Great House

The **Great Houses** are the most powerful of the noble houses of the Five Kingdoms. They exercise immense authority and power over their vassals and territories and are answerable only to the King of the Andals, Lord of the Five Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm.

Before the Soothereian Conquest, each of the Five Kingdoms was ruled independently by a powerful royal family. During the Conquest these families were either destroyed, replaced, or defeated and made to swear allegiance to King Veryis, who reigned with the Haven Crown in Throes Peak.

The House Bledhall were slain and replaced with House Scarmark, while the Houses Blackthorn and Vain surrendered peacefully and were allowed to remain in control of their lands. In addition, Herrenhall was allowed to continue reign over Atholnar after Herren IV, the nephew of the then king Isolde Herrenhall, surrendered his armies and land to Veryis I Soothereos.

Each Great House has a large number of vassal houses serving it, most of whom in turn have smaller vassals under them, extending all the way down to farmers and landed knights. Each Great House rules over its territory and is responsible for collecting taxes and, in times of war, raising troops to fight for the king. Otherwise they are largely left to operate autonomously to simplify the bureaucracy and governance of the realm.

The Race to Throes Peak ended the existence of the main branch of House Herrenhall. A split branch replacing them in rule of Atholnar, forming the cadet branch of House Herrenhall of Atholnar.

## The Great Houses

### Current Great Houses

* House Blackthorn
* House Vain
* House Herrenhall
* House Scarmark
* House Nortale

### Extinct Great Houses

Six Great Houses have gone extinct, one of which were as a result of their defeat in the Plight of Sixteen.

* House Bledhall - rulers of the Kingdom of Stone until their lineage would cease after Baeron Bledhall was slain during the Plight of Sixteen.
* House Gray - rulers of the Kingdom of Rivers and Shade until they were swayed away from their home by the legendary trickster Vain the Clever, who started House Vain.
* House Gardener - rulers of the Kingdom of Khoroth until the Darades invasion, named after the many farms sprung up along the Southern lands.
* House Thrale - rulers of Atholnar. Herren II Herrenhall, the grandson of the founder of House Herrenhall, Herren I, married the daughter of the last king of House Thrale, thus House Herrenhall descends from the Thrale through the female line and went on to rule Atholnar.
* House Herrenhall - the main branch ended with Aethelred II of House Herrenhall, during his defeat after the Race to Throes Peak. His distant cousin, Lady Maesteria, the Lady of Herrenhall, continued the line through a cadet branch.
* House Soothereos - the longest and first dynasty of the Five Kingdoms. Though many cadet branches exist — and many more claiming to be the extension of it — it's last member, Amedius II, died in 700 A.C, ending the reign of the Sootherian dynasty that began under the conqueror Veryis.

## Heads of the Great Houses

### In the reign of Veryis I Soothereos (1 AC)

Valaki of House Blackthorn - Belhelm

Dorian of House Vain - Uneers

Herren IV of House Herrenhall - Atholnar

Aldric II of House Scarmark - Pelopay

Prince Oryn of House Nortale - Khoroth

### Current (1030 AC)

Valaki IV of House Blackthorn - Belhelm

Jornim I of House Vain - Uneers

Lokir II of House Herrenhall - Atholnar

Sulari II of House Scarmark - Pelopay

Prince Calorin of House Nortale - Khoroth

## Our story

Keeping in mind that Soothereos is roughly the size of the nation of Canada, the realm known as "the Five Kingdoms" spans an area on the scale of the Yuan Dynasty. Thus in terms of their populations and the size of the armies they can raise in wartime, each of the "Great Houses" is more comparable in scale to a real-life medieval kingship like England or France than a smaller dukedom. Provinces (in this case, constituent regions) are in effect semi-autonomous with the local people regarding the local Great House as their rulers, and the King as perhaps an abstract and distant figure who has no bearing on their day-to-day lives.

The definition of a "Great House" in general can be summarized as any noble House that bends the knee directly to the Haven Crown and rules one of constituent regions of the realm. The royal family itself rules Royalshold directly, loosely making it another Great House, though technically it ranks higher than all the others. At the start of the books this list comprises the Blackthorn, Vain, Herrenhall of Atholnar, Scarmark, and Nortale. This definition sometimes leads to oddities, for example, House Aegrodorin of Stormfront rules the Haven Crown, known as the royal cadet branch House Aegrodorin of Royalshold. The House that rules the island of Stormfront, which itself is not a Rhaekland but a powerful land autonomous on its own, while powerful, they are not counted as a Great House.

Few Great Houses have ever gone extinct. By the time of current day, only six former Great Houses have ever been destroyed, one during the Plight of Sixteen:

* House Bledhall - rulers of the Kingdom of Stone
* House Gray - rulers of the Kingdom of Rivers and Shade
* House Gardener - rulers of the Kingdom of Khoroth
* House Thrale - rulers of Atholnar
* House Herrenhall - kings of Soothereos
* House Soothereos - kings of Soothereos