Canonfire! Forums-viewtopic-Stratis: The Story of Bonebreak

Tue Jul 12, 2011 11:10 am Noble houses in Nyrond

The Kingdom of Nyrond (originally Nehron) was conquered by the Kingdom of Aerdy, under the leadership of Prince Almor II of House Cranden, in -109 CY. Prince Almor or one of his successors gave the newly conquered territory to the powerful House Rax, which formally joined with the former rulers of Nyrond, known unoriginally as House Nyrond, to form House Rax-Nyrond. While the two houses may have been joined by law and custom, however, they did not become indistinguishable. The descendants of House Nyrond were subservient to the descendants of House Rax, and chafed under their control.

Presumably there was some kind of intermarriage to formalize the relationship, with a Rax prince marrying a Nyrond princess and assuming control of Rel Mord as Viceroy of Nyrond.

The unified Rax-Nyrond family was probably fairly content as the lords of a prestigious viceroyalty for a while; those House Nyrond descendants still bitter about not ruling a kingdom any more were quickly sidelined, and the Rax descendants had little to complain about. That is, until one of their daughters wed the Overking, and that Overking died.

In CY 75, the bride of Tenmaris Cranden, Yalranda of House Rax-Nyrond, became the Great Kingdom's first and only Overqueen.

In approximately 86 CY, Prince Manshen of the House of Cranden broke with tradition and took the name of his brilliant mother's house, Rax-Nyrond, instead of the name of the house of his stupid, corpulent father Tenmaris. I'm tempted to take a page from Game of Thrones here and assume that Tenmaris wasn't actually Manshen's father - that his father was secretly a member of Yalranda's own house, and he was aware of this even if the rest of the kingdom never was (though surely some must have suspected).

While the Rax-Nyrond rulers of Rel Mord and the Rax-Nyrond rulers of Rauxes were in all likelihood related by blood and marriage at this point (the lords of Rel Mord are probably the descendants of one of Yalranda's brothers), jealousy stewed between those who ruled an entire empire and those who ruled only a viceroyalty, remembering the days when their ancestors were kings in their own right.

In CY 356 the junior branch of House Rax-Nyrond, Nyrond, rebelled and declared itself to be once again the reigning House of the once again independent Kingdom of Nyrond. The rulers of the Great Kingdom went back to calling themselves simply the House of Rax, and mostly died out by 446, when House Naelax killed them all.

One might have expected House Nyrond to have continued to rule Nyrond until the present day, except for a single line in the Book of Artifacts, page 35: "The Eye [of Vecna] was instrumental in the extermination of the house of Hyeric, once the ruling dynasty in Nyrond."

Now, exactly how does the House of Hyeric fit into this timeline? Steve Wilson, in his Greychrondex, assigns this event to the period before the foundation of the Great Kingdom, which is to say prior to Nyrond's conquest in -109 CY. In a timeline that I wrote, I placed the fall of Hyeric during the period when Nyrond was only a viceroyalty, but I think that's a bad idea now; if any house other than Rax-Nyrond were to gain control of Nyrond during that period, it should have been one of the other Celestial Houses of Aerdy. It's also possible, as I suggested in this thread, that the House of Hyeric took control after Nyrond seceded from the Great Kingdom, and that the present king may be of another dynasty altogether.

I think now, though, that Steve Wilson's placement is the most likely. The Marklands implies very strongly that no insurrection of lesser nobles has ever succeeded in the modern Kingdom of Nyrond (page 60), so if another house is ruling at this point, it ascended through peaceful means. Perhaps a House Nyrond king failed to have issue and relatives from another house were granted the throne, but I think the text implies otherwise. Sewarndt is a "throwback to the most decadent of Rax's heritage" (p. 68). In all likelihood, House Nyrond still rules from Rel Mord, and has done so throughout the history of the modern nation.

In any case, here's a list of the noble families in Nyrond, gleaned from the surnames of nobles mentioned in The Marklands:

Baron Bastrayne of Woodwych isn't given a surname, so likely also belongs to House Nyrond (a junior branch, in a bit of historical synchronicity).
House Bereman rules Beetu.
House Fardashan rules Hammensend.
Oldred may also be ruled by a branch of House Nyrond, since Duke Korenflass isn't given a surname (unless that is his surname).
Sir Pierell Dempstren rules the Rent, but it's unlikely his family is of any prominence.
The family of Viscount Jarrold of Wragby simply bought their way into influence two generations before, so their house is probably of no more than local importance.
House Orberend rules Haldrenn Halgood.
House Huldane rules Mowbrenn.
House DeFreiden rules Curtulenn.
Entrell is an elven house that rules near the king's estates.
House Klendern rules Borneven.
House Mastersein rules Midmeadow.
House Boomgren rules Womtham.

I started this post trying to figure out for myself what kinds of dynastic upheavals Nyrond might have faced during its history, but really there's less room for them than I hoped.

Tue Jul 12, 2011 3:25 pm

Here's kind of a crazy idea. What if House Hyeric was the "ancient Oeridian tribe overwhelmed by an inner madness," mentioned as the builders of Star Haunt in The Marklands, page 71?

The problem I see with that is that Star Haunt is nowhere near Rel Mord, but perhaps the Vecna-possessed king was forced to flee the capital to a castle ruled by his family after his infamies were revealed, after which the curse of Vecna destroyed them all.