Varan Star System

Varan Star System

Major Holdings – General Information

History

The Varan Star System

Set down by Witch Lord Bertwin Gisking Bearspear, Keeper of the Old Memory

Varan, in the days before crowns and star-kingdoms, was but a quiet harbor in the Drucos Nebula. The Galans of the 12th Fleet of Mann were the first to make their homes here, scattering holdsteads on the broad plains of Varan’s worlds. Yet through all the centuries of the Feyan Star Dominion, the system remained a sleepy backwater, a place where the arm of the Emperor rarely reached and where news from the greater nebula arrived late and faded quickly.

That slumber ended when the Furse came to Drala, driven from the Glessum Star Cluster by the Wergh. I remember that influx well, half the nebula seemed to be on the move, and even a place as modest as Varan swelled with new settlers. Among them were those who would raise the Star Kingdom of Angul, and in time, Varan became its capital. Its twin moons, Lunt and Heorofyst, wheeled in patient orbit, looking down on Strongheim, the ancient greathold of House Umbra Strongborn, rulers of Angul.

King Ecgwynn the Wandering Conqueror set the foundations of Angul’s reach far beyond Varan, building holdsteads here and across the Vellaun, Catuvella, and Coritan Sectors.

But the system’s history is not without its darker tales. I have heard, and believe, the whispers of 27,714 AA, when High King Grimhilda the Warrior was murdered on Varan itself, cut down by her own gesith bodyguards, perhaps at the urging of Eadmer the Unjust. The Unjust wore the crown of Angul for less than a year before meeting his own bloody end. In my long life I have learned this, the crown of Angul is a perilous prize, heavy with the blood of kin.

King Uhtred the Great held court not only in Strongheim but also on the Starhold of Fal, a proud seat whose high halls rang with the counsel of warriors and priests alike. Under his reign, and under others who followed, Varan grew from a refuge into the beating heart of Angul. 

In 27,774 AA, Uhtred the Great hosted a holy Feyan council on Fal. That day, he granted the Feyan Faith great holdsteads and titles upon Varan, in the presence of his consort, his kin, and his lords. From that moment, the Vellaun Sector gained its own Sector Pontiff, the third such in the Drucos Nebula. Some say that was the beginning of Angul’s deeper entanglement with the Faith, a bond that would both strengthen and bind it.

Then came the Great Savage Crusade in 30,148 AA. I watched that storm sweep the nebula, a fire that devoured all in its path. King Ragnar the Raven Blade of the Star Holds of Freis and Warlord Oughtred the Old brought their fleets against Angul. The decisive blow fell at Hreotha, where King Wiglaf the Exiled was defeated and fled beyond Drala’s borders. The Crusade advanced without resistance until they reached Varan, and in the Battle of Varan, the capital fell. I have walked the streets that were burned in those days, and even centuries later, the stones remember.

The sack of Varan was only the beginning. The Crusade swept through all Angul, toppling worlds until even the last defenses of Uhtred’s Boundary were abandoned. Wiglaf fled with his wife, Frida of Gewiss, to the holy world of Fey, while those like Wulfrun the Lord of Angul remained to resist in whatever fashion they could. Ragnar and his Skane warlords placed Wulfhere the Foolish King’s Thane on Angul’s throne, a distant cousin to Wiglaf, whose reign was marked more by tribute to the Skanes than by glory. The Coritan Star Sector was ceded outright to the Crusade.

Varan’s fate shifted again in 30,223 AA, when Wulfrun the Lord of Angul died of wounds suffered at Teottan. Her husband, Bjorn, also known as the Lord of Angul, was elected Sector-lord of Vellaun and took command of the Varan Star System, forging alliances with the Galans of the Caldon and Combrogi star clusters as well as those within the Tewteh nebula against the Skanes. Five years later, he ordered the construction of the Starhold of Midweg, one of four great fortresses built that year to strengthen the defenses of the ancient star kingdom.

Power passed hands in the decades that followed, sometimes by vote, sometimes by quiet force. In 30,237 AA, Hallig of Bodunn stepped aside in favor of his aunt, High King Wulfrun the Elder, losing Varan and Vellaun but keeping his titles elsewhere. Later, Alhburg Umbra Wyvernblade would hold both Varan and Hywych, binding them under her stewardship as Sector-lord of Vellaun.

Yet the peace was brittle. In 30,285 AA, King Sweyn Umbra Ravenreach of Brigh, known as Sweyn the Sandal, descended on Varan. The defenses broke, slaughter and plunder followed. Among the captives taken was Mechthild the She-Wolf of Angul, whose fierce defiance is still sung of among my kind.

Today, Varan is not the great power it once was, but its stones bear the weight of more history than most worlds in Drala. The Mint established by King Osmund Wyvernborn, founder of the Star Commonwealth, still operates, and the name of Strongheim still carries the echo of Angul’s kings. In Beorminga, House Ryer Trollshield rules as lords of clan and tribe, their elder kin reigning in the Skane Nebula.

I have seen capitals rise and fall in my long years, but Varan remains, scarred, stubborn, and steeped in the blood and memory of a thousand struggles. To walk its halls is to walk through the veins of history itself.