Every Marcher of sufficient means can found their own House — a family, mercantile corporation, and political entity all rolled into one organization. After a substantial fee is paid, the House is recognized by the Crown, its leader is given a title (usually Baronet, or a higher rank if they administrate land for the Crown), and the House enters the rolls of the Noble Houses of the Kingdom. It’s a long-standing custom that Veilwalkers can found their own House without needing to pay the founders’ fee, which has resulted in each new Churning giving birth to a wide variety of new Houses throughout the Kingdom.
A House offers its members a shield against denunciations and a collective front when dealing with enemies, allies, customers, and tax collectors. Houses also help Marchers work together as a unit, giving structure and direction to the ambition and drive that burns within so many Marcher hearts. Houses are as much organizations aimed towards a purpose or goal as they are families; while many Marchers spend their whole lives in the House they were born into, just as many leave their birth House to join one with a purpose or lifestyle more aligned with their wants and needs.
Rivelins and Cairnfolk each have their own unique twists on the tradition of a House. Rivelins call their Houses Maisons (singular Maison, pronounced may-ZON), and tend to focus on finding a niche within Rivermark society and earning renown by building their House’s reputation as experts in that field. Cairnfolk call their Houses Clanns, and tend to take a more geographic approach to things, seeking to take over as much of the industry and trade within a given town, Barony, County, or Duchy as they can, dabbling in multiple different but related fields so as to build a broad economic foundation for the Clann.
Which purpose or profession any given House seeks to pursue varies widely, just as much as the goals of any two Marchers may differ. Some are knightly or military Houses, focused on fighting for the Crown or as mercenaries under another noble’s banner. Others are merchant Houses, seeking profit and the glory to be had by earning and showing off fabulous wealth. Still more seek knowledge, or to commune with the Gods, or to uncover ancient secrets buried beneath stone and soil. Fillidhean often come together under a particularly well-known bard to create bardic Houses, sharing their music and lore with as many Marchers as they can reach. And, of course, some Marchers form a House with no specific goal in mind, only seeking to provide a home for themselves and those they care about, putting the House’s resources behind the dreams and ambitions of its members no matter how varied their aims might be.
The process of joining or leaving a House often involves a balancing of scales and ensuring that all debts have been paid. For those who seek to leave a House, they must show that they have paid for all the debts that the House took on their behalf and any services the House provided them. Most Houses make a point of forgiving such debts, should they occur, as there is a strong social taboo against holding House members within the House against their will — the right of the House leadership to both set prices and extract labor from indebted House members has been abused too much in past centuries, and in modern times serious rumors of such practices would be deadly to any House’s reputation.
For those seeking to join a House, the “standard” process involves something along the lines of a credit and background check, ensuring that the applicant has no outstanding debts or grudges against them, and then a test of capability: the House leader sets the applicant a task, appropriate to the station they seek within the House, and should they succeed they are admitted and take up the promised post. Technically this process is open to anyone, but in reality no House will ever allow an applicant to get to the testing stage if they aren’t interested in having that person join the House.
Once someone is admitted to a House, they swear fealty to the House’s leader, and are officially added to the House’s rolls. Their grudges become the House’s grudges, and their debts are the House’s debts. Their glory and renown reflects upon the House, and they in turn can benefit from the glory and renown earned by the House as a whole. Most importantly, their goals become the House’s goals, and they work together with their fellow House members to achieve that which none of them could accomplish on their own.
Any House that grows beyond a certain size will split some of its members off into smaller subunits, each of which is referred to as either a Chapter or a Lance. Groups whose purpose and membership are primarily civilian in nature, especially those with a mercantile, magical, or religious inclination, are referred to as Chapters, while those that contain primarily fighters or that are specifically intended to be a fighting unit are called Lances. The largest Ducal Houses have hundreds of these organizations belonging to them, each tasked with pursuing a goal or activities by the leader of the House or their deputies. Each Chapter or Lance is often given its own name, either by the leader of its House or by its members.
The bonds that bind a Chapter or Lance together are much looser than those that tie members of a House into a single organization — people are free to join or leave as they and the rest of the group deem necessary, and there is no oath of fealty required for most Chapters or Lances. Indeed, it’s not uncommon for Marchers without a House to form either a Chapter or Lance in order to pursue some goal, and most noble Houses can trace their origins to such an organization that grew influential and prosperous enough to seek a noble title for its leader.
There is a hierarchy in Rivermark, which can be loose in some instances and more strict in others but which is always present, in a way that no Marcher can ever really forget. Every Marcher owes fealty to some sort of noble, who owes service and loyalty to a higher noble, and on up the chain until the Crown, who swears their service to the Kingdom itself. Marchers swear their first oath of fealty upon reaching majority. If they belong to a House, they swear to the leader of their House. If they are a commoner without a House, they instead swear to the local Baron.
Most Marchers take the oaths they swear to their lieges very seriously; the necessity of the Kingdom’s hierarchy is carved deep into their culture, and defying that order is seen as both dishonorable and morally wrong. However, most oaths are very specific and do not place great burdens upon either liege or vassal, and so the whole arrangement is functionally a spelling-out of the unwritten contract that most other nations have supporting their societies.
The standard vassalage oath boils down to something along the lines of “I shall break no laws, pay my taxes on time and in full, and assist in the lawful demands of my leige’s agents in pursuit of justice or the defense of the Kingdom.” The standard oath on the liege’s part is something along the lines of “I shall rule over you impartially, not abuse my power over you, and do my best to ensure the prosperity and defense of you as one of my people.” Oaths of fealty can get much more complicated, however, especially when dealing with oaths between noble Houses; those oaths tend to cover exactly what services and duties a vassal House will provide to its liege, and what rights and privileges it gains in return for its leal service.
Foreigners unfamiliar with Rivermark society often look askance at the tradition of fealty and vassalage, seeing it as a dressed-up form of bondage, with the nobles at the top and the downtrodden peasantry at the bottom. This was true at one point in history, but over time the moral expectations of Rivermark leaders has become far higher. Nobles who abuse their power over their vassals tend to be visited by Knights in service to the Crown in short order, and those who don’t amend their methods to something more morally noble are swiftly relieved of their position. Sometimes, when the rot is spread beyond the one leader, entire Houses have their nobility revoked by the Crown. The oaths that Marchers swear to their leaders are meant to symbolize their allegiance, and are not chains that truly bind them.
Rivermark has been at war for almost the entire span of time since the Godswar ended. From Skalding raiders striking all along the coasts and deep into the interior along the Rothlin River, to Tomarran cavalry sallying down passes in the Skarthwall and raiding villages and farms in Taella Thir and San d’Louves. From the Vauldan Empire repeatedly invading and conquering large chunks of the south, to the bloody and incessant feuding between Houses that pitted Marcher against Marcher when there wasn’t some external threat unifying them (and even when there was, sometimes). The Rothlin is often called the River of Blood because so many have perished along its banks, and the Marchers have learned bitter lessons from that history.
The most important of these lessons is to never let one’s guard down — an enemy will hold off on striking if they see a people united and ready to defend their lands with steel and fury, while a disorganized, slothful, or unwary nation is begging for the knife. Rivermarkers are always wary of other nations’ intentions, no matter how good relations might be between them at the moment, because they can never trust that things will remain peaceful if they don’t make clear that there would be brutal consequences to an attack against them.
The other critical lesson is to never give up. The Vauldan Empire conquered half the Kingdom, not once but three times over the course of the last two thousand years, and each time they were eventually driven out by the blood, sweat, and dogged determination of Rivermark patriots and guerillas. The Marchers harried the Legions, tore apart unguarded caravans, assassinated generals and consuls, and in quite a few cases used rituals to conjure deadly Spirits or unleash the Rothlin’s wrath upon the invaders — whatever it took to bleed the foe who had dared to strike at their home and country. The Vauldans began referring to Marchers, both Rivelin and Cairnfolk, as “hounds” as a way to denigrate their “savage” fighting tactics and make them seem lesser in the eyes of the Imperial populace back home; the Marchers took the name and wore it with pride, howling like a great pack of dogs as they drove the Vauldans back south beyond the Spine of the Continent.
To this day, the folk of Rivermark are a warlike people, despite the relative peace of the last five decades. They no longer fight one another in bloody feuds, and have no interest in outward expansion or conquest. Instead, they keep their swords sharp, their armor polished, and their martial skills honed because they know that someday — such as when a new Churning begins — they will need to use them once again. When the drums of war sound once more, the hounds of Rivermark will howl a promise of bloody retribution to any who would threaten the Kingdom; the people of the River will rise, blades in hand, to defend their home just as they have for generations uncounted.
One of the curses that Rivermark has had to deal with throughout most of its history is, unfortunately, mostly of its own making. Lycanthropy has plagued the nation since the first few centuries after the Godswar ended, when a cult worshipping a Primal Lord of Spring unleashed a scourge of werewolves upon the countryside of Taella Thir. Though the cursed folk were eventually either cured or slain, and the lycanthrope attacks faded into memory, the problem would arise again and again throughout the Kingdom’s long history. Whether out of a misguided desire to defend their homes and families, a dangerous level of hubris, or sheer bad luck, Rivermark has seen almost a hundred significant outbreaks of lycanthropy in the three millennia since the end of the Godswar, as well as countless smaller cases of lycanthropy that have either been swiftly contained or that didn’t pose a significant threat to local populations.
In modern times, knowledge of the dangers and powers of lycanthropy are deeply embedded into Rivermark culture. Marchers avoid going outside on nights with a new moon, when lycanthropes are at their strongest. The means of testing whether someone is suffering from one of the lycanthropic curses are well-known, and part of the calling of every Riversage is to ensure that their flock is checked for lycanthropy regularly. The rituals and timing needed to cure the various curses most effectively are likewise spread far and wide, and any Riversage may request assistance from the Crown should they find that one of their flock has been infected; the Kingdom keeps a stockpile of Aether Crystals specifically to ensure that an outbreak of lycanthropy can be dealt with as swiftly as possible. Many folk keep a piece of silver on a chain around their wrist, to test others they meet, and concerns about someone being cursed are taken completely seriously, no matter how unlikely they are to be true.
The Rothlin River originates in the northern foothills of the Spine along the southern border of the Kingdom and flows in a meandering path through Rivermark’s heartland. The River defines the Kingdom; everything about the realm — its agriculture, commerce, culture, religion, magics, history, politics, and more — has been shaped in some fashion by the River’s presence and magics.
The Rothlin is home to a great Water Spirit, with power equal to the terrifyingly mighty oceanic Spirits who power Hydromantic rituals. Though mortals have been living on or nearby the Rothlin for millennia, none have ever spoken to it directly, seen its avatar, or learned its true name. Even the most learned scholars simply refer to the Spirit as “the Rothlin,” as the Spirit is indistinguishable from its watery home. It holds itself aloof from mortalkind, but it still clearly has favorites, and grants an assortment of blessings to the mortals who live on or near its banks.
The greatest blessing is almost taken for granted by those who ply the River’s waters, in that it takes no more energy to row or sail upriver than it does to go down, as the flow of the river has no effect upon watercraft traveling upon it. This trait is shared with all of the Rothlin’s tributaries as well, making it possible to take a small ship from the mouth of the river on the Skarren Sea all the way up to the first line of waterfalls in the hills of Nal Crioch in far less time than it would to travel half that distance along the Blackwater River in Aurendale. This has made the Rothlin into a marvelous highway for trade, and has tightly connected the regions of Rivermark that have even a vaguely-navigable connection to the great River.
The second, and historically most beloved, trait that the River has displayed is a tendency to become rather hazardous to any invading army that stays near its banks for more than a few weeks. This has been one of the reasons why raiders from Iskaldur never tried to conquer the region, and why when the Tomarran Khoros came to steal livestock and plunder they were careful to always set up their raiding camps on hilltops where the river couldn’t cut off their retreat back to the Steppe. The Vauldans learned the dangers of the Rothlin’s anger well over the course of their three invasions and countless minor forays into the Kingdom’s lands; by the time they launched the Gryphonsbane War, they took every precaution and spent a vast fortune in ritual components and construction budget to dam, fortify, and control the Rothlin’s flow in order to prevent it from hindering their conquest.
Marchers have a respect for the Rothlin bordering on religious devotion; comments about the Rothlin being Rivermark’s “sixth god” are only partly joking. The Riversages, those Marchers who have taken up the mantle of mystics of the Five Gods, tend to couch their sermons and lessons in terms of the River and its behavior. Many ceremonies, both religious and otherwise, take place on the shore of the Rothlin or in its shallows. Newborns are baptized in its waters, and the honorable dead are sent to their graves within its depths. Marcher mages who practice Hydromancy use the Rothlin’s waters in place of the traditional Seven Seas, with equal effectiveness as a traditional Hydromancer. The Rothlin holds a power far greater than any other river on the Continent, and the Kingdom would not be what it is today without the River’s presence.
Grudges held silently are not honorable, and actions taken to fulfill them are not respected nearly as much as actions taken to right a wrong that you have declared openly. This is a fundamental rule of Rivermark society, the only way that they have been able to function without descending into a perpetual state of bloody feuding. Thus the creation of the Sheanadhan (pronounced “SHAH-nah-DAHN,” singular Sheanadh, pronounced “shah-NAHD”), or denunciation, as a formal means for Rivermarkers to channel their more spiteful impulses.
The only acceptable way to announce a grudge and your intent to even the scales between yourself and the one who has harmed you is to denounce them via an act known as a Sheanadh. This takes the form of standing up and listing who you believe has harmed you, how they did so, and the kind of redress you are seeking to eliminate the grudge, spoken in a place where as many people as possible can hear you. It’s seen as more honorable and direct to do so in a setting where you can address the target of your grudge directly, though this isn’t always possible or advisable.
A Sheanadh, once made, doesn’t have to be acted upon immediately; you can pursue justice at your own pace, or just lurk on the periphery of the denounced’s life until you see an appropriate time to act. There’s an expectation that if the person or House who is the subject of your Sheanadh approaches you to try to make amends you’ll at least hear them out rather than immediately spurning them, but this doesn’t mean you have to actually accept the olive branch they’re offering.
Once you believe that your grudge has been settled, you’re expected to publicly repeal your Sheanadh, in a setting as close to the one where you originally announced the grudge as possible. It’s customary to also announce what you did or what the offending party offered to make the grudge go away, though those specifics aren’t technically necessary.
A core part of the Sheanadhan tradition is the strong taboo against frivolous or baseless denunciations. Someone who declares a grudge against everyone who annoys them is treated as a menace to society and shunned. Similarly, responding to a denunciation with a Sheanadh of your own is seen as incredibly uncouth, practically an admission of guilt; better to show the world your innocence and dare your attacker to follow through on their threat, than to stoop to their level and reply in kind. The fact that the authorities (Knights, Barons, and higher nobles) frequently get involved when two people or Houses start repeatedly exchanging Sheanadhan with each other also tends to keep tit-for-tat denunciations from happening too often, as the Crown and Ducal Houses have a very low tolerance for blood feuds. Their investigations tend to be uncomfortably thorough in such cases, and their fines and punishments harsh for any kind of infraction they uncover on either side of the argument.
The Knights of Rivermark are spoken of in legend and song, and have been a core part of the Kingdom’s warrior culture for more than a millennia. Though Knights in prior eras were often nothing more than armored thugs enforcing the will of their noble masters, four centuries ago the Crown wrested exclusive control over the granting of new Knightly titles and over many of the Knights themselves. In modern times, a Knight is a protector of the people, defending them from men or monsters who would harm them and frequently acting as judge, jury, and executioner against those who would perpetrate injustice upon them. Whether alone or as part of a Lance, a Knight is a force to be reckoned with, combining martial skill with a burning desire to defend the people of their nation.
Knights are expected to train constantly, sharpening their skills in combat so that they might be better able to serve the Crown or their House whenever violence is necessary. They are also expected to show wisdom, honor, and insight, especially with regard to matters of justice and law — a Knight has the power, granted by the Crown, to act as judge or arbitrator in legal matters should a better-qualified expert not be available. Knights must stand against injustice wherever they find it, protecting the weak and the defenseless who cannot protect themselves; should they encounter an evil they cannot handle on their own, it is their responsibility to seek out allies or greater powers to properly deal with the threat.
The folk of the Kingdom separate knights into two general categories, Dìonadar and Chevaliers. The Dìonadar (singular Dìonadh) serve as leaders, law-keepers, and elite warriors for their House. Chevaliers, by contrast, serve the Crown directly, working under one of the Princes or a Margrave to protect the Kingdom from threats within or without. Both are referred to as Knights, and are of equal standing in rank, but knowing which kind of Knight one is dealing with is critical for understanding where their priorities lie.
Knights are charged with upholding the security and order of the Kingdom, no matter who their liege lord is. Dìonadar, despite primarily serving their Houses, must always balance the honor and needs of their House with the honor of the Crown and Kingdom, which they represent as a Knight. Should the Crown have need, it can summon any Knight to serve in battle or as a representative for the Crown, and no Knight — Dìonadar or Chevallier — may decline such a summons.
The journey towards Knighthood begins with a quest. A would-be Knight dons the undecorated dark blue tabard of a knight-errant and seeks out a noble House, petitioning the head of that House for a task to prove their martial skill, valor, and honor. The noble, should they approve of the petitioner, then grants them a quest. Should the knight-errant successfully complete their quest, the noble swears to testify upon their behalf before the Crown when the knight-errant journeys to Redcrown to ask the Crown for a Knightly title. Many nobles, not wishing to journey to the capital on short notice, will instead offer up a written testimonial to the knight-errant, with their personal and House seals upon it, to present to the Crown in their stead.
It’s common for knights-errant to seek out many different Houses across the Kingdom to grant them quests. The more testimonials they have in their favor when they stand before the Crown, and from varied places and Houses across the nation, the better their odds of becoming a Knight. It’s heavily frowned upon to perform a quest for any House that one is a member of or has significant history with. Even the appearance of nepotism or corruption taints the knight-errant’s petition for Knighthood, in the Crown’s eyes, and so most would-be Knights journey far from their House’s lands to find unbiased Houses to grant them their quests.
Some Knights choose to take knights-errant under their wing. These Squires follow the Knight, assisting and learning as their master goes about their duties, as well as being trained by their master in the skills needed by a Knight. However, when the Squire decides to begin seeking out quests to prove their abilities, their master is forbidden from offering any assistance besides pointing out possible locations or Houses where a quest might be found — any assistance by the Squire’s master is seen as interference and nepotism, and taints the quest in the process. Succeed or fail, a Squire must pursue each quest entirely without their master’s help.
The nature of a knight-errant’s quests can vary dramatically. All quests must be tasks with clear criteria for success or failure that give the knight-errant a chance to show their skills and ability to serve the Crown and Kingdom, but beyond that there are no rules for how the head of a House must structure them. Most knights-errant seek to demonstrate three things: their ability to acquit themselves well in combat, their ability to uncover and deal with corruption or injustice within the Kingdom, and above all their personal code of honor and ethics. Most prefer to focus on either combat or investigation, but it’s well-known that the Crown demands a modicum of skill at both in any would-be Knights. Tournaments or other demonstrations of martial skill are frequently used as quests for this purpose, when bandits or monsters aren’t readily available. Finding a quest to show insight and wisdom is trickier; many knights-errant cut their teeth on investigating crimes and helping the local law-enforcement officers apprehend those they find to be responsible.
What any noble thinking up a quest for a knight-errant must keep in mind is that both they and the knight-errant must testify about the quest before the Crown, and that they will be judged by the Crown as well as the would-be Knight. If they give the knight-errant a quest that is too easy, or that does not help the knight-errant properly demonstrate their skills and honor, it reflects badly upon the noble, not the knight-errant. As a result, most nobles will sadly decline if they can’t come up with a proper quest for a knight-errant; merely finding a suitably demanding quest can often become a test of the knight-errant’s determination.
Once a knight-errant has succeeded at enough quests that they believe they can convince the Crown to grant them Knighthood, they journey to Redcrown and petition the royal court for a hearing. Most also send messages alerting the nobles whom they performed quests for that they are at last seeking a Knighthood, so that the nobles might appear personally if they wish. During the hearing, which is known formally as the knight-errant’s Commendation, they submit any written testimonials they have accrued over the course of their errantry, and any of the nobles who gave them quests and are present in the capital give their verbal testimonies. After all of their deeds are described, the Crown makes their decision.
Those who are judged to have insufficient evidence of their worth and skills are encouraged by the Crown to seek out further tests of their mettle. Those who the Crown deems unworthy for some reason — usually a lack of honor or catastrophic failure in one or more of their quests — are forbidden from wearing the blue tabard or seeking out another Commendation. The Crown does not tolerate knights-errant who actively harm the people of the Kingdom in their quest for Knighthood.
However, if the Crown judges the knight-errant worthy, they grant the petitioner the title of Knight of the Kingdom, striking their shoulders with a sword and then welcoming them into the Kingdom’s service. The new Knight is taught in the ways of combat, law, and etiquette by the Royal Guard for a year and a day, and then released to serve the Kingdom as they best see fit. Some Knights return to their House, serving as warriors, leaders, or law-keepers, but many remain in service to the Crown, granted a salary and either a position within the Kingdom’s armed forces or as a wandering keeper of the peace.
One of the customs that has developed over the centuries in Rivermark is a very specific take on the tradition of shaking hands. Most Marchers wear some form of silver bracelet, torc, or amulet on their right wrist, and the standard Marcher handshake involves firmly gripping the other person’s wrist where they have their bracelet. It’s considered incredibly impolite, practically an active threat, to not take off any glove or armor on your right hand and shake hands with someone when you greet them.
This custom has resulted from the prevalence of lycanthropy throughout Rivermark’s history — a sudden violent allergy to silver is one of the few symptoms shared by all of the known lycanthropic curses, and so one of the ways that Marchers developed to detect whether someone had been infected was to make the very act of greeting someone into a test for whether they’d been cursed. Even nobles will make a point of publicly shaking hands with the highest-ranking member of any group that they are speaking with, just to show they haven’t ben infected.
Many of the larger Maisons have long-standing relationships with one of the larger Clanns in a nearby Province, trading goods and services back and forth and ensuring that they always have an ally ready to assist them should there be need. These pairings frequently result in an exchange of young folk, who are sent to be fostered for a few years in their ally’s territory, learning their ways and forging alliances with the youngsters growing up there. This practice is called Abhan Dachai, or “the house along the River,” and is gently encouraged by the Crown and Ducal Houses as a way of reducing tensions between Rivelin and Cairnfolk throughout the Kingdom.
Every five years the Crown sponsors one of the Duchies to put on the Guerre de Bâtons, or War of Staves, a massive wargame that engulfs that region for over a month. Young commanders lead Lances against one another in low-stakes warfare, seeking to claim the most Heartswood batons that are scattered around a large area filled with varied terrain and fortifications. The three winning Lances are declared the Étoiles Montantes, or Rising Stars of the Kingdom, and all the participants are treated to a grand feast put on by the local Ducal House. The Étoiles Montantes of each Grand Guerre are sought out by all the militant Houses and the Royal Army, who are always on the lookout for skilled strategists and tacticians and the military units who helped make them so effective. Written accounts of the skirmishes, battles, tribulations, and victories that occur during the Grand Guerre are circulated throughout the Kingdom, and are the subject of conversation and debate for months or even years after the wargame is concluded.