House Harkonnen

House Status: Great House
Home World: Giedi Prime
House Traits: Brutality; Treachery; Ruling with an Iron Fist
Primary domain: Spice Mining (Current Governors of Arrakis)
Secondary domains: Industry (refined alloys; mass produced goods); Whale fur
Key Figures: Baron Vladimir Harkonnen; Glosou Rabban Harkonnen, Piter de Vries
Assumed Relationship with your House: Enemy

Notes:
The name Harkonnen is synonymous with brutality, cruelty, and ambition. Among the great Houses of the Landsraad none are as feared and few are as envied as House Harkonnen.

The Harkonnens labored as a House Minor for many centuries, near-outcasts as the result of an ancient betrayal for which they have always blamed the Atreides. Only in comparatively recent times did the Harkonnens manage to gain the wealth and resources to become recognized as a Great House, an accomplishment soaked in blood and born of quiet betrayals.

Their capital and homeworld is the planet Giedi Prime. An industrialized world, the lower castes are held in slavery or near-slavery under the savage whip of Harkonnen rule. The Harkonnens and their associated noble families relished cruelty, and public bloodsports are a leading form of entertainment.

For decades, Siridar Baron Vladimir Harkonnen had been entrusted by the Emperor with the management of spice on the fiefdom of Arrakis (taking over from House Richese). There, the Baron and his family have crushed the planet’s natives in order to squeeze every last milligram of spice wealth into their coffers. Few outside Arrakis really care how the people are treated as long as the spice flows.

Another House might be content to have control of the greatest source of wealth in the known universe, but not the Harkonnens. Baron Vladimir has many plans for himself and his dynasty to further their ambitions — ambitions for which they are capable of any act, no matter how terrible.