Aris

House Aris

The Aris family reinherited their birthright, Castle Aris, and rulership of the Farseas after the last of Thaalim Torchtower's forces were wiped out in the beginning of the 14th century by Erdrick Aris.

The Founding of House Aris's Legacy

The Aris family's current prominence in the Farseas descends from Erdrick Aris, who was engaged in land treaty negotiations at Elden's Crossing's newly developed western district — a portion of the city now submerged beneath the swamp. His death during those negotiations left his son Jon Aris as king by default, initiating a reluctant dynasty.

The land treaties Erdrick was drafting were critical: they established that ownership of the Farseas swamplands does not automatically fall to the Obarskyrs or Cormyr under extraterritorial law. Players in the current era were compelled to physically exhume those records from the submerged west end to protect the Aris family's claims — and those of their Kropus allies — from Cormyrean annexation.

The Three Brothers

The Aris family is defined today by three half-siblings — Dorimo Aris (left), Jon Aris (center), and Caduca Aris (right) — each shaped by radically different origins and brought together under the reluctant crown of Jon Aris:

• Jon Aris (Center) — Once a carpenter and swordsman by trade and by temperament, Jon became king not by ambition but by grief and circumstance. He visits the grave of his late wife and son regularly. He is seen by some as weak — too willing to compromise, too easily moved by the promises of powerful outsiders. He is currently being courted by Manshoon (the clone running The Black Circle), who has made Jon promises of support that alarm his brothers deeply.
• Caduca Aris (Right) — Half-ogre, half-human, Caduca is a diplomat-bruiser of the first order. Pious, empathic, emotionally present, and physically enormous, he can charm an audience as readily as he can reduce a wall to rubble. His role is to serve as Jon's emissary to the swamp denizens — a function he performs with a pith helmet, a rolling laugh, and a keenly watchful pair of eyes.
• Dorimo Aris (Left) — Half Kara-Turian, half Cormyrean, Dorimo is a mountain of restrained purpose. The chance son of a young Kara-Turian princess, he was trained from birth as an armored warrior monk knight before political assassination forced him west via The Draco Family's magic carpet routes from Calimshan and Kara-Tur. Anything Dorimo can't ginsu with fists or blade, Caduca handles with personality.

The Thaalim Torchtower Secret

What the Aris family does not publicly acknowledge — and what could unravel their political legitimacy if revealed — is that they are secretly the descendants of Thaalim Torchtower himself, the bandit king whose forces they claim to have defeated.

See also: Aris Family, Jon Aris, Caduca Aris, Dorimo Aris, Castle Aris, Erdrick Aris, Manshoon, Elden's Crossing