The Houses
A GUIDE TO THE MOST PROMINENT FAMILIES IN GUILD GUARDIAN SOCIETY
HOUSE WINTER
The Winters are a branch of House Mountfort, honoring their roots with both an apple and a raven in their sigil. Like the Mountforts, the Winters are primarily interested in healing and medical arts, but their focus runs to the more arcane and unusual – ornithology, etymology, anatomy of fairy folk. The Winters are also heavily involved in Guild politics, sending their sons to the Senate as if it is their birthright.
HOUSE MOUNTFORT
The Mounforts are primarily interested in healing and medical arts. Their sigil shows a raven and an apple on golden scales – life and death swinging back and forth in the balance. The family’s motives aren’t entirely humanitarian. They have carefully trademarked their techniques and potions for maximum profit. The Mother House has many branches and carefully arranges marriages within their extended family to maintain political and economic influence.
HOUSE MCCRAY
The McCrays' silver lamp represents a much more complex advance in energy work – the crayfire lamp. The McCray family invented a safe, easy spell to harness the natural properties in crystals to generate and maintain light. The lamps have to be re-charged periodically, a task suited to young practitioners.
HOUSE BRANDYWINE
While the Brandywines put on the jolly, harmless front with their fruit orchards and pumpkin farms, their shrewd political savvy is not to be underestimated. They control the market for food prices and potion ingredients through careful manipulation of the Senate and their own crop production. They maintain a power base in economics, politics, real estate, shipping, and other concerns with carefully arranged marriages and alliances.
HOUSE CAVILL
Hailing from the northern mountains depicted in their sigil, the Cavills have concentrated their efforts in metallurgy and alchemy. They are heavily regulated by the Guild as the government has long suspected House Cavill of plotting to meddle in the economy, through efforts like flooding the market with fool’s gold. Historically, the Cavills are bitter rivals of the Brandywines and the Mountforts, for reasons based in personality and power struggles.
HOUSE BENISSE
Represented by a peacock in full tail display, the Benisses are known for their ability to produce beauty glamours and love spells so convincing that the recipients will swear they’d enjoyed a whirlwind romance in a single night. Most of society’s great beauties – both male and female - come from the Benisse family, resulting in advantageous marriages to every prominent family in the magical social register. But it’s rare to find a Benisse settled into a happy life. Unions based on love spells are rarely joyful and never last.
HOUSE DRUMMOND
What’s known about the Drummond’s history or wealthy is as sparse as the spindly tree that represents their house. Masters of wards and home protection, the Drummonds are secretive and suspicious of all other families. Their political influences waxes and wans depending on the generation.
HOUSE GRIMSTELLE
Almost nothing is known about House Grimstelle, a once-powerful family wiped from existence following their dangerous dabbling with necromancy. The less said about them, the better.
Illustrations by Polina Hrytskova. Do not use without permission.