There are five dominant trading houses in the Agrippa Sector. There are also hundreds of sept houses that vie for power in ebb and flow of the sector’s politics. These Houses, for the most part, can trace their lineage back to the very naissance of the sector when it was founded by intrepid Rogue Traders.
Conquerors of the Sector[]
Today the Great Houses maintain that it was their gallant legacies that conquered the sector in the name of the Emperor. While this is true, and the popular belief of the layperson within the Blodsburg subsector, it does not rule out the fact that the Houses remain, an egocentric, factitious lot that serve their own agendas under a possible pretext of loyalty to the Imperium.
Prior to the conversion by St. Aspen Agrippa the Rogue Trader lineages of the present day, Houses were nothing short of robber barons who ruled small regions of the sector as warlords.
Unrestrained by any central government, each House had absolute power over his people and while many colonists were sponsored by the Great Houses, millions found themselves enslaved to the service of the noble trader families.
The very lawlessness of the sector encouraged raids and trade wars among the Houses themselves. In the subsector regions, House raids would descend on a planet and claim it as its own, enslaving the population and raping the world for resources. Indeed the vast wealth of the Houses today was established during the gold-rush of colonization.
When the Emperor’s crusade arrived in Agrippa, the majority of the Houses recognized that the game was up. Any house that resisted the crusade was brutally put down and those that supported the crusade and subsequent Imperial conversion were richly rewarded.
The Power of the Houses[]
Today, the Great Houses maintain their power as protectors of the sector, with each House calling upon their own feudal armies in time of necessity. In fact, it is seen as a qualification of nobility for each House to raise a grand fleet of warships (often to protect their own merchant fleets) that can be called upon by the sector government when needed. It is this strength, combined with what naval power Terra sees fit to assign to the sector that keeps the myriad of humanity’s foes at bay.
Individually each of the House fleet is a massive engine of firepower, certainly not enough to subdue the regular navy fleets of the High Lord Admiral, but combined, and they easily dwarf that has been sent from Hydraphur or Cypra Mundi to patrol the sector’s vast domains. To unite the House fleets is to create a near unstoppable armada of naval power.
In addition, each House can also boast several established sector regiments that not only serve as House protectors, but on the front lines as veterans of the Imperium’s many wars in the sector and abroad. Most importantly, nearly all trade in the sector flows through the authority of the Great Houses, much to the chagrin of lesser provincial subsector holdings such as Hibernia or Moniack. As a result, in recent decades, a fledgling opposition movement to the economic and military strength of the Houses has emerged, calling for an end to trade monopolies, corruption, and a gateway to an open sector wide market. However, true to the motto of the parliament, “so it was, so it shall always be” the Houses hang tooth and nail to their authority, stopping nothing short of armed response to protect their interests.
The Great Houses[]
The Five[]
- House Dukas
- House Fortuna
- House White
- House D'Hautville
- House Red
List of Notable Sept Houses Associated with the Five[]
- House DeBourgogne
- House Azores
- House Ricardi
- House Orcsbane
- House Schwarzchilde
- House Conde
- House Brettoni
- House Moronito