OOC:Sorry if this reads like ow -- I'm not working on much sleep right now, and I can't really focus enough to proofread it or organize it better.
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House Name: The house of Luseysi, the Emperors need bear no other name.
Sigil / Words: The Jade Moon, of course – a pale green crescent on a white cloth. House words for them would probably be seen as undignified, so we'll skip them here.
Lord: Emperor Auren II (28, married) – the grandson of the last emperor; his father predeceased him. Whereas his grandfather, Auren I, was weak-willed and easily manipulated by the great lords, Auren II is something of an unknown. He should be married to a daughter of one great house or another; we'll call her Irial, but I don't particularly care which house she comes from. Someone who supported the royal family in the last war; beyond that, maybe you should use a dice roll to decide?
Family: Preferably two sons (Mares, Alurei) and one daughter (Luriana), ages 6 and 2 and 5, respectively. Also, I'd like the emperor to have one brother (Fyrdes), and for his brother to have a family as well – past that, I'm not sure how much leeway you want to give me in making up this family tree... But I imagine the imperial family is somewhat small, given the fratricidal war that ended only a generation back.
Ancestors: The most important of the imperial ancestors, of course, is Luseysi, the Son of the Moon, and founder of the Empire. Of his life, much has already been written, so we shall examine a few of his more illustrious descendants in brief (I will write up a detailed kings list later):
Keresen I (r. 304-380 AR): Immediate successor to Luseysi; compared to his father's 300 years, the son's mere 80 year reign was rather less impressive.
Kyurili I (r. 380-412): An even briefer reign compared to his father and grandfather, Kyurili was nonetheless beloved by the people of the time for the first great set of improvements to the Pale City. Builder, architect, hero, patron of the arts, and subject of one of the first romantic tragedies of the nascent empire, he would be remembered long after his father.
Tares I (r. 784-831): He who presided over the first days of the Solemn Age.
Tares II (r. 831-832): Mysteriously died at the age of 18, shortly after showing signs of disapproval towards the actions of the Order of the Moon.
Nosyan I (r. 832-899): Put the Solemn Age back into full swing again. A very pious – some would say
too pious – man.
The Forgotten Emperor [name officially stricken from the record] (r. 1297-1351): The usurped. Supported by his church and by the loyal lords, he ended up embroiled in a brutal, fifty-year-long war against his brother. A hard man, he managed to keep the imperial forces going for a long, long time against what was probably superior opposition – until, of course, they were finally brought crashing down. After his dethronement and execution, his name was physically removed from every imperial monument and listing; by imperial decree, writing the name is punishable by extremely cruel death.
Auren I (r. [1297] 1351-1370): The usurper. About 17 when he first started his war, and already an old man when he finally defeated his brother and gained the throne, it is said that in his old age he barely wanted to fight anymore; it was merely the momentum of the fifty-year war that had kept him going. By the time he had defeated his brother and ordered his execution, he was already seventy years old. The last twenty years of his reign were spent in senescence and grief, during which the provincial warlords gained still more power.
Holdings: The Emperor is more powerful in the spiritual realm than the temporal, but he still has extensive holdings; the most notable, of course, being the Pale City and its environs. Much of the immediate surrounding lands have been granted to other, minor lords, but the Emperor has a patchwork of holdings all the way from the river up to the mountains and down to the southern coast – though even with these, a lot of the farms fall under the administration of other nobility.
Sources of Income: Though some taxes from the surrounding farmers help, the Emperor gains most of his income from lowly merchants, in tolls in the port and on the River near the Pale City. There are, of course, plenty of gifts from other lords, and donations to the church, etc.
History: The fortunes of the Imperial House have been almost synonymous with the fortunes of the realm for much of its history. That is starting to change, but not enough to make a detailed history of the adventures this particular family has undergone particularly interesting or useful. Instead, I'll provide a reasonably succinct bit of background on the areas immediately around the seat of the Emperor.
The Pale City: Cut in two by the Blessed River, the Pale City was founded on the site where Luseysi drew forth the Moon's Pearl from the riverbank. This, of course, was also the sacred site where Luseysi died, his arm upraised in a gesture towards Surotsi. The first buildings were a simple tomb for their fallen first emperor and homes for the followers of the second. All of this would be built over in time, as the initial accommodations proved wholly inadequate for what would become the imperial infrastructure. Larger, more elaborate buildings would house the tomb of the Lunar Son, being torn down and refurbished around the spot of land over and over. Ringwalls for the city would rise and be cast aside as the sprawl of buildings grew too great for each one – and eventually, they would be abandoned altogether, as the Imperial City knew not the touch of warfare.
Regardless, while Luseysi's site had a dramatic cast to it, with a small bluff overlooking the broad estuary where the river met the sea, it had very little value in terms of a commercial port. The river, while navigable, did not make for a good dock. Thus, only a few decades after the founding of the Pale City itself, a neighboring town rose alongside the excellent deepwater harbor just to the southeast of the capital. The Bridges of Kyurili were the first to span the Blessed River, beautiful edifices of stout concrete merged seamlessly with jadeite ornamentation that looked like spun sugar. Other constructions at this time included a series of watchtowers, a wide road to Harbor Town, a magnificent Imperial Palace that would serve as the core for the subsequent additions, and a toll tower that would stand all the way until the War of the Pale Brothers.
The Solemn Age halted most construction north of the river, as larger and larger zones were reserved for the use of shrines, monasteries, and gardens in widening concentric circles around the Lunar Shrine. The Shrine itself, a product of that almost absurd five century span of religious construction, would take almost all of that time to be completed: it was a fantastic array of jade and quartz, gold and marble, more window than wall, with deep green jade arches surrounding a central hall, where Luseysi's sphere was suspended above worshipers.
The priests could mandate all the kingdom's resources go into the mourning of Luseysi, but much of the populace had already moved on. With the north of the river off-limits, they moved to the south
en masse, and the city sprawled southward until it joined with and then overwhelmed Harbor Town. South and south it would go, until temporarily petering out in the swamplands to the far south of the city; these would only be conquered by man around the time of the War of the Pale Brothers.
Civil war had a number of effects on the city. For the first time since Keresen's reign, there was reason to ring the city with walls. The Forgotten Emperor constructed some of the largest in the kingdom; eighty feet high and twenty feet thick... but their sheer size precluded them ever actually being finished. Only the city north of the river had its walls completed by war's end, and even theirs only faced the land: the ceremonial center was still quite vulnerable from the sea. The materially much more valuable commercial district was left rather less well-defended; thus, when the loyalist armies finally collapsed in the last few months of the war, it fell quite easily; the ceremonial center following shortly when it became clear that resistance would be silly.
The city has a number of distinct districts at this point, but the most important are almost all still recognizable – the Ceremonial Center, the Palace, Over-River, and Harbor Town. Two more might be noted from more recently: notably the Mire with its chequered reputation in the far south, and the Estates, a series of riverfront urban estates built for the lords who had been on the winning side of the civil war, for them or their family members to dwell in whenever they might venture into the capital.
I'll map out the city when I get the spare time to draw a quick one up.
Luseysi's Fist: The name for the peninsula of land which juts towards Surotsi. A number of castles dot its rocky shores, for while the peninsula's harbors are rather uninviting, the land guards the Pale City, and thus one of the commercial lifelines of the Empire; in the distant past it was a frequent first line of defense against the furthest-ranging Esurkish raids. Several of these castles belong to the Imperial family, but only one, the Wasp's Nest, is actually held by a (distant) branch of the imperial family itself (almost due southeast of the Pale City, it serves as the departure point for imperial messengers to Surotsi); the rest belong to various retainers.
Valley of the Blessed River: The primary source of jadeite for the kingdom (a vital stone for the religious buildings of the faith), the Blessed River also waters a fertile agricultural valley, tended by numerous lords, who probably do not owe fealty to the Emperor directly – but I'm not sure whether to give this land to alex's future family or another group who might settle in the river valley. There's room. There also exists an extensive series of well-built fortifications throughout the valley, primarily built by the Forgotten Emperor's decree; they were reduced to rubble, one by one, in the war.
Likely at least one fairly large town exists further upriver from the Pale City itself – maybe at the fork? – but I won't name it yet. There's a reasonable chance that someone else might join here, which is chill. Also, this town is probably still recovering from the formerly interminable war.
The first branch of the river flows into gently rolling hills and a pleasant wine country, one which likely supplies the Pale City with much of its booze.
Location: The Pale City
Retainers: Obviously, every house in the realm owes allegiance to the Imperial Family. But there are a few of local importance who owe fealty to no lord but the Emperor himself.
The Lords of Luseysi's Fist: Hirau, Niami, Dulchir, Inther – a diverse group who hold relatively poor lands, but with strong castles, owing to the troubled past of the Fist.
The Lords of the Blessed Lands: Ess, Imry – retainers who hold lands immediately outside the Pale City. Neither were particularly rich even before the war; now, afterward, they are desperately poor.