Navigator - An Unpleasant Necessity: One of the fundamental tensions that exists between the Navis Nobilite and the rest of the Imperium is the fact that Navigators are obviously mutants in an Imperial culture that does not often suffer the mutant to live save as a brutally oppressed underclass. Many dark legends and fables of excess, witchery, and murderous power have grown up about them, and not all without cause.As a result, Navigators are often shunned and feared, and the popular dread at meeting the gaze of their three-fold eyes means that many prefer to have dealings with them only when they absolutely must. The maintenance of the valuable, recessive Navigator Gene through selective breeding has also meant that over thousands of standard years many Navigator families have acquired malformations, strange afflictions, or mental abnormalities.While some attribute these maladies to inbreeding and the close-knit relations between the Navigator families, it's more likely that the Navigator Gene itself causes genetic instability and mutation as a Navigator grows in power and age. As a Navigator ages and suffers from increasing exposure to the Immaterium, the likelihood of suffering from mutations also grows exponentially.To offset the fickle nature of the Navigator Gene, many Navigator Houses rigorously screen the genetic material of their members and use gene-scryers to determine the best match between young Navigators when marriages are arranged. In addition to the gene-scryers, the use of divination tools like the Emperor's Tarot are employed to ensure no psychic taint threatens to destabilize the house's gene pool.The most ancient and traditional houses often use their considerable resources to maintain strict control of their bloodlines through carefully arranged unions, which has made them more resilient to the symptomatic genetic instability that plagues lesser houses.Others, however, have either neglected such strict control or have tampered with the gene pool of their bloodlines to produce more powerful and skilled progeny. Inevitably, this has led to considerable instability in some of the dynasties.In some Navigator families, the genetic corruption of the line has become so severe that only a few members of the clan can move amongst the rest of the Imperium. The remainder remain confined to the family's great estates or in sealed tabernacles aboard ship, their extreme deformities hidden from sight.These differences have often led to conflict in the past, and localised factions of the Ecclesiarchy have, on a number of zealous occasions, burned Navigator holdings and executed Navigators as Heretics. Such incidents are often brought violently to heel by the Ecclesiarchy itself, before the wrath of the High Lords of Terra is visited upon the culprits and any above them in rank that allowed such action to come to pass.After all, no one can afford to offend those who hold the Imperium's only key to voyaging between the stars. The Inquisition is one of the few bodies that can truly move with impunity where the Navigators are concerned, and its eye is ever kept on the Navigator clans. Yet, even the Inquisition must be circumspect and certain in this task. However, in extreme cases, the Holy Ordos have destroyed entire houses and carried their patriarchs and matriarchs off in the Black Ships for final sanction when necessary.