The Coorhagen Family

This is one last post from my cancelled Seven Firmaments campaign based on Phantasy Star III. While the campaign was running, the PCs got mixed up with a rather nasty noble family living in the city of Fillmore. This is a brief and unfinished outline of the Coorhagen family's whole situation. I just took the van Kaus family from Zzarchov Kowolski's Scenic Dunnsmouth and altered a bunch of details to make them a desperate, out-of-favor, and increasingly impoverished family of metropolitan aristocrats.

I just realized that the timeline about when the worlds are or are not sealed off from each other is inconsistent between this post and the one about religion. Oh well; I can make sense of all this in the future if I ever resurrect this setting, but I guess it doesn't matter for now.

The World-Kingdom of Elysium
Elysium is generally a pretty nice place to live compared to the other six kingdoms. Not that anyone necessarily knows that at the moment, what with access between the Kingdoms of the Seven Firmaments being sealed for 200 years and all. But the climate here tends to be mild, resources are plentiful, much of the wilderness has been tamed, crime is down, most people are pretty friendly, and the land isn't being nuked by dragons and wizards.

Elysium is honestly kind of boring compared to the other six world-kingdoms, because I'm hoping to create a huge contrast and sense of shock and disorientation for the players when/if they decide to leave (or get cast out).

Elysian Politics
The Kingdom of Elysium is shifting from a feudal nation to a capitalist one. Casualties from the mysterious war 200 years ago led to a temporary breakdown of cohesive national and aristocratic authority, in turn allowing a not-so-temporary decline in the obligations of serfdom and an increase in the formation of private businesses. While the title of nobility is technically hereditary, it can be granted or removed from a family at the will of the Queen (albeit within the bounds set by Parliament and the Constitution), and Queen Rhadamanthia III tends to promote rich merchant families to the aristocracy and strip the titles of families that become too poor (or adversely affect her own profits in too bold a fashion), so Elysium is essentially ruled by a class of merchants and business owners rather than traditional feudal aristocrats.

This does arguably allow more upward mobility than before the war, but only at the whims of the Queen and the noble families already in power. It also leads to noble families becoming terrified whenever they end up in the red, because they risk losing their seats in Parliament. Such is the case with House Coorhagen.

Coorhagen Family Overview
Businesses (other than politics): Masonry (mostly Bricks), Pottery, Lumber, Carpentry (especially furniture), Fishing, Shipbuilding, Shipping (mostly transporting goods between Fillmore and Northwall)
Former Businesses: Construction, Tannery and Leatherworking, Animal Husbandry (especially Dog Breeding), Mercenaries, Agriculture (they are nobility, after all)

Everyone who follows Fillmore politics has a pet theory about why House Coorhagen has fallen out of favor with the Queen and the other big families. Is it merely because business is bad lately, or are their fiscal problems the result of their disfavor? Did Erik blow all of their money on another pet project? Did Bernard give one of his patented mustache rides to the wrong man's wife? Is the curse of the Brahnwick family contagious?

Some even whisper that the family took the wrong side in the old war. How does that make any sense when the war was so long ago and no one seems to be able to even remember it at all let alone who the sides were? Maybe it doesn't, but some folks whisper it anyway.

Whatever the reason, Coorhagen profits are down, and their peers have turned a cold shoulder. They went from one of the most influential noble families to one of the weakest and least popular over the course of a year or so - practically overnight, considering how far they fell. They've been forced to sell about half of their businesses and much of their land, including virtually all of their farmland. They've had to cut back on the gold leaf topping for the foie gras. It's awful.

That Brahnwick curse I mentioned earlier? Dietyr Coorhagen hatched an underhanded plan to take advantage of that curse and seize some new assets from the practically extinct House Brahnwick. Maybe even another seat in Parliament, if he plays his cards right, but even just a new source of cash would be handy. Through an intermediary (Tommy Two-Teeth), Dietyr hired the players to bring him the Brahnwick signet ring so he could "inherit" the title and property of Imogen Brahnwick. Heinrich, his father and head of the family, didn't know about this plan until it was set in motion, but he begrudging approves of Dietyr's craftiness and ambition if nothing else. Since the players haven't brought Dietyr the ring in the allotted time, or even kept in contact, he's quietly panicking.

Major Family Members and Associates
Heinrich, Ludmilla (wife)
Dietyr, Maxine (wife), Lenore (daughter), Clara (daughter)
Klaudia
Johann, Adelgunde (wife), Jaeger (son), Ulric (son), Brunhilde (daughter)
Bernard, Gertrude (wife), Frederik (son), Margaritt (daughter)
Klaus, Klaus Junior (son)
Diana, Matthias (husband), Otto (son), Claire (daughter)
Olivia, Frank (husband), Mica (daughter), three other sons?
Erik 
Adolph, Sheila (wife), Kaylee (daughter)
Niklas, Katrina (wife)
Lukas
Wolfgang Coorhagen, Anastasia Nachtholm (wife), unborn child
Hilda Coorhagen, Jacob Ziegsturhl (husband)
Herman Coorhagen
Karl Coorhagen, Robert Nachtholm (husband)
Tommy Two-Teeth

(Here are some old posts related to the Seven Firmaments campaign from before it was cancelled.)