The Night of Sharp Whispers

"And by the time the moring light crept over the land, it was no longer ours. Little remained in our hands after that night. Across the realm we walked as beggars amongst subjects. They were subjects no more- they had become peers, and the Volkmar's? Overseers. Nothing was left. It was all gone. Those scheming tripes held every card- they left nothing to chance, nothing to luck. It was clean, seamless, like the steel of their stare." - Gretchith Gerwin-Düngal, matriarch of House Gwerrith

The Night of Sharp Whispers was the single largest covert operation in Gwendorian history, and its legacy lasts to this day, informing power dynamics and distribution between the great Gwendorian families. During the reign of Gouthas Broadbane, House relations flared as the Lord's Seat did little to mediate the turbulant negotiations as new trade connections grew fresh competition. The fast-changing trade landscape proved widly lucrative for House Arratheen and House Dorröchk, as a combination of geographical influence and logistical prowess enabled a wholesale leveraging of the untouched natural resources of Runner's Crown. This influx of wealth greatly shifted the relatively settled heirarchy that had placed House Gwerrith in the senior position, but a tentative peace was maintained as Gouthas and Sophia Broadbane worked to realign the trade power sharing with missions into the Marches in search of rumoured silver mines.

These missions to the Marches saw limited success as local hostility and logistical challenges curbed silver extraction. In light of this, House Gwerrith sat uneasily contesting the position of leading House: their majority in the High Council exterted what powers it could, but the growing economic pressure from other Houses limited their influence. As both Dorröchk and Arratheen continued to thrive- solidifying their respective powerbases- opposing interests were temporarily put to one side in favour of pushing Gwerrith out of many port towns. These moves were contested by Gwerrith, but little could be done as their traditional political capital atrophied under the overstretched Gouthas, giving way to cold and calculating economic warfare. The families of Gerwin, Düngal and Harald stood firm in traditions, attempting to exert power through conventional channels of Lordly appeal, and the cultural capital of old institutions. It was only the Volkmar's of House Gwerrith who adapted to the new conventions of war and fought back, making sure ports remained open to Gwerrithian vessels, and working with Sophia Broadbane to open new avenues of trade to reduce dependace on contested channels. This measured effort, combined with the sheer size of House Gwerrith was enough to force a stalemate across much of the Lordship, though it cost Gerwin, Harald and Düngal much of their prestige and influence.

Sadly, this tentative peace was short-lived as Sophia's sudden death at the hands of March bandits brought a two-fold blow to the Lordship. On a personal level, the loss of an older sister threw the already weary Gouthas to the mercy of his own inner demons- he left the affairs of the Seat to the High Council soon after. On a political and economic level, the shattering of trade interests further south doomed the efforts of Volkmar to circumvent the trade conflict playing havoc with the west coast. In combination, this event left a power vacuum, the arbiter of which had left, and the rules for which were not written. Surprisingly, it was not House Arratheen or House Dorröchk that capitalised, but the Volkmar family of House Gwerrith.

The Volkmars had adapted quicker than their blood allies, and had in many ways saved the House from an outright economic extinction. However, their lack of hard power footprint left much to be desired in terms of tangible influence, and while their traditions of Gwendorian Matriarchy had positioned Volkmar women in powerful roles across the realm, little was done to orchestrate a wider movement. Until now. The fourth Matriarch of Volkmar saw the opportunity that Gouthas' desertion afforded the family, and saw to it that the chance was not wasted. Using connections in the Broadbane household, the Volkmar House Mothers knew of Gouthas' plan the day before. In this one day of grace, they organised letters to be sent ahead of the dispatch announcing the transfer of power to the HIgh Council. These letters were addressed personally to each and every Volkmar woman in a major role across the realm, detailing their exact role in what would become the largest takeover in history.

So, by the time the Lord's Court announced Gouthas' abdication, the House Mothers' plan had been in motion for days. Each women represented a possible power acquisition: the wife of a quartermaster was a dock, the wife of a noble was a county. On command, these women went about bringing the assets within their reach under the control of the family, through murder, bribery or any other means necessary. In a matter of days, hardly a week after the High Council had taken the reins, House Arratheen and Dorröchk were gutted from within as every diplomatic marriage orchestrated by the Volkmars of Gwerrith became a sleeper cell, activated on will. Within a week, House Gwerrith had been reinstated as the senior house, and its majority in the High Council went about ratifying its newly acquired assets in a long program of trials for 'self-defence' killings and 'iheritance disputes' handled by lower courts.

Not only did opposing Houses fall victim, but internal enemies also felt the sharp end of Volkmar marriages. Gerwin and Düngal were sidelined as the majority of their shipping operations and domestic haulage were reposessed, large swathes of their men were imprisoned, and a select few of their own key matriarchs mysteriously disappeared. Naturally, these purges were harder to ratify on a local level, but the Gwerrith Council majority was also a Volkmar majority as the family's careerism paid dividends in the form of expediated trials and the publication of licenses. In the immediate aftermath, there was little anyone could do as the concerted efforts of a small group of brutal careerists deemed generations of etiquette and power worthless overnight. By the end of the month, the efforts of each actor were deemed legal or met with short sentences served under house arrest, and the transfer of property and assets was enshrined in law. There would never again be a House-driven conflict on the same scale as the soft and hard power of Arratheen and Dorröchk were permanently restrained to their geographical localities. Guilds graduated to the largest entity that engaged in market warfare, and even these couldn't do so until the anarchy of The Magnate's Revolt four generations later.

"It is a lady's duty to act quickly. It is with speed that results are yielded. Even the cleanest must carve on occasion." - Kerellia Volkmar IV, mastermind of The Night of Sharp Whispers

Conflict Type

Covert Operation