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Hello, everyone. I'm actually running a 2E adaptation of this AP, pretty heavily modified, but I still think these observations might of use to the odd person using either system who wonders what all those names on the "Succession Loyalty" maps in Books 2 and 5 are about. Are they just set dressing? Do they matter at all beyond conveying a super-general impression? I ran across a similar question in an archived Reddit thread so at any rate I know someone out there somewhere has asked themselves this question, as I did when I encountered those maps.
Before we get started: Of course, all sorts of spoilers in the below for the AP. I'm not going to trouble too much about spoiler tags unless I relate something specific to my game that my players might read.
And a stipulation: Also of course, you technically don't need to worry about any of this. The broader details of the struggle in Taldor aren't part of the AP. The only reason I became interested in it is that I wanted to have ways of conveying a broader sense of a large-scale crisis happening in Taldor to my players (who are in the second chapter of Book Two) that comes from news seeping in from outside their current frame.
I was curious if those maps might actually be resources for that. Or at least have some worthwhile Easter Eggs. Turns out, they are. And they do.
So, if you've ever had the question: "What the heck are all those names on those succession maps? Are they just random? Do they refer to anything in canon?" The answer is that they're not just random, at least not all of them, and quite a lot of them do call back to references in prior Taldor-related products (or just earlier modules). They also, it turns out, are set up -- and if this was accidental it's an amazing accident, but I don't feel like it is -- to evoke stories, or at least the building blocks of stories, that the AP text doesn't make explicit.
Having dug into this a bit, I might as well pay it forward. Here goes.
Hmm. I could swear I'd put the first post here before I went to bed. That's odd. Let's try that again. -CJ
I realize, by the way, that I didn't mention the Succession Loyalties maps in books 3 and 4 in my introduction. They're in there, of course, but I'll be mentioning them in passing, mostly. The maps in 2 and 5 are where the real meat is, so to speak.
The Succession Loyalties Map, Book Two:
A lot of the names that have prior referents come from Paizo's Taldor, The First Empire supplement, hereafter referred to as TFE. It's early after the Exaltation Massacre, from a couple of weeks to a few months afterward. There is relatively little violence, and according to the text of the AP:
"Despite the chaos and violence that rocked the senate and the factionalizing of the nation’s aristocracy, remarkably little violence has broken out across Taldor. Over a dozen nobles—mostly Eutropia’s distant relations—have declared themselves the true inheritors, but for now the empire runs on momentum. Most of the populace waits nervously, unsure of what to do without a senate to declare an official heir or an emperor to appoint new senators. The open conflicts are small probes into opposing claimants’ territories and dedication; Krearis, always a hub of conflict, has seen swift battles between opposing dukes, while in the south, Maxillar Pythareus has directed the Taldan Phalanx to crush any stirrings of competition from his neighbors."
There are, in fact, just over a dozen names listed on the map, not including Eutropia and Pythareus. However, it seems unlikely that they can all be declaring themselves the "true inheritors" of the Lion Throne. And look into some of these names and you can generate a slightly more complicated story about what's happening.
BRIARSMITH: House Briarsmith and their leader, Grand Duke Thestro Briarsmith, appear in TFE as brutal tyrants who crush even the few rights that Taldor affords the common citizenry. Basically every fictional depiction of Prince John in a Robin Hood movie. Porthmos Prison, portrayed in TFE as a "secretive political prison," made an official appearance way back in 2008 in the Pathfinder Society Scenario Stay of Execution. That version of "Taldor's most infamous prison" appears to be pretty sloppily run, but perhaps the "political prison" concept hadn't evolved at that point.
The thing we learn about Briarsmith in TFE is that he uses his remoteness from Opparan society and politics to run Porthmos Prefecture as his own private dictatorship. So, is he making a bid for the throne? Maybe he's sick of being stuck on the frontier. On the other hand, maybe he wouldn't want the greater exposure and is just using the chaos to extend his own local tyranny more brazenly than before, while telling the larger players to just leave him and his local allies alone.
It's also worth noting that WFTC's secret society baddies The Immaculate Circle are based here, on an apparently deserted estate belonging to Duke Panivar Lotheed.
CYRIS: No prior reference. Possibly one of those distant branches of the Stavian family that the description in the AP refers to. That's the assumption I'm usually going with for the names that don't seem to have any other official source, but... not always. I'll come back to that.
HESKILLAR: House Heskillar have a write-up in Book Five of WFTC, The Reaper's Right Hand, and also make an appearance in TFE. They're an old and eccentric noble house with an ancestral fairytale-like myth about being descended from a brass dragon, and their Grand Duke Borand Heskillar is the rightful ruler of Krearis Prefecture: one of the places that has seen violence in the early going.
Heskillar themselves don't seem likely as a branch of the Stavian family that's making a claim to the throne (that's certainly not mentioned in any of their other setting fluff, anyway). They are also identified, particularly in TFE, as being partly on the outs in high society due to bigotry: Borand married a dwarven woman. So it makes sense that chaos came for them early.
Also with House Heskillar, I began to notice color-coding on these maps. It's hard to be sure what the colors exactly mean, but they can be suggestive. Heskillar is a House with unusual politics... and they're very close to the green of Eutropia. Are they perhaps somewhat aligned with Eutropia's Sovereign Court / Loyalist faction, even if they're not fully under Eutropia's authority?
KIU: No previous mention anywhere that I could find. The territory they're marked as controlling stretches out into the Whistling Plains -- which is supposed to be only technically a part of the Taldan Empire -- and they're certainly claiming the foothills where the Monastery of the Seven Forms is. Also note that they're color-coded very close to Eutropia.
What all this exactly means is hard to say. Are they a Stavian branch staking a claim to the throne? Warlords from the Whistling Plains taking the opportunity for a land grab? (The Plains are confusingly described in various different official Paizo sources as being either uninhabited or as being populated by a whole variety of nomad tribes, gnolls, centaurs and other things.) Local nobles fighting off the Imperialist faction of Pythareus? They're all possible.
LAWSUS: No previous mention. Possibly a Stavian branch making a claim to the throne. Other thoughts: they're color-coded yellow-green, in between the Loyalist and Imperialist factions. Are they politically "neutral" between the two extremes? Could they even be trying to mediate between the two?
A further thought is that WFTC has rather a fondness for "on the nose" sort of names (Carrius, Eutropia and Maxillar Pythareus all being examples). If "Lawsus" follows this pattern, could it be a reference to these guys being particularly devoted to legalism and using some legalist pretext to stay above the fray? Or to their having ginned up some obscure two-thousand-year-old law that "solves" the succession crisis and just so happens to legitimate their claim on the throne? Both interpretations I like, anyway.
MERKANDER: Confusingly close to Earl Yander Merkondus, an antagonist in The Twilight Child, but Merkondus is from Moda Prefecture. This is someone distinct of whom there are no other mentions, so probably one of those Stavian cousins claiming the throne and clearly one of the big winners in Krearis at this stage: their foothold in the prefecture looks just as strong as House Heskillar's.
NAZEZI: No previous mention. Probably a Stavian branch making a claim to the throne. Their color-coding is not that far from Eutropia's but not that close, either: maybe they're amenable to allying with her? Or maybe it doesn't mean anything much.
PHAEBEN: No previous mention. Probably a Stavian branch making a claim to the throne, and one with a fair amount of support given that their powerbase stretches into three different prefectures.
PHINI: No previous mention. Probably a Stavian branch making a bid for the throne, and taking the opportunity to carve same territory away from House Heskillar.
Their territory at this point seems to include Dalaston, it's interesting to wonder if House Dalassenos (rulers of Dalaston in TFE) are collaborating with them or if they've been overthrown by the envious social climbers of the Irini family, whom TFE identifies as their enemies. This would be the kind of situation where nobles could garner support by promising people titles and other privileges once they've won the throne. It's likely that dramas like that are playing out in a lot of places.
SOLARI: Certain to be Grand Duchess Destelita Solari, ruler of Ligos Prefecture and one of the villains of TFE, which describes her as a ruthless, cold-hearted schemer who wields the political rumor mill to her own advantage. She attained her position by accusing a cousin (probably falsely) of treason.
Solari is unmarried and disdainful of suitors, or was when we last saw her in TFE. Could she be trying to reinvent herself as a conservative version of Eutropia and using the primogeniture vote to stake her own claim to the throne, inventing some tie-in to Stavian genealogy? It would be just cheeky enough to fit perfectly with her character, though it would be a long shot given that Eutropia is a much more direct heir.
Alternatively, noting how close to Pythareus her color-coding is, it's possible that she's acting as an independent ally on his behalf. Maybe he's one suitor she wouldn't scoff at: he would seem in many eyes to be a solid favorite to take the Lion Throne, marriage to her would give his children real noble pedigree in a way that being supposedly "adopted" by Stavian III can't match, and marrying him would be to snare an Emperor for her own manipulative purposes. It'd look like a win-win and might even be a solid pretext for involving Solari directly in a later book in the AP, if she's a character you like.
STARBORNE: Clearly a reference to Tanasha Starborne, introduced in Crownfall as the gnomish senator from Wispil. Very clearly cannot be staging a claim to the Throne: not only is the ambient racism of the Opparan court against her gnomish heritage an explicit part of her character fluff, she's also portrayed as barely tolerating the grind of Opparan politics even just as a senator. Her actually wanting to live there and rule Taldor just does not make sense.
On the other hand, her knowledge of Taldan politics would make her an ideal advisor for the politicians in Wispil on how they should navigate the stormy waters of the War for the Crown (which probably involves being at least de facto allies with Eutropia, for whose cause Starborne voted in the primogeniture fracas and who controls the primary outlet for their timber at Cassomir). Probably it's Taldan nobles who have the notion that she's "leading" a faction in the way that Eutropia or Pythareus are. The relative democracy of gnomish society is probably alien to most of them.
TARQ: No prior reference that I could find. Possibly a Stavian branch mounting a claim to the throne... but there are other possibilities. They're as remote from Opparan politics as the Briarsmiths are: maybe what they're really up to is trying to protect their lands from increased Briarsmith predation? Also note that the name Tarq has a vaguely pseudo-Arabic ring to it. Perhaps they're part Qadiran? A House that went over to the Taldan side during the Grand Campaign, maybe?
VORT: This is a weird one. House Vort are present as a fairly prominent player close to the epicenter of Eutropia's faction throughout the War for the Crown. Along with House Nazezi, they're one of only a few factions who haven't been folded into either the Loyalist or Imperialist camps by the events of Book Four, City in the Lion's Eye. So they must be one of the stronger independent contenders for the throne.
But we do see a character from Vort in Book Two. It's Calphidius Vort, who is a part of the Baron Telus storyline. And the thing is: there's never any mention of his being from a family that's making a bid for the throne. It never comes up. I don't know if that's an oversight, if he's just from a different Vort family, or what. Maybe the Vorts aren't that prominent at all: maybe they're in too much of a backwater part of Tandak Prefecture for anybody to care what they're laying claim to and come after them. Shrug.
PEOPLE "BENEATH THE WAVES:" Other Houses are underneath the "surface" of this map as allies of one faction or another. Some of them will either emerge as regional contenders from under the waves after the events of City in the Lion's Eye, or get mentions in other parts of WFTC as potential major players in events.
House Basri are known for diplomacy and elven ties, and are probably the source of the Father Basri mentioned in Taldor, Echoes of Glory. I would assume they're Loyalists given their priorities.
House Clement have Garundi heritage going way back and are represented by Zariyah Clement in Crownfall. Probably Loyalists, I think their territories northeast of the Verduran Forest are usually under Eutropia's authority.
House Corcina are ambitious trade magnates with a write-up in The Reaper's Right Hand. They feel likely for Imperialists to me: their plans to expand business into Tian-Xa seems in tune with Pythareus' aggressive attitude. But that's just me.
House Darahan are a house of famous monster hunters and Lastwall paladins whose Grand Duchess, Vivexis, did four "tours of duty" on Vigil's ramparts. They get a pretty positive-sounding write-up in TFE and seem unlikely to be allies of Pythareus--indeed Vivexis sounds like she'd be a natural admirer of Eutropia--which probably means that those stories of Pythareus crushing resistance with the Taldan Phalanx are at least partly about them. It's not hard to imagine that Whitemarch Prefecture is effectively under hostile Imperialist occupation from early on in the War for the Crown (which would make it a pretty good place to do "ragtag bunch takes on the tyrant" side-stories).
House Delriddian, the rulers of Moda Prefecture, are in Imperialist territory and were being run by a retired admiral named Nestor Delriddian at the time of TFE. Delriddian, if he's still in charge, would probably trust a military man like the High Strategos and is likely a willing part of the Imperialist cause. There could be an element of tragedy in this, because he's far more honorable than most of them and may be unwitting as to just what kind of characters he's getting into bed with, at least at the beginning.
House Denzarni, rulers of Kazuhn Prefecture, are in House Solari's camp at this point. They appear in TFE as cartoonishly debauched nobles who are mostly obsessed with orgies and implied human sacrifice (or maybe they just party so hard as to cause frequent "accidental" deaths). They'll later become part of the Imperialist coalition just like Solari, although it's not quite clear who'd want them as allies or why.
House Ennoi are an independent-minded family whose Baroness was sent to Stavian's Hold to keep her ardent criticisms of Stavian III out of the Opparan Senate. They are in Briarsmith territory and probably at odds with Grand Duke Thestro Briarsmith, who'd be likely to target them. They're unlikely candidates for willing Imperialists, given Diddima Ennoi's antipathy for Pythareus' former sponsor Stavian III, but given how bad Briarsmith is supposed to be, I suppose they might come to welcome Pythareus for a time as a lesser evil.
House Fahlspar make an appearance in TFE as the rulers of Northern Tandak, with their Grand Duchess Breateeza a public admirer of Andoren freedoms and Kellid nationalism and more interested in hunting than politics. She's clearly in Eutropia's camp at this point.
House Germande from the Knights of the Inner Sea supplement earn a mention because an iconic from their Order of the Cockatrice is in so much of the AP art. Probably too minor a house for most people to care who they're supporting; they don't appear to stand for much except sport and tourneys, so it could be anyone.
House Karthis are xenophobic demagogues who get a mention in Taldor, Echoes of Glory. Their senator, who is never named, is obsessive about restarting the war with Qadira in much the way that Cato in ancient Rome was obsessed by Carthage. They live around Zimar and are almost certain to be fanatical Imperialists.
House Kastner are clearly major players, and Remilliard fairly clearly a natural supporter of Eutropia. Remilliard appears in Crownfall and his House gets a write-up in The Reaper's Right Hand.
House Merrosett are written up in The Reaper's Right Hand as being much less creepy than they are in TFE, where they appear as incestuous to a point that weirds even other Taldan nobles out(?) and obsessed with "genetic" experiments. Making them similarly creepy here might be an interesting choice, although it's worth noting that the overall idea of what Taldor is and will tolerate seems to evolve a bit between TFE and WFTC.
House Rell(?) appears in quite a few Taldor-related supplements including the Opparan gazetter in Crownfall and Taldor, Echoes of Glory. Or at least, the canny and treacherous Dominicus Rell does, a major player in the security apparatus of the Lion Blades who often ran his own games against the other "masters" of the blades and rendered Stavian III highly dependent on him.
Dominicus would almost certainly have had to be in on the Exaltation Massacre; either he betrayed the Lion Blades and went along with it, or he was part of informing Gloriana Morilla and her Sovereign Court about the scheme. If he heads up a family, they would be major players in whatever faction they back, and highly romanticized due to their Azlanti ancestry.
House Varima is represented by Earl Gahez Varima in Crownfall, a proponent of peace with Qadira and Kelesh with lots of contacts around Zimar. His home dominions have already been overrun by Pythareus by this point if he offered any resistance, which seems unlikely given his pacifistic character.
House Vernisant are of course flagged in Crownfall as Imperialists, and their Earl Calhadion as obnoxious in the extreme.
House Talbot have a Duke with a mostly mercantile focus who would probably favor whoever seems best for business. Given Eutropia's reputation as a do-gooder and the fact that he's estranged from his own son over the latter's decision to abandon the family business for do-gooding, I'm guessing he'd be an Imperialist.
House Tiberan rule Tandak Prefecture in the person of Grand Duchess Cisera Tiberan. There's an involved backstory here (mentioned in TFE) with her succeeding an uncle who got ripped to pieces by a mob in Cassomir, but she's clearly a key part of Eutropia's alliance given that the Princess controls Cassomir.
House Vinmark holds the Barony of Oppara and could be a major player in the capital's politics. The Baron is a former Ulfen Guardsman who owes his position to Stavian III and would probably be an Imperialist, although he might at least try to appear neutral to keep from inflaming the Loyalist parts of the city.
House Zellvyngian rules the Lingian Prefecture which looks to be under pressure from House Phaeben. This is very definitely a Corrupt Villain house, not as brutal as the Briarsmiths but brazenly criminal, and they were making considerable bank off construction projects and cash crop profits before the War for the Crown came along. No doubt they would look to Pythareus for protection and the promise of bringing back their gravy train.
House Zespire is a Loyalist faction whose leading Count Orlundo appears in Crownfall and is a naval hero. I think of him as being kind of a light-side counterpart to Grand Duke Delriddian, who has clearly thrown in with Pythareus.
Whew. That's a lot. Be back tomorrow for part two.
Oh, I should mention the initial map in Crownfall, BTW. I don't talk about it here because the succession struggle has only just started by the book's end, so I don't really understand how there was time for anything to happen yet. Like, why are House Heskillar shown as only partly in control of their own prefecture mere hours or days after the Massacre? It's odd. That one I'm just kind of ignoring for the most part.
Sort of. There is something interesting happening in the middle of the Verduran forest. Thaena is shown controlling an area around Dragonfen. This corresponds with the name of a lunar naga who appears in the module The Dragon's Demand.
I don't know whether that's a serious suggestion or just an Easter egg. The Thaena of that module is too mentally unstable to be capable of ruling anything. Maybe we're seeing the activity of a certain member of the Immaculate Circle in using her as a pawn against the ruling family of nearby Belhaim (the Devy family as of that module). At any rate, Thaena is not in charge there by book two, so maybe some adventurers drove her out, but she's not gone as we'll see later.
(If we want to account for other of the more interesting things in the Book One map: there is also a bit of an interesting narrative implied about House Tarq, who seem to get mostly overrun by Pythareus in the very short span between Book One and Book Two. So, a throne claimant for whom it hasn't gone well, maybe. Also House Tiberan appears to have mounted their own claim early on but quickly abandoned it, or maybe been undecided before throwing in with Eutropia.)
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Ok so holy cow this is great background work. Thanjs
Cheers. I'll have part two up soon.
The Succession Loyalties Map, Book Five:
So, the setup for The Reaper's Right Hand and its considerably more chaotic succession loyalties map is basically that Maxillar Pythareus -- now dead at the end of the events of City in the Lion's Eye -- had held in reserve the devastating secret that the Stavians are supposedly illegitimate, descended from a despised and expunged House called Adella. Understandably, he kept this secret (which would have handily torpedoed his own claim as well as Eutropia's) carefully locked down, but now his leaderless operatives have released it. The book revolves around an interplanar quest based on proving Eutropia's claim is still valid.
As befits this state of affairs, the Imperialist faction once led by Pythareus has entirely collapsed... save for one apparent holdout. Many of Eutropia's supporters have deserted her, too, although she retains power bases in Tandak, Northern Tandak and Avin Prefectures. The map does a pretty solid job of conveying an "everyone for themselves" atmosphere.
The Immaculate Circle and their supporters/enablers don't make much sense as a source either, really: for their own various reasons they're all counting on putting Prince Carrius, a Stavian, on the throne. Perhaps there's some other faction or secret society this could be ascribed to? One could try just skipping it altogether, but for purposes of analyzing the map -- which is clearly shaped by these events -- we'll leave that to the side.)
BRIARSMITH, previously submerged under the tide of the Imperialist faction, have re-emerged as their own faction. Is Thestro Briarsmith still alive? If he is, is he now staging his own bid for the throne given the chaos surrounding the Stavian line? Or if he isn't still alive, is one of his relatives now carrying the torch? He isn't mentioned as having children in TFE or anywhere else that I know of, but it isn't ruled out, either.
At any rate, House Briarsmith's domain here is attenuated, with Porthmos Prefecture now chopped up among four rival factions. So whatever Thestro or his relatives are up to, things haven't gone great. Porthmos Prison, the Grand Duke's "political prison," appears not be under his control: perhaps his prisoners have been freed by this point?
(Fun Fact: In TFE, the mention of Porthmos Prison comes with art of an adventurer bribing a gargoyle with a book. This gargoyle is named Grinnd, and such a bribe is actually how adventurers get into Porthmos Prison in a very early Society adventure. The object of that adventure is to rescue a thief named Hadge, who according to TFE canon is still in Porthmos Prison at that point and leading one of the many prison gangs who run the place.)
CORCINA: There have been dramatic events in Cassomir. House Corcina -- maybe or maybe not a former Imperialist house depending on how you were inclined to read them -- has taken over control of that city, which should be House Tiberan's domain. Is there fighting here? This likely poses problems for Eutropia's faction in accessing the sea, depending on how hostile Corcina are to her.
CYRIS: If these are Stavian cousins, they'd have to be sufficiently remote cousins so that Stavian I's supposed relationship to House Adella doesn't touch them. This isn't impossible given how complex dynastic family trees can get.
DARAHAN: Now emerged from "beneath the waves" of earlier maps, the doughty monster hunters of House Darahan have carved out some space for themselves and reassumed their rightful control of Whitemarch Prefecture, as well as taking control of Zimar (which probably means they're currently helming the protection of Taldor's southern border).
They're not aligned with Eutropia: like many others, they may not know what to think about the illegitimacy battle. They also share color-coding with another House that had previously looked likely as Eutropia supporters. Perhaps both factions are awaiting the resolution of that matter and prepared to support whoever comes out on top. I'd guess this is likely if Vivexis Darahan is still leading the House: she's no shrinking violet, but she's no spring chicken either, and Eutropia's experience is showing pretty clearly how complicated being a female claimant to the Lion Throne can get.
DELRIDDIA: This is House Delriddia, mentioned last time out as likely Imperialists ("Delriddia" is the canon spelling, which I messed up earlier). Whoever is leading the House now, given the whole bizarre series of events around the Stavian claims, probably thinks they'd make as good an emperor as anyone. If this is still Grand Duke Nestor Delriddia, though, he's got problems: he was elevated from military service to his current rank by Grand Prince Stavian III, who is now supposed to have been illegitimate.
Alternatively, House Delriddia and many of these other factions could both be pushing back against claims about Stavian illegitimacy and continuing to deny Eutropia's claim for the same reason the Imperialists did (that the violence surrounding the primogeniture vote rendered its result void and that a woman can't ascend the throne). This would make sense for Nestor in particular.
DENZARNI: House Denzarni have been through some dramatic events of their own. They appear here to have been driven by House Lawsus out of their traditional seat of power in Kazuhn and to be roughing it in hilly northwestern Porthmos Prefecture. Given that their taste for hedonistic revelry virtually defines them, this cannot be a fun state of affairs. Is Grand Duchess Mellea Denzarni still alive? Is a descendant or other relative running the House in what must be very reduced circumstances?
ENNOI: The Baroness Ennoi has not only emerged into her own, but appears to have liberated a significant part of Porthmos Prefecture from Briarsmith rule. Is she staging her own claim, or is she simply running her territory as a relatively independent entity until the succession crisis is over? Either is possible. I feel like she'd be a pretty obvious candidate for Eutropia to elevate in rank at the end of things; her independent-mindedness and willingness to speak truth to power are very Loyalist traits. (Or perhaps a member of her family is in charge at this point.)
EUTROPIA: The illegitimacy claims have clearly done a number on Eutropia's support base, although she still holds the Palace of Birdsong and controls a lot of Northern Tandak and Avin.
FAHLSPAR: Previously having seemed a likely lock for Loyalist status, House Fahlspar have now withdrawn their support from Eutropia and perhaps are even making their own claim. If so, this could reflect some internal family struggle or even skulduggery: the Grand Duchess Fahlspar's unusual politics are flagged in TFE as being a great source of discomfort for her cousins, who don't share them, and she's no master of intrigue herself.
If the Grand Duchess has been supplanted (perhaps even murdered) by one of her hostile relations, it might explain why the House controls relatively little of its own domain, much of which appears to have stayed loyal to Eutropia.
HESKILLAR: House Heskillar aligned with the Loyalists at some point in the prior books, but has clearly given up on that alliance and is still, apparently, battling to assert control over Krearis Prefecture, of which it seems to directly control relatively little. There's an interesting detail in that its influence extends into World's Edge Province up to the Valley of the Azlanti (this was also shown on the map in Book One, although it ceased for a time thereafter). This could reflect a fluctuating alliance with the dwarves of the Sky Citadel of Kravenkus, which is sited there; it would fit with the Grand Duke's unusual affinity for the dwarves.
KASTNER: Shown as controlling western Opparos and part of Oppara, House Kastner have fallen away from Loyalist support -- assuming they were in fact supporters -- and are color-coded the same as House Darahan. Perhaps this reflects similar stances being taken by the two Houses or even an alliance between them.
KIU: They fell under Imperialist control in the past couple of books but are now independent again and in control of the Monastery of the Seven Forms and nearby areas. Otherwise, they're as enigmatic as before.
LAWSUS: House Lawsus had apparently been overrun by or persuaded to ally with the Imperialists by the time of City in the Lion's Eye. Now, their base of support has reemerged stronger than ever and they have displaced the ruling House from Kazuhn Prefecture. Whatever game they're playing and whatever claim they've cooked up to the throne, it looks like it's one of the stronger ones.
MERKANDER: Merkander's claim appeared to have been submerged by the Loyalist cause by book four--maybe they just bent with the way the wind seemed to be blowing -- but they're clearly persistent and have reemerged as a strong force in northern Krearis once again.
MERROSETT: The only House still color-coded according to the old Imperialist yellow is House Merrosett. Are they the last holdouts of the Imperialist cause? Are they now basing their own claim on having had the favor of Maxillar Pythareus, perhaps on some tale of the High Strategos having passed his powers to them upon his death? If so, the same forces wreaking havoc on Eutropia's base of support would be affecting them, but it's an interesting possibility.
NAZEZI: Presumably Stavian cousin claimants, Nazezi are one of a few factions who never were subsumed by either Imperialist or Loyalist factions. However, their base of support is far smaller now than in the previous book: maybe they've been caught in the crosswinds of the legitimacy affair.
PHAEBEN and PHINI: Phaeben was swamped by the Imperialist faction and Phini by the Loyalists in prior books, but they're now pressing their own claims again, from apparently quite restricted bases of support. If they're Stavian cousins, maybe their claims have been tainted for erstwhile supporters, too.
SOLARI: House Solari, probably meaning the Grand Duchess Solari, is one of the largest factions to emerge from the break-up of the Imperialist cause and controls both Destelita Solari's traditional domain at Ligos and a bunch of Lingian Prefecture, as well. Solari could be pursuing her own claim to the throne: with the legitimacy affair in full swing, she could even have decided to acknowledge the primogeniture vote and suggest herself as an heir (Eutropia's claim would no longer automatically outrank hers).
STARBORNE: The gnomes of Wispil and their ally, former senator Marquess Starborne, have never thrown their lot in with any particular faction, still have no reason to pursue the Lion Throne and clearly continue to chart their own course. Their color-coding has always hinted at least some kind of adjacency to Eutropia's cause, which would be consistent with Tanasha Starborne's character, and that doesn't seem to have changed.
TARQ: Previously overrun by the Imperialists, Tarq have now re-emerged and reclaimed much of their previous territory in Porthmos Prefecture. Their response to recent events could really be... just about anything?
THAENA: The name of a lunar naga from The Dragon's Demand that turned up on the map in Book One now reappears in the Dragonfen. If Thaena is some kind of naga, I like to think of this as her taking the opportunity of chaos to establish her own independent "monstrous" kingdom in the heart of Verduran Forest, maybe something along the lines of distant Nagajor. Would make a good excuse for some monster-hunting adventures.
TIBERAN: No longer Loyalist supporters, House Tiberan have been chased out of their rightful seat at Cassomir and are pretty clearly up against it, controlling disconnected enclaves in Tandak and the Verduran Forest.
Perhaps they've given up on Eutropia and are mounting their own claim at this point. If so it would be a tenuous one: the present Grand Duchess is the niece of a Stavian III appointee who was ultimately killed by a popular revolt. Any claim made by her now faces a complicated tangle of legitimacy questions. Atlernatively, maybe House Tiberan is just fighting to survive.
VORT: That curious enigma on the borders of Verduran Forest, House Vort have been a constant presence in the succession struggle and another faction that has never thrown in with either Eutropia or the Imperialists. They remain constant now. Again, maybe just in too much of a backwater for anyone to care too much.
ZELLVYNGIAN: The corrupt rulers of Lingian Prefecture appear to have been mostly displaced from their traditional home, much like House Denzarni: they seem to control a narrow slice of their own territory and an even narrower slice of Opparos. Given their corrupt and unpleasant character, they likely have few friends by this point: it would make sense for the Grand Duchess Solari to be outmaneuvering them.
The disorder in the realm may have moved House Zellvyngian to seek out some strange political bedfellows. Noticeably, they now have the same color-coding as...
ZESPIRE: House Zespire, too, have fallen away from the Loyalist cause, possibly because the legitimacy affair is just too much for them. Count Orlundo Zespire would be a good candidate for offering the promise of restored order in the realm, and maybe that's his appeal to followers now. The curiously similar color-coding of his House with the otherwise diametrically morally-opposite tyrants of House Zellvyngian could indicate a meeting of the minds over this shared goal. Or it could be just coincidence.
Other Notes: Large swathes of Taldor are shown beholden to no faction, which probably indicates the local nobility simply having given up trying to track who the claimants are and who's in league with whom. All of the factions on display here quickly exhaust themselves to judge by their willingness to fall in line behind Prince Carrius after Eutropia's "death" in Book Six.
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So, gonna use this for sure. I have an adopted Vinmark and a Scion Katharis.
I'm glad it's useful. I look forward to hearing about your take on it. :)
I'm glad it's useful. I look forward to hearing about your take on it. :)
Absolutely!
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Oh, there's one other thing I should cover. A sidebar to a sidebar, see the spoiler text titled "Making this make sense" in the last major post:
If you haven't built your own native faction that might seek to sow chaos in this way (as I did) this presents an obvious candidate for hoarding and then releasing this secret in carefully timed fashion by the time of "The Reaper's Right Hand": assume a group of adventurers succeeded in providing a Qadiran agent with this information years ago, and have disguised Qadiran agents release it. Not necessarily *my* preferred solution, but it has the advantage of making much more sense than having Pythareus' people release it. Just my two coppers.
[* I accidentally discovered this because I'm prepping to set "The Twilight Child" in Pol, the capital of Whitemarch, instead of Yanmass, in part because of the proximity of said tomb.]
Thanks to any readers for reading all this guff.
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re: Starborne
What our DM did was assume that while Tanasha did not, in fact, have any desire to take the throne, this did not prevent her people from overenthusiastically promoting her for the position. There was a grassroots gnomish effort to position her as a candidate. In Between "Songbird, Scion, Saboteur" and "The Twilight Child", he had Tanasha approach Eutropia somewhat secretly to have Eutropia's ambassadors, the PC's, accompany her to Bellis to promote Eutropia as the rightful heir in person, showing that Eutropia valued them. And then he dropped the "Realm of the Fellnight Queen" adventure. The PC's being able to save the Verduran peoples from Fey disaster won the backing of Starborne's faction to Eutropia's side.
That is a neat way to do it. Thank you for sharing.
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VORT: This is a weird one. House Vort are present as a fairly prominent player close to the epicenter of Eutropia's faction throughout the War for the Crown. Along with House Nazezi, they're one of only a few factions who haven't been folded into either the Loyalist or Imperialist camps by the events of Book Four, City in the Lion's Eye. So they must be one of the stronger independent contenders for the throne.
But we do see a character from Vort in Book Two. It's Calphidius Vort, who is a part of the Baron Telus storyline. And the thing is: there's never any mention of his being from a family that's making a bid for the throne. It never comes up. I don't know if that's an oversight, if he's just from a different Vort family, or what. Maybe the Vorts aren't that prominent at all: maybe they're in too much of a backwater part of Tandak Prefecture for anybody to care what they're laying claim to and come after them. Shrug.
My players were obsessed with Vort from the moment they heard his goofy name, so naturally I had to expand his role a little bit. I decided to basically play Vort as a bit of a kook, his claim to the throne comes from being Stavian's Great Great Great Grandnephew 4 times removed as well as his popularity among the peasantry after the fall of Jambis. I'm playing him as kinda a Vermin Supreme type figure, someone with no real chance of winning, has a lot of weird ideas, and has no clue when to throw in the towel. Of course the PCs are not harboring him in Stachys, and there's already talk of "removing the competition" so who knows how it's going to develop from here.
Interestingly, none of my players noticed Caphridius Vort's name at all. I think they're inured to goofy names at this point. He has been elevated to the rulership of the Telus Barony (where he had been "Tribune" of the shanty settlement of New Towne) after they resolved its curse. Araig can't realistically resume the title after all that's happened. Maybe this gives his elder relative pursuing the throne a bit of a buffer: Eutropia will rely on the newly-elevated Baron to help keep this part of her domain stable and won't especially trouble herself about his relative's long-shot claim to the throne.
My version of Caphridius' senior is an "Earl Vortescir" whose domains lie between Meratt and Cassomir, and whose main asset is that he's so obscure -- an officer of the Royal Mint at the end of the day -- that he counts on his sheer inoffensiveness to win influence in the charged atmosphere that is the wake of the Exaltation Massacre.
My players were obsessed with Vort from the moment they heard his goofy name, so naturally I had to expand his role a little bit. I decided to basically play Vort as a bit of a kook, his claim to the throne comes from being Stavian's Great Great Great Grandnephew 4 times removed as well as his popularity among the peasantry after the fall of Jambis. I'm playing him as kinda a Vermin Supreme type figure, someone with no real chance of winning, has a lot of weird ideas, and has no clue when to throw in the towel. Of course the PCs are not harboring him in Stachys, and there's already talk of "removing the competition" so who knows how it's going to develop from here.VORT: This is a weird one. House Vort are present as a fairly prominent player close to the epicenter of Eutropia's faction throughout the War for the Crown. Along with House Nazezi, they're one of only a few factions who haven't been folded into either the Loyalist or Imperialist camps by the events of Book Four, City in the Lion's Eye. So they must be one of the stronger independent contenders for the throne.
But we do see a character from Vort in Book Two. It's Calphidius Vort, who is a part of the Baron Telus storyline. And the thing is: there's never any mention of his being from a family that's making a bid for the throne. It never comes up. I don't know if that's an oversight, if he's just from a different Vort family, or what. Maybe the Vorts aren't that prominent at all: maybe they're in too much of a backwater part of Tandak Prefecture for anybody to care what they're laying claim to and come after them. Shrug.
I know it's been a long time since this thread was posted in, and I don't mean to Necropost, but I have Vort as sort of a populist leader. a former University Chancellor who is very popular with students and young firebrands who seeks sweeping Andoran-style changes. His following is small, but very loyal.