House Corvus

House Corvus is a noble house of the Sürgün Günlükleri ("Exile Chronicles") campaign, the family of Kemp Corvus. Its head is the old Lord Braum, who handed the daily running of the house to his eldest son, Daren, long ago; the house wizard, Master Aethelwulf, serves it, and messages sent to the family by magic go to him rather than to the lord himself.^{1 2 3}

The house also stands behind those who serve it. The father of the young mage Katherine died fighting pirates or brigands for the house when she was eight, and Baron Corvus paid for her schooling at Archon.^{4 5}

Caviar and the lake

Kemp traces the house's wealth to caviar, of which it is almost the only supplier, and its banner, a sturgeon on a field of blue and white, to that trade. The thirty riders Kemp led in the crown prince's service marched under those banners.^{6 7}

Corvus land lies around a lake, with clean streams, forests and thinly peopled farming villages. The villagers are not fishermen, for uncontrolled fishing in the lake is forbidden; caviar is produced by few hands and fetches a high value. On a high hill stands the family's small castle of stone and wood, with two small harbours below, where fishing boats with triangular sails lie; outside are orchards and well-dressed fishermen mending their nets, and the iron gate looks as if it has stood open for a long time.^{8 9}

Each son of the house may fish the lake with five boats, so the boys learn to handle boats from childhood; Kemp traces the limit to a ruling of an Emperor Conrad of the past. A dispute with a rival house over the fishing rights was settled in the family's favour after the recent successes of Kemp and his companions, and one of Kemp's elder brothers sent the rival house a mocking letter.^{10 11 12}

History

By Kemp's account the family once ruled only a smaller part of the lake. Its lands grew when the former house betrayed the Empire, thanks to Lord Braum's heroism in the conquest and in the battle of the Dwarf Gate.¹³

Braum told Kemp that the number of his sons was no accident: years ago he had made a bargain with powers in the lake, promising to protect its life and do it no harm in return for many sons. He holds that these powers are not malign, and says that Sivana knows of it. He also admitted that not everyone he had killed in the war beneath the earth had been a soldier or wicked, and saw his son's friendship with a drow as an atonement for his own sin.^{14 15}

The name

Corvus, meaning crow, is a common name, used as a surname or middle name by ordinary families as well; sharing it does not make someone kin to the noble house.¹⁶

Standing

The Corvus name carried weight. On the northern coast the governor Melvin Roche, a man of White City, received Kemp with respect when he gave his house's name, and said he knew the family's caviar from trade. An elderly official of the Inquisition told Kemp's cousin Sarah that, holding a licence and enjoying the protection of a house as powerful and rich as Corvus, she was safer than most; when he asked that news of a secret dwarven war and of the High King's last remaining son be spread to the Empire, the companions thought of writing to the house.^{17 18 19 20 21}

When the companions were later rewarded for their service, there was talk of baronies independent of their families, of founding new houses, and of the taxes of a castle and its surroundings, in return for serving the ruler when called. In the Empire, ordinary lords answer to barons, and barons with the lords under their banners answer to a count.^{22 23}

As Osterhn prepared for its final defence, the companions considered asking Sarah's and Kemp's family for a small force.²⁴