I wrote this because I was bored...feel free to add your own personalities, just to make the Expanse a little more colourful! 
Personalities of the Koronus Expanse
Ixos van Excoss, insane merchant of Footfall
There is an old Terran saying that after a while dogs start to look like their masters. This saying could certainly apply to Ixos, whose manner and unpredictability replicate exactly those he claims to serve: the nefarious and quixotic xeno race known as the Strixis.
Ixos is an unprepossessing physical specimen: in his late ‘50s, short, pallid, bald, and tubby, with a perpetual five‘o’clock shadow peppering his sweaty jowls. Limpid brown eyes entirely circled by white – like the eyes of a child’s doll - dart nervously around him, and he gives off a uniquely unpleasant body odour. Invariably found dressed in an ancient brown, endlessly patched void suit loaded down with pouches and webbing, he mutters and clucks to himself as he goes about his business.
Ixos owns a small, jumbled stall in the Arcade Mercantalis quarter of Footfall, the infamous lair of villany and intrigue that lies beyond the last of the Stations of Passage into the Koronus Expanse. He sells a baffling variety of produce: exotic foodstuffs (slightly stale), caged xeno beasts (often mangy and dying) and unusual (frequently highly unstable) weapons from mysterious cultures. He also stocks his shelves with the detritus of Footfall itself: broken power tools, dirty old hairbrushes, cheap silver jewellery and other cast offs from the edge of human civilisation. He treats all of his stock as if it were Sephirean Ice Pearls, not the junk it most certainly is.
Yet Ixos is more than just a void-burned lunatic: for he appears to have a unique relationship with the mysterious xenos traders, the Strixis.
In 788 M41, Ixos arrived in Footfall in a bizarre vessel that appeared to be constructed entirely from bundles of wire and rock. Accompanied by a trio of silent, utterly peculiar xenos of horrifyingly alien aspect, he announced himself as the ambassador plenipotentiary of the Strixis race to the biped denizens of the Koronus Expanse. Purchasing a humble stall for himself with priceless gold coins bearing the visage of Lord Solar Macharius, he set about regaling the baffled denizens of Footfall with contradictory tales of a vast “palace of rust” spinning through space and time, whose Lords and Ladies had saved him from the wreck of the crippled Merchantman, Oedessian Princess.
Ixos claimed to have been the sole survivor of a plasma explosion on board this vessel, and to have drifted, delirious, in a lifepod for 30 days, until drawn into the maw of a vast tarnished Strixis trading vessel. Ixos claims that he charmed the denizens of this ship with a series of tall tales, and that they declared him their equal, their brother, their comrade, and dressed him in tattered finery and paraded him on their mottled backs.
The full details of this weird story change with every telling, growing more surreal with every variation, but the story does appear to have a concrete foundation in some sort of relationship between Ixos and the Strixis. On the rare half dozen or so occasions these xenos have been seen in Footfall, they always make a point of visiting him, and often leave proudly clutching trinkets of no value in their pseudopods.
Ixos’ reputation as a key link to the Strixis was cemented when he announced the arrival of the “rust palace,” the principle Strixis trading station, six months before it was actually “discovered” by Rogue Traders in the anomalous nebulae known as the God Emperor’s Scourge.
Ixos will happily meet with any trader or supplicant who wishes to learn more of the Strixis, and will babble away cheerfully about his “comrades.” Unfortunately, as members of the Ordo Xenos who have interviewed him in secret have discovered, his information is so jumbled and contradictory as to be useless. He will tell one listener that the Strixis are the heroic remnants of an ancient battle between races of gods millions of years ago, another that they are a type of red ork, and yet another that they eat only rocks and trade with humans because they like the way we smell.
Ixos is, despite his oblique approach to sanity, a competent trader and ferocious haggler, with an almost autistically obsessive disdain for his personal safety when he feels he is on the verge of striking a good deal. If he feels there is scope for a good trading relationship between a trader and the Strixis (though no one is sure what his criteria are) then he will provide charts to the rust palace and clearance to avoid its security measures. He will also exchange currency for “scrips,” written in his own hand, which he says will be honoured by his Stixis compatriots.
However, traders who have dealt with the Strixis directly have noted wildly differing reactions to the dropping of Ixos’ name: some seem insulted to hear him mentioned, others praise him to the skies while appearing totally ignorant as to who he is. Some accept his scrips with sighs of awe, at hugely inflated prices, others cast them to the ground and spit/excrete on them. As with all things, the xenos is unknowable.
Ixos is well guarded by a handful of discrete bodyguards who appear to have been appointed by the shadowy rulers of Footfall itself. When not in his stall, he sleeps on the street outside it, or roots through the resyc bins for treasures for his shelves, all the while muttering to himself in “Strixian,” apparently a strange mix of whistles, cheeps, clicks and wheedling hisses.
Using Ixos in games of Rogue Trader
Ixos is a pure plot hook, a device you can use in any way you want. He can be used as a source of gossip, tall tales, treasure maps, and information both reliable and unreliable. He has the touch of the weird about him, whilst apparently being grounded in the mundane reality of mental illness…or is he just faking it? Nothing should be certain when dealing with him, but he should never be a threatening presence, rather a bizarre and comically unsettling one. He talks strangely, acts strangely…he IS strange. But he might be the key to a great fortune…
Ixos Profile:
WS: 25
BS: 31
S: 29
T: 38
Ag: 31
Int: 45
Per: 40
WP: 35
Fel:33
Movement: 3/6/9/18
Wounds: 13
Skills: Awareness, Barter +20, Common Lore (Imperium, Merchant), Common Lore (Koronus Expanse)+10, Navigation (stellar), Speak Language (Low Gothic, Strixian), Trade (Merchant, Voidfarer) Forbidden Lore (Xenos: Strixis) +10
Talents: Exotic weapons Training (universal), Pistol Training (Universal), Peer (Strixis),
Armour: None.
Weapons: none (though he has access to many hidden under his stall. These are mainly for sale, though.)
Gear: Broken data slate (for pretending to add up prices), key to stall, key to strongbox, stall, bedroll.
Ixos’ Stall
The players may wish to buy items from Ixos. If they do, roll a D10 to see what’s available:-
1-5 The shelves are bare… Ixos is very sorry, but there is little of interest today. Perhaps the kind master would like this broken china doll, or this door hinge, slightly broken?
6-9 We’ve just had a delivery! Ixos summons shiny items of great value from under battered tarpaulins in the recesses of his tiny stall. Ixos is able to sell up to ten of any item of plentiful availability or less. He will haggle for these items as if his life depended upon it, and will not stop doing so, even if his life depends upon stopping.
0 This will look SO good on you…Ixos has a single item of Very Rare or higher availability for sale. This should (for preference) be an exotic weapon from table 5-7 on page 128 of the RT core rulebook. Again, Ixos will haggle for hours to get a good price for this item.
Ixos’ bodyguards
The masters of Footfall don’t really know what to make of Ixos, but they are keen to avoid upsetting a xenos race with a major presence within a few months’ journey of their domain. On the off chance he IS a Strixian ambassador, and knowing how dangerous Footfall is, they have appointed a trio of their best gunslingers to keep an eye on Ixos. These men – all bounty hunters and ex guardsmen – hang around outside his stall dressed as off-duty merchantman, smoking lho sticks, gossiping and playing regicide. Use the Oathsworn Bodyguard profile from p372 of the RT Core Rulebook.
