[RB 1815] Noble Houses & Clans

**Barry Goldwater** · August 08, 2012, 10:34 PM

I'll be posting faction information for the various Great Houses & Clans of RB 1815 here. DON'T POST HERE, thank you.

**Barry Goldwater** · August 08, 2012, 10:37 PM

Earldom of Oriel

'Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under 't.'
-Lady Macbeth, Macbeth Act 1, Scene 5

The newest addition to the Anglo-Irish nobility of Ireland, the Earldom of Oriel was founded in 1808 as an appanage for Alexis Stuart, youngest son of the late John Charles Stuart, Duke of York (1747-1813) and a member of the Yorkist House of Stuart, a junior branch of the ruling House of Stuart claiming descent from Charles I's younger son James, 1st Duke of York. His father was responsible for a number of disastrous attempts at usurping the Crown from his cousin, Emperor Edward of Britannia (1751-present, ruled 1788-present), and while his life was consistently saved thanks to his familial connections, his estates and fortune definitely wasn't; by 1808, all that was left of the Yorkist Stuarts' Irish possessions was the city of Drogheda, the rest of County Louth and County Monaghan.

Alexis turned all of that around at breakneck speed. In 1810, with the assistance of Scotsmen Alistair Graham and William De Lochrig, he was able to break a betrothal to the notoriously hideous Irish princess Siobhan O'Neill, youngest child & only daughter of King Hugh 'Dubh' ('Black') of Ulster, in favor of a match with his true love, French aristocrat Camille Desmoulins. The marriage brought more than genuine bliss to the young Lord Stuart - it brought him a competent brother-in-law who quickly became one of his top lieutenants, and opened the door for a wave of French 'emigres' (mostly minor nobility without titles or great fortunes of their own) who provided the cream of his armies.

Following his service in the War of 1812, in which he and his mixed regiment of Anglo-Irish Cavaliers and French emigres performed well on the battlefields of Canada, Oriel returned home a decorated hero and one with actual military experience. He set out to construct a proper army for his wars with the neighboring O'Farrell Kings of Mide, establishing a regular schedule for the training of his levies, outfitting them with uniforms his wife designed and which he paid for, personally frequenting their taverns and parading in the streets of their cities to shore up their morale and at least make it look like he cared about them, and constructing foundries in Drogheda to churn out weapons and ammunition for them, breaking his reliance on imported weapons.

Moreover, he began hiring mercenaries in large quantities, picking out troops with a reputation for effectiveness - Polish uhlans, German riflemen, Italian artillery, and the like - while making sure his men could conform to British norms (translating to being able to learn at least basic English, being officially Catholic, and not misbehaving without his permission); many are only in his war for the money, but there is also a large number of landless petty aristocrats (mostly Frenchmen, Poles and Germans) who have been bought off with promises of land, not coin, and who are set to be granted the estates of the Irishmen they defeat. That he is able to actually import foreign mercenaries to fight in wars right under the nose of the Emperor, who has also granted these mercenaries the lands and titles of British subjects (the Irishmen he has defeated to date) at his request, has raised suspicions among some Irishmen that either Emperor Edward has become senile or otherwise is actively colluding with the young Earl...

Alexis has already jumped from 'young third-rate fop whose pathetic lands nobody cares about' to 'dangerous villain' when, in a matter of one year, he did what the Geraldines and the Butlers could not over four hundred and destroyed the O'Farrell clan ruling the rest of Meath, grabbing most of their eastern territories (and tripling the size of his domain in the process) while ceding a greater part of their western lands to his allies of convenience, the Butlers of Ormond. Many of the Irish clans beneath the O'Farrells have been uprooted and exiled to Connacht, Thomond or Ulster (if they haven't been outright destroyed), allowing Oriel to secure the loyalty of his more highborn mercenaries by dividing up his new conquests amongst them. He has since made forays against both the O'Neills and MacDonalds of Ulster, and having reconciled with the latter over Christmas of 1814, is marching to surprise the O'Neills at what was supposed to be a gentlemanly final battle between MacDonald and O'Neill. However, while the old Earl of Ulster believes he will be easily satisfied with a few paltry scraps of Tyrone and Fermanagh, Oriel's designs for Ulster far exceed even his wildest dreams...

Characters

Alexis Stuart, 1st Earl of Oriel

Age: 23 (born May 14th 1792)
Married? Yes (to Camille Stuart, nee Desmoulins)

Religion: Catholic

Personal equipment:
'Thorn' (Unique Rapier - 1d16 damage, always Poisoned with Terrible Poison)
Saber
2x Pistols
2x Knives (always Poisoned with Terrible Poison)
Metal Helmet
Metal Cuirass
'Hector' (Unique Thoroughbred horse - 1d16 trample damage)

Personality: Sly, conniving and ambitious, the Earl of Oriel takes after his grandfather Henry much more so than his late bumbling father, something he is quite proud of. He maintains a friendly, personable facade in public gatherings and regularly visits his subjects in their pubs and even occasionally their homes, making lavish shows of generosity and offering paying work at his foundries to even the lowest of his subjects, while being extra careful to hide his true nature from all but his closest friends and associates. He can display a ruthless and vindictive streak, however - besides his ruthless purge of the native Gaelic nobility of Meath in favor of emigrant aristocratic mercenaries from as far as Poland and Italy, save those few whose loyalty he could absolutely assure himself of, when one of said 'loyal' Gaelic nobles attempted to betray him he proceeded to have their castle burnt down and both the man and his entire family (save the children, who he packed off to Australia instead as a show of mercy) eaten alive by his hounds, both to 'properly' punish them and to hide the evidence. All in all, an ambitious, manipulative and unscrupulous schemer who makes good use of his charisma and who has very big plans, albeit one who still lavishly rewards loyalty and friendship, who has depths even he won't stoop to, and who prefers to let others get their hands dirty in his place.

Biography: Born on May 14th 1792 to John Stuart, 5th Duke of York and Albany and Bess Stuart. Named after his father's only son with his first wife Gabrielle de Polastron, Alexis was spoiled a fair bit by his parents as a child and was given his own estates much later than his older siblings, leading his eldest brother (by far the most neglected of the three sons of York) to resent him somewhat. He was given his father's Irish estates to manage - which he privately resents, as these estates are by far the smallest and poorest of his father's lands - and made Earl of Oriel at age 14. Days after first setting foot in Milmount Castle, Oriel began to dream of an Ireland united under his silk-gloved fist, and following his father's death in 1813 he divorced himself from proceedings on Britannia proper so as to properly focus on his Irish schemes.

To date, Oriel has earned himself a powerful ally in his lady wife, the French aristocrat Camille Desmoulins, and her brother-in-law Charles, who has become his top enforcer. He has made himself out to be a major player in Irish politics with his destruction of the O'Farrell Clan in one year, to the amazement of his fellow Anglo-Irish lords and the horror of the native Gaels. Most recently, he has entered a secret alliance with his sometime rival, the elderly and increasingly demented Earl of Ulster, to stomp out the O'Neills - little does the old man know, his designs on Ulster are far greater than just a few slices of Tyrone and Fermanagh. Still, the faster the White Rose grows, the faster his enemies will notice him and the more they will consider putting him down...

Camille Desmoulins, Countess of Oriel

Age: 23 (born May 17th 1792)
Married? Yes (to Alexis Stuart)

Religion: Catholic

Personal equipment:
'Noel' (Unique Rifle - 1/2 chance of hitting targets)
2x Knives (always Poisoned with Terrible Poison)
'Judith' (Unique Thoroughbred horse - 1d16 trample damage)

Personality: Much like her husband, Lady Stuart carefully masks a ruthless streak beneath her angelic beauty and great public displays of charity and affection towards her subjects. She frequents local markets, buying local goods over imported luxuries, donates generously to the Church and often also buys bread for the poor, and has patronized many Irish artists and musicians; at home, she plays the dutiful, gentle wife, and many Irish women still weep whenever they remember it was she who stole the dashing Alexis's heart - how could they compete with such a paragon of virtue? Needless to say, her opponents are surprised when they realize that poison in their stew was in fact paid for, sent by and possibly even directly put in their food by this doe-eyed, ever-smiling cherubic beauty, though none have lived long enough to tell anyone else of her true nature.

Biography: Born on May 17th 1792 as the middle child and only daughter in a family of minor nobles in Picardy, Desmoulins grew up in the opulent, decadent French court, with the danger of being married off to men many years her senior like a political bargaining chip constantly hanging overhead; she once had to break a betrothal to the Duc de Guise, a man 33 years older than her, by threatening to disfigure herself. In these lonely years, her only constant companion was her younger brother Charles, who (not standing to inherit much himself, being the youngest child in their family) shared in her isolation and neglect.

That all changed when she first met Alexis Stuart, youngest child of the Duke of York, at her thirteenth birthday. While the two did not get along at all at first - this first meeting concluded in the future Earl mocking her teeth and her retaliating by tossing a cake at his face - they developed an appreciation for each other's intelligence and malevolent streaks (though at the time, their 'evil genius' was mostly restricted to pranking their house staff) over time, and by 1810 had developed genuine affection for each other. Oriel successfully recruited two Scotsmen, Alistair Graham and William de Lochrig, into breaking his betrothal to the Princess of Ulster in her favor at that year's chaotic Imperial Ball (best remembered for its MacDonald-Campbell brawl), and the two married in a lavish ceremony days before Oriel went to fight in the War of 1812.

Lady Stuart now operates as one half of the brains behind her husband's operations, the other half being Oriel himself. She prefers to poison her enemies, often bribing or blackmailing her opponents' servants into giving them arsenic or magnesium, or otherwise sending them such lovely gifts as poisonous mushrooms, and is responsible for killing off a third of Clan O'Farrell through such methods. Still, as none of her victims live to tell the tale and she has always been able to pin the blame on convenient illnesses or patsies, Lady Stuart has managed to maintain a reputation as no more than the Earl of Oriel's lovely, doting wife (which, to be fair to her, is actually true).

Charles Desmoulins, Viscount of Westmeath

Age: 21 (born February 19th 1794)
Married? Yes (to Sarah Desmoulins, nee Preston)

Religion: Catholic

Personal equipment:
'Miséricorde' (Unique Saber - 1d12 damage)
2x Pistols
2x Knives
Metal Helmet
Metal Cuirass
'William' (Unique Thoroughbred horse - 1d16 trample damage)

Personality: Genuinely amiable and cheerful most of the time, Desmoulins is a break from his deceitful sister and brother-in-law. He does not lie except when he must to protect his family, is fully devoted to said family, and is honestly pleasant to peasant and lord alike, though he can be hot-tempered and react badly to offenses he thinks are deliberate. Unfortunately, he can be willfully blind to his brother-in-law's and sister's atrocities owing exactly to his overbearing devotion to them.

Biography: The last and least son in the Desmoulins family, Charles shared his sister's isolation and neglect at the hands of their parents, who fawned over their oldest sibling Joseph. Unlike his sister however, Charles did not harbor resentment towards his older brother, and indeed strongly devoted himself to the family from an early age; wishing to bring honor to the Desmoulins name and earn the respect of his father was actually what drove him into a military career, in which he worked so tirelessly that he ended up collapsing from overexhaustion in the middle of a parade and received an honorable discharge (actually a favor to his mother from his superior officer, both of whom were concerned he would work himself to death). Predictably, instead of taking this as a break, Desmoulins actually took this extremely badly, and considered himself a failure...

...until his sister's marriage to the Earl of Oriel allowed him to find a new avenue for bringing prestige to the Desmoulins name. He dedicated himself to his brother-in-law's cause, fighting at his side against Puritans abroad and Irishmen at home with the same zeal and proving to be a reasonably competent (if aggressive and somewhat reckless) commander of men, and generally considered Oriel a pleasant and trustworthy companion. In particular, he is thankful for Oriel's work in getting him named Viscount of Westmeath following the fall of the O'Farrells, and while Oriel did ask him to marry a local Anglo-Irish noblewoman to strengthen his claim to the title, the Earl gracefully permitted him to pick his match for himself; he eventually settled on Sarah Preston, a younger daughter of the Viscount of Tara, forgoing better political connections in favor of love. After such a display of brotherly kindness, his idolization of Oriel as a perfect leader became understandable even to his enemies.

However, his loyalty and affection for his family has its dark side - Desmoulins is all too content to dismiss all those rumors about his brother-in-law being a ruthless manipulator and conqueror and his beloved sister a similarly unscrupulous poisoner and intriguer as slander, and remains willfully blind to his family's excesses, always somehow rationalizing them in his head and dismissing them.

Vassals

Military

Infantry

Oriel Rural Levy

Oriel Urban Levy

Browncoats

Scots Guard

Cavalry

Oriel Cavaliers

Eclaireurs-dragons

Polish Uhlans

Emigre Chevaliers

Artillery

**Barry Goldwater** · August 09, 2012, 03:03 PM

Duchy of Desmond

'... to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee. '
-Captain Ahab, Moby Dick

The Geraldines are the oldest of the Great Houses in Ireland, dating back to the coming of the Cambro-Norman lord Maurice FitzGerald and his sons, Gerald and Thomas, in the first English invasion of Ireland, nearly 700 years ago. The Geraldines split up shortly after their progenitor's death; the elder Gerald received the greater part of Maurice's lands in Offaly and Leinster, while Thomas was stuck with his conquests in Desmond. It is from Thomas that the Waterford Geraldines claim descent.

Despite being the junior branch of the dynasty, the Waterford Geraldines have arguably eclipsed their cousins in Leinster. Driven by an ambition to outdo the senior Wexford Geraldines, the first few Barons and Earls of Desmond fought hard against the neighboring O'Briens and McCarthys, eventually carving out a considerable estate for themselves that spanned most of southern Ireland, stretching from the harbor of Waterford to Kenmare in Iveragh. The senior Geraldines in Wexford never took kindly to being overshadowed by the junior branch of the family however, while their junior cousins in Waterford have no patience for men they consider entitled, lazy snobs whose own sloth caused them to be overtaken by their harder-working younger relatives. Even today the two branches of the House of FitzGerald are not on speaking terms, though it could have been worse - they were openly at war with each other more than once, and indeed Geraldine was slaying Geraldine as late as the mid-18th century.

The Geraldines in general, as the oldest Irish Great House with roots dating back to the first English invasion in 1169, have a reputation among the Anglo-Irish as wise, honorable elder-mentor types, steeped in proud tradition and always fighting chivalrously. To the Irish, they are seen as the exact opposite, the embodiments of all that is wrong with their Anglo-Irish overlords; cruel and greedy foreign overlords who treat their Anglo-Irish equals with honor and respect but have none for the people they govern, and who callously send levied Irishmen to their deaths in wars that have nothing to do with them on the grounds that their lives count for less than an Englishman's. Of course, the truth usually lies between these two extremes, and the Geraldines have produced as many good and bad eggs as the rest of the Irish houses through the near-seven centuries of their existence.

Characters

Thomas FitzGerald, 6th Duke of Desmond

Age: 61 (born 21 July 1756)
Married? No (widowed)

Religion: Catholic

Personal equipment:
'Fury' (Unique Hammer - 1d24 damage)
Saber
2x Pistols
2x Knives
Metal Helmet
Metal Cuirass
'Ajax' (Unique Thoroughbred horse - 1d16 trample damage)

Personality: Insanely petty and spiteful, the Duke of Desmond takes every little slight personally and treats even being bumped into like a mortal insult directed at his mother. He will go to obscene lengths to get back at others for even minor infractions, real and imagined, and has no problems with utterly destroying people's lives for the smallest of failures under his watch - or, at times, disadvantaging himself in the long run just to get back at his enemies, to the point of destroying precious objects (say, entire villages and their populations) just so his rivals can't have them. He has a particular loathing for the McCarthys of Desmond, holding them responsible for ambushing and killing his wife and her entire entourage at the border between their domains, and even now he is rumored to skin alive any McCarthy unfortunate enough to fall into his hands; in turn, the McCarthys in particular like to say that if it came to a choice between them or the Devil, he'd gladly sell his soul to the latter just to destroy the former. Suffice to say, he in no way fits the Geraldine stereotype of 'wise, venerable elder-mentor'.

Biography: Born on 21 July 1756, Thomas was the only child of the 5th Duke and his wife, who died giving birth to him. He lost his father at the age of five, the older FitzGerald having taken an axe to the face in a battle with the McCarthys, and thus reserved a special hatred for his clan within his already-insanely spiteful self. His hatred was only deepened after his beloved wife Abigail was killed while traveling, unarmed, to Cork, just to negotiate a peace treaty between the two houses; at one point, he was rumored to have flayed alive the daughter of the past McCarthy King of Desmond and to have sent pieces of her skin back to her father, explaining the man's sudden death by suicide.

Old age and the ongoing war with the McCarthys has done the man no favors, and indeed if anything it has made him increasingly irrational, paranoid, short-tempered (he once came within inches of having a man executed for being two minutes late to a war conference), and pointlessly vindictive (as if that were possible). No McCarthy who falls into his hands is safe from the gallows of Waterford and/or the flaying knives in its dungeons, as the very same Cormac McCarthy captured by Charles Collins found to his misfortune, and the old man is beginning to suspect McCarthy influence as far as the Emperor's court just because Emperor Edward sent him a strongly-worded letter reprimanding him (quite sensibly at that) for his atrocities in 1814. If there is one thing he absolutely cannot stand since his sixtieth birthday however, it is anybody criticizing his insane hatred towards the McCarthys, an offense for which he beat his own son into unconsciousness.

Thomas is also directly responsible for worsening the conduct of the war with the McCarthys, sending in Geraldine forces (so-called 'infernal columns') with explicit orders to avoid combat but instead focus on razing Irish villages and slaughtering their inhabitants in a bid to break McCarthy morale, when all this has accomplished was the exact opposite. His obsessive hatred for the McCarthys is only growing stronger with the passage of time, and even his own family likes him less and less with each passing day.

Richard FitzGerald, Viscount Limerick

Age: 26 (born May 13 1789)
Married? Yes (to Elizabeth FitzGerald, of the FitzGeralds of Kerry)

Religion: Catholic

Personal equipment:
'Serpent' (Unique Saber - 1d14 damage)
Saber
2x Pistols
2x Knives
Metal Helmet
Metal Cuirass
'Calliope' (Unique Thoroughbred horse - 1d16 trample damage)

Personality: While on the surface he appears pompous and confident, Lord Richard's true nature is that of a coward who is quick to hide behind his far more terrifying father when pushed hard enough. On top of that, he has a tendency to exaggerate his own problems and to whine and complain about frankly minor issues, a trait that seriously aggravates his peers - but absolutely drives his father in particular insane (or rather, more insane than he already is). He does seem to possess uncanny luck, however, displaying shocking competence under severe pressure (like say, when fighting for his life), and there may be more to him than meets the eye...

Biography: Born on May 13 1789, the only surviving son of the 6th Duke and his wife Abigail. Lord Richard was spoiled from an early age, leading him to think he can get away with anything, that he can have anything if he whines loud enough, and to show more than a little horror at even the slightest consequence for his actions. Needless to say, his father no longer considers him a fit heir to the Duchy and thinks that even the stupidest McCarthy could outsmart him, but his incessant whining, a few instances of competence (for example, his successful capture of a McCarthy border fort through a cunning plan that involved a sheep stampede), hatred of the McCarthys that rivals that of his old man, and the law of the land has kept him heir to Desmond in place of his rather more competent sister, for now.

Or rather, it used to. Though he despises the McCarthys for the brutal slaughter of his mother and her unarmed entourage, even he considers his father's obsessive loathing of the rival clan a bit too much, and if nothing else remains personally disgusted with his father's policy of butchering even McCarthy men who have laid down their arms out of blind hatred, to say nothing of his decision to employ 'infernal columns' to tear up the Cork countryside. The one time he vocally disagreed with his father on the old man's conduct of the war with the McCarthys, Lord Thomas beat him unconscious with his staff, and could have gone on to actually kill him if it were not for the timely intervention of his own guards. As much as he may personally detest Clan McCarthy, Richard can see that his father has become a danger to himself and all House FitzGerald, and may need to be put down for his own good...

Lady Joan FitzGerald

Age: 23 (born 20 September 1791)
Married? No

Religion: Catholic

Personal equipment:
'Beatrix' (Unique Pistol - 1/3 chance to hit)
'Matilda' (Unique Pistol - 1/3 chance to hit)
Rapier
'Claudia' (Unique Thoroughbred horse - 1d16 trample damage)

Personality: A confident and highly intelligent young woman, Lady Joan is a decidedly far more capable character than her whiny older brother Richard, and makes no secret of the fact. However, she can come across as arrogant and cocky, especially to her peers, and even worse she has at least inherited her father's spitefulness - she never has seemed capable of taking any offense, no matter how minor, lightly and will go out of her way to punish whoever she feels is responsible, contrary to whatever her instincts and reason may be telling her. She greatly resents the restrictions imposed on her for her gender, and considers herself the rightful heir to the Duchy of Desmond; needless to say, she doesn't get along with her brother.

Biography: Born 20 September 1791, Lady Joan is the only surviving daughter of the 6th Duke and his wife Abigail. Lady Joan received a fine education from an early age and displayed prodigal abilities by the age of seven, but the constant praise showered upon her by her parents got to her head as it did with her brother, making her overconfident in her abilities and look down on those she deems inferior, and a childhood rivalry with her brother Richard has developed into a thoroughly venomous relationship, which is in no way helped by Joan considering herself the more capable heir to the Geraldine titles and estates - and rubbing this in her brother's face at every opportunity. She hates the McCarthys almost as much as her father and brother do, having personally seen the remains of her mother left at the castle gates by a McCarthy messenger, and will readily admit that a desire to fight the clan is a driving force behind her attempts to be recognized as the heir to the Waterford Geraldines.

One of the few things she can readily agree with her brother on, however, is that their father's descent into true madness is not a good thing in the slightest. Both of them can see how his murderous rage is beginning to spill over from the McCarthys themselves to those he deems their sympathizers, and indeed he actually moved her to stand up for her brother for the first time in nearly 20 years when he battered the younger man into unconsciousness simply for disapproving of his brutality. Unlike her brother, who seeks only to correct their father's behavior however, Joan is looking to depose her demented father entirely and take the reins of Waterford for herself...

Vassals

Military

Infantry

Desmond Line Levy

Mercenary Fusiliers

Mercenary Riflemen

Desmond Headhunters

Cavalry

Desmond Cavaliers

Desmond Lancers

Desmond Hussars

Azure Knights

Artillery

**Barry Goldwater** · August 10, 2012, 02:41 PM

Duchy of Leinster

'O beware, my lord, of jealousy!
It is the green-eyed monster
Which doth mock the meat it feeds on...'
-Iago, Othello, Act 3 Scene 3

The Geraldines are the oldest of the Great Houses in Ireland, dating back to the coming of the Cambro-Norman lord Maurice FitzGerald and his sons, Gerald and Thomas, in the first English invasion of Ireland, nearly 700 years ago. The Geraldines split up shortly after their progenitor's death; the elder Gerald received the greater part of Maurice's lands in Offaly and Leinster, while Thomas was stuck with his conquests in Desmond. It is from Gerald that the Wexford Geraldines claim descent.

Despite being the senior branch of the dynasty, the Wexford Geraldines have actually been overshadowed by their cousins in Desmond. Despite initially enjoying a few highly capable and energetic rulers such as Gerald himself and his son, the Wexford Geraldines quickly fell into complacency, overrunning Leinster relatively quickly and being sheltered from the other Irish clans by the Butlers and their Waterford cousins, and as a result missed out on an opportunity to expand their rule. The senior Geraldines in Wexford never took kindly to being overshadowed by the junior branch of the family however, while their junior cousins in Waterford have no patience for men they consider entitled, lazy snobs whose own sloth caused them to be overtaken by their harder-working younger relatives. Even today the two branches of the House of FitzGerald are not on speaking terms, though it could have been worse - they were openly at war with each other more than once, and indeed Geraldine was slaying Geraldine as late as the mid-18th century.

The Geraldines in general, as the oldest Irish Great House with roots dating back to the first English invasion in 1169, have a reputation among the Anglo-Irish as wise, honorable elder-mentor types, steeped in proud tradition and always fighting chivalrously. To the Irish, they are seen as the exact opposite, the embodiments of all that is wrong with their Anglo-Irish overlords; cruel and greedy foreign overlords who treat their Anglo-Irish equals with honor and respect but have none for the people they govern, and who callously send levied Irishmen to their deaths in wars that have nothing to do with them on the grounds that their lives count for less than an Englishman's. Of course, the truth usually lies between these two extremes, and the Geraldines have produced as many good and bad eggs as the rest of the Irish houses through the near-seven centuries of their existence.

Characters

Augustus FitzGerald, 8th Duke of Leinster

Age: 24 (born 20 March 1791)
Married? Yes (to Duchess Mary FitzGerald, nee Mansell)

Religion: Catholic

Personal equipment:
'FitzMaurice' (Unique Saber - 1d12 damage)
2x Pistols
2x Knives
Metal Helmet
Metal Cuirass
'Gerald' (Unique Thoroughbred horse - 1d16 trample damage)

Personality: Brash, headstrong and romantic, the 3rd Duke fancies himself a Cavalier of old - pious, valiant and loyal to his liege - though his execution is decidedly...a little off. He can easily come across as a haughty, holier-than-thou and stupicidally reckless fool at times, and has a tendency to take even the smallest slights personally. Worst of all, he makes the mistake of holding other people to his own insanely high 'Cavalier's standards', while often failing to meet those standards himself (albeit not for lack of effort).

Biography: Born on 21 August 1791, Augustus is the eldest surviving son of the late 2nd Duke of Leinster and his wife Emilia. He was given a mostly martial education, and quickly established himself as a great equestrian and fencer, though his marksmanship never was up to par with those of his peers. Raised on romantic tales of the Civil War Cavaliers, the future Duke developed a vision for a 'properly civilized' (read: feudal and Anglo-Irish governed) Ireland as he grew up, and is prepared to support his fellows in the Peerage in crushing the remaining Gaelic kingdoms, not so much out of desire for power and territory, but ideology and a frankly racist view of the native Irish as barely civilized simpletons who need to be ruled by their Anglo-Irish betters for their own good.

...not that he's had much of a chance to do so recently, what with being encircled by the Pale to the north, and both his Waterford relations and the Butlers of Ormond to the west, all of them Anglo-Irish powers. Indeed, even his opportunity to better himself through marriage has gone to naught, a potential match with his distant cousin the Lady Joan FitzGerald of Desmond (which would have helped reunite the FitzGerald lines) shot down by her and, in his paranoia, her own father, and he was instead forced to settle for the daughters of one of his own vassals, the Earl Mansell of Carlow.

Though he has been content to simply let his men go as 'volunteers' on loan to these neighbors in their wars with the Irish clans, considering it ungentlemanly to fight his fellow Englishmen as opposed to racial inferiors in the native Irish population, Augustus's ambitions (combined with residual outrage over his rejection by Lady Joan) are beginning to exceed his romantic ideals, and it may be that he will strike out at his much-envied Waterford cousins soon...

Vassals

Military

Infantry

Cavalry

Leinster Cavaliers

Leinster Hussars

Leinster Paladins

Emerald Knights

Artillery

**Barry Goldwater** · August 11, 2012, 11:59 AM

Duchy of Ormond

'He will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and of fifties, and some to do his plowing and to reap his harvest and to make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots.
He will also take your daughters for perfumers and cooks and bakers.
He will take the best of your fields and your vineyards and your olive groves and give them to his servants.
He will take a tenth of your seed and of your vineyards and give to his officers and to his servants.
He will also take your male servants and your female servants and your best young men and your donkeys and use them for his work.
He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his servants.
Then you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the LORD will not answer you in that day.'
-Samuel 8:11-18

Seat: Nenagh Castle, Lower Ormond

The Butlers are another old Anglo-Irish bloodline, tracing their lineage back to Theobald Walter, 1st Chief Butler of Ireland, a figure in King Henry II's invasion of Ireland whose office lent his descendants their name. The Butlers traditionally dominated central Ireland, striking out in every direction against the neighboring Irish kingdoms (including the one that would form the nucleus of their dominion, the Kingdom of Ormond) from their centers of power at Kilkenny Castle (sold to the Wexford Geraldines to settle a gambling debt in 1788) and Nenagh Castle, their current seat.

The Butlers have the distinction of being the champions of the Royalist cause in Ireland during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, 1642-1649. James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond led those forces most loyal to King Charles against first his Anglo-Irish brethren and Irish subjects in the 'Confederacy of Kilkenny', a coalition of Irish and Anglo-Irish aristocrats who fought for Catholic tolerance (and for some, supremacy) in Ireland, and the Scottish Covenanters operating out of Ulster in alliance with the Parliamentarians. Following a reconciliation with the Confederates and the King's personal conversion to Catholicism, the Butlers traditionally fought to maintain religious freedom throughout Ireland, opposing the Catholic supremacy advanced by the Stuarts and the Inquisition; indeed, when offered a boon by the victorious Charles I for his loyal services, the 1st Duke of Ormond (himself a moderate Protestant) asked for permission to keep the Inquisition out of his lands and freedom to enforce religious tolerance for Protestants within Ormond. It turned out to be a losing struggle, and by 1750 the 3rd Duke of Ormond completely gave up the ghost in exchange for a hefty 'donation' from the Church's coffers.

Their eventual defeat in the struggle with clerical authorities and Catholic supremacy wasn't the only defeat in Butler history, however. After the 1st Duke, the house's fortunes slipped downhill, to the point where the 4th Duke had to sell off the family's ancestral home in Kilkenny Castle to the Wexford Geraldines just to pay off his gambling debts. Endless wars with the O'Briens, O'Farrells, O'Connors and occasionally both branches of the FitzGerald Dynasty continued to sap Ormond's resources - its central position on the island was both a blessing and a curse, allowing it to strike in any direction but also exposing it to dangers on multiple fronts.

The Butlers are often caricatured as hidebound traditionalists, preferring to wallow in memory of past glories rather than actively work toward the future, and to the Irish an additional dimension of being the quintessential feudal overlord is present; suffice to say, they are not particularly popular among their vassals, with the Anglo-Irish houses resenting their position and their adherence to the current feudal structure in Ormond (and thus preventing any of the lesser houses from moving upward), while their Irish feudal subjects dislike them for rather obvious reasons. The current Duchess being a sickly young woman who can barely get out of bed, and with whose death the House will likely end, does not help matters, of course.

Characters

Mary Butler, 6th Duchess of Ormond

Age: 24 (born January 4th 1791)
Married? No

Religion: Catholic

Personal equipment:
'The Butler' (Unique Rifle - 1/2 chance of hitting targets)
'Duke' and 'Duchess' (Unique Knives - 1d8 damage, 5 actions/turn)
'Walter' (Unique Thoroughbred horse - 1d16 trample damage)

Personality: Some would say she is kind and guileless, others say she is dangerously naive and a hopeless romantic. Both would be correct interpretations of the 6th Duchess of Ormond, a sickly young woman who was nonetheless actually called 'Ireland's one ray of sunshine' by the Prince of Wales himself. When she has the energy to get out of bed, the Duchess is reported to spend time trying to reach out to her people, helping cook for and dole out food to the poor of Nenagh, and nursing wounded soldiers; and while peaceful in the sense that she has not once launched even aggressive raids into others' territories, she has made it clear that Ormond will defend its own borders against anyone's aggression. She remains a good friend of many high Irish noblewomen, maintaining close correspondence with Countess Camille Stuart of Oriel (who would regularly send her gingerbread biscuits and romance novels to keep her spirits up in times of illness) in particular.

Biography: Born on January 4th 1791 to the similarly sickly Duke James Butler of Ormond and Duchess Deirdre (nee O'Brien), Mary's life began with tragedy. Her mother, never the most robust of women, died in childbirth, and her own life was in dangerously unstable condition for so long that her father feared she would not live to see her first birthday. Miraculously, she survived and even gradually grew stronger over the years, and her father (who considered her his pride and joy, as well as his only heir) doted on her - until her inability to recover from a small cut that ruined her first dress, in front of the assembled Anglo-Irish nobility at one of the Duke of Leinster's parties in 1795 no less, made her hemophilia public knowledge.

Duke James aggressively sheltered his daughter after the incident, keeping her cooped up in Nenagh Castle out of fear that she would accidentally kill herself by so much as a small cut. The future Duchess, for her part, deeply resented her isolation, and dove into the world of fantasy for consolation. Following her father's unexpected death through a massive heart attack while getting out of bed in 1802, she was left mistress of Ormond at the age of 11, and spent yet more time being thrown about by courtiers eager to win her favor and, soon enough, potential suitors lining up for her hand. While she befriended many of the young ladies of Anglo-Irish society, she made few friends among the noblemen owing to her rejection of countless suitors (including, at one point, the future Duke Augustus of Leinster and Earl Alexis of Oriel), on the grounds that they could not live up to her standards, influenced by the excess of romance novels she had buried herself in to escape the reality of her life.

Since attaining her majority in 1807, Duchess Mary has been keeping Ormond out of war as much as possible, refusing to launch even basic raids into her neighbors' lands and instead fighting purely in self-defense. To the frustration of her best friend the Countess of Oriel, she refused to support her husband's war against the O'Farrells until the last minute, when some of her own vassals lost their patience and struck into Meath on their own (potentially with bribes from Oriel as well), forcing her hand at last. Already weary with court life and fully aware that her own may come to an end soon thanks to her hemophilia, Duchess Mary has already publicly aired a desire to abdicate the Duchy and enter a convent, and only the unclear succession to Ormond (and thus, an inevitable crisis between her vassals) is preventing her from doing so.

Vassals

Military

Infantry

Cavalry

Ormond Cavaliers

Ormond Hussars

Ormond Lancers

Champions of Ormond

Artillery

**Barry Goldwater** · August 13, 2012, 08:43 PM

Earldom of Tyrconnell

"Fighting is the central military act...Engagements mean fighting. The object of fighting is the destruction or defeat of the enemy...What do we mean by the defeat of the enemy? Simply the destruction of his forces...either completely or enough to make him stop fighting. The complete or partial destruction of the enemy must be regarded as the sole object of all engagements...Direct annihilation of the enemy's forces must always be the dominant consideration."
- Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Pgs. 226-229

Seat: Letterkenny Castle, Tyrconnell

The Talbots are one of the younger Anglo-Irish houses, only coming into prominence in the 17th century with Richard Talbot, a Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland; prior to him, the Talbots were no-name minor knights in the service of the Wexford Geraldines. Richard Talbot spearheaded the Irish supporters of Emperor Charles III in his struggles with first his half-brother the Duke of Monmouth, and later William of the Netherlands. For these services, he was elevated to Earl of Tyrconnell. Some reward - he was placed in a dangerous position where he would be cut off from his fellow Anglo-Irish and seated between three hostile Irish powers - the O'Neills of Ulster, the O'Donnells of Tyrconnell, and the O'Connors of Connacht - and an at-best neutral neighbor in the Scots-Irish MacDonalds.

Despite their horrendous strategic position, the Talbots have managed well enough throughout the centuries, partly by playing their neighbors off against each other but also through the development of one of the best armies in Ireland. Tyrconnell's forces have regularly been heavily outnumbered by their opponents, whether it be Connacht's hordes of levies or Ulster's deadly skirmishers - to compensate, their levies are trained on a weekly rather than bi-weekly basis like those of the other Irish states, and are outfitted with a mix of home-grown and imported weaponry to match that of Oriel's; indeed, prior to Oriel's emergence, the Tyrconnells had perhaps the most complex and intensive arms manufacturing foundries in Ireland, supplying both the regular Army and their own feudal troops. The greatest testament to the Talbots' might is doubtlessly their destruction of the O'Donnell Kings of Tyrconnell in a six-year campaign under the 2nd Earl of Tyrconnell, an accomplishment that was not to be matched (much less surpassed) until Oriel's destruction of the O'Farrells in one year, nearly 200 years later.

More recently, the Talbots are once again locked in war with the O'Neills, though without even a tacit alliance with the MacDonalds (as Oriel has chosen to pull off). Earl James Talbot's only son and heir Richard was killed in an earlier battle with the men of Ulster, and his father (already a notoriously bloodthirsty fighter) responded by amping up his efforts to destroy the O'Neills. Tyrconnell's fierce armies have generally had the better of the fighting, and fully expect to sate their overlord's sanguinary tastes with the blood of every O'Neill they can get their hands on very, very soon.

Characters

James Talbot, 4th Earl of Tyrconnell

Age: 45 (born 30 January 1770)
Married? No (widowed)

Religion: Catholic

Personality: Volatile in temperament and always eager to shed blood, Lord Talbot is a warrior through and through. He never shies away from a fight, is always happy to give a good fight in his own right, and truly enjoys combat - whether it be a sparring match with wooden swords, or a duel to the death with muskets. He (usually, anyway) won't even pretend to fight because he cares about whatever cause he's supposed to be fighting for - he just likes the sight of blood a little too much, and if it's the blood his Irish enemies, all the better. His ferocity actually got him the moniker 'the Red Lion', at the age of twenty no less.

Following his son's death, the Earl began to shift from 'merely' a warlord who enjoyed bloodshed a little too much towards a fully demented, bloodthirsty maniac. His line is doomed to end with him, he reasons, so why not enjoy himself (in the best way he knows how) in the process? He brashly leads charges from the front, almost miraculously defying enemy bullets, musket balls and bayonets alike and carving his way through multiple opponents at a time in battle, but has been noted to appear almost disappointed every time he emerges from a battle battered, bloodied but still alive. Some rumors claim he actually wants to die, hence why he personally puts himself in danger at every turn...

Biography: Born on 30 January 1770 to William Talbot, the 4th Earl and his wife, Charlotte Howe. Theophilus was given a martial education from as soon as he could walk - being able to wage war was an absolute necessity for survival in Tyrconnell - and came to enjoy it rather more than he should have. He killed his first opponent at the age of thirteen, shooting an Irish raider working for the O'Neills with a musket, and has since developed a taste for bloodshed, often leading from the front in the earldom's battles with its Irish neighbors. He enlisted in the Army and fought for six years in Japan, from 1799 to 1805, before returning upon his father's death to become the next Earl Tyrconnell. At the age of twenty, his ferocity in battle and propensity for headlong attacks got him nicknamed 'the Red Lion'.

Since the death of his son Richard in battle, followed by his wife's suicide, Talbot has begun to completely lose his mind, though superficially he didn't change all that much. He has concentrated all of his energies into fighting the O'Neills, taking special care to lead assaults from the front and always finding his way into the thick of the fray, despite his advisers' pleas. Off the battlefield, he has grown increasingly reclusive, though the castle servants often report him spending minutes or even hours staring into lit fires, 'as if wondering what it would feel like to burn the rest of him away'...

Vassals

Units

Infantry

Cavalry

Tyrconnell Cavaliers

Tyrconnell Mounted Rifles

Tyrconnell Lancers

Earl's Horse Grenadiers

Artillery

**Barry Goldwater** · August 15, 2012, 09:14 PM

Clan O'Connor

"Don't let your special character and values, the secret that you know and no one else does, the truth - don't let that get swallowed up by the great chewing complacency."
-Aesop

Seat: Fort at the Mouth of the Gaillimh, Galway

The O'Connors of Connacht are one of the oldest extant royal families in Europe, producing a hundred Kings of Connacht and two High Kings of all Ireland starting with Turlough O'Connor in the 12th century. Their isolation in the northwest of Ireland meant they were among the last to feel the English invasions of Ireland, and also among the best prepared for it - not only were they forewarned of their enemies' strength well in advance (on account of their neighbors being swallowed up or pushed aside), but they were left with the largest manpower and resource reserve on the entire island. Thus, to date the O'Connors have had the best record of the island's native Gaels at keeping the English out, though they were at least eventually forced to knuckle under the suzerainty of the Kings and later, Emperors in London.

The O'Connors also have the distinction of being the largest of the clans, with hundreds of healthy septs still flourishing where the other clans have fallen to a few dozen at best. They also have the distinction of having actually subverted several Anglo-Irish houses, most prominently the Burkes of Mayo, through many marriages and even more bribery, and brought them to fight under the blue and white of Connacht against their brothers.

However, the O'Connors' strength in numbers and reliance on intrigue is a double-edged sword. The large number of O'Connor kinsmen, each and every one of them with a claim to the throne of Connacht as valid as any other's, and the establishment of an intrigue-happy court culture has created an unstable atmosphere within Connacht where the succession is decided, not by bloodlines or even by elections, but by a spat of assassinations and bribes at best, outright war at worst (which happens far too often). Furthermore, the integration of the Burkes into the clan and the many, many marriages between them and O'Connor women has given them as strong a claim as any to the throne, with predictable problems. The current O'Connor King, a weak-willed and evidently sterile old man, was elected not because he was the most competent or even the most popular of candidates for the Kingship, but only as a compromise candidate between the two largest and most violent factions, the O'Connors of Sligo and the Burkes of Mayo, and if he should die there is no telling what will happen between the two great families...

Characters

King Cathal O'Connor

Age: 57 (born 15 May 1758)
Married? Yes (to Aoife O'Flaherty)

Religion: Catholic

Personal equipment:
'Fianna' (unique Greatsword - does 2d20 damage, AP)
2x Pistols
Metal Helmet
Metal Cuirass
'Galway' (Unique Thoroughbred horse - 1d16 trample damage)

Personality: Of a pleasant disposition, but timid and physically unimpressive, Connor O'Connor was elected precisely because he posed no threat to anybody. He is spineless, being easily bossed around by his supposed advisers and underlings, and his authority does not extend beyond the boundaries of the capital of Galway - allowing the rest of the O'Connors to slaughter their rivals, often meaning each other, with impunity. No doubt the neighbors of Connacht are looking for an opportunity to crush this weak king and his divided clan like a bug...

Time has changed O'Connor not at all. He remains a virtually powerless figurehead, creating a mask of stability for the vicious internal intrigues between Burke and Sligo O'Connor, and only acting when his hand is forced and absolutely no other course of action is available. Neither the Burkes nor the Sligo O'Connors consider him even slightly dangerous, and both are said to be actively plotting his death just so they can create an avenue to destroy each other and seize his crown for themselves...

Biography: Born on 15 May 1758 to Thomas O'Connor, the O'Connor lord of Ballymoe, and Elizabeth Burke. Connor O'Connor had a fairly comfortable childhood - his father had no enemies, not even within the den of vipers that was the O'Connor Clan, and thus his lands were able to prosper in peace amidst the brutal internecine violence plaguing Connacht. O'Connor never was a physically fit boy, and shy too; he spent most of his time holed up in the Ballymoe castle, and grew into a 'doormat' of an individual, amiable but weak-willed and timid. He was elected King of Connacht upon the death of King Rory O'Connor; the clan was split exactly in half between the partisans of Patrick O'Connor of Sligo, Rory's cousin, and Earl Richard Burke of Mayo, and thus settled on the non-confrontational and easily controlled Connor as a compromise candidate of sorts. Under Connor's ineffectual leadership, Connacht was embroiled in inter-clan violence between the various O'Connors and the Burkes of Mayo, and their enemies are surely mobilizing to take advantage of his weakness...

Deichtine O'Connor, Banflaith of Sligo

Age: 30 (born 20 January 1785)
Married? Yes (to Connor O'Connor)

Religion: Catholic

Personality: The ambitious and energetic Banflaith (Princess) of Sligo since her father's death in the War of 1812, Deichtine is a woman who knows what she wants above all - the throne of Connacht - and has both the cunning and the drive to get at it. Despite being born a woman into a man's world of warfare and courtly intrigue, she learned well from her father (a chief contestant for the throne prior to King Cathal's coronation) and other relatives - skills which, combined with her own guile and intuition, allowed her to rise to rule Sligo following her father's passing.

Like her kinsmen, the Banflaith does have a reputation for being unscrupulous in her pursuit of her goals. It is rumored that Deichtine poisoned her brother Donnchad to clear the succession; certainly, the young man died six years ago from 'bad bowels', though no evidence of poison was ever actually found. She has maintained the loyalty of the other O'Connor septs under her with an iron hand, taking 'visitors' (glorified hostages under effective house arrest) from each sept and keeping them the Castle of Sligo, and none dare doubt the sincerity behind her threats to 'return them in pieces' to their family when she did just that in response to a minor sept's revolt against her not six months ago. O'Connor does have a few soft spots, reserved exclusively for her bumbling cousin and husband Connor, whom she has already deduced is too much of a coward to threaten her; for her newborn twin daughters; and for her friend the Duchess of Ormond, whom she regularly corresponds with and sends gifts to, and whom she is said to have almost maternal tendencies towards.

Biography: Born on 20 January 1785, Deichtine was the younger daughter of Flaith Patrick O'Connor of Sligo, cousin to King Rory of Connacht and head of the powerful O'Connors of Sligo. Her childhood was relatively sheltered, but for her many visits to court to sit at the side of her father with her brother Donnchad; it was here that she learned the 'tricks of the trade', as her father would put it, listening in to his many plots and watching his suppression of the minor sept heads who had sought to undermine him for many years. Though her marriage was arranged by Patrick, both of them saw the political advantages in it - her husband Connor was another cousin of King Rory, and known to be an easily controlled man - and in any case it worked out well enough for all parties involved, as Patrick strengthened his claim to the throne, Deichtine saw no threat in Connor, and Connor, for his part, was more than happy to allow Deichtine to 'wear the trousers' in their relationship.

Since ascending to the head of the Sligo O'Connors in 1812, Deichtine has been perpetuating her family's traditional rivalry with the Burkes, now headed by one of her former suitors, Earl Thomas Burke, while also scheming towards the throne of Connacht. She is a dangerous and high-level political player in the web of intrigue around King Cathal, and unless outside events interfere it is likely that Connacht will fall into war between her and Burke, one way or the other...

Thomas Burke, 5th Earl of Mayo

Age: 34 (born 13 June 1781)
Married? Yes (to Maeve Dillon)

Religion: Catholic

Personality: The fifth Burke to rule all of Mayo as an Earl since his ancestor Miles Burke, 2nd Viscount of Mayo was elevated to that dignity for his services to the Crown in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, Thomas is a notoriously short-tempered man aware of the other Irish families' distrust of his Anglo-Irish roots. He can take and crack jokes and is known to be as merry a drinker and partier as the other O'Connors, but if he feels he has truly been offended he will not hesitate to smash his opponent's face with a flagon of ale or a glass of wine and challenge them to a duel, and even worse he has a vindictive streak a mile wide - Burke is not a man to let slights go unanswered, ever.

Outside of parties, Burke has a reputation as a 'war hawk' in court, always agitating for outward conflict against the O'Farrells (prior to their destruction by Oriel, who he is beginning to consider a worthy adversary), the Butlers, the O'Neills and the O'Briens. In battle, he has earned a reputation as an extremely aggressive leader, often fighting at the front with his men and directing them on risky maneuvers that could easily backfire against him - but it is a scenario he has never had to deal with, as the man has not yet lost a single battle in his life.

Biography: Born on 13 June 1781 to Richard Burke, 4th Earl of Mayo and nephew of the renowned philosopher Edmund Burke, Thomas was no stranger to conflict. From an early age he accompanied his father in wars against their neighbors, other O'Connor septs, and sometimes even their own vassals, and it was at the age of seven that he made his first kill, shooting a Sligo O'Connor raider during a night attack on his father's baggage train. As he grew older, Earl Richard tried to use his son as a bargaining chip in his dealings with the Sligo O'Connors, offering to marry him to his future nemesis Deichtine, but the deal fell through and (combined with the competition for King Rory O'Connor's throne) actually further worsened the already poor relations between the two lordships.

Since ascending to the Earldom, Burke has focused most of his energies on either fighting the Sligo O'Connors, or leading the armies of Connacht against their enemies. Many of the other nobles of the realm look up to him as a war hero and the natural successor to King Cathal O'Connor, preferring his brusque manner and martial ability over the subtler court intrigues of his Sligo enemies (and, of course, quite a few preferred him over Deichtine O'Connor simply because he isn't a woman); for their part, the two hate each other, with Burke viewing O'Connor as an overambitious and unscrupulous harpy who should just stay in the kitchen, and O'Connor viewing Burke as an Anglo-Irish interloper with all the refinement of a street thug. Relations between the two former near-couple have never been colder, and in the event that their king dies it is likely they will plunge Connacht into a war for the throne.

Vassals

Military

Infantry

Connacht Line Levy

Connacht Kerns

Gallowglasses

Fenians

Cavalry

Artillery

**Barry Goldwater** · August 21, 2012, 09:30 PM

Clan O'Neill

'And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.'
-The Bible, Mark 3:25

Family seat: Harry Avery's Castle, Tyrone

The O'Neills are one of the oldest extant, and certainly the most prominent, of the Irish royal houses. Claiming descent from the semi-legendary 5th-century Irish warlord Niall of the Nine Hostages, the O'Neills rose to become the dominant dynasty on the Emerald Isle between the 6th and 10th centuries, producing many High Kings of Ireland and dominating most of the island's eastern half through its northern and southern branches. The O'Neills' power began to decline in the 10th century and fell even faster when the English invaders struck at them starting in the 12th century, with the Southern branch of the family rendered impotent by the 15th century and completely wiped out by the 16th century. The Northern O'Neills have held out against both the Anglo-Irish and (since the 16th century) Scottish settlers in their ancestral land in Ulster, but the price for their continued existence has not been cheap - the fields of Ulster run red with the blood of O'Neill men and their soldiers even today.

The O'Neills have found their greatest opponents since the 16th century in the Scottish settlers of Ulster. Originally brought in from Scotland as part of the 'Irish plantations', an attempt to break the power of the Catholic native and Anglo-Irish nobility in favor of a Protestant ascendancy, the Scottish carved out an enclave for themselves in eastern Ulster, killing or driving out the Irish who did not submit to their authority and effectively enserfing those who did with royal backing; the Irish retaliated with equal ferocity, and the war between the two reached a fever peak during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, 1639-1650, with both sides perpetrating massacres and engaging in some of the bloodiest battles in those eleven years of chaos, fueled by religious fervor and ethnic hatred on both sides. The native Irish found themselves on the winning Royalists' side at the conclusion of the devastating wars, but the Highland Scots who fought for Charles I (in contrast to the Lowland Scots who opposed him) were able to secure for themselves the right to migrate freely to Ulster anyway, perpetuating the struggle between the two.

Now, for the last hundred years (barring a few short-lived truces, interrupted with fierce border raids from both sides anyway) the O'Neills and the McDonalds of Ulster have been locked in a bitter struggle for complete supremacy over the northeast of Ireland. The O'Neills, despite having held their ground, have also had the worst of the fighting thus far, with the clan's hundreds of septs reduced to a mere handful and even their line of kings thinned badly. King Hugh 'Dubh' ('the Black') of Ulster, an elderly man who has lost too much to the McDonalds, is determined to see the conflict to its logical conclusion - the destruction of the McDonalds of Ulster and the eviction or death of every last Scotsman in Ulster - while his surviving sons and relatives squabble behind the scenes, and his only granddaughter vanished during the chaos of 1810 Whitehall Ball (which he has also chalked up to a McDonald plot).

Characters

Hugh 'Dubh' O'Neill, King of Ulster

Age: 78 (born 13 February 1737)
Married? No (widowed five times)

Religion: Catholic

Personality: Old, bitter and with a dark sense of humor - as well he should. The King of Ulster is still more than a little upset by the deaths of his father, two brothers and four out of his seven sons at the hands of the McDonald Earls of Ulster; out of a blind desire for revenge, he has locked his clan into a war of extermination against those McDonalds, going so far as to breach an Imperial truce just to kill the Earl's brother and son - and inviting bloody retaliation in turn; in fact, he hates them so much that when his granddaughter Siobhan raised the idea that this war with the MacDonalds may just be a giant waste of time and precious blood, he threatened to raise his nephew Rory MacLaughlin over her in the line of succession to the kingdom instead, and did the same )repeatedly) with his second son John as well. Outside of his dealings with the McDonalds, he can be perfectly reasonable, if rather sarcastic and irritable.

Biography: Born on 13 February 1737 to King Hugh 'Roe' (the Red) IV, 'Black Hugh' was no stranger to bloodshed even as a child. He grew up against the backdrop of the century-long war between O'Neill and McDonnell, losing his father at the age of five during a McDonald siege of Henry Avery's Castle; the castle held and was later relieved, but the Red Hugh received a cannonball to the face on the thirtieth day of the siege, with predictable results. As he grew older, he saw his clan decimated all around him; the war with the McDonalds was bad enough, but at the age of seventeen he took up arms against his uncle Phelim, King of Ulster (who had been elected to that position upon the Red Hugh's death, as Hugh himself was still a minor) supposedly out of self-defense and, rallying half the clan to his banner, overthrew and killed him - but not before two-thirds of the O'Neill Clan, already badly bloodied from (at the time) nearly 50 years of war with the McDonalds, died in this internecine struggle. Having suffered many personal losses to the McDonalds, the Black Hugh is now every bit as determined to exterminate them as they are to wipe his people from the face of the earth, and will do everything he can to avoid a peaceful solution to their hundred-year war...

Michael O'Neill, First Prince of Ulster

Age: 42 (born 16 March 1773)
Married? Yes (to Mary McDermot)

Religion: Catholic

Personality: Insufferably arrogant, domineering and somewhat thuggish, Michael knows full well that he is the oldest son of King Hugh still on this earth, and is convinced that this allows him to treat those he deems beneath him (including his own clansmen) with nothing short of contempt, without any consequence to his person. He is quick to anger, once beating a distant cousin into a coma for running into him and spilling ink all over his favorite pants and also getting into more brawls than both of his brothers combined, and is infamously excitable - he can't seem to sit still for more than five minutes, always needing something to do, and always thinking that 'something' means 'pick a fight with my cousins for no reason'. Even his sense of humor is worse than his father's; twenty years ago he infamously mockingly told a legless war orphan to 'stand up for himself' after giving the lad a sound thrashing, and ended up having to pay his companions to laugh at his 'joke'. Needless to say, he is not at all popular within his clan, and is not favored to succeed his father; he does retain enough lackeys and lickspittles to make things ugly should the old man pass and the rest of the clan vote against him, though.

Despite being a self-important thug however, Michael is neither totally witless nor heartless. He was at least smart enough to buy off enough of the clan (or at least their retainers) to forge a decent fighting force should the succession go awry upon his father's death, and even chose to marry a woman of the McDermot clan in neighboring Connaught to secure some outside guns for himself. Said wife, and his two sons, are also about the only people Michael shows anything other than sneering condescension or outright hostility and contempt for (besides, of course, his old man, whenever he needs to suck up to him anyway).

Biography: Born on 16 March 1773 to the Black Hugh and his fourth wife Jane McMullin, Michael was actually the King's fifth son but was left his eldest surviving boy before his second birthday. As the heir-apparent (by blood, at least, given that Gaelic monarchies are elective) to the throne of Ulster, he was spoiled from an early age, and this pompous boy predictably grew into a supremely arrogant, conceited and spiteful man with an incredible sense of entitlement to absolutely everything. The Irish peasants toiling his fields consider him at least as bad, if not worse, than the worst Anglo/Scots-Irish landlord, and his own clansmen made no secret of their hatred for him - though they made sure to do so in places where he couldn't just up and beat them down or shoot them for it, on account of his infamously mercurial temper; for his part, Michael tried to shore up his own position with a marriage into a prominent Connaught clan and through the extensive bribery of his enemies' retainers or clansmen he deems neutral.

Still, money does not buy real respect, and indeed about the only place where the rest of the O'Neills truly have any respect for him is on the battlefield, where he has consistently proven to be a brutal but effective fighter and leader, both in Ireland and during the War of 1812. Today, Michael continues to serve as his father's second-in-command, and will be marching to the proposed 'final battle' with the McDonalds of Ulster with him and his younger brothers.

John O'Neill, Second Prince of Ulster

Age: 37 (born 20 May 1778)
Married? Yes (to Bridget McMahon)

Religion: Catholic

Personality: In sharp contrast to his older brother, John is calm, laid-back, friendly and actually somewhat lazy, preferring to spend his days on his palatial manor with his wife and children rather than working politics in Harry Avery's Castle. He doesn't care a fig about many things, but most of all his father's destructive war with the McDonalds, which he has correctly identified as the root issue behind the decimation of the O'Neill clan, and often defers to other clansmen to do his job instead. One should not take this to be a sign of weak will on his part, however - when John finds something worth fighting for, he invests all of his energies and strength into it. No better example of this can be found than in his attitude to the O'Neill-McDonald war.

Considering the war a pointless exercise in bloodlust and a vicious cycle of revenge, John has taken up the cause of reconciliation as his personal crusade, constantly pressing his irate father to consider just burying the hatchet (with zero success thus far) and urging the other clansmen to think twice about committing what little is left of their strength and their families to the war (with far more success); indeed, he has publicly stated that his desire to end this 'needless bloodshed' is the only thing keeping him in the running for the throne of Ulster, as he figures that his brutish older brother and enigmatic younger half-brother would both simply perpetuate the struggle.

Biography: Born on 20 May 1778 to the Black Hugh and his fourth wife Jane McMullin, John was actually the King's sixth son but was left his second-eldest surviving boy before his second birthday. Though he was pampered almost as much as his older brother Michael, he never developed Michael's arrogance, sense of entitlement and base thuggery, instead turning out to be a fundamentally decent (if lazy and overtly casual) man. Notably, from a young age he opposed his father's seemingly endless war with the McDonalds, considering it to be the downfall of the O'Neills even if they should prevail and working hard to bring it to an end before it can destroy either the O'Neills, the McDonalds or (as he expects should it be fought to its logical conclusion) both, and it is precisely this issue which kept him from simply renouncing his rights and moving to Canada once he settled down with his long-time lover, Bridget McMahon, much less witnessed the births of his three children.

Of course, none of this stopped John from actually fighting in the war as a commander under his father, if only out of a sense of duty. Indeed, in the last few years he was one of the major proponents of a 'battle to end all battles' between O'Neill and McDonald, figuring it was a decent enough way to permanently settle the conflict and could save his clan another hundred years of war down the road.

Phelim O'Neill, Third Prince of Ulster

Age: 30 (born 7 January 1785)
Married? No

Religion: Catholic

Personality: Ever-smiling and enigmatic, the Third Prince of Ulster is known only for three things - having an ever-present sly, almost catlike smirk on his face; his ability to consume more alcohol than his brothers and remain sitting straight up; and his numerous torrid love affairs with aristocrats and peasant women alike, Anglo-Irish or native Gaelic or Scots-Irish it matters not, for which he has often been challenged to duels by fellow nobles (only for his opponents to inexplicably back out and in some cases, apologize to him). As the Prince is rarely seen in public, preferring to discreetly slip out of his manor disguised as a common merchant or worse in the evenings, even more rarely interacts with any of his fellow clansmen and Ulster nobles for more than a few minutes, and never keeps a journal or anything of the sort, it is impossible to tell what kind of man actually exists behind that constantly-smirking playboy's face.

Biography: Born on 20 May 1778 to the Black Hugh and his fifth and last wife Elizabeth Maguire, Phelim is the youngest son of the Black Hugh and half-brother to Michael and John O'Neill. Constantly overlooked by his clan, the shy little boy quietly matured into a similarly taciturn man who did little and talked even less, though he can apparently charm ladies if he needed to given his many love affairs. He is not considered a serious factor in the succession by either of his brothers, nor by most of his clan, and in any case has shown no tendency toward advancing his claim in the event that his father dies.

Despite his avowed lack of interest in politics and war, Phelim's father dragged him into the O'Neill army marching to fight the McDonalds at the River Blackwater after he managed to thwart a McDonald raid on his dominion through a clever ruse that led to him pinning the McDonald reivers in a ravine and annihilating them utterly, to everyone else's utter shock.

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Thread: [RB 1815] Noble Houses & Clans

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[RB 1815] Noble Houses & Clans

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