At the time of its inception, the Duke's Buccaneers was outwardly an officially sanctioned, non-governmental security outfit that operated within the New Duchy systems of the Paranid Empire. Behind this facade, a corrupt organisation began to form, determined to undermine the authority of the very government that had originally permitted its rise. The Buccaneers were led by the shadowy and cunning Pirate Duke who unified smugglers, pirates and other discontent denizens of this largely unexplored and unstable region under his rule. During the Terran Conflict, which forcefully distracted the Paranid Pontifex's attention, Duke's Haven was established as the faction headquarters in a newly discovered border system. That system was later grandiosely renamed Lasting Vengeance, presumably in honour of one of the Duke's driving motivations in the subsequent escalation.
The Duke's Buccaneers were infamous for requiring absolute commitment from their members, demanding that they cut all former ties, and sending them on dangerous infiltration and assassination missions against their former affiliates to prove their allegiance. For most of the faction's supporters, this made maintaining good standings with major political powers, or even pirate organisations, nigh on impossible, and over time resulting in them serving only the Buccaneers. Eventually, political tensions rose and the Buccaneers became hunted by their Paranid neighbours, leading to attacks on their headquarters itself. Regardless of the meticulous planning and seeming precision of those strikes, they never managed to corner or kill the pirate leader himself. The Duke always seemed to stay one step ahead of his pursuers, all the while giving his loyal subjects ample opportunity to make a profit in the ensuing chaos.
