The Last War's Impact on Houses Phiarlan and Thuranni

At the start of the Last War, there were twelve dragonmarked houses. By the end, there were thirteen. For the ordinary citizens of Khorvaire, many events convey a sense of the magnitude of the war: the fragmentation of Galifar into a dozen nations, the fall of White Arch Bridge, and the obliteration of Cyre. For members of the dragonmarked houses, the schism of House Phiarlan stands above the others as a sign of just how badly things went wrong during the war.
As the house that built its living on secrets, it would stand to reason that House Phiarlan would have the most foreknowledge of the brewing conflict, be the most prepared to deal with it, and have the best plan to profit from it. As it happened, none of those things was true: House Phiarlan was torn in half by the war, and neither portion of the sundered house came out the better for its involvement in the war.

In the Beginning

Before the Last War, House Phiarlan was essentially the intelligence organization of the kingdom of Galifar. Like the Sentinel Marshals of House Deneith, the covert agents of House Phiarlan worked to maintain order in the kingdom, uncover threats to the royal line, and guard against infiltration from beyond Khorvaire. The death of a ruler always caused a flurry of activity among Phiarlan’s agents as they worked hard to prevent any dispute over the succession. The baroque laws of inheritance, by which the rulership of the Five Nations was supposed to be held by the five children of the king of Galifar rather than passed from parent to child, caused no end of trouble during transition periods, and House Phiarlan was often responsible for smoothing that trouble over.
Upon Jarot’s death, the agents of House Phiarlan were more concerned about whether Kaius would relinquish control of Karrnath to his nephew than about whether he would properly cede the throne of Galifar to his sister. Somehow, Thalin, Kaius, and Wroann’s plan to challenge the succession escaped the house’s notice. By the time the three renegades declared their opposition to Mishann’s claim, it was too late for House Phiarlan to employ its usual highly secretive methods to bring the situation under control. The house found itself thrown into a war for which it was not the least bit prepared.
Despite its inexplicable lack of foreknowledge, House Phiarlan did its best to capitalize on the new political landscape of Khorvaire. Even the nascent intelligence organizations of the Five Nations—the fledgling agencies that would grow into the Royal Eyes of Aundair, the King’s Citadel of Breland, and their counterparts in other nations — were accustomed to purchasing intelligence from House Phiarlan, and the house was able to build on those relationships and position itself in the center of a web of espionage stretching across the continent.
In a situation similar to that of House Deneith, the elves of the House of Shadow were forced into a difficult position, straining their position of strict neutrality. It was one thing for Deneith mercenaries to refuse to fight each other on the battlefield; it was essentially impossible for Phiarlan spies to withhold information about Phiarlan spies working for their employers’ enemies. Even more than the work of front-line soldiers, espionage demands partisanship. As the war progressed, factions within House Phiarlan found it increasingly difficult to maintain even a pretense of neutrality. Even if House Phiarlan had been a tightly unified house at the start of the war, it would have been hard-pressed to resist the internal forces that were tearing it apart from within. As it was, the house was already factionalized, and the tensions of the Last War stretched it past the breaking point.

The Final Days

When the Mark of Shadow appeared among the elves of Aerenal, it did not appear in one single family line but in several. By the time of the Last War, five lines — Tialaen, Shol, Elorrenthi, Thuranni, and Paelion — were the most important families in House Phiarlan. As the war progressed, each of these lines cultivated favorite clients and developed unique strengths in different areas of espionage. Rivalry among the families was fierce, and when confl ict between the clients of two lines coincided with a strong rivalry between those lines, the results were often violent.
They were never more violent than in 972. In that year, the Thuranni line of the house uncovered evidence that the Paelion line, famed for its fearsome assassins, was plotting an elaborate scheme to assassinate the heads of state of the Five Nations, strike against other dragonmarked houses, and seize power over all Khorvaire for itself. The plan was insanely grandiose, but when drawn up and executed by the most skilled infiltrators and assassins in the world, it might have worked. Upon receiving this information, Lord Elar Thuranni d’Phiarlan (male elf) knew he had to act quickly.
Elar himself killed Lord Tolar Paelion d’Phiarlan, head of the Paelion line, and the Thuranni agents under his command killed every other Paelion they could find, both within the family holdings in the Lhazaar Principalities and in Phiarlan holdings across Khorvaire. The slaughter was brutally effective.
Lord Elar maintained (as he still does) that he acted in the best interests not only of House Phiarlan but of all the dragonmarked houses and even all Khorvaire. However, with evidence of the Paelion plot scant at best, Baron Elvinor Ellorenthi d’Phiarlan (female elf) treated Lord Elar’s actions as a blatant form of retribution for real or imagined wrongs suffered at the hand of the Paelions. She declared the entire Thuranni line excommunicated, banishing all the family members from House Phiarlan. Lord Elar refused to accept this punishment, however, and decreed the formation of a new house that carried the Mark of Shadow. In the chaos of the war, the Thuranni line’s many clients continued doing business with the newly declared House Thuranni, and it gained legitimacy almost by default. The validity of Baron Elar’s claims about the Paelion plot is hard to determine. What seems clear is that some sort of conspiracy did exist, or more likely several intersecting plots and schemes. Some have suggested that the Order of the Emerald Claw (at the time, an extension of Karrnath’s government and one of the Thuranni line’s most important clients) planted the evidence against the Paelions. Others believe that Lord Elar and Baron Elvinor came to a mutual agreement to split the house and eliminate their rivals, the Paelions, along the way. Still, others claim that the draconic Chamber was somehow involved, trying to manipulate events to fulfill prophetic claims that refer to thirteen dragonmarked houses. It is believed that the postwar Thronehold Tribunal heard several cases relating to the schism, but the proceedings and their conclusions are still shrouded in secrecy.
The effects of the Shadow Schism were profound and far-reaching. Not only were two houses created out of one, but every dragonmarked house was forced to reevaluate its place in this new world and its relationship to the new political realities of post-Galifar Khorvaire.

Phiarlan and Thuranni Today

At the end of the war, House Phiarlan suffered one final indignity: the destruction of its family enclave in Metrol, along with the rest of Cyre. In this case, at least, the house seems to have had intelligence that proved useful, since none of the leading members of the house were in the enclave on the Day of Mourning. Still, if House Phiarlan has any knowledge of the cause of the Mourning, it is not sharing — of course, sharing secrets is not what either House of Shadow does.
Both houses remain active in espionage, and many would argue that the Last War rages on in the constant subterfuge among the new nations of Khorvaire. In this continuing conflict, House Phiarlan works most often for clients west of the Mournland, particularly Aundair, Breland, and Thrane, and remains more adept at infiltration, surveillance, and economic manipulation. House Thuranni’s most important clients are Karrnath, Droaam, Q’barra, and the Lhazaar Principalities, and its specialties include assassination and sabotage.
Neither house has forgotten the Paelions. To both houses, the lost line of Shadow stands as a reminder of the danger inherent in a lust for power. The difference is that House Phiarlan attributes that lust for power to the Thuranni line, while House Thuranni blames the Paelions for grasping at power. Remembering the Paelions, House Thuranni has noticed and carefully watches the faction within House Deneith that apparently shares the goal of the Paelions: uniting Galifar under dragonmarked rule, specifically that of House Deneith. Should that faction ever rise to power within House Deneith, House Thuranni would almost certainly take steps to neutralize it, as it did with the Paelions. For its part, House Phiarlan remembers the Paelion line as martyrs, noble victims of the treacherous Thuranni line. These attitudes keep animosity between the two lines stronger than that between any other two dragonmarked houses.

Type

Political, Faction / Party