Arlais was founded 800 years ago when the rivalling duchies of the land were finally conquered and unified by the first king of Arlais, Séverin I of the Ducross family. The kingdom then enjoyed a generation of relative peace until the vassals of the realm tried to seize power by attempting to murder Séverins heirs as he lay dying. The coup failed and started a bloody civil war which lasted for nearly thirty years, almost tearing the nation apart in the process. As his children were too young to rule, or even defend the throne, his brother Dacard stepped in as royal steward and managed to conquer the rebellion. The house of Ducross endured for a hundred more years, but the dissent of the vassals never dissipated. The line was utterly extinguished when a second coup successfully assassinated or exiled all of the remaining family members of the Ducross house. The mastermind of the coup, duchess Tyrande of the Gironde family, took the throne and declared herself as queen of Arlais. The Gironde dynasty was beloved by the people and endured until three hundred years ago, when duke Duncard of the Bodou family defeated the current queen Luisette II in the second great civil war or Arlais, securing the throne for the Bodous. They have remained in control of Arlais to this day.

The Arlaisans are an industrious people fond of beautiful architecture and high art. The great cities of the duchies are a marvel to behold, especially the capital of Onryx with its multitude of monuments and fountains. The crown piece, however, is the great dome of the royal palace in the heart of the city. It was designed and built five hundred years ago by the great architect Leysan, and is rumored to be the biggest building of its kind in the world. The cities are all very well connected, primarily out of strategic necessity; the constant wars of the past made good roads critical to the speed of the armies.

While the Bodous aren’t held in high regard by the nobility of the realm, the people adore them. The royal family is very fond of games and artistic performances and sports them whenever the opportunity presents itself. Bread is usually distributed to the masses at these events, for free. Speaking against the royal family in Arlais will furrow more than a few eyebrows.

The Arlaisan armies are and have always been a very well-oiled machine. The kingdom has an ancient military tradition stretching back to even before it was unified, with songs, chants, stories and parades as a part of everyday culture. The nobles of the realm rarely keep soldiers of the civilian population, and instead rely on their elite retainers and the numerous mercenary companies of the realm. Nearly a thousand years of strife has taught the Arlaisans the value of good steel and proper education, and it is with pride that the Arlaisan armies present themselves to the world.

The land of Arlais is rich with golden wheat and sparkling minerals. Everyone but the most poorly wretches has bread and ale on their table, and iron or even steel tools are a common commodity. Constant wars have forced the artisans of the land to excel in order to compete with the rivalling duchies, leading to a well-developed industry. Having an extensive coastline, Arlais sports many coastal cities with big ports. Here they entertain ships from near and far, enjoying the trade they bring.

As the Bodous came into power during a military coup, the other vassals are of course questioning their right to rule. The fact that Arlais has no ancient royal family or clear line of succession has always made rule hard for the sovereign of the nation. Because of this, vassals sometimes refuse to send troops or aid during a crisis if it doesn’t directly concern their own duchy. The land is officially united, but the truth is that the unification only matters a duchies own interests are on the line.

It is also no secret in Arlais that the nobles play favourites with certain individuals of the public, namely the rich ones. Money can get you far in Arlais, especially if you know who to bribe.

The lords and ladies of Arlais has always employed mercenary companies to do their bloody business for them, sporting only small bands of loyal retainers for personal protection. The sell swords are extremely effective at what they do, but can be unreliable; they follow their purse and not their heart.

Ruled by Lady Mareta Ancel, a noblewoman who has ruled over her household for more than forty years. From her time as a lady she has married two nobles, giving birth to over five children; three boys and two girls. First known as a sweet and romantic dame in tourneys and feasts, she's now grown old and bitter, spitting curses at her children and beating them at times. She has hair on her upper lip and is deaf on one ear. But her keen intelligence, judge of character and brilliant experience in organization and managing makes her an extremely powerful person.



The Ancel household was founded by a landowner given several fiefs for his service in one of the civil wars. Aft the gracious reward, he had managed to procure claims on several other counties through marriage, bought estates and swindled minor nobles out of coin. However, he had been beheaded after several such complaints. His only heir was a woman forced to grow and adapt to political environment very fast. Lady Mareta.

Her first husband has been an old man, one of the minor nobles his father had swindled. After having threatened the young lady with pressing another complaint to the royal family, she has married him. Soon enough, he has died of a plague, leaving her with pregnant a daughter, however. The second husband she has married out of love, a third son of the Count of Abaddie, whom she has met on a wedding feast. After a prolonged affair, the two married, but it is rumored that the husband became abusive. After bearing him the rest of the children over the course of twenty years. Her husband having shown signs of madness, she befriended Cardinal Ippocrate Morel, at that time a rather formidable representative of faith in Arlais. Her marriage has been annuled by the Church.

Her children are Pelagia Ancel, her oldest daughter, thirty four years of age and married to a Chernogravian count, depressed after her fourteen year old son died in a disastrous hunt. Gregory, twenty seven years old, unhappily married to Lord Matthias Vidal's youngest daughter, the gluttonous Maria. Salom, a young man barely out of his teens, formidable fighter and regular participant of jousts. Franck, twelve years old, a squire to Sir Germain Vidal. Simona, aged seven, a sickly and spoiled girl.

Her discontent with the Bodou dynasty is widely known, for her father had helped them in their wars, and in her opinion they have been unjust to him and her family. Her contacts and connections are staggering, and her strong ambitions are frightening.

Lord Matthias Vidal is a middle-aged man, knighted when he was young and hardened by training and battle when he was young. He takes great pride in being an Archmaster of the Order of the Sable-Tigre, the sigil of which he keeps as his family's coat of arms. He may be a courageous and chivalrous warrior all-right, but as a lord he has some evident flaws. He's shown to be a poor diplomat and general, as well as being petty, naive, trusting, and short-tempered. In fact, he's practically in Mareta's pockets as she intertwined their families together by marriages. The heaavens alone know what will happen when Mareta and he will marry, although he dislikes the idea of it, much to the Ancel Lady's dissatisfaction.



The Vidal family originally hailed from Chernogravia, having settled in Chalewiel and given lands by the royal family for substantial financial contributions to the royal treasury as a merchant family. A relatively young noble house, Matthias is only its' second lord in Arlais, though it is believed that the Vidals had been one of Koronai's most ancient noble families.

Aft the death of Matthias' father, he's quickly formed a friendship with the house of Ancel. He's reportedly married a lowborn woman for her beauty, and she's given him two healthy children. Hippolyte Vidal is his only son, sixteen years old, and is almost completely opposite of his father - where Matthias is proud, Hippolyte is humble, where Matthias is dull, Hippolyte is a genius. And he loathes Lady Mareta. His sister is a quiet, shy woman, fearful of the heavens, yet loving food. She's been married to Gregory, Lady Ancel's oldest son and heir. Hippolyte has been betrothed to Simona, Lady Mareta's youngest daughter.

Matthias doesn't have a stance on the Bodou family, though he's sometimes referred to as Lady Mareta's blunt minion. In some instances, it's shown to be rather true.

Kingdom of S'laaeth (slay-eth)


Current Ruler: Amenoi IX, King of the S'laa (slay)

Dynasty: Most Gracious House of Kaklet.

History: The S'laa are an ancient people, the native inhabitants of the scalding sands of the Syyll desert in modern S'laaeth's southern reaches. Though their language and customs have existed for untold generations, the S'laa were a highly politically disparate people for most of their history, divided into dozens of small nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes, competing for territory with one another in the deadly stretches of the Syyll. In those old days, though their tribal rivalries were strong, the S'laa were highly xenophobic, warring with outsiders on sight. When outside dangers presented themselves, the S'laa tribes temporarily cast aside their quarrels with their enemies, and formed into grand coalitions to cast back the invaders.

These coalitions, of which there are fifteen recorded in S'laa history, are known as the 'Amethyst Unions'. This name originated from a practice committed to by the tribal leaders upon the formation of each union. When the tribes convened in the centre of the Syyll to commit their warriors to the union, the tribe that promised the highest percentage of its male tribesmen to the union's army (and was thus left weakest) would be made the 'amethyst tribe', and become caretaker of one half of all the assembled wealth of all the other tribes for the duration of the union. This prevented the stronger tribes from using the foreign invasion as an opportunity to strike against their tribal rivals.

The S'laa first emerged as a unified people following the end of the fifteenth and final Amethyst Union. The Astieth, one of the smallest of the S'laa tribes, were the amethyst tribe of this final union. Their chief, Amenoi, had been a young man of only nineteen when the fifteenth Amethyst Union was convened. Wanting to earn the prestige of leading the amethyst tribe for himself, he'd promised all of the Astieth's able-bodied men of age to the cause, and even led them into battle himself. Amenoi's desire for renown would ultimately result in the unification of the S'laa, and the founding of the Kingdom of S'laaeth. Amenoi's ascension, however, would leave S'laaeth's founding an affair shrouded in intrigue and deception.

The Fifteenth Amethyst Union was convened after the Koronai, a foreign people native to the north of the Syyll, along Astieb's northern coastlines, had assembled a great empire after having conquered vast territories in the south of Chernogravia. With an assembled army consisting of their entire imperial host as well as a great many Chernogravian levies, the Koronai marched south along their entire border, striking multiple S'laa villages simultaneously. The settlements they took were burned down to nothing but ash and stone, and those S'laa who weren't killed were taken as slaves to the north, when the Koronai swiftly afterwards fled. The S'laa, typically reliant on guerilla tactics to defeat invaders marching through the Syyll, found themselves unable to adequately retaliate against the Koronai for their transgression. The lands of the Koronai were well guarded, and even when the S'laa achieved their rare victories, the coastal cities of the Koronai could not be laid siege by a civilization without a navy. The Fifteenth Amethyst Union, forced to pursue an unusual tactic, assembled the single largest army the S'laa had ever created, pulling forth previously unheard of numbers of men from each of the S'laa tribes. Their plan was to strike from the northern-most point of the Syyll Desert, abandoned by the Koronai, and rush towards the Koronai Empire's capital at the far north of Astieb. The city's southern wall was to be pierced, and the entire S'laa army rushed through its walls to capture the Koronai Royalty and take the city's wealth and civilians as ransom for peace.

The plan worked perfectly, except for the fact that by the time the S'laa had hacked away at enough Koronai and Chernogravian warriors to have effective control over the city, their grand army numbered less than a tenth of its former total. Thankfully, when Koronai reinforcements arrived from west, east and north to liberate the city, the S'laa were able to threaten the city's destruction should the Koronai attempt to retake it. The Koronai Emperor, a hostage of the S'laa, in a manipulation designed to lead to his freedom, agreed to come to terms of peace with whichever of the Amethyst Union's leaders was the strongest, and could thus serve as the representative of the whole of the S'laa people. The chiefs, not wanting to fight amongst themselves in such a dire situation, chose Amenoi, the ruler of the current coalition's amethyst tribe, to discuss the agreement. The Koronai Emperor demanded the discussions be in secret, and it was at those negotiations that Amenoi hatched his first nefarious plot for power.

When the peace was signed, the S'laa host was permitted safe exit to the Syyll, along with the S'laa who had been captured in the Koronai assault on the northern S'laa villages. The Koronai also promised to make no further aggressions against the S'laa. The war was thus technically a success for the S'laa, as they had defended their homeland against any further Koronai threat, but the northern chiefs lamented that no compensation was to be made for the annihilation of their villages, and many other chiefs regretted the terrible casualties their armies had faced at the Koronai capital, especially when those losses included the chief's family, or the chief himself. When the Fifteenth Amethyst Union was ended, it was agreed that the northern chiefs who had lost villages to the Koronai would be given a small portion of the wealth entrusted to the Astieth upon the coalition's founding. All of the chieftains, though some highly begrudgingly, agreed. When the funds were divided up, the northern chiefs were given only modest compensations, and many southern chiefs found themselves stripped of nearly half of their entrusted valuables. This bred animosity between the two groups, as the northern chiefs lamented that the southerners hadn't given them enough, and the southern chiefs lamented that they'd been given too much. In truth, Amenoi had taken much of the wealth of the Amethyst Union for himself, and locked it away where his theft would never be discovered.

The discontent sown between the S'laa tribes evolved into a full blown civil war within weeks of the end of the Fifteenth Amethyst Union. The S'laa tribes, already lacking severely in manpower after the defeat of the Koronai, withered themselves down even further, as northern and southern tribes found themselves locked into yet another war. The Astieth, a tribe of the central Syyll, offered their territory as a place of refuge for S'laa forced away by the bitter conflict. Amenoi, having made a secret agreement with the Koronai Emperor at the peace discussions, used the wealth he'd stolen from the Amethyst Union to purchase a large amount of Chernogravian mercenaries from the Koronai Empire's north lands. Supplementing his mercenary army with tribal refugees and the few remaining Astieth men able to fight, Amenoi turned his sights on the strongest of the northern S'laa tribes: the Tuurul. The Chernogravians, hardened from their wars alongside the Koronai Imperial forces, were able to cut through the Tuurul warriors like butter, and turned the Tuurul sands red with blood. Amenoi absorbed what was left of the Tuurul warriors into his own army, captured the Tuurul chief and his family, and had them all executed: spare one. The teenage daughter of the Tuurul chief, Kaklet, was made Amenoi's wife.

The defeat of the Tuurul left the northern tribes outnumbered by the southerners. With the assistance of Amenoi and his men, the civil war could soon be over. Amenoi, however, did not yet desire the end of conflict in the Syyll. Nine tenths of the Chernogravian mercenaries, almost completely without casualties, were sent home to their families in the northern Koronai Empire. With the tenth of the mercenary force that remained, as well as his assembled S'laa forces, Amenoi rode north, to the Koronai capital. His army was stopped at the border of the Syyll, but Amenoi himself, known to the Koronai Emperor, was permitted audience. Amenoi lied to the Emperor that the nine tenths of his Chernogravian mercenaries that he'd sent home had instead been killed on the battlefield, and that what remained camped at the Koronai borders was all that was left. Amenoi pleaded for the Emperor's assistance in ending the war in the Syyll, pledging that if he was granted a portion of the Koronai Imperial force, he could lead it alongside what remained of his army to unite the S'laa homeland under his control: and commit it to vassalage under the Koronai Empire. The Emperor, unwisely, agreed. Partially as a part of his machinations and partially to punish him for his stupidity, Amenoi inflicted the Koronai Emperor with a slow-acting poison before he left his council. The day that Amenoi united with his army in the north of the Syyll, now doubled in size by a considerable Koronai imperial levy, the Koronai Emperor died. Amenoi had left his successor a gift, too: the Chernogravian mercenary generals that had been sent home by Amenoi were still in his employ. He'd engineered for them to incite a rebellion in the Koronai Empire's north once they heard of the death of the Emperor. Amenoi was happy as could be when he marched south into the Syyll with his newly doubled army.

The northern S'laa tribes were on their last legs when Amenoi returned to the Syyll. His new army, with the Chernogravian mercenaries replaced by Koronai Imperial soldiers, coordinated with the southern tribes to smite the duration of the north into submission. Amenoi had the lands of the northern tribes divided two ways; half were to be divided equally among the various southern tribes, and half were to come under the direct ownership of the Astieth. The southern leaders, angered at the unfair division but too tired of war to pick a fight with what was now the most powerful man in the Syyll, begrudgingly agreed. The S'laa warriors in Amenoi's army and the armies of the S'laa tribes were all sent home, and peace was finally found in the Syyll. Amenoi, however, was now wealthy in both coin and land, and still had a Koronai Imperial army and a handful of Chernogravians at his command.

The pacification of the civil war in the Syyll coincided with the beginning of a civil war in the Koronai Empire. The failure of the new Emperor to suppress the Chernogravian revolt led to common opposition to his reign among the Koronai vassals in Astieb. The lords of the vassal states in the north side of the Koronai Empire announced their formal independence from the Empire, finally siding with their people's protests. The new Emperor, seeking to assuage the realm's discontent, agreed to peace with the vassals of the north furthest from his de facto control. This was the last straw for the patriotic vassals of the Koronai in coastal Astieb, and they began to seriously consider war against the Imperial armies to replace the Emperor. Knowing that the vassal lords hated the S'laa too much to side with him, Amenoi instead made an arrangement with the new Emperor. If he agreed to give the rest of the Chernogravian vassals independence, Amenoi and the host entrusted to him by the previous Emperor would assist the new Emperor in pacifying his realm. All did not go well for Amenoi this time, however. The Emperor rejected Amenoi's proposal. The Imperial army host, though as distrustful of the new Emperor as the vassal lords, were more loyal to the holder of the Imperial title than they were to Amenoi. They determined to stay in the Koronai capital to fight for the Empire, rather than travelling back with Amenoi to the Syyll. Amenoi, amused with the Imperial host's loyalty to the titleholder of Emperor of the Koronai, asked the Imperial generals who it was that the Koronai thought should be their Emperor. The new Emperor, enraged at Amenoi's treason, personally approached him in the hall of the Koronai Palace, as the Imperial generals watched on. It was then that Amenoi murdered an emperor for the second time. Embracing the Emperor, Amenoi plunged a dagger into his stomach, and he fell to the ground, bleeding out. Many of the gathered Imperial generals drew their swords, intending to take Amenoi's life, but they were cast down both by their comrades in arms and by Amenoi's mercenaries. Amenoi took the crown off the head of the still dying former Emperor, placed it upon himself, and sat on the Koronai throne, his body still covered in the blood of the former Emperor. Amenoi repeated his question to the surviving Imperial generals, asking them who they thought should be their Emperor, and a chorus of pledges ensued.

Now Emperor Amenoi, in his way, ended the Koronai civil war with intrigue rather than battle prowess. The rebelling vassal lords were encouraged to turn upon each other, Amenoi offering forth general portions of the Imperial demesne and coffers to the lords that would submit to him. The Chernogravian lords of the north were offered total independence from the crown of Koronai, in exchange for their military assistance in ensuring peace in the south. Chernogravians and Koronai fought and died en masse over gold and territory, while Amenoi and the rest of the S'laa rested. When the ash settled, the Chernogravia (spare only the southern coast populated mostly by the Koronai people) were entirely independent of the Empire, and the lands seized from the fallen Koronai lords were dispersed between the loyal Koronai and the S'laa tribes of the south. S'laaeth would indeed be forged together as a vassal of the Koronai Empire, but under a S'laa Emperor. Amenoi would enjoy an exceptionally long reign as Emperor of Koronai, a reign which saw with it an unprecedented level of cultural and political change. A combination of cultural assimilation and immigration from the Syyll would transform the Koronai Empire into an expanded S'laa state. The S'laa chiefs became landed nobles in the north, using the wealth gathered from their new coastal possessions to fund infrastructural development of the area's ports, and expansion of the mines and quarries of the Syyll. Koronai practices, like naval voyages and international trade, became a part of the culture of the S'laa. The Koronai alphabet was utilized to write spoken S'laa, which became the main language of the Empire's elite during Amenoi's reign. By the time that Amenoi found himself on his death bed, he felt that the time was right for him to cement the S'laa takeover of the north of Astieb. Amenoi announced the dissolution of the Koronai Empire, and the creation of the Kingdom of S'laaeth across the empire's former boundaries. The Koronai capital was renamed 'Astieth', in honour of the tribe that birthed S'laaeth's founder. The royal dynasty too was renamed, to 'Kaklet', in honour of the wife that Amenoi had taken in his days in the Syyll. Every king since Amenoi has been his shadow, and he is a figure revered almost religiously among the modern S'laa.

Traits and Flaws

A web of whispers.
A breaker of webs.
Masters of Ambush.

The S'laa, from the gracious nobles of House Kaklet to the lowest of common footsoldiers, are trained to be deceptive. Like the snake of the Syyll that adorns S'laaeth's banners, the S'laa remain unseen until they want themselves to be seen. When they do want to be seen, it will only be for as long as it takes for their foes to bleed out. House Kaklet employs a menagerie of eyes and ears all throughout S'laaeth, to ensure any threats to their rule or dealt with sooner rather than later.

Ships

One of several S'laa traditions adopted from the Koronai, the S'laa are experienced in the use of ships for naval combat, and quite capable of adequately defending their shores against any foes that might seek to seize them.

Important trade routes (2).
Filthy rich (2).
Ports.
Ancient merchant families.

Occupying a strategically and economically focal position on the channel between Astieb and Chernogravia, the S'laa capital of Astieth is a world centre of trade and commerce. Its ports are sturdy and large, its merchants are famous and well-connected, and most importantly: its streets are full of rich men to and fro, ready to make a profit and have a profit made off of them.

Arguable claims
Overly powerful merchant guilds

With wealth comes power, and that has proven true for many a family without a drop of Amenoi's blood to their name. The S'laa vassals and merchant's guilds are factions with extraordinarily high levels of power in S'laaeth, matched only by the influence of the Kaklets themselves.

Claim



Culture: S'laaeth's culture is a combination of the ancient customs and practices of the S'laa of the Syyll Desert, merged together with the traditions of the Koronai, a people who the S'laa came to assimilate. The extent of this cultural intermingling differs from subject to subject. S'laa language, for instance, is strongly influenced by the Koronai, using Koronai characters and a large amount of Koronai originated vocabulary. This influence is particularly strong in relation to subjects introduced to the S'laa by the Koronai, such as sailing and architecture. Despite the extent of their influence on S'laaeth's culture, the Koronai have long been amalgamated into S'laa society, and the subjects which they introduced are now perceived as singularly S'laa concepts, their Koronai origin relevant only to historians.

One facet of S'laa culture and identity that does not have any degree of Koronai origin is religion. The tribal S'laa, before the rise of Amenoi, worshipped a god of the desert that they referred to as Ethet. In S'laa mythology, Ethet was a massive snake that lived in the sands of the southernmost reaches of the Syyll desert. Ethet ruled over the whole of the Syyll, whose dunes he could shift on a whim to engulf villages or swallow oases. Worship of Ethet was primarily centred around sacrifice and war. The snakes of the Syyll that came to embody S'laa identity were seen as manifestations of Ethet, and to be struck and killed by a snake was interpreted as Ethet reaching out directly to claim the life of the person slain. Warfare was encouraged by Ethet worshippers, who valued it for its ability to produce large quantities of human blood, which needed to absorb in order for Ethet to feed. Ethet's representation as a serpent, and his command over the desert's snakes, resulted in him often being referred to as the Snake King.

After the death of Amenoi, S'laa society began to downplay worship of Ethet. The S'laa of the north, no longer desert dwellers, ceased to make offerings in respect of Ethet. For them, worship instead turned to the figure that had founded their homeland: Amenoi. Ethet's epithet, the Snake King, began to used in reverence of Amenoi instead. Eventually, as the S'laa of the south and north intermingled, and temples began to be constructed in the coastal cities of northern S'laaeth, Ethet and Amenoi were seen as the same being. Ethet worshippers saw Amenoi as an incarnation of Ethet, and Amenoi worshippers were eager to encourage them, to help along Amenoi's ascension to divinity in the eyes of the S'laa. For generations, S'laaeth's predominant religion was worship of this two-headed snake king. All of that changed, however, with the arrival of Ularism.

The faith of Ular began in a city-state of the deserts of Astieb, built alongside a grand oasis. The Prophet, a figure who abandoned his identity and worldly possessions to serve solely as an instrument of Ular, began to preach Ular's faith to the peoples of Astieb. The Prophet recruited a small cadre of elite religious warriors, the Holy Warriors of Ular, with whom he usurped control of his city. Upon The Prophet's ascension, deadly wars and ravenous plagues began to weaken and destroy the neighbours of The Prophet's city, as Ular reached out to the world to assist The Prophet in his expansion. When the plagues ended and the wars were settled, The Prophet led the Holy Warriors of Ular on a campaign of conquest, liberating the oasis cities from their despots, and dispersing their wealth to the now eager Ular worshippers: the 'Ularids'. The Prophet forged an Empire of Ular out of the oases, and began to strike vicious blows against the empires of northern Astieb, S'laaeth included. These new, stronger opponents proved too much for The Prophet's armies, however, and when The Prophet succumbed to his mortality, his empire crumbled beneath him.

Far from ending Ularism, however, the death of The Prophet spurred a new period in the growth of Ularism throughout Astieb. Peaceful preachers began to circulate throughout the continent. The merchants of the south, ready to offer more agreeable terms to their brothers in faith, encouraged conversion to the faith of Ular. Over time, it became more common for Astieb's merchants to worship Ular than not, and the merchant dynasties of S'laaeth proved no exception. The ever growing influence of S'laaeth's merchant families and the increasing percentage of the S'laa abandoning Ethet for Ular spurred the Kaklet dynasty to choose conversion, to avoid being seen as pagans by the people they ruled over. Temples were renamed and refurbished in honour of Ular, Amenoi reverence drifted from worship to simple admiration, and Ethet began to be seen as a long-dead god of the pagans.

The Ularids see mortal life as a test of their commitment to righteousness. Men who carry out lives full of sin and vice are doomed to be reborn into lives of great disgrace and hardship. The faithful, however, upon the end of their mortal life, ascend with their clean souls into the Oasis of Paradise. Evil, and the temptation to commit it, are seen as creations of Ular, meant to test his people on their journey through life. Ular, then, is not seen as benevolent, but as jurisprudent and judgemental. Despite the widespread adoption of Ularism in S'laaeth, the most fervently devoted to the faith remain the merchant families and wealthy lay people of the land.

Ruled by Lady Mareta Ancel, a noblewoman who has ruled over her household for more than forty years. From her time as a lady she has married two nobles, giving birth to over five children; three boys and two girls. First known as a sweet and romantic dame in tourneys and feasts, she's now grown old and bitter, spitting curses at her children and beating them at times. She has hair on her upper lip and is deaf on one ear. But her keen intelligence, judge of character and brilliant experience in organization and managing makes her an extremely powerful person.



The Ancel household was founded by a landowner given several fiefs for his service in one of the civil wars. Aft the gracious reward, he had managed to procure claims on several other counties through marriage, bought estates and swindled minor nobles out of coin. However, he had been beheaded after several such complaints. His only heir was a woman forced to grow and adapt to political environment very fast. Lady Mareta.

Her first husband has been an old man, one of the minor nobles his father had swindled. After having threatened the young lady with pressing another complaint to the royal family, she has married him. Soon enough, he has died of a plague, leaving her with pregnant a daughter, however. The second husband she has married out of love, a third son of the Count of Abaddie, whom she has met on a wedding feast. After a prolonged affair, the two married, but it is rumored that the husband became abusive. After bearing him the rest of the children over the course of twenty years. Her husband having shown signs of madness, she befriended Cardinal Ippocrate Morel, at that time a rather formidable representative of faith in Arlais. Her marriage has been annuled by the Church.

Her children are Pelagia Ancel, her oldest daughter, thirty four years of age and married to a Chernogravian count, depressed after her fourteen year old son died in a disastrous hunt. Gregory, twenty seven years old, unhappily married to Lord Matthias Vidal's youngest daughter, the gluttonous Maria. Salom, a young man barely out of his teens, formidable fighter and regular participant of jousts. Franck, twelve years old, a squire to Sir Germain Vidal. Simona, aged seven, a sickly and spoiled girl.

Her discontent with the Bodou dynasty is widely known, for her father had helped them in their wars, and in her opinion they have been unjust to him and her family. Her contacts and connections are staggering, and her strong ambitions are frightening.

Lord Matthias Vidal is a middle-aged man, knighted when he was young and hardened by training and battle when he was young. He takes great pride in being an Archmaster of the Order of the Sable-Tigre, the sigil of which he keeps as his family's coat of arms. He may be a courageous and chivalrous warrior all-right, but as a lord he has some evident flaws. He's shown to be a poor diplomat and general, as well as being petty, naive, trusting, and short-tempered. In fact, he's practically in Mareta's pockets as she intertwined their families together by marriages. The heaavens alone know what will happen when Mareta and he will marry, although he dislikes the idea of it, much to the Ancel Lady's dissatisfaction.



The Vidal family originally hailed from Chernogravia, having settled in Chalewiel and given lands by the royal family for substantial financial contributions to the royal treasury as a merchant family. A relatively young noble house, Matthias is only its' second lord in Arlais, though it is believed that the Vidals had been one of Koronai's most ancient noble families.

Aft the death of Matthias' father, he's quickly formed a friendship with the house of Ancel. He's reportedly married a lowborn woman for her beauty, and she's given him two healthy children. Hippolyte Vidal is his only son, sixteen years old, and is almost completely opposite of his father - where Matthias is proud, Hippolyte is humble, where Matthias is dull, Hippolyte is a genius. And he loathes Lady Mareta. His sister is a quiet, shy woman, fearful of the heavens, yet loving food. She's been married to Gregory, Lady Ancel's oldest son and heir. Hippolyte has been betrothed to Simona, Lady Mareta's youngest daughter.

Matthias doesn't have a stance on the Bodou family, though he's sometimes referred to as Lady Mareta's blunt minion. In some instances, it's shown to be rather true.