that is the best idea for a giveaway! maybe I will do a poll... hmm...
yeah smoothing definitely required, mostly stream of consciousness with a pause for dinner :P
it was forced... due to familial pressures of having two noble heirs, it is easier to send the second son off to found what is essentially a new "chapter" of House Kell.
I picture House Kell as a minor noble house that has fingers in every pot. As likely to own a vineyard as a saloon, so long as it is profitable or worth the expense.
Derian's ancestors have been merchants for generations, only recently did they become landed nobility. And this only by the weight of their coin. I picked the island to the south on the map here (using https://www.splinterlore.com/splinter-maps and then just making the rest up) because the land looked rough and Beluroc seems surrounded by inhospitable land.
I'm making a guess that Mortis is likely where the Death Splinter comes from based solely on the name, I'm sure some of the cards would give clues but sometimes I can be lazy in my research, I don't play Death splinter a lot.
The "Sages" mentioned I figure are decrepit figure esteemed for their knowledge but either undead themselves and serving as a boundary of sorts for the wilder undead lands beyond or that they are necromancers of a not-terrible kind.
In any case, I'm extrapolating most of the story from that map and intend to do a more close up map drawing soon... at least until whoever is on the splinterlands team and in charge of lore tells me to screw off LOL