The Shadow Schism and the Birth of House Thuranni

Political event

The elven dragonmarked House Thuranni split off from House Phiarlan in 972 YK even as they both shared the Mark of Shadow, at last creating the thirteen dragonmarked houses that had long been prophesized would come into existence. Before the start of the Last War, House Phiarlan had a comfortable working relationship with House Wynarn, the royal dynasty that ruled the Kingdom of Galifar. The house helped the royals to maintain order in the kingdom, uncover treasonous conspiracies and guard against any threat from outside of Khorvaire. Phiarlan assassins removed insurgent leaders and other internal threats. On more than one occasion, House Phiarlan helped to enfore the strange laws of Khorvarien inheritance, such as the ones which prevented the eldest child of Breland's king from ever succeeding to Breland's throne. There were occasions, even during the days of a united Galifar, when the rulers of the Five Nations plotted against each other and even against their monarch and House Phiarlan was often involved in those schemes. Nascent organizations that would eventually grow into Breland's intelligence service, the King's Citadel, Aundair's Royal Eyes and their like among the other kingdoms relied heavily on intelligence purchased from House Phiarlan. With the death of King Jarot, the best efforts of House Phiarlan were no longer able to ensure a peaceful transfer of power and Khorvaire was plunged into a century of warfare. Each of the Five Nations built up its own corps of covert agents and set them to work against the spies of enemy nations, while continuing to rely heavily on Phiarlan intelligence as the House of Shadows worked for all sides. A house that was more strongly unified to begin with might have been able to remain united even under such circumstances, but House Phiarlan had always been fractious. The Mark of Shadow appeared not in one elven family line but in several and relations among the Phiarlan lines had been strained in the past. Five elven lineages—the Tialaen, Shol, Elorrenthi, Thuranni and Paelion—were the most prominent and influential families in House Phiarlan before the schism. Each line had its particular strengths within the broad field of the house's activities, and preferred clients among the factions and organizations of the Five Nations. Rivalry among those six families, not to mention the numerous smaller families within the house's hierarchy, often grew fierce. Ultimately, the strains of the Last War proved to be greater than the ties that bound the Phiarlan families together. The final blow came in 972 YK. The Order of the Emerald Claw—at the time, still an extension of Karrnath's government—was a favored client of the Thuranni family, as well as the most important espionage-related organization in Karrnath's government. Knight Superior Kadrath ir'Vardikk, a high-ranking Emerald Claw knight, came to Lord Elar Thuranni d'Phiarlan with information that pointed to a Brelish plot to assassinate both Karrnath's regent Moranna and its young king, Kaius III. The plot relied heavily on the talents of the Paelion line, who represented the most fearsome assassins of House Phiarlan. Sir Kadrath demanded that the Thuranni line eliminate the Paelions before the assassins could carry out their mission. At first, Lord Elar was hesitant to strike against others in his own house. He first tried to verify the information Sir Kadrath had brought him. What the Thuranni agents uncovered, however, was a far greater threat than a simple assassination plot against Karrnath. Lord Tolar Paelion d'Phiarlan, it seemed, had concocted an elaborate scheme to bring the Last War to an end and gather the reins of power in Khorvaire, not in Breland's hands, but in his own. Part of this plan, Lord Elar learned, involved exterminating the other Phiarlan families as well as the leadership of the other dragonmarked houses. Some might have dismissed these plans as megalomaniacal ravings that presented little serious threat. But since they originated in the most skilled line of assassins in all of Khorvaire, however, Lord Elar took them utterly seriously, and he ordered an immediate strike by the Thuranni to exterminate the Paelions before Lord Tolar could carry out his plan. Lord Elar himself killed Tolar and his immediate family, while the Thuranni agents at his command slaughtered every Paelion within the familiy holdings in the Lhazaar Principalities and every one they could find in the Phiarlan holdings across Khorvaire. Outraged at this apparent betrayal within the house, Baron Elvinor Ellorenthi d'Phiarlan declared the entire Thuranni line excoriate from the house. Defiant, Lord Elar refused this ancient punishment and instead declared that his line would establish a new dragonmarked house, House Thuranni. The clients of the Thuranni family continued doing business with the excoriate house and Elar—now having taken the title of baron of his new house—managed to acquire some of the clients who had been loyal to the Paelion line. To the present day, Baron Eldar d'Thuranni maintains that he acted only out of loyalty to his own house and all of the other dragonmarked houses and quashed a plot that would have thrown all of Khorvaire into even greater chaos. There are many sides to the story, however, and—as in all tales of spies and assassins—the truth is hard to discover. Some would suggest that the Order of the Emerald Claw—a pawn of the Lich Queen Vol— actually fabricated the evidence against the Paelions, bringing some of it to Lord Elar while planting the rest in the Paelion holdings for Elar's spies to uncover. Some further suggest a link between the Emerald Claw's role in the Shadow Schism and Regent Moranna ir' Wynarn's decision to outlaw the order in Karrnath just four years later. Other theories suggest wilder conspiracies. Some claim that human agents of the draconinc Chamber helped to bring the schism about in order to fulfill the prophetic claims about thirteen dragonmarked houses or the split of a single house. Others whisper that at least one prisoner in Dreadhold, a half-elven member of House Lyrandar, is imprisoned there for his role in fomenting the Schism. Still others claim that Lord Elar and Baron Elvinor amicably agreed to a split in the house and used a mutual enemy, the Paelion line, as a scapegoat to cloak their true intentions. Whatever the truth, the Shadow Schism was the most important consequence of the Last War as far as the dragonmarked houses are concerned. Just as the Kingdom of Galifar was fractured into smaller nations, so too the Last War left the dragonmarked houses broken, unsure of their role in the new world and their ties to the new political powers who ruled Khorvaire. House Thuranni went on to found the Shadow Network, a guild of artisans and entertainers who also served as spies, intelligence operatives and most importantly, assassins. 976 YK The Order of the Emerald Claw is Outlawed in Karrnath: Regent Moranna of Karrnath, the aunt of King Kaius III and granddaughter of King Kaius I, outlawed the Order of the Emerald Claw in Karrnath in 976 YK, two years after she became the regent of Karrnath. Regent Moranna stunned her kingdom's people by outlawing the Order of the Emerald Claw, as she herself had once been a devotee of the Emerald Claw's allied Blood of Vol cult. Moranna had learned the truth about both the Blood of Vol and the Emerald Claw—both were simply vehicles for the vengeance-fueled ambitions of the Lich Queen Vol. Moranna had learned this in secret from her grandfather, the vampiric Kaius I, who returned disguised to Karrnath at this time and revealed the truth to his descendants. Though internal grumbling among the Karrn nobility about the influence of the Emerald Claw had long existed, none had foreseen the regent's seizing of the order's barracks and the arrest of its most active and powerful knights. Some members of the Emerald Claw were imprisoned in Karrnath for years; others were tried, convicted of treason against the Karrn Crown, and executed. This blow against the order reduced the direct influence of the Blood of Vol at the highest levels of Karrnath's aristocracy and enhanced and restored the power of the Karrn monarchy over the kingdom, but the Emerald Claw was far from destroyed. The Lich Queen Vol remained determined to use the cult and its knighthood to take control of Karrnath and use the kingdom to spread her influence across Khorvaire and gain vengeance on the elves of Aerenal and the dragons of Argonessen.