When the Prophet Orion’s banner first rose over Naissus, twelve tribes stood beside him… twelve peoples who cast off the yoke of the Elven Imperium and forged a new destiny in the shadow of the River. In the centuries that followed, their leaders became the first noble houses of Naissus: stewards of the lands, keepers of the faith, and architects of the realm.
Known collectively as the Great Houses, these bloodlines formed the pillars upon which Naissus was built. Each was granted dominion over a portion of the liberated lands, bound by oath to serve both church and creed. From them sprang warriors, scholars, priests, and kings… those whose deeds shaped not only the borders of a nation but the soul of its people.
Though time has eroded their unity, and some of their banners now lie buried in ash, their legacy endures. The names of the Twelve are still spoken with reverence and fear, for to trace their history is to trace the history of Naissus itself.
“They were not born of privilege, but of purpose; not of conquest, but of conviction.”
— The Annals of Naissus, Vol. II, attributed to High Scholar Emmerich of the Collegium of Orion, written in 500 AR
House Lipski
House Lipski
Seat: Lublin
Coat of arms: The Bison of the two hills
Family Heirloom: The Lipski Warhammer
Waldemar Lipski of the Northern Hills (35 BR – 30 AR
Waldemar Lipski, founder of House Lipski and lord of the northeast, was among the Twelve who sat beside the Prophet Orion at the signing of the Peace of the River. A warrior of towering frame and temper equal to his strength, Waldemar was said to have shattered an elven champion’s helm with a single blow during the final battle of the rebellion.
For his valor he was granted the lands between the great river and the shadowed forest that would forever bear his name… the Lipski Forest. There, between two hills, he founded the city of Lublin, whose veins of rich iron ore soon made it the industrial heart of Naissus. Beneath Waldemar’s rule, miners, smiths, and traders flocked to the city, and the first foundries of the realm were raised under his banner.
He ruled with the directness of a soldier: fair to the loyal, merciless to the defiant. His words “Strength is the root of all order” became the creed of his descendants, and his sigil, a brown bison between two green hills, came to symbolize both endurance and unyielding will.
When Waldemar Lipski died in 30 AR, his body was interred in the crypt beneath Lublin’s great forge, his hammer laid across his chest. The fires of his furnaces burned for three days and nights in mourning, their smoke rising over the valley like a final salute to the man who had forged both steel and legacy. The only thing that remained in the fire was his warhammer, which became a family heirloom.
Duke Kazimierz Lipski (287–342 AR)
Few names in the annals of Naissus carry both power and shame as that of Kazimierz Lipski, Duke of the Northern Hills and master of Lublin during the third century after the River. A man of commanding intellect and fiery disposition, he inherited his forefather’s gift for leadership… and their curse of temper.
Bound by his father’s will, Kazimierz was wed to Lady Adrianna of Orions Gate, sister to the Duke of that realm. Their union, though politically prudent, was cold from the first. Chronicles speak of his disdain for her, and of the whispers that soon spread through Lublin… that the duke’s heart belonged not to his wife, but to his own sister, Lady Ewa Lipski.
In the year 314 AR, the scandal turned to horror. Lady Adrianna was found dead in her chambers, her throat cut, her body burned in the forges beneath Lublin. Within weeks, Duke Kazimierz publicly declared his love for Ewa and wed her in defiance of the Church. Their marriage produced three children, and for two years the house of Lipski lived in open defiance of law and faith alike.
The outrage was swift. The Duke of Orions Gate declared war to avenge his sister’s death. The conflict, known as the War of the River’s Shadow (315–317 AR), lasted two bitter years and ended only in a white peace, neither side victorious, though thousands perished along the northern frontier.
In 318 AR, the High Council of Naissus convened to judge the sin that had blackened the realm. The Archbishop of Naissus annulled the marriage, declared the children of the union bastards, and decreed that all future unions between siblings be forbidden under pain of death.
Faced with the threat of invasion from his peers and excommunication by the Church, Duke Kazimierz yielded. His sister-wife Ewa, and the corpse of his slain first wife Adrianna, were both condemned in absentia. Their bodies… real or symbolically represented… were burned upon the pyres at Orion’s Bastion as a warning to all who defied divine order.
Kazimierz lived out his remaining years in silence, ruling from Lublin but stripped of his dignity. He remarried under Church sanction, though no songs recall the name of his third wife. His children by Ewa were declared bastards.
“Thus did the hammer of the North strike his own anvil, and shatter both iron and honor.” — Excerpt from the Annals of the River, Book VII
The War of the Three Bastards (342–351 AR)
Upon the death of Duke Kazimierz Lipski, the northern realm of Lublin descended into chaos. The Duke’s lawful heir, Bartosz Lipski, son of his third and final marriage, inherited his father’s title and the forges of the north. Yet his claim was immediately contested by the three bastards… the unacknowledged children born of Kazimierz’s forbidden union with his sister, Lady Ewa Lipski.
What began as a dispute of succession soon erupted into open war. Each of the three bastards… Witold, Jan, and Klara… commanded loyal retinues of soldiers, merchants, and smiths, turning the once-prosperous city of Lublin into a furnace of rebellion.
For nearly a decade, assassinations, skirmishes, and open battles scarred the northern hills. The blood of brothers stained the riverbanks, and every forge that once shaped iron now shaped blades for kin-slaying. Chroniclers call it “the war where fire knew no master.”
In 351 AR, the conflict reached its end in both sin and irony. The lawful Duke Bartosz wed Klara, the youngest of the three bastards, sealing a fragile peace through an act as forbidden as it was fateful. Though their union was condemned by many within the Church, Archbishop Roderic of Naissus granted special dispensation, declaring that “kin divided by law are not divided by God.”
The marriage ended the civil strife but left deep fractures within the nobility. To some, it was a miracle of reconciliation; to others, an abomination cloaked in ritual. The northern clergy split in outrage, and several bishops openly defied the Archbishop’s ruling, marking the first signs of the schism that would later trouble the Church for generations.
Though peace returned to Lublin, it was a peace tempered by guilt and shadow. The forges of House Lipski roared once more, but every hammer strike seemed to echo with the memory of a brother’s scream.
Bartosz Lipski
The War of the Three Bastards (342–351 AR)
Duke Boris Lipski (463 AR – Age 37 in 500 AR)
Boris Lipski, Duke of Lublin and lord of the northern forges, is known across Naissus as “the Bison of Lublin.” Massive in frame and fierce of spirit, he is the living heir to an ancient bloodline of iron and fire. Few men of this age command such fear… or such loyalty.
Boris is a veteran of two great wars: the War of the Three Dukes and the Second Nazhirite War. In both, he earned renown for his ferocity and unyielding courage, leading his soldiers from the front, hammer in hand. The scars that mark his body are said to be as numerous as the dents upon his armor.
Ever since the war of the three bastards, House Lipski practiced the tradition of cousin marriage, binding blood to blood in the name of strength and purity. The cost was madness, sickness, and sterility. Boris broke this cycle, becoming the first Lipski since Kazimierz the Cursed to marry outside the family. His union with Lady Hilda Radzimirski… Sister of Duke Albin Radzimirski of Orions Gate…. was seen by some as an act of renewal, and by others as heresy against his forebears.
Under his rule, the city of Lublin endures as the beating heart of Naissus’s steel trade, though its mines grow thin and its rivalry with the dwarves of the Iron Vein burns hotter than ever. Boris’s temper is legend; he has shattered tables in the royal court and once hurled a silver chalice at a bishop. Yet his brutality is tempered by an unexpected tenderness toward his daughter, Lady Milena, whom he guards with the same fury he brings to war. The child was once called cursed but after the investigation of Hussar knight Pawel the child was sparred death. He also has a son, Albert Lipski, named by his mother Lady Hilda.
Boris is no courtier, and no scholar. But to his men, he is a lord in the truest sense… one who bleeds beside them, curses with them, and stands unbroken where others bend.
House Jaroslaw
House Jaroslaw
Seat: Jarosgrad
Coat of arms: The Eagle praying under a burning star.
Family Heirloom: The fist holy Scripture
Archbishop Stanisław Jaroslaw (30 BR – 38 AR)
Stanisław Jaroslaw, founder of House Jaroslaw and first Archbishop of Naissus, was the man who gave form and law to the faith of Orion. A soldier turned priest, he was known for his austerity, his iron discipline, and his unwavering belief that righteousness could exist only through order.
During the Prophet’s final years, Stanisław served as both counselor and confessor. After Orion’s death, when the question arose of who would guide the faithful, he stood before the Twelve Tribes and declared that the word of the Prophet must live not through dukes, but through the Church. His rival, Aitor Garmendia, argued for wisdom and learning; Stanisław argued for obedience and law. The council chose him… and from that choice was born the Church of Orion.
Crowned as the first Archbishop, Stanisław established the doctrines that would shape Naissus for centuries. He codified the Six Original Commandments, decreed that the clergy answer only to the Word and not to worldly crowns, and changed Orion’s Bastion from a keep to a citadel of faith from which the Church would rule the spirit of man.
He was a man of sharp contrasts: humble in living, ruthless in principle. The chronicles tell that he once flogged a bishop for wearing a gold ring and excommunicated an entire town for refusing to pay tithes. Yet even his enemies admitted that he believed wholly in his purpose… that humanity could survive only through divine discipline.
Stanisław died in 38 AR, after nearly four decades of service, leaving behind not riches but an institution. His bloodline, though sworn to the cloth, became one of Naissus’s most powerful noble houses… the Guardians of the Word, forever entwined with the fate of the Church and the throne alike. While he had served as Archbishop, his younger brother had served as Duke of Eastgate.
“Mercy is for the innocent. The guilty must be shown the way through pain.” — Stanisław Jaroslaw, Codex of the Faith, I:12
Duke Wacław Jaroslaw, “the Mad Prelate” (145–192 AR)
Wacław Jaroslaw, remembered in scripture and song as “the Mad Prelate”, was both the most devout and the most accursed of his house. Born to privilege and prophecy, he studied the sacred writings of the Church from youth, showing early brilliance in theology, languages, and law. Yet where others found wisdom, Wacław found warning.
By his middle years, he had withdrawn entirely to his fortress-palace, Jarosgrad, a towering citadel of stone and spires rising above the eastern cliffs. There he surrounded himself with monks, hermits, and mystics, poring over forbidden scrolls said to predate the Prophet himself. He became convinced that the end of days was at hand, and that Naissus had strayed so far from Orion’s word that only fire could cleanse it.
As his mind darkened, his sermons turned from salvation to doom. The chronicles of the Bastion record that he declared his own household unclean, and that “the blood of innocence must be offered to restore the covenant.”
In 192 AR, on the night of the winter solstice, Wacław gathered his court in the Cathedral of Jarosgrad. There, before the altar, he burned his two daughters alive, proclaiming that their sacrifice would open heaven’s gate and spare the world from judgment.
His younger brother, Lord Marius Jaroslaw, rode through the night to stop him, but arrived too late. The cathedral was ablaze, the air filled with screams and smoke. When Marius beheld the horror, he struck his brother down before the altar, slaying him with his own sword.
The Church declared the event an unspeakable blasphemy, sealing the ruins of Jarosgrad off cathedral and banning all pilgrimage to its grounds. Lord Marius restored the duchy, but never forgave himself; he entered the priesthood the following year and died in silence.
The fires of Jarosgrad still burn in legend… ghostly lights said to flicker upon the hills each winter’s night. To this day, the clergy refuse to sanctify the soil, and the name Wacław Jaroslaw is forbidden to be spoken in any mass.
The War of the Three Dukes (466–470 AR)
The War of the Three Dukes stands as one of the last great feudal wars of Naissus… a conflict born of pride, scarcity, and the fading memory of mercy.
It began when Duke Kazimir Jaroslaw, Duke of Eastgate, conspired with Duke Janiz Vang of Night-harbor to seize the lands of Duskhaven, whose rich plains had long been coveted by the northern houses. Kazimir argued that their ancestors had given too freely when they granted sanctuary to the refugees of the Verdant March two centuries before. “What was mercy,” he wrote, “has become theft.”
Janiz Vang, whose own holdings along the western coast suffered from poor soil and failing harvests, agreed. In the spring of 466 AR, their combined armies marched, Vang forces from the west and Jaroslaw forces from the east.
The invasion struck swiftly and without warning. Duke Filip of Duskhaven met them in open battle and fell amidst the carnage… but his son, Waldemar, only sixteen years of age, rallied the remnants of his father’s host and turned defeat into deliverance. At dusk upon the third day of battle, the young duke led a counterattack that shattered the invader’s lines and drove them in rout from the field.
The victory was costly. The fields of Duskhaven burned, and half its knights lay dead beside their slain duke. House Vang capitulated soon after, and Kazimir Jaroslaw, unwilling to continue the war alone, signed a white peace with Waldemar.
None among them foresaw the consequence. The defeat at Duskhaven was interpreted by the Nazhirite Oracles as a sign of weakness within the southern realms. Only a few years later, the Invasion of Eastgate began. The city was besieged for sixty days; its walls trembled and its harbors burned.
Salvation came when Duke Waldemar of Duskhaven, now grown and hardened by war, marched northeast with an allied host… joined by the young Boris Lipski of Lublin and Toomas Vang of Night-harbor, son of his former foe. Together they broke the siege and drove the Nazhirite armies back into the sea.
Thus, from the ashes of betrayal was forged an alliance of necessity… proof that even in Naissus, the wounds of pride can heal when the shadow grows long enough to swallow all men alike.
Kazimir of Eastgate ruled a proud and ancient duchy… and lived to see it crumble beneath the weight of his own shame. Once a pious and capable lord, he fell into despair after his city was saved not by his own hand, but by the very men who had once been his enemies: Waldemar of Duskhaven, Boris Lipski, and Toomas Vang of Night-harbor.
The victory that should have restored his honor instead shattered his spirit. Kazimir came to believe that Orion himself had turned away, punishing him for pride and weakness. He abandoned the duties of rule and devoted his life wholly to the Church, seeking redemption through prayer and deprivation.
As the years passed, his devotion rotted into madness. He ceased to govern, ceased to bathe, and ceased even to speak with his kin. His hair and beard grew wild, his robes tattered, and his words… once eloquent… turned to broken sermons of judgment and fire.
Under his neglect, Eastgate decayed. The roads filled with bandits, trade vanished, and the city’s great walls stood unmanned while their ruler knelt in ceaseless prayer. Courtiers whispered that he no longer sought forgiveness, but punishment.
In 485 AR, Kazimir was found dead within the Cathedral of Eastgate, kneeling before the altar with his hands clasped and eyes open toward the dome above. The priests called it divine release; others whispered that the gods had at last granted him the silence he so desperately sought.
He was succeeded by his eldest son, Yuri of Eastgate, who inherited not a realm… but a ruin of faith, stone, and sorrow.
Duke Yuri Jaroslaw of Eastgate (466 AR– age 34 in 500 AR)
Yuri of Eastgate, son of the penitent Duke Kazimir, inherited not a duchy but a ruin. When his father died in 485 AR, Yuri was but nineteen years of age, yet already possessed of a cold intellect and an unbending will. Within a decade, he restored Eastgate from decay to dominance… turning a land once consumed by fanaticism into one ruled by order, discipline, and fear.
Where his father had sought salvation, Yuri sought control. He restructured the duchy’s administration, rebuilt the army, and purged the bandits who had plagued its roads. Under his iron rule, the city’s forges burned once more, its merchants returned, and the bridges of the eastern rivers flowed with trade. The Church praised him for restoring stability… though many whispered that his faith served the state, not the other way around.
Known for his pragmatism and severity, Yuri tolerated neither corruption nor sentiment. It was said that he “measured men by their use, not their prayers,” and that even his closest advisors feared the weight of his silence more than his wrath.
His younger brother, Baron Vitaly, was granted the baronies of Vespermark and Slanec, ensuring the family’s hold over the duchy. Together, the brothers forged an efficient… if cold… dominion, remembered for its prosperity and its lack of mercy.
Yuri delayed marriage for many years, claiming that duty left no time for heirs. Only in 498 AR, at the age of thirty-two, did he wed Lady Alina of Orion’s Gate, a noblewoman renowned for her beauty and grace. She was but seventeen at the time of their union, yet the match united Eastgate’s steel with the wealth and influence of Orions Gate… a union of power rather than love.
By 500 AR, Duke Yuri of Eastgate stands as one of the most formidable lords in Naissus… a man who rebuilt what faith had ruined, and who rules not through devotion, but through the precision of reason.