Cold Trade - Cold Trader Broker: There are many riches to be had on the frontiers of Imperial space. Vestiges of archeotech from ages past, holy relics from the Imperial Crusades of Mankind's expansion and the artefacts of those beings who have lived among the stars far longer than Humanity. All these and more lie dormant, waiting for those who would seek them out. While there is profit to be made in trading all of these goods, it is the xenos artefacts that has enthralled thousands throughout the Koronus Expanse.The Cold Trade, as the black market trade of proscribed alien artefacts is known in the Expanse, is a thriving industry among the frontier outposts beyond the Maw. The men and women who broker this trade are a vicious syndicate of criminals who know full well that their actions put them at odds with both the Ordo Xenos branch of the dreaded Inquisition and the xenos civilisations from whom they reap their merchandise.In order to avoid the full force of one threat or the other, most brokers favour a particular method. Some gather the relics of xenos civilisations long since collapsed under the weight of Terran years, plundering the ruins of a vanished people and without reprisal from their long-dead guardians. Others, flaunting Imperial sanctions to an even greater extent than the majority of their type, interact directly with the xenos and trade for their goods, make alliances with them, and on rare occasions become accepted amongst them as much as any member of Humanity can be.It is this sort of Cold Trade agent, keenly aware of their heresy, who draws the greatest attention from the Ordo Xenos. Still others take a more violent role in procuring their wares, actively seeking out alien victims, that they might strip their corpses of all valuable goods. Cold Trade brokers are by no means simply pirates who ply the stars in search of xenostech. They are sophisticated criminals, ruthless in the extreme, and hardened by many standard years of interaction with dangerous alien species.Given that their chosen enterprise requires them to traverse the stars, making contacts on the disparate worlds of the Koronus Expanse, all the while evading Imperial authority, brokers are often cunning tricksters, willing to use guile as often as outright violence. Complemented by the fact that brokers of the Cold Trade never truly work alone, that each agent of a syndicate has the illicit backing of a vast network of smugglers, fences, thugs and killers, Cold Traders are no force to be trifled with.Xenos artefacts are by no means the only wares smuggled throughout the Koronus Expanse. Given the size and population of the frontier, and the wide degree of variation of the laws from system to system, to say nothing of individual planets, the list of goods that are outlawed in the whole of the Koronus Expanse is limitless. Millions of ordinary smugglers work throughout the Expanse and the neighbouring Calixis Sector, making their living supplying planetary populations with mundane luxuries forbidden on account of esoteric variations of the Imperial Creed.While these black market runners work in opposition to the law of whatever star system, planet or void station they service, their actions do not lead them into conflict with the more dreadful powers of the Imperium, nor do they find themselves on the wrong side of alien civilisations. As such, these smugglers, while a dangerous lot in their own right, are by no means the hardened, ruthless criminals of the Cold Trade.