House Phavah

House Phavah holds Anput Nome and Meseh Nome in southern Hadash. It is ruled by Sufet Kamzu Phavah.

History
House Phavah has ruled Anput Nome since the mid-200s BF, and Meseh Nome since 16 AF. It is an old house - not uncommon in Hadash - and has long held a swathe of land in Upper Hadash, along the Emerald River where it approaches the vast southern jungle, called the Labyrinth. It came into possession of Mesesh Nome, just north of the Labyrinth, during the Third Greytide. Hadash in general was not subjected to the same horrors as Elthos, which was far worse afflicted. Meseh Nome is a stark exception. The name of the house that once ruled it, Maran, is a footnote in history now. During the Greytide, pillars of light, extending into the sky as far as the eye could see, were occasionally spotted far, far to the south, presumably somewhere in the Labyrinth. Records hold that some time in 16 AF, multiple such pillars of light manifested over Meseh Nome and the town at its heart. They vanished again some moments later. People hurried south and found nothing but blasted ruin - even mighty stone buildings had melted, and the ground was in places fused into glass. The Phavahs at the time, with royal assent, eventually resettled Meseh Nome, though annals show that it took many long years before it was more than a token showing, more a military garrison than anything.

At the southern edge of Hadash, with monster-infested jungle to its south, and less contact with external neighbours than most, House Phavah has tended to be more insular than other Hadashi houses, and is reluctant to accept or even tolerate notable change to its home. While it will send aid to deal with external threats, through periods of civil strife in Hadash, House Phavah has simply carefully shepherded its strength, and turned away people entreatying it to join one side or another. When it came to joining the empire, House Phavah was strident about retaining control over imperial travel through its land. Despite the presence of the Labyrinth and the monstrous creatures living within, House Phavah has never facilitated the establishment of a chapter of The Knights Custodian.

In late 630 AF, the Emerald River flooded in a wholly unprecedented way. Frequent inundation is part of what makes the river plain so fertile. This flood was something else - abrupt, unexpected, and immensely destructive. The river burst its banks and wrought a great deal of destruction in the more populous areas of Meseh Nome and through Anput Nome too. Although many people were able to flee in time, and there were not many casualties, whole villages were swept away, and the city of First Market largely ruined. The time after the flood saw an increase in the monstrous population of the near Labyrinth, making trips to the jungle more dangerous than at any time in living memory. House Phavah has tried to remedy the damage to its home by itself, and it has failed. 631 AF saw the house finally establishing more than a token presence in Sanctuary, and the beginning of finally moving out of isolation.

Holdings
House Phavah's seat of power is in the city of First Market in Anput Nome. Its name is apparently because in the early days of Hadash, long, long ago, it really was the first market along the Emerald River, with no other settlement large enough to serve as a hub for one. More recent years have seen the establishment of smaller markets farther upriver, closer to the Labyrinth, but First Market remains by a wide margin the largest settlement in the area. In ordinary times, it would be at the heart of a thriving agricultural area. In the wake of the flood of 630, much of the city was damaged or even washed away. Across the Nome more broadly, whole villages were washed away.

Meseh Nome is a region right on the border of the Labyrinth, only covering a relatively short north-south span of the Emerald River, but running for many miles east-west along the fingres of the Labyrinth. It is the very edge of Hadash and the edge of civilisation as anyone knows it. A number of its people work in or to support the timber industry, a job which goes from being perilous at the best of times elsewhere on Elthos to ludicrously hazardous in Meseh. The beasts of the Labyrinth are fiercely territorial and have no compunctions about attacking people. The quality of the timber - strong and flexible - combined with the paucity of forest elsewhere in Hadash means it attracts high prices, and so there are good wages for those willing to extract it. The soldiers posted there are exceedingly well-remunerated and renowned for their grit. It is not quite as perilous as the northernmost settlements in Lonin.

Current Events
House Phavah's long isolation, spent largely ignoring the world, has come to an end. Its nobility are becoming a more frequent sight in Sanctuary, but they have yet to become a really established presence at the imperial court. Some in the empire might regard them a little suspiciously, after House Phavah spent so long uninvolved in imperial affairs. Others might take their presence as an opportunity to make an ally.

House Phavah lacks the material and the people to set right the destruction to its home. Anput Nome's agricultural land might be rendered productive in a reasonably short time if properly provided for, but as it stands, it is not.

Meseh Nome is even worse off. Although the logging camps far from the river were unaffected by the flooding, the port infrastructure along the river was washed away and destroyed. Even loading barges is a fraught process using ad hoc piers and a lot of manual labour where loading cranes would usually be preferred. The extraction of timber is more perilous than ever, with the increase in the number of wild beasts.