Clan Olbrychinski
Clan Olbrychinski was a Ledzian clan or rody active in the Hearthlands and Jarovia, best known for its zealotry and its actions during the Zivan Schism of 3677.
Culture
The crest of the clan derives from the "Blue Beast" of Jarovia, a giant beast said to be the size of four full-grown men, with six legs, bright blue fur with black stripes, four eyes, long ears and the ability to breathe fire. The Blue Beast was said to live in a warren in the Jarovian plains and to stalk at night. if met at a crossroads, the Blue Beast was said to grant wishes, and the Olbrychinski attributed their riches to a wish granted them by the beast. The Dorman believed the Beast to be a haptic, a usually malign Gnostic deity, and engaged in numerous unsuccessful hunts against it.
Public Agenda
The Olbrychinski were strong partisans for the Church of Ziva, and were highly distrustful of foreigners, especially Elfs of all kinds. They lobbied strongly against the granting of charters to towns and commoners, and maintained a strong tradition of serfdom that persists in Jarovia to this day.
Assets
The Olbrychinski folwark was of significant value, even before the expansion of the Ledzian agricultural state, as a producer of luxury goods and a winter retreat for the Dorman nobility.
The Olbrychinski seat was Moszna, an ancient grod and Elfish castle built on the banks of Lake Kasztanowiecz. The town and castle are both still standing and noted for their pastoral beauty.
The clan had a small but exceptionally-equipped retinue to call upon, stemming from its origins as a mounted bodyguard for the visiting Dorman nobility. It was said that their warriors went into battle bearing long bearded axes and the "blue beast" crest on tremendous Dorman kite shields, with tall Dorman helmets painted with bright blue and silver concentric rings.
History
Clan Olbrychinski had its roots in a family of Ruotsi hetmen first recorded in the Dorman Census of the 3550s. By the time of Uzh's Rebellion, they had gained a reputation for their orchards and orangeries and their small core of well-equipped warriors, which served as bodyguard for envoys from the Dorman hinterlands. They, along with many of the other peoples of Jarovia, were said to have resented this role. On the 8th of Pluvius, the Dorman holiday of Mortain's Eve, an Olbrychinski retinue accompanied a large entourage of Dorman nobles and their families on a hunting excursion and outdoor feast, and set upon them, killing some hundred men, women and children of the highest Dorman echelons. The Mortain's Eve Massacre terrified the Dorman and safely secured Jarovia, and the south of Ledzia, as a stronghold of the rebellion.
After the rebellion's success, the clan unsuccessfully contested the ennoblement of Clans Dogiel and Buchek on the grounds of their Elfish heritage. In 3628, the Magnate of Moszna, Teodor the Jowly, issued a Dare of the Radish to the Dogiel Magnate of Thorn, Agathe, challenging her to a duel over the Fragrant Harbor canal in Roztyn. Agathe made juniper branches the weapon of choice, to which Teodor had a severe allergy, and he died the next day. In response, the Olbrychinski had Agathe murdered with a poisoned falconer's glove, but their involvement was unproven until the 3730s when the clan records were unsealed.
In the mid-37th century, the Olbrychinski were represented by the Archimandrite Tadeusz, an anti-Sokolian firebrand who attracted large followings for his public sermons against the excesses of the monarchy. Tadeusz's colleagues in the council of Archimandrites hoped to limit the monarchy's powers and push out the increasingly radical Primates, and elected him Patriarch after the death of the Patriarch Mykolas of Radvilos in 3674, believing him to be a zealous counter to the Sokolian influences. Instead, the Olbrychinski made enemies not just of the Sokolians, but of the clans they believed guilty of following the Old Beliefs or Gnosticism. Tadeusz's rhetoric and his base of supporters accelerated the conditions that led to the Zivan Schism of 3676, which was incited when the Tsarina Aleksandra had him sacked.
The Olbrychinski reacted to this perceived overreach by inciting violence against Gnosts and Sokolian Zivans across the land. The Sokolian House Labedz, whose folwark spanned from western Jarovia to the coast, was a particular target of the Olbrychinski's ire. Tadeusz, hoping to expand the Patriarchal folwark north of Bocian Bay, had discreetly fomented revolt among the Labedz serfs since he took the throne. In the early days of the Schism, this gambit paid off when on 28th Mercatus, 3776, an armed mob led by the starost Holac the Gaunt stormed the palace in Pieklo (then called Bokrow) and murdered the clan heads; on the 2nd Seminalis, the Olbrychinski entered the folwark and had the leaders of the revolt dipped in honey and tied to poles on the Chalk Road, before they could reveal the clan's complicity.
Nevertheless, this seizure of lands was contested by Clan Dogiel and the remaining Labedz shieldbearers, some of whom escaped south into Sokol, where they joined with the raider-turned-magistrate Pavel Zekelnikov. In the Headlands, the Dogiel hastily assembled a fleet and an army of guild militia, and on the 20th of Messis blockaded the port of Bokrow. On the 11th Fervidus the Labedz loyalists, together with some of Zekelnikov's spellswords, crossed into Ledzia and abducted Archimandrite Tadeusz during a religious procession in the suburbs of Roztyn. They conveyed him to the Sokolian city of Lyubim, where he was judged by a council of nobles following the pre-Union law.
The Sokolian judges accused Tadeusz of fomenting violence against an honored bloodline and preaching millenarian dogma, while Tadeusz was said to have railed against them until he was frothing at the mouth. With the clan's retinues bottled up in Bokrow and the Kreplachian countryside, they had no hope of rescuing him, and there was no love lost from the other Archimandrites. Tadeusz was led to the scaffold on the 4th Mitis, 3676; though capital punishment was (and is) rare in both Ledzia and Sokol, he was sentenced to death
Disbandment
The Clan never recovered from its political setbacks following the Schism, and saw a number of its shieldbearing families drift away over the following decades. One of these families, Clan Helbowicz, was ennobled and in 3733 vanquished the Olbrychinski in a clan feud.
DISBANDED/DISSOLVED
c.3550 - 3733
Type
Geopolitical, Clan
Predecessor Organization
Successor Organization
Demonym
Olbrychinski
Leader Title
Parent Organization
Location
Related Ethnicities
Comments