House Arostenes

(pronounced Air-OZ-ten-ees)

The Estate

House Arostenes is the oldest noble house of Balic, going back over a millenia, their estate is four miles southeast of Balic. It covers several hundred acres of fertile faro fields. The land itself is lowest at the edges of the estate, and gradually slopes upwards where it reaches it’s zenith at the house itself.

The borders of the estated are only half surrounded by walls. The walls themselves are nine feet tall. The other half of the estate borders a sheer twelve foot drop. The wall of the drop is planted with Barbed Cassic (described later), a plant that grows on the side of cliffs and gullies and is both very hard and very sharp.

The ‘palace’ is a huge building. The road from the gate leads to a covered porch.

In back of the house is a marble porch with fluted alabaster columns. The garden is a few steps down from the porch. Dozens of trees provide shade around a pool of clear water. Several benches are placed throughout the garden for the family and honored guests to rest upon.

The Family

The head of the Arostenes is RaPay (NE hf Psi7/Wiz9-defiler). RaPay is beautiful, with dark features to match her dark psyche. She fancies herself a queen, and demands to be called one in her home. She insists on calling her home a palace. To complete her queen image, she wears a silver circlet on her head as well as wearing regal red and yellow robes that remain revealing to endure the daily heat.

The eldest child is RaPay’s son Micksha (NE hm Wiz8-defiler). Micksha is RaPay’s pride and joy, partly because he is as evil as she is. Micksha handles the day to day activities that go on around the household, so that his mother may perform her duties as queen, though that really does not entail much, except meeting visitors and continuing in her studies.

RaPay’s other child is her daughter Naura (NG hf Psi4/Wiz7-preserver). In RaPay’s eyes, Naura is a disappointment. She is always talking about how Athas should be respected and nurtured, something her other two relatives neither know nor care anything about. RaPay looks at Naura as a disappointment because she did not take well to the teachings of becoming a psionicist, and thinks that Naura has no magical abilities at all. Naura has hidden her preserver magical abilites from her family members, and encourages the idea that she knows nothing. She is actually a member of Balic’s Veiled Alliance. She keeps tabs on her family and anyone who visits. One slave is also a member of the Alliance, and makes frequent trips to Balic on behalf of Naura. Her brother both pities her (for her apparent lack of useful abilities) and despises her (for the same reason), and scorns her most of the time.