Balathorp

The Balathorps were a noble family from the city of Ravens Bluff during the 14 century DR. While they maintained significant wealth, despite expensive tastes, excessive spending and a rather neglectful attitude towards their holdings, they had been otherwise ravaged by ill-fortune. As of 1370 DR, their only surviving direct-lineage member was the family's youngest son and heir, Lord Dustan Balathorp.

Their family motto was: "my sword my tongue".

Activities
One of their businesses involved importing paper and dried rice-noodles from cities along the southern shore of the Sea of Fallen Stars. While he had since stopped, Lord Dunstan used to personally accompany those trips for what was cruelly referred to as "cousin-acquiring trips" by some of the Ravenian aristocracy. Under Dunstan's stewardship, the family's manor was full of "Balathorp blades", male poets and bards whose skills were in high demand at noble revels within the city. Along with these men, to whom Dunstan was particularly close, were the young lord's "cousins": scantily clad women who had been brought into a city, distinguished by the black-ribbon chokers they wore around their neck, which bore the Balathorp family seal.

Members

 * Dunstan Balathorp: Lord Dunstan was the epitome of the Bluff's young, upstart nobility of the late 1300s DR. He carried himself as a flamboyant spectacle, completely carefree and full of wit and acting on his grand whims.

History
Although it was not known how the former Lord and Lady Balathorp died, tragedy was known to have struck the house on more that one occasion. The family's second-eldest son, along with his own entire family perished in a shipwreck some years prior to Dunstan's ascendance. Yet another of his brothers was poisoned by some vengeful lover, shortly after he had taken his wife's hand in marriage.