Navigator - Navis Nobilite: Navigators are both a mutant Human sub-species as well as a collectively powerful political organisation of the Imperium known as the Navis Nobilite, a guild of Imperial nobles that represents all of the Navigator bloodlines or houses of the Imperium.The members of the Navis Nobilite are exempt from many Imperial laws, and even the Inquisition tends to be careful in the handling of individual Navigators due to the political power of the Navis Nobilite.However, Navigators guilty of treason, heresy or something equally serious are hunted down without mercy. Such affairs are many times dealt with internally by the Navis Nobilite itself before the Inquisition has any reason to act and potentially blacken the name of Navigators as a whole amongst an Imperial population already superstitious and distrustful of them.Each Navigator family is very close and often very large, and different families are usually allied by marriage, while others are political and economic rivals. Although individual Navigators are not directly employed by the Imperium, every Warp-capable voidcraft in the Imperium has at least one Navigator who acts as the Warp pilot. Navigator dynasties may also have several family branches within their clan, with one branch ruling and the others providing their invaluable Warp navigation services.Navigators are organised into families known as "houses" (sometimes "clans"), through which both the Warp eye mutation and their esoteric but priceless knowledge of Warp navigation has been passed down through the generations.Because of their monopolies on FTL flight, ancient lineages, and accorded Imperial rights, Navigator families are usually both immensely wealthy and influential, their power extending to all corners of the Imperium. In particular, their influence on matters of interstellar trade is beyond that of any other group in the Human-controlled galaxy.Lesser Navigator families owe fealty to larger and more influential houses, who in turn have their own alliances. These alliances in turn form trading cartels, which compete for lucrative contracts with other such cartels. The Merchant Fleets of the Imperium must constantly deal with these powerful cartels for the services of their Navigators -- it is a strained relationship, but one which the Imperium constantly strives to keep the upper hand in.Perhaps most importantly, the Navis Nobilite have an Emperor-given right to conduct their own affairs as they see fit and thus are effectively outside of the laws and authority of the Imperium in most cases. This freedom is only void in particular circumstances of overt rebellion or treachery, and even then great care is taken by the Adeptus Terra in confronting and punishing such crimes.A Navigator clan's private retainers, soldiers and bodyguards can number in the thousands. The houses largely police their own, binding themselves together within a shared culture and through lines of alliance, fealty, and marriage. However, wary of the balance of power, the high master of the Navis Nobilite, the Paternova, and his agents are often merciless when one clan or family should, by its treachery or excess, endanger the others.Whilst ostensibly the role of the Paternova, and by extension the Novators who lead the individual houses, is to manage the power of the houses and protect their interests from the greed of the Administratum or the ignorance of the Ecclesiarchy and Inquisition, they do in fact have a far more important role to play.This role is in the cultivation and protection of the Navigator Gene. Vital to the survival of the houses is the continuance of the birthing and training of skilled and potent Navigators. However, the competition between the families has also led to each tampering with and altering the evolution of some of its children, in the hopes of creating more powerful and able Navigators with which to defeat their rivals and win more lucrative and farther-reaching contracts.Over many centuries, these deliberate alterations of the Navigator Gene has created many different Navigator lineages, giving rise to some strains of bloodlines possessing the Navigator Gene in which certain powers, abilities, and mutations are more prevalent.