Return to the Riverine Campaign Page
Introduction:
House Coppi is a house on the rebound. Once one of the largest and most powerful house of nobles in the Antorian Empire, the House fell on difficult times and was almost wiped out of existence. However, in recent centuries House Coppi has strategically allied itself with House Riverine, and as the fortunes of that merchant house have grown, so too have the fortunes of House Coppi.
History:
The Founding:
House Coppi was chartered as a noble house of Antoria in the year 4371 AD. Ferminus Coppi (born 4325 AD) was the son of a prosperous farmer who served in the wars of the early Empire, rising up the ranks in the unsuccessful invasions of Jaggarth and Wyr in 4350 AD and 4357 AD respectively. It was Ferminus' good fortune that he was not assigned to the doomed Imperial army that marched into haunted Pilong in 4360 AD, never to be seen again.
When Emperor Harstynious II sought to invade Girorium Isle in 4368 AD, Ferminus was at the end of his 25-year military service and was mustering out of the Imperial Legions. Short of good, reliable commanders, the Emperor offered minor nobility to any veterans of a certain rank and with certain years of service if they would defer their mustering out to serve in the army and the Girorium campaign. Ferminus, although 43 years old at the time, was in prime physical shape and well respected by his men, and was promoted to Cordon Minor, in command of a full file of 144 men. His men led several key assaults on the Isle and Ferminus' tactical acuity and bravery earned him great accolades at a time when the Empire was desperate for a successful military action and in need of hero figures.
Ferminus was wreathed in laurel amid much fanfare by the Emperor himself in Antoria, and was named founder of House Coppi, given land grants in and around his family's farmstead, slaves and livestock, the ability to command house troops, and the privilege to run for and serve in the Imperial Senate.
Ferminus was quick to hire on many of his veteran troopers, the ones with cunning and intelligence and loyalty, to serve his fiefdom, and House Coppi quickly grew in stature, eventually absorbing new lands and minor noble households through business dealings and marriages. He died of natural causes in 4403 AD.
The Ascension:
For the next century, House Coppi flourished, but was still considered one of many minor noble houses in the Imperium. No senators were elected from the house, and its influence was still predominant only on a local level. Nevertheless, House Coppi and its members were content, for in the course of a single century, they had risen from a family of farmers into a prosperous noble household of the growing Imperium.
In 4852 AD, the Fifth War with the Deceiver began with Emperor Hallifaxx VI's ill-fated and some say mad attempt to launch a pre-emptive strike upon the forces of the Deceiver. Derinaco Coppi (born 4836 AD) was a young lad at the time, third son of the House, and he was caught in the spell and fervor of patriotism ignited by the foolish but charismatic Emperor. He enlisted into the Imperial Army, despite the grave misgivings of his father and brothers that the coming war would be a fiasco.
Derinaco fought bravely during the war, and the sights and horrors of it changed him from a happy-go-lucky lad into a hardened and melancholy man who had seen his own Emperor ripped to shreds before his very eyes. Few escaped the final trap laid down by the Deceiver in 4853 AD, as the Lord of Evil intended to destroy the very prime of Antorian manhood in order to quell that great Empire and retard its stature and power forever. But Derinaco was one of the few who did escape, and through great trials and tribulations, he led a band of soldiers, including several important and wounded Consuls and Generals, back to the Empire and safety.
For his bravery, Derinaco received laurels from the new Emperor. What's more, he received land grants from several of the nobles he had rescued and offers of marriage from many of their daughters. Derinaco himself was granted noble charter by the new Emperor, but he chose to consolidate his new grant with that of his House, gaining House Coppi further status and land.
When Vosh-Gerr, Girorium, and Gwilinghum tried to take advantage of the disastrous war with the Deceiver to revolt and attempted to secede from the Empire, the Emperor asked the widely known and respected Derinaco to lead the Imperial Legion assigned to pacify Gwilinghum, in the hopes that his recent fame would help end the rebellions quickly and with as little bloodshed as possible. Derinaco, now promoted to the rank of Consul Primus, marched into the lands between Antoria and Vosh-Gerr and with a combination of diplomacy and short, sharp but decisive and firm military action, managed to gain the support of the populace against the rebellion and delivered the leaders of the rebellion in chains to the Emperor.
With his fame now cresting, the Emperor asked Derinaco to return to the site of Ferminus' fame and handle the Girorium Isle situation. However, Derinaco, who was wise enough to see that a marine invasion of that Isle, after the disaster of the Fifth War and the rebuff of the Imperium in Vosh-Gerr, would be next to impossible, instead requested authority to negotiate a compromise with the Girori. This he did, using the Girori knowledge of his predecessor as well as his fame as a formidable but fair warrior to negotiate the special status as self-governing Imperial Protectorate that Girorium Isle still possess at present.
Derinaco returned to the Emperor as one of the most renowned figures in the Empire of his time. A bona fide hero, minor houses in the region of Coppi now vied to be attached to and absorbed by House Coppi, and Derinaco was easily elected into the Imperial Senate after mustering out of the Legion in 4878 AD. In 4880 AD the senator was presented with a gift of service by the Emperor, the Lamnavir Praesidium (High Imperial for "Blade of Heroic Protection"), a gladius magicked by the foremost weaponsmiths of the Empire to strike true and to protect its wielder even in times of peace when he was not girded for battle. The blade is famous in the Empire and is often called, shortly, the Praesidium or "Protector".
House Coppi was now a major noble house of the Empire, its lands extending across the border into Gwilinghum (now known as the Upper Antorian Marches). When Derinaco died in 4923 AD, his blade was passed to his most worthy heir, as signified by Derinaco.
The Fall:
And so for another two centuries House Coppi flourished, it being one of the leading families in the Empire and its fortunes waxing or waning as noble houses tend to do, but always with a du Coppi in the Imperial senate and present in a seat of honour at the coronation of a new Emperor.
But during this period, House Coppi began to run afoul of one the great merchant houses of the Empire, House Mercur. The origins of the dispute are somewhat obscured by the years that have passed, and varies depending upon with whom one speaks, but suffice to say that overtures by House Mercur to cement trade relations with House Coppi by way of a proposed marriage were rebuffed by House Coppi, who wanted to maintain a strict neutrality with regard to the merchant houses. Unfortunately, it is rumoured that the marriage was not actually one of convenience, and that the daughter of Mercur was truly in love with a scion of Coppi. The rebuff, cold and diplomatic, was all the more stinging because of it and the daughter reportedly committed suicide thereafter. The Merchant Prince of House Mercur was outraged, and it is said that this caused House Mercur to begin to engineer the downfall of House Coppi.
While the saying goes "None remember past misdeeds like the dwarves", it seems House Mercur must have some dwarven blood running through it, for over the course of the next century, surely past the time when the father of the suicidal daughter had passed into dust, House Mercur did by means overt and covert engineer the downfall of House Coppi. Mercur's machinations included secretly buying up all of the debts and loans of House Coppi and consolidating them under House Mercur, offering trade discounts to rivals, and hindering House Coppi 's mercantile ventures whenever possible. When these factors coalesced into lean times for the House, a time when normally it could trade on its good name and senatorial favours to delay the repayment of loans and obligations, House Mercur called them in with extreme prejudice and ruthlessness. Seemingly overnight, House Coppi spiraled into a precarious financial situation, and the House had to sell its lands to make good on installment payments, which, of course, made it impossible to farm and generate revenue to make the next installment, and so on until the downward trend spiraled out of control.
It was only by the barest of means that House Coppi survived this financial disaster. It is rumoured that the eventual, humiliating goal of House Mercur was to force House Coppi to sell off the Praesidium, which Mercur would then purchase and flaunt as the final defeat for House Coppi.
But House Riverine, likely considering the old adage that "the enemy of my enemy shall be my friend" bailed out House Coppi at the last moment, calling in its debts and making an arrangement whereby House Coppi would serve House Riverine in a sort of indentured status until such time as the debts were paid off. House Riverine also granted House Coppi generous and lenient terms to repay these debts…lenient enough to allow the House to survive, albeit suckled to the breast of House Riverine.
Modern Times:
For the last two centuries, House Coppi has been tied to House Riverine. The Coppi debt was paid long ago, for the House members, who had heretofore set their stake on farming and, to be honest, the heroic deeds of its members, now realized the powerful and insidious nature of mercantilism, and vowed to become adept enough at trade so as to never be brought low by financial machinations ever again and had become adept tradesmen and merchants.
But they also never forgave House Mercur for toppling their once powerful and proud house, and so, sensing that House Riverine was on the rise, House Coppi continued to hitch its fortunes to the Riverine wagon, long after its debts and formal obligations were paid.
It has been centuries since the last du Coppi senator strode the Halls of the Imperial Senate, and its lands in northern Antoria are long gone. But the House is now a staunch ally of House Riverine, one of several noble families allied with the merchant house and which allow Riverine access to some of the avenues and privileges of the nobility that are denied, formally, to the merchant houses.
However, the grand tradition of Coppi heroes springing seemingly out of nowhere to boost the House's fortunes has not been entirely forgotten, and even now House Coppi looks to its sons. Perhaps one of this generation will be the next hero, in the vein of Ferminus and Derinaco, to again raise the fortunes of the House to new heights!