House Ulanti

House Ulanti are one of the Noble Houses of Necromunda, sharing a common ancestry with House Escher.

Early in the history of Necromunda, back when it was still referred to as Araneus Prime, three sisters gave themselves a kind of immortality via repeated cloning, replacing themselves with copies each generation; they were deadly heroines who were considered legendary warrior queens, who never aged at all in nearly 3000 years. When House Helm'ayr (Later Helmawr) rose to prominence, the three sisters swore fealty to them and started making babies the natural way by introducing males, effectively creating a bloodline, and for their service were awarded the status of a Noble House: the Ulandari.

In the 35th Millennium, the House was split, between those who wished to maintain their genetic inheritance from the three original sisters, revering them as founding mothers; and those who couldn't care less. The first group would descend in status, eventually becoming the Escher after various wars and setbacks. The second group remained in the upper nobility and would become the Ulanti.

Unlike the other Noble Houses, the Ulanti don't seem to have a singular focus of industry. They are not warmongers like House Greim, or bankers like House Ran Lo. While they do make substantial profit on exporting the pharmaceuticals that they obtain from their contracts with House Escher (which the Escher cannot export themselves), the Ulanti seem to have their fingers in all pockets and industries.

Decadent in the extreme, Ulanti holdings are akin to fairytale palaces, where they are populated with exotic beasts from all over the Imperium, and dine on the finest and rarest foodstuffs that are sometimes near impossible to obtain. They even own Necromunda's moon Juggerata which they have turned into a private safari resort.

House Ulanti's requirements are so demanding that they require significant turnover of supplies and raw materials from the planet Necromunda itself, resulting in a highly lucractive Ulanti Contract that was once supplied by House Delaque. However, House Orlock managed to usurp the Delaque by bribing their producers and sabotaging their factories, resulting in the awarding of the contract to Orlock. This resulted in outright warfare as House Delaque refused to turn over the contracted resources to the incumbent house and bringing production to a near stand-still as chemical factories and fuel refineries were blown up. House Helmawr was forced to intervene and declared House Delaque were at fault and publicly cut all ties with them (though Delaque make most of their deals in secret). House Orlock have had stewardship over the the Ulanti Contract ever since, causing no end of enmity between the two Clan Houses.

D'Onne Ulanti (Mad Donna)

A clear visual homage to the pop star Madonna, particularly that infamous spiked dress from the 90s, but with pink hair, guns, and added punk. She is clearly a woman who will NOT be defined by her appearance and will not submit to the Patriarchy.

D'Onne Ulanti was the daughter of the house Patriarch, intended to be married off for political convenience, she was kept like a virgin and locked up in a tower in isolation for most of her life until the time came to be introduced to her future husband. The meeting went fairly well, until she casually reached over the dining table and gouged her suitor's eyeballs out with a fish fork.

She then shot her way out of the house and escaped to the settlement of Glory Hole in the underhive where she was taken in by a House Escher gang. Her reputation grew based on her particularly deranged behaviour; she once gouged out her own eye because a bartender once called her "Pretty" and so the moniker "Mad" was added to her name. She eventually left House Escher and became a freelancer, running a House Orlock gang in search for archeotech hoards. The fact that she was the only person to return only added to her reputation as extremely lucky, or cursed.

Despite not appearing in the relaunch of the tabletop game, she is still mentioned in the lore and continues to live in the Underhive. Occasionally Ulanti Courtiers (see below) are sent to the lower depths to recover her but are invariably sent back home in pieces.

Fielding Mad Donna

The original iteration of Mad Donna Ulanti debuted in the original Outlanders boxed set for Necromunda in 1996. There, she had the following profile

Stats: Movement 4, Weapon Skill 5, Ballistic Skill 4, Strength 3, Toughness 3, Wounds 2, Initiative 5, Attacks 1, Leadership 9

Equipment: Plasma Pistol, Laspistol, Chainsword, Bionic Eye.

Skills: Impetuous, Killer Reputation, Dodge, Leap

Allegiance: Mad Donna will fight for any gang except the following: House Goliath, Spyrers, Scavvies, Redemptionists.

Rating Bonus: +225

Bounty: 225 creds.

Payment: d6X10, but on a 1, Mad Donna will refuse to partake in the next game, but will rejoin the gang after that.

Special Rules:

Frenzy

Hatred: Spyrers

Psycho-Bitch: If Mad Donna defeats an enemy model in hand-to-hand combat and there are no targets within follow-up distance, leave the downed fighter in base-to-base contact with Mad Donna. In this and each subsequent hand-to-hand phase, roll on the Serious Injury Chart for the victim and apply immediately, unless the result is 61-66; in this case, Mad Donna loses interest and moves away. If an enemy model is pinned or within charge distance, she can leave her downed victim and pursue this new target by making a Leadership test on 2d6.

Hunted: If you field Mad Donna, your opponents get to roll a d6; on a 6+, they get a free Bounty Hunter hired gun for this match. They can add +1 to the roll if your Gang Rating exceeds theirs by 500 points, and +2 if it exceeds their by 1,000 points or more.

An updated, semi(?) official release in the pages of Fanatic was released to tie into the Underhive edition of the game. This version of Mad Donna is identical, save she now has a 6+ save and no longer counts as having a bionic eye.

Alliance Benefits

Unlike many of the potential alliances in the Necromunda ruleset, gaining the patronage of House Ulanti comes with few significant drawbacks. They do not make any kind of demands and do not require any kind of payback for their services.

Alliances with House Ulanti brings cold hard cash in every post-battle sequence, and the potential to bring a reasonably potent ally to the battlefield, plain and simple. If that's all a gang leader wants then it's a very simple arrangement.

However, they are one of the most unreliable factions in the game. Every time a gang leader dips into their excessive wealth there is a likelihood that the alliance will be weakened as the Ulanti start getting bored and changing their interests to other hobbies.

What's more is that if the alliance ever breaks, House Ulanti will automatically form an temporary alliance with that gang's next opponent (whether they already had an alliance or not) and granting the next player access to wealth and potent allies.

Tabletop

House Ulanti can send a Court Advisor to join a gang that they are sponsoring.

The court advisor comes with a Mirror Mask, who is an augmented warrior supplied with a holographic disguise in order to appear as the Courtier. This is to provide a body double and protector for such an important member of the nobility, but it also allows the Courtier to take credit for the prowess of their underlings, because supposedly the typical members of House Ulanti are useless wastes of space. However some courtiers are highly trained duelists, thanks to the fact that wealth can provide the best tutors, gear, and training opportunities.

Mechanically, the Courtier and the Mirror Mask are equipped identically with needle pistols, power swords, and displacer fields. They also have essentially the same physical statline, so you get two identical warriors on the tabletop. Though with the extra rules the Courtier gets, they are actually the more dangerous of the pair.

Because you never know which one is the "real" courtier and which one is the fake, the mirror mask can swap places with their charge any time during the skirmish, as often as they like. Only getting caught out once they have committed to a persona when it is the other players turn to activate.

Playable Factions of Necromunda
Clan Houses:	Cawdor - Delaque - Escher - Goliath - Orlock - Van Saar
Noble Houses:	Catallus - Greim - Ko'iron - Ran Lo - Ty - Ulanti - Spyrers
Others:	Ash Waste Nomads - Corpse Grinder Cults - Cult of the Redemption Ironhead Squat Prospectors - Palanite Enforcers - Ratskins - Scavvies