Daren Corvus

Lord Daren Corvus is the eldest brother and heir of House Corvus in the Sürgün Günlükleri ("Exile Chronicles") campaign. He and Kemp Corvus are sons of different mothers, with a great difference in age between them, and while their father Lord Braum still lived it was Daren who ran the house in practice.^{1 2}

Letters to his brother

While Kemp was serving the crown prince, Daren wrote to him in an open letter bearing the family arms, asking for news and a visit. After Kemp's good service, he wrote, the family had won the right to fish the lake and the tax that went with it, settling a dispute a century old; a sealed letter from a friend was also waiting at home, which proved to bear a witch hunter's seal. Kemp answered with his new quill, telling of events in general and promising to come home after a short journey with the prince.^{3 4 5}

The homecoming

When the company reached the house, Daren came down the stairs and embraced his brother, telling him that his adventures had aged him; he understood that Kemp would take to the road again and entrusted him to his friends. Of the drow Ephorus he said that the family's wealth had come from the war with the drow, but that the house bore him no prejudice: if their brother called him friend, they accepted him. Their father thanked Kemp's company for the outcome of the fishing dispute, which he saw as the house receiving its due.^{2 6 7}

At dinner Daren raised a cup to Kemp's safe return and presented their father's gifts. He told the guests that he had sent a mocking letter to the rival house, and that they could stay as long as they liked and go fishing and hunting.^{8 9 10}

When Kemp left early, the family quickly made good his provisions and worn gear, and Daren asked him to write and to come for longer next time. A messenger then brought news of a drow attack on the town of Göltepe, with more than a hundred dead and some perhaps carried off. Daren said such attacks had happened before, and that the house's measures were limited because it could not follow the raiders underground. When Katherine later asked by magic how matters stood, the house answered that the inquiry continued, that the attack differed little from earlier ones, that no great danger was pressing, and that they were glad the company was well.^{11 12 13}

A home for Ephorus

From the bird post of Gromkar, which Kemp and Ephorus had opened at night for an extra fee, Kemp wrote to Daren asking that an old, empty fishermen's hut on the lake be set aside for Ephorus, with a fair price to be fixed once he settled there, so that the drow would have a home to return to. Four copies went out by bird; the clerk warned that nothing protected a bird against hawks, and that letters for distant places passed from one point the birds knew to the next.^{14 15}

Spoiler: A family letterRevealSpoils: Sürgün Günlükleri #37 · Say what you have read

A later family letter told Kemp that their father had died after an illness and had been buried in his absence, which no one held against him. Daren had taken on the leadership and guardianship of the house and appointed Kemp to command and train its forces, another brother acting in his place until he returned. Their father had left Kemp the long-shafted spear of their ancestors, his name carved on its shaft, hanging on his bedroom wall; the season's earnings of Kemp's fishing boat were sent with the letter, along with greetings from the family. Kemp replied with his grief, his loyalty and his wish to serve well.^{16 17 18 19}