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The Merindars, who appear on the political scene of midlands Sartor in the 4300s, are often spoken of as a perfect example of what happens when "Deis go bad." Not that all the Merindars were bad, or there weren't other charmingly amoral Deis who got into great trouble. (Like Harold Dei of Everon.) But by the time the earliest Merindars appeared, with looks, wealth, and ambition, there was a family characteristic of charm, brains, and what they referred to among themselves as creative ethics. Because they reinvented their past as soon as they had enough power to want to write records (and had gained a castle to keep them in) their origins are obscure. Sartorans--in the catholic sense--tend to prize family connections, such being an obvious root to the tree of stability. The Merindars were actually enterprising rogues who matched up with another set of well-known enterprising rogues, and the result was Salvar Merindar, a young woman of charm, wit, and beauty who traveled over the lake to Fal to try for a fortune. She made her fortune, married well, her descendant married better, and brought a new name to an old, fading family.
The Merindars inevitably got into trouble with their neighbors, and within a few generations had lost power and scattered--but in the meantime the grandson of Salvar Merindar, who traveled farther south, ending up in Remalna, where he charmed the ruling family. His career was somewhat like that of George Viliers, but there was no Lieutenant Felton waiting for him: by the end of his life he had land, a title, a well-born wife, and had happily meddled in northern politics as he tried to bolster his family's falling fortunes from behind.
He serves as an ironic reminder of that rarity, family unity: Merindars afterward tended to compete against one another with far more energy than against anyone else, until it became more or less expected that younger children would--if the heir survived and held onto the heirship--leave, ostensibly to bring greater wealth and influence to the name, if not the family home.
Thus Merindars dot the historical landscape at the eastern end of the continent. Only one, Canardan Merindar, reached the crown they all saw as the prize. Some were on the shady size of law and order, all were ambitious, one actually earned accolades as a dashing cavalry captain under the Irad family--helping to defend Sarendan's borders when Norsunder took Sartor. (No one knew at the time that if Norsunder had wanted Sarendan, there would have been no dashing captains or otherwise left outside of the border to Nightland.)
In Remalna, the Merindars took the crown from the Calahanras family.
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