A Letter from Venzhir Korrathal, Scholar of Candlekeep

To Esteemed Colleague, Keeper Allandir of the Emerald Spire Scriptorium,

I pray this missive finds you well amidst your pursuits along the Wealdath’s edge. You once asked—during that terribly long symposium on titles in the Age of Humanity—what I had found in the inland village of Evenshade. I confess, though nearly a year has passed since I first set foot in that wooded sanctuary, I am only just beginning to understand its subtleties.

Permit me, then, to begin not with its famed Temple-Library of Oghma, nor its peculiar twilight festivals, but rather with its titles—yes, titles!—which I suspect you, ever the political antiquarian, shall find delightfully arcane.

The nobility of Evenshade is old—perhaps not by Calishite or Chondathan reckoning, but among the First Folk of Berdusk it is ancient enough to warrant careful preservation. Their current form of titulature, I have discovered, predates the Weeping War and may indeed be a local adaptation of Cormyrean heraldic nuance, long drifted into idiosyncrasy.

The village is ruled not by a duke or lord mayor, but by a Baron or Baroness of Evenshade—a title not appended with “the” or “of the Barony,” mind you, but directly tied to the village name itself. The sovereign title rests with the ruling individual: if male, he is Baron Evenshade; if female, she is Baroness Evenshade. Their spouse bears the corresponding courtesy title—Lady Evenshade or Lord Evenshade—but notably without the “of.”

This distinction becomes more pronounced among the children. The eldest surviving child, and thus the presumed heir, is titled Elder of Evenshade, regardless of gender. The second-oldest surviving child carries the title Younger of Evenshade. Subsequent children are known as Lady of Evenshade or Lord of Evenshade, depending on birth designation.

You might imagine, as I did, that the “of” here indicates landed claim. Not so. These titles are ceremonial, denoting position in the familial succession and proximity to the ruling bloodline, but they hold no separate land nor charter. They are titles of identity, not domain—a curious inversion of Amnian nobility, where land is all.

When I arrived here in the spring of DR 1419, the reigning noble pair were Baroness Eldane Evenshade and her consort, Lord Yorris. The village murmured of their four children, though in the first few months, I only came to know the eldest two by name. The Elder—a clever and quietly intense young woman—was already being groomed for eventual stewardship. The Younger, a bright but unpredictable boy, was said to spend hours in the old abandoned wizard tower, though few admitted to seeing him enter or leave. Of course, few seem to care to even approach that tower, so that point may be foregone. Very beautiful, that tower, and yet entirely unremarkable: if my mind lingers too long on it, I come to realize how uninteresting it is.

And so now I sit in my favorite spot in the Temple-Library, The Curled Elm Leaf Nook, to pen the first chapters of The Unspoken Scroll, which I will send along to you quite soon for your esteemed review. Once again, I am grateful for your wise and thoughtful perusal of my drafts. I am still convinced, however, that your learned wife is the true source of returned comments, despite ultimately being written in your hasty scrawl.

It is worth noting that the architectural sensibilities of Evenshade—particularly in the deep interior of the manor house and throughout the Temple-Library—seem to bear subtle homage to the ancient tower that predates them all. Eldane once told me (over a third glass of melon wine) that “the tower is the spine of our village; everything else grew like ribs from it.” How unlike a spine that the residents generally avoid that ancient building, though!

However, the metaphor itself holds true. Even their language of rulership—Baron, Elder, Younger—suggests a spine, a structure of inheritance not unlike vertebrae.

But I digress. I know your patience for metaphor is thin, and your interest lies in structure. I shall send rubbings of the Evenshade family sigils, and perhaps some sketches of the council hall’s interior (which, despite being merely a wing of the manor, feels very much like the seat of something older).

In quill and quiet,

Venzhir Korrathal

Senior Scribe Emeritus

Extant Visiting Fellow of the Temple-Library of Oghma, Evenshade