Editing Setting:Cloudburst/Dead Houses (section)

===Rogue Trader House Richter===
House Richter used to be a force of mercantile might in the Cloudburst Sector, but its primary source of prestige was always exploration.  Clad in armor of Martian quality and outfitted with the very best instruments and auspexes, the House Richter fleet often spent years drifting through the void, scouring the hot gasses and radioactive wastes of the Cloudburst region for any signs of lost human life.  They found Space Hulks, they found a dead Deep Void Platform, they found pirate nests built on the foundations of Terran Federation colonies, and they found aliens of every sort.  Their close ties to the Mechanicus allowed them a certain precedence of authority and technoarcana to better prepare themselves for the rigors of deep space exploration, and for centuries, the House Richter succeeded in slowly coloring in the dark places of the map.

However, the House was eventually brought low, as most Houses have over the eleven thousand years of the institution.  In the case of House Richter, however, they had nobody but themselves to blame.  The House had always fought in the past against those who had a vested interest in the small size of the Imperium, whether Eldar protecting their out of the way colonies or pirates who did not wish their hidey-holes to be surrounded by Imperial territory.  However, on the fateful occasion of the beginning of the end of House Richter, the usual tactics that the House had to employ to survive were simply not enough.

House Richter vessels, led by the second-in-command of the entire House flotilla, appeared in the depths of space near the Abhuman world today known as Crispin.  The world had long been harassed by pirates of unknown origins, seeking to enslave the strong but simple Beastmen of Crispin for use as shock troops and slaves.  However, the Mechanicus became aware of this during Explorator journeys into the region.  While the Mechanicus would normally love to take credit for locating a habitable world for the Imperium, two factors weighed into their decision not to in this instance.  First, the Mechanicus of the Naxos Sector is dreadfully overworked keeping the Celestial Knights and Battlefleet Naxos supplied, and the task of simultaneously subjugating a world of abhumans and conquering unknown alien pirates would be a daunting one.  Second, the aliens seemed to have Warpcraft that were slower but more stable than Imperial ships of equivalent tonnage, and could thus navigate the area more easily.

Into the gap stepped House Richter, who took on the assignment of mapping the local Warp routes to aid in the locating of the pirates.  However, they had barely begun the task when the aliens abruptly shifted their attacks to the House Richter fleet, and assaulted them without any transmissions or mercy.

The Richter ships began pairing up to avoid the power of the pirates overwhelming them, but the aliens simply redoubled their attacks, and assaulted the Richter vessels without skipping a beat.  By the time the Richter fleet had regrouped and escaped the noxious radioactive gasses of the Oldlight Proximate Circuit, they had lost ten percent of their ships outright, with another one crippled.  However, to their horror, regrouping and withdrawing was not enough.  As they moved along the Warp and conventional travel routes out of the Circuit, the alien pirates kept coming, shooting down another thirty percent of the Richter fleet almost overnight.

When the tattered remains of the Richter House Fleet arrived at the edge of the Fabique Star Yards, Mechanicus alert sirens sounded at once.  The pirates had actually followed the Richter fleet all the way to the Mechanicus’s territory, and pressed their attack to the very doorstep of the enormous Forge World.  It took another seven weeks of brutal fighting at the heart of the Star Yards between Richter, Navy, Space Marine, Basilikon Astra, and Inquisitorial ships, and the alien raiders, before they were at last ground to dust.

House Richter never managed to overcome the damage done to their fortunes, and the House liquidated twenty years later.  Their Warrant fell into the legal remit of the Naxos Sector, which eventually returned it to the Senate of the High Lords for reissuance.