House Strand

House Strand was a noble house of the Union, based in Loneport, and having founded the city. Its ancestral keep was The Sea Candle and it possessed a powerful and ancient artifact - the enchanted whalebone spear Hrithspel . An old and proud house that grew due to supporting sea trade coming into the Bay of Soltitude. It fell on hard times after the death of the Lord Essaiah Strand and the Droplets War started by the last known Strand - Mikhael, which rendered the house nearly extinct. After his death, the house is thought to be completely extinct. Strands tend towards dark hair, light eyes and short, lanky stature overall, with some having pronounced ears as well.
== Ancestral Keep ==
The ancestral keep of House Strand is the Sea Candle - half-fortress, half-lighthouse in Loneport that rises white and tall near the sea. It was built around the year 1500 after a marine cataclysm forced the Strands off their initial stronghold on Lone Island - a small, but strategically important island in the Bay of Solitude. 
== Political Profile ==
The strengths of house Strand were never military, with most lords focusing on networking with the other houses in the region and maintaining good relations with their inland vassals, alongside with facilitating trade of goods centered through Loneport, through both trading goods themselves, using their significantly sized fleet and making the city a convenient place for traders to pass through. With the house's significant wealth it could afford both advanced weaponry for its troops as well as mercenary companies. The house overall tended towards subtle economic influence and political marriages as a way to grow their power, over raw conquest. However House Strand is remembered for the Droplets War in recent memory, which saw the scion of the house at the time gather a large army and stage a full invasion of the Droplets and the Wound, with a further invasion of the Green Pearls planned, but never implemented.