House Majid

House Majid were vagabonds living beyond the sight of the Imperium before they came to the Prosperitas Sector. They bear an ancient Warrant of Trade, but had for many years been beyond the reach of the Imperium. When their ships emerged from the Nemean Gulf in 263.M41 as a rag-tag fleet, the House owned little but the weary hulls of their voidships and the clothes on their backs. For nearly three hundred years they used their void knowledge to their advantage, transforming into a house of wealth and prosperity, claiming treasures from beyond the rim and forging new trade routes for the Imperium.

For years, the House presented itself as reputable and devout, its twin faiths of the Emperor and Omnissiah divergent but not heretical, its relationship with the Imperial faith and especially the Missionaria Galactica one of close piety. House Majid vessels operated for many years as the long-reaching arm of the Prosperitas Crusade. It was rare for a House Majid vessel to not be accompanied by a Missionary of the Imperial Faith, given that the House projects a reputation of faithful dutiful servants.

Wealthy in the extreme, the House could be found everywhere. Known for the strict discipline with which it treated its scions, the House went to extreme lengths to ensure it presented itself better than some of the more decadent nobles of the Prosperitas Sector. House Majid’s wealth was a sign of better times for the Sector, and some believed that one day it might eventually supplant the wealth of its greatest rival House Durovera... if it were not for the sudden reversal of that House's fortunes under Armelius Durovera.

The Fall of House Majid

The House's good fortune would have continued if it were not for the trade wars of 593.M41 when House Vilas-Lobo launched a sudden coordinated attack on the trade holdings of the House and several Majid trade fleet vessels were destroyed or captured. The House regrouped at its agri-world holding of Midsummer to prepare for a counter attack.

Perhaps if the House had been permitted to regroup, it would have survived, but it was to suffer a second devastating betrayal.

Scion Erydia Majid, of the Plentiful Bounty, had brought shame on her family, and in 593 as the fleet was mustering above Midsummer she was summoned before Lady-Captain Khadija Majid to answer for her actions. However, rather than face her liege and accept consequences for her actions, the Scion released some form of ancient weapon upon the Majid fleet. The effect was devastating as ship after ship were disabled and crippled systems shutting down and killing much of the House over the few mad hours that followed.

The House survived, but at great cost, to repair its ships it had to free its Cadet-House Volkov-Majid to become the newly arisen House Volkov and grant them Midsummer simply to pay for the immense costs. Its trajectory since that bloody day has been one of revenge: House Vilas-Lobo wounded the House, but Erydia crippled it.

Despite this, it was Majid ships that aided the evacuation of Olethros Secunda, with Lady-Captain Khadija spending her life defending the colony long enough to allow much of its population to be evacuated in the face of Archenemy invasion. She left her niece Amira Majid to inherit her position as Lady-Captain.

As the close of the 5th century of the 41st Millenium draws near, House Majid is a shadow of its former self: a House on the brink of extinction. But it has survived worse, and its faith and fury fuels its drive to continue on. Lady-Captain Amira Majid is nothing if not a resourceful woman: despite the horrendous costs to herself she has survived the near-extermination of her House - and is not as young and feckless as some scions of the House. It seems likely enough that through savage determination the House will continue, even if it returns to its roots as an itinerant Trade house. However, with the House largely spent as a power, the system of balance between the Houses has been thrown off.

Perhaps this stubborn will to survive is more than that though, for Lady-Captain Amira has a far greater mark of shame on her than other Majid scions: the one who brought the fall of her House was her own flesh and blood, her own daughter, and that betrayal runs deeper for her then any other Scion of the House - shared only by her wife.