Corelas Clan

The Corelas clan are a large family from the Northern Hills of the Arathi Highlands. The descendants of Gaefa the Shieldmaiden - a local warrior whose fights against the trolls entered into the cultural fabric of the Foothills - they are a proud, stubborn clan with a number of noteworthy individuals springing from their tree and prominent ties with many of the other old peasant families of the North.

Since its elevation to the Thanedom, members of the Corelas clan - never referred to as the House of Corelas even now - are entitled to wear the token or sigil of the family. Their heraldric badge is the most common addition, and consists of a simple pewter brooch of a stalk of barley in a mounting circle, while the full heraldry of the clan consists of of three stalks of barley on the point in an unusual brown rather than the conventional colourations, on a plain vert field. The Household Guard of the clan usually wear a slight modification of this design on their tabards, with the addition of sable flanches.

## Noteworthy Individuals

### Gaefa the Shieldmaiden

Born around 455KY to a pair of farmers, Gaefa first appears in the local records in 469KY. Having been involved in a violent brawl in one of the public halls, she was fined three groats for grievous insulting of two men, and a further thirty groats for severing one of their thumbs. The records state that she alleged the brawl began over insulting words cast her way, but which she could not prove.

Unable to pay and facing debt slavery, the young woman took an axe and a wooden shield and embarked on a remarkably succesful career as a troll hunter. At the end of the first month, she was able to pay off half of her debt and the rest was waived by the men involved (public opinion having turned on them). With the impetus to continue hunting removed, Gaefa stopped for roughly a year and sought out most experienced of the local fyrd to teach her.

When she resumed her troll hunts in 471KY, Gaefa swiftly became one of the most succesful warriors in the Northern Hills. Though she did not remain unscarred, she avoided major injury and became well known for spending her bounties freely, defying marriage customs, and for broadly speaking, 'acting like a man'.

Her passage into local legend was guaranteed when, with a half-dozen other hunters, she successfully intercepted an entire Troll warband in 483KY in one of the mountain passes leading across the Hinterlands border. Through the cunning use of balls of pitch-soaked hay, the pass was blocked on both ends and a full two-and-a-half scores of Trolls were burned to death or slaughtered as they scrambled up the hills to escape the flames.

Gaefa died in 501KY of poison, delivered by a barbed Venomspite arrow.

### Voormas the Bastard

Born in 486KY to Gaefa the Shieldmaiden and an unknown father (family rumours placing it as a member of the Royal family, a penniless hunter, and a Troll Hunter have no evidence), Voormas was raised by his grandparents, a pair of farmers. During his uneventful childhood he became an apt hand at the plow and the scythe.

Following a brief service in the Alterac-Stromgarde War of 509, Voormas inherited his grandparents farm in full and took a wife from the Central Steppes. Vali Sonya bore three sons and a daughter in the years leading up to the trial of her husband.

In 518 - shortly after the birth of Thorasin Corelas - Voormas, after a night of heavy drinking and gambling, caved in the skull of another farmer over a gambling debt. With the family choosing to waive their right of private vengeance and seek instead a judicial verdict, he fled the valley and was sentenced to full outlawry in absentia for the killing of Ingvar Marunin and for his refusal to answer the judicial summons.

Voormas Corelas was cornered and slain in 519KY while visiting his children in the cover of night.

### Hanniel Corelas

Murdered by Rolf Steiner, along with his wife and infant son, in 572. This savage killing caused the Corelas-Steiner feud. His murder was violently avenged with the killing of seven of Steiner's kin, ending ultimately with the death of Hanniel's cousin, Luqman Corelas. To this day, tensions remain between the two families, and many among the Steiners left when the province came under Corelas control - despite no further retribution being sought.

### Naamah the Seer

Naamah, the daughter of Thorasin Corelas and Stora Vestan, was a contemporary of Dornheim Jorgenson and talented seer. Born in 552 - the youngest of five children - Naamah was a healthy and normal child until the age of seven, when she was struck in the head by a plough-horse's hoof. Though she survived the traumatic injury, she was ever after afflicted by severe epileptic fits.

As she aged, Naamah learned to read and write and became an associate of the children of Jorgen Alekson, ultimately introducing her brother Admer to Pythia Jorgenson. Dornheim Jorgenson, himself 'touched in the head', became a fast companion and the two wandered freely in the woods and caves. On one such trip, after deliberately ingesting ergot-tainted grain, Naamah fell to the ground babbling. Initially mistaken for one of her fits, it was only realized two weeks later that she had foretold the violent storms that swept in from the North - and the troll raiding party that came with it.

Theories among the local population abound. Naamah became a seer because of her injuries, said Aleksei the Short. Dornheim Jorgenson credited her talents to the 'whisperings of the wind' they had heard atop mountains. Stora simply said that her family had the sight in their blood.

Naamah proved to be an irregular, though highly accurate, seer. Periodically lapsing into babbling fits, her predictions of weather and harvests in the coming years proved true and valuable - though it was at times difficult to distinguish between prophetic throes and her mundane epileptic fits.

Naamah Corelas died in 579 after falling and striking her head on a stone during one of her fits. She left one son - Misha Osterblut - by Ingvar Osterblut. Local rumour states that Amzschi Dornheimson (a bastard of uncertain origins) was born of her - a claim refuted by both Dornheim and his sister, Pythia.

### Father Everen Corelas

The first Corelas to attain noble status.

### Jonas Hrisungr

The bastard son of Zillah of Vestfeldt, a displaced Alteraci Noblewoman.

### Thane Aref Corelas

Everen's older brother and successor, appointed to the office by Missi David following Everen's dismissal on the grounds of his heresy. His sole surviving son, Danath (born 600KY), is now the first heir of the newly hereditary title. Aref, a farmer by long trade, rules with relative laxitude compared to his neighbours and has continued his brother's policies of religious tolerance in the province, land redistribution, but has also worked to encourage agricultural development of otherwise unutilized land where possible and the immigration of Reformists from other Highlands provinces.

## Household Guard

First created with the ennoblement of Father Everen, the Corelas Household Guard is a small force of bodyguards and fyrd commanders loyal to the ruling head of the family and the province. It numbers a total of six individuals, all Reformists, several tied to the family by blood or marriage. While small in comparison to the private armies of other fiefdoms, the Household Guard are held seperate from the semi-professional troops of the Hills and the fyrd in order to act as a protective praetorian guard for the Thane and, when he appears in the North, the *profetes* of the Church. They saw notable use in the Second Arathi Civil War as commanders in the Palatinate's forces, anchoring otherwise unreliable troops.

* Frederick the Scarlet
* Liadrana Rush (Former)
* Dagyle of the Lowlands
* Tyrrian the Gambling Man (Marriage-tie)
* Thorasin Corelas
* David the Strong (Slain)
* Yakub Dornheimson
* Sir Jonas (Formerly of the Vargrinate Rebels)