Editing Setting:Cloudburst/Rogue Traders (section)

====Rogue Trader Dynastic House Zutash====
The House of Zutash holds the only record most Rogue Traders strive for: the wealthiest known noble family in the entire Cloudburst region, which includes the Sector, Circuit, and nearby reaches of the Exo-zone.  Their material value is so high, they could purchase the assets of any other Rogue Trader House in the region outright (excepting, of course, the horrifying power and Inquisitorial remit of Thomas Walsh).

Despite this awesome wealth, however, the family’s power still pales beside those of the ruling families of the Subsectors and the Quintus family.  This is not a point of great contention.  With a few obvious exceptions, the Subsector and Sector Overlord families are far too busy preparing for the imminent onslaught of Ork and Glasian warriors on their homeworlds to care about Crado Zutash and his money.

The Zutash House did not become so wealthy or so powerful through profligacy nor through making enemies, however.  House Zutash has the second largest network of successful legitimate businesses in the running after House Arpel, and they did not shut them down when Crado moved to return his family to their more piratical roots.
The original Lord Zutash was a major player in the Naxos Sector Administratum.  As a titled noble of the Naxos Sector Peerage on Asklepian and a high-ranking official in the Administratum alike, he wielded immense influence over the course of the Sector government.  He used this influence to pressure the military and Adeptus Astra Telepathica to push their forces deeper into the Pox Ring nebular Warp Storms and confront the source of the Nurglite threat there before it swelled to engulf them all.  After one too many pushbacks, he was summarily stripped of his position and ‘offered’ Rogue Traderhood instead, just to shut him up and move him away from trouble.

This nearly got the Lord Zutash killed, since he had no experience at all with matters of void war or interplanetary shipping and trade.  His son, however, realized that his father was being slighted by the Naxos government, and spent every coin he had to his name in school.  He bought the best education his money could buy him.  The scion of House Zutash learned about history, warfare, politics, trade, void navigation, science, personnel management, business finance, and every other topic his voracious mind could absorb and bottomless money could pay for.  When his father died, the new Lord Zutash turned his one frigate and struggling businesses into an empire of prosperity.  Abandoning the family holdings in Naxos and moving to Cloudburst, the House Zutash promptly fell upon the unsuspecting region like an ambull on steaks.  The Zutash House rose to meteoric heights of success by buying into businesses and using family assets (like ships and financial advisors) to make them more efficient.

The House didn’t stop with upgrading existing ones, however.  They also took struggling companies off the market with buyouts and stock trickery, then rebuilt them to higher standards and sold shares, making obscene wealth from their grateful stockholders and employees.  Not every venture was a success, of course, but those that were more than paid for those that weren’t.

To expand further, the Warrant holders of the House then shifted gears.  Leaving their old business in place, the family began to purchase small businesses that had been founded by families.  The businesses that the Zutash family targeted for buyout were small affairs that had stayed in the founders’ family for a few generations, but had fallen into the hands of owners that just wanted to cash out and live the high life without working for it.  Zutash accountants would perform the buyouts, then integrate the businesses into the Zutash holdings, absorbing them outright if it would make other businesses more efficient, and simply keeping a share for those that had no place in the larger Zutash business empire.  Along the way, the House attorneys and financiers would make the small businesses more efficient through internal reform, so that the businesses in question could survive the Zutashes taking a share of the profits.

There was absurd wealth to be made, and so it was.  House Zutash’s focus drifted farther and farther from the process of exploring the voids and more into the ground-side business world with each passing generation.

That all came to a halt with the ascension of the young Crado Zutash to the positon of family Warrant holder.  Crado promptly stripped the Zutash family holdings bare of every scrap of money that could be spared, and poured it all (a vast sum by even Inquisitorial measures) into the crafting of starships.  Mostly he bought upgrades for the House’s existing fleet, even those ships that really didn’t need them.  The rest were the vessels he earmarked for his own coming journeys.  Gathering up those vessels he had set aside for the purpose, he flew into the Cloudburst Circuit in search of wealth and power.

He returned with four more ships than he had left with, all of them tiny pirate vessels he had captured, and a trove of ancient and valuable archaeotech he promptly sold to the Adeptus Mechanicus.  Declaring his startled relatives fainthearts and his Rogue Trader rivals blind, he announced a new age for the Zutash family.  Crado said that the family would return to their adventuring ways, and burn brighter and longer than any other star in the Cloudburst Sector.

His campaign continued, as he relentlessly pursued archaeotech caches across the whole Cloudburst region.  Decades passed as he searched and flew, finding pirate hoards, Ork loot, lost treasures of the Imperium and Terran Federation alike, and glory for his House.  Every Throne of goods he could sell, he did sell, and he poured all that money straight back into his House businesses.  He bought upgrades for cogitators and office buildings, he hired Techpriests to staff his factories to make them more efficient, he used his own star charts to find the best routes for his freighters, and he used his Imperial Guard veteran advisors and Archmilitants to protect House holdings when they weren’t with him in the field.

Thus, the genius of Crado Zutash came clear to his rivals and doubting relatives.  He was not abandoning their brilliant entrepreneurial techniques, he was complementing them with his own skill at finding treasures.  Now, the Zutash family empire is wealthy beyond measure, and Crado Zutash is looking to retire.  He has been grooming his son Fox, who has nearly as much business and treasure-hunting acumen as himself, for the role, and so far, the lad shows every sign of living up to his father’s legacy.

As might be expected, most of the other Captains of the Cloudburst Sector, Navy and Trader House alike, regard the Zutashes with a mixture of respect, awe, begrudgment, and concern.  They seem unstoppable.  Their empire is growing without pause, they have eclipsed all rivals in nobility, business influence, and even firepower (save perhaps Walsh and Arpel), and they have even managed to score the great honor of a contract with the Blue Daggers to explore the Oldlight Exo-zone together after the Seventh Glasian Migration ends.  The other Houses of the region don’t know what to make of it all, but most are trying to stay out of Crado’s way.  Of course, envious rivals whisper that he has Chaotic sponsorship, but this is wishful thinking on their part, at most.  Crado Zutash is simply the Sector’s best businessman, and very aware of it.