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This was just a short background for my tabletop Rogue Trader character, so some of it is quite a bit more descriptive than story-like but those that have read seem to enjoy it:

Janella's family, the Macharius, have been pilotting the Griffon from when the ship was in the Imperial Navy many thousands of years ago and are a well-known pilotting family. When the cruiser was decommissioned, they just sort of stayed on and have been supplying the Mordecai the pilots of their greatest ship ever since. Sometimes you'd almost think they were still in the navy, as their history and lore has been passed down through the generations and are kept to strict standards when it comes to their jobs, even if when they're not performing their duties they act more like they're on holiday.

Of course, Janella has dozens of family on the ship, some of whom have never stepped off even when docked and shore leave permitted. The previous pilot was Janella's father, Attilas was replaced by Janella after his increasing senility led to him panicking and insisting that we had to "deal with the ork threat" and "stop lollygagging about whilst in imminent danger" during a rather peaceful cruise into port, referring to an incident with a freebooter some eight months previously (where of course, the Rogue Trader had lanced the Ork ship out of existence). That was four years ago, Janella quite naturally stepped into the role she had been born, bred and raised for her whole life. Janella herself is currently about twenty-five (but with warp time, that is of course a bit elastic but is close enough).

Now the Macharius family take it in turns to feed their patriarch nice soft food and make sure his blanket's tucked in and he's wearing his slippers. Attilas spends his time wandering the ships corridors and sitting in any of the many mess halls telling anyone who will listen stories of glorious adventure, or about how the cleaning servitors are stealing his socks. You never quite know what you're going to get. Any crew member foolish enough or guest ignorant enough to pause and listen to Attilas will be subjected to hours and hours of war stories and the glory days. Some of the events happened many hundreds of years ago so it is hard to tell what he was there for, or what he heard in the pub one day and his senile mind has decided is his. When he starts roaming the corridors, shouting at the top of his lungs, it's usually a matter of minutes before an Macharius is there to gently but firmly escort him back to his quarters. Whenever he sees the Lord Captain he makes a big show of trying to pull his old and failing bones into a smart salute and either refers to him by his father's name or tells him how much he reminds him of the previous Lord Captain.

Janella's mother, Venria was quite a bit younger than her husband who was killed in a tragic torpedo accident almost twenty years ago when Janella was seven. Whilst Attilas pilotted the Griffon, Venria was in charge of the ship's small craft. She flew like a teenager on their P plates, having fun, taking risks and scaring the Emperor into anyone around or worse, on board one of the flyers. Accidents like damaged landing gear or windows blown out dirtside earned an "Oops" and an apologetic smile. This, and the seneschal's wad of thrones, was usually enough to placate. Everyone liked to earn a smile from Venria. In some backwater planet out in the far reaches, Venria was flying the guncutter up to the Griffon, laden down with precious cargo of combs that sang praises to the Emperor whilst the lucky ladies brushed their hair when pirates came virtually out of nowhere (hiding beyond range behind one of the planet's satellites) and made their intentions known to try and take the cruiser. The battle was pitched, the Griffon's shields went down. Venria was making her way as quickly as possible to the safety of the Griffon in the guncutter when the closest frigate fired a torpedo. With the shields down, the torpedo would have caused devestating damage to the Griffon. Venria positioned the guncutter between her and the ship and the torpedo. Her last words over the short range comms was reported to be "WEEEE-HEEEE!!!! TAKE THIS MOTHERFU-" and then, as reports have it, the silence of space was filled by thousands of tinny hairbrush voices singing for the Emporer in a crescendo so irritating that the pirates relented. (After a good few broadsides, they relented but everyone ignores that part of the story). The Griffon was still damaged, but nowhere near what would have been had the torpedo hit. The Griffon doesn't have a guncutter anymore.

Janella has two sisters and two brothers. Her oldest sister, Intias ran off and married a chartis captain she met on shore leave. It is unspoken that she married beneath her station but she does get to pilot the escort ship that the captain's family own outright so the Macharius seem to think that evens up leaving the Rogue Trader ship for. Atella, three years Janella's junior, went off and joined the Imperial Navy about seven years ago.

The Macharius have long had a close relationship with the family that traditionally is in charge of the Griffon's ordinance, the two families often marrying between each other's ranks (and not in a Tasmanian brother-cousin kind of way, the geneologies are carefully watched by the ship's scribe). True to this, her older brother Attelus married into the family and much of his time is spent keeping his wife from distracting the rest of the ordinance crew in her boredom as she waddles around telling anyone who'll listen that the Emperor created space marines because pregnancy is murder on the ankles, even in low grav.

Janella's younger brother, Flavion is Janella's favourite sibling, a rather emotional young man who is always dressed in the latest fashion that he can afford. He looks after the Griffon's small craft with exceeding attention to detail and gets rather upset when anything goes wrong. He used to have a 'special' relationship with one of the junior engine seers, Raltus who made up the maintenance crew for the holo barges. Then Raltus got a few too many upgrades, became a bit closer to the Machine God and there were many tears from Flavion and cries of how "Tech priests just don't care". After using up a good portion of the ship's tissue supply, Flavion now has a 'special relationship' with Varnias, the son of the foreman in charge of loading and unloading the cargo. It seems a more technical endeavour than one would think, given the number of 'private meetings' that Flavion and Varnias engage in to discuss the best use of space in the holo barges.

Other than Janella though, the only family member on the bridge is her cousin Jastilus, the nav officer, who's nice enough but snorts a laugh every time it's Janella's turn to give Attilas his dinner. Jastilus is somewhat rotund for a void born but is most likely due to having married the chef who prepares the officer's meals.

Noone knows where Fritzy came from or who he used to be but he's probably been around for a good few hundred years. He's the servitor that plugs Janella into the Griffon's MIU and she's always calling up the engine seers to fix him, grumbling as she asks one of the command crew to plug her in whilst Fritzy sits there quietly fritzing away. He's actual name is "Servitor Station Six"

Janella herself takes traits from both her mother and father. She's happiest when plugged into the Griffon, which is most of the time, and has her father's love and patience for the big, slow, old bird. Janella gets a funny look on her face as though she's stepped in grox dung every time she's told they have to go dirtside but jumps at the chance to pilot the small craft, giving in to her mother's love of speed and manoeuverability. It's no secret she considers the aquila lander, dubbed the Sparrow, hers (even though it's owned by the Mordecai family) and noone else has ever dared pilot it. Unlike the Griffon, the Sparrow only utilises the ports at the back of her skull, arms, temples and hands. Those who travel with her in the Sparrow have learned the hard way to strap in tight and take a sick bag with them. In her rare moments of off-time when she hasn't "conveniently" forgotten to unplug from the Griffon or is feeding her father his gruel, she can sometimes be seen fighting the cleaning servitor to wash and buff and generally spruce up the Sparrow herself. Once she was seen in absolute frustration take paint, write "aquila" on the side of one of the holo barges, pick up the servitor and put it in front of the barge saying "That's the aquila - see?!" in an attempt to wash the Sparrow herself.

She is bright and bubbly, sometimes to the point of irritating or even manic. She suffers from foot in mouth quite a bit for someone on the bridge of a Rogue Trader vessel. Janella always, always goes to mass whenever she can though and is quite ferverently protective of the ship's ecclesiarchy. She's rarely in full uniform on the ship, usually just wearing a singlet and uniform pants. Her excuse is it's easier because the plug ins run all the way down her back and she'd just have to take her shirt and jacket off anyway. She has one large port at the base of her spine, two medium sized ports equidistant up her spine, a small one at the base of her skull, two small ones in the temples, biceps and backs of her hands. She takes picts of just about everything and anything. If you walk into her quarters, it is cluttered full of pict slates scrolling with picts she's taken, every thing from "the crew about to go down to the planet" "the crew dirtside" "the crew arriving back onto the ship" "the interesting muffin that Ilan bought" to the bizarre, frightening and wonderful of far off planets, the alien landscape, wierd plants, strange creatures, space anomolies. Not on display are other photos such as other Rogue Traders or known pirate captains and their entourage, facilities Janella has visited with the Griffon's crew. Things that may come in useful and can be analysed at a later date.