Welcome, and an explaination

Well here we go...
This is a little blog I've decided to keep to document the goings on in my, now regular, Rogue Trader Roleplaying Game campaign.
If you want to know more about Rogue Trader itself check out here for the official Fantasy Flight Games site.
So the campaign has been running now for twenty sessions, with the player characters just into Rank 2, or thereabouts.  So why start the blog now?  Why not at the beginning of the game?
Well for a start I never expected the game to go on this long or do so well! Back in the autumn of '11 I was contemplating running a new game.  Our group at the time were playing Wizards of the Coast's Star Wars Saga RPG and it was going well but I'd pretty much told the stories I wanted to tell at the time. I started to ponder what to run next and had a hankering to return to the setting of Warhammer 40,000.
I've been a player of "WartyK" since the beginning, some twenty five years ago, and of Laserburn before that and have followed the development of the universe and setting over that time.  I read the novels, paint the miniatures and it feels like "home". I'd run the first official roleplaying game set in the universe, Dark Heresy, until the group we were playing in at the time went it's seperate ways. It was a good game but I always felt that that I was never able to get the pay off for the plot threads I was weaving.
Therefore I immediately looked to Dark Heresy as the replacement for Star Wars...but something didn't quite fit.  To try to identify the problem I did a little brainstorm to try to identify the themes or concepts that I liked to use in a game....the idea being that I'd then try to match a game with the themes.  What I came up with was:

• Sorcery & magical items
• Wonderous technology
• Amazing powers
• Fantastic creatures
• Unbelievable locations

Pretty generic fantasy stuff really....but it got me thinking about Rogue Trader.  The mix of magic and arcient technology certainly fit, and exploration amongst the stars would give opportunities for the creatures and locations.  Powers could come in the form of psychic gifts, Untouchables, Faith powers, sorcery or even mutations...it seemed a good fit.  However....
I'd bought the rulebook and some of the supplments to use alongside Dark Heresy but it had never seemed *right* to me - I couldn't get a grip on the setting.  I knew the concept of Rogue Traders from back in the days of the original Warhammer 40,000 tabletop rules, in fact my first army was themed around a Rogue Trader and his entourage; "The Black Widow".... Anyhow, exploring space?  Finding lost civilisations and negotiating with alien races, that smacked more of Star Trek than teh grim future of Warhammer...I just couldn't get a mental "hook" on the game.
So I went back to planning for Dark Heresy.
But still Rogue Trader niggled at me. I decided that while writing for Dark Heresy (what turned out to be a cross over Deathwatch meets Ascended Dark Heresy campaign idea that lasted a whole one session...) I'd set myself the challenge of coming up with an idea that would work for me, the way (as I understand it) some professional writers will approach a commission they are not entirely keen on: "How can I make this idea work for ME").
So I started to toy with ideas.  What could appeal to me about Rogur Trader?  Well I had my list of themes, all of which fit.  So what was the missing ingredient?  I think the key was the set up - the situation.  I just couldn't see myself running a game where the players were the top dogs - it didn't fit our playing group or playing style.  There needed to be an authority figure, but one that would allow for the flexibility that wouldn't inhibit the player characters "power".
The authority in the setting rests with the holder of the Warrant of Trade so I'd make that person an non-player character - someone I could control to influence the direction of the game but I'd have o ensure that they didn't completely undermine or emasculate the players.  How to do that?  The first thought was to have them an absentee - left back at port whilst the heroes go off on their behalf.  That was no good - how could they offer direction if they are lightyears away?  No, they had to be closer to home, aboard the ship the players were on.
How could the Warrant Holder be prevented from emasculating the players?  The simple idea was - emasculate him - make him so flawed that the he was essentially useless, causing more harm than good - not enough that they'd want to remove him, but enough to get them into trouble, provoke adventures and stimulate roelplay.  Added to that was the protection that the Warrant granted - he was the legal holder - the players wouldn't just be able to remove him without serious consequences. Slowly an image began to form in my mind, a flambouyant, larger than life character who had fallen into the Warrant through mysterious circumstance (the tale would change with each telling) and who would be almost constantly drunk.  His drunkedness could both be a source of plot lines (deals made in haste etc) and also a way to remove him to allow the players to step to the fore (simply too drunk to command...).  I remembered a pantomime that I'd been to some years ago where the great actor Brian Blessed was Captain Hook - and there in my head was the image of our Lord-Captain, black bearded and rosy cheeked, wearing a gold brocaded red jacket and white stockings...Lord Captain Brion Baccahrus was born - and I had my hook.