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BLANCHEFORT

    All of his life, Captain Davage, the Lord of Blanchefort, had been a pursued man. He was hunted and given no peace.
    He ran, his tall Fleet boots rising and falling on ancient stone, through the splendid corridors and vast halls of the sturdy old castle. The Vith castle, located high in the mountains of the Kanan north, was huge. Here, within the cold hallways of his ancestral home, he had space to run and run. He could run all he wanted. He could run to exhaustion and still not reach the end.
    As a boy, he'd run from his father—Sadric, Lord of Blanchefort. Sadric, well thought of and influential, was the consummate man about town, a diplomat, well-placed in League Society, and Sadric, the Society man, wanted his only son to learn the stern and exacting ways of League Society as well. Sadric chased his son through the hallways of the castle with a set of dress clothes and a fancy pair of stylish shoes, determined that he put them on. Davage ran from him, as if Death itself pursued.
    Davage, for better or worse, was born into the House of Blanchefort. House Blanchefort was an ancient House, founded long ago in the time of the Elders from the fabled blue-haired Vith heroes of old. It was Lennybus, the Vith and original Blanchefort, who built the massive expanse of Castle Blanchefort, the place of endless halls and towering spires in the spiny mountains of the north. It was said he made it complex and confusing to keep the Demon of Magravine, his arch-enemy, from being able to locate him and exact vengeance. Lennybus also planted the Telmus Grove behind the castle, a huge orchard of mystical trees and Vith courtyards fed by ancient streams to keep out the giants. He was also said to be the first Blanchefort to be laid to rest atop Dead Hill—a mushroom-shaped hill in the Telmus Grove where all future Blancheforts, except those lost in distant battles, were entombed—though his particular vault had never been located.
    The House of Blanchefort, like most modern Great Houses, maintained a Lord and a Countess. They designed their own regal clothing in a distinctive style, forged their own weapons, minted their own coins, and were generally expected to be trendsetters in Blue League social circles. The firearms they once designed were the prize of the League—the Blanchefort PtVa was a legendary pistol, the famous old "Poltava" being a template for many modern firearms, including the prolific Grenville 40, though no Grenville ever admitted that. Sadric, however, frowned upon the practice of producing firearms and eventually abolished it, turning the old weapons factories the villagers worked in into textile mills for creating fine Blanchefort fabrics.
    The Lords of Blanchefort, accordingly, were expected to throw lavish parties, attend other Houses' parties, and generally be Blue— Blue being of Vith, Remnath, or Zenon heritage, the Viths being the "Bluest" of the lot.
    And so there was Davage, a Blue Lord who really wanted nothing to do with parties and social circles and setting trends. He'd much rather go to ground in common clothes, see the world, travel the by-ways of Kana, and visit the stars.
    Davage was a reluctant Lord who withered in the dainty shoes and the fine clothes he was expected to wear. He hated all of the Lords and Ladies who came to gawk at him, to poke and prod and see the next Lord of Blanchefort. The worst of all was Countess Hortensia of Monama, a mountain of a woman in a black gown who was said to have visions, the Monamas being a strange, black-eyed lot. "Oh," she gasped every time upon seeing him, which was frequent, for she was his father's personal seeress. "Something evil dreams of you even now, my boy. I am afraid for your soul."
    What a horrid woman.
    At first, to find refuge, Davage ran into the arms of his mother, Countess Hermilane, formerly of House Hanover. Davage had inherited much from his mother. He'd inherited her tall, lanky frame. He'd inherited her stately blue hair.