"Anyone who looks upon a star and thinks himself the first to do so is a fool. Every planet, moon, or glittering sun is the grave of untold races and the slumbering tomb of secrets lost to the passage of time."
- —words attributed to Rogue Trader Solomon Haarlock
The Imperial sigil of the Rogue Traders
House Haarlock is an infamous (and according to some damned) Rogue Trader dynasty that has played important parts in the histories of the Calixis Sector, the Koronus Expanse and the Jericho Reach.
History[]
Haarlock's War[]
House Haarlock was founded during the Age of Apostasy in the early 36th Millennium in the Jericho Sector by Free Captain Mordecai Haarlock as a reward granted through the influence of the Ecclesiarchy for his role in defending the Imperium during the Reign of Blood.
Between 257 and 262.M36, revolts and armed resistance movements flared up across the Jericho Sector, as labour quota-tallies demanded by the sector's Over-Governors in response to the tyrannical rule of the High Lord of Terra Goge Vandire increased exponentially. While most of these insurrections were quickly and brutally crushed, the resulting collateral damage was extensive, marring the Jericho Sector's production capacity further, which in turn meant ever-increasing demands to make up a shortfall that cannot be fulfilled, creating an ever-worsening cycle of repression and revolt.
The Over-Governors began a paranoid-driven series of purges to remove anyone that they perceived as a potential threat and increased their revenue by plundering the coffers of the sector's corporate magnates and nobility. Among these, the estates and vessels of the then-absent Free Captain Mordecai Haarlock, whose holdings spanned the Jericho Sector and several others beyond its borders, were seized by order of Over-Governor Murella Mordercai on his return. In protest, Haarlock resisted arrest, slaying those who would hold him. He fled with a single vessel, the Spear of Destiny, into the Slinnar Drift, swearing bloody vengeance.
Through sheer force of personality and fear, Free Captain Mordecai Haarlock convinced a vagabond fleet of privateers, refugee merchants and disgruntled Chartist Captains to join him in a war of resistance against the Over-Governors of the Jericho Sector and those that stood with them that lasted from 263 until 270.M36. They begin a guerrilla war of ambush and lightning attacks against tithe-shipping, lone Frateris Templar vessels and outposts, as well as smuggling weapons and Ecclesiarchy priests who had turned against Goge Vandire's mastery of the Adeptus Ministorum and Adeptus Administratum to resistance movements against Vandire's rule across the Jericho Sector and in neighbouring regions.
Mordecai Haarlock displayed an uncanny genius for this kind of shadowed warfare, both as a corsair captain and spymaster. As his infamy spread, he became known as the "Spider Lord." He was the single man at the centre of a web comprising countless strands of terrorist cells, spies, agents, and corsair ships. His emblem of the golden spider clutching an Imperial Aquila became a symbol of hope for those crushed under the Over-Governors' rule, and a mark of fear for their vassals.
In 266.M36 the annals of Watch Fortress Erioch record the arrival of the Spear of Destiny on the edge of the Erioch System. Not knowing where he was becalmed, Mordecai Haarlock moved in-system, and he was swiftly surrounded and brought under the guns of the Deathwatch. Forced to power down, Mordecai and his close associates were taken on board the watch fortress under guard by kill-teams. Three solar days later, Haarlock and his starship were permitted to leave. He never spoke of what occurred within those three days, nor did he ever return to the Erioch System.
By 273.M36 revolt against the Reign of Blood had sparked across the Imperium like wildfire, and elsewhere, the reforming priest Sebastian Thor's Confederation of Light was steadily destroying the strength of Vandire's rule. Fleeing the assassin’s blade for his Thorian sympathies, Flag Captain Durek of the Imperial Navy battlecruiser Power of Terra encountered Free Captain Haarlock and agreed to join his cause. With him he brought a network of contacts within the Imperial Navy's Battlefleet Jericho and alliance with the forces and agents of the Confederation of Light.
In 277.M36 Free Captain Mordecai Haarlock led a fleet of insurgent vessels in a surprise attack on the sector capital of Verronus, having drawn the forces of the remaining Frateris Templar warships in the Jericho Sector away through a diversionary attack on Eleusis. His strike fleet succeeded in breaking through the system's defences. Accompanied by an elite force of unrecorded nature, Mordecai Haarlock executed Lady Sector Castagar Murella for "betrayal of the ideals and soul of the Imperium of Man." Meanwhile, the Arch-Cardinal Udo Asterus was torn apart by an enraged lynch mob while trying to flee.
In 395.M36, following the death of Goge Vandire and the end of the Reign of Blood during the Terran Crusade, Free Captain Mordecai Haarlock was granted a Warrant of Trade and declared a Rogue Trader by the Senatorum Imperialis through the influence of Sebastian Thor, who replaced Vandire as the ecclesiarch and had begun a massive reform of the doctrines of the Adeptus Ministorum. The Warrant is a greater charter of writ to him and the heirs and successors of his blood unto the end of all things, and conditional first upon the restoration of order to an Imperium still plagued by heresy, war, and division.
This honour is supposedly in recognition of Haarlock's actions against Goge Vandire's forces in the Jericho Sector, but some sources note that Mordecai had been expected to ascend to rule the Jericho Sector himself, and that the granting of the Warrant of Trade effectively banished Haarlock (who was perhaps, at best, too dangerous and resourceful a man to entrust with such a task) beyond the bounds of the Imperium once the Wars of Apostasy were over and his usefulness was at an end.
Almost exactly a century later in 395.M36, Mordecai Haarlock, taking up the mantle of Rogue Trader, vanished from the Imperium, taking his fleet with him. What ties, if any, he kept with the Jericho Sector remain unknown. However, the dark coincidence of his deep connection to the later founding of the far distant Calixis Sector after the Calyx Expanse's exploration by his descendant Solomon Haarlock, a region that would prove inextricably linked to the Jericho Reach's future through the discovery of the Jericho-Maw Warp Gate in the 41st Millennium, is a matter of shrouding mystery that has troubled many within the Inquisition.
Exploration of the Calyx Expanse[]
"So as these realms of stars are, so once were all realms that are now counted amongst the Imperium of Man: rich with fear and darkness, and rank with the smell of secrets that belong to the dead."
- —Attributed to Rogue Trader Solomon Haarlock, referring to the Calyx Expanse in M36.
Solomon Haarlock was a Rogue Trader and scion of House Haarlock who in ca. 760.M36 was the first to successfully chart the area of space known as the Calyx Expanse in the Segmentum Obscurus that later became the Calixis Sector of the Imperium after the Angevin Crusade of the 39th Millennium.
Some rumours that have long made the rounds at Port Wander and Footfall say Haarlock also strayed beyond the Maw into the Koronus Expanse as well, though this is unconfirmed.
Haarlock Purges[]
The infamous Rogue Trader Erasmus Haarlock
In 703.M41, the Rogue Trader Erasmus Haarlock of the Paradise World of Quaddis in the Calixis Sector vanished after systematically butchering all other scions of his house in a series of brutal purges following a succession war between the Haarlock heirs. Ranging from the Calixis Sector to dread Mandragora and beyond, Haarlock's purge also touched the Koronus Expanse, where he hunted down three of his kinfolk and destroyed two other Rogue Traders who dare stand in his way.
The purge had been initiated when Erasmus lost his wife and daughter in the inter-familial wars that gripped the Haarlocks, causing him to massacre the rest of the family and all of their associates in vengeance for his loss. Haarlock then became obsessed with bringing back his dead family, attempting to utilise the forbidden xenos lore and technology long hoarded by his dynasty to that end. Mysteriously, shortly before completing his ritual, he vanished.
The last of his line, centuries later, Erasmus Haarlock is presumed deceased. The huge wealth of his house is locked in legal dispute in the Courts of Solomon on his former homeworld. Though some whisper that scions of the Haarlock dynasty may still exist, they have proven reticent to come forward to claim the great prize of Haarlock's legacy.
Notable House Haarlock Rogue Traders[]
Sources[]
- Rogue Trader: Core Rulebook (RPG), pg. 362
- Rogue Trader: Epoch Koronus (PDF) (RPG), "Haarlock's Progress," pp. 3, 8
- Deathwatch: Know No Fear - A History of the Jericho Reach (PDF) (RPG)