+++Subject & Author+++
Carlos Damodred, Imperial Trader and 351st Baron of Ferice. - Martin Jenner
+++Thought for the day+++
Carlos Damodred, Imperial Trader and 351st Baron of Ferice.
The planet of Verdan III is an agri-world, one of the myriad
such planets providing the desolate hive-world of Necromunda with the
food it cannot produce itself. It was here that Carlos, Baron
Damodred's third and youngest son, grew up knowing he would never be
anything more than a surplus child of a minor noble, for in truth
Ferice was merely one of a million tiny estates that covered the
planet's surface, a few thousand acres of farmland and a manor
house. Determined to change his fate, the young Carlos fled the
planet the moment he achieved his majority at eighteen.
Carlos's escapades on a dozen different planets would fill a
book themselves, but the young man found there was far more to the
Imperium than managing the family estates – and he loved it. A
talent for gambling, sheer luck and a wary caution brought him
through many a confrontation, but eventually Carlos found himself
tiring of what humanity had to offer – like a dog with an itch it
couldn't scratch, his wanderlust was kicking in again.
The Damodred scion found it surprisingly easy to leave
Imperial space. Taking a ship whose former owner had no more use for
it – having foolishly accused the well-armed Carlos of cheating at
cards – he headed out towards the galactic north. It wasn't long
before he found himself entering a system under the control of the
Eldar. Despite coming close to destruction under the guns of the
frigate that came to investigate his ship, Carlos eventually
negotiated his freedom to travel at will, his formidable charisma
charming even the notoriously sophisticated aliens. Over the next
three years Carlos travelled back and forth between Imperial and
Eldar worlds, smuggling weapons, technology and supplies in both
directions, until he'd built up an impressive trading fleet, twenty
ships ranging between lumbering cargo barges and fast, deadly
interceptors.
However, all his schemes and plans came unravelled at Liandus
IX. Carlos and his fleet landed at the planet's major spaceport with
the intention of offloading another trip's load of illegal – and oh-
so-profitable – alien goods, but how where they to know the planet's
government was planning a succession from the Imperium? Two days
after landing, the Governor declared Liandus' independence, and
Carlos' escorts were seized and pressed into military service, while
his freighters and goods were confiscated, sold to pay for the
rebellion or converted into troopships. In the space of a few hours,
Carlos Damodred went from one of the wealthiest men in the sector to
being a nobody once more.
It was thus that Inquisitor Heskey found him, languishing in
a cell in the Governor's palace. The Imperial Sector Fleet had
arrived with the Imperial Guard in tow, and the rebellion had been
brutally suppressed, its instigators executed. After a brief,
painless interrogation, the Lord Inquisitor determined Carlos was no
rebel, and agreed to free him, and more. Heskey, notoriously soft on
the subject of smuggling, requisitioned funds from the Inquisition's
accounts, enough to replace over half of Carlos' fleet, presenting
them to the young man – on the condition that Damodred's ships be
open to the Inquisitor whenever he needed them. Stunned by the
generosity of the offer, Carlos accepted and gleefully continued his
trading. Heskey treated the trader fleet as hi own personal taxi
service, requisitioning lifts from planet to planet on a regular
basis, and he and Carlos became something close to friends despite
the havoc this played with the trader's schedules. Finally, Damodred
gave up and presented one of his ever-growing fleet of ships to the
Inquisitor permanently, though he often took time off to accompany
the old man personally.
With Heskey's death on Vanaheim, Carlos extended the same
offer to his protégé, the newly promoted Inquisitor Thorne. While
not sharing the same closeness Heskey and Damodred did, the two get
on reasonably well, and the noble son still assists the Inquisitor
whenever he feels like it, the adventure a welcome break from the
increasingly dull business of managing his fleet. To his great
amusement and surprise, the aging trader has also recently become
Baron Damodred of Ferice, his two elder brothers, to whom he was
never close, both perishing, along with their children, in an
unusually intense storm that sank their hover-yacht as they took
their annual holiday, sailing the ammonia-lakes of Verdan V.
Designating the running of the estates on Verdan III to the Farm
manager who had done such a capable job for three generations of
Damodreds, Carlos lives comfortably off the income from both his
lands and his business, satisfied in a life that is never dull.
