House of Harwyn

The House of Harwyn
Coat of Arms	Ducal crown and lance respectively on a field of crenelated gold and red.
Words	We are the Shield
Seat	Trollgarde
Last Confirmed Head	Marmecus Harwyn (deceased)
Region	Eastfold
Title	Duke of Eastfold
Overlords	Stromgarde

The House of Harwyn was once a powerful and wealthy bloodline within the old Kingdom of Stromgarde. As the overlords of Eastfold, the family presided over a large and prosperous duchy of industrious, if troublesome, minor lords and merchants. Harwyns had long profited off the trade of Hasic and Itonum, but after the former city's rise to mercantile prominence the family lost control of their former subjects. Their seat, Trollgarde, watches over the Eastfold Internment Camp, which has since been renamed Hammerfall by its Orcish occupants.

Lord Doukas Harwyn brought up two major cadet houses, Clyff and Duxon, and his successors formed alliances with many Stromic houses both large and small by marriage.

Origins

As Eastfold was once a lawless border-region, inundated with trolls and bandits, House Harwyn first rose to prominence as a result of their martial prowess. Bit by bit, troll land was taken away and civilized for the good of Strom. Once the coast was reached, roads were built and farmland was cleared. The mouth of the Eastrun River proved a natural port to the Forbidden Sea, and its brackish waters housed a fortune of unique fish. Naturally, a port was built on this steady foundation. Now raised to the status of Dukedom, the Harwyns enjoyed the profits of further settlement in Eastfold.

The Loss of Eastfold

Though its early history was marked by conquest and prestige, the Dukes of Eastfold found their power checked more often as time wore on. The lords of Eastfold, in harnessing the profit of the wool and mining trades, soon found that their interests did not coincide with those of Stromgarde's. While the Harwyns wanted all profit to be centralized--to Stromgarde, and therefore through the gates of the Harwyns' Trollgarde--the petty lords of Eastfold were eager to capitalize on their wealth with the best bidders, regardless of their nationality or race. These lords, while restless and numerous, were often easily placated through military force or marriage.

With the rise of Hasic came another class which opposed the reigning dukes: Lordaeronian and Kul Tiran traders, who soon settled enclaves in the growing port from which they spread their mercantile ways. They inspired the craftsmen and artisans of Hasic to gather into guilds, constant adversaries for the Hasican barons. The guilds, though at first weak, soon rallied gangs of armed thugs and mercenaries to wage violent turf wars on Hasic's nobility.

The violence in Hasic reached a feverish level with the public lynching of Hasic's count, swiftly followed by a gathering of oaths from lesser lords by swordpoint. This act was, in part, brought about by the duke's insistence on flooding the city with tax colectors, who attempted to pry as much of the money owed to Trollgarde as possible. Hasic's response shook the duke, a relatively young and brash Marmecus, to invade his own lands with the Trollbane King's permission. An army of loyal households and Dwarven contractors was hastily raised.

The River Campaign, which would be known in Eastfold as the War of the League, split Eastfold's nobility in two. A good majority of the western Eastfold lords, gathered around Trollgarde and Itonum, were bound to the Harwyns by ancestry or oath, and recognized that trade through the Harwyn lands meant greater profit for themselves. The eastern lords, with some exceptions in the city of Hasic itself, either wanted to keep their positions under threat of the guilds, now gathered into the Free League, or had no connection to the Harwyns at all and saw this war as the chance to gain total autonomy. Though Marmecus Harwyn commanded the greater army, he was wasteful and reckless in battle, and his stubborn strategems allowed Hasic to stave off the duke long enough to gather and train their reinforcements. With two entire armies smashed at the Forest of Pikes and the Silver Hills, the duke was shamed, and his sovereign forced to sue for peace. The Free League, along with their noble supporters, now had independence in all but name.

The Second War was not devastating for Stromgarde as a whole, but it facilitated another defeat for the House of Harwyn. With Arathi armies pulled away to face the Orcish threat, Eastfold, especially Hasic, was left defenseless against any Horde incursions. Most of these incursions were small, but their intensity increased as the war raged on. Left with no alternative, and no longer harboring sympathy for the Arathi, the Free League appealed to Lordaeron for help; in just weeks they had sworn fealty to King Terenas Menethil. Now, although they were techically still subjects of the Arathi duke, nearly half of Eastfold's lords were vassals of the Kingdom of Lordaeron, in effect permanently out of the duke's grasp.

Third War and Beyond

Duke Marmecus died in the Scourge invasion, fighting to keep Arathor free of the undead. Having only daughters as heirs, his line of succession was immediately in dispute. But the deliberations would have to wait; the Syndicate's seizing of the Highlands was a far more pressing issue for Stromgarde. Left alone, Eastfold found its protectors in the newly-formed Scarlet Crusade. As the Queen's Men strive to retake Lordaeron, the fate of the Arathi duchy is uncertain; it died long before Lordaeron's collapse.