"Roll up, roll up, one and all! Sample the luxuries of a distant empire that's closer than you know! However, if comfort isn't to your liking, perhaps I can offer you something to give your enemies grief? All is mine to sell, for the right price."
- —Lord Captain Gravis Terrozant, master of the Wayfarer Resplendent
The Rogue Trader Lord Captain Gravis Terrozant
Gravis Terrozant is a Highborn Rogue Trader and war-profiteer operating within the Jericho Reach.
When Lord Militant Tiber Achilus first set his sights upon the Jericho Reach, he realised lasting victory could not be accomplished by military means alone.
Knowing well the power of industry and lure of coin, and their place in expanding the Imperium's borders, Achilus sent out a call to Rogue Traders operating out of the Calixis, Scarus, and Ixaniad Sectors, enticing them to join in the Achilus Crusade with promises of profit, plunder, and a stake in all worlds brought into the Imperial fold.
Regrettably, few heeded the lord militant's call, most flocking to the boundless opportunities of the Koronus Expanse rather than the uncertainty of an active war zone. Gravis Terrozant was the exception.
History[]
A relatively young Rogue Trader from an obscure dynasty originating in the Calixian Periphery, Gravis Terrozant saw opportunity where others saw only war.
After a brief period of negotiation and oath-swearing with Achilus Crusade commanders, Terrozant led his small fleet of treasure ships, dubbed the "Golden Chain," through the Jericho-Maw Warp Gate and into the worlds beyond the Black Reef.
Always a few parsecs ahead of the Canis Salient, Gravis Terrozant maintains several commercial inroads into contested regions of T'au space, selling weapons and medical gear to Human dissidents beyond the Greyhell Front and valuable intelligence to Lord Commander Sebiascor Ebongrave.
In addition, Terrozant's smuggling network brings innumerable defectors and examples of T'au weaponry into Imperial custody, and a steady supply of agitators, spies, and propagandists into the worlds of the T'au Empire's Velk'Han Sept.
In recent years, Lord Captain Terrozant has expanded his endeavours to include organising disparate Human malcontents from the Velk'Han Sept into his own private mercenary army.
Armed with a combination of standard Imperial pattern weaponry and armaments stolen during raids into T'au supply depots, "Terrozant's Terrors" have become a respected unit in the war to end T'au hegemony in the Jericho Reach's coreward fringe.
Most successful of all Terrozant's dealings, however, is the brisk slave trade the lord captain maintains between the Greyhell Front and the Iron Collar.
With almost clockwork regularity, the ships of the Golden Chain return to Spite, Calisi, and Karlack, opening their holds to disgorge a broken host of T'au, Kroot, and miserable Gue'la prisoners of war to work the mines and labour camps that fuel the Imperial war effort.
With most able-bodied men and women from these worlds conscripted into the Astra Militarum, these slaves are indispensable to maintaining the high levels of production needed to supply the three salients of the Achilus Crusade.
Yet not even Lord Captain Gravis Terrozant is immune to Lord Commander Ebongrave's paranoia. Over the past several years, with progress in the Greyhell Front grinding to a halt, the lord commander has begun to suspect Terrozant of working against the progress of the Canis Salient. Indeed, why would a man who profits so greatly from war want either side to attain victory?
Ebongrave suspects Terrozant's smuggling endeavour runs both ways, with the lord captain selling intelligence and military hardware back to the T'au in an effort to keep both sides evenly matched, locked in perpetual stalemate.
Perhaps more chilling is Ebongrave's suspicion that Terrozant's time beyond the Greyhell Front has left his mind contaminated by alien ideas.
The lord commander fears Terrozant is sympathetic to the corrupting notion of the Greater Good preached by T'au emissaries.
If so, it is only a matter of time before Terrozant turns his mercenary armies against his own people. Worse still, he may reveal the secret of the Jericho-Maw Warp Gate to the T'au.
Sources[]
- Deathwatch: The Achilus Assault (RPG), pg. 137