House of Leifeld

The House of Leifeld is a minor noble house in the Kingdom of Azeroth, and the current possessors of the Barony of Whitewater and the associated landless title, Baronet de Leifeld. A proud family dating back to the original settlers (though not as possessors of the Barony or as uninterrupted aristocratic lines), they have a heritage of military service which is upheld today by the family's scion, Denver Leifeld, 8th Baronet de Leifeld, and by his recently slain uncle, Captain Anders de Leifeld of the HMS Laughing Lady. They stand as a noble house not due to any particular title or even ennoblement, but by the ancestral dignity of their long bloodline, which can be reliably traced farther back than the great bulk of most Houses. WIP, yadda yadda.
==Heraldry==
The House of Leifeld's heraldry is usually presented on a round escutcheon rather than a kite. With a dark red field and a pale endorsed argent ordinary, the heraldy of the House is sufficiently distinct that there is no official charge - though individual members have, at times, adopted charges to distinguish themselves. The most prominent example of such an adoption was that of Anders de Leifeld, who adopted a striking sea serpent tinctured sable as his individual charge.
==Noteworthy Holdings==
===Barony of Whitewater===
====Castle Abraham====
==Noteworthy Figures==
*Abraham de Leifeld, progenitor of the modern branch of the family. Died 277KY. The illegitimate third son of Sir John of Weary Hill, a minor landed Knight, Abraham was the only one of Sir John's offspring to survive until the near ancient man's death in 250KY at the age of one hundred and two years. Following his marriage to the wealthy Marianne Piche, the only child of a shipping magnate, Abraham provided a number of loans to the House of Wrynn, securing the household's modern day titles as the Barons of Whitewater and converting the hereditary knighthood of Weary Hill into the core of the barony - Castle Abraham.
*Anders de Leifeld, born in 581KY, died in the closing days of the Fourth War in the sinking of the HMS Laughing Lady. A captain of eighteen years distinguished service, Anders first joined the Royal Navy in 594KY, serving as a cabin boy under Captain John Nye of the HMS Pride of Westfall, a 98-gun ship-of-the-line. His service was noted for exemplary conduct and he climbed the ranks to midshipman at the age of 16, passing his lieutenants examination on the first attempt at the age of 20. During his service as a Lieutenant, he was transferred from the Pride of Westfall to the Laughing Lady following the death of Acting Lieutenant Timothy Colton during the Battle of the Channel Isles in 604KY, and on the retirement of Captain Osgood in 608KY received his promotion to Captain. He would remain on the Lady for the rest of his life, serving with distinction and ability, bringing the hidden capabilities of his frigate to the fore. He is survived by his two sons, Victor and Osgood, and his daughter, Cassandra.
*Adrienne de Leifeld, born 396KY. The only female holder of the barony to date, from 412KY to 471KY. With the ancient dignity of the line, it was permitted to pass on the maternal line rather than be extinguished with the death of Adrienne's brothers and father in a conflict with a rogue band of Dark Iron Dwarves.
*Boyd 'the Younger' de Leifeld, born 524KY. Boyd the Younger may well be the oldest man alive in the Kingdom of Azeroth. Rumoured to possess a small fraction of elven blood through his grandmother, Rachel Crowder, Boyd has lived through all four Wars, the rise and fall of the Orcish Horde, and several serious illnesses. Today he is a decrepit and withered man, a bent and gnarled figure wrapped in deeply lined skin, though one possessing a keen mind still. His death will likely come very soon, but then, that's been the prevailing option since 600KY and he's outlived two of the doctors who told him so.
*Sir John de Leifeld, Adrienne's father and 5th Baron de Leifeld. A proud knight and servant of the Crown, John spent much of his life dealing with the chaos that followed the War of the Three Hammers. Human refugees from the once fertile steppes, Dark Iron renegades, and strange creatures of the new ash waste posed a constant threat to the security of the border provinces of the Kingdom, and from the age of fourteen, John was heavily involved in protecting the people from these new threats. He died in 412KY, cut down by the warband of Agrum the Apostate.
*Sir Louis de Leifeld, born 551KY. Slain in the final days of the First War during an engagement with an Orc warband, Louis became the host of the vile Warlock Deron the Black's soul. His decaying corpse was liberated from the control of the Death Knight in the final battle of the Second War, cremated, and the ashes respectfully placed in the Leifeld tombs.
*Sister Emily de Leifeld. The first daughter of Egan de Leifeld by his second wife, Emily joined the Clerics of Northshire in 513 after the death of her only child, Adamant, and helped to increase the fortunes of the Abbey and the Order until her death in 563 at the age of 80. The bulk of her efforts were focused on growing the library of the Abbey and seeing works copied and transmitted through the Order. Her legacy exists largely in the form of a small memorial statuette in a dusty nook of the rebuilt Abbey's library, in memory of her dedication to the Deist's God and to the written word; her family have largely abandoned Deist belief in favour of the Church of the Holy Light, and even the plaque of her statuette neglects to mention her deity.
*Jeremy de Leifeld, born 425KY, was the only surviving child of Baroness Adrienne de Leifeld at the time of her death. However, due to an obscure custom of inheritance law, he was automatically disqualified from becoming the 6th Baron de Leifeld by his marriage in 448KY to the Elfess, 'Josephine' Seaskimmer (real name unknown), on the grounds that such a marriage would, by its very nature, be incapable of the production of offspring. His nephew, Egan, instead inherited the title. He was survived by his wife, who remained an advisor and guest of the House of Leifeld until her death in 622KY.
===Lieutenant Denver de Leifeld===
Born in 595KY to Konrad de Leifeld, 9th Baron de Leifeld, Denver's childhood was shaped by the Reconstruction and the post-war difficulties facing the Kingdom of Azeroth, imbuing him with a desire to protect his family and his people above all else. This desire was in turn shaped by his father and uncle's military service, and at the age of nine, he was sent to Sir Robert d'Tauris, 11th Earl of Forrdham as a page. Rising in Robert's service and serving as his squire, Denver de Leifeld was eventually Knighted in 615KY. He promptly entered the Stormwind Army on a full-time basis as an officer, serving on the home front during the wars leading up to the War of the Lich. His command was noted by a peculiar refusal to claim the vaunted position of Knight-Lieutenant and an insistence on climbing the ranks of officerhood in the manner a less privileged man would. This insistence has resulted in the apparent stagnation of his career; particularly as Denver refused to purchase commission.
Denver received attention in the War of the Lich. Granted command of the 9th Lancers, a cavalry detachment sent to the Borean Tundra, he proved an able commander in the war against the restless dead and against 'rogue' Horde elements, with one of his greatest strengths emerging - his ability to adapt to rapidly changing tactical situations and to make the finest use of the forces at his ability. Much of the credit for this may be placed at the feet of his uncle, Anders, who regaled him with stories of his many unconventional victories at sea, inspiring a freedom of thought in the young officer. In one notable engagement during the Wintergrasp Dispute, the 9th Lancers engaged the Horde at a numerical disadvantage, compensating by exploiting the strange siege weaponry found in the Titan ruins and significant quantities of spare ordinance. Using the implacable steel machines and his more maneuverable cavalry to 'herd' the enemy's forces into a small valley rigged with explosive charges, Denver was able to defeat the enemy's detachment by triggering a landslide that buried many of their troops and left the survivors demoralized, at the cost of only a handful of his own men.
This tendency towards inventive conduct continued in the Fourth War, where Denver saw significant service, characterized by ample leadership, an eagerness to exploit modern technologies (including, at one point during the fighting in Pandaria, arming a number of his men with rifles to adopt a role as hit-and-run rifle infantry) and a lack of hesitation in dire circumstances. While the bulk of the 9th Lancers were killed in the fighting, it appears that Denver's career has finally begun to improve, as he has been named the commander of a regimental platoon of the Royal Experimental Engineers focused on exploring new tactics for light field artillery and rifles.
==Vassals==
*Baronet of Breslin
*Baronet of Kendrickton
*Baronet of Bakersville
*Sir Lothar Justinian, Knight of the Silver Hand, Hereditary lord of the village of Davis.
==Linked Families and Houses==
*House of Vestfeldt, by the 417 marriage of Henrietta de Leifeld to Charles, 1st Count of Vestfeldt. Further linked by the marriage of Tara de Leifeld to Jander Corelas, the father of the illegitimate Jonas Hrisungr, scion of the House of Vestfeldt.
*Corelas Clan, by the 593 elopement and marriage of the unimportant Tara Leifeld to Jander Corelas. This unplanned and unapproved union was at the time scandalous; Jander Corelas being a poor soldier and Tara de Leifeld a refugee from Fallen Stormwind. It has since proven a significant tie to the northerners, as well as influential in placing Jonas Hrisungr in his military career.
*House of Manstein, by the 545KY marriage of Margaret de Manstein, sister of the famed Arminius the Senior, to Konrad de Leifeld, 6th Baron of the Whitewater.
*House of Montclair, by the marriage of Helena de Montclair (aunt of Albert Montclair) to John de Leifeld, 5th Baron of the Whitewater.
*Crowders of Whitewater, by the marriage of Daniel de Leifeld, son of Abraham the First, to Lucretia Crowder - died in childbirth - and her sister, Lianna. The Crowders, a now much diminished line, were prominent landed farmers in the Barony of Whitewater in the third and fourth centuries.
*The House of Seyfried, by the marriage of Sally de Leifeld and Baron Carl Seyfried in 560KY.
*The House of Blancmont, by the marriage of Konrad de Leifeld, 9th Baron Leifeld, and Anaya de Blancmont.
Category:Noble Houses
Category:Stormwind Peerage