Aurinko

Rogue Trader: Drake Dynasty
GM
Adam
Dynastic Power
Character Level: 31,250 XP / Rank 8
Profit Factor: 43𝖕
Command Crew
Lord-Captain Drake Navigator Primus Mordecai Arch-Millitant Winter Astropath Solarus
House Drake Fleet
Aurea Albion Hound of Albion • Abhorrent Fortuitous Purpose • Penance of Iocanthos
Drake Trade Empire
Damaris • Scintilla • Kulth Svard • Dross • Aurum Sepheris Secundus • Tennenberg Killian's Rest
Drake Expeditions
Open Missions
Grand Endevours
Personnel
Magistrates • Retainers Militants Svard 1st • Stormtroopers House Drake Expeditionary Army
Assets
Materiel Aerospace Craft • Ground Vehicles
Armoury Wargear • Relics and Artifacts
Other Estate Secrets and Contacts • Awards and Honors
The Galaxy
Locations Calixis Sector Koronus Expanse • Periphery Subsector Personalities Peers of the Imperium Rival Rogue Traders
Utilities
Rogue Trader Timeline House Rules Guide and Lore

[Intro]

Astrography

Aurinko - the star of Svard system, Aurinko is a Class M RGB-III red giant. With a mass double that of Sol and diameter hundreds of times bigger, Aurinko is believed to have swallowed most of the inner planets.

Jatti - is the largest planetary body of Svard system. This Jupiter-class gas giant has captured most of the remaining planetary bodies of Svard into its orbit. It also presents a significant navigation hazard as its atmosphere is being slowly drained by Aurinko's proximity, creating a spectacular particle storm. It was in the upper layers of Jatti that Lord Drake finally discovered the ‘’Whisperer’’, and ancient warship of Yu’voth origin.

Cog – is a tectonically stable small moon half again as close to Jatti as Svard. Cog would be unremarkable among Jatti’s planetoid moons were it not for its abundance of rare earth and heavy metals and remarkable geological stability given its location.

Inner Asteroid Ring – Between the planetoids of Svard and Cog sits a ring of asteroids in a constant fluxing orbit around Jatti and intermingled among themselves. A good half of the asteroids are simply chunks of ice, with the rest a mix of silicoid and ferrous. Silence, with its abundance of marble, is the only asteroid so far to be unique enough to warrant note.

Svard - is the largest moon of Jatti, as well as the most distant of the settled moons. Mechanicus Astrographers believe that Svard used to be an independent planetary body until it was captured by Jatti's gravitational pull during Aurinko’s expansion phase. Certainly the fact that the planet contains massive river basins despite having a temperature that only rises above freezing in a few locations on the equator lends credence to this theory. The planet’s oceans remain liquid under a layer of ice, warmed by geothermal vents. It has a breathable atmosphere, as well as native animal and plant life, though most of it resides in the oceans.

Demographics

As the only planet in the system that does not require void technology to survive, Svard in naturally the largest settlement in the system, it is home to four of the five million residence of the system.

History

The Aurinko system was first mapped by Rogue Trader Wilhelm Thaurn of House Drake in 682.M39. He made a note of the habitable planet and potential for a promethium refinery and a unique mablesque asteroid before moving on to other projects. Two years later he sold the asteroid to a religious statuary group, who set up a monastery.

In 701.M439 he discovered a derelict Yu’voth battleship. Knowing that it would be dangerous to smuggle the ship through the Maw before he had a buyer, he towed the craft to the Aurinko system and hid it among Jetti’s clouds, who’s massive particle emissions would hide the crafts presence. Planing to use the profit from the ship to boost his place in the House, he informed no family members of its existence.

Founding of a Colony

After three years of unsuccessfully attempting to locate a buyer for the xeno craft and a close call during the exploration of the system another Rogue Trader, Wilhelm founded the colony of Svard as a cover to keep other explorers away from the system. Although some family members were curious, the system had enough benefits to justify Wilhelm funding the colony project himself. Five years later, with Installation 23 just starting construction, Wilhelm’s ship disappeared, presumed lost with all hands.

Unaware of its original purpose, other members of House Drake took over management of the colony, eventually completing Installation 23. The profit from the high-grade promethium refinery proved to be sufficient for the well-connected Drake dynasty to in turn pay for the construction of the roving factorium of Cog. Just a little two centuries of its founding, the colony of Svard was breaking even, and nearly self-sufficient.

The success of Svard, however, coincided with the fall of House Drake. Visits from members of the dynasty became less frequent as their number of ships decreased. Under the regency of High Factorum Marinas the Mad (283.M40 to 440.M40), the all references to the ownership and colony of Svard disappeared from the Drake House records. The Drake Dynasty’s last connection to the colony, a writ of trade from there to Damaris, was finally sold off to a free captain in 912.M40. The colony would continue to exist and grow slowly as an independent colony for nearly a millennia.

The Whisperers

The Whisperer Attacks

In 766.M41 the sudden closure of the Synosol warp storm sent a warp energy shockwave through most of the foundling worlds. It is believed that this energy “jumpstarted” the derelict Yu’voth ship, bringing it back to life. It then slowly returned to its original mission of destroying humanity, starting with the Aurinko system. Unable to contact any other Yu’voth, and unknowing the relative abandonment of the system, it started subtly, using its insidious mind control ability to indoctrinate nearby humans.

The first indications the government of Svard had that something was going on in their system was the increasing reluctance of free captains to continue trading with the colony. This hesitancy was initially dismissed though, along with the necessity to relocate the citadel of psychers, as a warp resonance within Jetti. Over the next few years, a few free traders stopped using the route, but enough stayed to prevent a complete economic breakdown.

Four years later Svard suffered an unexplained mutiny onboard Installation 23. The mutineers, which consisted of nearly three quarters of the population of the station across all levels of the organization, swiftly took the station intact and with a minimum of casualties on either side. The Crystal Counsel waited for demands, but none ever came. Knowing that the high-grade promethium was the only export keeping the traders in the system, Speaker Tal authorized an armed expedition to meet with the crew and regain control of the station. Admiral Larson took nearly a quater of the systems craft and a few hundred men to "convince" the station to return to the control of the Council.

When he arrived, however, he found that all of nearly all of the former prisoners were now fighting on the side of the mutineers. Worse still, hundreds of his own men turned upon arrival, leading to countless acts of sabotage and misdirection. The assault failed horribly, with only portion of the system ships able to return, the rest having been lost to the guns or turned against Svard. The assault did result in one positive for Svard, they successfully captured several of the conspirators. Psychic interrogation revealed that these people were no longer in control of themselves, and constantly thought about a being known as the Whisperer.

Unfortunately for Svard, the failed assault on the station had been witnessed by one of the few free traders who still visited the planet. The word that the promethium was gone and the system was cursed served to insure that no others would visit. The logical assumption was that the station had fallen to a Chaos Cult, and the counsel moved to gather a larger force to retake the station by force. It was assumed that a force of ten thousand, over a quarter of the system's active duty personel, should be more then sufficient to capture the station.

Gathering such a force, however, was plagued with issues from the beginning. Whisperer agents, it would appear, had already spread to Svard and enacted a long series of assassinations and terrorist acts to effectively prevent the government from pulling together the large force it intended to use to capture the station. A year later the colony of Svard received a garbled message from the industrial moon of Cog, just before the planet went silent, robbing the planet of their ability to stockpile war supplies. The asteroid of Silence and the station Citadel of Psychers stopped communicating shortly after. By the end of 771.M41 Svard had given up hope of recapturing Cog or Installation 23 and had settled into a pattern of curfews and security checks to keep themselves from falling completely to the Whisperer themselves.

Drake’s Return

Over the years, word of the fall of Installation 23 and the failed efforts to reclaim it were eventually heard by members of the Inquisition. Intrigued about the remarkable insidiousness of these Whisperer members and concerned about its spread to more important or populated systems, plans were made to send an operative to investigate. A few months later a small clipper vessel, under the guise of a desperate trader making a dangerous run, served to transport Acolyte Keel and his team to Svard.

During the couple of months, Acolyte Keel started missing reports, than stopped reporting entirely. After a year of silence, the shadowy organization started maneuvering for a more forceful investigation. To this end they tapped Acolyte Keel’s brother, Lord-Captain Keel, slowly leaking him information about his missing bother’s last mission. He surprised them in turn by discovering in the old Navy records that the system was owned by the Rogue Trader family Drake.

Lord-Captain Keel located the reigning (and only) member of House Drake and convinced him to lead an expedition to the lost system, granting the Navy man some form of legitimacy to his actions. Upon arrival Lord Drake met with the Crystal Counsel who hailed him as a savior, and informed him of their troubles with the Whisperers. Despite an attempted assassination by Whisperer agents, the Rogue Trader agreed to save the colony.

The first stage was an armed assault on the industrial moon of Cog. The Rogue Trader’s organizational skills and fresh crew allowed him to deploy a force faster than the Whisperer could infiltrate, taking Cog’s city-train in less than a day of brutal close-quarters battling. With Cog now under loyalist control, the machine city’s powerful cognators were able to provide predicted locations for Silence and Installation 23.

After a brief stop at Silence to investigate the system’s records for clues as to the nature of their enemy, the two cruisers searched Jetti’s inner clouds for Installation 23. Once they located the station, they launched a deadly surprise assault, pushing through the station’s punishing firepower before successfully docking and leading another close-quarters assault. Acolyte Keel, who had been corrupted by the Whisperer during his investigation of the station, was slaying in the fighting.

Realizing the Explorers would discover its location before it could manage another subtle coup, the battleship-sized Whisperer raised itself from the deep clouds of Jetti and set a course to ravage the system and depart for another attempt in another unknown system. Lord-Captain Keel and Lord Drake quickly formed a line of battle to intercept the xeno terror before it could destroy Installation 23. Despite considerable damage and the loss of several system ships, the station was successfully protected and the alien threat destroyed.

Economics

Cog – is the second hub of Svard's economy, with a significant Adeptus Mechanicus industrial facility constructed on the surface, where they can directly refine the planetoid’s minerals. Its proximity to Jatti, however, means that approaching Cog can be tricky at times.

Silence - Technically the oldest inhabited place in Svard system, Silence is a single asteroid within the belt that was settled by a group of religiously-motivated sculptors, artists and monks nearly twenty five years before the planet Svard.

Installation 23 - the primary source of exports and the draw of Rogue Traders on the way to Ragged Worlds and Heathen Worlds, Installation 23 is a huge prometheum extraction and refinery station in low orbit over Jatti. The unstable gas giants particle emissions allow Installation 23 to be one of the few producers of high grade pormetheum within the Expanse. Although thought lost to the whisperers, the Drake Dynasty located and recovered the station, and at great expense has finally gotten it running again.