House Guįllory

The **Olympic Coven**, commonly known as the **House of Guįllory** or **House Guįllory** (plural: Guįlloruſ), or the **House of Drăculeşti** or **House Drăculeşti**, and colloquially known as the **Guįllory Coven**, or the **Guįllory Clan**, was one of the many noble houses who ruled the infamous "empire of the world", Prestygia. Destrin the Clairvoyant, the son of the head of House Guįllory, had visions of a cataclysm that would strike Prestygia. House Guįllory and their dragons left the continent and moved to a faraway island. A century later, the Doom descended on Prestygia, causing the collapse of the kingdom. The Guįlloruſ was the only noble family to survive the destruction of Prestygia and the only dragon riders to survive.

Following the Doom, the Guįlloruſ remained on their island for another century. Soon, though, a young king developed ambitions toward the land and would unite the Three Kingdoms under one ruler, himself. A few years after the Doom, he set forth with his brothers and their dragons, and began the Wars of Conquest. He was anointed king, and unified the Five Kingdoms under Guįlloruſ rule, starting a dynasty that lasted nearly 300 years. Only one resisted the dragonlords and was not brought into the Five Kingdoms until well over a century later.

Such practice of generations of fratricide did unfavorable wonders to the sanity to some members of the Guįlloruſ. Only the most paranoid, ruthless, and psychopathic successors survived, and the Guįlloruſ quickly earned a reputation of cruelty, viciousness, and capriciousness; though some members are known to be perfectly normal psychologically-speaking. Reputed to be kingdom's strongest because of their supernatural abilities and natural battle prowess; in addition, the Guįlloruſ were known to be mysterious, enigmatic, mystifying, and even a bit cheeky about it. Because of their obscure history, many consider them a shadowy allure of one of history's most obscure periods. Allegedly, the Guįlloruſ carried in their bloodline the ability to successfully bond with and ride dragons. They also seem to be somewhat more tolerant of extreme heat and high temperatures than other people, though they are by no means invulnerable to fire—or, at least, not all of them.

House Guįllory's sigil is a red silhouette of the fabled Century Dragon on a black background, and their house words are "Fire and Blood".

## Alternate Universes

### I: Legacy of Dragon Slayers

*Plot: Since the ancient middle ages, it has been the Guįlloruſ' task to slay the Century Dragon and other dragon variants. They made a lasting name for themselves by displaying the characteristics of a "superior bloodline" and as dragon slayers through peacekeeping.*

> Returning to life time and again since the ancient middle ages, the Century Dragon has driven people to terror. Each time the Century Dragon returned from the dead, the Guįlloruſ fought him in shadows, wielding their ancestral weapon, the Mayhelm. Through their efforts, humanity avoided darkness, securing prosperity.
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House Guįllory was not formed with the intention of eliminating dragons until Leonelrand Guįllory vowed to "hunt the flame". It was also during this time that the Mayhelm—the Guįlloruſ' primary weapon—was created. Since then, the Guįlloruſ' sole duty has been to protect the land of Prestygia from dragons.

When the Guįlloruſ showed great power, the people of Prestygia feared them. Due to this, the whole Guįlloruſ family was declared *personae non grata* in Prestygia, and driven into exile. They were later allowed to arrive to Prestygia as private persons, though no Guįlloruſ came back. As a result, they lived away from civilization for a long time, until the Century Dragon emerged from its slumber and waged feeding upon humanity. At this time, no other person, man or woman, was able to stand up against the might and power of the Century Dragon and its cohorts. The High Council had no choice but to find a Guįllory, which proved to be a difficult task as they could not find one anywhere in Prestygia. Their search gave results, however, when they found a youth who went by the name of Valryn Guįllory. Valryn defeated the Century Dragon, and after this display of heroism, the Guįlloruſ were hailed as heroes and allowed to live among people once more. The Guįlloruſ steadily defeated the Century Dragon during its resurrections. However, sometime after the peace between dragons and the people of Berk, the Guįlloruſ vanished.

### II: There Were Dragons

*Plot: Viſceroſh falsely claims to have fought and killed the last surviving dragon in order to preserve what was left of the species.*
Following the dragons' universal disappearance and his retirement from combat, Viſceroſh adopted the surname Guįllory in honor of his love of glory as a dragon slayer and started seeking insight from other cultures as he yearned for enlightenment. While traveling the world, Viſceroſh came across the Quorum, a secret civilization in peace with the spirits, where dragons are respected and not burdened, unlike the rest of the world. There, he met the love of his life, Lenore Ţarculvinq and she taught him the peaceful ways of her people. Viſceroſh would later falsely claim that he had fought and killed the last surviving dragon in order to preserve what was left of the species and to ensure that the Quorum remained undisturbed.

### III: Retaliatory Conquest

*Plot: In ancient times, the family was known as the House of Drăculeşti for being the most dominant of Dragon Lords across many continents.*
The Guįlloruſ were given control of an island after learning of the family's supernatural abilities and natural battle prowess. This privilege was later revealed to be customary and fleeting, unless the entire lineage pledged their allegiances and promised to follow the High King's wishes. The Guįlloruſ reluctantly accepted after nearly collapsing from wounds and dying of thirst and starvation. They were to serve as 'guard dogs' should any threat, inner or outer, arose to the might of the kingdom. It was this treatment that prompted the Guįlloruſ to devise a plan for retaliatory conquest.

The Guįlloruſ rose to prominence once more after discovering dragons in the spring of volcanoes in the mountains of their newfound home peninsula. They established a new house name to honor their association with nature's mightiest creatures after taming the mighty beasts: the House of Drăculeşti, and became skilled in both magic and metallurgy. The Guįlloruſ used them to conquer the kingdom and its surrounding lands, and began expanding outwards. They were pitted against major powers in battle. Many declared war on the Guįlloruſ in order to halt their expansion, and massive legions of slave-soldiers marched against the Guįlloruſ in a series of five major wars, but were defeated each time. The aftermath only left the Guįlloruſ laying waste, leaving little more than a smoldering ruin behind and nearly eradicating a great number of societies and cultures from history.

Sometime after the peace between dragons and the people of Berk, the Guįllory entered a ruling era enshrouded in obscurity.

### IV: Fraticide

*Plot: The House of Guįllory was regarded as "history's longest suicide note". Ranked first in the list of families in history that had the most — albeit self-inflicted — tragic family line, stemming from the early stages of their history.*
In a polygamous empire, no woman can ever be the head of the family, and any son can inherit the throne. Since the Castlan, the classical term for the 'ruler' of the vast amount of land, is likely to have sons by different mothers—who do not regard their stepbrothers as their own flesh and blood, but as their rivals and enemies—the palace was one great snake pit.

The tradition of fratricide began when a Castlan ordered the extermination of all his male brothers, uncles, and cousins. The reason was that the Guįllory practice of open succession, which is often described as 'survival of the fittest, not eldest, son', resulted many bloodshed and civil wars. When another Castlan was defeated at the hands of a rebel tribe and consequently captured, the empire fell into a civil war among the sons of Prestygia for success, which is called the Tumult Period. Only after ten years of fighting, another Castlan succeeded defeating the armies of his other three brothers. As the brothers were fighting against each other, many civilians and soldiers lost their lives, and solidarity and the territorial unity was also lost. When he accessed the throne, he had all his male relatives exterminated.

This tradition of fratricide meant the whole line of Guįllory was on verge of extinction for centuries. Each time a Castlan died, his sons began an all-out elimination sportula, and the last survivor became the Castlan. The tradition was also to purge the Caleese and kill all the wives, concubines, and colesques of the previous Castlan so that none of them could give birth to a rival. At least four Castlans were assassinated and one is suspected to have been poisoned.

This tradition of fratricide was abolished only in the beginning of the eighth century. The largest killing took place on the succession of Gunnalv II when nineteen of his brothers and half-brothers were executed and buried with their father. The excuse for this mass murder was the same—to prevent civil war. Reflecting public disapproval of this violence, his successor Varlisle I abandoned the practice, and replaced it with the seniority succession and the life imprisonment of the other princes in the *Trellis*, a section of the Prestygian Palace. Sons and brothers of the ruling Castlan were locked up in the palace, and they were allowed to have as much as entertainment as they want. They were not permitted to learn administration, or to get political, military, or economic experience, lest they become threat to the Castlan. This palace imprisonment custom continued until the last days of the Castlanate and was one of the reasons for the weaknesses and decline of the ruling class.

The result was that in many cases, the princes spent a good part of their lives in the *Trellis*, accessing the throne only in the advanced age with little experience in politics, administrative, and military experience. Often, that imprisonment in the gilded cage had driven the princes on the verge of insanity.

The last Castlan from the House of Guįllory had spent 52 years in the *Trellis* before his accession to throne. After his death, the remaining members of the Guįllory family was declared *personae non grata* in Catalan, and tortured until broken before being driven into exile.

### V: Quietus of the Prestige

The Guįlloruſ were revealed to have been assassinated. The stories told of the last scion of the house who had to choose between her kingdom and her own family who staged a coup d'état against it which was lead by her father, who helmed the assassination following the High Council's earlier decision to have the Great House exiled. The scion chose the peace of the kingdom and assassinated her entire clan, including her parents. Because this mission was done in secret to protect the honor of the clan, the last living member, under the name Vine, was forced to live a life in exile, hated and feared by every person in the kingdom for being a mass murderer.