The house of Allinghams females from "Maid to serve" -worldbuilding-

From left to right:

Callie Allingham

Cassie Allingham

Lady Cassandra von Allingham

The Allinghams have lived in the north for a very long time.

They are descended from an ancient breed of Collie that existed long before the Ascending. After the upheavals that followed, the Collies settled in the northern reaches of what would later become known as the land of Nordmark.

They had always possessed a natural instinct for keeping others together and protecting those placed in their care. In those uncertain years, that instinct became something greater. The Collies gathered scattered families into settlements, guarded the roads and mountain paths, and helped keep small communities from falling apart when fear, hunger, and violence threatened them.

From these northern Collies, the House of Allingham eventually arose.

They became known not only for their loyalty and endurance, but also for their beauty and grace. Their distinctive coats, fine features, and composed manner made them easily recognized among the old houses of Nordmark.

Their friendship with the House of Kurstenburg stretches back many generations, to the years surrounding the First Great Goblin War.

In those days, the northern lands of Nordmark were still young and uncertain. Goblins, trolls, and orcs held much of the high country, descending from the Greyhorn Mountains into the valleys below. Villages were burned, roads abandoned, and many of the smaller settlements survived only by keeping watch through the night.

It was during this war that the northern Collies and the humans of Nordmark first fought beside one another in great numbers.

The Collies brought speed, discipline, and an instinct for holding groups together even in chaos. They guided frightened villagers through forests, kept broken formations from scattering, and followed raiders across ground where human scouts might quickly lose the trail. The men of Nordmark brought steel, fortifications, and the strength needed to seize and hold the mountain roads.

Together, they drove the goblin hosts northward.

The fighting lasted for years. Pass after pass had to be cleared. Trolls were hunted from the valleys, orc warbands broken along the old roads, and goblin strongholds driven back deeper into the Greyhorns. By the end of the war, the frontier had changed. What had once been wild and uncertain ground became settled land.

Something else had changed as well.

Before the Ascending, the bond between man and dog had been one of master and companion. The Collies remembered this in their own way: an ancient trust between two species, one watching over the other, working side by side and facing danger together without the need for words.

After the Ascending, that bond returned in a new form.

No longer master and dog, but allies bound by fellowship, duty, and trust.

The House of Kurstenburg came to rely upon the Allinghams to watch the northern approaches and guard the mountain passes. In return, the Allinghams trusted Kurstenburg to answer whenever the frontier was threatened. Their scouts rode together, their soldiers shared winter camps, and their families met not only in councils of war, but at weddings, feasts, and harvest festivals.

That bond endured, renewed by each generation of Allinghams and Kurstenburgs who grew up together, trained together, and came to regard the other house almost as an extension of their own family.