Ok so my Rogue Trader took it upon himself to take a large population of mutants onboard one of his ships from port wander. He did this quite unprompted and just made the invitation to some under deck gangs who seemed like reasonable sorts that whoever might show up at his Dynasty's mustering area would find gainful work at the standard rates for their skill and ability. The player knows this is going to cause him a variety of issues and I'm already hinting of some of the discord with the human portions of the crew (it got mentioned in the staff meeting that requests for transfer from that vessel are up 4,000 percent). The ship that got restocked with mutants was a wolfpack raider that was at just a bit over 60 crew so now about 40% of the crew mutant..

I already have some ideas for challenges and drawbacks to this crew make up. What I'm asking for peoples assistance with are the possibility of benefits to this arrangement. For starters I was thinking that a mutant crew (especially if mutants become the majority) if treated on par with a regular crew will be a lot more morale resistant as they are used to getting spat on by everyone else. So at the very least I was thinking about reducing morale losses. Any other thoughts?

Another reason I don't necissarily want to discuss challenges involved in such a crew is my player sometimes peruses these forums.

lurkeroutthere said:

If real life is anything to go by, severe entitlement issues would be more likely to result in the complete opposite. And if they do become the majority, I'd be deathly afraid of actual uprisings, unless the bridge crew is are also mutants - in which case you have bigger problems; your entire crew consists of freakin' mutants!

But yeah, anyway.. the only benefits I can see are mostly narrative. Higher percentage of psykers, greater variance in strength, agility, combat effectiveness, intelligence and so on, possibly resulting in some persons filling specific niches better than others, and so on.

Not strictly a benefit, but when doing rolls involving the crew, you should perhaps increase all degrees (of both failure and success) by anything between 1 and 3?

Just a thought.

Oh, and I guess getting on the Inquisition's radar could be a benefit, depending on what your excuse is. There's likely not a single pious soul left on that ship by the time the mutant-to-human ratio gets over 30%.

First off I do not believe your view typifies "real life" as a whole and is more a generalization. I'm sure we could both cite anecdotal or evidence to our hearts content but needless to say Real Life provides a lot of situations to support any viewpoint you or I would care to advance.

One of the captains requirements of the mutants that they have agreed to is a strict no psykers policy. If he is smart though he'll get some independaent confirmation done. Basically though while he is a bit more liberal or sympathetic to the mutant plight he has a healthy distrust of psykers and proper fear of the danger of psykers.

Also I really think people often overguess at the reach or interest of the inquisition. He'll have problems with the Eclesiarchy and presumably the Navy long before he ever has a problem with the Inquisition.

How about this? Give it a couple of weeks and the righteous will organise a pogrom. For 24 hours muties are launched out of airlocks - glory be! Your crew population drops back to 60%, but will be inspired by their holy work. Religious fervour will grip the crew and the ship gains a Temple Shrine. This might mean removing an existing supplemental component…

Fresnel said:

Some other beneficial concepts could be that Underworld / Criminal enterprises are more easily contacted.  Why do you ask?  Well who mostly lurks in the underworld areas?  Mutants.  And who do you now have a more trustworthy and loyalty based relationship with (to some extent hopefully)?  Mutants. 

Not to mention, maybe recruiting other mutants at other ports could be easier.  That is only if you or your crew spread the word around at the port that you are mutant friendly. 

And it could be, so some extent, that your crew might be more hardy to certain situations.  This could be Fire, Depressurization, Cold, or better all around toughness for combat situations like boarding actions.  And maybe every 6 months to a year, this can be randomized.  For example, when you first get the mutant crew, most of them were resiliant to Fire, so a -1 Crew Pop loss to min of 0 when Fire damage was done on your ship.  6 months to a year later, those mutants died off and/or new mutations emerged, and now the crew has more hardy mutants.  So, -1 Crew Pop loss on boarding/hit and run actions (because even a Ships Macrobattery would vaporize the hardest mutant).  Etc etc.  Hope this helps some.

Fresnel said:

Maybe, although the captain already made his command test against mutiny to prevent that sort of shenanigans. I do like some of nameless ideas. I'm a little hesitant to make the mutants straight up better in combat/boarding action then regular troops because usually the most physically robust specimens are also the ones mentally the most gone which would undermine their effectiveness as crew (and the crew quality rating is going to start out low for various reasons. Having many of the mutants effectively have voidskin makes sense for underdeck mutants.

Then there's all the fun of having a mess of Chaos cults on board. Occasional one gets a mutation too many and then you have a spawn rampage! What fun.

The Imperium hasn't survived 10k years on tolerance. There are all sorts of ways you can play this, but human and mutant living in harmony, embracing their differences and finding strength in diversity… I wouldn't go there, but ymmv.

And now we have the GRIMDARKS point of view. Next!

The only possible benefit I can see: the mutants will fight to the death if the ship is attacked, knowing that their lives are certainly forfeit if the ship is captured by a less 'liberal' commander…

lurkeroutthere said:

Well, then you could also give them a -3 (or -5) to Command Tests then. 

Benefits

Higher Intimidate score with the normal crew (e.g Do x or I will chuck you in with the twists etc)

Easy access to Forbidden Lore Mutants, Heresy, Cults, etc

Easy access to Chaos cultists as a contact (if that is a benefit)

Easy Access to Common Lore Underworld

Likely to draw the attention of radical Inquisitors who can then maybe be used as contacts/allies etc.

I would give bonus to boarding attack and defence.  Your average armsman won't have come across mutants and the morale effect of being overrun by mutant horrors would be considerable.  At least against inexperienced crew.

Cons

Eternal damanation and an appointment with a Mono-Task Explicator Servitor in the Tricorn.

Visitor Q said:

Despite Imperial propaganda, there isn't really any reason that having mutants aboard will give you any greater access to FL (Heresy) or FL (Cults), nor are mutants necessarily linked to Chaos or the Underworld anymore than your non-mutant crew. However, FL (Mutants) should be easier to pick up, and you might be able to get Peer (Mutants) and possibly even Good Reputation (Mutants) given time.

HappyDaze said:

I would disagree.  Given the stated nature of the WH40K universe mutants are almost by definition either going to be slaves or in a criminal class (Underworld).  This inexorably leads to dissident behaviour with will almost certainly allow certain types of certain pro mutant/anti-Imperial creeds to emerge.  Sure most mutants might be pious self loathing loyalists but on a ship with (tens of) thousands of mutants, even if only 1% followed a creed other than the Imperial Creed you are talking about hundreds of heretics on board.

As for Chaos, that is for the GM to decide on a specific crew but mutation in the WH40K universe isn't just caused by cosmic rays and radiation……….

HappyDaze said:

Chaos cultists gain mutations. So a proportion of mutants 'begin' mutant life as cultists.

Even if an 'innocent' gains a mutation, the corruption of the body also corrupts the soul. The mutant will hear the call of the Gods more readily than a normal human - they are marked. If there is a cultist preaching his dark creed, many/most will embrace it.