[Rogue Trader] Xanator Gant

Xanator Gant

Former Ordinate-General of the Adeptus Terra

Current Departmental Prelate and Sole Member of the Census and Tithing Departmento of the Koronus Expanse

The scion of a long and proud dynasty of Departmental Prefects, Xanator Gant was born to be a Administrator. Attending the elite scholariums of the Administratum in his youth, he excelled in every regard - from the history of accounting to the practice of ritual auditing. His early career in the Adeptus Terra was as full of achievements as any Gant that had come before - as an adjunct to the Munitorum, he challenged corruption in the ranks that had seen entire regiments worth of weaponry sold off to the highest bidder, as a Sanitation Ordinate he helped redesign the sewage systems of the hive world of Fecunditis, and in the dusty stacks of the Librarium Administratum, he oversaw a threefold reduction in the amount of late fines not paid. Xanator was marked for success, and so the rivals of the Gant dynasty, the ancient Vorsian administration clan, marked him for death.

The vendetta between the two great Administratum dynasties had continued for centuries. At times, it had erupted into open battle, staining the tape that held the Adeptus Terra together red with blood. This time, the Vorsians took more subtle action. Favors were called in and strings were pulled to have young Xanator re-assigned as Departmental Prelate of the Census and Tithing Departmento in the Koronus Expanse - a region that hadn't answered to Imperial rule in seven millenia. Accompanied only by a faithful servo-skull, Xanator was placed aboard an Administratum frigate bound for the waystation of Port Maw.

It turned out that he wouldn't even reach the Expanse before being struck down by those outside Imperial rule. In the Calixis Sector, the frigate Penstroke of the Emperor came under attack by pirates - paid off handsomely by the Vorsians. As they boarded and looted the heart of the Penstroke, Xanator drew on his experience as a Sanitation Ordinate to hide himself deep within the sewage units of the ship. When the pirates abandoned the ship to drift in the Oort cloud of a nearby system, he was ready to escape aboard the ship's one remaining cargo pod. The journey to the nearest habitable world would take thirteen months, during which Xanator survived mostly on lettuce he'd found growing in the Penstroke's waste units, and developed an entirely new form of inventory management for paperclips.

The nearby world of Anderlund was no civilized imperial world, ready to welcome a decorated Adminstratum ordinate with open arms. Anderlund had been lost to Imperial rule for six millenia, thanks to a cartographic error by a Navis Nobilite scribe, and was firmly stuck in a medieval morass of warfare and poverty. Xanator landed on the planet's primary continent, in the middle of a major war that had engulfed seven nations and millions of people. After nearly being eaten by a tigon, enslaved by mercenaries, and having his head cut off for heresy, he was able to integrate himself into the court of a nearby King as a "court magician", with the aid of his servo skull and court pistol. Within two years, he had introduced double-entry accounting, created the planet's first stock exchange, and built a trading and banking system that tied together three continents and two major island groups.

When the Indomitable Fury pulled into orbit a few years later, they were expecting to make a killing by trading trinkets to the natives for vast and valuable resources. What they did not expect to encounter was a planet in the throes of a desperate Industrial Renaissance, funded by the most effective financial system in the sector and managed by none other than Xanator Gant, Deparmental Prelate. In a few futile trades, they found themselves out-negotiated by bankers and industrialists who had been wielding wooden spears and wearing loincloths a decade ago. Seemingly conned out of their cargo by primitives, they prepared to lay waste to the world from orbit until Xanator himself stepped in. In a masterful negotiation, Xanator was able to save the Anderlunders from unsanctioned Exterminatus in return for his services as Seneschal to the Rogue Trader, Holt Macharius. Horrified at Macharius' woeful financial management, he set himself the challenge of returning the Macharius dynasty to profitability and to the service of the Imperium.