Lorelei family

House Lorelei
Fan art of the Lorelei children approaching Castle Lorelei, by Heather Hood.
Basic Information
Type	Family
Base	Castle Lorelei, Cyrengreen Forest
Leaders	Haldur Lorelei
Favored deity	Sehanine, the Moonweaver
History
Formed	~ 535 PD
Membership
Races	Human Half-drow (only the lord)
Notable members	Aurra Lorelei Lucius Lorelei Portia Lorelei Lawrence Lorelei Benicio Lorelei
Relationships
Allegiances	Dwendalian Empire

House Lorelei is a noble family of the Dwendalian Empire. Secretly, the members of this lineage bear the curse of werewolf lycanthropy.

History

The Lorelei bloodline stretches back about three centuries, and rose to prominence during the Marrow War between the Dwendalian Empire and the Julous Dominion. The Loreleis proved their worth in that conflict and were gifted with a stretch of land in the Cyrengreen Forest upon which Castle Lorelei was built.

Fan art of Alfarr and Grenya Lorelei, the first werewolves of the family, by Micaerys.

Alfarr Lorelei was the first family member to become a lycanthrope, passing this trait down through the generations. Early on, the family considered lycanthropy a curse, but gradually younger generations saw it as a gift to be wielded responsibly. They created a ritual known as "The Taming" to control the inner beast and used it to help the family. Whilst there had been dark periods in the family history and members who sought to use their power for evil, the Lorelei family always returned to the good and righteous in the end.

At some point in their recent history, Geneviève Lorelei became the heir of the family. She was wild and unbridled, spurning the Taming and instead embracing the animal inside which placed her at odds with her family. Her nature brought her into a whirlwind romance with a drow from Xhorhas, a man the family did not approve of. They had one son - Haldur Lorelei - out of wedlock.

When Haldur was still very young, Lady Geneviève "was murdered not far from Castle Lorelei's grounds and found in a wolven heap." Her lover was taken back to Xhorhas, where he was punished and reintegrated in their society, leaving the young Lord Lorelei abandoned. However, Geneviève's younger sister, Katerine, took the child under her wing, and became his regent, raising him to be a good man who eventually married a woman named Rosalind, who gave him five children. Six years after the birth of their first-born, Lord and Lady Lorelei had Haldur's drow father as a guest in the castle for at least a portion of the summer, although the dark elf spent part of that time disguised.

After Rosalind died after giving birth to the twins Lawrence and Benicio, Lord Haldur, now a widow, raised his children with Aunt Katerine's help, and although the two eldest, Aurra and Lucius, were wild and didn't accept all the family traditions (leaving Portia, the middle child, as heir), the five Lorelei siblings maintained respect for their father, answering his call when he summoned them to Castle Lorelei in 835 PD.

By then the conflict between the Dwendalian Empire and the Kryn Dynasty had already started, and House Lorelei suffered an attack: Haldur's drow father returned seeking revenge for the death of his lover. The Xhorhasian attacked Castle Lorelei with a small army of undead, killing everyone in the keep, including Hal's aunt, Katerine, and mutilating Lord Lorelei (cutting his hand) before taking him to the mausoleum as captive, waiting there for his grandchildren to arrihe. Once in place, the drow reanimated his loved one's remains using necromancy and turned Lady Geneviève Lorelei's corpse into a dark undead entity, the Iron Woe. Eventually the five Lorelei siblings arrived to their ancestral home and discovered what happened; they defeated three criminals from Deastok who had been waiting for them (although due to the magic released in that battle some of the corpses of deceased Loreleis ran away to the Cyrengreen Forest as undead) and they finally went to confront their father's captor (not knowing he was their grandfather). In their battle Lord Lorelei nearly died but was healed by Aurra. The siblings managed to destroy the Iron Woe, and they killed the Kryn soldier as he was trying to flee.

Fan art of the Lorelei siblings, by oliviahintz.

After all that chaos Lord Lorelei finally got the chance to explain the whole situation and the truth behind his own mother's death to his children, as well as the identity of the drow they had just killed, telling them to learn from such a dark incident in their family history, asking them to help him seal the tomb again in the coming weeks, and expressing how much he loved his children. Those intense events left House Lorelei weakened, but also reunited the five Lorelei siblings for the first time in years, with the future of their family before them.

Known members

• Alfarr Lorelei: First Lorelei to become a lycanthrope.
  • Grenya Lorelei: Daughter of Alfarr, and first Lorelei to be born as a lycanthrope.
    • At least two sons: They were born as werewolves, just like their mother.
• Unnamed Lorelei relatives: Brothers or cousins of Geneviève's predecessor, they disapproved her behavior and buried her apart from the rest of the family.
• Katerine Lorelei: Younger sister to Genevieve, and referred to as 'Aunt Kat'.
• Geneviève Lorelei: Older sister to Katerine, mother of Haldur.
  • Haldur Lorelei: Father of the siblings.
    • Rosalind Lorelei: Haldur's late wife, mother of the siblings.
      • Aurra Lorelei: Haldur's former heir. She ran to the woods and became a druid.
      • Lucius Lorelei: A devout follower of Sehanine, he became a cleric, renouncing his claim in the succession.
      • Portia Lorelei: Haldur's heir presumptive. She is a blood hunter who mastered the Taming sooner than expected.
      • Lawrence Lorelei: Benicio's twin. He's a blood hunter and the most academic sibling.
      • Benicio Lorelei: Lawrence's twin. He's a blood hunter and the most impulsive sibling.

Family tree

Bold borders denote those with lycanthropy.

Alfarr

Grenya

Unknown generations

Unidentified drow man

Geneviève

Katerine

Haldur

Rosalind

Aurra

Lucius

Portia

Lawrence

Benicio

Trivia

Fan art of Vargr, the ancestral sword of the family, by Micaerys.

• The surname comes from the Old German words lureln (Rhine dialect for "murmuring") and the Celtic term ley (meaning "rock"). An interpretation of the full meaning could therefore be "murmuring rock". In German legend, Lorelei was a beautiful maiden who threw herself into the Rhine River in despair over a faithless lover, becoming a siren who now sits atop a treacherous rock singing to lure sailors to their doom.
  • This 132-metre-high (433 ft) steep slate rock is on the right bank of the German river, and it is subject of numerous legends and poems, being surounded by myths of different entities ranging from dwarves to lastly the siren, whose presence is supposed to explain the loud echo in the area and the high number of ship wrecks (of which there is evidence from the oldest records of the 10th century).
• Lord Lorelei owns a magical sword (+2 Longsword) named Vargr ("wolf" in Old Norse), meant to be eventually passed to the heir of the house.
• Green is their traditional color, and so is reflected in their clothing.
• All members of House Lorelei could be trained to be warriors, regardless of gender, and some of them were buried with their weapons and gear.
• The rule of succession in this family seems to be absolute cognatic primogeniture, since Aurra was the original heir and now, after she and Lucius renounced, Portia has that position, regardless of her gender.
• Before the Marrow War House Lorelei was among the prominent families living in Deastok.
• Although they are part of the Dwendalian nobility, they are not too supervised by the Empire, since both their lycanthropy condition and their worship to Sehanine (a non approved deity) are kept disregarded. The fact that the dangers of the forest keep most of the tax reapers away helps with this matter.
• The Cobalt Soul (or at the very least Archivist Zeenoth) seems to be aware of the Lorelei traditions to control their lycanthropy using blood hunter rituals, and that information is reflected in some of their documents.
• By the year 835 PD the Cyrengreen Forest is inhabited by different groups of lycanthropes, some embracing their curse and wishing to spread it, and others who try to contain their beast-like side; it's also the home of the Order of the Lycan. It is assumed that the Lorelei family is also part of the dynamics of those groups, since part of their younger generation is formed by blood hunters, and their ideologies vary between the ones presented by other lycanthropes in the region.
• The Taming ceremony of the Claret Order of the Lycan and the Taming of the Lorelei family, who operate outside the Order, aren't necessarily the same. Mechanically, three of the Lorelei player characters are Order of the Lycan blood hunters, and the Taming is described as part of that subclass. Since blood hunters of that subclass can exist outside the Claret Orders, it's possible that House Lorelei acquired on their own (or through contact with hemocrafters) the knowledge to make their curse more bearable.
  • Since Alfarr Lorelei was a contemporary of Trence Orman (the discoverer of hemocraft) and both were on opposing sides of the Marrow War, it is quite possible that the First Wolf and his daughter Grenya did not have access to that magical discipline to dominate their lycanthropy, having to control their lupine side in another way. Therefore, if House Lorelei's Taming actively uses hemocraft, they probably acquired that knowledge at some point after Grenya's time as head of the family.
• During a ball in Jrusar in Campaign Three, Laudna presents herself to Mistress Orlana Seshadri as "Lorelei de Rolo".

References

Art: