So Skingrad has acquired the Imperial Isle as well as Applewatch through marriage. A war in their holdings north of the Imperial Isle gave me the opportunity to expand into their territory, using a province I inherited from a marriage as a staging ground. The Colovian Estates, once a massive looming force to my north-east, are embroiled in a constant state of civil wars. Currently two different forces, each supported by one third of the Colovian provinces, are vying for the throne. I have used the opportunity to invade their Kvatch buddies, leaving them with only two provinces for now.
My second ruler of Anvil had himself three daughters, all raised in similar fashion, but each of them went different professional routes. One is a mage, one is a barbarian, and another is a crafty diplomat. The mage was set to inherit the throne when my ruler and his lover had themselves a son. The bastard was legitimized, and at the age of six was crowned when his father passed of an infection. So far the bastard has lived up to his family name by decimating armies that march to battle him and his forces. It's amazing how devastating a few well-timed spells can be.
EDIT: Also of note, the family has had a set of elven armor as well as the Iceblade of the Monarch passed from leader to leader. The family as a whole is also very adept at magic, which may be helping in trouncing my mostly militant-by-manpower neighbors.
EDIT 2: Here's an odd coincidence! My current king is Pelinal the Lionheart. So early on in his career some mystery woman comes to the court stating that she'd like to serve me. Nobody really knows where she came from, but all my nobles are like "Bro don't do it". So I do. She makes a lot of things awesome, not to mention being one of my greatest warriors and commanders (the only better in the kingdom are in my family). Skip forward about 15 years and I decide to google Pelinal, as it's familiarity was bugging me. At the same time I also look at Ahetotis (the badass's name) and see the title "the Shezarrine". Google that too, since it's awful close to Nerevarine and I wanna know exactly what kind of badass she is. Lo and behold I find that a Pelinal Whitestrake is a suspected Shezarrine. Neat!