House Jahassa
- County of Jahassa
- Sworn to the Duke of Arilan
- Crest: The Jahassan crest is a set of golden scales on a field of blue and green.
- Motto of House Jahassa: “Remember and Obey.”
Jahassa is perhaps the richest County in the entire Kingdom, being the only one with the distinguished honor of hosting the King, his Capital city, and the most active and profitable seaside trading port in the realm. These lures have also brought the wealthiest nobles to attend court, and the finest artisans and craftsman to create their articles of function and finery. The Counts and Countesses of Jahassa have enjoyed the task of maintaining this lucrative state of affairs for many generations.
It is said that House Jahassa were faithful sworn servants to the Great House Arilan since the time when Arilan was one of the petty Kingdoms that peppered the lands of Brydd. When the King managed the unification of the five Kingdoms, he rewarded his most loyal noble with the administration of his home County.
Jahassa administers their County from King’s Bay, though the Count and his family make frequent visits to court at Wardenclyffe, a mere 7 hours travel away.
Culture of House Jahassa
House Jahassa are renowned administrators and magistrates who have helped administer the affairs of Great House Arilan since the days of old. They take their honor from careful accounting and exact attention to the rule of law. Their faithfulness to House Arilan is legendary. They are often considered to be humorless, stodgy, and even dour.
Martial Traditions
House Jahassa is not known for its martial traditions. Nonetheless, the Nobles of the House do their stodgy, dour duty in mastering swordsmanship, naval warfare tactics, port defense, seamanship, crossbow archery, and the pike. They may never be the finest warriors, but they are reliable and they are loyal. For their sworn lords of Great House Arilan, that is enough.
Dark Secrets of House Jahassa
Only the elders of House Jahassa know this story, passed from Lord to heir over countless generations. Long ago, when King Arilan assumed the combined rulership of the Five Kingdoms, he made his most loyal subordinate swear an Oath: “If I ever betray this new Kingdom, you must slay me and find an honest man to take my place.” It is an oath that even House Arilan has forgotten. But not House Jahassa. Not even after 250 years.
Jahassa remembers… and obeys.
Wardenclyffe
The Capital City of Wardenclyffe is in the County of Jahassa and the Dutchy of Arilan, and acts as the administrative center of the Kingdom of Brydd. It is here that the King holds court as he sits upon the Sapphire Throne. Wardenclyffe has been in the possession of the Arilan family since before the unification of the realm, and there are many rumors and myths surrounding it.
In the middle of the vast Sapphire Sea, a deep-blue briny lake 50 miles across, is an island named Wardenclyffe. Upon this island is a great jutting rocky prominence that reaches towards the sky and overlooks the surrounding waters and distant lakeside coastlands. The prominence is the remnant of some ancient unknown geological upheaval, and it upon this prominence that the ancient Kings of Arilan constructed their castle. Built and rebuilt many times, the castle is now a grand palace, surrounded by a walled city for the wealthy elite.
As of the last census, ten-thousand people lived on Wardenclyffe Isle, also known as High Wardenclyffe, within the walled city where the noble elite and wealthiest freemen ply their respective trades. The very finest of people are found on the well-guarded streets of the city, and within the even more well-guarded palace.
Lower Wardenclyffe is an extension of the city festooned with lower-class freemen dwellings, shops, ferry docks, and craftsmen. Outside of this lower-class neighborhood are many thousands of acres of farmland which ring the Sapphire sea, worked by armies of peasants. All of this is devoted to supplying food and trade-goods to the most ravenous and wealthy city in the known world, where a year’s supply of food for a peasant family may be expended in a single lavish feast on a nobleman’s table.
Whispered rumors passed within the Arilan family suggest that when the Arilans first settled Wardenclyffe, there was already a structure there. Built by some unknown and ancient race of people, the structure was made of melded stone, as though it was fused intentionally by an unknown process. Atop that structure, the Sapphire Throne already sat, apparently carved from a great blue rock lifted from the Sapphire Sea. Some stories say that strange sea-peoples with webbed hands and feet once lived on the isle, and one of them became the first Queen of the Arilan line. These are just rumors, of course. True History records that no one preceded Arilan settlement in the region, and the Arilan bloodline is pure and free from bizarre merfolk inclusion.
King’s Bay
A day’s walk from Wardenclyffe, King’s Bay is the premier trading port of the realm, with all manner of goods flowing in and out. The King’s court at Wardenclyffe consumes all manner of exotic product imaginable from throughout the realm and beyond. Likewise, the finest craftsmen of the realm, who have come to dwell in the area, export those products they can’t sell locally to Noble Houses and foreign nations around the known world.