Who was Kerhy Matrongle?
by RobinWhat I have of the Mahtrongel family (yes with an h, and ending with gel instead gle), is this;
They were one of the very few families that belonged to the Followers of Earth (and as such have a darker brownish skin, other than the Flaems who have copper skin and reddish hair, and the Alphatians who have light copper skin and blond hair ) that arrived from their escape of the Aplhatian wars destroying the planets into fragments. (Great School of Magic in detail Expanded Glantrian History from canon & most fanon sources combined pages 6-10)
Mahtrongle is an old Flaemish name for a milk curdler,(Mah-Mother, Trongel-Curdler) so to make curdled milk, for cheese. This gives that the family were farmers originally and possibly rich, as they took their proffession into their name.
So All in alll these Alphatian Followers of Earth helped to bloom Ierendi, and had important connections later on
Between 1000 BC & 200 AC On a dark sandy world, the Alphatian Flaems (Followers of the Fire) were enslaved by the Overlord through mind control. The Followers of Air Alphatians left the Dimension of Old Alphatia and landed on Mystara. They quickly conquered and enslaved the scattered Yannifey peoples and spend time adjusting to Mystaran magic use (i.e. Radiance affected). The very few remaining Alphatian Followers of Earth and Fire left the region,lived on the northern part of the Isle of Daw (Gaining Irish similar names there),
395 AC The Overlord send his Flaemish slaves from his desolate world to Mystara as an advance party to gather information for an invasion. The first Flaems arrived on Mystara and settled in the Highlands, founding Braastar nearby their Planar Gate. The Flaems harbour natural shape shifters able to take boar and bear shape. They headed for the hilly regions. The 7 tribes of the Flaems led by Dukes founded 7 duchies in the new lands. The Flaems settled at Aalbansford on the Aalban River
The Mahtrongles were pressed their by the Giants, fled again and eventually arrived in Braejr between 395 AC & 470 AC passing through Ethengar (possible being one of the initial reasons Ethengerians Hate Glantrians and their mages)
As farmers they were welcomed and some even merged with other families(of which the Red Hair often was prominent), yet as mages they were never embraced or actually accepted. They were discriminated and eventually they left the city where some of them helped in the founding of the new city Ardelphia, a city were mages of any background were welcomed (Ardelphia/Darokin (Ardelphia 840 AC and Ardelphia to Corunglain) They still had some disdain to Braejr (calling it a messy mudpot). Most of them felt unwelcomed still in pre-Darokin with all its strife, and traveled south. Trying to find a place in bickering pre-Darokin was near to impossible due their skin color, so they left south with the use of friendly Hin who had determined they were equal to the Makai .
Here the Mahtrongle had settled and helped the Makai with excellent farming (at least to the Makai understanding), and indirectly helped to grow the nation. Here their named slighly evolved into Matrongle (without an h) due the Makai linguistic influences. The Alphatian Language had become unused long before that. My fanon compilation notes say they kept their magic hidden hence on, why is not described. Maybe they just did not have as much Mages to become known for it.
602-637 AC: Black Toes Mad Creeg, Founder of the Kingdom of Ierendi.
637 AC: Black Toes assumes rulership of Ierendi upon the death of his father Mad Creeg. He marries Kethy Matrongle from Glantri and assumes her surname. The Matrongle family begins long control of the island.
663-670 AC Kerhy survived her husband.
670-684 AC Jan Matrongle Son of Black Toes and Kerhy. Died at sea at 46.
684-701 AC Halia Matrongle Daughter of Black Toes and Kerhy, sister of Jan.
701-718 AC Michelozzo Matrongle Son of Jan.
718-735 AC Son of Michelozzo. Disappeared at sea.
846 AC The few Mahtrongles who had stayed in Ardelphia later rejoind their families in Ierendi, forced to flee when the city was attacked, plundered and looted.
So The Oerendi Matrongle family descends more or less directly from Kerhy Matrongle and Black Toes, Mad Creeg's son and the second King of Ierendi, who took his wife’s surname. Mad Creeg himself was a Hattian and a political opponent of the Thyatian emperor of that time, Lucius IV Monomachos. He had turned to piracy as a way to oppose the emperor, shedding his true name and taking the moniker of Mad Creeg. Captured by a Thyatian patrol off the southern coast of Hattias, he and his surviving crew had been deported to Ierendi. After the successful rebellion, he had married a local woman. Of Kerhy Matrongle little is known, except that she hailed from the Flaem Highlands and was a reasonably competent mage of clearly Flaem ancestry.
The Matrongle dynasty, in any case, produced a number of Pirate Kings, until the disappearance of Donatello “The Black” - who did not have any legitimate heir - in an expedition towards Davania weakened the family to the point that the Council of Lords ousted them and elected a new Pirate King from the Rackham family. The surviving Matrongle took years to emerge from a bloody feud, jokingly called the “Matrongle Succession War” by the other families. In time, they regained their position on the Council of Lords, but the mercantile and naval assets of the family had been compromised by Donatello’s ill-fated expedition, as well as by the internal struggles. Nowadays, the Matrongle are a primarily landowning family. Due to their history, each branch of the Matrongle family tends to concentrate control of the family possessions into the hands of a single heir. The Baronial branch of the family is led by Faral Matrongle, a greedy, fat man who deals mostly with hin merchants from the Five Shires, who buy his plantations’ produce wholesale.
Dark Secrets: It is rumored that the Matrongle’s arrival in Ierendi was engineered by the mages of Honor Island, who wanted to preserve their independence as well as safeguard the secret of their lore from the Collegium Arcanum and the Ministers of Magic in Thyatis, as well as the even more feared Followers of Air in Alphatia. They certainly knew Kerhy was a line of descendance from mages in confluct withn the Flaems and Alphatians.
The great mystery surrounding the Ierendi Matrongle family is their original surname: Black Toes adopted his wife’s surname, and Mad Creeg never used his real name, which was not known to his captains. Of Mad Creeg’s life, nothing is known except what he himself told to his fellow inmates and later to his captains. It is possible that the family has kept some knowledge of why Mad Creeg wanted to erase his original identity, but if so they have never told. The archives of the Thyatian ministries might hold some clue, but it would be a long and tedious task to find any useful information in centuries old documents, assuming one could get access to them..
Coat of Arms: Azure a sea lion argent within a bordure ermines.