Great Houses (Fantasy)

The Great Houses of the Ancient Realms, often simply referred to as the Great Houses, was a large collection of magically powerful families from the ancient kingdoms of Naearinor, Andunor, Danivendor, Varindor and Kalivendor. In the ancient past, these realms were once large, powerful and cooperative with one another. Eventually, however, all five collapsed due to decay, war, famine and other such conditions.

Naear Houses
In the process of the collapse of Naearinor, members of all sixty of its Great Houses evacuated to the prosperous, fertile island of Arkasia, on which they endured with only limited knowledge of the other families' fates until the end of the High Kingdom of Arkasia in the Fall of Arkasia, a natural disaster which wiped out virtually all life on the island and forced the inhabitants to rapidly and haphazardly evacuate back to the mainland. In the process of this evacuation, twelve of the houses were unable to evacuate due to limited space available aboard the country's ships. Further, while en route to their destination, the fleet lost a further twelve houses during an intense storm. All three groups knew nothing of one another's whereabouts for many centuries, until expeditions of the thirty-six rediscovered their cousins in the west, those who'd lost their way, and later, expeditions of the forty-eight found the remaining twelve while trying to ascertain whether Arkasia had become habitable again. Between their separation and reunion, the three groups experienced radically different developments socially, politically and technologically, to the degree that they were initially almost unrecognizable to each other after their age-long separation.

Naearinor

 * House Dunarys, Lords of Lightning.
 * House Rayus, Lords of Water.
 * House Nystaryn, Lords of Wind.
 * House Nylisarryn, Lords of Winter.
 * House Garico, Lords of Earth.
 * House Destino, Lords of Fire.
 * House Kevransayn, Lords of Time.
 * House Valyrys, Lords of Metal.
 * House Asthaelayn, Lords of Dreams.
 * House Raelans, Lords of Healing.
 * House Santyr, Lords of Crystal.
 * House Saertanican, Lords of Knowledge.

Andunor

 * House Vesinan, Sea-Lords.
 * House Vaskelayn, Gold-Lords.
 * House Kevranican, Fire-Lords.
 * House Dynvalyn, Ice-Lords.
 * House Edalan, Sun-Lords.
 * House Ensyr, Moon-Lords.