PLAYER Polonius De Vorm

Childhood

Polonius entered the galaxy beneath the dim, cold glow of Pellucida IX’s distant sun, amidst the echoing clangor of ore-haulers and the stale tang of recycled air. He was born in the creaking womb of Kether’s Folly, an asteroid mining station that drifted in patient orbit around the gas giant. His first breath came at the cost of another’s—his mother, Elesebeth Couw, a woman of rare beauty and gentle wit, perished upon the birthing bed. She was married to Marek Couw, overseer of the station and a man whose reputation for unerring efficiency was matched only by his loyalty to the De Vorm dynasty.

The Couws were not nobility, yet their bloodline bore the weight of generations in service to the De Vorms—engineers, foremen, and logisticians who had toiled to make the dynasty’s holdings thrive. To Marek, this service was more than duty; it was a covenant etched into the marrow of his bones. The dedication paid of and Kether’s Folly has From an age when most voidborn children still clung to the gravity-hooks of their crèches, Polonius was at his father’s side, learning the calculus of ore yields, the rationing of labor, and the balance between indulgence and the iron hand.

The planetary governor of Pellucida IX, Artemis De Vorm, was a figure who passed through the station like an omen. He came infrequently, but always with purpose, and each visit was accompanied by an unspoken tension among the crew. To Polonius’s surprise, Artemis never failed to bring him a gift—a trinket of gilded brass from the manufactoria, a scrap of rare printed parchment, even a tiny wind-up automata that walked stiffly across the deck plates. On occasion, the governor brought his son, Alaric De Vorm, a boy of Polonius’s age. They played, if one could call it that—Polonius ever careful of the invisible gulf of station and estate, ore-hauler and palace. They were companions in the loosest sense, never true friends, for birthright is a wall no commoner may scale.

By the time Polonius saw his sixteenth year, he was no longer merely the overseer’s son. Marek entrusted him with the management of entire strata of the station’s operations—crew rotation schedules, yield projections, and even the delicate arbitration of disputes. The station’s profits swelled, and whispers spread that the voidborn youth was touched with rare genius.

It was then, just days after his birthday, that Artemis De Vorm visited the station once more. Polonius, slipping through the narrow corridors of the overseer’s quarters, overheard raised voices: his father’s deep rumble laced with fury, and another—clipped, aristocratic, imperious. The words were muffled by bulkhead plating, but he understood enough to know the exchange was no mere political wrangle.

That evening, Marek Couw came to him, his weathered face drawn and pale. He told his son the truth in a voice like fractured steel—that the governor was his true sire. That Artemis had come to claim him. And that there was no refusing him. A heartbreak for both of them.

A new beginning

The departure from Kether’s Folly was swift. Marek’s farewell was brief, his rough hand gripping Polonius’s shoulder in silence before turning away. On the shuttle’s ascent, Artemis De Vorm spoke as though reciting a legal decree. Polonius was his bastard son, conceived in the brief span of passion during planetside festivities. The governor’s wife had borne him only daughters, save for Alaric, and the dynasty required capable men to shoulder its burdens. Thus, Polonius was to be brought into the De Vorm household—not as an overseer’s heir, but as a scion of the ruling line.

The years that followed were a slow torment. The world below was suffocating to one raised in the void: the gravity that could not be turned off dragged at his bones, its air thick with alien scents. The layers of silks and brocades sweaty and uncomfortable, and the endless labyrinth of courtly etiquette felt as unnatural as the solid ground beneath his feet. He was drilled in the intricacies of the De Vorm holdings—vassal obligations, tithe schedules, and the tangled web of alliances and rivalries that spanned across the Drusus Marches and within Von Ulm Rogue trader dynasty.

Alaric De Vorm, once a companion in idle diversions, now regarded him with cold disdain. Whether from jealousy, insult to his mother’s honor, or the simple cruelty of youth, he made no effort to hide his hostility.

Yet Polonius endured. He learned the games of the nobility—how to speak without speaking, how to read the shifting tides in a noble’s eyes, how to feign deference while weighing the blade. Most crucial of all, he came to understand that for members of a noble house, there were but two true lodestars—the honor of the family name, and the burnish of their own prestige. To discern which of these burned brighter in a given heart was to hold the measure of that individual, and thus, the key to bending them toward one’s design.

At last, Artemis decreed that his education in the arts of governance must be formalized. Thus, Polonius was dispatched to one the finest Administratum Scholae in the Calixis Sector, there to be shaped into an instrument worthy of the dynasty’s ambitions.

Administratum years

The Administratum Scholae was no mere place of learning—it was an engine of refinement and remorseless shaping. Its halls, carved from ancient stone and inscribed with the sigils of long-dead governors, echoed with the footsteps of the Imperium’s future ministers, logisters, and high functionaries. The air was always thick with the dust of parchment, the metallic tang of ink, and the dry scent of incense burned in devotion to the Emperor’s ever-watchful gaze.

For a voidborn youth, it was another world entirely. The ceilings seemed to hang too low; the oppressive air pressed into his lungs. But worse was the ever-present scrutiny—noble sons and daughters from dynasties far older than the De Vorms, each carrying their own armories of ambition and venom. There were few lessons in books that could match the politics of the dining hall.

Polonius learned to master the ledgers first. Figures danced in his mind as easily as others might recall a poem. He dissected trade manifests, calculated tithe quotas to the throne, and uncovered discrepancies in mock audits set as exercises by the scholae’s venerable Magisters. By the second year, instructors trusted him to resolve disputes between other pupils over allocation of resources in the “Sector Governance Simulations”—a trust that earned him as many allies as enemies.

The more subtle education came not from the lecture halls but from the cloisters and corners, where whispered deals and veiled insults were the currency of survival. Polonius did not match his peers in wealth or titles, but he learned to exploit their weaknesses—pride, impatience, vanity. With careful courtesy, he planted seeds of thought that would later bloom into advantage.

With his stooped bearing and faintly nasal voice, Polonius was ill-suited to the grand oratory that so enthralled court gatherings. Yet he learned swiftly that gilded words were not always required when the truth—properly framed—was pleasing to the ear. He honed the art of shaping such truths, bending them until they told the tale he wished without ever crossing into falsehood. In time, he grasped a deeper lesson: that true authority seldom lay with the hand that signed the order, but with the one that placed the parchment before it.

Years passed at the scholae, and Polonius began to shed the mannerisms of the voidborn laborer. His back, though still faintly stooped from long years beneath low ceilings, bore the bearing of command. He learned to temper his pale features with carefully applied rouge—an affectation mocked by some but one he weaponized, turning their jeers into a mask behind which his mind worked unimpeded.

When Polonius’s time at the scholae came to its close, he left with more than the Administratum’s imprimatur. He carried with him a network of cautious allies and a mental map of the Calixis Sector’s trade arteries, tithe flows, and political choke points. His tutors described him as “unerringly precise” and “coldly pragmatic”—a young man capable of resolving a labor dispute with the same calm efficiency as arranging the ruin of a rival.

The Assassin’s apprentice

It was then that Artemis De Vorm summoned him home. His father’s summons spoke of “matters requiring a steady hand and an unshakable will.” Polonius knew better than to ask what they were. In the De Vorm dynasty, to be chosen was never a gift—it was a burden, gilded though it might be. The official pretext was of “expanding his diplomatic repertoire.” The young man had by then mastered the ledgers, the law codes, and the labyrinthine etiquette of the De Vorm court. Yet Artemis spoke not of tithes or trade agreements, but of subtler forms of influence—the kind that left no record in ledgers and no whispers in the court.

“You will serve the dynasty far beyond this world,” the Lord Governor, not his father, said, voice low and deliberate. “There are places in the Imperium where the letter of the law holds no sway, where profit is carved from the void not by quill, but by nerve and cunning. In such places, a man who cannot match the ruthlessness of his rivals is already dead.”

Polonius understood enough to keep silent. The Koronus Expanse was a place he had only heard spoken of in hushed tones—a domain where Rogue Traders reigned like kings, where fortunes were won and lost between warp jumps.

Two weeks later, under cover of night, Polonius was taken from the De Vorm estate by a silent, one-eyed servitor, ferried in an unmarked grav-sled to a secluded hab deep within the hive’s underbelly. There he met his tutor—a man known only as Master Sarth, whose presence radiated the quiet menace of one who had killed for a living. Sarth was no official servant of the Officio Assassinorum; those ties had long been severed. Yet the discipline in his voice and the precision in his movements betrayed a lifetime in the shadows.

From Sarth, Polonius learned the anatomy of murder as others might study mathematics: the delicate balance of tinctures distilled from rare off-world fungi, the time-delayed burn of powdered metals in the bloodstream, the way to mask a draught’s scent beneath rich amasec. He learned, too, the counters—how to detect the telltale taint of a tampered cup, how to feign the symptoms of death to unnerve an enemy.

It was not merely killing—it was control, absolute and untraceable.

Years later, Polonius would come to understand that Artemis’s gift of poisoncraft was not for use within the De Vorm estate. It was an investment. The Governor’s ambitions extended far beyond the orbit of Pellucida IX, and his influence within the Von Ulm Rogue Trader charter was deeper than most suspected. The Von Ulms were a family whose warrants granted them near-limitless freedom in the Expanse, but their ventures had grown unstable—political infighting, questionable alliances, whispers of heretical dealings.

From the beginning, Artemis had intended Polonius to be placed under service of Lord-captain Felix Von Ulm, —not merely as an observer, but as an embedded instrument. In that lawless frontier, Polonius’s mastery of numbers, law, and poison would serve as the dynasty’s eyes, ears, and—if necessary—knife.

By the time his apprenticeship with Sarth concluded, Polonius’s hands were as steady with a quill as with a vial of toxins. His pale voidborn features had grown sharper, more deliberate, his gaze unreadable.

Back into the Void

When Polonius’s apprenticeship under Master Sarth concluded, he was no longer the boy of Kether’s Folly or the student of the Scholae. He was a refined instrument, polished with knowledge, shadowed by poison, and hardened by political calculus. His first true deployment was aboard Aeterna Noctis — the personal vessel of Lord-Captain Felix Von Ulm, a Rogue Trader whose writ spanned the edges of sanctioned space.

The Aeterna Noctis was no less imposing than the legends that trailed it. With a hull chased in gold-leaf etchings of Imperial victories and void-shield nodes bristling like cathedral spires, the vessel was a symphony of both violence and piety. Yet it was also a crucible: a ship where command was asserted, not inherited, and where any weakness, however slight, was devoured by the vacuum of ambition.

Polonius began as an aide to the ship’s quartermasters, buried in the minutiae of void manifests, fuel resupply ledgers, and obscure trade tariffs from half-lost colonies. But his talents quickly drew attention. He could unravel smuggling operations hidden beneath vox-inventory logs, predict crew unrest from meal allocation variances, and negotiate trade terms with dead-eyed void-merchants who had gutted more rivals than they had shaken hands.

A decade passed in calculated maneuvering. Polonius built a reputation not only as an exceptional logister but as a subtle political force aboard the ship. Often he was seen looming beside the ship’s aging Seneschal. Asking for advice or whispering suggestions, few could tell. When the Seneschal succumbed to a void-plague caught from an emissary arriving from the Heathen Stars, the Lord-Captain promoted Polonius without hesitation. Many had expected a senior noble to ascend; instead, a pale man with a stooped spine and an assassin’s calm took the mantle.

The title was not given—it was claimed, forged in ledgers inked with debts and in chalices seasoned with secrets. And in the candlelit quiet of his new quarters, Polonius understood that Artemis De Vorm’s long game had reached its midpoint. He was now inside the Von Ulm dynasty, not as a guest or observer, but as a piece firmly placed upon the board—free to move in any direction the Governor required, or that profit demanded. As though fate itself had a twisted sense of humor, it was in that same season that word came of his father’s passing, his true fathers’—the Lord-Governor, Artemis De Vorm. Whether the old man had learned of Polonius’s title before death, none could say. If he had, he took the knowledge with him into the Emperor’s keeping and maybe shared it with Marek Crouw who had already passed years since. However a message of congratulation arrived from the new master of the De Vorm dynasty—Lord-Governor Alaric De Vorm. Whether it was the first hint of a thaw in their long-cold relations or merely a barb sheathed in courtesy, only time would reveal.

As Seneschal aboard the Aeterna Noctis, Polonius became more than a servant of the Von Ulms; he became Felix’s confidant, councilor, and the silent axis upon which the dynasty’s decisions turned. He orchestrated trade pacts, managed skirmishes with corsair clans, and cultivated a web of influence across the Drusus Marches. His reputation grew not only among the crew but within the merchant houses and void-station courts of the Expanse.

The years aboard went by and hardened Polonius into something more than the Governor’s planted agent. The man who had once walked the shadowed halls of the Administratum Scholae was gone—what remained was a creature of the void, his instincts sharpened to a razor’s edge. He was the unseen axis upon which the fate of the Ignis Aeternus turned. The Lord-Captains might roar their commands yet rely upon the quiet figure who stood just behind the high-backed council chair, ledger or data-slate in hand, his pale eyes observing everything.

In the Koronus Expanse, diplomacy often began with a feast and ended with a funeral. Polonius managed both with equal precision. On Lucin’s Breath, he orchestrated the trade of ancient xenos artifacts, ensuring the payment was triple the agreed value—secured by the sudden, unexplained death of a rival broker mid-negotiation. On the orbital docks of Footfall, he brokered a truce between two warring smuggler cartels by arranging a banquet where the only drink safe to consume was poured from his own carafe.

In private, Lord-Captain Von Ulm often referred to Polonius as his “compass in the shadows” — always behind, always guiding. So when the rejuvenat treatments failed, and Felix began to succumb to age, it was Polonius, not family, who Felix seeked council from. In his final act of gratitude, respect, and recognition, the dying Lord-Captain enacted a hereditary appointment of Polonius De Vorm as Seneschal of Ignis Aeternus, the ancient flagship of the Von Ulm dynasty.

The Everlasting Fire

Thus began the true fulfillment of Polonius’s long-laid course. The Ignis Aeternus was no mere vessel. It was a myth given form—older than many hives, carved from the bones of forgotten crusades, and layered in baroque cathedrals, rusted catacombs, and whispering vaults of archived sins. A kingdom of steel adrift in the void, it contained within its ancient hull a world entire: guilds with their own rites, cults with ancient grievances, courts layered in intrigue, and secrets that moved like parasites through its labyrinthine decks. It was a microcosm of the Imperium itself, with its own hierarchy, its own politics, and its own quietly enforced laws. But the rules of engagement had not changed.

Here, at last, Polonius was not a pawn, nor an agent, nor a functionary. He was its silent master, its beating heart. No longer executing the plans of Artemis De Vorm, he now fulfilled them—and bent them further, shaped to his own growing design. For six decades, Polonius has served as the Seneschal of the Ignis Aeternus—its steward, its governor, and the architect of its hidden order.

He forged a clockwork bureaucracy of unnerving precision, where no tithe went uncounted, no corridor unmonitored, and no voice rose above a whisper without his knowledge. His spies peer from behind altar screens, and his agents whisper through the ventilation ducts of officer staterooms. Guildmasters owe him their fortunes. Midshipmen recite his decrees as doctrine. Senior armsmen consult him before raising a blade.

He has long known that power aboard a Rogue Trader vessel is not built solely on wealth or noble birth—but on the delicate web of favors owed and secrets kept. Though himself of noble blood, Polonius never forgot his childhood among the laboring decks of Kether’s Folly. That sympathy for the common man—a rare quality among his peers—became another tool. The quartermasters respect him, the merchants court him, and the armsmen salute not only his title, but his presence.

Allies in every quarter. Enemies in every ambition. Contingency plans for both. To some, he is a trusted counselor and father figure. To others, a wraith whose attention can mean elevation—or annihilation. Lord-Captains come and go, their banners shifting with fortune and fate, but the Ignis Aeternus continues to burn beneath his watch, steady and eternal. For Polonius understands the true nature of power aboard a Rogue Trader vessel. It is not found in commands bellowed from a throne. It lives in the ink of ledgers. In the silence of sealed corridors. In the pause before the poisoned cup.

And the game, as ever, is far from over.

Mitä tiedämme:

De Vormin suku on ollut Von Ulmien vasalli pitkään.
Polonius toimi Felix Von Ulmin aluksella seneschalkkina ja kun Felixin vanhuus alkoi painaa ja rejuvenaatio epäonnistui tämä siirtyi eläkkeelle ja Karfa Von Ulm siirtyi dynastian johtoon. Samassa yhteydessä Felix järjesti Poloniukselle 744.M41 paikkeilla perinnöllisen viran Ignis Aeternuksen senechalkkina.
Poloniuksen mandaatti
Polonius on liikkunut Felix Von Ulmin mukana tämän uran loppupuolella Drusus Marches sub-sectorilla jossa Ulmeilla on useita colonyjä ja ovat auttaneet Imperial Navyä Koronus Passagen alueella.
Pellucida IX/Drusus marches on De Vorm suvun kotiplaneetta jossa suvun päämies on Planetary Governor
Drusus Marches alueella on paljon De Vormin sukua töissä ja on todennäköistä, että missä tahansa planeetalla on Administratum tehtävissä sukulainen.
Polonius on naimaton eikä lapsia.
Polonius on tavannut Karfa Von Ulmin kerran tämän saapuessa tutustumaan alukseen kymmenen vuotta sitten.
Poloniuksella ja Marla Hickingbothamilla on salasuhde mutta virkatehtävissään aluksella usein napit vastakkain.
Polonius on palvellut nyt yli 60 vuotta Ignis Aeternuksella ja on toiseksi pisimpään aluksella ollut. Vain Flaminius Knake on ollut pidempään.

Rank & Authority

The Seneschal of the Ignis Aeternus is the chief steward and administrator of all non-military affairs aboard the vessel, acting as the right hand of the Lord-Captain in matters of finance, diplomacy, and internal governance.
Empowered to manage the dynastic treasury, oversee trade and commercial interests, negotiate contracts, and enforce internal policy in the Lord-Captain’s absence.
Ranks alongside the Master of Arms, Master Cannoneer, and Navigator, but with civil and economic supremacy over shipboard matters not governed by military or Mechanicus codes.
May speak with the authority of the dynasty in political, mercantile, or noble contexts, including dealings with planetary governors, rogue traders, or Ecclesiarchy representatives.
Possesses the right of seal to validate or reject cargo manifests, legal documents, and merchant agreements.

Core Responsibilities

1. Custodian of the Dynastic Purse

Maintains and manages the personal treasury of the Lord-Captain, including investments, tributes, auction rights, and inheritance funds.
Approves expenditure for noble affairs, ship upkeep, ceremonial expenses, and dynastic stipends.
Audits incoming revenue from tithes, tolls, salvage rights, and mercantile licensing.
Works with the Mistress of Provisions to validate economic resource allocations.

2. Overseer of External Commerce

Acts as the primary commercial officer during dealings with void merchants, planetary trade houses, and sanctioned Rogue Traders.
Negotiates trade agreements, supply contracts, mineral rights, and expedition shares on behalf of the dynasty.
Maintains detailed ledger-records of external transactions, sealed under the sigil of House von Ulm.

3. Manager of Dynastic Agreements

Maintains the Book of Oaths, a codified register of vassal treaties, noble pacts, bonded servants, and contracted retainers.
Advises the Lord-Captain on matters of inheritance, diplomatic alignment, and oath enforcement.
May enforce or void dynastic compacts under specified legal and spiritual criteria.

4. Director of Internal Security

Oversees internal order aboard the vessel, with authority over shipboard investigations, surveillance cells, and discipline tribunals.
Commands trusted agents, informants, and political officers tasked with uncovering sedition, theft, or heretical influence.
Coordinates with the Master of Arms and Confessor-Abbot in matters of loyalty, morale, and ideological purity.

Additional Notes

The Seneschal is traditionally a highborn scion, seasoned diplomat, or void-traveled executor, and often serves as acting commander when the Lord-Captain is indisposed or off-vessel.
Though non-military, the Seneschal holds sufficient sway to mobilize security detachments or detain crew under emergency edicts.
Holds the Seal of the Vault, allowing access to dynastic archives, relic inventories, and sealed contracts.

WS BS S T Ag Int Per WP Fel Inf

Movement: Wounds: Armor: Insanity: Corruption:

Skills:
Talents: Cousins in Many Worlds,
Traits:

Homeworld: Mining world Pellucida IX/High Born vai ?
Background: Adeptus Administratum
Role: Assassin
Elite advances: –
Imperial sect: ?

Birthright: ?
Lure of the great Imperium: ?
Trials and Travails: ?
Motivation: ?

Starting EXP: 5500

Special talents: Cousins in Many Worlds, In operations and ruling of the remote colonies De Vorm family has aided the Rogue trader dynasty Von Ulm for millenia. When dealing with administratum of Calixis sector and Koronus expanse or colonies of Von Ulm dynasty there is a probability to find a member of De Vorm family in an influential position.

Troops:

20 infiltrators scattered across the void ship. Gathering information among the crew of Ignis Aeternus.

200 competent actors with disguise kits and wardrobe. Used as staged audience in the high security public rituals performed at Ignis Aeternus.