crushing systems that can't manage to hold themselves up the Tech priests are the ones keeping everything moving but even this has a very religious aspect to it as Tech priests both worship the machines as well as make sure they're in functioning order this is done through their warship of a deity they refer to as the omnissiah and while this might at first seem at odds with the ecclesiarchy there is actually an agreement in place here you see the mechanicus consider the Emperor of mankind to be the living Avatar of the omnissiah but but the mechanicus is based on Mars which is one of their many Forge worlds that they use to craft and maintain the technology of the Imperium but the tech priests often replace and upgrade their own body parts with all sorts of machine parts making them sort of cyborgs in many ways and they often blend just general technology and engineer expertise with a sort of religious practice around the Machinery as well the mechanicus though is incredibly important to the Imperium as a whole because without these guys who are pretty much the only people who understand how any Machinery at all functions building and using that technology and Machinery is like this almost magical act to them so the mechanicus is very important and because of that they have a lot of leniency and let's say freedom that you might not expect other people to have basically as long as they're keeping things running for the Imperium they're left well enough alone which is outlined with the Treaty of Mars as it's known which is what lets the mechanicus largely act as an independent organization that doesn't really answer to any other part of the Imperium all of that believe it or not is kind of just the basic outline of how the Imperium functions how it views others but what about you what about Rogue Traders well that's where things get actually interesting for this game and you'd think I'd have started the video with this but you know whatever so Rogue traitors are incredibly privileged people in the Imperium of man you see in order to expand the imperium's influence they have to in some way deal with things like xenos species as well as just chart the unknown this is where Rogue Traders come in called such because they are granted a warrant of trade that often dates back to the emperor himself when he was a person walking around though new ones these days are signed usually by a high Lord of terara in some way but this warrant of trade establishes a noble Dynasty for that Rogue Trader basically if they die they pass their trade Empire onto a new air and this is how it has kept going in the vastness of space a rogue Trader's job in the Imperium of man is to go out chart the unknown set up resources colonies explore figure out what can be harvested and turn all of that into a functioning trade Empire they are basically the settlers of the Imperium as such Rogue Traders are technically granted that power and privilege directly from the emperor basically as long as the Rogue trador is acting in the interests of the Imperium they are allowed to freely travel and deal with zenos and things like that in a way that is not something any other inhabitant of the Imperium could ever expect to be allowed to do as such Rogue Traders are explorers they are literal Merchants they do deal in the trading of merchandise but generally they are simply exceptional people given an incredibly dangerous job of expanding the imperium's borders which they are granted the freedom to do largely however they want which is where the interesting portions comes in because that of course leaves it open to interpretation how they do that which often puts them at odds with the Inquisition Rogue Traders and the Inquisition are an interesting Bunch because technically they are on the same level in terms of authority but given Rogue trator job to interact with zenos and things like that that any other interaction with would be considered heresy unless the Inquisition would kill you over puts Rogue traitors within the Inquisition sites kind of just by default but put simply their one job is simply to expand the borders of the Imperium which brings us to the coronus expanse where the game takes place the coronus expanse is a dangerous relatively unexplored region of the Galaxy it is separated from the bulk of the Imperium by a bunch of warp storms that typically make travel almost impossible there is one path through however typically known as the ma but even that is pretty treacherous this makes getting to the coronus expanse a bit of a hassle which is why it is only partially explored these days as of the time of this game there are a few very young colonies here the station of footfall but it is not a place that is firmly under Imperium control which means it is also home to all sorts of dangerous zenos Heathen worlds and just generally unexplored things but the area is partially settled it's like a space Frontier of sorts because of this and the difficulty simply getting there most people in the Imperium only know things that are essentially Legends and myths about the area and this is what Rogue Traders are doing there as is their job they are expected to tame this wild area and bring it firmly under Imperial control now with all of that out of the way you pretty much know I would say the bulk of what you need to going into this which is what in effect a lore primer would be all about but there are still a few I would say miscellaneous things here towards the end I want to talk about that are relevant to the game starting with of course Space Marines no talk of Warhammer 40K would be complete without these as they are sort of the big mascot for the series if you will truth be told Space Marines are barely human though they serve the Imperium of man they are however superhuman which was done through a series of genetic modification psycho conditioning rigorous training Space Marines effectively compose the armies that often save Humanity from the worst threats in terms of chaos demons Etc they are on the front lines often referred to as angels of humanity even but Space Marines despite being again sort of the poster child for the setting aren't really in Rogue Trader much but there are two that I want to call attention to mostly because if we were here to talk about Space Marines would be here all day as there is just an endless pile of lore about them but essentially all you need to know for the sake of this game is that they are genetic super soldiers and there's more lore about them than you could shake a stick at that said let's talk about the ones that are specifically relevant to this game which are the Space Wolves and the word bearers now one of your companions olar is a space Wolf Space Marine or the Wolves of finis and you'll sometimes hear them called who in many ways lack a lot of I would say the discipline other Space Marine chapters are known for they are often more notable for their Barbarian nature which is notable because of what is called the curse of the wolfen that is to say basically Space Wolves are afflicted by their own Gene seed which is used to create individual Space Marines but the one specific to Space Wolves leaves them susceptible to completely giving over to their rage and instinct which turns them into mutants known as wolfen now the other chapter of Space Marines you need to be aware of is a traiter legion known as the word bearers as some Space Marines over the long years of their existence have in fact given themselves over to the ruinous powers and at the Forefront of that are the word bearers they were one of the original Space Marine Legions they were among the first to treat the god Emperor as just that a god however remember that at this time the emperor did not want to be seen as a god which results Ed in the emperor raising the word bearer's capital city of monarchia effectively rebuking them and calling them personally to him and essentially correcting them outright in person embarrassing them in front of everyone and during the Horus heresy when the emperor was wounded and forced to become the corpse Emperor it was the word bearers that were among the treacherous Space Marines that allowed that moment to happen so the word bearers were once his most Ardent supporters and are now among his biggest detractors these these days they serve the ruinous Powers as the true gods they are often seen preaching and pushing people towards them but essentially word bearers believe these days that Humanity must worship chaos as their Divinity greatly twisting of course their original purpose now that does finally bring us to the last thing I want to talk about which is the elari and the duari or space elves basically as what would a fantasy setting be without some manner of Elf the eldari or the Eldar Once Upon a Time pretty much ruled the Galaxy they were at the absolute Apex of civilization everything was taken care of but due to the fact that there was basically no challenges left their entire Society started looking more and more towards Hedonism and let's say aoral practices to fill their time with which as it overcame their society as a whole eventually led to the birth of the chaos God slanesh she who thirsts the birth of this chaos God effectively destroyed their entire galaxy spanning Empire turning a great many of them into Drew Cari and while technically they're all one species the elari are divided up into like five different subcultures if you will of which the elari and the jukari are I would say the most prominent and definitely the most relevant for this game the craft world eldari as they are known are effectively the remnants of the original species they inhabit continent sized Starships often referred to as craft worlds where they try to survive and Preserve ve their souls against slanesh as they are very prone to extreme emotions they feel things very deeply which makes them an excellent psycher but also draws the attention of slanesh who hungers for their souls in order to escape that fate eldari carry what is called a spirit Stone which is a stone that traps their soul should they pass so it doesn't go to slanesh that stone can then be brought back to the craft world and join the infinity circuit they call it or basically the ction of eldari souls within a craft world which prevents them from being consumed by slanesh which brings us to the duari the duari or the Dark Eldar the duari or people like them at least were essentially the cause of the birth of slanesh they were the people participating in the Hedonism and all sorts of things that led to the birth of that God and while a great many eldari Souls were stripped from them right then and there and devoured by the new chaos God the ones in an area called the webway which is Dimension kind of in between the immaterium and the real world if you will were physically okay however they did find that their souls were slowly being siphoned away into the warp taken by slanesh they quickly found out though that if they made other people suffer in their place they could saave this off which is how the jukari Came Upon The Thirst as all of them need to feed off of the psychic energy of Anguish and torment from other intelligent creatures in order to keep their their souls from being drained Away by slanesh which leads you with a dark and depraved race that goes about capturing live victims to then bring back and torture and maim as they see fit in order to again keep themselves sustained they do this out of their great city of kamora which is situated in the webway itself and worth mentioning that you can potentially get both an eldari and drari companion in Rogue Trader so some good stuff to know now that is pretty much going to wrap up this lore primer and cover I would say the main topic of note specifically related to this game but Warhammer 40K is a gigantic setting with you know just decades upon Decades of lore and things to get into so while I think all of this information should set you up to pretty much enjoy and understand the game do know that this is in fact just a primer there are entire channels dedicated to just an insane number of hours of lore content on this setting so if you want to find out more it is there and I hope this video has provided you a good jumping off point to do just that though to be sure there are a couple other topics that I deliberately left out of this video that are technically in the game but discussing them would I think take away from the plot and story of the game so I didn't think it was worth mentioning them here but all of that said that's pretty much going to do it for this video so I certainly hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed making it do let me know how you feel about it down in the comment section below which of course means to like comment subscribe all that YouTube jazz but regardless of any of that truly just thank you so much for watching I really do appreciate it may you wander in wisdom and have an amazing [Music] day

Channel: Mortismal Gaming

Views: 81,059

Keywords: Mortym, Mortismal Gaming, rogue trader, rogue trader trailer, rogue trader 40k, rogue trader beta, rogue trader alpha, rogue trader character creation, rogue trader gameplay, rogue trader review, wh40k rogue trader, wh40k rogue trader gameplay, wh40k rogue trader beta, wh40k rogue trader beta gameplay, wh40k rogue trader beta details, wh40k rogue trader companions, wh40k rogue trader romance, wh40k rogue trader game, wh40k rogue trader rpg, wh40k rogue trader owlcat

Id: 4x7DdJ5DP_E

Length: 29min 46sec (1786 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 03 2023