Description

History

The Montclair family first rose to true prominence many, many years ago, having slowly built up influence, land and power, laying claim to a large portion of the rainforests in the south of what would become the Hundred Kingdoms. During this claiming and expansion, the then-scion of their House carved out a realm for his followers in the middle of the rainforests and plains, astride a great river (the present-day Rheol) and built a city in the middle of it all – the settlement which would become Coldharbour itself, in time.

According to legend, he was a brilliant strategist and tactician, breaking and routing indigenous forces at the Rheol river, then commanding the torching, subjugation and integration of Brightwater, the largest of the indigene cities in the region. The scant ruins of this settlement still stand in the middle of a forest, scorched and tumbled. The grassroots rebellious in Myrantia often hyperbolically call the Montclairs the Butchers of Brightwater, despite the fact that the deed was done centuries ago, in a far simpler time.

In any case, however it was won, this fiefdom, and with it, the title of Dux eventually became the most widely-recognized, most ancient and senior title of the Montclair family – Duke of Coldharbour and Myrantia, and catapulted them to the highest ranks of the Hundred Kingdoms, serving the Godkings of Seygas.

From this point, the history of the Montclairs is a star-studded tapestry, a testament to their skilled manipulations and fortune; canny politicians, brave Legates and staunch Admirals, shadowy poisoners and assassins too – carefully never spoken about, their portraits moved to the Shadow Gallery in Montclair Palace and Coldharbour Castle, their notes, memoirs and journals kept under lock and key in a dark library, all the tools of their nefarious craft – the glittering retorts and alembics, spiralling glassware and crucibles of the poison-maker, the blades and darts of the assassin, all locked away in the secure vaults beneath their properties.

From the springboard of Coldharbour, their dominion expanded – although not in the same manner as it had done so originally, on the point of the sword. Latter generations of Montclairs had the brutal impulse buffed off them by the march of civilisation; instead it was the great leveller of the wondrous compounds they unearthed in their rainforest fief and put to use that brought other cities under the purple banner of the House and gave them the unofficial title of 'Lord of the Poison Counties', a practice which some whisper is still alive today.

Of course, all this is not to say that the Montclairs have an unblemished, unbesmirched record; they have, much like every other ancient noble house, their share of black sheep and bastardry. The most famous of these in modern times is the (now long-dead) Duke Aubrey Montclair, a notorious libertine. He occupies a curious position in the history of the Hundred Kingdoms – bastard children, from gutter orphans to the embarrassing foibles of the noble classes, those with no fathers, are still called Duke Aubrey’s brats, from his propensity for exercising droit de seigneur on any female, as the whims took him. Any party sufficiently soused in wine and excesses of the flesh is said to have been possessed by Duke Aubrey’s Bacchanalia, in memory of the fantastical entertainments that shook the walls of Montclair Palace in the days of his leadership, and further many people in Myrantia – House Montclair’s dukedom – and beyond say they’ve seen Duke Aubrey on a faerie hunt, harlequin lappets swirling, his chiming laughter ringing in the foetid air to the accompaniment of a carillon of fairy bells; farmhands in the great estates of Myrantia, when a horse is found sweat-streaked and trembling at the withers in the morning, often escape their punishments by claiming ‘twas the devil Duke Aubrey’s pleasure what done it, m’lud, as the Bright Lords are my witness.’

On the flipside of this half-derision, half-superstition is the unmissable contribution the libertine Duke had to the arts and culture of the Kingdoms – many fine theatres, museums and temples were raised in his honour, statues of Duke Aubrey are found in the entrance apses of the premier institutions in the land. His poetry and verse have become a byword for scintillating wit among the glitterati – Aubrey’s Purple Book of Riddles is a perennial favourite, along with his slim volumes of Faerie Verse, and many great masterpieces of oil and canvas, bronze and marble have stemmed from brilliant – and mad – artists under his patronage.

Nonetheless, it took three generations of stiffly upright behaviour from the Montclair family to rid themselves of the phantasmal stain the libertine Duke left on their name; their opponents are still quick, however, to dredge up Aubrey’s legion of bastard children, his fantastic bacchanals, his habit of spending profligately, pointing to the gilding of Montclair Palace’s roof tiles and spires at a time when the poor of the capital were starving for lack of coin and grain. The current Duke Coldharbour deals with this by treating it as a joke, although one in rather poor taste, as it has had a rather odd side-effect on the politics of power.

Traditionally, anyone with at least a grandparent as a Montclair could lay claim to the name, and while Aubrey’s Legion (as the generation is known to the family) put a great strain on their fortunes at the beginning, it has paid off handsomely in the long run; individuals bearing Montclair purple are found at the highest echelons in almost every place – the army, the Navy (the Montclairs have long been associated with the sea, thanks to their dominion over Coldharbour), the Ministries and Secretariats that run the Kingdoms, and all know the debt their ancestors owed the family that took them in and raised them as their own when they could have been cast by the wayside as bastards.

In the more recent past, canny House Montclair saw which way the wind was blowing – ie, due Lionwards – and treated with the vengeful king to keep their lands, titles and influence in exchange for their aid.

Montclair assassins stole into the rooms and estates of key members of Seygas’ forces and eliminated them, leaving the capital’s defences in disarray and the court in confusion, allowing the Lion’s army to sweep into the White City itself.

Reputation: Larsus Montclair has a reputation for being a bit of a cold fish – icy and somewhat standoffish. Then again, people’s perceptions may simply be coloured by the fact that he and his are still branded as turncoats – they were some of the few of the old Seygan high nobility who sailed through the fall of the Godkings relatively unscathed, distrusted by the Hundred Kingdoms and despised by the broken remnants of those who had remained loyal to the Asephar. Larsus cares little for that impression – House Montclair has survived, and thrived, and that is all that matters to him. He is also known to be an exceptional poisoner. It is believed he is asexual, or at the least some form of deviant. He is also possibly deformed in some way as he never appears in public without a delicate cane to help him walk. His glare is proverbial in its ferocity.