@TheEdVerse do you have any more details on the Westgate noble families around 1371-1372 DR? The Bleths and Cormaerils are already pretty well-detailed, but I haven't found much to differentiate a lot of the others beyond their heads and house symbols.
— Erika Muse, Ascendant (@icequeenerika) September 25, 2020
1)
Going to post one noble family at a time, as I get them done…
Athagdal
Patriarch: Haelder Athagdal, “The Wise Goblet” (middle-aged, handsome, an owner of many vineyards and a legendary wine cellar, and a wine connoisseur; a retired rake, has just ascended to… 2)
…running the family upon the death of his father; unmarried and is known to have three mistresses)
Matriarch: Shaeldratha Athagdal, “the Storm Rose,” a faded beauty who was famous for her temper and allure in her younger days, but has much mellowed; Haelder’s… #Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 30, 2020
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…mother, she’s now a quiet backroom tactician who derives much personal entertainment from manipulating society in Estgate, and thwarting the plans and ambitions of rival nobles she dislikes (most of them)
Heir: Hardrammar Athagdal, a bluff playboy and “blade”… 4)
…who goes about with a bodyguard equipped heavily with healing potions after losing several duels (he’s about a third as good a swordsman as he thinks he is)
Notable Rakes/Adventurers: Ragdarven, Hardrammar’s smart, wily, and darkly handsome younger brother, a…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 30, 2020
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…schemer and crook involved in smuggling and drug running; Deskult, a scattered, sardonic, and playboy wastrel rogue uncle, who’s only kept in line by two watchful, disapproving, fashionplate (of an elder era) older sisters: Raethra and Hyldra 6)
House Athagdal is thought of as “grand old coin, dignified and patrician and cultured.” Firm of word, not crooked, but shrewd in business. Major local builders, landlords, and investors in businesses large and small, owners of much warehousing. Also, major…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 30, 2020
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…investments in Sembian port city warehouses and residential properties. 8)
Bleth
Patriarch: Antemnar Bleth, a fat, sulky, glowering man of grudges and great laziness, who believes the world owes him respect and unjustly ignores his high station. Newly come to the “throne of the House,” he sees himself as born into a great house that…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 30, 2020
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…didn’t deserve its exile and disgrace, as the Bleths knew the right road to true greatness and renewal for Cormyr, and were badly treated by ungrateful and envious Obarskyrs and rival noble houses. Antemnar knows some in Westgate call him “the Petulant Toad,”.. 10)
…and he wants everyone who does that maimed or slain painfully, until those who are left won’t DARE such insolence. As one longtime (and carefully anonymous) merchant of Westgate described him, “Antemnar Bleth is a large pudding of spite and bile who’d be…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 30, 2020
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…dangerous if he had any drive or practical knowledge of the world. As it is, he’s like a spoiled child, lashing out at everyone who offends him—which is most of us who don’t happen to be named Bleth.”
Matriarch: Haraklaera Bleth, Antemnar’s bitter, … 12)
…malicious aunt, a woman governed by her feuds and grudges. Disease recently took her elder brother and his wife, who ruled the family, to their graves, but Haraklaera “the Dagger” firmly believes rival houses had them assassinated, then poisoned with disease-#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 30, 2020
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… coated needles afterwards so the deaths could be passed of as the results of disease-sickness. And who were these rivals? She suspects every last noble house of Westgate and Cormyr, and most of the jumped-up, self-styled so-called “nobles” of Sembia, too.13)
… coated needles afterwards so the deaths could be passed of as the results of disease-sickness. And who were these rivals? She suspects every last noble house of Westgate and Cormyr, and most of the jumped-up, self-styled so-called “nobles” of Sembia, too. 14)
Caustic and eloquent, she glides through life clinging to the tattered remnants of her once-striking beauty, looking more and more like a cadaver as the disease ravaging her (the same one that claimed her kin, that she refuses to admit she has) makes her thinner..#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 30, 2020
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…more cadaverously gaunt by the day. Her hobby is strategy games, and she forces handsome male servants to play games with her every evening. If they are wise, they contrive to lose without being obvious about it, so she can triumphantly claim their kisses and.. 16)
…then send them away spurned.
Heir: Cronlundar Bleth, a handsome and muscular blond swordsman of great skill, who trains daily with the blade to remain a master swordsman and knife-catcher and -thrower. He loves “roistering” about the city with his gang of…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 30, 2020
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…of swashbuckling friends, and is slowly building a network of shady, get-rich-quick business contacts among the shippers and caravan merchants based in Westgate, receiving “carefree spending money” from them in return for being a distraction (by means of… 18)
…the vandalism and bullying swordplay of his gang) to cover some of their illicit local deeds. He sees himself as smarter than all of the surviving elder Bleths, and resented his now-dead father (who despised him for being a lazy, wastrel fool, and often said…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 30, 2020
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…so) and his mother, who treated him with contempt, as an “utter disappointment.” Other folk of Westgate see Cronlundar as about a twentieth as smart as he thinks he is (in other words, a full-of-himself dupe and fool).
Notable Rakes/Adventurers: Vlanadar Bleth, 20)
…a known pirate, smuggler, and thief-of-bulk-goods who comes and goes as he pleases, breaking into Bleth mansions late at night through windows and secret doors and passages he knows well, and otherwise having very little contact with his kin. He flits between..#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 30, 2020
21)
…various Sembian ports and Westgate (and, some say, Marsember in Cormyr) in the conduct of his unlawful business, is a sardonic jester and superb swordsman who has an outstanding mastery of balance and so can run along ropes stretched aloft and ship rigging… 22)
…without falling, can fearlessly leap from high places through windows or onto lower balconies and roofs, and has many lovers whom he charms with gifts, and uses as safe places to sleep for a night ere moving on. Vlanadar has managed to work with several…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 30, 2020
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…guilds, caravan costers, and the Red Wizards of Thay without double-crossing or earning the ire of any of them, and has profited handsomely thereby. It’s (correctly) rumored that he owns dozens of houses in Sembian ports that he rents out, and one that he… 24)
…keeps as a “safe house” haven to run to, and puts his profits into buying ever more real estate. He sees his kin as tiresome blunderers fettered by their bitterness, their grudges, and their sense of entitlement, and won't hesitate to frame them for his…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 30, 2020
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…own misdeeds.
The Bleths are widely known to be a “bad” noble family, justly exiled from Cormyr and stripped of their lands and titles there for treason—and apt to treat anyone who crosses them as a foe to be punished, and anyone who doesn’t fawn on them as.. 26)
…someone to be blamed or exploited. Widely (and rightly) rumored to be smugglers who deal in drugs and poisons, and who sponsor kidnappings and other “dirty tricks” (like arson) to settle scores or get their own way in many Sea of Fallen Star ports, the…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 30, 2020
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…Bleths make their open public coin as investors in caravans, urban redevelopments (tall luxury rental “many-mansions” in particular; the Torilian equivalent of five-floor condominium towers divided into a dozen or more units for the wealthy), and fine art…28)
…(huge paintings sold to nobility in Amn, Calimshan—where they’re behind a fad to purchase gilded pictures of dragons and other monsters—and the port cities around the Shining Sea). They also sponsor local coups in many small rural places that result in their…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 30, 2020
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…caravans receiving preferential local treatment, or them owning a controlling interest in strategic wayside inns and warehouses.#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 30, 2020
