Nárëiel Aravell

[Nárëiel Aravell]

Nárëiel Aravell

Age  103

Gender  Female

Origin  Alirycas, the Gardens of Silmorael

Occupation  Lady of Leaf and Star

House of the Sea, House of the Many.
They hold no land, but still others envy.
House of the Sea, House of Diplomacy.
With naught but words, yet somehow still free.
- The Houses of Alirycas​

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A House must own land, that is the untold rule amongst the Hundred Houses for the past three thousand years and more. What feeds armies and houses the Landbonds, the Craftworkers, the Farmholders? Land! To be a Noble House amongst the Harannossë without a domain is to shed the very thing that gives them power, or so it was thought. Even Nalthiön claims Telpelrion as her domain, small though it is, and it is that which grants it legitimacy amongst the Council of Hundred. And thus the Hundred Houses squabble for territory like children, seeking to wrest from each other Landbond, grain and cattle, to feed their armies and their people and pay in tithes to the High Houses that hold them in vassalage.

Aravell is the lone exception to this rule.

Once upon a time, it held a domain of its own on the island of Alirycas, just to the east of its long-time adversary and cousin-House Thálion. Yet, its terms upon joining the Alliance of Alirycas were that its members would join with House Thálion in-perpetuity, that the ancient grudges between the Houses would be mended. The price that Thálion exacted from it, would be the dissolving of the domain of Aravell, back into the fold of Thálion. The name and history of Aravell would have ended there-and-then, had it not been for the fact that Aravell had, in secret far from prying eyes, taken great pains to cultivate its own trading markets with lands beyond the reach of the Hundred Houses, from the island of Nechon to the Principality of Aetochi, with its own armada of ships, so instrumental in the battle against Elármiel.

And so when Elármiel was humbled just as its progenitor Riélisar had been, its influence cast out from the island of Alirycas, did Aravell reveal the true scope of its influence, that it could act to stifle trade between Alirycas and the lands to the west and north. And so did the Houses of Alirycas reluctantly agree to count Aravell as one of their number, and Aravell thus manage to maintain both its name and its voice on the Council of Hundred.​