Windsor-Log-Book

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CONTINUED HERE

The crew makes only a few more enemies before leaving Vogen, They hire a Nav and Astro. for the Elzabeth, and she gets home when she

does., the Venerator must make book., and they set course for the Lathes. The navigator Sujaukie attempts

a gigantic warp jump, and makes it, mostly due to the Astronomican being 4 times closer than he's used to. They zoom across the Ixaniad

Sector and groove up to Calixis making port at the Ad-Mech worlds. Here they do some shopping, and further negotiations with the Engineers.

The they attempt to pull into Port Wander in one jump, and mostly make it.

The group has 3 problems to wrestle with: Delayed Party, Old Secrets of the Bad Windsors, and the Top Secret Knowledge of the Lost Ships.

The Sister and Space Marine went to find an Ordo Xeno Inquisitor, and told him about the Barathrum Warp Gate, and how it was sucking

in ships around Naduesh and spewing them towards the Eye of Terror.

The Missionary and the Engineer went looking for a detective, or someone who knew about the old days.

They ran into the Station Provost, who suggested the Mistress at the Breaking Yards, and they ran into Wrath Umboldt.

The crew hauls Elzabeth into the water world Khai-Zahn, home of Vogen. Hoping for supplies and repairs.

The Windsors pull into Khai Zhan orbit, and shuttle down to Vogen City

to gather supplies, hire new crew, especially astropaths and navigators.

Plus get everything repaired and ready for the long journey back to Koronus. 52 weeks at maximum warp.

It turns there are 3 factions mainly to deal with, the Trade Cartels, the Imperial Guard, and the Noble Houses

(the Nobles are heavily supervised by the Arbites since the Cults of 40 years ago)

The Bar Fight at the Bludgeon and Flagon

]The away team gathers up on downtown Vogen to find the Space Wolf,

who had gotten outrageously drunk, and was being talked about on

the radio by a group of mercs from a local noble house.

The team wasn't sure what they were up to, but they didn't trust it,

and zipped over to settle the accounts.

These were well equipped, well armored females all under employ by whom will be discovered.

Lots of shooting, and the ogryn barkeep yelling No Blasters!

At Svard, the group (Sister Diane, Navigator Alistare, Nav.Sujauki, Tech Victis, RT Windsor, Space Wolf Skold)

decide they need to kill time for 2 months till the party, when the big celebration begins,

and the party goals are these:

• they want to "debut" the new House Windsor, show off for potential customers
• they want to return items lost by the space marines
• they want to announce the new fuel depot, drum up business in South Koronus
• they want to attract attention to the religious aspects of Svard (Statue & Artisans)
• they want to auction off the giant anti-matter container they found

So they were looking around their list of old Endeavors, to see if any mission could be crossed off their list and still make it back in time.

So they settled on "Search for the Archduke Modar & Map the Anomaly 616-Theta" which was a minor astronomical endeavor that looked easy.

And they jetted off to Zayth, and then double-checked their charts and coordinated their mission data (page nine: Edge of the Abyss)

The 2 PC navigators estimated themselves into a frenzy and warp-jumped almost right on top of the object.

What they found was a white hole. Looks like a pulsar from a distance, but closer inspection reveals the radically different grav structure, and nature of the spew coming off the thing. White holes discharge much more particulate matter and high-form radiations such as cherenkov, hawking, and chronotic affecting waves.

They dispatched probes to dive into the thing, and set up a marker buoy (which the navy should have [or actually may have] done long ago)

They set their void shields to allow closer inspection, and edged closer. Immediately all crew had to resist the temptation to launch right into the thing. Fortunately the prime navigator and helmsman made their saves. They came to a full stop and activated the Geller field, shut off unnecessary systems, and either calmed, controlled or charmed the crew. The tech adept became enamored, though, wanted to go in, but sent more probes when he was thwarted.

Then they went in even a little closer.

The astropath went mad for it and tried to make the navigator go into the star. He screamed "there's a warp channel on top of it!" but he was clocked over the head

and subdued. So what they had was the Ulysses dilemma at Scylla. They wanted to get closer to see what the problem was, without losing themselves and/or the ship to the side-effects. The Sister did quite a bit to aid the crew through the madness. The space marine stood ready to knock out anyone who went crazy on the bridge.

They made all possible preparations: had the damage control crews out, had the twist-catcher & her crew on full alert, and even tranquillized some crew decks with happy gas. The helmsman takes the ship to the "north pole" of the star, at the top center of rotation of the white hole. when the Venerator gets even closer, to where the void shields are almost sandblasted away by the heat and rad, the navigator starts to see that there is indeed a warp channel with his 3rd eye.

he tries to coach the helmsman to fly blindly to what the nav can only describe, and the shields start to give, this close to the corona of a star. But while suffering crew losses due to breaches, and losses due to madness, and damage to forward systems and loss of ship's atmosphere, and fall of pretty much all the void shields, suddenly they pop through, and are in a wormhole, tunnel of some sort. It is a cool dark place, and they can see the galaxy swishing by beneath them, through the "lower" surface of the tunnel.

Then they spot a large reddish light is up ahead in the "tunnel" (think worm hole transit from Contact)

Crew: "what is that?!?"

GM: {lore rolls are made} "Looks like the Eye of Terror to you"

Navigator: "well we don't want to go there"

GM: "you immediately fall out of the tunnel into normal space"

Rogue Trader: shudders, knowing that if the Nav had said something like "Oh Cool" instead they would have plunged right into the Eye of Terror

Almost immediately they are hailed by a lost imperial ship, the IMS Elsabeth. This is not the Modar they sought, but it was on the list of missing ones in the area.

Their ship had been translated all the way across Koronus, Calixis, Ixianid, and more towards the EoT. The nearest imperial planet was Khai-Zahn

They effected repairs, rigged the Elsabeth for towing, and headed for Khai Zahn. The Venerator is more than a year away from home. But they have made a great discovery. The madness in the attraction of the star makes lesser men totally lose it, and the senior crew, astropaths, navigators and others were all dead on the Elsabeth. This is why the ships on the list are never heard from again: Either they go all the way into the Eye of Terror, or drop out early with their beidge crews dead from warp madness. Their travel and comm, which depend on men, are dead. The lost ships can travel at sublight, or send with regular radio, but over galactic distances, you may as well be dead.

Long story short:

If a searcher knows the mental strength and skill of the navigator, then you can triangulate

the position where a lost ship will pop out of the anomaly, in a long curving cone

drawn between 616-Theta and the Eye. With the log info from Elsabeth

and a debriefing from the Windsor Navs, and the augur data, a rugged ship and wise crew

could probably find all the other ships on the missing list.

This knowledge is a great prize for the Windsors, as this info is of vast value to the Navigator houses, the Mechanicus,

and the Imperial Navy, as well as any other RT houses that lost ships to 616 Theta.

It is not known if the wormhole could be controlled or targeted at anything other than the EoT.

Where the name Barathrum came from is unknown, but it seems to be a cognate of the Dark Eldar term for abyss or armpit.

Also by right of salvage they now have a free transport, the Elsabeth

All they have to do now is live to deliver the info and themselves home.

The group tackled a small pirate crew (ship thieves, specifically) and boarded them.

They had to stop their "self destruct" device which would have released Chaos of some kind

into the ventilation system of the boat. By risking his own soul, the explorator was able

to stall the device long enough to jettison it. They saved the ship, captured the pirate seneschal

and some of the crew. They renamed the ship the Crimson Prodigal, since it had a blasphemous name.

Group complains of the "small ships" they are capturing, realize that the big quarry is out in the Far Halo.

Then the group jetted out to "the back-ass of beyond" (Far Halo) to Thi-Alpha-Chi to reclaim

that anti-matter bottle they had marked earlier. That went reasonably smoothly, but there was a Necron Cairn

down system, taking on fuel and supplies. It sent monoliths to investigate the PCs ships, but our heroes

were able to bug out in time.

Group has risked 20 PF on festival and party preps.

Our Crew killed Last of the Void Wasps. Only Sister, Tech-Marine, and RT in attendance. Team Restored Cog to operations.

Restored Transportation and Delivery Systems to entirety of Svard systems. Cleaned up Silence, killing off the Yuvath Lamenter

that lived there. Got the Crimson Detensor Back from shipyard at Zayth. Sent the CD to Port Wander for Men, Trade Goods.

Fought off possessed statues in Silence. Avoided ambushes by last of the the Yuvath's Void Wasps. Last one jets out of system.

It was followed back by Ship Thieves. Pirate Incursion follows.

RT puts out select invites to trade for Promethium trade from Installation 23. Gave Navy excellent contract for refueling rights in Svard.

Also they put out Invites for Party, a grand centennial bash to announce the arrival of RT Windsors, garner prestige and generate interest.

Announce to Auction off the Anti-Matter bottle (not yet in hand) from the first Halo expedition 7 months ago.

Keel and the Hand of R. demand repair first and zip back to Calixis. Apparently he was overdue or on a wrong mission or whatever.

Also it appear that something is odd with the Administratum folks that have come to crew the depot.

Invite RTs, Ecclesiarchy, Space Marines. Attempt hoodwink Space Marines by telling them of reclaimed Helmet from long ago.

(it was actually a Gold Legion helmet, and they will attend the ceremony, and accept the gift)

All told from the reclamation of Svard, even with its high costs, casualties, and setbacks; the Groups renown and PF rise to 52.

Next Week: Pirates, and Anti-Matter Run

Our team gets into a gigantic space battle at Svard:

Side A: The Venerator, The Hand of Redemptrion, and the Constant Ally (Svard PDF System Ship),

plus gun crews on Moon K-20 and Inst.23

take on Side B: the Yuvath Mothership, Six Yuvath Destroyers, and 4 Whisper Cult Sytem Ships.

House Windsor Tech Crews are working overtime and under the gun to reboot the defense lances on Installation 23.

The mothership has "Hatred Imperials" and so the players exploit its tendency to dog the Hand

and use the stern chase to whittle down the destroyers, and lead the mothership into the guns at K20.

Eventually the players prevail, at median cost to themselves.

But they bombard the retreating mothership, and it falls into the gas giant.

Now they control ALL of Svard and its moons. Since the mothership issued "rise up and murder"

orders to her Whisper Cultists, it became bloody obvious who the bad guys were.

Previous to this almost everyone in the cult operated like a sleeper cell,

so it was almost impossible to detect a traitor and morale system wide was very low.

Next week the players have to repair, reorganize, visit Cog and Silence, and watch the PF rise.

Our team makes a desperate bid for the Energy Control Center, and the Tech-Adept is able to cut power to key areas, yet hack the displays to fool the operators otherwise.

When the Void Shields came down, the Hand and Venerator landed about 7 battalions of boarders, servitors, and ratings to fight the Whisper Cult. Pictured above, a Void Wasp,

which is an escort-sized Yuvath str vessel. Heavy Casualties taken in the borading crew. Between 60 to 150 various ship crew revealed to be Whisperers.

Minor Damage to the Hand and Venerator. The Yuvath starship has risen out of the gas giant and will pursue the Hand. All Whisperers have gone into

mindless attack mode through out the system. Installation is largely secured but not completely operable yet.

With some casualties, Windsor mops up the Whisper Cult on Darcont, & steals their shuttle.

Then Unblinking Venerator, shadowed by the Hand of Redemption, cruises over to the next moon in line,

Installation 23, the huge (2.1km diameter) space station in low Svard orbit. They do not approach but so

close, since the station is armed and hostile due to majority of personnel being Whisperers.

Negotiations go poorly, but the team learns that the station hovers over a large foreign object,

and beams power to it, and sends shuttles full of something down to it. They then approach in a

shuttle to the underside, and sneak onto an airlock. They find a control room and kill all the operators,

since some team members didn't follow the plan. But the Space Wolf eats the senior operators brain,

and the Tech hacks the machine spirit, and they both learn some salient facts. They remain on the station,

and will set up a sneak attack for next week.

======================================================================================

Having just escaped the K-Nib patrols out in the Near Halo, our boys from House Windsor rigged their Gr.Gr.Uncles ship for towing, and turned back

into the awesome storms of the Hecaton Rift. Scuttlebutt among the crew is that journeys always go better when the assistant Navigator is at the helm.

But that's just an unsubstantiated rumor. Arriving safely at Zayth, the group gets to work. The prize crew also flies its ship back to base. The Bright-Mystic gets

refurbished and sent over to Zayth 3 to ferry around the mercenaries met earlier. The small ship can function well in the high-speed, high-stakes role that commando transport

demands. Supplies, voidsmen, parts, ad-mechs, and security are detailed at Zayth for the repair job on Crimson Detensor. Navigators cannot be located,

so messages are sent to House Stolarion and the Domino crew for a recruiting drive. Finally Captain Keel's ship, the Hand of Redemption, arrives.

The full rogue trader roster (minus sister) flies over, and has dinner with their officers. The Windsors, especially the space marine, carouse much better.

They accept the rescue mission to Svard, and learn of the Windsor stake in the Svard claim. They jet to there, fighting an Astral Reaper from the Warp

along the way. At Svard they survey the whole system, contact the council, and begin to explore, search, and survey the complex places.

Much potential lurks in the wisps and hidey holes of the system.

House Windsor continues around the first region of the Halo beyond the Galactic Rim. They are starting to believe the rumors that this

is a haunted and dead area of the galaxy. Of the nine star systems they have surveyed, totalling over 80 planets, there has been one

class M world, and that overrun with K-Nib spiders. They explored Krell, Innes, New Chicago, Kattia, Thorak and Underworld.

They found a failed colony, where apparently a wrecked ship survived for a while but the crew were kidnapped by the K-Nib.

Also they found a "trophy world" where a Cronos Parasite Engine was laid to honorable rest, along with trophy heads from various

Xeno warriors, but it included a Space Marine of the Gold Legion. This the Space Wolf took to give it an honorable burial.

First paydirt was later found when an 11 thousand year old derelict located (8 successes on sensors) This small yacht had a

ghost field and tractor beams of a type never seen before. The senior enginseer himself suited up to go look at the thing, it was so

incredible. A marker was left, and they will return to salvage this incredible antique. A Sororitas ship was found, with a heretic

and a pie on board.

Next paydirt was located, and it was the Crimson Detensor, the Conquest Galleon of Gr-Grand-Uncle Theobert Windsor, from 1250

years ago, when the Gremveri Combine were subdued. Bad news was this vessel was under tow by the arachnoid K-Nib, and

protected by a cloaked destroyer. So a minor space battle, but a major boarding operation with actually only a few casualties.

This was because the K-Nib took live prisoners, and so after the battle, web solvent could save most of the men trapped or injured.

The Venerator towed the Detensor away under threat of more K-Nib pursuit.

Two messages arrive from Koronus: The Navy would like to see RT Windsor, Captain Keel from Svard.

Also The Domino has successfully installed the base of operations at Gremveri, so

agricultural efforts can start there, setting up a triangle trade of Troops from Kaledon,

Grain from Gremveri, Colonists, Explorarors and Missionaries out to both worlds. 1 PF total.

Our heroes launch straight out rimward, towards the Rifts of Hecaton. First stop after Zayth was Runeworld, a blank dead spot

with a dull star and a ruined planet. No activity. However wispy warp trails swirling with microscopic organic debris cause the

crew to believe the tales of a Space-Hydra that crunches vessels. The debris seems to be the behemoth's dandruff or something

similar. So they jet off to parts unknown. Crossing the Rifts of Hecaton takes all the skill the Navigator had, actually more.

The transit took 130 days, but the worst effects were some trivial crew losses due to space madness. Storms and Nebula

plague the whole journey, but due to the special ability of the Nomadic line Nav, they are able to mitigate what should have

been terrible. They arrive and take the first survey in umpteen-hundred years of the Near Halo.

They set course for a place (randomly codenamed) Underworld, but warp grief sent them hurtling long to Thi-Alpha-Chi.

This dead place they explore, but found a derelict ship, from which they recovered an auto-temple and a warp-sextant for

later use. The anti-matter bottle they had to leave. Then they went to Exxonia, and found that it was a K-Nib world, overrun

with the deadly arachnoids. Fortunately the K-Nib satellite was in an uplink cycle, and did not register the arrival of our

interloping heroes.

They beat a retreat, not having the resources necessary to exterminate the bugs, for their star system had over 25 vessels,

plus at least one human ship captive.

Next they surveyed Columbo-194, another dead world, wherein they found a helmet and a derelict courier. Now this vessel

was salvageable and they put in fuel and a prize crew. They were doing this work when an Orkish Kroolboy full of slave-catchers

began bearing down on them. They jetted off with prize in tow.

Other factoids from the voyage: The group is down to one extra Nav. apprentice. Their 2nd Seneschal Millie used to be a navigator,

but she has lost the 3rd eye.

Zayth has 8 planets and an asteroid shell. Orks infested the asteroids, House Saul mines the moon of the 5th, Im.Guard has base on moon of the 2nd, and "Gamma World" style warlords rule the terrestrial 3rd planet from their giant crawler cities. Having killed 10% of the Orks, the boys from House Windsor decide to communicate with others in system. Pirates are reputedly around, but have not been seen. The Atomic Warlords want deals on weapons, but are confused since the PCs are not House Saul, their usual brokers. Also, previously unknown merc outfits on Zayth-3 contact the Windsors, and seek to make deals on jobs and bounties, again, confused since Windsor ≠ Saul, but hey all we need is Thrones if you have the transportation. Finally the IG on Zayth 2a is contacted, and they offer to exchange supplies, shore leave, etc. The subject of Orks and pirates comes up. Captian Windsor wants to subjugate the pirates by absorption and attrition, but the plan doesn’t seem to have a way to get started. House Saul joins conference, brings banana daquiris. With the IG Cobra Archon of Majescus, several gun-cutters, the Venerator, and a support boat from Saul, a decent plan is hatched to scour the Orkish louts from the asteroids. For a month, the impromptu command bombards, boards, and batters the greenskins until no sign of them can be found with augurs. For this House Saul agrees to co-base with Windsor on Zayth 5a until such time as Windsor trucks in their own base and supplies. With a beachhead in far Koronus now had, the Windsors stock up and jet off to the Halo Stars, plowing right through the rifts of Hecaton the hard way.

Loot from the Orks: Bolter Ammo, Firenza the Woman, Chaos Pyramid, Slicer Kit, an Equipment vest, and half a suit of basic power armor. The pyramid turned into an android, subverted a junior Ad-Mech, and he corrupted some servitors and his deck had to be cleansed.

Mercs of Zayth contacted, but not brokered. ; Warlord of Zayth contacted, but not allied. ; Conference with IG, Saul, and Navy of Zayth System. Message arrives that secondary endeavor to Kaledon has been successful. Starter base established, new base ordered. The starship Domino will establish Gremveri base, then do milk runs if Venerator is overdue. (Lathe, Wander, Kaledon, Zayth, etc.)

Also it is noted that Chief Engineer Exomach is much more of a biologist than a mechanic. Whether this matters or not remains to be seen as he seems to delegate work to experts in their fields (warp, geller, lances, etc.) and he supervises by walking around all over the ship.

Other efforts raise Profit & Renown to 35 total. First Misfortune passed.

FULL ROSTER: Explorator , Battle Sister , Navigator , Astropath; Sp.Marine , Missonary , Ar.Militant, Ro.Trader. (Craig, Chris, Tim, Tom, Bill, Ryan, Alfred, Bob)

They arranged hirelings to go back to Kaledon and set up shop in a side-endeavor.

Then they jetted off to Zayth to see what was all the fuss.

There's only about 4 things of interest in the system:

the mines, the guard, the war-world, and the scum living in the asteroid belt.

after describing the layout the crew cheered "let's kill Orks" and

used their ship's superior tech to hunt some Orks, pick off their gun-kuttas

So the PC's take care of the gargants and turrets and other Ork junk from orbit.

but they still have to get to the heart of the asteroid to root out the mek-boyz

and any other humanoids who can rebuild their war efforts.

They had to slaughter about 30 boys, 5 nobs, various grots, and some wandering squigs;

by cutting their way into their Rok. highlights of the battle:

• a wyrd boy trying "brain krusha" on the nav. and astropath
• the missonary cleansing gretchin out of the sewers with flame.
• a particularly vicious face-eater squig that went on several turns with the RT.
• the ratings being led into battle by the RT, and all but 4 being casualties.
• a huge ogryn beating on the sister, and she cuts his club away, so he picks up the nearest boy by both legs to beat her with that instead.
• battle-sister cuts down the ogryn finally with righteous fury
• the wyrd boy holding the sister's chainsword with his force field covered hand
• the lead Nob pulling the pin on a stikk-bomb and holding it to the RT,
• and the space marine and arch-militant wrestling it away heroically.

the Orks had "murder servitor" equivalents and smart snotlings running around. very odd.

plus they had some humie slaves, but only one had a breather mask and lived.

next week, the party loots the Rok and decides what other trouble to stir up in Zayth system.

House meets with Imperial Governor Arabon. Requisition troops for Port Wander. Promise to establish 2nd Office on Kaledon.

chance meeting with Nav. survey ship of Nav.Nob.Stolarion. Find Relics of Grandfather and Granduncle. Transit to Gremveri Combine. Survey worlds with an eye to exploitation.

Gathering bridge crew, recruiting the voidsmen, signing The Venerator off from Ad-Mech control at Port Wander, gathering info.

(character creation) The Deathwatch has forwarded a marine to the RT house as a way to watch out for Xeno threats from the Halo.

The region has been quiet lately, too quiet. The watch suspects something.

The crew risked almost all of their profit on trade supplies to go to a trade and info-gather endeavor on Kaledon.

they met the planetary governor, met the Nav-House Stolarion, and saw the agro worlds of the Gremveri.

They found a mural at a church with their great-gr-gr-gr-gr-grandfather on it, and a statue in the church wore a navigator's wristwatch from the gr-gr-gr-granduncle.

They took troops back to the commander of Port Wander as a favor, and swapped charts with the Navigators as a favor.they promised to bring a trading post to Kaledon to help out the governor thereas well as "claim" Kaledon again for House Windsor.

They learned that there may be some intrigue with House Krin at Port Wander.

The group wants to investigate Zayth, with any eye to settling the war there, exploiting the lost Tech, and making more of the situation than House Saul is currently doing,as well as making it a safe supply base for House Windsor from which to strike out to the Halo.

The group learned of a world called Atlantia, which may be an agro world. It is a fragment of a legend in the church about the Halo region.Info is quite sketchy, but the mural and the wristwatch both confirm the Ad-Mech's basic knowledge of the House Windsor warrant.

The players have re-ignited the fortunes of Windsor House. Their warrant of trade is ANCIENT.

BRIEF WARRANT TIMELINE

1st Gen: from 009.M31 - Near Halo Exploration

2nd Gen; from 275.M32 - Far Halo Exploration , then 3rd Gen until

25th Gen: from 379.M40 - Halo Pacification

26th Gen: from 481.M40 - Looting the Halo {also 27th} (Lady Madrian)

28th Gen: from 830.M40 - Gremveris and Kaledon (Theo and Don)

Dormancy: from 190.M41 - Leaders & Heirs missing

28th Gen: from 417.M41 - False Flag of Bollikos

29th Gen: from 748.M41 - False Flag of CPO K.Windsor

30th Gen: from 012.M42 - Renewed with ship UNBLINKING VENERATOR {now}

I said to the players "roll to see how old your charter is", then I interrupted "No, I'll roll it" , and the dice came up OO right there in front of everybody.So the players start chanting "Emperor! Emperor!" for the signatory. but I said, "not so fast, it could have been signed by a primarch or somebody, roll again" Next dice roll comes up 85. So I said okay, close enought, You have an Extremely Ancient Warrant, signed by the Emperor Himself.

But while they're giggling themselves into a lather over this luck I remind them of the ; huge responsibilities that I'm going to lay on them.

Their great-great-31st-great-grandfather gained fame for stamping down star clusters out in the Halo, and killing nasty aliens, and tithing their Tech back to the Adeptus Mechanicus, and getting rid of all who did not revere the Imperium of Mankind. For 26 generations (they are long in space) they deeply scanned and ran rough-shod all over the Halo. Then came the hard times.

After years of serving the Emperor's Legions hauling supplies and servitors,

following the Great Crusade and Imperial Establishment of Calixis Sector.

Kalsephon J. Windsor was awarded, along with 9 other lords, a Charter to Trade by A coalition of sector rulers: The Mechanicus, The Church and the Navy.

The Warrants were carried to the Emperor, where he signed them after approving their plan to subdue the region, then they carried the warrants back to the waiting Rogue Traders, who were released like dog teams in a race across arctic wastes.

This board divvied up the far sectors of Obscurus, and Windsor got the most spotty one,

the farthest trailing "east", the section starting after the Rifts of Hecaton.

These ten traders were, from a certain point of view in the Empire, seen as failures.

After all these warrants were issued in M31 and the sectors around Calixis and Koronus

did not begin to civilize until M36 with the Haarlock charter, and Winterscale, and others.

Way out in the Halo Stars ( remember the Emperor's light never personally shown

in Koronus, much less in the Halo) House Windsor encountered at least seven great alien

civilizations, and had to crush them all, since they would not serve, submit, or become vassals.

The Windsor's reputation was founded on Archaeotech trade, but that was long centuries ago.

After each conquest, the Windsor flotilla would limp back into Avignor, Thracia Primaris, or even Caliban,

and bring back minerals, artifacts, and strange tech.

For 25 generations (here defined as times of recorded changeovers of the hereditary warrant, at Avignor)

House Windsor would trek out to the Halo, getting famous for their conquests, but not so much producing

new imperial worlds or citizens. They made the Mechanicus happy with their science, and they made the Navy

happy with the extreme pacification of the area. The Church, not so much. But everyone was busy with

chaos wars and Apostasy and all that, so there were bigger Imperial fish to fry.

Then the 26th generation (Lady Madrian Unrexi Windsor) and 27th generations of Windsors (her sons, Donicus and Theobert)totally surprised everyone. They brought the Gremveri Star Group to heel, and these abhumanoids now serve the Empire as slaves, if not vassals, and they grow food for Kaledon, which is the first and only world brought into the Imperium's embrace by Windsors. This period, approximately 900 years ago, was the pinnacle of overall glory for the clan.

Then Theobert never returned. The Conquest-class Star Galleon which was his flagship, did not make port or messages for 7 years. Donicus set out to look for him, and also did not fully return, his Repulse grand-cruiser sent back messages and signs of hope, but eventually he too went beyond the 7 years overdue mark. Trusty officers from their RT offices on Kaledon trekked the warrant back to Avignor, with the sad duty to report the loss, and determine the status of the charter.

They had the choice to take the warrant to the Navy, the Church, or the Mechanicus. Luckily for our heroes, they chose to show it to the Navy. If the church or the engineers had gotten it, the charter would be locked away in a museum, forever and ever amen. The warrant sat in the office an Admiral Bollikos for 17 years till he retired. Then he read it as he was packing up his things, and decided to exploit it. and he did three things.

• He found a Senior Petty officer coincidentally named Windsor, and mustered the man out with himself.
• He took out a huge loan, and got himself a ship and some rejuvenat treatments.
• He hijacked the light cruiser Scancion of Obscuros and jetted off to the Halo Sector.

There he started making trouble, just barely operating above the level of a pirate, and making new marks in the region. He called himself "a Windsor man" set up his first mate actually named Windsor to cash the checks they were writing. Then after a few years he presented himself and his charter to the navy office at Fenksworld, and sold them a bill of goods on his deeds, prowess, lineage, and value to the Empire.

Some sort of bribe must have enabled the years of travesty to follow. He and his "son" carried on like a wanton scalawag around Calaxis, Koronus and the Halo. Only their constant tithes to the Navy made this possible.

Recently when another Navy man named Windsor was mustering out at Port Maw, and was receiving his bounties and debriefings, a yellow flag came up on his file, and he was asked to go down the hall to see the Ad.Mech. in charge of Medicae. This was not unusual, for perhaps he had picked up some sort of sickness in the void?

During his exam, the Adept notified our boy of the extreme value of his blood, given that it was 57% blood-lined to the Windsors. "Silly me, I thought I was 100% Windsor, what with that being my father's name."

The Adept corrected him on his time scale: not this generation, but from many generations back.

For years the Mechanicus had been looking for people named Windsor to reconstitute the dynasty

that had brought so much knowledge into their hands. A Senior Adept now invited our Navy man to

travel to Avignor, on their expense. If it didn't pan out, it would be a free junket on the imperial dime.

So now Captain Windsor travels under Skitari guards, with three adepts in tow, to Avignor.

There they meet Alfredicus Windsor, another citizen, a Guardsmen, who had a 52% match of blood.

They are now told the whole sprawling plan. They qualify as heirs to the Ancient Windsor Legacy.

This legacy is now out romping the Halo. Would they like to reclaim it? Yes? Why are we helping you? The legacy benefits everyone in the Imperium, and we love the Emperor and all his citizens. And yes the Ad.Mech. benefits quite a bit, possibly.

So they requisition a light skiff, and set out to Fenksworld. There they practiced voids-men training, getting the Captain and the Arch-militant ready to be ship officers, and turning them from ground-pounders into proper hard working starship crew that know and love the void.

At Fenksworld, the Ad.Mech. sets up Windsor making donut runs to and from the Lathe Worlds,

for practice. Also they plant agents on Port Wander, to wait, watch and report.

Soon enough, the ship of "Admiral" Bollikos comes sauntering back into home with his "rogue trader" set-up,

and docks at Port Wander. Then the Ad.Mechs agents there mix in with the engineering crew, and send message to Fenksworld: "Interested-Party@PW". So our Windsor boys and all their new Ad.Mech friends zoom into Port Wander and meet with and try to reason with the Captain, which turns out to be Kenneth C. Windsor, none other than the petty officer from long ago who is now playing captain now that Bollikos has passed on.

They ask him politely, Can you please turn over this warrant, which has little do with your honor, nothing to

do with your family, and which you impede every day by keeping it from its glorious high calling? So he laughs off the Ad.Mechs, are you kidding? This warrant was gathering dust and I, well, me and my esteemed Admiral reactivated it fair and square, refounding a proud naval tradition.

"As you wish", and the Ad.Mechs retire, but signal the crew. They don't exactly sabotage the Scancion Obscurus, because that would be heretical, but they do make life extremely difficult for the officers of it,

and soon days drag into weeks and the ship is firmly stuck at Port Wander, and "no we have no idea

when we'll have the machine spirits debugged" and the gun rails aligned, and gosh its looking

like a giant hairball, to get this thing going again. Emperor only knows what happened on its last warp jump.

So right on cue, the all-hatted up "Captain" Kenny Windsor goes over and asks the Navy to help out with this logjam. The thursday deck officer gets out a red folder, and starts reading some salient facts out loud to the "captain", about the true lineage of himself, his vessel, and his "commission". Kenny turns white, but recovers slightly when the officer tells him that the Sector Admiral's investigation of this matter will commence next monday at the offices of the tribunal. Again on cue, he hops a freighter that weekend and bugs out with his hide and wallet intact.

Miraculously the maintenance issues on Scancion resolve on monday, and the Mechanicus turns the vessel over the Navy, its rightful owners. Our rightful commander, RT Windsor, accompanies them and retrieves the warrant, still in the same cheap navy-issue folder from the shelf in the office of Bollikos all those years ago,

even though the document bears the signature of the Emperor Himself.

Back on Fenksworld, they present RT Windsor with an old Lathe Class Cruiser. With a few well placed honorariums, and some builder assistance on that old spire, the local Navy and Ecclesiarchy all bless the Warrant and House Windsor, and with the old tri-partite coalition back in support, the "dynasty" is ready to roll again.

CHARTER OF IMPERIAL MARQUE

Prospectus of the Ecclesiarchy, Navy, and Mechanicus

Signed into Effect by His Hand on 10.01.009M30

WARRANT NOTES:

Age: Ancient ; Fortune: Fallen ; Acquired: By Reward ; Sanction: Halo Artifacts ; Contacts: Mechanicus

Other Factors: Dark Secret, Redeemed, Elite Warrant

Now the price of all this help is this: Three Ad-mechs will go wherever they go, and observe and report on all seen and done in Koronus and the Halo. Also the Windsors owe the Mechanicus a large (Profit Factor 8) favor to be named later. They don't care if he keeps the Navy or Church happy or not, but if these new Windsors rake in even 10% of the treasure that the Ancient family did, everyone will be quite pleased.==================