Detail question regarding Ustalav and Prince Aduard Odranti III.


Lost Omens Campaign Setting General Discussion


I just have a minor detail question regarding the setting:

Prince Aduard Odranti III. is the nominal ruler of Ustalav according to the Inner Sea World guide. The name "Odranti" means he is a member of "House Odranto" and actually rules the county Odranto from Castle Odranto, doesn't it?

I am trying to create an adventure according to the setting, at least as far as depicted in the Inner Sea World guide. I don't mind if there are contradictions to other source books, but it should be in line with that.


Not necessarily. It is not uncommon for the same family to hold multiple titles in the same kingdom, especially if they are the royal line. Another possibility is that the royal family used to be the lords of Odranto, then forsook those titles when they took the Crown and its associated lands.

Given the nature of Ustalav, I'd probably go for the latter. The royal family probably has ties to the land, and is likely in some way related to the Muralt family (the current rulers of Odranto). If you really want to Ustalav it up, make it a curse and not circumstance that drove House Odranto away from their ancestral lands. It seems like Count Conwrest Muralt might be mad- who's to say every holder of that title hasn't been mad for generations, and House Odranto just got out when they going was good?

Otherwise I'd figure the Muralts are a cadet-branch of House Odranto who have risen to prominence.

Good eyes, though! I completely missed this on my first read.

Liberty's Edge

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If you wanted to insert some Gothic history (and tie the names back to their literary roots), you could incorporate an ancestor, Manfred, who forsook the lands after a "dark and terrible incident," with another man, Theodore, as the ancestor of the Muralts. Manfred's own descendants (presuming he either adopted or remarried after taking holy vows in penance) then progressively rose in rank through a variety of marriages that left Aduard as the heir of an admittedly messed-up, but high-ranking family.

If you haven't read the "The Castle of Otranto" by Horace Walpole, get thee to a public domain source posthaste!

Editor-in-Chief

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Feuerrabe wrote:

I just have a minor detail question regarding the setting:

Prince Aduard Odranti III. is the nominal ruler of Ustalav according to the Inner Sea World guide. The name "Odranti" means he is a member of "House Odranto" and actually rules the county Odranto from Castle Odranto, doesn't it?

I am trying to create an adventure according to the setting, at least as far as depicted in the Inner Sea World guide. I don't mind if there are contradictions to other source books, but it should be in line with that.

After the Kingdom of Ustalav's fall to the Whispering Tyrant, six centuries of undead rule, and liberation but foreign powers, the country's line of royal succession was broken.

Following the Tyrant's defeat, only members of two of the former kingdom's noble families were found to have survived: heirs of the Caliphvaso family and of the Ordranti family. The Ordranti family claimed the divine right to rule, while the Caliphvasos refounded Caliphas. With the installation of a new prince—a concession to the national understanding that the line of Ustav kings had been broken—the nation was rechristened the Royal Principality of Ustalav.

Much of this appears in the timeline on page 5 of Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Rule of Fear.

Novel Spoiler:
Details on another surviving family, the Virholts, are also presented in Pathfinder Tales: Prince of Wolves

Although the Ordranti family still has holdings in Odranto, they have largely passed their non-royal holdings to their cousins, the Muralts. Over generations, the Ordranti family's connection to the county that bears their name has weakened, found mostly in honorary names, princely biases, and many Ordranti rulers military romanticism.

And that's all also why only two of Ustalav's remaining counties bear the names of noble families, and only one—Caliphas—shares a name with its ruler.

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