Asaniefa (House)

Asaniefa House Seal

At a Glance

• Colors: green and electrum
• Sign/beast: centicore
• Capital:
• Population: was 7,784 prior to dispersal. Those tenants have mostly been absorbed by the neighboring provinces (mostly Galare).
• Political Allegiance: Isolationist

Geography

Asaniefa Map

The last living chimera and basilisks were found in Asaniefa's province. "Spring came late to Asaniefa in the north, and visiting Ontine for the winter courts had granted her welcome respite from the harsher weather."

Some wheat is grown in Asaniefa, but only enough for its people, and none for tithing. They tithe other crops. As a province, "their rocky coast had only a single cove suitable for a harbor."

Silin Manse

"Asaniefa’s viridian carpets and creamy marble walls, the bronze busts and the fresh flower arrangements." The manse is 'well inland' and offers "hunting lodges and fine horses and the promise of ships at the coast" as entertainment for males.

People and Society

Founders

Asaniefa Family Tree

The only House to be founded by women of separate families, Melandra Silin and Tiriana Nila. Tiriana never married, however; her brother Harathiel Nila was the one who continued their family name in a rare marriage where the male was deemed more powerful than the female who wanted him. Melandra married Alassan, who took her name, and they had nine children (!), seven female and two male, which cemented Silin as Asaniefa's powerbrokers. Even when Silin hasn't been the formal head of Asaniefa, their relations have been hip-deep in the politics of the House.

• Melandra and Alassan Silin had (in order): Gilanatha(f), Nushaelathil(f), Halueth (m), Iriamiel (f), Mirthanassa (f), Laeratha (f), Ethaniel (f), Nerelissa (f) and Lirenith (m).
• Harathiel and Ailiara Silin had (in order): Naranthan (m), Coralan (m), and Onaeron (m)

There is some intermarriage between these two women's families; Coralan started Osin with Nushaelathil; and Iriamiel, the third daughter, married Onaeron Nila, the third son of Harathiel (a union that produced Surela Silin Asaniefa before Iriamiel's untimely death in childbed, rendering Surela an only child with a very jaundiced view of breeding).

On Melandra's side, Laeratha and Nerelissa went into the clergy; on Harathiel's, Naranthan went into the priesthood. All rose high in their respective hierarchies, which started a tradition of Asaniefa giving children to the church.

• Coralan's children: Adorissa (f), Eiliana (f), Faraleitha (f), Naevalor (m) (who began as Osin, but started Irys)
• Naevalor Irys married Lysarana Sili of House Deriline and had one girl and two boys. The girl is responsible for Thaniet (and Thaniet was the youngest of three children, all girls).

Families

Tanul centicore variant

Thavi centicore variant

• Ruling family: Silin
• Irys
• Nila
• Osin

There are two more minor families, Thavi and Tanul, which were created at the same time and given to loyal supporters of the Nila family. They hold the narrow western border that abutted Imthereli lands; the Thavi are on the souther border with 550 people, and the Thanul the northern border with 400 people. They were given matching crests, the centicore sejant (sitting, to symbolize their obedience to the ruling family of Asaniefa); the Thavi centicore is to dexter, sejant, and the Tanul centicore is to sinister, sejant erect.

History

Asaniefa is interesting that many of its families were created by males in the House who wanted to establish family names of their own. Sometimes this worked out well, as when Harathiel Nila's son Coralan started Osin, which would become the second most successful family in Asaniefa; sometimes it works out horribly, as when his son started Irys, and then drove it into the ground within a generation, impoverishing the family. Silin's fecundity guaranteed that it would end up the premier family in Asaniefa, something that Nila might have been resigned to had they not been overtaken by their own scion's creation; when Coralan offered to take over the management of the coastline from Nila (whose lands used to extend from central Asaniefa to the coast), it was assumed that it would remain a difficult proposition, particularly since it was hard to find the monsters amid the terrain. But Coralan waged a successful war against the monsters, and his management skills were so good that he made a going concern of what was assumed to be a uselessly rocky coast. He ended up taking over more and more of Nila until he'd pushed his parents' family into central Asaniefa.

Feelings were mixed about this; Harathiel, Coralan's father, was proud of him, as might be expected of the male of the pair. His mother was angry, since territory translated into power at court, where she spent most of her time.

Post-Coup

Asaniefa was disbanded after the coup, and the nobles that weren't killed were demoted to the tenantry and scattered into other Houses' lands. "Scattering Asaniefa shocked the remaining Houses antagonistic to Liolesa’s aims into wary retreat, but did not dissuade them from their views. Hirianthial thought that a few decades would accustom them sufficiently to the conveniences of the Alliance to prevent any uprising as obvious as the one Surela had spearheaded, but Liolesa remained unconvinced."

Fassiana offered the Asaniefa nobles settled in Galare the choice of joining the family to work toward Liolesa's aims or to join the tenants, and twenty took her up on it. “Asaniefa’s noble families numbered some three hundred fifty people,” Lili said. “Of those, Galare absorbed all but fifty. Mathanith is our sole remaining ally and they are far less populous than we are. My mother offered to see to the settling of Asaniefa amid all the Galare families since she heads the northern branch… the Empress, as the head of the western, cannot afford to put her hand on it, as you can imagine.”

Later, Lisinthir makes the case for folding the tenant villages that remained in Asaniefa under Imthereli's flag (with the land split between Imthereli and Laisrathera to give Liolesa's enemies more than one target for their ire). "He'd wanted those towns for Imthereli since Sediryl’s visits had acquainted him with them. How could he not respond to the obstinacy that had inspired them to refuse to be deprived of their homes because of the acts of nobles they couldn’t control? Those Eldritch belonged to his future, the one he wanted to forge with his House. He wanted to reward their spirit, and see what they would do if he gave them a path out of meaninglessness."

Asaniefa Eldritch

Physiognomy

Asaniefa is known for its unusually pure green eyes (which were probably engineered initially by the first settlers, because green eyes are rare in humans too, at only 2% of the population). At some point I said Kirthander had Asaniefa's "green eyes" (find ref).

There are several Asaniefa green strains, from rarest to most common

• warrior's green: an unusually dark green (for Eldritch) flecked with red; rarest
• first blush green: very light, clear green with pinkish bits
• seafarer green: a blueish-green, like tropical water
• starsight green: a warm deep green with yellowish tones like moldavite

In general, any green bright enough to register as green is called 'Asaniefa green' or 'Asaniefa eyes' by outsiders. While those eyes do appear in other Houses, it's usually a sport. (Or suspicious.)

Widow's peaks are also common in Asaniefa, and small hands and feet.

Asaniefa Residents

Irys Characters

Mara Characters

Osin Characters

Silin Characters

Aelanora Silin Asaniefa

Kirthander Nanech Imthereli

Naethanian Silin Asaniefa

Othise Mara

Surela Silin Asaniefa

Thaniet Irys Asaniefa