House Arisan

Originally a group of dark-skinned elven exiles who resided in the forests of southern Duria, the Arisan elves were encountered by and allied with the early settlers of Neptag (now Neptaris). In return for leaving their forests east of the Krios river alone, the Arisan elves gave over a thousand human slaves that they had captured from local tribes to the settlers.

Despite a close alliance with Neptag during its first century, the alliance with the Arisan elves was threatened by the madness of the Neptaran King Kregimar of House Ikthian. Though initially popular, Kregimar tried to claim more and more of the Arisan Forest and established anti-elven policies, blaming them for the plagues and famine that hit Neptaris in the early decades of its second century. He even exiled his own brother, Pheremar, for taking an elven wife. It is rumored, was preparing an army to take the forest by force when he died expectantly in [112|112 NC]]. After Kregimar's death, the line of Ikthios came to an abrupt end as the male successors either died or became crippled and unable to rule. Within seven years, the only clear heir to the throne of Neptag was the exiled Pheremar's infant half-elven son, Orris of House Ikthian, who had been living with his mother in the Arisan Forest. Orris was brought back to Neptag and placed under the regency of Joandar, then Rector of the House of the Quill in 120 NC.

In 124 NC, the dwarves of the Kingdom of Derlos (from beneath what is now known as the Cambrecian Mountains) came to the Arisan elves for aid fighting orcs who had ravaged their ancient underground homes. In what would come to be known as The War of the Dark Rider, the Arisan elves (and eventually the humans of Neptag) allied with the dwarves to defeat the orcs and their dark warlord, but at the cost of a great many elven lives.

When the Kamaros betrayed and subjugated Neptag in 170 NC, young King Orris secretly met with the Arisan elves to organize a rebellion against the Kamaran King, Irgalach. Again taking heavy losses in the fighting, the Arisan elves nevertheless were instrumental in securing Neptag's independence. After the war, many elves chose to settle in Neptag itself. By 206 NC the remaining Arisan elves requested permanent residence in Neptag and King Orris formally established them as House Arisan. To commemorate the melding of these two peoples, he also renamed the town Neptaris. The decision was extremely controversial in Neptaris and a subsequent uprising lead to the resignation of King Orris and the end of House Ikthian as the first royal house of Neptaris.

In 328 NC, a young half-elf of House Arisan named Feldan Foxglove was appointed Neptarch (the title of Neptaris' rulers after the resignation of King Orris). Despite being a fairly inoffensive ruler, Foxglove and much of House Arisan were eventually forced into exile by a group of pro-human nobles known as the Rebel Knights in 348 NC. Almost four decades later, Feldan Foxglove returned to Neptaris as the Green Knight and killed the ruling Neptarch, Paenoth of House Rimman. Crowned Neptarch for a second time, Foxglove had become hardened by his treatment at the hands of Neptaris' nobility and established a shadowy secret police force known as the Warders. The Warders were given the right to execute any who dissented against the Crown as traitors to Neptaris and became feared across the growing city.

The central opposition to this policy was brought by the Archbishop Mandrake of Cthos, himself a member of House Arisan and a full blooded elf who had migrated to Neptaris a century and a half before. In 394 NC, the conflict reached its peak when five of Foxglove's Warders defeated the Archbishop's guards and attempted to execute the Archbishop himself. The Archbishop, powerful in his own right, defeated his would-be assassins. Despite this very public assassination attempt, the Archbishop appeared to go about his duties as if nothing would happen. It is said that Foxglove finally went mad waiting for the Archbishop's response.

Instead of overt war, the Archbishop secretly formed his own group of enforcers called the Guardians of the Scythe in 402 NC, composed of a grim but loyal sect of Cthonians known as the Makatielites. Where Foxglove's Warders had strong support from the burgeoning merchant class in Neptaris, the Guardians instead began to provide succor to the city's poor and slave population. Once established, the Guardians fought a shadow war with the Warders for some five decades, with the people of Neptaris caught in the middle of the conflict and House Arisan torn apart by the two factions within.

In 460 NC, the Neptarch Feldan finally reached his breaking point and tried to have Mandrake impeached as Archbishop of Neptaris. When that failed, Foxglove took matters into his own hands and declared Mandrake deposed, replacing him as Archbishop with a supporter and exiling him from the city. Mandrake eventually made it to the island of Marosh, even then a haven for pirates and established a church-in-exile there, converting the local populace. As Neptarch Feldan's policies against priests in Neptaris became more and more authoritarian, priests of other religions flocked to Marosh to join Mandrake. Having finally gained enough support, Mandrake returned to Neptaris in 482 NC and beseiged the city for six months before the people finally revolted against their Neptarch. It is said that Feldan Foxglove and his puppet Archbishop had to flee through the recently-completed sewers of the city with nothing more than the clothes on their backs.

Mandrake was again elected Archbishop, but refused to name a successor to Neptarch Feldan. Assuming rulership of the city himself, he replaced many secular government officials with ecumenicals, many of whom were priests of Cthos. In 509 NC the noble houses (including House Arisan) issued the Petition of Natural Law supporting the return of secular rulership to the city. The heads of the houses were executed as heretics, with the leader of House Arisan supposedly hung in a gibbet inside the Archbishop's privy to die a slow and excruciating death.

The city erupted in revolt, though none of the Noble Houses could manage to unify the people under one banner (in part, it is presumed, because of the machinations of the Archbishop's Guardians). Finally, in 516 NC, the crowds abruptly unified and marched on Castle Zepharos, demanding the surrender and abdication of the Archbishop. The Archbishop, hoping to trap the noble who had unified the people so rapidly, agreed to meet with a representative of the rabble. The representative marched into the trap with only two guards, threw aside his cloak to reveal his green-tinted armor and attacked the Archbishop. Feldan Foxglove took the Archbishop's arm in the ensuing battle, but the Archbishop escaped, swearing never to return to Neptaris.

Feldan Foxglove, the Twice-Shamed, was crowned Neptarch of Neptaris for a third and final time. Though he initially re-established his Warders to hunt down and kill the remnants of the Archbishop's guardians, his third reign was considerably more fair and just than his second. He even disbanded the Warders in 552 NC. Neptaris prospered and healed the wounds of the previous two centuries of conflict. Suddenly in 560 NC the Neptarch Feldan died at his dinner table. A piece of mandrake root was found in his wine.

Feldan was succeeded by a series of Neptarchs over the next century. When rulership of Neptaris passed to Xaphar of House Rimman as Regent over an infant Neptarch, Xaphar initiated a war of conquest against the Kamarans. While observing a battle one day in 642 NC, Xaphar and his loyal Archbishop were killed in a hail of stones from the sky, with only the infant Neptarch surviving. As Mandrake of Cthos surveyed his handiwork, he realized that the infant Neptarch had somehow survived the magical assault. Mandrake ran him through, unknowingly killing the last true Neptarch of Neptaris. Expecting a heroes' welcome in Neptaris, Mandrake instead found himself neck-deep in the bickering of the Neptaran nobles over who should succeed to the throne. Mandrake left the city in disgust for a final time, choosing instead to become a hermit in the Arisan Forest (now known as Darkwood).

The Great Civil War of Neptaris followed, as various noble houses fought one another for the Neptarch's throne. In 664 NC, after twenty years of fighting, House Arisan decided to withdraw from the conflict altogether and return to the Arisan Forest to make a life for themselves there. Caridius of House Rimman, believing the House to be fleeing only so it could prepare its forces, departed the city in pursuit of the migrating House Arisan. He eventually found them and his men attacked, killing each member of the House in what would become known as the Massacre of the Wintering Hill. The Wintering Hill, located some ten miles northeast of the city, became muddy with the blood of the innocents who died that day; even still the hill is devoid of life and many suggest that it is haunted by those who were slaughtered.

Though there is certainly some elven blood still in the veins of Neptaran's nobility, House Arisan was completely wiped out. It would be a millennia and a half before elves came to Neptaris again, this time as refugees from the destruction of the Webwood after the Mage War.