Role

Chapter 3

Kartalius' wife, the Drow known as Vexesia, was no stranger
to politics. She had seen how her mother and sisters did
"business" and understood the patience that was necessary.
While Kartalius was a stern and calculating man he had
nothing on his bride. Her plan was simple: push the man
to conquer and then simply out live him. Human life was
not even a season for the Drow. She'd just help him plant
the seeds and then reap the harvest long after he turned
to ash. So she taught him as well, how to scheme and to
deceive. She convinced him of her love and bore him a
series of children. One boy and three girls whom she
taught as well.

Our story centers around their son named Quintalius. He
was a young boy when the Westallian civil war began. He
would be a young man before it was through. As he aged
and was educated everything in his life was shaped by this war.
He saw brothers killing brothers. Cousins killing cousins.
Each sworn to different noble families. But it would not
be this brutal warfare that would end the struggle. But
rather the shrewd political prowess of Vexesia.

In each quarter of the Kingdom she dispatched her Drowish
spies to assassinate figures of note and also to spy on
the culture of the Kingdom. What they found was that each
had peasant-born families of wealth and prominence who were
fighting the war as bannermen for the other "vas" clans.
Each were approached and promised nobility if they would
turn on the governing families of their district. And so
vas Tendall family fell first, not to the vas Antian's
but to the Thorwell's, their own bannermen, who moved into
their great oak hall and became the House of vas Thorwell.

The new nobility joined in the conquest against the mountains
and soon the vas Elrick family fell to their own bannermen
as well. And then the last of the mountain holdouts, the
vas Kamplin's met their bloody end. But not due to treachery,
their bannermen died bravely at their sides, they were simply
undone by finding that honor comes with a heavy cost when no
one else obeys the tenets of loyalty.