History
Meraan Azeth founded House Azeth at the same time that Kurn was founded, towards the end of the Cleansing Wars. Since that time, House Azeth has intermarried with herders, Draji, and other people that they have had contact. Despite its relatively small size, the sheer scale of Azeth’s Great Caravan, its exclusive trade rights to Eldaarich, its near stranglehold on trade to Kurn, its enormous history, and the extraordinary strategic and political importance of Azeth’s Rest, require that one treat Azeth as a ‘major‛ trade house within this region.
Environment: House Azeth is based in the fortified village of Azeth’s Rest, has permanent posts in Ket, Draj, and Kurn, and seasonal posts at Silt Side and Fort Stench. However, the greatest bulk of strength sits in its Great Caravan.
Typical Characteristics: Azeth-blood family members tend to have dark hair and eyes and light brown skin that they cover when possible from the sun. All Azeth agents know the common tongue of the Tyr region; they also speak Kurnan, Elvish, and the herder dialect (Eloy). The Azeth House emblem is a golden lizard.
Alignment: House Azeth has a strong reputation in the Trembling Plains for competence and fair dealing. Even more scrupulously law-abiding than House Inika, House Azeth bards and merchants emphasize lawfulness, taking great care that their business does not fall afoul of whatever passes for law and order in the lands that they deal with. House Azeth believes that the wind spirits send them opportunities to do good at small risk, and that persons of good character seize on these opportunities. The Azeth air clerics emphasize goodness, and determine a person’s character as whether they ‘listen to the winds’. However, survival and success of the house usually comes foremost. Most of the agents in House Azeth are either lawful good, lawful neutral, or neutral good.
Religion: Azeth enjoys a special relationship with the air element and regards its air priests as prophetic. Most Azeth priests were ‘taken by the winds‛ when they were children, sometimes as young as babies. Strangers find it extraordinary to see Corik Azeth taking counsel from his five-year-old great niece. These ‘wind’s gift children’ have an extraordinary gift for identifying trustworthy people, and for predicting future marriages. Not all of their prophecies come true, because ‘the future is not written in stone, people are free to follow the winds, or to burn their own path.‛
Society
Azeth calls those it employs agents, slaves, hirelings, and friends. Hirelings are persons who undertake a specific project or agree to work through one or two season, such as the Kurnan mercenaries that help to defend Azeth’s Rest during the Flamesky seasons. ‘Slaves,‛ to house Azeth, mean any person who agrees to work for a period of years without making a permanent commitment. Azeth pays its ‘slaves‛ daily, pays bonuses after seasons when their labor was particularly needed, and reserves half of their pay until the end of their service period. After the slave’s period of service has expired, House Azeth takes ceremony of setting a slave ‘free‛ very seriously, refusing to contract for another period of service until the slave has enjoyed his freedom for at least a week.
Agents are all family members by either blood or marriage. When House Azeth Air priests perform the marriage ceremony, anyone who marries into House Azeth, takes the Azeth name and is treated like a full family member; such ‘non-blood‛ Azeth members can rise to full leadership in the House.
A Friend of Azeth is a trustworthy person of great abilities who has rendered service to House Azeth. Eager to bring good blood into the family, Azeth tries to match such persons with single Azeth family members., When this is impractical (for example, if the friend is already married, or is a mul or a half-giant), the wind priests proclaim the person a ‘Friend of Azeth’, and that person is given land within the walls of Azeth’s Rest. The friend can build a permanent residence there that the project is his, as long as he lives. (The friend cannot sell the land or convey it to anyone else). Friends of Azeth are expected to assist with the defense of the town, and the House often draws on their efforts in other ways. Some Friends participate in the caravans as if they were agents.
Politics: Azeth is acutely aware that, despite its importance to the North, it is a very small house compared to Tsalaxa or the other great Trade houses. Azeth is wary of trying to extend their trade links much farther into the Tyr region. At least until the situations there stabilize. Azeth has done well in the very stable, very predictable environment of the North. It knows its environment well and has adapted to it. They recognize these conditions for their success and avoid major risks in far larger, less predictable conditions. Azeth prefers to create more links to the northern Tyr region (by creating direct routes from Azeth to Raam and Urik that do not pass through Draj, and House Tsalaxa’s stranglehold). Azeth does not think that it is realistic to even think about serving routes to cities south of Raam (trying to trade from Tyr to Urik or Draj to Balic). On the other hand, Azeth is willing to pretend to be larger than it is, and to pretend to consider expansion. This was the bargaining chip that persuaded House Inika to partner exclusively with Azeth for the northern trade in Gulgan spices on condition that Azeth sells Kurnan and Eldaarish spices exclusively to Inika for trade in Gulg, Tyr, and Nibenay. Both Inika and Azeth think that they received the better end of the bargain, but the truth is that the bargain was good for both houses; Inika is the only house with the savvy to give Azeth a run for its money on the Draj-Eldaarich road, but Azeth’s Great Caravan really seems to be the safest and most economical solution to the bandit threat in the long term.
House Azeth Lore
Characters with ranks in Knowledge (Local [Draj]) or Knowledge (Local [Trembling Plains]) can learn more about House Azeth. When a character makes a successful skill check, the following lore is revealed, including the information from lower DCs
Knowledge (Local [Trembling Plains])
DC 10
Result: House Azeth owns a heavily protected oasis along the trade road called ―Azeth‘s Rest. Azeth‘s Great Caravan departs Kurn on the 20th of every quinth except for Flamesky, and arrives in Azeth‘s Rest on the 25th. Every quinth except for Flamesky, Azeth‘s Rest holds a trade fair shortly after the Great Caravan arrives. The Great Caravan departs Azeth‘s Rest on the 53rd day of the season, and arrives in Kurn on the 58th day. The Great Caravan stops for nothing, and the guards assume that anyone or anything that stands in the Caravan‘s path is a bandit.
12: Corik Azeth always accompanies the Great Caravan. House Azeth has a solid reputation for fair dealing in Kurn and among the Eloy of the Trembling Plains.
14: Corik Azeth, leader of House Azeth, gained the trust of an Eldaarish high templar, and established trade relations with Eldaarich. Trade occurs four times a year at the village of Silt Side, a few days after the Great Caravan arrives in Kurn.
20: Like the Eloy, most members of House Azeth have some human and some elven ancestry. The local elven tribes respect House Azeth, and use the house to mediate their disputes with the Eloy. House Azeth is elf-like in one respect —Azeth priests apply elf-like tests of the character of the persons that they wish to trust.
25: House Azeth‘s wind priests advise the house, and have a keen ear for truth. Some of them claim to prophesy the future. Only through the advice of the wind priests could a relative outsider like Corik Azeth (an Eloy herder that married into House Azeth) rose to become head of the house.
Knowledge (Local [Draj])
DC 10
Result: House Azeth is a minor trade house that does some business in Draj.
15: House Azeth has a small emporium in Draj, and does most of its business far to the north. Its trade route includes the Lost Cities, Kurn and Eldaarich.
20: While a small house by Tyr region standards, House Azeth is very important in the north, and owns a key oasis along the trade road called ―Azeth‘s Rest.‖ This oasis holds trade fairs four times per year.
25: House Azeth has an exclusive trade relationship with the city-state of Eldaarich, and holds an even greater influence in Kurn than House Tsalaxa has in Draj.
