According to some beliefs, House Arana carries the trait for insanity in its bloodline, often referred to as madness.
About[]
Some Aranas appear to be born mad. Others may not display madness when they are younger but can develop it as the years go by. Madness was by no means unique to only the Aranas, as all Ayleids, possibly due to inbreeding and their innate magical nature, had a certain proclivity for "madness". Some such actions were not necessarily lunacy, but were acts of great severity and/or cruelty which more stable-minded men might never have even considered doing. The Arana madness is only known as such because of the long reign of their dynasty over the foreign Altmer of the Summerset Archipelago, who noticed the erratic and severe nature of some of their monarchs. However, some have claimed that Arana blood is "uniquely tainted", and that their apparent madness is even more pronounced than that of their Ayleid forebears.
Mad Aranas[]
- Daethen I Arana
- Alyssare I Arana
- Ayrenn I Arana
Questionable Madness[]
- Malyon Arana
Theories[]
It must be observed that of the Arana kings who ruled the Summerset Archipelago for almost 3.000 years, only Alyssare I could be considered truly mad. Several princes and bastards of Arana blood committed insane acts for one reason or another, and oftentimes it was not "pure madness" but acts born of desperation or arrogance that lead to further tragedies. There is magical power in the blood of the old Ayleids and this may create a certain instability in an Arana's personality, but it could also be that this is due to the fact that the Aranas have forgotten how to control it when the magical potency waned from their blood and their gryphons disappeared.