The tale of the Givens dynasty, easily the most important and influential family in the High Meridian Age, begins with Raylan Givens in 2666. An adventurer from the wild Bluegrass savannah claiming descent from a mythical premeridian warrior, his early years are shrouded in legend. He first enters the historical record with the deposition of the Grand Duke of Bluegrass in a coup, whose high-handed Charismatism offended his Revelationist subjects.
The first decade of his reign was spent consolidating his reins on power, systematically deposing local Charismatic rulers and replacing them with his Revelationist deputies. A number of Mississipine great families, like Battleton and Siltland, trace their origins to the period.
His power base secured, Raylan began expanding the borders of his domain, first in eastern Bluegrass, then in Pennyrile. His rival in this period for control of Uppland was the Grand Division of Kentuckiana on the northwestern bank of the Ohio.
After years of backroom maneuvering, open warfare broke out in 2683. The war began poorly for Grand Duke Raylan, and his entire army was driven into Colossal Cavern in Mammoth County. This was to be the absolute nadir of Raylan's fortunes. In the subsequent Battle of Colossal Cavern Raylan's trapped army launched a midnight assault on the Kentuckian army and routed it. In the subsequent chase the Kentuckian host melted away.
This stunning victory allowed Raylan to annex Western Tennessee and proclaim himself the King Raylan I of Mississippi. At the same time he moved his seat from Frankfort in Old Bourbon to Louisville by the river.
In his later life Raylan concentrated on consolidating his hold on Mississippi, demanding the fealty of various holdouts within Mississippi, particularly in the backwoods of eastern Bluegrass.
His son William, the Magnanimous continued entrenching Missisipine rule while expanding southwards along the eastern bank of the Mississippi River and subjugating the fertile plains of Indiana in the north. Though the Yazoo accepted Mississipine rule readily, the Rostmanns of Indiana would prove intransigent and was a constant source of rebellion and unrest. The region would take generations to subdue.
William was a great connoisseur of board games of all types, and was a reputedly brilliant player of classical chess (different from the modern variant in that bishops can move only diagonally). Though classical chess is not widely played today, the common Givens Gambit is named after (and supposedly pioneered by) William I.
King William's reign was cut short when he died of an infection in an old wound he sustained while driving off a Norse host from Covington. He was succeeded by his young son Caleb, still a toddler.
Caleb's long regency was a peaceful one, largely because the nobility was pacified by concessions and special rights his regent granted. For most of Caleb the Lawgiver's long reign, his vassals were essentially autonomous, and the king was in theory but the first amongst equals. Nobles of a later age, disgruntled by Givens absolutism, would look back nostalgically on this period as the golden age of noble privilege.
Yet the reign of Caleb the Lawgiver was when the Givens dynasty truly entrenched on the Mississipine throne.
- excerpted from Bluegrass Chronicle: A History of the Givens Dynasty, reproduced with permission