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Written By Lucita

March 5, 2021, 10:40 p.m.(1/22/1015 AR)

Relationship Note on Rysen

And now Rysen is gone? So many losses, so very many losses.

Written By Mikani

May 14, 2020, 2:08 p.m.(4/16/1013 AR)

Relationship Note on Rysen

I find it interesting all this talking on my behalf. A few things I found very interesting. Social Climber. Yes I was ennobled in a Barony and now am Lady in a Duchy. When I hear Social Climber, to me this sounds like something that is methodically planned and something I set out to do with charts and figures. That isn't the case. I wanted to find a home for my skills. Where I would be appreciated for what I could bring to the house. Be it still in Redreef or in Crovane ... or another Barony to /gasp/ a high house. Though being ennobled in a Barony, would make it very hard for me not to be a social climber by Princess Sorrel's definition. Most houses are higher than Redreef in status.

As for a love match. I assure everyone that while I do love my husband. I make no excuses that there was love before we married. That there would have been /no marriage/, I repeat, /no marriage/ if it was not logically and diplomatically desirable for Byrne /and/ Crovane for us to wed. Me stepping down for Graham was the right thing to do and the relationship for Byrne and Crovane is a beneficial one. Not one born from my lust. Which to me just seems ridiculous. I am able to reign in my passions for the sake of my house. I am just a woman that was blessed by the gods. I thought that is what the Pantheon preached. That if the gods find you worthy you are blessed and you succeed in life. Isn't that what we teach our children? If the gods deem you worthy for a gift you will have it?

I am not being prideful. I honor the gifts given to me and try my hardest to honor the gods with what I have been blessed with. I have bore children to Crovane and I have honored the marriage contract that was set before me. Just like every other noble that has been talking about me in the whites.

While this will not stop the duel and the outcome is in the hands of Gloria and Sentinel .... I know I will continue to honor the gods with my gifts, talents and service. It is all I can do as a noble of Arvum. As a citizen of Arvum. I hope you all do the same. I will not be responding to attacks against this white. I am quite done with reading about what people have decided happened in my life. Thank you.

Written By Brianna

May 13, 2020, 6:16 p.m.(4/14/1013 AR)

Relationship Note on Rysen

Lord Rysen, please shut up and let me pound Lord Drake into the dirt so we can be done with this.

(No offense, Lord Drake. I'm sure you will fight honorably.)

Written By Shard

May 13, 2020, 3:20 p.m.(4/14/1013 AR)

Relationship Note on Rysen

I don't know you at all, but in your case you're presenting yourself as a /whiny/ asshole. Yeah, I'm not a charmer. So why is it that I'm having to point out to someone like you that the rules of the nobility, which nobles came up with at some point in the past, say that if you're throwing shit at each other you need to stop throwing shit, get Champions, have a duel, and then let it go.

I got /into/ a verbal shit flinging contest with Alecstazi a few years ago, and I /did/ challenge him over it. We didn't even end up needing the duel, because we communicated and worked it out in private like vaguely reasonable people. And I still think he's an asshole, and he probably still thinks /I'm/ an asshole, and I bet we could start up a hell of a fucking fight right now if we wanted to. But you know what? He has principles, even if I really hate some of them. He wasn't petty. I wouldn't really say he was any meaner than a lot of people I've had arguments with, and other people have certainly been nastier than he was. And he wasn't even arrogant either once I realized where he was coming from.

I don't know the details of what's going on between the two of you and I really don't care. I also don't have any idea why you're bringing things up that are completely unrelated, such as what you're doing or what's happened to you. I'm sure Alecstazi is also doing stuff, and I'm sure I don't really care about that either.

The point is, you're not supposed to still be going off and insulting him in your white journal, where anyone can read it. The purpose of duels is for nobles to work things out without starting wars, particularly wars over extremely stupid things. I guess the purpose is also to have duels over extremely stupid things because nobles get bored, but officially the first reason. And if /I/ can manage that, so can you.

Written By Sorrel

May 12, 2020, 7:40 p.m.(4/12/1013 AR)

Relationship Note on Rysen

Lord Rysen,

Your wife is the definition of a social climber. She is barely a member of the peerage, being an up-jumped commoner due to her neo-noble status. She married from a small barony to a duchy, and no matter how many children she has nor how useful she may be to the house, the facts will not change.

Furthermore, implying that a prince who has married into a duchy is a social climber is patently absurd. It is literally the opposite.

I have considered you a friend for a long time, so perhaps I should help you understand what Champions are for: they do not decide facts but opinions, generally speaking. One does not call for Champions regarding someone being wrong about a fact. One does it to address whether that person was rude about that fact or not. Also, once Champions have been called, it is absolutely gauche to then badmouth the other party in public, which includes writing white journals. The Champions handle the conflict for you.

Let it go.

Written By Alecstazi

May 12, 2020, 4:35 p.m.(4/12/1013 AR)

Relationship Note on Rysen

Clearly you have been nursing this upset for quite a while -- and you should have done the appropriate thing and called for Champions and been done with it. It's extremely unNorthern of you to hold tight to such a grudge. If I am so unwise, such a bad Peer, then surely my opinions have no weight to them. If my criticisms bore no merit why would anyone care? Perhaps it is that there is a nugget of truth within them, like a spec of sand within an oyster, eventually becomes a pearl of... I don't know. Again, not a poet.

I am a traditionalist, and I will never apologize for that. But you *do* realize that part of that tradition is... accepting and attempting to acclimate to one's new home and culture? As crass as I consider your continued attempt to plead your case publicly even after the challenge issued was accepted, I suppose I can lower myself to explain this in small words and simple concepts, whereas normally I would not deign to continue this spectacle and let the duel speak for itself.

Social standing is one of, if not *the* supreme tool of the Peerage. It is a way to maintain order and civility within our ranks and it dictates and determines the necessary hierarchy to establish said order. Before Brianna I had courted a Princess of Lenosia, some ten years ago, and that courtship fell through when she died of poisoning. Having relationships is not the same as courting. I have had lovers plenty, but that is personal and private. Courting is the intent to marry, and I have never asked to court anyone, as I believe it was my duty to obey the desires of my family with regard to marriage. Marriage and love are not at all the same thing, nor should they be. I would have, as I stated before, been content to continue a discreet relationship with Brianna and been married to a Princess. It was High Lord Victus who asked me to court Brianna, and I did so, happily. I continue to stress this fact: I never asked for the freedom to marry Brianna, because that would have been selfish. My life belonged to Thrax, and that Victus chose to place me into a contract with Halfshav is between him and Duchess Khanne.

Tradition is greatly important to me. Such as the tradition of openly adopting the culture of one's new House. Were I to cling to Thrax ideals that would hardly benefit my new House. While I hope to impart some of the wisdom of the Isles, I am not arrogant enough to cling to that which is gone. If you know my wife, you will know that she takes her role as Champion with extreme seriousness. If she felt that she could not fairly and honorably represent me, she would have told me to pick another. Or are you questioning *her* honor now too?

"Let no one mistake Lord Alecstazi for a man of principle. His legacy in the Whites is an account of pettiness, meanness and arrogance. It is his love for my friend that redeems him. May it ever be so."

If I had not already challenged you, this alone would be cause for one. If I were you, Rysen Crovane, I would shut my mouth before more crow is shoved in there for you to eat.

Written By Shard

May 12, 2020, 4:21 p.m.(4/12/1013 AR)

Relationship Note on Rysen

I don't give a shit about love matches. I also think Alecstazi is an asshole.

But this is fucking embarrassing at this point, just shut up until the people you've recruited go and beat on each other with some version of shaped metal on a stick. And then continue to shut up about this afterward, I'm fairly certain that's how it all works.

Written By Brianna

May 12, 2020, 3:18 p.m.(4/12/1013 AR)

Relationship Note on Rysen

If you respect tradition, respect the tradition of the duel and allow the Gods to speak through the result, my friend.

Written By Ian

May 11, 2020, 5:47 p.m.(4/10/1013 AR)

Relationship Note on Rysen

Neither Lord Rysen, nor Lady Brianna, nor myself have said a lot about what happened during the weeks that we were held captive by the white raven clan. I know a lot of it is stuff I don't want my family thinking about. But sometimes stories have value in the telling.

Lady Brianna was knocked unconscious soon after the fight started. She'd chosen to defend an area of the pass some distance away from the rest of us, and there was a wall of very angry shavs between us and her when she fell. I made an attempt to get to her, but I gave up on thinking it was possible. We were being overrun, and we were losing our window to get away. Lord Rysen, however, wouldn't leave her, and even though I did my all trying to defend him, he got pretty beat up in the act of dragging her out of the mob.

He plunged into a mob of angry shavs and let them beat on him while he dragged Lady Brianna to safety.

We both pretty soon realized that we were too beat up to carry her, and we were right at the point where our window to get away was closing. But Lord Rysen wouldn't leave Lady Brianna, even then. Neither of us knew at the time that we would be captured. Those shavs damned well looked like they wanted us in pieces. Lord Rysen chose to die rather than abandon Lady Brianna. It's because of him and only him that she's not dead on a hill somewhere, trampled into the mud. If it had been up to me and only me, I would have weighted the options logically and left her.

I'm glad it wasn't up to me.

In Prince Donrai's Thrax, such an act of self-sacrifice would only mark Lord Rysen as a fool, but I'd like to believe that the Isles aren't under the sway of Prince Donrai's values anymore, and the choice to sacrifice yourself protecting another isn't just foolishness for us, now.

Written By Teagan

May 11, 2020, 5:36 p.m.(4/10/1013 AR)

Relationship Note on Rysen

Oh, look.

I've found someone whose rhymes I hate worse than Lord Arik's.

Written By Alecstazi

May 11, 2020, 2:15 p.m.(4/10/1013 AR)

Relationship Note on Rysen

...Does anyone else hear the sound of farting on the wind?

I swear it seems to be coming from somewhere in the Ward...

Written By Alecstazi

May 10, 2020, 11:49 p.m.(4/9/1013 AR)

Relationship Note on Rysen

For a moment I thought to answer in rhyming couplets, but then... enh. I'm no poet, and that's alright. You say that I spoke out against your marriage to Lady Mikani. You're right, I did. At the time she'd recently married into a house, assumed Regency, then abdicated to marry you. I noted that this appeared to be quite the bit of social climbing, as well as a marriage based on love, which I do not think has ever been denied.

To this, I take your prose to infer some hypocrisy on my part, having recently been wed to Lady Brianna, to whom I hold great affection. To this, I say: You are wrong. It is as simple as that. Lady and I were enjoying a quiet companionship when my High Lord asked me to formally court her. Thus I did. Our families dealt with the negotiations. So, while yes, I admit I did get lucky that my political match worked out in my favor, but I did not ask for a love match, in fact Lady Brianna and I had discussed the fact that I very well could have been married to someone else, and we understood that the relationship would continue on discreetly or end as we felt appropriate.

But keep on trying Lord Smug.

Thank you for the welcome.

Written By Khanne

May 10, 2020, 8:48 p.m.(4/8/1013 AR)

Relationship Note on Rysen

Drysi just brought some white journals to my attention she thought I would either enjoy reading or should read. There were a couple from Rysen within the pile, both were surprising. One, because apparently there is some sort of.. competition or... disagreement or something between he and Alecstazi, something about love. He has a talent in writing poems, but perhaps I am too tired... it confused me a little. So I just wanted to say that love can exist within a union. It's not supposed to be the sole reason, amongst most nobles, that we marry, but when it so happens to benefit both houses in ways that are agreeable to the heads of each house, well, it just makes the marriage that much more beneficial to all parties.

Halfshav is incredibly happy to be allied with Thrax.

Aside from Victus nearly accidentally killing my brother. (High Lord, perhaps next time someone suggests you put your sword away during a snowball fight, perhaps consider that option a little more... please.) Thankfully, Arik will be okay. He has survived far worse. Can you imagine the embarrassment he would feel in the Shining Lands if he, our House Sword, had to tell the other souls there that he died during a lethal... snow ball fight? So glad that is not a risk at this time. I ould hear it now... everytime I went to visit, I'd hear, "oh! You are HIS sister? The guy that died in a snowball fight? I am so sorry... are you okay?"

But, I am rambling....

Anyway, Arik is fine, Bri and Alecstazi are wed, we are allies with Thrax and all is good.

But then, I also saw a journal Rysen wrote about my appearance at the Taste of Arx Ball at the Palace. His words in that entry made me grin, the way he spoke of my manner of dress that evening. Be careful, Lord Rysen, or people might think I can be civilized and blend in with the more formal sorts from the peerage. I say this with joy, because it made me giggle. The gown is one I do not wear too often, as it is very warm, made for the winter months (Designed by none other than Morrighan, a tailor I am thrilled to work with when I am able to sneak away some of her free time to do so), but what better place to represent my heritage than the Taste of Arx?

Then he said that it also "possessed all the warmth of a Spring morning in the sunlight" which... well, if anyone knows how much I love spring, they know how much it thrilled me to hear that.

I too enjoyed our conversation, Rysen, and look forward to more like it in the future.

Written By Mikani

March 23, 2020, 1:39 a.m.(12/22/1012 AR)

Relationship Note on Rysen

I read a poem ... I've been reading a lot of them lately.

"Hope" is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops-at all -

My heart hangs on these words. I know that with the pouring of support from the Compact for the rescue of my husband (Lord Rysen), Lord Ian and Lady Brianna my hope is a flame that is gaining air and growing. I thank everyone who has offered help. Please contact Duke Regent Aethan Kennex, is the one that is a connection between all the moving parts.

Written By Arcadia

March 21, 2020, 6:14 a.m.(12/19/1012 AR)

Relationship Note on Rysen

Sometimes, a blessing feels like a curse.

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

Written By Hamish

March 4, 2020, 2:49 p.m.(11/14/1012 AR)

Relationship Note on Rysen

It does that every year or so.

Written By Zoey

Feb. 28, 2020, 12:15 p.m.(11/3/1012 AR)

Relationship Note on Rysen

My dear Lord Rysen, I appreciate that you believe I have such influence over that husband of mine, but let me make this clear:
Had I the ability to convince him to cleanse, burn, or otherwise purge that horrid scarf of his, I would have done so by now. Instead, I choose to accept its existence and focus my energy on more fruitful endeavors.
Besides, he only takes it out when he is on a mission, and it lives in a cedar box when he is at home. For the use he gets out of it, the thing's occasional appearance is tolerable.

Written By Colette

Dec. 1, 2019, 10:49 p.m.(4/19/1012 AR)

Relationship Note on Rysen

Quite the Knight you are my Lord.

Written By Shard

Oct. 15, 2019, 12:23 a.m.(1/7/1012 AR)

Relationship Note on Rysen

This is wishful thinking, and it's naive.

I can answer your question. They both want Arvum. And because they both want Arvum, if one of them attacks and invades, the other one will too, and they'll be directly at war, which is not something they want to do, at least not yet. It's why they're still sitting out there in their ships; neither one wants to leave while the other's still here.

But no, we're not too strong, at least in their eyes. We aren't. Don't fall back on this. It's a comfortable lie that people will use as an excuse not to worry, not to prepare, and not to change.

I'm not arguing that people shouldn't try some sort of diplomatic solution. Fine. By all means, try. But don't just start giving them things because you think you can somehow trick them into respecting you. And don't go into it thinking that you've got some kind of card up your sleeve that will suddenly put the Compact on top, just because you're the Compact. You need to stop thinking like you're the biggest, strongest piece on the board, just because up until now you haven't run into anyone you haven't been able to eventually crush. You aren't. You never were. You cannot browbeat, bully, or threaten either the Undying Empire or Cardia, you can't declare you're in charge, you can't force them to do anything they don't want to do. You talk about burying your head in the sand; that's exactly what I'm telling people to stop doing. Look at the situation for what it is, and understand that you're the underdog and if they want to take everything from you, if they decide that's worth war with the nation they actually consider a threat, they can and they will.

Work from that position, not the imaginary, more comfortable one. As far as they're concerned, /you/ are the savage, backwards idiots who don't know what's best for you and who are, at best, squatting on territory they either want, or already consider theirs. I'll note from experience that it's not a very safe or comfortable place to stand, but it's where we all are.

Written By Preston

Oct. 10, 2019, 2:45 a.m.(12/25/1011 AR)

Relationship Note on Rysen

I accept it is a noble goal, but that is only if those others might be inclined to help us, if they can somehow be the ones to claim this free room we are offering and if they are in a position to help us whatever their desire. And in truth I suspect they are still as insulting to our ancestors and Gods. That is a great deal of uncertainty when the cost is to offend the Gods, who have been steadfast in their love for us.

As I said when the Compact considered the offer of joining with Cardia - it is a choice the nobles must make, but it is one I hope they will make while being able to look their Seraph in the eye. And I will continue to find other solutions to our problems, ones born of Arvum and our Gods and not the tempting offers of others.

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