Houses of the Five Kingdoms of High Rock

House Thagor – Blessed of Akatosh, the Royal House of Daggerfall
The Thagor family, like everything of Daggerfall, is ancient indeed but twisted and convoluted over the numberless years of its existence. Though they claim to descend from the nigh-legendary King Thagore who opened the door to Daggerfall’s prosperity in the First Era, that is a dubious claim indeed for the throne of the kingdom has changed hands many times, usurpers, bastards and their ilk sitting upon it more than once; an uninterrupted line of succession from Thagore’s times is improbable at the least. Nevertheless, they are the kings of Daggerfall, and they are the power in High Rock, for now – it is upon King Camaron Thagor’s brow that the crown of the Bretons rests. Infamous for his womanizing and his drinking habits, the king is a passionate person whose life is at times a flurry and at others – a crawl. He has three children from his marriage with Kelmena, one girl and two boys. Elena, the daughter, is the eldest at six, while the boys - Branwic and Louis – are twins, aged four. Camaron’s sole other surviving relative is his uncle Stanice, forty eight, who is, by marriage to the duchess, the Duke of Oloine. Their marriage is a purely political one, however, and brings happiness to neither of them; on the contrary, Stanice has become well known for his antisocial tendencies, spending most of his time away from the politics and entirely absorbed in his morose mood.

House Gardner – Blessed of Akatosh, the Royal House of Wayrest
Though a Gardner was the first king of Wayrest, crowned in 1E 1100, their fortunes waxed and waned over the many years since. Many times they lost the throne to political machinations, sometimes for a century or even more; there were times when a Gardner had to look for support abroad and gain the throne by war, but such things are neither unheard of nor even uncommon in High Rock. The reign of the current king, the young Edwin Gardner, however, is unusual – for the first time since the First Era, Wayrest was made subservient to its eternal rival Daggerfall, a great stain upon their family and particularly Edwin himself that never fails to keep alive the sparks that may one day grow into a fire that burns this fragile creation of the Thagors, a united High Rock. Perhaps he was humbled in the Bay’s Eve War against the Anticlerian League, perhaps many think him a failure compared to his mother Elysana, but the king of Wayrest is not to be underestimated – he is a wealthy man, and a crafty one - a dangerous combination to his enemies. Trust lost can be bought back and troops dead can be replaced, if his family only gets the chance. Though he has only recently become twenty and may be lacking in experience, Edwin can count on the backing of his older cousin Roger – he may be more a merchant than a warrior, despite his knighthood, and his mother Oriana might still be alive and very much bent on toppling Edwin for what he brought upon their house and Wayrest, but he’s determined to set things as they should be and beat the Thagors back to Daggerfall, even if it means marrying his fourteen year old – infamously meek – sister Alandra off to what many in Wayrest perceive to be the savage wasteland of the Western Reach to secure Evermore’s support.

House Talaren – Blessed of Kynareth, the Royal House of Camlorn
By their current name, the ruling family of Camlorn is the youngest of all noble families of High Rock, royalty or not – it was only in 3E 418, soon after the Warp of the West, that they assumed this name to honour Princess – and later Queen - Talara, who wrested the throne of Camlorn back from the Duke of Oloine who wiped out the rest of the royal family in a coup; they are not, however, otherwise related to the previous royalty of Camlorn, whatever ties there were disappearing after Talara’s death during childbirth. The current rulers' fortunes do not seem to have improved much compared to their namesake's family – perhaps they are one of the five royal houses of High Rock, but Camlorn now is little more than a glorified vassal of Daggerfall’s, much more so than any other of the kingdoms. King Senhyn calls Camaron ‘brother’; everyone hears ‘sovereign’. Sixty four, it does not seem that his advanced age brought him wisdom – many consider the king to be a senile old man who wheezes oaths of friendship when Daggerfall demands it and waits for his time to come in the shadows of his halls, the fact that he appears to be losing control of his own body doing little to aid the image of a weak ruler in both body and soul. His sister Marion, a whole twenty years younger than him, is known as a vicious old hag, her character terrible enough to inspire rumours of possession by spirits or influence of malevolent Daedric Princes; though she has a son of twenty years that might be perceived as a sign of hope, the young man is a bastard possessed of a disposition to match his mother’s, except rather dim-witted as well, stuffed away to a castle on an infertile slip of land due to pressure from Daggerfall. The only ray of sunshine for the family, so to speak, seems to be Camlorn’s twenty four year old princess Kelmena, Camaran’s wife and the mother of his three children who still bears some love for her husband – despite his many faults as a spouse – but not for the realm she is queen to.

House Gerric – Blessed of Stendarr, the Royal House of Northpoint
Tracing their control of the throne to the middle of the Second Era, the Gerrics of Northpoint are closest to their Nord ancestors of all the royal houses of the Five Kingdoms; it is evident not only in their appearance, but also to some extent in character qualities common to many of their bloodline that can be traced over the ages. King Ulwyn is a fine example of this – a man quick to anger and slow to calm, he would rather hunt, engage in tournaments and fight than rule, leaving many day-to-day affairs for his brother and wife to handle. The thirty year old Frederic, only four years younger than his brother, is known to be at the least somewhat more patient and capable of sitting in one room for more than half an hour; though he and Ulwyn are on friendly terms befitting of brothers, their relationship is soured from the shadows somewhat by rumours of Frederic’s affair with his brother’s wife, Taliana – five years younger than her husband and famous for being rather beautiful, if somewhat unpopular among the nobles of Northpoint for being a Wayrester through and through; that might not have been such a factor, but the royal couple’s sole son Benwin, twelve years by now, shows every tendency of being much like his mother, mostly thanks to her influence. Those who would not prefer to see Frederic inheriting the throne instead of Benwin mostly look to the king’s fifty seven year old uncle Maric, a man to whom life has not been entirely kind with the loss of his right leg and declining sight, but who is known to be quite a bit wiser than either of his nephews; his twenty two year old adopted son Roland shows every sign of having learned his respected foster-father’s lessons well, even if he tries to downplay his importance and sticks to jousting and other such pursuits to avoid the often potentially dangerous attention of the other side of the family.

House Eorvin – Blessed of Julianos, the Royal House of Evermore
Though they are not the youngest of the ruling houses of the Five Kingdoms, Eorvins of Evermore are considered upstarts by many Iliac nobles, particularly the Gardners and Thagors with their ancient lineages. Maybe the Eorvin family does trace itself back to the closing years of the First Era, but that fails to make up for the fact they have only been kings since the middle of the Third, while their line of succession from the vaunted ancient forebears is spotty at best sometimes; it is a well known rumour that the family was just minor nobility in Daggerfall at the beginning of the Third Era, driven from their home to the Western Reach – a hostile land, but one of opportunity for down on their luck noble families, that much is true. In the end, whether they are descended from a noble of the First Era or a Daggerfallian chevalier, King Alfred from Evermore is an Eorvin and he sits upon the throne with his thirty nine year old queen Aveline, just a year younger than him. But while Alfred is a good ruler, known for a quite fair hand and a good sense for the delicacies of dealing with Bretic nobility, he faces challenges unlike those of his peers. To say that the Western Reach is Breton would be something of a stretch; to say that it is as tamed as the Iliac would be an outright lie. The Reachmen are a reclusive and unpredictable people who are reluctant to bow to their western kin and everyone knows all too well that the peace is never certain to hold – indeed, Alfred has already lost his eldest, Landry, to one such bout of fighting. A loss much mourned, for the nineteen year old seemed to take after his father (even if he was prone to rashness and overconfidence, traits that ultimately resulted in his death). Alfred and Aveline are thus left with only their daughter of thirteen years, Sophia, who is often said to be more boy than girl – something that does little to ease the troubles of Evermore, for it will undoubtedly make it hard to arrange a beneficial wedding, but may also one day prove the kingdom’s salvation.


The Anticlerian League
Kings, Lords and Dukes are not the only powers of High Rock. The Warp of the West brought about many changes, not all of them obvious or even the result of mystical forces; it was Queen Elysana’s actions that would ultimately lead to the force that would give King Camaron the opportunity to force Wayrest into submission. The cities of the Iliac coast have always been well-known for their prosperity and size, growing rich off of trade, but it wasn’t until the central strip of the coast fell under Wayrest’s rule that the citizens themselves received the chance to exploit their wealth for power. In the absence of lords that used to rule the numberless petty realms that were once there and thanks to Elysana’s mistrust of local nobility, power swiftly concentrated in the urban centres, city-based communal governments springing up instead of nobles and eventually subjugating the petty landowners to service to the city. Burghers in power was an unthinkable atrocity to most Bretic nobles, made worse by the formation of close ties all to reminiscent of a hostile alliance, dominated by the largest and most distant of these new city-states, Anticlere. Upon Elysana’s death, these two differing social orders would clash in the brief, but extremely violent war of Bay’s Eve; but though King Edwin of Wayrest won several field battles and breaches several castles, wars always favour the defenders in High Rock and Wayrest’s strength was spent with only one member city of the League fallen after a brutal and protracted siege. The League survived the war and the union of the Five Kingdoms, owing partially to the alliance with King Camaron; though technically part of Wayrest, it is not to be mistaken for a subject, nor discarded as insignificant in the powerplay of High Rock.