Jan’s Recovered Account

By Rich’s era, even Palad and Nemes can no longer clearly remember why their feud began. The most important surviving account comes from ancient writing translated by the scholar Jan. His notebook preserves a story older than the modern Paladin and Nemesis orders.

According to the recovered legend, two powerful princes each ruled part of their father’s kingdom. When both fell in love with the same princess, admiration became rivalry. The brothers tried to outshine one another through wealth, skill, and contests, but neither could decisively surpass the other.

The princess loved them both and withdrew into a tower while she tried to choose. Instead of giving her time, the brothers escalated. One seized the castle. The other attacked. For years the tower changed hands while the woman at the center of the conflict watched the kingdom tear itself apart.

She eventually died from grief. Their father stripped the brothers of their lands and cast them into the deepest dungeon, where they remained for ages.

The Knight Father’s Second Chance

Only when their father approached death were the brothers summoned again. He offered them a second chance—but not a return to the old system. The kingdom would now be shared among the two brothers and their younger sister, Temperance.

Each received a stone representing both authority and power. The two brothers became Palad and Nemes. Their sister became the third Sovereign. The father who divided the inheritance became known to later generations simply as the Knight Father.

Why the Three Stones Were Divided

Jan interprets the division as an attempt to preserve balance. No one child would hold every form of authority. Order, chaos, and the balancing third power would restrain one another.

The solution worked for a time, but it also created three increasingly isolated identities. The stones powered entire family lines for thousands of years. As those lines expanded, the available energy was spread among more descendants.

Palad and Nemes made the problem worse by continuing their war. Their repeated use of Sovereign power drained the Sunstone and Moonstone while the more neutral Temperance branch conserved far more of the Starstone’s strength.

A Feud That Forgot Its Beginning

One of the great tragedies of Chess Quest history is that the original grievance eventually stops mattering. By the time Rich meets Palad and Nemes, neither can give him a complete explanation for the beginning of their war.

Palad remembers only that their father was involved. Nemes remembers the battles, insults, and wrongs accumulated afterward. Those later injuries have become sufficient reason to continue fighting even though the first cause is almost gone from memory.

The feud has become self-sustaining: they fight because generations before them fought, and because every new battle creates another grievance that seems to justify the next one.

Jan’s Notebook Changes History

Rich eventually carries Jan’s translation directly to the two Sovereigns. Palad reads the recovered story aloud. Faced with the beginning they have forgotten, both brothers finally recognize the scale of what their rivalry has become.

Palad admits that the brothers have shamed their father and suggests that forgetting may have been easier than facing what they had done. Nemes reluctantly agrees that the old conflict cannot continue while Temperance threatens both branches.

For perhaps the first time in ages, the brothers deliberately cooperate. A surviving story accomplishes what force could not: it reminds them who they were before the feud became their identity.

Temperance: The Forgotten Third Heir

Later histories often describe the conflict as if only two powers matter: white and black, Paladin and Nemesis, order and chaos. Temperance never fits neatly onto that board.

Some later sources speculate that she resented being overlooked. Others suggest she received only the power left after her brothers were favored. The final history reveals something more important: Temperance had a purpose. Her branch existed as a failsafe, meant to intervene if order and chaos failed to restrain one another.

The tragedy is that the balancing mechanism itself eventually became unbalanced.

The First Homeland

The earliest known seat of the three branches was the Homeland, a fortress protected by enormous stone guardians. Lighter guardians answered to Palad. Darker guardians answered to Nemes. Ancient descriptions suggest that their forms may even have influenced later chess imagery.

Temperance eventually seized the Homeland. Drawing on the immense reserves of the Starstone, she took control of guardians belonging to both brothers and conquered the fortress.

Then an extraordinary sandstorm swallowed the Homeland. Temperance, her forces, and the fortress vanished beneath the desert. The site passed out of ordinary memory.

In the aftermath, the surviving families established a second Homeland. That place eventually became known as the Corridor of Keys.

From Family to Orders

Over the centuries the three siblings became more than ancestors. Their traits hardened into institutions. Palad’s line increasingly defined itself through order, structure, valor, and protection. Nemes’s line embraced chaos, ambition, opposition, and disruption. Temperance’s followers became the Knights Temper, outwardly neutral between the two larger powers.

By Rich’s era, the board no longer merely represents the family. The family has spent generations shaping itself to match the board.

The Failure of the First Solution

The Knight Father attempted to solve one disaster through division. He separated authority so no single heir could dominate the others. But the safeguards became traditions, the traditions became rivalries, and the rivalries became destiny.

The three heirs grew isolated. Palad and Nemes consumed themselves through opposition. Temperance became separated from both. Later generations inherited the division without remembering the reasons behind it.

Rich Witz and the Second Chance

The five-book Chess Quest arc ultimately returns to the Knight Father’s original problem: how can enormous power be shared without allowing one branch to dominate the others?

The first answer was separation. Rich’s answer becomes unity without sameness. The Sunstone, Moonstone, and Starstone are eventually brought together not to erase order, chaos, or balance, but to make them parts of the same larger system.

In that sense, Rich does more than end a war. He completes the Knight Father’s unfinished attempt to save his family.

Key Historical Sequence

1. The Knight Father rules the original family.
2. Two sons fall in love with the same princess.
3. The brothers’ rivalry destroys the kingdom and contributes to the princess’s death.
4. The Knight Father imprisons his sons.
5. Palad, Nemes, and Temperance receive a second chance and three ruling stones.
6. Three knightly branches emerge.
7. Palad and Nemes continue their rivalry across generations.
8. Temperance conquers the first Homeland.
9. The Homeland disappears beneath the desert.
10. The families establish a second Homeland: the Corridor of Keys.
11. Rich’s generation rediscovers the beginning of the feud.
12. The three branches are ultimately reunited.

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