House Vortigern

The Vortigern family has been ruling Terresol for over 400 years. First starting out as the rulers of a small city state located near the sea, which they named Sol, the city of Sun, the Vortigerns conquered neighbouring city states or added them to the city state by making allies with them over the first two hundred years. Soon the area of Sol was expanding for miles and miles and the need to rename the country arose.

Head of the Vortigern house at the time, Camillus Vortigern, named the country Terresol, the land of the sun. His son, Kyros Vortigern was the one who started writing laws for the kingdom, making sure that the taxes were set into place and the Terresol’s ministry was established to make sure the taxes were paid on the regular, either taken by force or paid voluntarily.

When the allied cities rebelled against the name and tax system, not wishing to be tied down and not wanting to give their second born sons into servitude of the king, Kyros Vortigern, together with his wife Bela, fought to put an end to the war before it even started, offering the hand of their firstborn daughter to the leader of the rebels for peace. The war never saw its birth and Thersa Vortigern married Marcelo of the Gaunt.

The years that followed, with Thersa as the queen regent, have been described as the first golden age of Terresol. There were no wars, Terresol established trades with the neighbouring countries, most of the best architectural buildings were built and the amount of gold in the castle’s treasury rocketed as well as the number of people living in Terresol. After Thersa’s passing, Terresol was more known for it’s generous people than anything else.

Thersa’s son, Theron of house Vortigern, was not a man of peace and a man of trade, but a man of war, suffering and steel. Under his strong ruling, the number of men in Terresol’s land forces went from 5000 to 25 000, knightship was established and Theron’s brother Camus took control of the trade ships, transforming 20 of them into what was soon called the Navy, taking notes of ancient sea warriors and reforming their ways to fit more developed laws and men.

Theron married the daughter of a foreign land when he was 40 and before his death could only give her one son- Cassius Vortigern, who would be known for his beautiful face, charming smile and clever thoughts on the battlefield, in the courtroom and amongst the ladies. Under his rule, Terresol’s trade by sea increased and Terresol became more known for exporting wines that could get one drunk in an hour, cloth that made an average woman look like a goddess and whores that could give a man more pleasure than all of his wives combined could’ve.

Cassius loved foreign women more than local ones, finding their brown hair dull and their brown eyes lifeless. Instead of finding a wife in his court, he travelled to the northern areas, looking for a woman with blonde hair and blue eyes. When he met Rhian Amarethe, he thought she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, albeit she had brown hair, he had found dull a few months earlier. Rhian had, however been promised to another man and only a duel would be sufficient to win her hand; and her heart. Rhian’s betrothed had been twice as big of a man as Cassius, but using his lithe form and his fast limbs, Cassius stabbed his opponent, piercing through his heart with the sword like Rhian had done with his heart, using her charm, her wit and her beauty.

Their marriage was one of the most fair and lovely marriages Terresol’s royalty had ever seen. Cassius held Rhian’s hand with his left hand, leading the soldiers with his right one while she took care of the treasury and helped with the trade, the gardens and the culture, letting them bloom more than ever before.

From their love, three healthy and strong babies were born on the third day of the month of Sowing(3rd of March); crown prince Caspian and princes Castor and Carney. Although Rhian was told to never be able to give birth again due the hard labor, she loved her babies a lot and taught them manners from when they could speak and crawl around. Two years later, Eleithyia blessed them with another child, whom they named Caderyn, in honour of Rhian’s brother who had passed away from pneumonia.