House Tharashk

House Tharashk bears the Mark of Finding, making its heirs great hunters of beasts and objects alike. Though young, Tharask is a large and wide-spread House, extending from the Shadow Marches, to Droaam, to Q'Barra and beyond. Tharashk is divided into three clans: Thorrn, Velderan and Aashta, which approximately 3000 marked members each. The House is based nominally in the capital of the Shadow Marches, Zarash'ak, with several hundred heirs from each clan working there. Other marked Tharashk can be found all over the globe on prospecting expeditions, hunting trips and archeological finds. Nonmarked numbers are unusually high for a dragonmarked house, owing to Tharashk's full acceptance of their orcish kin and the occasional marriage into the house by other races.
House Tharashk engages in a wide variety of commercial ventures, including dragonshard prospecting, mineral prospecting, surveying, tracking, fishing, mining, game finding, bounty hunting, procuring mercenaries and labourers from Droaam and sponsoring archeological digs. Of these, Tarashk's trade deals with Droaam are the most profitable, with prospecting second and hunting a distant third.
Droaam's largely untapped mineral resources and monstrous reputation allows the Tharashk clans to serve as middlemen for the bulk trade agreements between the Daughters of Sora Kell and the Five Nations. In addition to the rich iron and coal deposits of the region, Droaam has the single largest deposits of byeshk metal in all of Khorvaire. Moreover, Droaam's native races often have great strength (ogres, gnolls and minotaurs), the ability to fly (harpies and gargoyles) or unusual magical abilities (medusae and hags), allowing House Tharashk to find them employment not only as mercenaries, but as labourers, couriers and even mages.

History

House Tharashk is the second youngest house amongst the Twelve, with the Mark of Finding manifesting among the humans and half-orcs of the Shadow Marches. These lands are the ancestral home of the orcs of Khovaire and are a ruined and lonely place after years of battle with the daeklyr. Human refugees found their way to the Shadow Marches, and the early settlers were not meet with open arms by a majority of the orc clans. A few of the clans were receptive to the humans, and as the years passed, the union between the two races resulted in the jhorgun'taal: "children of two types of blood," or half-orcs.
Around 1000 years ago, the Mark of Finding made its first appearance on the humans and half-orcs of three Shadow Marches clans. The largest clans where the mark appeared were the Torrns, the Velderans, and the Aashtas. It was seen as a blessing to assist the weaker half-orcs and humans. As these individuals learned how to use the mark's powers and honed their abilities, word of their hunting and tracking prowess spread throughout Khovaire. In the late 600's, the dragonmarked of these three clans were discovered by a group of Zil gnomes who were searching for dragonshards in the Shadow Marches. With the gnomes' assistance, the three clans were united under the banner of House Tharashk, which is the orcish word for "united." While the clans put aside many of their differences, clan loyalty runs deep, and feuds between them flared up occasionally.
To ensure that no one clan within the newly formed house was able to amass too much power and influence, House Tharashk decided not to have a single Patriarch or Matriarch. Instead, the house's ruling body became known as the Triumvirate, with each clan holding one council place. One of their first acts was choosing the dragonne as the house's symbol, the dragon representing the fearsome nature of the orcish blood in their veins along with the hunting expertise of a lion.
House Tharashk knew that being master hunters would not be enough to garner respect and influence among the other dragonmarked houses. They turned their abilities to the dragonshard trade, quickly becoming the dominant force in this lucrative business. The dragonmarked heirs used the Mark of Finding to locate the dragonshards, and the unmarked members set about mining them.
Not satisfied with being known as the House of the Shadow Marches, House Tharashk aggressively expanded through Khovaire. Even the Last War could not slow down their expansion and aggressive mining of the dragonshards, which were in high demand by all the nations.

Agriculture & Industry

House Tharashk's prospecting work is mixed in profitability. While the Mark of Finding grants the house a massive edge in locating mineral deposits, and the Finder's guild has some of the most skilled prospectors of the modern age, House Tharashk has no particular affinity for extracting the wealth from the earth once it is located. Often, a seemingly promising mine is abandoned when skilled miners cannot be found to excavate in the untamed wilderness of Q'Barra or the Shadow Marshes. House Tharashk strongly prefers prospecting for Eberron Dragonshards over precious gems or metal ores, as their high value and tendency to form in areas of soft earth simplify mining operations significantly.
If House Tharashk's hunting and bounty hunting operations are among their least profitable, they are easily the most glamorous. Pulp novels feature bare-chested Tharashk inquisitives tracking escaped fugitives across the untamed wild, muscles glistening with sweat as they run down their criminal prey. Meanwhile, many noble huntsman simply wouldn't dream of going on a hunt without a team of beaters from the Finding Guild. While these paint an unrealistic picture of Tharashk's operations, there remains a grain of truth in the legendary inescapability of a Tharashk manhunter.
By the end of the war, the lands of Droaam were recognized as a sovereign territory under the rule of three hags known as the Daughter of Sora Kell. House Tharashk entered into a working relationship with Droaam and acted as an intermediary between the monstrous races that inhabit the country and the Five Nations. They would contract work for the various races, the most popular of which was heavy labor and mercenary soldiers. Ogres, gnolls, and minotaurs were employed as mercenaries or laborers, with gargoyles and harpies used as couriers and scouts. Mercenaries garnered a higher price tag than general laborers. Not everyone is happy with this arrangement, as House Deneith has been the primary source of mercenary soldiers in Khovaire until this point, and subterfuge and spying is becoming more common.

Leader: 
The Triumvirate: Daric d'Velderan, Khundar'aashta, Maagrim Torrn d'Tharashk
Headquarters: 
United Hold, Zarash'ak, Shadow Marches