HOUSE ASHFORD DE FALSTAFF

[MRCHENN 4741]

 

 

House Ashford de Falstaff

‘Peccata patris...’ - ‘Sins of the father...’

 

 

HOUSE HOLDINGS

 

The County of Leuven, Holy Orenian Empire

 

The Barony of Guise, Kingdom of Kaedrin, Holy Orenian Empire

 

The Barony of Guise, Kingdom of Oren

 

THE FALSTAFF HOUSEHOLD

 

LORD CONRAD ARMANDE, Patriarch

-his wife,  IOANNA ELISHEVA

-his son, LEUFROY OLIVIER

-his daughter, MATHILDE EUPHROSINE

-his daughter, EMÉLIE FRANCESCSA

-his daughter, OPHELIE ELEANORA

-his daughter, MANON YVAINE

-his daughter, SYLVIE ESMERIE

-his extended family,

-his cousin, LYSANDER YVES

-his cousin, CHANTAL LYVAINE

-his court, ruled by the Baroness-consort, IOANNA ELISHEVA

-his ward, [VACANT]

-his farmhands,

- THEODORE ASHES

- NIKOLAOS ASHES

- [VACANT]

 

HOUSE RELICS

 

Sword of Saint Lothar de Balain - The reputed sword of the famed crusader Saint Lothar, a companion of the Prophet Owyn, which was reclaimed by Ser Baldwin during the Tarchary Crusades. He used the blade in the assassination of his famous kinsmen, Guy de Bar and his many kin; leaving the sword reportedly cursed. To common legend, the sword grants swiftness in thought, but leaves its wielder inevitably mad.

 

The Himmel Statue - The stone husk of famed crusader Stefan Himmel, former companion of Ser Baldwin the Black during his Tarchary Crusades, who was turned to solid rock following a fight with a pagan mage. The statue was kept and maintained by Baldwin and his successors, with the common belief that it will return to life during a period of great turmoil.

  

Widowslay - The proud executioner’s blade used to destroy the wicked witch Ceriwyn. The blade feels slightly cold to the touch. Saved from the burning ruins of Aldersport by Guildenstern Ashes, and left to his only kin, his nephew Rosencrantz.

 

Eleanora’s Comb and Spoon - A fine ebony comb with gold enamel trimming, and a single Helvetian silver spoon. Both were given as gifts by the madam Eleanora Reneé Helvets to her suitor Duke Jon Renault de Savoie, then hastily given to his baseborn daughter Amelia.

 

The Vawdre Jewels - The former jewels of the d’Vawdre family, formerly a rich and powerful gentry heartland clan known for their wealth and opulence. When the house was put to the sword by the Romstun armies, Ser Rosencrantz secured many of his wife’s (a member of the d’Vawdres) family riches, including their iconic set of jewels. They include three large green emeralds and five smaller sapphires, cut into separate brooches of silver and gold.

 

The Signet of Ser Adelric de Bar - A delicate golden band with the heraldry of the House de Bar stamped into the seal. A treasure of a late ***** and concubine; mother to the baseborn Ser Thomas Wettlock, known by his epithet ‘Ironsides’. A former servant and longtime friend, the ring was entrusted to Albert Louis de Falstaff for safekeeping.

 

HOUSE TRAITS

 

The mainline of House de Falstaff has a rather distinct look in comparison to other Heartland houses. While the lord passes on his dark hair from his father and grandfather, his progeny share their unifying traits of thick blonde hair coming from their Rovin origins.

 

Members of the Ashford family find themselves cursed with traits of ambition, accompanied by their ancestors' rise and fall in the political dynamic of humanity.

 

RECENT HISTORIES

 

The chronicles of the House Ashford de Falstaff, from their arrival upon Almarisan shores.

 

The recent history of the de Falstaff line revolves primarily around their demanding transition into the heart of Providence and their eventually cumbersome involvement in the Sedanian war. 

 

The tenure of the Count Albert of Leuven found itself returning the Ashford family to a relative state of normality following the Reclamation of Leuven that had so increased tensions between the Imperial Crown and its Haeseni vassal, as well as resulting in the disappearance of the previous count, Armande. The Count of Leuven operated a tulip field and pearl-harvesting business in the region surrounding Whitecombe, and served as a judge in the Courts before transitioning to a long tenure in the House of Lords. After Albert's death in a freak boating accident, the County of Leuven would transition into the young hands of Emil-Dardot.

 

While Emil was known by his peers as an ambitious visionary, the Imperial hegemony would remember him as a traitor. Having been rejected by John VIII in his proposal to ally Southern lords into an economical and social alliance of culture, the Count of Leuven would enter into close intimacy with Louis de Joannes, landowner of Sedan, who soon entered into a state of rebellion upon proclamation of their inheritance to the Principality of Sedan. The young Falstaff count, in great opposition to the centralization of the 8th Empire and its associating dissemination of vassal autonomy, allied his family and brothers within the Sedanian host. With him, stood Conrad Nicholas The Elder, and his cousin, Daniel de Falstaff. The three brothers would soon make up the privy of the Sedanian host, rallying support against the Crown.

 

What followed next was tragedy; from the heights of their initial successes on campaign they fell, for as time wore on the Falstaff lineage was slowly culled by a mixture of losses in battle. By the Siege of Sedan, Whitcombe’s flower fields were salted and the manor abandoned - the fate of its residents worse. Emil-Dardot was stripped of his county and banished, Daniel de Falstaff mercilessly murdered without trial; Conrad Nicholas, once an officer of the ISA, found his own exile and escape from Oren with the help of those scant few trusted contacts that remained. The defeat of the Sedanites cost the Falstaff family four-fifths of their wealth, and all of their land and titles; indeed, those of that storied lineage would not rise publicly for a generation.

 

MEMORIA PATRIS

 

The origin of this cadet branch of Ashford is stooped in betrayal and wrought from the brink of ruination. It is said, nonetheless, that an Ashford heir will come to break this ruination and absolve the curse of its first ancestors.

 

Ser Baldwin ‘the Black’ (1500-1528) @yopplwasupxxx

 

One must first look at the tragic tale of Baldwin de Bar, the progenitor of this line. His very birth the result of Savoyard political machination, Baldwin was thrust into a life of intrigue and paranoia that would haunt him until the day he died. He was born from the unhappy matrilineal marriage of Frederique de Bar and Otto Rovin, part of a cruel plan of Guy de Bar in hopes of embarrassing the dubious Rovin line, whom, as stalwart Chivay loyalists, had never forgiven the Savoyards for their complicitness in the coup of Emperor Robert I and Chivay dynasty. Given him being the subject of a matrilineal marriage, Baldwin oft found himself scorned by his haughty Ashford kin, and found that he identified more comfortably with his noble highlander and Kaedreni lineage. Thus he took little part in the Duke’s War, only nominally supporting his ruling kin, by necessity more than anything else. He saw the whole debacle as trivial and needless, however, becoming further disenfranchised from his kin at two key events - firstly the burning of the Brelus Cathedral, as by this point Baldwin was a very pious man (which would prove evident soon after), and then the subsequent mass culling of the ruling Sarkozic line of Adria. Soon after he joined in service to the Church under Daniel II, and participated in the Tarchary Crusades. For his service therein he was given the title of Holy Ser and lordship over the colonial city of Luciensport.

 

During his crusading career, he came into contact with the Aeldinic agent known at the time as ‘Brother Polycarp’ (who would later turn out to be Charles Henry Horen). Through this associate he would become involved in the conspiracy to restore the Holy Orenian Empire under John Frederick Horen, Polycarp’s son. Originally refusing participation, he changed his mind in 1525 when his uncle and then King of Oren, Guy de Bar, refused to imprison both his son and courtier Sergius de Bar and Arstan Bedell for war crimes during the Dukes’ War. And so in 1526, Baldwin lured his begrudged uncle Guy outside to the chessboard in the Praha palace gardens, where the King was stabbed to death by Baldwin’s fellow co-conspirators. John I swiftly rose thereafter to the newly-restored imperial throne, and in recognition for his service the Emperor granted Baldwin the title of Imperial Spymaster on his small council. During this time, Baldwin married Elaine Briarwood, a minor Kaedreni noblewoman, with whom he had one son and heir, Albert Louis. Through his short career in the Johannian court, he orchestrated numerous assassinations of potential claimants, including four of his cousins and two sons of former King Guy, Sergius and Ferdinand. However, Baldwin’s betrayal of his kinsmen would eventually catch up to him, and he would meet his end not two years later in 1528 in a duel against his uncle and cousin Adrian and Adelric de Bar respectively, who sought vengeance for their fallen kinsmen (the latter of whom he slew, but falling to Adrian’s blade after).

 

Ser Albert Louis de Falstaff (1524-1573)

 

Born into the looming halls and echoing staircases of the Imperial Palace of Ancelcourt, Albert Louis knew little of life outside it. Given his father’s service in the installation of John I to the throne, the Emperor did in turn allow Baldwin’s widow and newborn son to remain in the palace. Thus he grew up amongst the nobles of the court, allowed a single servant in a simple farmboy; yet given the ties his father had burned with the rest of his kin, he was oft alone. Again, due to the actions of his father, when he grew of age, the Emperor did decree that he would squire under the Grand Knight Maric Horen-Vimmark, and so he did. Thus he moved to the pearly shores of Dragon’s Roost, and spent most of his days jousting or sparring, living a pleasant, gentle life there where he was instilled with and educated in the Knightly virtues. Then upon the day of his Knighthood, at the Imperial Palace, as he prepared to take his vows before Emperor and God, Adrian de Bar out of vengeance publicly denounced him from his familial roots, recompense for the actions of his late father Baldwin. Albert Louis then served in the last two years of the Eighteen Years War against the dwarves (from 1545-1547), and for his service to the crown was granted the fiefdom of Falstaff in the conquered lands of Cascadia (only miles from his father’s original hold of Luciensport), from where he would derive his name and found his cadet house, the House Ashford de Falstaff. Not long after he married Karoline Barrow, the bastard daughter of Duke Otto II of Carnatia, and had two sons, Barnabas Cedrik (known to most as ‘Bors’) and Odo Hugh, he reclined to a life of simplicity and farming on the frontier. Content in his fiefdom, he died in 1573.

 

Ser Barnabas Cedrik ‘Bors’ de Falstaff (1546-1607)

 

Bors was never going to be as content as his father. He had not grown up in the leisure of an Imperial Palace, rather the small and humble demesne of his father. From an early age he pursued ambition and quickly found a place and friendship with the young Jon Renault, Duke of Savoy, his distant kinsman. He made his home in the Blackwald and served as Chamberlain of Aldersport. There he stayed idle, but content, fighting in the War of Orcish Submission and the Rurikid Uprisings. When Emperor Philip Frederick I summoned the Savoyards to his court, Bors stayed behind to maintain the city and guard Jon’s wards, his bastard twins Guildenstern and Amelia Ashes. Once he heard the news of the last charge of Savoy, he quickly stole the girl out of the city, watching in the dark as the Imperial hordes came and burned the city to the ground.

 

Enraged by the death of his friend and seeking refuge for himself and Jon’s daughter, he sought refuge with his old friend, and known anti-imperial Arthur Vimmark in his castle Ostwick. There, Arthur convinced him to join in a plot to rebel against the Emperor, and introduced him to the Staunton brothers. There, in the stronghold of Ostwick, Bors used his quick wits and silver tongue to help form and lead the rebel force that would go on to become victorious in the Coalition War. Upon their victory, and the establishment of the Kingdoms of Courland and Lotharingia, Bors held respective knighthoods in both kingdoms, eventually settling in Metz and becoming the pedagogue of the young Prince Lothar d’Amaury. He married Amelia, the girl he had saved from Aldersport and had a son, Rosencrantz. However upon Lothar I’s assassination by radicals attempting to put Princess Anna Sophia of Pruvia on the throne, Bors lost his political position at court and took young Hughes, John I’s youngest son away into hiding with the Bastard’s Band (a mercenary group that had been formed by Guildenstern, his once ward) for fear that the assassins would come after the boy next. However, he died shortly after from infection of a leg wound in 1607.    

 

Ser Rosencrantz Jon de Falstaff ‘the Hangman’ (1595-1643) @lev

 

Having grown up at the heels of his uncle Guildenstern, Rosencrantz came to idolise him, and it was therefore no surprise that when Guildenstern formed The Bastard’s Band, Rosencrantz ran off from his father Bors’ position in Lotharingia to join him. He roved around like this, fulfilling various mercenary contracts until his father brought the young Hughes, who was only a little younger than himself, and they spent two years becoming fast friends. Then shortly after the death of Bors, Hughes came before Guildenstern and his cohorts and requested they support him in reclaiming his rightful place on the Throne of Lotharingia, which had been taken, after the assassination of his other brother Philip Owyn, by his cousin Odo d’Amaury (styled Odo I, King of Lotharingia). What soon followed was a deft and quickly orchestrated coup d’état, as the young Hughes had much support within his cousins’ privy. Namely Hughes, flanked by the Bastard’s Band, having been smuggled into the palace by Odo’s very own marshal John Frederick de Capua. Where Rosencrantz, himself restrained Odo and cast him from the city. However, after the coup, in a gesture of good faith, Hughes I offered the position of chancellor on his privy to Odo, who courteously accepted. In thanks for his help and in a show of good faith for their many years of friendship, Hughes I knighted Rosencrantz, and gave him the moniker ‘the Hangman’ for he had been the executioner of many of Hughes I’s enemies in such a way.

 

With Hughes in power, Guildenstern and Rosencrantz set about re-establishing the Order of Saint Peter, an owynist military order created by the late Jon Renault, Guildenstern’s father. It was through the OSP that Hughes I first established military security within the city of New Metz, although as the new Marshal gathered more strength and increased his recruitment their power weigned, their final outing being at the Second Battle of Rothswood, where Lotharingian aide would help secure Ruthern independence from the Kingdom of Courland (who it was publicly believed at the time were involved in the assassinations of both Lothar I and Philip I), which lead way to the reformation of the Sixth Holy Orenian Empire, by John V. After he returned from the battle Rosencrantz proceeded to marry his Lotharingian sweetheart Alyda d’Vawdré posthaste. It was by this time that Odo left the court and was not seen again in Hughes I’s reign (he returned later in Leufroy I’s reign), some say he left because he did not agree with the decision to re-vassalise under Oren, others say he left when he saw the King take less and less heed of his council, turning to Rosencrantz instead. So it came as no surprise to any that almost no sooner than Odo had left the building, than Hughes I had named Rosencrantz as his new chancellor. 

 

His time as chancellor, however, would be met with immediate turbulence; shortly afterwards, the Romstun hordes declared war on the duchy with the ambition of wiping it out (although they claimed a vague casus belli dating back to his grandfather Augustus d’Amaury’s slight of the Dunamis mercenary company). It was at the site of Castle d’Vawdré (the seat of Rosencrantz’ father in law) where tragedy struck, and the castle was taken and burned, and Hughes I, captured by the Romstun men, and later executed. In the absence of the King and no natural heir to be found, the privy and lords of Lotharingia declared a state of interregnum and Rosencrantz was declared Regent of the Kingdom. However this only went on to last for a few months as from out of the woodwork Leufroy, Odo’s eldest son came and since he was the only available and eligible candidate, the Lords of Lotharingia had no choice but to bow to him and declare him King. However, Rosencrantz was less than impressed, finding great fault with Leufroy I’s path of appeasement to the Romstuns who had just murdered the previous King, and it was after such toils  of character that Leufroy I relieved him of his duties as Chancellor. Finally, when Leufroy I declared the Lotharingia-Romstun Accord of 1615 in which peace was bought through the ceding of land and handing over of coin, Rosencrantz up and took off, absconding with his then ward Leufroy’s younger sister Raclette d’Amaury, taking with him the last vestiges’ of the Order of Saint Peter and the Bastard’s Band.He eventually settled in Adelburg, after the condemnation of the Romstun’s by Emperor Peter II Horen and participated in the succeeding war against them. He proceeded to fight in the War of the Beards, finally leaving and joining Frederick I, King of Marna in the construction of Sennisten, where he later died.                       

 

 

Leontes Hughes de Falstaff (1615-1692)

 

By the time he had reached his first birthday, he was already on the road. Having grown up motherless, he quickly became bereft of both softness and direction, becoming a rabble rouser and general miscreant, often stealing purses from the gruff savoyard soldiers of his father’s company, which would be met with swift beatings from Rosencrans. His father quickly began to notice his lack of decorum, growing dissatisfied with the man he was becoming. His father decided to enroll him to study in Oren, around the time of his 16th birthday. He was sent to the Imperial Court to learn under the counsel of the 6th Empire, for a short period of time until it's inevitable collapse. A few years passed without much of note before Leontes found his way into the court of Peter Sigismund. In his late twenties the Emperor grew fond of the advisory roles Leontes had taken up. Peter saw fit to give him a more appropriate title, granting him the role of royal advisor, a position underneath the Archchancellor, Heren of Metterden.

 

After a few years in the Imperial Court Peter Sigismund disappeared, leading way for his son, John Maximillian, better known as John VI to take the throne. Leontes remained loyal to the new Emperor. During this period he married his childhood sweetheart, Raclette d’Amaury whom they gave birth to two true sons, Lysander Albert and Bernard Titus. Leontes was also remembered for his lustful nature. On top of his two trueborn sons he had a bastard known as Banquo with a mysterious courtier.

 

After the ill-times assassination of John VI, Lysander left the Imperial court and his position as advisor, making way with the rest of his Heartland contingent to join his close ally Frederick Pius, helping him form the Kingdom of Marna.

 

 

Lysander Albert de Falstaff (1643-1704)

 

Lysander found prominence within the Kingdom of Marna very early in his life. Born into nobility the child spent his early years studying Marnantine law, quickly impressing his peers and the King himself, Frederick I. Lysander’s father Leontes proved rather frivolous with his spendings, leaving Lysander deeply in debt by the time of his death. Despite his misfortune Lysander showed himself to be an acute statesman, quickly working his way out of debt with the help of Owyn Leopold, the Seneschal of the Kingdom.

 

Lysander did not have the same relations as his father within court, finding it difficult to rise up in stature. From a very young age he grew up reading of the exploits of former Emperors, wishing a similar life for himself, despite his family’s denouncement. Although he never found the success himself he instilled the same values onto his sons, Conrad and Laertes. Soon after Lysander and his wife, Jeanne Antoinette de Valois had their first children he enlisted them into the service of Bernard Titus, an acute statesman and diplomat within Marna. Their early years were spent studying the intricacies of court, and the intrigue that enveloped the grandiose lifestyle. Conrad quickly rose up in political relevance, his brother Laertes more interested in a life of cloth and sword than the politics of the realm.

 

Conrad Baldwin de Falstaff (1680-1725) @cruzazul

 

Conrad’s life began in Sennisten, where his family found prominence. Whilst well-learned there, the state of the kingdom was rapidly devolving - and so he and his brothers were sent to the realms of their Aeldinic cousins, where they grew up alongside their cousin, the imperial pretender Joseph Marna. There his marriage with Elizabeth de Poussey was arranged, with whom he had three daughters (and with whom he would find reason to divorce after no heirs were born). Four years before the beginning of the War of the Two Emperors, he would return, sent to garner support among the Highlanders of Hanseti-Ruska for the Josephite cause. In Haense he found countrymen and ample allies, and was granted the County of Leuven. In Arcas he met and married Vesna Ostroborovich, with whom he would have a son, Armande. There, in Leuven, began many of the conspiracies that would mark the beginning of the Josephite Rebellion against the Pertinaxi Empire. The most significant meeting in the wake of the rebellion was the Council of Nenzing, held between the Falstaff family and the King of Haense, Marius Barbanov, and the Duke of Ves, Albert Myre. At the subsequent meeting the group proclaimed its intent to rebel against the empire due to the evils committed by the arbitrarily inclined Pertinaxi regime. Perhaps most unfortunately for the House de Falstaff, their integral part in the Josephite rebellion was duly noted by the Pertinaxi imperial class; in the last years of the war, Conrad was found and slain by a roving band of Pertinaxi dragon knights. He left behind one son, Armande, from his marriage with Vesna ‘the Younger’ of the Ostroboric Carrion line.

 

Laertes James de Falstaff (1684-1736) @lev

 

Laertes’ youth in the Marnanite court was similar, if not an exact mirror, to that of his brother Conrad. Whilst Conrad would stay in Aeldin with their cousins for an elongated period, Laertes returned to the Orenian mainland, where he would infiltrate the Nauzican Brigade of the Pertinaxi Emperor Augustus. His mission would be cut short, however, upon the disbanding of the unit - with its removal, so too did he lose his position in the Pertinaxi court, and so he was prematurely reunited with his family abroad. There, he began an ongoing tryst with his cousin, Cesarina Louise, before returning once more with his brother Conrad to establish a foothold in Arcas. As a courtier in Leuven, Laertes tutored the young Helton Helvets, who would eventually go on to be King Adrian of Kaedrin, in martial studies, and upon Joseph’s landing and the Council of Nenzing was made a knight in the Order of the Golden Lilies, where he was tasked with guarding the pretender’s family. Whilst he took part in the first engagements of the War of the Two Emperors, he would spend the rest with Joseph’s extended family - including during the climactic Siege of Helena, which saw the pretender defeated and his host scattered.

 

The tragedy of the de Falstaff line can be seen truly from the number of murders witnessed by Laertes; first was Banquo, then his cousin Armande the Elder, caught on the highways; next was his younger brother Alexander, then his sister-in-law Vesna, her young son taken by Pertinaxi dragon knights; after that, Conrad and Susanne too would not see the end of the war. At the Battle of the Silversea, Laertes watched the final remnants of the Josephites fall, and knew there was no further place for him in Oren as it stood. He stayed with his cousins, then, until he was called upon by the High Pontiff to bring Cesarina’s child, the young Alexander II, to Helena to become the Emperor. There, he rapidly rose to prominence as the Imperial Spymaster, rescuing Simon Basrid from Ba’as assassins, and claiming a place in the imperial court for his newly found relative Lucille. It was in this time frame, as well, that he found the last of the Falstaffs of Guise; Henry de Guise, a drunken, crazed husk of a man, lying on the floor of a remote Haeseni tavern.

 

While the Imperial Spymaster, Laertes was able to stop a series of attempts on Alexander’s life; at the same time, however, he publicly feuded with the Archchancellor, Ser John of Nowhere. Upon Cesarina’s tornado of an entry into the Orenian court, which culminated in her announcing Laertes to be the father of her unborn child and promptly being murdered by Ser John’s wife Vespira, Laertes was cast from the upper echelons of court. When Alexander II, whom he believed to be his child by one of his many affairs with Cesarina, grew sickly, he was convinced by Simon Basrid to write a public letter announcing it, the purposes twofold; the first to relieve Alexander of his stresses as emperor, and the second to seek forgiveness from God. The letter fell on deaf ears, as Alexander soon passed. Within three years Alexander’s younger brothers were assassinated and Laertes’ last child by Cesarina drowned, purportedly at the command of John of Nowhere.

 

For years, Laertes would wander the land as a drunken sellsword, pawning off heirlooms when his rapidly-degrading swordsmanship could not cover his tavern bills. He would do so until a retired man of the Pertinaxi imperial circle, William d’Aanen, brought news that the young son of Conrad, whom all had thought executed by the roving band of Pertinaxi dragon knights that had taken him, had been left alive in a cottage far from noble courts and politics. There, Laertes found Armande, who knew not even his own name, and gave him a letter confirming his heritage. Fulfilled, Laertes returned to Helena, where he was slain in a duel by Sir Thomas Raleigh of Haense, prior captain of the Nauzica Brigade of Alexander II, with whom he had spent many nights in camaraderie. That fateful knight soon after to have been found to take his own life.

 

Armande ‘the Baby’ de Falstaff (1718-1789) @cruzazul

 

When a baby, Armande was captured as a prisoner of war following the inception of the War of Two Emperors. He was taken during the event of the Burning of Ves, where his mother safeguarded him alongside her Carrion familiars. An orphan without a home, the baby was made a ward to the Empress Adeline for some time before the Empire’s crumbling at the hands of John VII, when he was sent away to be stowed at a nearby monastery, hardly past his toddler years. When the young Alexander II was crowned Holy Orenian Emperor, Armande’s sister became Alexander’s betrothed. Armande’s education at the monastery become patroned by his brother-in-law to-be and several remnants of the Josephite cause that clung to the throne, including his uncle Laertes himself and his Marna and Helvets cousins in the newly reconsecrated Kingdom of Kaedrin. He would be raised with a bevy of scholars for his tutelage, though he would not appear in the Holy Orenian Empire until well after the reign of Alexander, when the foundations of Peter III’s Josephite reformation of the Empire had begun. 

 

His first position in the Empire was beneath the wings of the Ministry of Civil Affairs as Undersecretary of Education, rapidly receiving a Doctorate in Judicial Studies and being accepted into membership in the Imperial Association of Saint Pontiff Everard IV, alongside the Lord Palatine of Haense, Konrad Stafyr, whose daughter, Isabel, he would marry with haste. He’d then be confirmed as a Judge in the Central Circuit Court, stationed in Kaedrin after its conversion into the Commonwealth. His labor for the Empire afforded him the lands of Guise just beside Kaedrin’s city, Ves, and the neighboring Rubern. There, he would erect the Varendoz Adventurer’s Guild, which grew alongside the fledgling Northern Geographical Society, both of which stood famous for their great excursions into the occult unknown and the arcane. Rumors say that the institution was the reason for why Guise looked akin to swamp town.

 

THE LEUVEN AFFAIR

 

The political prominence of Armande de Falstaff rose during the Leuven affair and his ancestral title’s restoration following the end of the Rubern war. The Leuven doctrine, issued by Peter III, saw a demand that the hostile Ruberni rebels and vagrants that inhabited the region be eviscerated from their land.

 

What followed was nothing short of political turmoil between the Crown and its subservient vassal, the King of Haense, Sigismund II. Upon the securing of the region, the Emperor tendered Armande de Falstaff as the Count of Leuven, and for his hereditary land to be secured in the former Rubern warhost via the Leuven doctrine, which was formerly agreed upon by the Crown of Haense and resolved in the House of Lords. As Armande traveled to Haeseni court for his oaths to be sworn, in a grand display, Sigismund II hindered his word, declaring that the region was instead to be titled the ‘Grand Principality of Muldav’, and the County of Leuven supposedly given a small partition equivalent to a landlord’s manor.

 

The Crown and the Basrid Ministry were quick to nullify this err, demanding that the Aulic government apologize for their seditions transgressions, and return the land to its rightful owner, the Crown. Nonetheless after years of failed discourse and whining by the young King, in a show of diplomacy and clemency, Peter III allowed the land to be restored subservient to the Kingdom of Haense, and instead tethered the County of Leuven as a direct Imperial vassal.

 

The Count of Leuven would then disappear after an excursion into a safari, being presumed dead many years thereafter.

 

Albert Arthur de Falstaff (1765-1808) @bickando

 

Raised in his youth among the equestrian Kaedreni courts of Arcas in a time of marshal and political prowess but internal decadence, Albert was made ward of Richard, Count of Rochefort, and left Guise at the age of only six for the golden fields and colorful streets of Owynsburg. Albert’s early years were spent playing chess with the Duke of Cathalon, making and playing violins, and being tutored with the Helvetii litter. His father’s disappearance, however, had left his inheritance in question - and with a sickly, comatose brother and a sister that - rumor had it - was monstrous in size and appearance, the nobility of the empire saw the line as cursed more often than not. A close alliance was made closer with the Helvetii when Albert entered into a political marriage with Theodora Helvets upon the recommendation of the Count Rochefort, allowing the young man also to secure Leuven in a sudden - no doubt “influenced” by the Kaedreni elite - ruling by the Imperial Courts.

 

The landing of the bulk of the Empire in Providence saw his, and his family’s, fortunes grow exponentially. Gathering allies and business partners especially among the women of the palace, Whitcombe and its flower fields soon became a summering destination for many of the old, landholding nobility - his protégé and closest companion Petra Vimmark among the most frequent. Many thought the man had dodged his family’s insistent curse - four healthy children, a beautiful County deep in the heart of the coastal eastern Empire, and a tenured seat as an Imperial Grandee. Further reinforcing that belief, he held membership in the most exclusive social circles of the time, was known to be associated with much of the Council of State and the high nobility, and accumulated wealth both in Imperial Marks and in rare and exotic artefacts far faster than his peers. Twenty years of steady growth of the family had left it confident, secure - perhaps overly so. Albert, too, found the Falstaff due eventually - the greatest storm of the decade landed off the coast of Whitcombe whilst he was aboard his ship, the Hope’s Haven, sinking it without a single survivor and giving the Sedanites the chance to sway his mourning son without interference from the staunch Imperial loyalist.

 

Emil-Dardot de Falstaff (1791-1852) @Publius

 

Born and raised among the glamorous heights of the nobility of Providence, Emil-Dardot was afforded the best tutelage money could buy, and was known to be prodigal at wordplay - perhaps partially because of how often he was touted as such by his proud father. That talent turned, eventually, into delinquency - the teenage boy preferring to spend his time picking flowers and writing poems for the young maidens of the other respectable houses of the Empire. The blind eye most took (perhaps balking at a confrontation with his well-connected family), however, led him towards more and more dubious connections, until he eventually became acquainted with the landholder of Sedan, and was drawn into their malicious plots behind his father’s back.

 

Conrad Armande de Falstaff (1844-Present) @Chennster

 

Spoiler

Big thanks to @cruzazul and the other former writers of this post for allowing me to update it, and to @amyselia for helping write it!

 

[amyselia 2962]

Mathilde is tutored on these pages by the various governesses and clerical appointees to the Castle of Guise, her mind wandering to the ages of yore, when her family's name stood mighty and romantic on the tongues of the common man. She smiled, knowing her fate would be kissed by the Falstaff charm someday.

[ydegirl 2357]

18 minutes ago, Chennster said:

Whitecombe

The tow-colored countess does not roll in her grave. Rather, she decides to haunt Conrad from the depths of the eternal infierno she lived in.

[_mady07 1541]

[!] Emeliè smiled a bit, "I'm the second on the list, because I'm the oldest." The small six year old explained to her eldest brother Thèo

[kal 170]

A woman reads over the missive, Renee Caroline's eyes widening for a moment as she sees that the family she was born in had risen again. Her face falls briefly, thinking of the events that happened when she was young. She had barely known any of her family members were still alive, it had been years since she'd seen any of them.

[EmiliainWonderland 2309]

Aurelia de Falstaff, daughter of Emil-Dardot Ashford de Falstaff, smiled with pride to see her family was still alive going strong. 

[Hephaestus 1326]

Quote

his protégé and closest companion Petra Vimmark among the most frequent.

 

Vladislav Carrion actually physically wojacks.

[Taketheshot 3834]

Leufroy Olivier reads over the missive with a curt nod. "Good writings, but not enough pictures!" The young boy declared with a huff going off somewhere to spar something or another. 

[i.uomini 2552]

Spoiler

Can tell a lot of work was put into this. Good shit. 
I love to see things like this

 

[argonian 14254]

Daniel de Falstaff sips on his cocktail in that one beach resort that survived the fall of Savoy.

[lev 627]

lol