Prince Katanes du Otranto

The first High Prince of Jadd, Duke and later Prince of Laran, and the man who won Jaddian independence in the Jaddian Wars and brough House Otranto to supremacy amongst the Jaddian houses.

—His descendants:

—HIGH PRINCE ALDIA DU OTRANTO

—PRINCE KAIM DU OTRANTO

The separation [between the Sollan Empire and Jaddian colonists] reached a turning point in the twelfth millennium, when the Imperial Prince Cyrus absconded with his Jaddian lover, Princess Amana di Jadi, scandalizing the Jaddian lords. The Jaddians maintain to this day that Amana was raped and kidnapped, while Imperial accounts attest to a romance between the pair. What is beyond dispute, however, is that Amana was recovered by the Jaddian Duke Katanes du Otranto, who recovered not only her, but the High College genetic codex tied to her, which contained the intelligence necessary to free the Jaddian palatines of Imperial control. Though Amana died and her house was destroyed in the wars, the eighty-one remaining palatine families took her name as their own, becoming Jaddians in ISD 11466, after the Battle of the Encircling Moons, when Duke Katanes bested the Imperial Legions with the first Jaddian mamluk clone army.

Kingdoms of Death, Dramatis Personae

Il Balantha du Dom Katanes (The Ballad of Prince Katanes) - the tale of how Katanes du Otranto won the independence of Jadd from the Sollan Empire. Widely known and cherished by the people of Jadd.

Here is what they sang:

Three moons there were o’er Jadd of old …
… three moons there shine there still
And there Katanes, proud and bold
Ruled over sea and hill.
His sword, like crystal, caught the sun
His will, a bar of steel
Thus round his high seat, one-by-one
The princes came to kneel … .

I knew the song at once—every man and woman of Jadd knew it and I had counted Jadd my home for nigh two centuries. It was Il Balantha du Dom Katanes, The Ballad of Prince Katanes, the tale of how he won for Jadd its independence, wresting it from the hands of my own people, the Sollan Empire of old. It was not quite the anthem of the Jaddian people, but it was nigh as good as, and beloved by every soul in the Principalities, from the meanest serf up to Aldia himself. Katanes was a hero, one of history’s great men …

Long the birds sang and told his story. How he had wrested the keys to the Jaddian genetic line from the Imperial viceroy, how he freed his brothers and sisters and united the nobile lines of the Jaddian genetic constellation behind him, and how he fought the Imperium to a standstill with the first mamluk clone armies in defiance of the Terran Chantry’s sacred laws.

The song concluded with Katanes wed to the daughter of the Sollan Emperor, fomenting a peace that had lasted ever since, that blossomed into a friendship between the Empire and Jadd that—while often distant—had lasted ever since, enduring long millennia.

Tales of the Sun Eater, Volume 4: The Fangs of Oannos