#Rogue trooper lore full
#Rogue trooper lore license

He is the Master of Mankind by the will of the gods and the master of a million worlds by the will of his inexhaustible armies. 'For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. The RT book opened with a classic introduction text of WH40K, read it carefully, because it differs a little from the one you know:

It already depicted a galactic Imperium of Man - a totalitarian theocracy ruled by the cult of God-Emperor which was in eternal conflict with various alien races like space elfs and space orcs. It was a bit weirder however and funnier, but only if you were enough well-read to catch those various references. So, how was Rogue Trader? Well, it wasn't that different from what we have today. Rick Priestly had a lot of inspirations for Rogue Trader like Dune, Foundation and Starship Troopers - those however, are only the most obvious ones.

#Rogue trooper lore full

By that time, GW was a very intellectual studio - they've had three people with PhD in archeology and a linguist, they were all very well read not just in sci-fi and pulps but also in classics of literature hence - RT is full of various references. Majority of Rogue Trader can be credited to Rick Priestly, but Brian Ansell and Ken Rolston also put some words to it. They did not expect it to become swiftly their most popular, beloved and income-generating game ever.

#Rogue trooper lore license

Why add Warhammer into the name? Two reasons, in 1986 GW published a game based on 2000AD's license called Rogue Trooper and they wanted distance themselves from it, the second reason was that they've decided that it would be good to use their familiar and popular IP name to help Rogue Trader lift-off. Why the game was named in such a (from modern point of view) weird way? GW used the name Rogue Trader because their fans were familiar with it, they were teasing it for years. A few months later Rogue Trader was published and it had a subtitle: Warhammer 40,000. The topic of Rogue Trader returned in 1986 in Citadel Jorunal where GW published a rather cryptic teaser of the game they're planning In March 1987 they have released a couple of minis of Imperial Space Marines - they did not reference neither Rogue Trader nor Warhammer 40,000 but they sold very, very well. During various cons and festivals, when asked, GW employees would say that they are tinkering on their own Traveller (a very popular sci-fi RPG at the time) but there was no news. (one explanation I've heard is that it would destroy the bleak setting of Warhammer Fantasy, if fans started to think that the world will survive next tens of thousands of years).

For a very short time, it was supposed to be Warhammer Fantasy In The Future but the idea was scrapped very quickly. Just a few months later, in October 1983 they already had a different idea for it, by then it was supposed to be a sci-fi roleplaying game as it was described in GW's Compendium 1 catalogue. At the time GW was very busy with its hit - Warhammer Fantasy Battles and they were already thinking that they really want a science-fiction game to complement it. Though saying 'marketed' is a rather too big a word, because it was just mentioned off-handedly and never explained in detail. The earliest traces of Warhammer 40,000 (then called simply Rogue Trader) can be found in April 1983 'Dragon' miniature modelling catalogue, where it was marketed as a spaceship game.