The War Against the Beast Tides

As he begins settling the Plain of Abundance and Joy (Fenleyuan), Lorist learns to his horror of the annual winter beast tide: roughly a million beasts, including five-to-six-metre mammoth-like elephants, sweeping down from the Wildlands for salt and flattening settlements. This becomes a multi-year war for the family's land against nature itself.

In parallel the economy grows: military reform, Hid steel armour, a new seaport, friendship with Count Kemmes, and the appearance of Princess Sylvia as the Second Prince's marriage bait. The house swells into a duchy-scale power.