House of Basrid
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The House of Basrid is a Noble Family originating from the House of Carrion within the Holy Orenian Empire, also residing within the Principality of Savoy. They hold the titles of Khedive of Rudria (equivalent to Margrave) and Viscount of Susa.
History
There are few historical unions as strange as that of Prince Fyodor Carrion and the Princess Esther of Ba’as - the clubfoot Prince and the Nightingale of Magia.
Through the male line, the union that bore Basrid descended from the austere and orthodox Exalted Sigismund, sage of the faith and soothsayer. His union with Helaine de Sarkozy, one that united the wayward branches of Barbanov and Kosanov, bore three sons. While his secondborn Ostromir and the youngest Franz-Josef ruled as kings of man, the firstborn Fyodor’s fate was sealed by his deformity, a stunted clubfoot that inhibited his ability to ride or fight.
The young Fyodor was thus brought up as a masterful steward and mystic with a mild disdain for the traditions that bore stigma against him. His closest companions were other outcasts of the court - the Rassidi Baron Sabri Nasser, the half-orc castellan Orlik of Kralta, and the young lord Thomas of the disgraced House Denims. The motley band eschewed their household’s grand political ambitions in lieu of rebuilding and reforming the many realms of humanity. They are attributed with settling Augustine, restoring the wastes of Kaedrin, and erecting the Flotstad for the Jolly Ruskan Band.
However, in due time, young Fyodor had grown discontent with his lordship over Kralta. His time across the realm had fostered a hearty appetite for cultures beyond his own, and it was not long before he and Sabri Nasser left the court of Raev to satiate such desire. They endeavored towards the homeland of the Baron Sabri, Ba’as.
Upon reciting the ancestry of the young Prince Fyodor to Prince Hafez of Ba’as, the pair found high station at court as skilled councilmen. The Baron Nasser’s time in Oren made him an invaluable master of trade, whilst the Prince’s diplomatic nature and talent in architecture made him an able seneschal. In the court of Ba’as, the pair prospered as the young Prince rose to serve as Hafez’s own chancellor, the highest position in Basi court.
As one of Hafez’s court favorites, Sabri and Prince Fyodor used their positions to influence many things. The local church, long ailing, had found a pair of powerful and wealthy sponsors, and began to take the local cult of the silver comet to be an image of St. Tobias. Ba’as soon swelled as a beacon of Canonist faith in the Rassidi city-states, boasting a population of over ten-thousand faithful. While many of the pagan seers soured at their influence, Hafez had been won over by their patronage and even permitted his own daughter, Esther, to wed Fyodor to claim the bloodline of the Canonist prophet and wed their offspring to one of his heirs.
Such a fate was never to come though. When Hafez died, his sons, as was tradition, entered conflict in bitter open succession. When all died in the brutal war, the young child of Esther and Fyodor was placed onto the throne under regency as part of an uneasy peace between the belligerents. While distant branches of the old lines of Ba’as schemed to rob the babe of his seat, the realpolitik of Princess Esther along with the patronage and diligence of Prince Fyodor enabled the line to prosper. The young Prince Iskander I ruled as a firm and proud Canonist, and with the aid of his parents, instituted various holy orders to deliberate heirlings and avoid the brutal civil wars that plagued Ba’as succession after succession. They took the purple of Ba’as and the gold of Karovic to bear a new house, who took upon the sigil of the blue Simurgh, a mystic bird known to Rhenyari legend. However, most retainers of the House of Ba’as maintained the city’s sigil of the silver comet, which came to be known as the princely family’s title as well. A scion of the Fyodor and Esther union, brother to Iskander, Simeon Carrion, even returned to his father’s seat of Kralta and ruled for a time before perishing in Brigand’s Pass. Another scion, Mikhael Carrion, served as steward and counselor to King Henry I.
For some three-hundred years Ba’as waned and waxed, but with innovations of faith and succession spread eastward due to Pertinaxi influence, many pretenders of the lineage of Ba’as began to covet the throne and scheme to restore the succession laws of old. When Prince Nafis III died, his young and indulgent son Caspian inherited only for his succession to be undone by the scheming Grandmaster Aral Basrid of the Magian Flame, a Canonist order rooted in Owynist rite. However, Caspian’s younger brother, Simon Basrid, defected from the Holy Order to warn his brother of the impending treachery. While Caspian elected to war, defending his estates, Simon whisked away his young daughter Isidora to safety - the Prince-elect would soon lose his titles and wife, forced into common banditry with the remainder of his bloodriders.
Simon, well-learned in the faith and able in administration, found patronage at the court of the High Pontiff Daniel VI and returned aside Isidora to the realm of their ancestors as exiles. It was not long that Caspian abandoned his failing campaign at the behest of his brother, and he and his youngest brother, Cyrus, along with Cyrus’ infant son Jahan, were reunited with their kin in Oren. They took the name Basrid, meaning of Ba’as, and began a life anew bearing the legacy of Fyodor and Rhen with them.
Simon and Cyrus were quick to involve themselves in Orenian society. The two brothers came to the aid of the Lord Protector, Adrian de Sarkozy, over a decade later, the two, along with an adolescent Jahan, became founding members of the Imperial State Army, with all three along with other Rhenyari exiles like Jasper Carrington and Darius Sabari forming the Gunners. Only Cyrus however, would maintain a career in the Imperial State Army. Simon and Jahan, both being learned men, were called upon by the Emperor Peter III to serve on his Cabinet. Simon took up the mantle of Arch-Chancellor and Jahan would serve as Secretary of Foreign Affairs. Basrid would. Due to their longtime services to the Empire, all three Basrids would receive knighthoods, and Sir Jahan would receive the title Count of Susa, a title long held by his ancestors and lost over a foolish bet.
Sir Jahan died in the early Nineteenth Century, succeeding him would be his son Iskander. A man with a martial history, Iskander led the Fourth Brigade and helped Oren win two wars during his time with the ISA. He and his wife would sire four children: Jasper, Anthony, Helena, and Nicolas. In time Anthony would be a...
