Navis Nobilite - Resources of the Navis Nobilite: Due to their sheer importance to the Imperium's well-being, the Navigator houses have attained a vast degree of wealth and influence. The Navis Nobilite can trace its formal origins back to ages long past, and since that time the Navigator houses have amassed unimaginable riches. Every voidship that plies the Warp routes of the Imperium and beyond has at least one, and most likely an entire cabal of Navigators to guide it safely through the Immaterium.The Navis Nobilite uses the wealth that it accrues from this critical task to amass still more. None except perhaps the Paternova -- the most senior Patriarch or Matriarch of all the Great Houses -- can have any true notion of just how much wealth the Navis Nobilite wields, and its influence and alliances stretch far beyond pure material riches.Certainly, the Navigators appear to have interests in sundry organisations the length and breadth of the Imperium; some have close ties with Rogue Trader dynasties, the Adeptus Mechanicus, and even the vaunted Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes. The Navigator houses act as backers and investors in some of the most ambitious undertakings, especially those of the most powerful of Rogue Trader expeditions. Thus, as Rogue Traders employ Navigators to forge new Warp routes, the Navis Nobilite profits doubly, for even while establishing those routes, they can improve their charts, to their own benefit and that of the Imperium.Despite the staggering wealth that the Navigator houses enjoy, they do not generally maintain the sort of visible power structures that most other Imperial institutions rely upon. Unlike the Rogue Traders and Chartist Captains, they do not operate fleets of starships bearing their livery and, unlike the great Imperial merchant combines, they do not maintain their own trading centres or industrial installations.Instead, they own part interests in all manner of such endeavours and sometimes the hand of the Navis Nobilite is very well hidden indeed. The Navigators do not generally maintain large standing armies, although many Navigator houses employ a cadre of highly-trained, well-equipped, and sometimes genetically-enhanced household troops utterly loyal to their bloodline.When circumstances dictate, the Navigator houses draw on their vast wealth to employ the very best mercenary forces available and, with sufficient warning of impending war, can field composite armies rivalling an orbiting Imperial defence force in size and resources.What the Navigator houses do maintain, however, are the most splendid palaces, exquisite estates, and gorgeous pleasure gardens it is possible to imagine. Most are located far from the eyes of the average man and woman of the Imperium, though they often maintain more utilitarian, if still richly appointed, chancelleries in most large starports and planetary capital cities.From the outside, even the most modest Navis Nobilite palace is likely to be a rearing edifice dressed with marble and decorated by the most accomplished sculptors of the age. Beyond the walls, delicate towers pierce the sky while glittering domes hint at the untold riches within. What the casual observer might not note is the banks of unseen defences, from automated weapons turrets to the most impregnable forms of void shielding.Within, every visible surface is gilded with precious metal leaf or hung with sumptuous fabrics. The domes house vast libraries or ancient texts, sumptuous ballrooms, serene pleasure gardens, and luxurious harems. Lumens crafted from the rarest of cut jewels light dining halls that can accommodate thousands of guests, while serried ranks of liveried attendants stand to attention nearby. Entire armies of servants and menials attend to their masters' every conceivable whim, while the lower levels are hives of activity where the most skilled cuisiniers prepare feasts of delicacies imported from all over the Imperium.Beneath the servants' levels lies something far darker. In armoured and warded dungeons are housed those spawn of the Navis Nobilite fated never to guide a starship through the roiling Sea of Souls. These are the genetic rejects and hideous by-blows of the long millennia of intermarriage and genetic manipulation. They are mindless, puking monstrosities that bear precious little resemblance to anything born of a Human womb.Many are destroyed soon after birth, while others are allowed to live so that the house genetors might study them in the hope of avoiding such mistakes in future generations. Just as the lowest levels hide those of the Navis Nobilite that the Navigator houses wish to keep from prying eyes, so there are areas where only the most highly ranked members of the house may pass. As a Navigator grows older and their body is ravaged by the curse of their bloodline and exposure to the Warp, they slowly withdraw from the company of their kin and shun contact with the outside world entirely.While their mind and their ability to navigate a Warpship remain unaffected, they continue to enjoy the luxury their status affords, albeit in their own private chambers attended by their own staff of servants, guards and chirurgeons. Should their mind fall victim to the Navigators' genetic curse, however, then his fate is to descend to the lowest dungeons of his own palace where he takes his place amongst the other vile monstrosities of his house.