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Good evening guys. So, I've been working slowly and surely on terrain, my marines, etc, etc, and a buddy of mine and I got down to sitting and talking about what we would do to round out our armies. Anyhow, I have a good base of marines, sisters and IG, and since I decided to skip on taking the large titans, I decided to break down and grab some Imperial Knights. Anyhow, I was looking for some inspiration and found the Imperial Knight House creation tables. I made my rolls and will post them, but overall, I just need some help getting the creative juices flowing to fully fluff out and create a backstory for them. So, tell me what you would do.

Vow Nature: strategic prognastication (we had a feeling that x would happen, so here we are.)
First Contact: Great Crusade
Sovereign: Imperium of Mankind
Succession Laws: Peerage (knights beget knights)
Inheritance: Amazonian (Female only)
Amount of Ceremonies: Divergent (bizarre rituals/ possibly heretical...)
House Demeaner: Swift as the Wind (no planning)
House Flaw: The Big Guns Never Tire (dislikes melee)
Figure of Legend: Baroness
Figure's Heroic Deed: Slew a Daemon Prince
Domain Size: Tiny
Homeworld: N/A (freeblade)
House Hierarchy: Strict
Combat Doctrines: Armored Assault
Preferred Knight Variant: none
House Beliefs: Emperor Above All
Combat Strength: Under Strength (half strength, could be back up within decades or faster with mechanics help)
House Allies: Navigators
House Enemies: Chaos Space Marines (Iron Warriors)

Maybe their homeworld was destroyed sometime ago (perhaps by the Iron Warriors) and they've adopted, due to signs of the tarot, a nomadic life style, moving from place to place, exchanging with other worlds within the empire, service for parts and supplies?

That seems interesting. One thing that bugs me is just how reasonably mobile they are. I mean, if you are a house allied to Navigators, just what on earth are you giving and getting from that relationship. Last I checked, Navigators are fairly hard to come by, and almost impossible to employ the services of without pretty much unlimited power or money from Rogue Trader level clients or better.

I thought that Imperial forces outside of the Space Marines did not have navigators or system-jumping abilities without the permission of the Imperium.

 Elbows wrote:
I thought that Imperial forces outside of the Space Marines did not have navigators or system-jumping abilities without the permission of the Imperium.

Given that some Freelance Knight's operate independantly they must be able to do so unless they are always hitching a lift.

Lots of the Imperium forces have their own ships and navigators, its only the Guard that doesn't really and thats by design post HH , same as how the Navy does not really have soldiers

Own ships (or fleets):

RogueTraders
Adpetus Astartes
Adeptus Arbites
Inquisition
Adepta Sororitas
Adeptus Mechancius

Pretty much any of these may be assisting the House with the exception of the Arbites

The question remains though, in just what they do for the navigators. I mean, they are not really combat oriented. Has fluff changed them at all from just the wide range of approved mutants that are extremely well paid for their services? I mean, the only other thing I can think of is that they are rediculously overpriced guards. The navigators took a job, and you had a knight house playing security, probably taking a few more odd jobs once you they hit planetside.

Maybe the Baroness who slew the daemon Prince saved a Naviagtor House from its corruption and hence they owe them free transport.

we know space wolves have an agreement with a navigator house, supplying a small protection detail in return for their services. I could see a similer agreement. I mean a pair of Imperial Knights would make a pretty potent tool to defend against overt attacks. and likely look impressive just standing outside the gates to their house.

I hate to say it, but even by the fluff a knight killing a daemon prince isn't really that impressive. Maybe change it up to something more to scale with a miniature titan? as to the navigator friendship, if you really can't make it work, give yourself a 'reroll' so to speak. those guides are less 'word of law' and more 'here's a template'

 Brennonjw wrote:
as to the navigator friendship, if you really can't make it work, give yourself a 'reroll' so to speak. those guides are less 'word of law' and more 'here's a template'

True, if you really can't see why it would be so reroll.

But in the far future of 40K many things can happen. Perhaps the Navigator House isn't helping your Knights because of a direct aid agreement but because your Knight House helps someone they value? Some Space Marine Chapters provide an honor guard to a Navigator House and receive shipping benefits for it, but a Knight is a bit too big and flashy in the "normal" scenarios where a Navigator needs a bodyguard. Maybe the agreement is something a bit more distant? Your Knight House keeps someone stationed on a world the Navigators for some reason want protected, perhaps a training station or headquarters world? Or a favorite Rogue Trader that uses this Navigator House pays them generously for arranging protection contracts with the Knight House?

I think I have something worked out for now. What do you think of this:

The Knight World of Honour was discovered at the onset of the Great Crusade almost entirely by accident. A small support fleet under the Navigator house Quellin was travelling as a resupply fleet to directly supply the Emperor's main expeditionary fleet when warp turbulence forced the ships out into the Materium just inside a small star system with a single planet. A short while later, strange reports came in from most of the ships in the fleet and most suffered a critical overload and detonated. One supply cruiser made haste towards the sole planet when it detected the same issues as the others that the rest had suffered. The other ships were too slow and detonated.

By closest proximity and stint of luck, the supply cruiser managed to enter the planets atmosphere when the alarms stopped. The ship landed and the crew began combing over the ship when the Daemon Prince manifested itself and began slaughtering the crew. Some of the crew, including the Navigators managed to escape and fled into the surrounding terrain. Several Knights, sent out to investigate the arrival of this strange new object, encountered the Daemon Prince as it exited the cruiser. The leader managed to slay the prince whIle the others were destroyed.

Etc, etc. The main Imperial fleet back tracks to figure out where their supply fleet went off to, and eventually find the survivors starting to get chummy with the natives. Emperor throws a little party to celebrate, and decided to grant the planet and it's Knights to the Navigators to rebuild. Fast forward to the heresy and the world gets leveled, with the few remaining Navigators and Knights fleeing with what relics they have to take up a nomadic lifestyle amongst the stars.

Anyone see any flaws?