House Wulff

House Wulff is a former house of nobility from the Sword Coast North, the house was stripped of nobility by the Lords Assembly of Neverwinter in late 1494, after evidence came to light that the family patriarch was found to have been engaging in a number of unlawful activities, including slave-trafficking and was deemed guilty of the murder by proxy of one of his rivals.
Prior to their disgrace House Wulff was among a handful of noble houses that claimed they could trace their lineage back to the founding of the city of Neverwinter itself, another such house was House Trevelyan, House Wulff's northwesterly neighbor and longtime rival for both territory and trade. While their feud with their neighbor rarely bore fruit for the Wulffs they were nonetheless safe (at least until recently) in their ancestral lordship over the region referred to as the Three Towns Fiefdom, which brought the house sufficient means to pursue a respectable life of nobility, however, not enough to sate their lord's ambition.
House Wulff's fall from grace began when the house's patriarch Rendon Wulff ordered the kidnapping of a number of his subjects to be used as bargaining chips between him and a clan of Gnoll slavers; providing his subjects as chattel as a form of good-faith payment Wulff would negotiate with the Gnoll to attack the weaker lords and take whomsoever they chose for slaves, opening the door for Wulff to expand his own territory over the other lords with the Lords' Alliance none the wiser. This was not to be, for the enterprising son of an Elven tea farmer, having taken note of the disappearances had snuck onto Wulff's estate and had espied the meeting, before being detected and captured. The elf had intended to expose Wulff, despite being caught and locked away in the bowels of Wulff's estate until he could be disposed of quietly the elf escaped and rallied the local townsfolk to rescue the slaves and oust Wulff. After freeing the slaves the peasants and escaped slaves formed a revolt against Wulff. The lord was caught unprepared with few enough of his own guards for the peasants to be a credible threat, and after a brief but bloody scuffle Wulff fled with what remained of his guard to his castle, leaving the town to settle its own affairs.

Following the revolt Wulff travelled to Waterdeep to leverage his holdings there and oversee the remainder of his plan in relative seclusion, to hopefully avoid the close call with the rebellious townsfolk, ultimately succeeding in his aim to use the Gnoll to eliminate House Trevelyan, throwing their ancestral lordship of Hotefeld into turmoil. Despite his ambition, Wulff's success was yet again short-lived; while the Trevelyans may have been ousted, ownership of the land was to be decided by the Lords' Alliance, primarily by the Lords Assembly of Neverwinter, and Wulff would need to leverage his influence if he were to achieve his goals.
During this period the elf that had scuppered his plans before had arrived in Waterdeep and Wulff set about securing his small act of revenge, capturing the elf and arranging for him to become part of one of his other ventures, a slave ship bound westward across the sea. Defying Wulff the elf escaped yet again, and in setting free another passenger on the ship the elf made good on his escape, returning to Waterdeep.
With the elf's escape unknown to him, Wulff travelled to Neverwinter to grease palms and leverage his position in the Lords Assembly of Neverwinter, hoping to secure all of Hotefeld in the Wulff name. This effort was derailed when an adventuring party raided his Waterdeep estate discovering letters confirming the family's dirty dealings. It later came to light that among this adventuring party was the heir to the Trevelyan line; Clive Trevelyan, thought-dead for many months at that point.

After their deeds were exposed, helped in no small part by the Open Lord of Waterdeep, Laeral Silverhand, the Wulffs' fled with their noble status stripped and with Rendon disappearing entirely. Rendon's son and heir, Harland, on the other hand, rallied the house's troops and marched on Hotefeld, claiming it from under the Lords Alliance's nose.

Diplomacy Diagram not available

Type

Geopolitical, Great house

Family Leader

Lord Rendon Wulff

Controlled Territories

• Harrowgate
• Harrowgate Keep