Honethites

The Honeth family has led the empire through three dynasties, the last two of which were bought simply because of their enormous wealth. The Honeths, despite being the empire's founders, are hopelessly incompetent as emperors. In the fight for the succession of the throne after the Third Borune Dynasty, the Honethite nobles and lords had aggreed on simply buying the throne by placing forward a large number of candidates and giving the Council of Advisers a variety of choice within the Honeth house itself, instead of a variety of choice which included all the candidates of all the houses. They simply thought that if they have the most, one of them's bound to be agreed on by the Council, and therefore would be chosen. Seven were entered into the running, including the Grand Duke of the House of Honeth, Grand Duke Noragan. However, the lords soon realised that even with their incredible amounts of money, which was over half the full wealth of the second richest house (the Vordues), the battle would be won by whoever had the most power behind him, not by whoever was best suited for by the Council. Therefore, they pulled all their other candidates out and rallied entirely behind the leader of their family, the Grand Duke Noragon. Under the Grand Duke's instruction, all the wealth and power and influence was placed behind him, and very soon he almost made it onto the same level as the Grand Duke Kador of Vordue. He would have gained a lead on Kador, but the Vordue would still be very hot on Noragon's heels and ready to pounce back into the number one position if anything of the slightest were to go wrong. However, to the celebration of the Honeth's and the misery and dismay of the Vordue's, Grand Duke Kador was arrested and held in the Imperial dungeon at Tol Honeth, where he eventually took poison "someone had left carelessly lying around" and died. Therefore, Noragon's most dangerous and threatening opponent was out of the race, taking with him any chance of the Vordue house re-rallying itself together and having any chance at once again gaining the throne. Noragen was now the undisputed successor to the throne, with the most supporters on the council of Advisers (however, they were only supporting him because they had been heavily bribed. Noragen was not known to be a very nice person, and it was said he was a "jackass who had offended just about everybody in Tol Honeth"). For over eighteen months he held this position. The Borune's had no one suitable to place as a serious candidate, the Horbites likewise (and even if they did they would be no match for the power of the Honeths) and apart from the Ranite Grand Duke and his comities behind him, only a small group of Ranites had rallied behind one candidate, who was not very taken seriously (being a Ranite) nor had very much power behind him.Noragon would have assumed the throne without even anyone challenging him, had not the unpredictable Ran Borune adopted General Varana of the Anadiles as his son. The General openly walked in public wearing the silver mantle of the imperial family, and his sudden elevation to legitimate heir lowered Noragen's chances dramatically, but despite this, he still was, by far, the only man who had any chance of gaining the throne once Ran Borune died. The issue was very unclear on what was going to happen to the empire after the emperor's death. If the general had been a full blooded fellow Borune, just like Ran Borune, then there would have been no doubt that he would have been emperor. However since Varana was an Anadile (the duke of Anadile at that), not even from a Grand Duchy, the choice was simply up to Varana on what would happen to the throne once Ran Borune passed on. However, the Honeth's seeing this, and looking into the still open window of opportunity to gain the throne, blinded themselves with hope, and made themselves not even consider the possibility that Varana would hold the throne for himself. Noragen was still the one who would pose as a incredibly powerful challenge to the general, and it was believed (and fact) that he would still gain the throne. However, the chances of a fourth Honeth dynasty ended as a result of Noragen letting his guard down for one instant. One sunny day, in his sprawling mansion on the slopes of the hill of the imperial Palace of Tol Honeth, Noragen was eating some shellfish for lunch, some shellfish which turned out to be very cleverly poisoned. Noragen fell ill almost immediately, and was dead before nightfall. The support behind him was so supreme, was so well established, that with his death, the Honeth's fell into more turmoil and chaos than the Vordues. The death of their leader, which had so fully united them, was a massively striking blow upon the family, and in their confusion and their sorrow, both for Noragen and for the now-lost throne, they couldn't pull themselves together for one last stab with another one of their previous candidates. The Honeth family was out of the running for the emperor's throne for this sucession.