Given noble status in the third century of the First Era, the Rancale family is a family of legends. The first of the family was an ahmer named Rancale (meaning: light), a common-born. In a time of strife, Rancale picked up a sword, and in the ensuing battle, she saved the life of the Queens firstborn son. Full of gratitude, the ahmer was given the title of High Guard and her name became a house of Nobles.
The Rancale family is known to produce moderately to strongly skilled mages and talented politicians. Another trait common amongst Rancales is to be strongly willed, and are one of the few noble houses that values love above bloodline (some nasty whispers say that this is why there are Rancales born with such muddy skin and short stature, that their blood is far less clean than their official family tree suggests).
There are five Rancales known as heroes, and many young Altmers grow up listening to their stories. This means that while the Rancales are perhaps not the strongest house, they are amongst the more popular, and they have no problem finding strong alliance through marriage with other families.
But there is a limit to how much scandal a family can drag itself into and walk out unscathed from, family of heroes or not. Helende Rancale, the current Matriarch, married a noveau rich sailor named Iorenil. In turn, off their three children, one abandoned the life of nobility to walk in his fathers footsteps. He is rumoured to have been tainted with were-blood, which Helende neither confirms or denies.
Faralda Rancale, a moderately strong ahmer, married Angoril Hiren and had three children. As with her mother, her middle child was slated for rebellion rather than nobility. Wenselyr Rancale is one of the magically strongest mer to have been born in the Rancale family, but chose to stay in Cyrodiil after the Oblivion crisis, and once rumours of a liaison with a human bandit reached Alinor, any chance for high-standing in the court was effectively revoked.
The Rancale family has had troubles gaining their feet after so many scandals in such short time, and while none dares to take advantage while Helende holds the reigns, she is getting older by the day and many wonder if the younger generation of Rancales are up to the task of keeping honour to their family.
The color red means honour gained through battle. The three birds of them stands for honour, freedom, will. The black colour of the birds stands for intelligence, and the leaf behind the middle one means the family was born common.
