Backgrounder
Prehistory
As approved by GD Kalinda and modified by GD Pim. (GMs see here).
Life in those brightenings was good, and Leopold, son of Haakon, had made sure that everything was done in the grand style as in the olden brightenings, where servants knew their place, children were quietly tended to, and where the garden parties or grandiose darkening pracendas held at Habichtsbergen Palace soon became the stuff of parlour-hall and drawing-room legend. House Sapientia was a respected member of the social order in the north, a pillar of society, as it were, though more discreet and not as publicly known as other Houses of its stature.
In those brightenings, standard amusements included the Weserdammerung Vale Hunt, a joyous month-long deed hosted in Habichtsbergen where visiting nobility and other skilled horsemen took part in chasing game through the fields and the forests, and one that involved nearly all the freeholder tenants, either as participants or spectators. Most came for the feasting on the palace grounds that would later follow. Another favored activity, perhaps the most famous one, was the Primehiems Eve Banquet, where everyone gathered together for a grand darkening of goodwill in celebration for the blessings received during the previous era, and exchanged presents, to the delight of all, particularly the children.
Paradise at the lands of the Sapientias in the Osteyricjh estate was shadowed by dark clouds, however, in the same way stormy weather seemed to be building over Aelyria Prime and the rest of the Empire.
Maximillian, brother to Leopold, had long been brooding about the twist of fate that had denied him control over the House, and granted the younger Sapientia only scrapings from the rich Osteyricjh lands, such as the Margravate of Nijlgednyjek, and Fhigjiopfusrauge, granted to Maximillian’s son, Rainier, over which he reigned as Hospodar since his fifteenth-pattern birth-brightening. Certainly the poverty-ridden Fhigjiopfusrauge sub-estate was a far cry from bustling Krytzillikinarnessus, which Alexis held, and the manor at Nijlgednyjek was a pigsty compared to Habichtsbergen Palace, but since their uncles Olaf and Kristiaan still held some sway in the House Størthing, there was nothing Maximillian could do about it. It therefore seemed to be fortituous when Olaf and Kristiaan, close brothers even when the late Haakon was alive, perished while sailing in a force-ten gale. Drowned. Not even bestowal by his brother Leopold of the office of Steward of Osteyricjh, which controlled all revenue from House lands, could mollify his greed. He began plotting, aided by his son, and soon he had managed to swing the tide in his favor, alongside the coming into power of Julos in the Imperial Capital. Rainier, on the other hand, seemed to have possessed a natural talent for necromancy, to the delight of Maximillian’s new spellcaster friends in the Rakrya.
Leopold, sensing the way the winds blew, had secretly dispatched Alexis to Taralon far away to the southeast a little after the boy’s sixteenth birth-brightening, ostensibly to discipline the lad after being found kissing a young female, daughter of a tenant, in his apartments at the Palace. The closely-kept scandal was a convenient excuse to claim disfavor, and so the boy was dismissed from the precincts of Habichtsbergen, and his younger sister, Alexandra, was sent to school in a faraway province under an assumed name. In the meantime, all of Osteyricjh had fallen into Maximillian’s control and influence, thanks to the power of crowns, patronage, threats, or loose women. The only thing Maximillian had never been able to control was the local Church, and its Patriarch, Methodius. Methodius intended to preach a long and powerful Lesson on Primehiems Brightening, when everyone would be in a contemplative mood. It was said that at that same time, Methodius was to excommunicate the Margrave of Nijlgednyjek, and Hospodar of Fhigjiopfusrauge for spreading the Pox, falling far from the Faith and into the nefarious hands of Jorel-worshippers, and in so doing, remove them from any other lawful power, and deny them work from their churchgoing tenants.
Maximillian struck at the early candlemarks of Primehiems Brightening, the same time he knew when everyone would have been weary from subdued cheer the darkening before, thanks to the recent spread of the Pox. By sunsrise it was all over, and Maximillian waltzed into the Great Hall of Habichtsbergen, where held a feudal Manorial Court, and found Methodius guilty of apostasy, Leopold guilty of adultery, his wife Caroline guilty of witchcraft, and sentenced the rest of their loyal retainers to death for conspiracy and complicity in the same. All were locked in the Tower, but not before alleging, with the aid of manufactured evidence and the help of their servants, that Alexis and Alexandra had contracted the Pox long before, and would die anyway in great suffering. Eliza, Maximillian’s wife, prevailed upon her son and husband for a hint of detestable and misplaced mercy, and within a few cycles unwittingly watched two young corpses, that of previous victims (but not to Maximillian’s knowledge) devoured by flame.
The conquest of the Nijlgednyjek-Fhigjiopfusrauge branch over House Sapientia was complete.
Or so they thought.
Addendum
As approved by GD Apophis.
Now there came an interesting addition to this little tale, one that Master Alexis hadn’t been privy to. Alexis’ mummy, Caroline, a charming female, had in fact been the fourth child of a certain Ladislav Andrássy, head of the human House known as the Magdalen (pronounced ‘Maudlin’) in Daltina, whose four other children by his wife Beatrix were his sole treasures. The male twins, Kaspar and Kasimir, lorded it over the rest, except over Isabella or Ilse, the eldest daughter at the center of their fief, known as Bethen.
Bethen was the social, economic, and cultural center of the orszag, or fiefdom controlled by the Andrássy family, and House Magdalen performed its part of the Feudocratic Compact, maintaining sacred the bloodpledge it had fulfilled to the House of Maeve, which possessed carta imperia governing the area surrounding Daltina. While Ladislav had a suitable noble rank , he preferred to call himself the Voivode of Perczél, with the heir apparent retaining the style of Grand Steward of Szechényi, place-names, really, which previous Andrássys had bestowed in their Charismean dialect.
Ilse was later married off to a scion of another princely house, and Kaspar found himself a suitable wife, siring three children, Míklos, Karolyi, and Bianca Eugenie. Kasimir entered the clergy and was at peace with himself and with the Sacred Three. Caroline, as we know, married into the Sapientias of the North, within the Eunesias.
As far as one can tell, Ladislav’s grandchildren are still there, probably in their early adulthood by now. As to their state, with all the troubles taking place throughout Enamoria, it is impossible to tell without a firsthand glance whether they still live in the same stately manner as Caroline Sapientia nee Andrássy did when she was a child. Who knows? Perhaps some of Ladislav’s children survived battle, tenant insurrections, or the not-so-feeble Pox as well.
Grave Secrets (Not anymore!)
One thing though: Alexis doesn’t know that his despised uncle Maximillian has made things so (his tawdry apartment dwelling, send-off to Taralon and so forth) in order to depose his father, Leopold, from control of the House, effectively depriving Alexis of just about everything he holds dear, including his grand title of office (he’s also been defrocked as Metropolitan, and his cousin Rainier, Maximillian’s son, now controls all), inheritance, lands, and monies accruing to him by right, not to mention his father and mother, and separation from the sister he adores so much. If anyone ever told him that (and how would they know, anyway?), it would break his young idealistic heart and crush his gentle spirit so badly that he may never truly recover. At the moment, he thinks he’s been seconded as a page to the local lord—a normal procedure for noble families—to learn more about the art of ruling, when in fact he’s been sent there to get him out of his uncle’s way. Permanently, if Maximillian’s luck holds.