Sethra Is. The Dragaerans originated with the oodles-of-tribes (28, wasn't it?) that eventually got whittled down into the Empire's 17; where the others went, well, a) who knows and b) who cares. (Maybe the various other 'elf' nations have some of those tribes, like Elde Island -- after all, nobody seems to really know what Houses -those- Dragaerans are from.) But Sethra is, literally, pre-Empire. She's from Before the Tribes. Has she ever been Empress? I expect not. She has, on the other hand, been Warlord more times than one might care to count; there is no rule, however, that says the Warlord has to be of the Emperor's House, or any particular House, for that matter. She has the look of the Dragon, and the look of the Dzur; she's older than dirt, and possibly created Dzur Mountain*. So does it matter what House she's in? Is it entirely possible that not only is she of BOTH Houses Dzur and Dragon, that she's a PROGENITOR of them both? ... okay, maybe not likely, but certainly possible. Curiously enough, we've only seen her in personal combat the once, where she fought in a most un-Dzur un-Dragonlike fashion; instead of a Dragon's berserker fury, or a Dzur's hold-nothing-back, she seems almost scientific about the whole thing, watching and waiting for openings. Otherwise ... I think it doesn't matter, for all that everyone fights over it. :) Sethra Lavode is whole unto herself. Thomas * -- Consider this: several non-volcanic Earth mountains, such as Everest, grow at rates upwards of an inch a year. Sethra Lavode, going by Alexx S. Kay's timeline (http://world.std.com/~alexx/timeline.txt), is upwards of 200,000 years old; at an inch a year, Sethra could very well have 'built' a (200,000/12) 16,666-foot mountain, which would be higher than Mont Blanc or the Matterhorn, Europe's two tallest. Give her more time, and the sucker only gets taller; 250,000 years and it's at 20,833', higher than Mt. McKinley. It'd take 350,000 years for her to build an Everest, though.