Raundoners

Raundoners are Yugueno merchants hailing from the moon of Raundon

Background
Twelve merchant families came to Yuguen in M32: twelve Resistant dynasties that soon came to control a huge amount of the wealth of Yuguen. The fact that they brought most of that wealth to the formerly backwater Agri-world did little to temper the envy many people directed toward them.

Having settled on the moon of Albian, Albian was for many centuries the center of Yuguen trade; though more families gained charters and ships through the millenia, they were almost all Resistants, and all were based on Albian, making the Dukes of Albian very rich indeed.

Beginning in 918.M39, after the end of the Barons' War, William Marshal Skot, regent for the young King Henry, set about re-affirming Royal authority over all of the Yuguen system, beginning with Albian, whose dukes had become very independent in the years of civil war.

Though Skot was successful in bringing the Dukes to heel, it was very worrying the amount of trade and shipping was controlled by Albian and Resistants in general: of 123 merchant families and Chartist Captains, 102 were Resistants, and a far greater proportion of the Resistants held Heredity Charters, and the highly-coveted Heredity Free Charters.

Founding
Skot entered into talks with the Carmil Sector authorities, involving the Lord-Admiral of the day, local Ecclesiarchy figures including Cardinal Guala, the Departmento Munitorum, and the Administratum. After almost two years of delicate negotiations, forty-three Merchant Charters were granted to noble Yuguen families, giving them the right to own ships and carry on trade.

To fund the new merchant families, the Albian merchant families were required to invest money in ships for their new competitors. Trouble could easily have developed, but for the fall of the Braghwazh Gore Ork Empire, which opened up new trade routes and new opportunities: there was more trade to be carried than there were traders to carry it. The Albian merchants got their investments back with a profit, and the Raundoners were firmly established.