Ever in the shadow of his siblings, Lord Crispin Marlowe expected to inherit nothing, it having been made clear that the archonship of Meidua Prefecture was meant to pass to his younger sister, Sabine. However, the old Butcher of Linon had one final surprise for his children. Aleister Marlowe had spent no small amount of time in the latter part of his life traveling between Delos and Forum, as well as between Delos and the headquarters of the Wong-Hopper Consortium at Arcturus Station. These voyages—which did much to stretch out the old archon’s life expentancy—had the double effect of enhancing House Marlowe’s prestige in the region (prestige no doubt enhanced by the growing fame of House Marlowe’s most famous son). House Marlowe made itself the most important uranium supplier in the sector for a period of nearly 200 of the Cielcin Wars’ most critical years. Aleister Marlowe was able to parley this boost to the house’s wealth and visibility into the purchase of the deed to the planet Caria—a mining colony in the outer Perseus, a habitable but inhospitable world on the edge of human settlement.

Lord Aleister immediately named his daughter, Lady Sabine, his heir and Countess of Caria. Crispin was at once set to inherit Devil’s Rest.

Crispin had already married by this point, having courted the Lady Gianna Albans, the daughter of another minor Delian house. Having been considered a spare heir for so many years, Crispin Marlowe found himself in the curious position of having been permitted to wed for love—a rarity among the Imperial nobility of the period (or indeed of any period). Their marriage was, to all accounts, a happy one. By all accounts, the Lady Gianna Albans-Marlowe shared her husband’s fondness for the arena, and possessed a keen interest in falconry. The couple were known for taking long holidays into the wilder places of Delos—and on more than one occasion even ventured offworld to engage in hunts on Renaissance and even on Avalon itself.

But they were denied children, a fact for which the Lady Gianna blamed Hadrian Marlowe—and not unjustly. Though confirmation of this has never been found, it is highly likely that the High College—or pressures surrounding the High College at the Imperial Court—sought to reduce the impact of House Marlowe on the wider galactic stage. Lord Crispin survived the Cielcin invasion of Delos which occurred in ISD 17517, and is said to have led House Marlowe’s forces against the invaders, and to have acquitted himself well in the fighting in and over Meidua. He survived to see his brother’s victory at Gododdin, and through what followed thereafter.