The age of Houses.

EARLY ERAS · ESTABLISHED ALLEGIANCES

Two claims to the throne. Seven Houses entwined.

Between the rival powers

Vespucci and Luciani are mutual partners who trade information as currency. Luciani brings histories, sources and discreet intelligence; Vespucci brings access, negotiation and knowledge gained at the table. Together they can broker deals, the terms of war or peace without permanent allegiance to either claimant. Their neutrality is a source of power, not an absence of interests. Lombardo travels as mercenary knights, with a reputation for double dealing, theft and scams.

The feud carried by the sworn Houses

Garbonzo and Bambino have rivalled for generations. Their original service as proxies of Fachelli and Marino turned the great Houses’ contests into personal losses and conflicts their descendants regard as unforgivable. That feud survives changes of faction, feeding internal rivalry, betrayal and disputed loyalties; it is an inherited pressure, not a command that every descendant must hate.

The cost of the rival crowns

Fachelli and Marino approach rivalry strategically. Their strikes are calculated, ruthless and devastating; both dynasties have gone too far across their history. Neither House owns a simple moral claim. Read each conflict through its stakes, choices and human cost, rather than assigning innocence to a surname.

One crest through the Doom

Luciani proposes the first union after Cenerath’s eruption: the Ashen Compact brings the survivors beneath the Fachelli crest before they flee Vardessa. Later divisions culminate in the 1935–1940 Red–Blue Civil War between Fachelli and Vespucci, which nearly destroys Garbonzo and Bambino. Luciani brokers the 1940 peace that establishes the seven-seat Commission. The Houses arrive in Montaro in 2026. Shared origin, complementary duties and unfamiliar outside powers make cooperation necessary; unity does not create one bloodline or erase what one family did to another.

What the next generation inherits

Old grievances travel in household stories, pauses and jokes whose humour can conceal resentment. A slight can reopen an old wound, but love, marriages, new alliances and shared challenges can also bind descendants their ancestors taught to distrust. Do not assume either inevitable betrayal or automatic reconciliation: each generation chooses what to carry forward.

The early allegiances and modern union are established history. The Vardessa atlas places the ancestral holds, borders, routes and battlefield sites in 312 FR. The founding register names the first elders and two Marino–Bambino marriages. The Doom, Ashen Compact and exodus establish the cause and era of union. Further marriages, named signatories, exact dates and battle accounts remain to be developed in the shared record.