The Cuniegondes were a predominantly human family in savage Balebu, which notably was the largest noble family of Mirmillion and a powerful clan of the Boen empire.

History

Diffused Origins

There were many small human farming settlements near the foothills of the High Mountains. They coexisted peacefully with orcish herder tribes, occasionally trading with them for various goods, and purchasing advanced items like metal tools from traveling Bromalnor merchants. In one of these villages, called Orkerk's Rest, the farmers - three human and one orcish household, all of which spoke Orcish - decided to create a tribe of their own. Instead of adopting an orcish name and emblem, they chose a Goblin-sounding name and rune for the extra prestige.

The village of Orkerk's Rest slowly grew as surrounding farmers moved into the village and the villagers traded with passing orcish tribes. The village even came to the notice of merchants from Bromalnor, and hobgoblins from the city of Mirmillion came to trade in various goods.

Cuniegonde Domain, 1'524 - 1'402 b. OW

Profiting from the uptick in trade, the Cuniegondes decided to found a "domain", deciding that all the land of the farmers in their village was part of it, and at the same time forming a farmer's cooperative to facilitate bringing wares to the market. This cooperative enjoyed minor success and surrounding isolated farms joined up, allowing Cuniegonde to expand its domain.

Over the following century, the domain grew to encompass four villages and 80 km2, with Orkerk's Rest being its central merchants' hub. In order to better coordinate administrative economies, and keep a firm hold on the cooperative, the family began the tradition of appointing a leader who directed the domain. At first, this leader rotated between the four constituent families-by-blood, but as time passed and blood mixed, the leader alternated between the orcish and the human Cuniegondes.

Under Mirmillion, 1'402 - 576 b. OW

Small Domain, 1'402 - 1'038 b. OW

A large part of trade in Orkerk's Rest was increasingly formed by the Mirmillite merchants. The independent city-state was becoming increasingly attractive to the poor Cuniegonde farmers: a lustrous elven city-state with a powerful army to protect its subjects, promising open trade and protection in exchange for submission. This was especially valuable because there had been several incidents where farmsteads were raided by orcish herders or bandits, and the small domain had virtually no military resources. Besides, a not-too-distant trade town had recently been violently annexed by a noble house, and Cuniegonde feared the same fate.

So Orkerk's Rest and its satellites decided to voluntarily join Mirmillion, paying regular taxes of food in exchange for protection from raiders. The city-state was quite distant, so none of the noble houses decided to claim personal ownership over the domain and taxation was quite relaxed, but this also meant that Azure Guard protection was sporadic at best. Nevertheless, Cuniegonde benefitted from the joining because the family was now the administrative extension of the city government, serving as an intermediary to collect all taxes and communicating with the Azure Guard. As the village continued growing slowly, Cuniegonde became its absolute "ruling house", and it commanded a small force of minimally trained village levies with which it could enforce laws and protect farmsteads. It was during this time that the humans came to form a majority of the house's constituents; in 1'100, the house numbered 26 humans in three interrelated families, and 12 orcs in one extended family. The Cuniegonde leader was now almost always the oldest father of one of the three human families.

Though Cuniegonde now saw itself as an important family, admiring its own fancy goblinoid apparel and its autonomous control of a modest agricultural domain, it was in fact still merely a commoner family on the very fringe of Mirmillion. Auriana Cuniegonde, who became family leader in 1'050 b. OW, decided to change that. She built up a small trade empire by making deals with western orcish tribes and transporting goods all across western Mirmillion, eventually becoming wealthy enough to gain citizen status for her house. Cuniegonde's economic control over the countryside shot up dramatically, Auriana maneuvered politics in the city cunningly, and the estates themselves grew considerably. From its newly renamed city of Cunievil, the Cuniegonde domain stretched over 300 km2. In 1'038, Auriana became Matriarch of Mirmillion, and the Cuniegonde Family was elevated to noble status.

Great Noble House, 1'038 - 878 b. OW

After its meteoric rise, Cuniegonde was widely regarded to be under great auspices, and it enjoyed its newfound popularity and influence. Auriana, wielding great political and military power as matriarch, and considerable economic influence through Cuniegonde's many businesses, greatly increased the family's properties and status, continuing to forge a small city-state within a city-state in Cunievil.

The Cuniegonde family continued occupying the title of matriarch and patriarch for three consecutive generations, and thereafter continued being perhaps the most prominent noble family. The Villa Auriana, an elf-style palace on the Lake of Stars, built backing the rugged foothills of the High Mountains, was increasingly expanded and became a regular meeting-place for the aristocratic elite. The Cuniegonde family meanwhile grew, as humans and some elves and hobgoblins married into the family, helping it consolidate its control over businesses, guilds and artisans' shops in the city, while tactical marriages were made with nobles controlling the countryside to help maintain control after the Cuniegonde merchants lost their monopoly.

After more than a century of Cuniegonde being a great noble house, things were looking very good for humans in Mirmillion. The Cuniegonde rural domain proper had indirect influence over most of the surrounding lands, a human-elven sub-family controlled another sizeable domain, and virtually the entire urban economy was in the hands of over 150 Cuniegonde family members. The size of the five elven noble families had well reduced, and three Cuniegonde sub-families (one of which had barely any blood-tie) had essentially flooded public administration and the Azure Guard.

Split Family, 878 - 576 b. OW

The size of the "Cuniegonde Family" had become far too large, and there were various tensions between different sub-families. In 878, the family Gloufort-Cuniegonde, the dominant sub-family in the city with a proven direct family tree to Auriana, refused to take directives from Herbert Cuniegonde in Cunievil and broke away. Over the next few years, the rest of the overextended Cuniegonde family broke apart, splintering into nearly a dozen smaller groups. The subgroup with the strongest right to the name was the one led by Herbert Cuniegonde, and so they kept the family name even as the various others, including most notably Gloufort, gradually lost it. Though many subgroups continued feeling some loyalty to the Cuniegonde Family and the words of Herbert and his successors carried considerable political weight, the family was no longer a united bloc, and political rivalries between the subgroups became as intensive as those with other noble and citizen families. To the greatest annoyance of the Cunievil Cuniegondes, they had lost their title of nobles and the Glouforts insisted on their ownership of the Villa Auriana, leading to repeated tensions and almost causing a civil war until the laws on noble titles were relaxed, allowing the Cuniegondes - and several other landed or urban families - to become nobles once again.

An era of relative peace and prosperity set in, with the old elven customs sufficiently dissolved and humans in power nearly everywhere. Two Cunievil Cuniegondes served as patriarch, and the family remained in high status among the mostly human aristocracy.

The city-state of Mirmillion witnessed an increase in foreign problems soon after, as incursions of military units from Bonecrunch or Bromalnor began attempting to fight in or raid Mirmillion territory. This helped the families overcome old slights and gloss over breaches of tradition. Cuniegonde, being right on the border, had to gradually fortify its major population centers, and it built a fortress out of the Villa Auriana, from where its increasingly large orc-and-human badeep cavalry could operate against larger invading forces. Around 6% of the Azure Guard was made up of professional Cuniegonde-paid men-at-arms, and an even larger percentage was made up by Cuniegonde levies. When the border problems ended around the 630s, the Cuniegondes were known as proud warlords, and were very fashionable in that capacity. The Castel Auriana however no longer served as a nobles' resort, though its opulent terraces and elven arches on the protected side could still rival the wealthiest urban homes.

Things turned awry in the mid-580s. The aristocracy, both urban and Cuniegonde, had become very comfortable in its position, and decided to use its large military, even in peacetime. Though things were calm enough in the Cuniegonde domain, other villages were beginning to complain about the high taxes imposed on them and the rough treatment the Azure Guard gave them, while simultaneously the city was waging pointless wars in the west against various orcish groups, in hopes of expanding territory. Though initially Cuniegonde supported this because it profited from military investment, it drew back its Azure Guard regiments when it grew clear Patriarch Gloufort was aiming to simply conquer arable land from the orcs for his own profit. Tensions mounted, and everything fell apart when large orcish hosts counterattacked simultaneously with several peasant uprising. The Azure Guard was defeated on the field and Mirmillion fell.

Margravate of Casteliana, 574 - 368 b. OW

The leader of Cuniegonde Family, and the commander of its three Azure Guard regiments, was Margrave Mervin Cuniegonde of Castel Auriana. He knew of orcish preparations for war because of Cuniegonde's enduring trade contacts in the west, and accordingly drew back his forces, garrisoning them in the fortified points of Cunievil, Castelmark, Terkievil, and Castel Auriana. When orcish hosts defeated Gloufort's Azure Guard and overran Mirmillion, Mervin's prepared forces could keep them off the Cuniegonde domain, while Mervin simultaneously engaged in diplomacy with orcish warlords; in exchange for supporting their campaign against Mirmillion and Bromalnor's tentative counterattacks, Cuniegonde was promised friendship and protection.

Map of the Margravate.

Thus the Cuniegonde domain stood when Mirmillion fell, and Mervin founded a new polity called Margravate of Casteliana, which oversaw a population of 10'000 concentrated in two cities. Its survival strategy focused on equal parts in military strength, to keep any small-clan warlords from feeling the desire to raid or conquer the polity - which was achieved both by maintaining a sizeable, mostly mounted army, and by having five castles and two fortified cities - and through peace and trade with everyone. Casteliana was surrounded by orcs, so it traded openly with those orcs, and often even treated as an equal with orcish clan chieftains.

In 387, nearly a third of the margravate's population was orcish, and an orcish minority had formed once again within the Cuniegonde family - this was necessary to deal as equals with surrounding orcish clans. It was during this time that a new orcish clan was rapidly rising, a clan of badeep-riders which proudly called itself the Golden Horde. Soon enough, Cuniegonde found itself sharing a border with this successful new clan, and it decided to forge an alliance: a large part of its badeep-and-fenrir-mounted Azure Guard would ride south along its warlord in exchange for recognition as a "clan" of their own. The Golden Horde fell apart after the successful invasion of Bromalnor in 369, and promptly shattered into smaller polities; but Chieftain Urog Cunnigon could ride back to Castel Auriana as the proud human chieftain of a full orcish clan.

Clan Cunnigon, 368 b. OW - 55 OW

Casteliana, increasingly known as Clan Cunnigon, continued thereafter as a human-orcish clan. Its chieftain was the most powerful in the northern Korrin Plain. Though the family remained majoritarily human, and a solid 50% of the population was human, orcish cultural norms and language trickled in ever more. Modern weapon and armor largely disappeared, turning the Azure Guard into a light cavalry force, and some of the castles fell into disrepair as the resources to maintain them disappeared while the large, mobile army was a much more effective way of protecting the borders against smaller, mobile raiders.

The Cunnigon Family continued ruling its clan, and in fact expanding the number of tribes subservient to it, over the next centuries. Its old, measured traditions and human-orcish composition made it resilient to infighting, while the fortress of Castel Auriana - known as Lakeside Rock among the tribes - made it nearly unassailable, able to withstand several tribal uprisings and enemy attacks. Eventually, Clan Bonebreaker began acquiring the allegiance of all the western tribes, and Cunnigon followed suit quickly enough. Bonebreaker was a very powerful empire, and Cunnigon was honored to serve it - and it acquired large swathes of extra territory as Bonebreaker smashed some neighboring tribes.

During the Orc Wars, several thousand humans from southern Balebu were sent up to farm the lands of Clan Cunnigon, further increasing its wealth. However, to the great annoyance of the humans in the family, the young half-brother of the leader, an orc who called his own family "Head Slammers", was increasingly favored by Boen officials for all kinds of matters, and the humans were ever more sidelined. As things became increasingly troubled in the south, Orcish Guard elites came ever more often to the north on "tour", enjoying long, luxurious stays on Lakeside Rock's terraces. Human family members were evicted from their rooms to make space for esteemed visitors.

Eventually, the Head Slammers and their Orcish Guard superiors grew annoyed at the humans: Clan Cunnigon was behind in taxes and manpower raising, and there had been increasing suspicions of rebel activity in the human communities. As punishment, the Orcish Guard decided to disband the entire family and create Clan Head Smashers instead. Some human family members were killed, some were forced into menial servitude at Lakeside Rock, and a few fled or went under, participating in the resistance movement.