Ghyll:Zavinian House
The Zavinian House is, according to popular lore, the house that mysteriously exploded in -2004 EC, killing no one but destroying itself and the surrounding buildings. Indeed, there is even a shrine in memoriam of the incident, at which hundreds of the lay public regularly rest their mandibles in solemn salute. But not every story about the Zavinian House tells the whole truth as it was meant to be heard.
The house was actually built in the year -2047 EC by two young newlywed farmers, Ambuline and Zechariah Zavini, who had had enough of the city life and wanted to settle down on the back roads and harvest the land. So that's just what they did: they built a small house near the Andelphracian River Valley and began farming the nearby land. Pretty soon, having found success selling fruits and vegetables to passing travellers, they began to expand their holdings by incorporating a barn, a greenhouse, a restaurant, and a small theme park where patrons could test their carapaces against numerous challenges such as simulated weapon duels and knackerbat attacks. The Zavinian House quickly became a tourist attraction, with its influence reaching as far as the outermost edges of Ghyll proper, even drawing in tourists from other orthogonalities, as the house was quite near to a Xuriental turning point, unbeknownst at the time to the Zavinis.
The Zavini family's success was short lived, however. As early as the year -2020 EC, raids on the Zavini land began stripping the property of its value. These raids were thought to have been as innocent as a school of Phaelrosen charting a new trail through what was once their land alone. Recent studies, however, suggest something more insidious, such as a deliberate attack by early ancestors of the Trunion lineage, who are thought to have a deep and extreme dislike of the Zavinis, along with an intimate knowledge of how to disguise their getaway paths as Phaelrosen trails.
In any case, by the year of -2009 EC people stopped coming to the Zavinian House, on account of the smell of Phaelrosen dung-balls. Thusly, the Zavini family, which by now encompassed not only Ambuline and Zechariah, but also their fourteen children and numerous pets, set off on a great journey to the south of Ghyll, where they would colonize and civilize an area they called, quite justly, Zavini. Historically speaking, there is no recollection of a town called Zavini, but according to popular lore, the town flourished for four years until -2005 EC, when the entire family lineage was killed by the Iganefta family. Of course, we all know how fierce a group of Ghyllians can be in defense of their version of history. In truth, or at least in books, the Zavini lineage was killed by assailants unknown, and their land eventually, many centuries later, became part of the Iganeftan Settlement.
Oh yeah, and their now-abandoned house exploded the very next year. No one is sure why.
Citations: Andelphracian River Valley, Phaelros, Trunions.
--Snood Trunion 17:29, 18 November 2005 (EST)
