House Wynmon

Overview

House Wynmon is the "Family" that holds the earldom consisting of the southwestern portion of Suthland. The house's seat in Wyvern's Roost was, until 2 years ago, held by one Dillion Wynmon, who, upon his death willed the family name away in shares to a number of relatives both blood and adopted, close and distant, as well as his long time friend and advisor Osmond Sharshire. It is this group that forms the modern house Wynmon.    

Relationship with Magic

The Wynmon family is noted for being a family of mages. This is highly unusual for humans, who are normally highly distrustful of magic in any form. This view, which they are fairly open of, has lead to the house's leperization, and overall political weakness over recent decades, as human society's distrust of the arcane grew stronger. For those who even recognize the name Wynmon, it is associated with bad luck, fear, mistrust, and disgust.

Under Dillion Wynmon

The house was, at the time, a barony, and only had the holdings around the town of Wyverns Roost. Years previously, it had held most of the land surrounding the larger town of Ustrada nearby, however, the house ceded its holding and tax rites over the local lords in the area after a mercenary army paid for by a lord in the area pushed back forces of house Wynmon to claim sovereignty over the area. The house fell on financial difficulties, and began struggling to maintain the town around its seat as a result of the lost tax revenue, and poor land, unsuited for agriculture available to generate economic activity of note. This was the status of House Wynmon and her holdings from the midpoint of Dillion's life onwards.

Contested Inheritance

Dillion's death left a number of bickering potential heirs due to the vagueness of the split of assets and titles. After an internal power struggle lasting several years, the house's title is now held by Osmond Sharshire and Destry Wynmon. These power struggles were as much about expanding the houses power as well as the power of individuals inside it, as detailed below.

Subsequent expansion of power

A number of Dillion's Heirs, including Osmond and Destry, worked to murder the Baron of Ustrada, as well as his heir, reclaiming the house's ancestral holdings. They then used this platform to engage in political negotiations with the wood elves of Kennyr-Eplith as their neighbors to the South to ease political tensions over the logging activities of the People of Ustrada, while ensuring economic growth in the area through a pair of public work projects, the Ustrada Canals, and the Ustrada Tree Nursery, the canals served to better irrigate the land and produce higher farming yields, and the tree nursery is a joint project between the Ustrada lumber industry and the Wood Elves to both ease tensions through cooperation, and serve the cities logging need without cutting the holy trees of Arboria.   Once an alliance with the Wood Elves was established, the House turned its attention northward, to the holdings of Gunther Luhrad, the Marquess of Altdorf, to secure their northern border. An initial understanding was formed wherein a greater proportion of Ustrada's trade was funneled through road to build Altdorf's taxes on the trade. In exchange, Gunter indicated that he would not intervene on any further expansionist leanings of the house. He also assisted the house in paying for the services of an army of mercenaries for their use.   With nonintervention from their politically powerful neighbor assured, the house made use of its new manpower to raid the port city of Port Deau, burning the piers and shipwrights. This served to both fill the House's treasury with pilfered goods and protection money, as well as direct shipping traffic destined for the southern regions towards a newly constructed port in Wyvern's roost. The resultant economic gains allowed the house a platform sufficient to declare themselves an Earldom, and, with the aid of Gunther, engage the Duchess of Dubmore, Tashira Goche, in talks of gaining mutual benefit through an alliance. An agreement was reached wherein the combined forces of Ustrada, Altdorf, Wyverns Roost, and Dubmore would work to invade the city of Tiristead, and seize control. This would allow Dubmore and it's government to corner the market on high yield food crops sold to the less agriculturally productive northern regions. This (successful) invasion allowed this power bloc to form the largest unified human political structure currently found, the Suthland Alliance.