House Tarbek

First Patriarch/Matriarch: Arkour Tarbek

Last Known Patriarch/Matriarch: Unther Tarbek IV

Description: The Tarbeks were the longest reigning rules over Kynegrove Island before they were displaced by the rebellion led by Argis I. The Tarbek's were also by far the most powerful and influential clan.

According to scholarly resources, Arkour Tarbek was a real person that existed, but what is factually known about him is unclear. What is known for certain is that the Tarbek's quickly rose in prominence and dominated the island for hundreds of years to come. Legends state that Arkour Tarkbek recieved Kyrne's power and blessing and defeated a demonic presence that came down from the sky. Many refer to this demon as V'alku The End Of Worlds. Arkour is regarded highly amongst many people as a heroic religious icon. Arkour was commonly regarded as being the first mortal to ascend into godhood.

The Tarbek's quickly and gained an immense amount of power, influence and wealth in the early years and were able to hold onto that power for a long time. Unfortunately, as time marched ever forward, the Tarbek's would steadily lose their hold over Kynegrove. As a result of this, The Tarbek's would more and more often start demanding more tribute and instating more laws and rules that went against the common good. Although the Tarbek's were still immensely powerful, once the population of the island greatly expanded, and new thought/technologies were introduced, the Tarkbek's lost most of the chokehold that they had over the island. Also, Monarch's in the Tarbek Dynasty could not live up to the expectations set up by Arkour Tarbek. The Tarbek's Reign over the island was relatively peaceful over the hundreds of years that the Tarkbek's ruled. The inhabitants at first were happy with their rule but would slowly grow to resent them over time as the Tarbek's would continually demand tribute and prioritize themselves over the will of the people. Public relations in the Tarbek's reached an all time low about 500 years into their reign.

The situation with the Tarbek's decline in popularity would come to a head once Unther Tarbek The IV inherited the throne. That was when everything started to fall apart for House Tarbek. Monarchs in the Tarbek family dynasty varied greatly in personality, however, none were as vile or as deranged as Unther Tarbek IV. Unther Tarbek IV was greedy, narcissistic, dishonest, sadistic, and an ego maniac. He went against everything he was taught and what his house stood for. He openly defied everyone and everything at any turn he could. Unther Tarbek despised how weak his house had become. Unther believed that somehow the elves were responsible for systematically dismantling his house for years and "bringing degeneracy to the island." Unther Tarbek was openly racist towards elves and anyone that wasn't a human.

        Unther would go on to enact a series of events that would bring down the fall of him and his house. Unther renamed himself to Arkour Tarbek and proclaimed himself to be a god and that he was above the church. He called upon his royal guards to execute the Grand Regent for treason. The Grand Regent in secret would escape persecution, however Unther was unaware of this fact. He would also order the forceful removal of Elves from the island and would also order the execution of race mixers and half elves. When Unther's soldiers marched on one of the Kynegroves villages which was predominantly Elvish, Unther's troops ordered the immediate evacuation and deportation from the town. A representative from the village met with the soldiers and calmly stated that they would not leave their homes. This representative was immediatly cut down and the village was raided. The soldiers proceeded to ransack the village and murdered many people. There were very few survivors of this attack but one of them was the representative's son was Argis I. When Argis saw what had happened to his father and his village, he swore vengence and justice. Argis I would wear disguises (hoods to hide his ears) and trained in combat. Meanwhile Argis would unite any elves left on the island or ones that were in hiding in secret. However, Argis was not the only one plotting against Unther at this time. Many living members in his house were none too pleased with his actions. Many of the humans on the island were also none too happy with his tyranical rule. Lastly the church was enraged by his flagrant disrespect and attacks on the church. This eventually came to a boiling point when Argis I was finally able to rally enough support and was able to liberate many parts of the island. Members of house Tarbek would aid Argis in secret and helped him rise to power. The church would also provide shelter and guidence to Argis and his forces. Unther was enraged by this development and decided to meet Argis openly on the battlefield. Argis accepted his request. Unther called upon his loyal bannermen and supporters. However, when Unther arrived on the battlefield he was horrified to see that many of his "Loyal bannermen" had betrayed him and joined Argis's side of the battle field. On top of that, when Unther ordered his troops to flee seeing as they were horrendously outnumbered, Unther's own men erupted into chaos. Men started to stab each other and soldiers were killing their commanding officers. It quickly became clear that Unther had been horrificly outplayed and outmanuevered. After the skirmish died out, Argis approached Unther and demanded his surrender. Unther challenged Argis to a trial by combat. If Unther won this duel, Argis's troops would immediately disband and Unther would be allowed to go free. Unther did not stop to consider the posibility of what would happen if he lost. Argis accepted these terms to the dismay of everyone. Argis was not a fool though, he knew well enough that Unther would die this day. He knew well that his troops and conspirators would not abide by these rules. Argis just wanted a chance to be able to personally kill the man that destroyed his family and home.

Unther was described as many bad things but one thing that could not be questioned about Unther was his skill in combat. This is partially why Unther believed himself to be a reincarnation of Arkour, because of his natural might and skill in combat. Despite training for this moment most of his life. Argis was outmatched by Unther. However, due to Unther's rage at the situation and his manifesting madness, Unther struck widely wheras Argis stayed calm and always struck true and precisely. At his peak, Unther would have easily been able to best Argis in combat but due to his emotional and mental state, Unther was making careless mistakes that he otherwise wouldn't have.

After Argis had slain Unther in combat, Argis was hailed as a hero. Argis met with the remaining Tarbek's and had a long discussion about the state of affairs. The Tarbek's were appreciative of Argis's contribution to slaying Unther and for his efforts he would be rewarded with a noble title and lands. However, the Tarbek's made it clear that they were still in control of the island and that Argis would be subservient to them. Argis went along with this and a festival was held honoring Argis and the new era. This festival would go on to be known as the festival of blood. A grand festival was held at the capitol and all were welcome. Former enemies, peasents, friends, nobles alike. This was the dawn of a new era of peace on the island. Balance was restored and everything was going swell. The Tarbeks held a public feast and celebration with all of the great noble houses including Argis. The Tarbeks stood up and gave a speech in honor of Argis. Once the speech was over, Argis gave one of his own. Argis proclaimed that the time of the Tarbek's was over and that it was time for a new heir to the throne. As he was giving this speech, Members of other houses pulled blades from their robes and stabbed the Tarbek's and the Tarkbek's supporters. The Peasents looking on at the ceremony were in shock of what was happening and started to panic and scream wildly and run away. However Argis had already planned for this and made sure to block any enterances/exits from the festival. Argis gave another speech once more to the frightened public, proclaiming that what he had done was just. He elaborated on many things the Tarbek's said to him in secret and told the island that their intentions were still just as bad as they were before. It was time for a new era of rule, and that they needed a ruler that was truly for the people and not just for themselves. Argis was already beloved by the people for what he had done and due to the rapid decline in favor of the tarbek's they were sufficently convinced and hailed this event as a benefit to the island rather than a traumatic catastrophe.

Argis would not expect the same amount of tributes from the people and would actively go out of his way to help them. This made him much more popular than the Tarbek's who had become completely selfish. Argis would go onto make a series of reforms to the island. Argis would formally reinstate the former Grand Regent Ivanus Laecaster who had been displaced during Unther's reign. Argis would establish new houses such as House Kyo, House Alaric, and House Lotheign.

## Brief overview of each ruling Lord

Ruling lords in order (from first to last)

Arkour Tarbek

Kaylore Tarbek

Unther Tarbek

Arthur Tarbek

Unther Tarbek II

Halyene Tarbek II

Unther Tarbek III

Unther Tarbek IV (Renamed to Arkour Tarbek)

Arkour Tarbek: The founding father of the Tarbek Dynasty. Once a mortal man became a demi god. Due to this he lived twice as long as a normal person would. Arkour was reverred as both a king and a religious figure. By all accounts, he was a great king and had strong morals.

Kaylore Tarbek: Kaylore Tarbek was the first born son of Arkour Tarbek. Kaylore never had any children or desired to further his family's lineage. Kaylore was instead concerned with extra terrestrial threats. Kaylore went mad, believing that the monster V'laku was never truly slain and that the world must prepare for another invasion. Kaylore would go to any lengths to learn more about this creature and invested almost all of the islands resources into this farce. Kaylore's madness came to a head when he came up with this conspiracy about worshippers of V'laku and that somehow his younger brother, Unther Tarbek was involved. Kaylore tried to have him killed, but his assassination attempt was unsuccessful. Unther tarbek had to go into hiding for many years, until he could gather enough support in secret to dethrone Kaylore. This was rather easy to do because of how unpopular Kaylore had become within the eyes of the public. Unther killed his brother Kaylore just in time before Kaylore could enact his plans to eradicate swathes of the island that he believed were secretly V'laku worshippers.

Unther Tarbek: After diposing his brother, Unther Tarbek settled into the role as lord and commanded over the island. By all accounts, despite being just a mere mortal he still managed to retain the same respect as his father once had. He had an aptitude to rule and he was a very strong man with even stronger morals. He married the woman that helped him de throne his insane brother. Together they had two children, Akira Tarbek and Arthur Tarbek

Arthur Tarbek: Arthur Tarbek had a fairly easy life because he had benefited from the great amount of success that his father was able to secure during his time as King. All Arthur really had to do is sit back and enjoy the peace that his father had created. A strange dichotimy started to form inside Arthur. Arthur enjoyed his pampering but at the same time, he deeply desired conflict. He believed his life was very boring. To compensate for this, he would often involve himself in various scandals and would even train openly in the arena and participate in arena battles. Arthur is regarded as being a great party host and loved hosting/participating in tournaments but that was all he was really well known for. His constant need to host parties and tournaments would start to wain on the islands treasurey. Arthur is known for many scandals but perhaps the most scandalus act that he would later be exposed for would be his incestous relationship with his sister Akira. Arthur and Akira were often regarded by many as being close when they were growing up. Later on in life, they would become too close and there were many rumors surrounding this. Arthur was briefly wed to a local noble before he had finally had enough of the lies and he divorced her so that he could openly marry his sister and legitimize their child, who they would later name as Unther Tarbek II. This affair caused a lot of strife within the nation and the church, because Incest was considered to be a moral taboo. However, no one had expected the Tarbeks to engage in such behavior and many called for the act of incest to be criminalized for all.

Unther Tarbek II: Following the rather insignificant and controversial reign of Arthur Tarbek, Unther Tarbek II had a large hill to climb. He was the only child of an incestous marriage, and many in the realm considered him to be a bastard child. He was treated well by his parents and other nobles that sucked up to him but he knew in his heart that many resented him just because of the circumstances of his birth. After his mother and father died, he took over as king and instated a few radical laws. In an effort to appease his constituants, he immediatley imposed a ban on close incestous relationships. They were to be outlawed equally instead of merely being condemned. However, many of his constituants were still not happy about the fact that he inherited the throne and they believed his cousin Kaylore Tarbek II should be crowned King. Two factions quickly started to form. Unther II supporters and Kaylore II supporters. Unther II felt slighted by this despite Kaylore not having any intentions of his own to become king. He got roped into this conflict unwillingly and supported Unther's right to rule until a letter came from Unther Tarbek II. Unther Tarbek II demanded that him and his family be exiled from the island. Kaylore would unwillingly accept this and would become among the first men to start establishing human/elf colonies in the mainland. However, Unther's decision to cast out his brother was very unpopular and many started to view him as a tyrant. Unther had enough, and decided to wage open war on his constituents. He instituted martial law and started slaughtering anyone that had a problem with him. When word got back to Kaylore II about what Unther was doing, he returned home and gathered support. A long waged war would soon commense between Unther supporters and Kaylore supporters. When they returned to the mainland, Kaylore's wife Caterina Alaric had some how contracted a disease that nearly killed her but then immediately reinvigorated her. She would later be known as the first vampire. She would start to use her abilities to heal those who were dying by turning them into vampires. The conflict would come to a head as Unther and his supporters accused his wife of being an unholy monster. Especially when some of those vampires would have bad reactions and would turn into insane blood thirsty maniacs. She knew that her presence in this war would effect her husbands chances so she quitely left amidst the conflict. Her husband, Kaylore II was heartbroken but believed Unther II had her killed. Kaylore only wanted to dipose Unther but after this had happened, Kaylore fully set his eyes on killing Unther II. A final battle would commense between the two and it was long and bloody. In a duel that has now made permanent history on the island, Unther and Kaylore dueled and drove blades into each others hearts at the exact the same time. This created another sucession crisis as now the remaining potential heirs were Hayelene Tarbek II (Unther's Daughter) and Arthur II (Kaylore II's son)

Hayelene Tarbek II: Hayelene Tarbek and Arthur Tarbek would make a formal meeting with each other. Seeing how much damage the conflict had wrought on both of their houses and the lands, Hayelene and Arthur wanted to forge a peaceful path ahead for each other. They came to an amicable agreement that both were happy with. This was easy for them to achieve as they were both close with one another even during the civil war. Hayelene Tarbek would rule over the island and Arthur would be given free range over the new colonies. However, a new foe would quickly arise. Addyelin Tarbek, Hayelene's aunt had been carefully monitoring the situation and waited for the perfect time to strike. She attempted to establish an insurrection and make herself queen by assassinating Hayelene Tarbek II. Her son who she had been training for this exact moment would attempt to carry out this act. Harkon Tarbek (Addyelin's son) would attempt to assassinate her in her own chambers. Harkon was almost successful, and was able to slash her face multiple times until a myserious man appeared and stopped the assassin. He gravely injured the assassin and the assassin was forced to flee. This man was Malik Haisha. The Haisha's and the Tarbek's have always been close allies and as it turns out, Addyelin had done the same thing to almost all of his family members. She wanted to wipe out any lineage pertaining to the Tarbek's so that she could secure dominance. They worked together to kill Addyelin and her supporters. They were successful in this endeavour, and would grow close as a result of this. Hayelene and Malik would have many children together and would split their birth rights to ensure the continued survival of both of their great houses. They would have 6 children together in total. 3 would go to Haisha and the other would go to the Tarbeks. The Haisha and Tarbeks would once again be closely aligned with one another

During this time it is also worthy to note that the mainland colonies seemed to be doing quite well. However, Arthur Tarbek would pass away and his sister Caterina would take over rule. Caterina would go on to have 2 children, Hayelene Tarbek III and Kaylore Tarbek III

Unther Tarbek III: Unther Tarbek III would peacefully inherit the throne as his mother passed away from old age. Anessa, his younger sister clearly had a much better aptitude to rule but due to dynastic customs, Unther Tarbek III would be king. Unther Tarbek III was never interested in his lordly duties but he took massive interest within the "medicinal" world. Despite being a drug addict and for promoting/funding the production of drugs, he was responsible for many geniuenly great medical break throughs that involved these various plants. However, he cared little for that and just wanted to be high all day. His cousin, Hayelene Tarbek III would journey her way back to the island. She felt alone and disillusioned by the colonies and wanted to seek comfort in the big city. Unther Tarbek III welcomed her into his halls and they immediately took a liking for one another. He would introduce her to drugs, where they would often get high with one another. One night when they were about to experiment with one another, a dark thought came into Hayelene's head. Her older brother Kaylore III always commanded more respect and was in line to inherit everything. She saw an opporitunity to claim her own power by taking advantage of Unther III. She would spike his drugs with a seduction potion. She would take advantage of him in this state and together they would have twins, Unther Tarbek IV and Haleyene Tarbek IV. When Unther came to, he realized what he had done and was disgusted with himself and his cousin. He was deeply ashamed about what he had done with his cousin. This marriage would of course insight another conflict as word got out about their affair. Hayelene III argued that the law instated by her ancestor only prohibited close family relations and did not explicitly state consanguineous marriages. The church and the people had little to no choice but accept this ruling and reasoning but they were still rather unhappy about this. Hayelene would often Mock Unther III and never told him the truth about what had actually happened. She got him to believe that he geniuenly wanted this to happen. Unther III would go on to over dose himself. The shame he had brought to himself was too much to bare. Hayelene III would groom Unther Tarbek IV to become the next lord. Although Unther IV was king, he was still just a child at this time and she held all of the real power for now.

Unther Tarbek IV: Unther Tarbek IV was not a born as the hateful/spiteful individual that he was. Hayelene had conditioned her son to believe that the elves had killed their dad. Hayelene needed a scape goat to blame his death on so that she could be as distant as possible from the situation. She told her son that he had actually been poisoned. Unther held a lot of resentment for elves for this. His father was many things to a lot of people but you could not deny that Unther Tarbek III was a good and loving father when he was around and sober. Unther's hatred for elves would only grow as Hayelene's influenced weighed on his mind. She got him to believe a conspiracy theory that the elves were trying to take over their house and pointed to Caterina Alaric and the Laecaesters as examples. Hayelene wanted her son to only have children with humans, specifically humans in their own house to keep the blood line pure. Unther would have a child with his sister but he would later on have a child with a member of the Haisha house hold to secure their loyalty during the war. Unther would be the first king to be in an openly polygamous relationship. Unther had a tough time ruling because Unther the III had spent many of their resources on partying and drugs and the house itself had been losing a lot of respect in recent years due to the constant controversies.