House Adella

House Adella

(Organization)

Type

Noble house of Taldor

Headquarters

Tomb of the Iron Medusa

Scope

Extinct

Source: Taldor, the First Empire, pg(s). 39

House Adella was among the empire's most wealthy and extravagant noble houses of Taldor for centuries, and was known for its prowess in entertaining, sailing, and military tactics. However, they also became reviled for their excess and violence, and after the entire family died out within a single generation, Grand Prince Beldam II ordered all records of their existence destroyed.

History

Origins

House Adella rose to prominence on the deeds of legionary high captain Marcus Junius Adella, whose authority was so feared by subordinates that they jokingly claimed his disapproving glance could turn a misbehaving soldier to stone. This story led to the house's crest bearing the head of a medusa.

In 3758 AR, Marcus Junius sacrificed himself to save a legion of soldiers—including the Taldan emperor's son—at the Battle of Istavala Vale against Tar-Baphon.

However, out of ego and a drive to continuously exceed the high standards expected of them, branches of House Adella turned to devils and demons for assistance. The Sardisi, Voxus, and Daellum clans of the house were each overly prideful, and their attempts to exceed one another led to each others' downfall.

Fall and dissolution

The Sardisi clan fell when its patriarch, Drusus, died of suicide—destitute in a brothel in Absalom—in 4222 AR after his five daughters married aristocrats who forbade them from contacting him. His daughters then each murdered their husbands and disappeared.

Soon after, the nautical Voxus clan fell apart during a fraternal military conflict between twins Vespacio and Vincenzo. The war ruined the clan, and the potential connections between the Sardisi sisters' murders and the Voxus brothers' war remained suspicious but unproven.

The Daellum clan followed, with its military leader Bartolomae experiencing a crushing defeat on the frontier with Qadira. He committed blasphemy against Aroden in his humiliation, and to atone he fell on his intelligent sword Infensus Mucro and died.

Blackmail and final deaths

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Grand Prince Beldam II was so thoroughly appalled at the scandalous fall of House Adella that he proclaimed the house damnatio, destroying all records of their existence, scrubbing their name from all monuments, and rescinding nobility from its two surviving members, Cadimus and Lucretia.

Lucretia was engaged in an secret affair with the nobleman Micheaux, who was on the cusp of being named Grand Prince after the childless Beldam II fell ill. Lucretia became pregnant with Micheaux's child, and the Adella siblings blackmailed Micheaux into accepting the child as his own.

However, Micheaux reneged on the deal when Lucretia died during childbirth at the Lion Sleeps Inn on 5 Lamashan, 4497 AR, a week prior to Micheaux's crowning as Grand Prince. Micheaux demanded that Cadimus flee Taldor or be executed as a traitor, then sent assassins to kill Cadimus as he fled. Desperate, Cadimus pleaded to Asmodeus for aid, and the Dark Prince complied by teleporting Cadimus' carraige, Lucretia's corpse, and all others aboard into the family's necropolis, where it immediately crashed and killed Cadimus.

Sites

The half-fiend medusa Suasandra, also known as the Iron Medusa, was a granddaughter of Geryon and an architect of Dis. House Adella recruited her to design its tombs and vaults, which culminated in her creation of the well-defended Adella Necropolis, also erroneously known as the Tomb of the Iron Medusa despite the tombs being located beneath the necropolis. After its completion, the Adellas imprisoned Suasandra within the necropolis.

The necropolis's name and location have since been erased from recorded history. It is located in the Headwater Gap in the foothills of the World's Edge Mountains, northeast of the Lion Sleeps Inn near Zimar.✝

Legacies

Disgrace of the Stavian line

See also: House Stavian, Stavian I, and Eutropia Stavian

The child of Micheaux that Lucretia died bearing at the Lion Sleeps Inn was Stavian I, whose true lineage as a child of ignoble House Adella was kept secret for more than 200 years. Official histories prior to 4718 AR stated that Stavian I was the first son and rightful heir of Micheaux and Euphemi Finara, and Stavian I became Grand Prince in 4526 AR after a violent season of infighting with his four younger siblings.

During the War for the Crown in 4718 AR, agents of Stavian I's descendant Eutropia Stavian linked High Strategos Maxillar Pythareus to a false-flag plot stoking war with Qadira and discredited him. In response, agents of Pythareus published records indicating that Stavian I was an illegitimate heir born of the disgraced House Adella. This in turn invalidated the Stavians' bloodline claim to the crown. The records were subsequently confirmed by multiple academics.

Adella curse

The bodies of the house's members bear the Adella curse, a powerful curse that protects the family's bodies from tampering.

House Darahan

While composed of distant cousins of House Adella, knightly House Darahan has no knowledge of the location or contents of the Tomb of the Iron Medusa.

Hanoris Dellum

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As of 4711 AR, the Taldan merchant Hanoris Dellum claimed to be a descendant of House Adella, and possessed an item he believed was the key to the Tomb of the Iron Medusa.

Nenareen Adella

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As of 4718 AR, Lady Nenareen Adella, a vampire also known as the Duchess of Blood, was the illegitimate but sole extant member of House Adella to claim a connection to the house.