Rogue Trader - Shattering Stars
Inquisitor Crassus Florentine
A corrupt Inquisitor
Bringing down the Gaius Dynasty
What is known about Crassus Florentine is that he is an Inquisitor of the Ordo Hereticus obsessed with warp artifacts and the power they offer. His greatest desire was to acquire the legendary treasure at the heart of the Gaius Dynasty. But much to his fury, they were far too well connected and powerful to openly move against, even for an inquisitor.
Over the course of decades Crassus planned and gathered power. If he was to be successful, he had to destroy the heads of the dynasty, steal their Warrant of Trade, and empty The Vault of all of its artifacts. Without a Warrant or an heir the sprawling and powerful dynasty would be effectively dead. All of it’s institutions, fleets, contacts, and agents would in a moment become outlaws with no legal protection. And though there were those, even in the inquisition, who would fight to protect the dynasty, if he got the Warrant and eliminated the House of Gaius, there would be nothing to fight for, and he could pick apart at it’s corpse at his leisure, further growing in power and influence.
He gathered forces and contacts, herek and warp artifacts, and made dark pacts in preparation for his strike. Using the artifacts in The Vault, and the power and wealth of a dying dynasty as bait, he gathered numerous allies to his cause.
When the time to strike came, Crassus’s allies drew away the system fleet. Bringing massive forces to bear, his fleet of Imperial and Xenos darkened the sky of Catania. As soon as they dropped out of warp a localized but powerful warp storm engulfed the system. Warp portals ravaged the surface, sewing chaos and disabling defenses. The planet still fought desperately and bravely, but they stood no chance. Catania was razed in a single night.
In triumph Crassus looted The Vault and stole the Gaius Dynasty’s Warrant of Trade. After the combat was over, he managed to capture the last member and heir of the Gaius Dynasty. In killing him he would achieve total victory.
But Crassus was greedy, and had waited too long to get access to the vault. The knowledge the boy had of the artifacts contained within could save him decades of work, and without a Warrant of Trade he was no threat. So he imprisoned him for interrogation.
This proved to be a fatal mistake. Though young, Octavian Gaius was cunning, perceptive, and charismatic; and well trained in intrigue. He seduced Crassus’s astropath and head assistant to his service with promises of freedom, power, and the opportunity for knowledge. She freed him and helped him escape with his warrant of trade.
But most damaging of all, she planted a virus that deleted all of his records on the Gaius Dynasty, and destroyed his own vault containing the Gaius Dynasty’s treasure, ejecting it into the warp and scattering it across space and time.
Dead Man Walking
Crassus is now a desperate man. He was to pay back the favors made to him with the fat carcass of the Gaius Dynasty, and the items in The Vault. Without his files of the locations and resources of the Gaius Dynasty and the treasure of The Vault, he cannot pay back his debts, and the debtors will soon come calling. He has bought time with desperate promises and small payments, but he knows his time is short.
A man with nothing to lose, and powerful human, xenos, and daemonic debts to pay, he is increasingly desperate and dangerous. He knows he needs valuable and powerful artifacts to pay back his debts, and that the only place he is likely to find them in time is in the Koronus Expanse.