House Medani
House Medani bears the Mark of Detection and concerns itself primarily with investigation and counterintelligence. Unlike most Houses, Medani has a strong tie with the Kingdom of Breland. Of the approximately 7500 marked members of House Medani, 1500 of them live in the home enclave at Wroat, 1000 in Sharn, while a further 2500 live in the rest of Breland. There are approximately 500 Medani in each of the other Five Nations, 300 each in Zilargo and the Reaches and roughly 400 scattered across the rest of Khorvaire. Although the Warning Guild is less starkly divided, enjoying strong popularity in the Five Nations, Zilargo and the Mhor Holds, most business comes through Sharn and there has been little success in the 'uncivilized' regions of Khorvaire. If a Siberys Heir of Detection exists they are almost certainly either dwelling at the Tower of Inquisition, or guarding the Mornlands from Arythawn Keep in Southern Thrane.
House Medani offers simple security and business consultations at Warning Guild guildhalls for a fee of 5 gold per consultation. This service includes one hour of questioning and advice from an expert on the consultation's topic and one portent from a Least Medani (often also the expert) applied toward the client's benefit. The locations of Medani enclaves are kept secret from the public and never host consultations.
For 25 gold per day, the Warning Guild can be contracted to solve a crime, search for plots, perform background checks or otherwise investigate on behalf of a client. This fee hires at least one inquisitive to work exclusively on the client's case, promises discretion about all inquiries and pays for any magical or nonmagical assistance required by the lead inquisitive on the case, including, if necessary, the Scrying Dreams of the Greater Medani. The discretion of the Warning Guild is limited by the letter and the spirit of the law: Inquisitives are required to report any crimes they uncover during their investigations to the proper authorities.
Finally, individual Marked Medani can be hired as bodyguards. This costs 30 gold per day for a Least Medani protector and a larger, highly negotiable amount for those with more powerful marks. Lesser Medani can generally only be afforded by the nobility, and Greater and Siberys Medani generally cannot be hired as bodyguards for gold at all - their services to the inquisitives are simply too valuable to risk.
House Medani is always willing to hire those with Least and Lesser the Mark of Detection in the Warning Guild at the standard fee. If you have a position of privilege in House Medani, whether from your background or through exemplary service, you can expect to be maintained in a wealthy lifestyle while in Breland or in a comfortable lifestyle in enclaves abroad. Regardless of background, if you have a Greater or Siberys Mark of Detection, House Medani will strongly encourage you to come join the Tower of Inquisition in Wroat, where you will be kept in aristocratic style and under guard against possible assassination.
House Tharashk
House Tharashk bears the Mark of Finding, making its heirs great hunters of beasts and objects alike. Though young, Tharask is a large and wide-spread House, extending from the Shadow Marches, to Droaam, to Q'Barra and beyond. Tharashk is divided into three clans: Thorrn, Velderan and Aashta, which approximately 3000 marked members each. Approximately 500 from each clan live in Zarash'ak, with a further 1000 each throughout the rest of the Shadow Marches. Droaam is second in popularity for Tharashk heirs, featuring around 900 heirs from each clan and a total of 450 Tharashk in the settlement of Graywall alone. The almost 1800 remaining marked Tharashk can be found all over the globe on prospecting expeditions, hunting trips and archeological finds. Nonmarked numbers are unusually high for a dragonmarked house, owing to Tharashk's full acceptance of their orcish kin and the occasional marriage into the house by other races.
House Tharashk engages in a wide variety of commercial ventures, including dragonshard prospecting, mineral prospecting, surveying, tracking, fishing, mining, game finding, bounty hunting, procuring mercenaries and labourers from Droaam and sponsoring archeological digs. Of these, Tarashk's trade deals with Droaam are the most profitable, with prospecting second and hunting a distant third.
Droaam's largely untapped mineral resources and monstrous reputation allows the Tharashk clans to serve as middlemen for the bulk trade agreements between the Daughters of Sora Kell and the Five Nations. In addition to the rich iron and coal deposits of the region, Droaam has the single largest deposits of byeshk metal in all of Khorvaire. Moreover, Droaam's native races often have great strength (ogres, gnolls and minotaurs), the ability to fly (harpies and gargoyles) or unusual magical abilities (medusae and hags), allowing House Tharashk to find them employment not only as mercenaries, but as labourers, couriers and even mages.
House Tharashk's prospecting work is mixed in profitability. While the Mark of Finding grants the house a massive edge in locating mineral deposits, and the Finder's guild has some of the most skilled prospectors of the modern age, House Tharashk has no particular affinity for extracting the wealth from the earth once it is located. Often, a seemingly promising mine is abandoned when skilled miners cannot be found to excavate in the untamed wilderness of Q'Barra or the Shadow Marshes. House Tharashk strongly prefers prospecting for Eberron Dragonshards over precious gems or metal ores, as their high value and tendency to form in areas of soft earth simplify mining operations significantly.
If House Tharashk's hunting and bounty hunting operations are among their least profitable, they are easily the most glamorous. Countless pulp novels feature bare-chested Tharashk inquisitives tracking escaped fugitives across the untamed wild, muscles glistening with sweat as they run down their criminal prey. Meanwhile, many noble huntsman simply wouldn't dream of going on a hunt without a team of beaters from the Finding Guild. While these paint an unrealistic picture of Tharashk's operations, there remains a grain of truth in the legendary inescapability of a Tharashk manhunter.
House Vadalis
House Vadalis bears the Mark of Handling, allowing the domestication of wild beasts and the creation of fantastic creatures. Of the Dragonmarked Houses, Vadalis is the smallest and one of the few based outside of the Five Nations. While the House Seat is located in Varna, only 500 of the estimated 6000 Marked Vadalis reside there at any given time. The sprawling Foalswood Ranch features both over 1000 Marked Vadalis and the most involved breeding and research programs. A further 3000 are found in enclaves dotted throughout the Eldeen Reaches and western Aundair. Most of the remaining 1500 heirs can be found scattered in small family units in any rural area of the Five Nations. All members of House Vadalis are officially banned from entering Valenar by the nation's senate. While no Siberys Mark of Handling currently exists, three sacred beasts do: a giant silver stag, a winged wolf and an invisible fish allegedly living in lake Gallifar.
While most Dragonmarked Houses at least pretend to obey the Korth Accords, House Vadalis flouts the agreement entirely, citing the Treaty of Thronehold as their justification. According to the Heirs of Handling, wild animals are not soldiers; magebreeding stables are not House Enclaves; and the Druidic Sects are not nobility. Accordingly, House Vadalis judges themselves free to raise as many magebred beasts as they see fit; to count only the human housing against their land limits and to intermarry freely with the Druids who rule below the Great Oalian. Although this is all, technically, within the letter of the law, the other Houses view this behavior as a brazen defiance of the spirit.
House Sivis takes the most offense to these practices, and is further offended by Vadalis's efforts to train messenger animals as mail carriers in regions where the Sivis speaking stones do not extend. House Orien is possibly Vadalis's only defender, and detractors are eager to point out that this is almost certainly due to the fact that the Handler's Guild provides the majority of Orien's horses. Given that Vadalis is the only source of magebred beasts and mundane domestication, the other houses have little recourse but to lean on the Kings and Queens of the Five Nations to deal more harshly with House Vadalis outside the Reaches.
Breeding a magebred beast requires the use of a magebred stable and a tamed breeding pair of the species of beast you wish to breed. Use the rules for attracting untrained hirelings (see Houses, Hirelings and Holdings for details) using the stable as a stronghold to determine how quickly you may rear magebred beasts. If you do not have a stable of your own, most House Vadalis stables will permit an heir with the appropriate manifestation to work a week in exchange for the use of a magebred beast. Magebred beasts may be promoted to skilled hirelings as normal, and may learn skills as indicated in the manifestation entry. While magebred beasts are generally not sold, they may be rented quite cheaply.
House Jorasco
House Jorasco bears the Mark of Healing and is known far and wide for their medical skill. During the Last War, Jorasco healers could be found on every front and working for every nation. Of the 12000 marked members of the House, nearly 500 can be found at Resthold in Vedykar with a further 3500 elsewhere in Karrnath. Breland hosts a further 3000 based out of Sharn, while Aundair features a contingent of 2500 marked heirs based out of Fairhaven. In Thrane, Jorasco's popularity is dampened by the Silver Flame's dubious view of for-profit healing, leading to a contingent of only 1500 heirs, mostly in and around Flamekeep. In the Five Nations, most modern Jorasco hospitals were originally field hospitals of the Last War and now stand within sight of national borders. Jorasco has moved away from their nomadic origins and maintains only a small, but politically significant healing house in Gatherhold, featuring 250 marked members operating an "ambulant hospital" which rides healers out to tribes with sick or wounded. The remaining 750 or so heirs are scattered throughout hospitals and clinics on the frontiers of Khorvaire and beyond, with representatives in Pylas Talaer in Aerenal and Stormreach in Xen'drik.
The majority of Jorasco's income comes from the creation of medicine and the treatment of war veterans. If Least Jorasco were to work as quickly and efficiently as possible, they could collectively contribute 50000 healing potions, 4000 antitoxin vials and 5 million man-days worth of anti-disease tinctures to the economy each month. The Lesser Jorasco can cure just under 15000 cases of blindness and deafness each month, while the Greater Jorasco can restore the lost limbs to a thousand crippled soldiers in the same period. The Healer's Guild contributes still more to these totals, and yet disease is still a reality for all of Khorvaire. Jorasco must pay rents under the Korth Accords, buy herbs in mass for their medicines and hire nurses and orderlies to tend to their patients. There is simply not enough money to help everyone if the House wishes to survive.
As a result, Jorasco has a perhaps unfair reputation as being extremely mercenary in their services. No heir may offer free healing, even to another member of the House, on pain of excoriation. A potion of healing costs 50 gold, whether sold to a man in health or a man dying at your feet. If they cannot pay, they cannot be healed. To do otherwise undermines Jorasco and all future generations. Only three common exceptions to this rule exist: First, a Jorasco heir and a Ghallanda heir may trade healing for housing without the exchange of gold, so long as the total worth is maintained. Secondly, House Jorasco is willing to offer loans with which to buy healing, payable with interest once the patient is healthy. Finally, if an heir is given the choice between their life and their oath, they may heal their captor so long as the House is later informed and the debt is later paid in blood.
House Ghallanda
House Ghallanda bears the Mark of Hospitality and operates the Hosteler's Guild. Food, drink, lodging and even gambling fall under their purview. As a result, at least one room is set aside in Ghallanda-liscensed lodging as House Enclave where heirs may shelter at no cost. The Hosteler's Guild does its best to maintain at least one such room per five thousand people in each settlement they have access to, with the number of non-enclave rooms varying based on actual demand for lodgings.
Of the approximately 12000 marked members of the house, a third maintain this semi-nomadic lifestyle of traveling from inn to inn, using their mark as thanks. Of the remaining 6000, approximately 500 dwell at the House Seat in Gatherhold, 1000 are 'true' nomads living among the Talenta Tribes or following the Wandering Inn. In the Five Nations, Breland features 1300 Ghallanda of fixed residence; Aundair 900, Karrnath 800, and Thrane 700. Both Zilargo and the Mror Holds have 500 marked Ghallanda, while Darguun, Droaam and the Eldeen Reaches host around 300 each. Q'Barra, Valenar and the Shadow Marches feature around 150 heirs each, as do the combined Lhazaar Principalities. Pylas Talaear hosts 100, while 300 live in Stormreach.
The Hosteler's Guild prides itself on maintaining a uniform standard of quality across all bonded businesses. A Golden Dragon Inn in Fairhaven is supposed to be indistinguishable from one in Dreadhold or Thaliost. Everything from the taste of food to the size of the beds to the shape of the building is held to be as uniform as possible, so that it is impossible to tell which Inn one is in. Where possible, even the waiters are selected to look approximately alike. This practice, combined with the fact that the some of the Greater Ghallanda have access to extradimensional residences, has led to persistent (but seemingly false) rumours that all Golden Dragon Inns are in fact the same Inn, magically connected through the Mark of Hospitality.
Due to shrewd bargaining during the signing of the Korth Accords, customers at House Ghallanda enclaves may not be unwillingly removed for any reason, even by officers of the law. Until they cease to pay or are refused further service by House Ghallanda, the law can no more arrest a paying customer than they can a foreign diplomat. This is somewhat less useful to fugitives than it initially seems: nothing prevents the Sharn Watch from having an officer rent the room next to the Sharn Enclave, ready to arrest the criminal as soon as they step out of their room. More common is an accused suspect hiding from the law this way while a hired inquisitive (or lawyer) to find (or fabricate) proof of their innocence.
Ghallanda Enclaves are host to more than just members of the House itself. Deneith Marshals, Sivis Senders, Shadow Network members, the Entertainer's Guild and Jorasco Healers all find themselves welcome to offer protection, entertainment, Speaking Stone sendings and healing to the patrons of Ghallanda in exchange for hospitality.
House Cannith
House Cannith bears the Mark of Making and concerns itself with all manner of industry, both magical and mundane. Although Cannith runs the Fabricator's Guild, which certifies artisans and craftspeople, most marked heirs find themselves diverted to the Tinker's Guild, where almost all Cannith with any magical affinity are taught to cast the Mending cantrip. The 8000 marked members of House Cannith are currently divided into three factions:
Cannith East has 900 in Korth and 1900 throughout the rest of Karrnath. Cannith East also maintains 50 members at Gatherhold, 150 at Krona Peak, 100 in Q'barra and 100 across the Lhazaar Principalities. Cannith East makes the majority of its profits by supplying the war-torn Karrnath economy and by running the Rekkenmark Academy. Cannith East hopes to repeat the House's success with creating sentient constructs by creating a race of sentient undead servitors alongside Karranthi necromancers. Members of this faction tend toward manifestations of magical creation and host the Fabricator's Guild international headquarters.
Cannith West has 800 at their headquarters in Fairhaven, and a further 1700 in Aundair, the majority of which spend at least one season a year studying magical locations in the Eldeen Reaches under the careful scrutiny of the Wardens of the Wood. Cannith West also maintains a 300 member mission in Cannith East-dominated Korth, where the Twelve hold their regular meetings. Cannith West is currently focused on public relations and outreach, trying to repair the damage done by the Mourning to Cannith's good name. The majority of Cannith with powers useful for architecture and enchantment join this faction.
Cannith South has 250 members at its Sharn headquarters, with a further 1100 across Breland, 300 in Zilargo, 200 in Darguun and 150 in Stormreach. Cannith South hopes to restore the House to its former glory through a dual plan of continued experimentation into living constructs and the creation of a new Creation Forge outside of the jurisdiction of the Treaty of Thronehold. Rumours hint that Cannith South's leadership hopes to recover the Whitehearth Creation Forge from the Mournlands and repair it on Xen'drix. The majority of Lesser and Greater Cannith with abilities tuned toward construct making join this faction.
The Mark of Making is most profitably employed to provide raw materials which are then refined by hand. While a suitably attuned Least Cannith can directly conjure 50 feet of fine steel chain and sell that for 25 gold, a more canny heir would conjure up the same value in raw iron ore, then hire a team to smelt that into ingots, a team to pull the ingots into wire and a team to turn the wire into chain, more than doubling their total profit in the long run. This very process sparked the creation of the original Fabricator's guild when it was realized that the concept of standardized, vertically-integrated assembly line production could be applied to all industries rather than to just the processing of magically created ore. This process has since become the standard across all industries.
House Orien
House Orien bears the Mark of Passage and maintains both the Courier and Transportation Guilds. Orien's heirs are well-traveled and widely spread, rivaling Houses Tharashk and Ghallanda in those regards. Of the 8000 or so marked heirs, only 900 make permanent residence. 300 of these heirs reside at the House Seat of Journey's Home in Passage, while a further 400 are distributed across the various royal and noble courts of the four surviving Galifarian nations. A sizable majority of the House, some 5500 in total, live and work on the Transportation guild caravans directly, either as drivers, mail carriers or vanguards. A further 1100 work for the Lightning Rail service directly, while the remaining 500 are employed as land, sea and even air couriers specializing in deliveries to areas outside the road and rail networks. As Orien caravans tend to stick to fixed routes, most of Orien caravaneers and Rail-workers tend to remain within a single geographical region, even if they change cities each night.
Rail and caravan prices are extremely reasonable, provided one is willing to go where house Orien is already headed. Four major "hub" caravans exist at present: the Circumgalifar (linking the Reaches to the Five Nations), the Wroat-Zolanberg (from south Breland across Zilargo), the Vedykar-Vulyar (linking the Krona Rail to the Gatherhold-Rekkenmark line) and the Greywall Gallop (carrying Tharashk goods out of Droaam). Each has at least one stop at a Lightning Rail, from which a traveler can usually make a direct transfer to the hub caravan headed toward their final destination. Typical fees include 3cp per mile for passengers, or 1cp per pound per mile for post and parcels, with prices at least doubling for destinations outside the conventional route. Some (but not all) caravans are willing to allow armed adventurers ride for free, in exchange for their services in detering bandits. Typical speeds are 120 miles per day on caravans, or twice that on the Lightning Rail.
The major exception is the Vedykar-Vulyar in Karrnath. With the loss of the White Arch bridge during the Last War and the Cyre Hub during the Mourning, Karrnath's rail lines remain entirely severed from the rest of the Five Nations. While Orien has established a ferry between Thaliost and Rekkenmark, volume is severely limited along this route. Political tensions in Aundair over Thaliost's status have prevented the bridge from being repaired, while the presence of the Mournlands renders the Cyre lines unusable to passengers. Rumours persist of unmanned Orien cargo shipments passing through unharmed, but these have never been substantiated. The fact that these routes remain closed seems to indicate a lack of a (Orien loyal) Siberys Heir of Passage.
More exotic services offered include horse courier (25cp and one hour per 10 miles), marked courier (30gp and one day per 200 miles), air courier (50gp and one day per 200 miles; no extra fee for cross mountain or cross sea shipments) and teleportation courier (50gp per person or square foot of parcels, instant to select locations).
House Sivis
House Sivis bears the Mark of Scribing and has been instrumental over its nearly three thousand year history in establishing the culture and customs of the Dragonmarked Houses today. All Heirs of Sivis are gnomes, and thus the majority live in Zilargo. Of the nearly 10000 marked members of House Sivis, only around 3500 have permanent residence outside of the gnomish homeland, primarily working as Speaking Stone operators at Message Stations, or as diplomats and mediators for the Speaker's Guild. The largest Sivis enclave and current residence of the house matriarch (alongside approximately 2500 other House Sivis members) is Korranberg, home of the internationally famous Library of Korranberg. Other major enclaves include Trolanport (1300), Zolanberg (1000), Oskilor (900) and Thurimbar (800). The two guilds under Sivis control, the Speakers and Notaries, are far less centralized in Zilargo, with the diplomatic missions of Speaker's Guild seeing somewhat higher penetration into the more wild regions of Droaam, Talenta, Darguun and the Shadow Marches.
Historically, the primary work of House Sivis has not been communication, but innovation. One of the earliest Dragonmarked Items was the an enchanted stamp designed to provide an indelible and unfalsifiable signature for its user. Banking, quite literally, on the success of the Arcane Mark, Sivis established itself early in its history as a trusted resource in the fields of law and finance. Later, Sivis would study the nature of the Dragonmarks themselves and fund the expeditions which would discover Houses Kundarak and Tharashk, the former allowing Sivis to insert itself as a vital partner the modern banking system and the latter giving Sivis enough sway in Droaam and the Shadow Marches to extend their communication networks to the westernmost coast of Khorvaire.
Today, the public face of House Sivis is the Speaking Stone network, but in the gnomish view this is a rather recent development. Invented by Tasker Torralyn d'Sivis in 783 YK, the days of the first Speaking Stone networks are still in living memory for the longer lived races on Khorvaire. Fundamentally, a Speaking Stone functions not unlike a Sending Stone - Torralyn's primary innovation was to link each stone, not to a single other stone, but to every other of its kind. Although each Sending Stone weighs 30 pounds and requires the attunement of the Mark of Scribing, the increased flexibility made connecting the entire continent feasible at last.
The innovations of House Sivis continue into the modern era, with the 811 invention of the Lightning Rail in cooperation with Houses Cannith and Orien, followed in 990 by the invention of the Elemental Galleon alongside Cannith and Lyrandar. Although Sivis is viewed as something of a silent partner in both discoveries, having largely turned over the administration of these inventions to the other Houses involved, it is certain that without the diplomatic skill and visionary insights of the Gnomes of Sivis that neither project would have come to fruition. The next great ambition of House Sivis is the secretive Tasker's Dream: to decode the Draconic Prophesy.
House Deneith
House Deneith bears the Mark of Sentinel and is one of the premier military organizations in Khorvaire. For much of the House's history, Deneith has been involved with wars of conquest, including the campaigns of Karrn the Conqueror and ultimately culminating in the unification of Khorvaire under Galifar I. After the unification, House Deneith was transformed from a conquering
army to a peacekeeping force, a transformation which continues into the present day.
House Deneith's military and paramilitary obligations are strictly laid out under the Treaty of Thronehold. 75% of Deneith forces are required under treaty to be put toward maintaining international peace and security, and the remaining 25% are to engage in no activity which threatens international peace or violates international law, even when ordered to do so by their employers. In accordance with these requirements, House Deneith's military operations are divided up into 24 brigades, each of which is assigned 500 marked heirs and 3000 to 5000 non-marked soldiers.
Legally, these brigades are organized into three guilds: the Blademark, Defenders and Sentinel Marshals. In practice, only the Blademark actually recruits new members and, unlike the other dragonmarked guilds, only in two year terms of service. During this time new recruits are trained and indoctrinated in proper military procedure and the professional neutrality on which House Deneith prides itself. The Blademark serves as a general mercenary group, fighting as ordered to the best of their ability and as permitted by law.
After their two year term is completed, a Blademark veteran of the Deneith bloodline is eligible to join the Sentinel Marshals, or, should they be of the Deneith bloodline, the Defender's Guild. Defender and Marshal brigades are more loosely organized and are specialized respectively in the protection of important dignitaries and in the apprehension of criminals.
Aundair, Thrane, Karrnath and Breland are each entitled an indefinite contract for two Blademark Brigades, one Defender Brigade and one Sentinel Marshal Brigade under the command of their respective rulers. The Mournlands and the Isle of Thronehold each have one Defender Brigade assigned to keep intruders out and, in the case of the Mournlands, to keep any dangerous creatures in. The Sentinel Marshal Expeditionary Brigade is tasked with mercenary bounty collection, while the five Blademark Reserve Brigades serve both as a reserve to replace losses in Thronehold-mandated units and as the major mercenary arm of House Deneith.
The Blademark hires out soldiers on a monthly per-company basis, with the standard non-transferable one month contract for a 250 man blademark company costing 15000 gold. Assuming a valid warrant is presented, the Sentinel Marshals (including the Expeditionary) hires out individual marshals for a flat fee of 500 gold per week. Hiring Deneith Defender requires either royal consent or special dispensation from the Baron d'Deneith. This costs upwards of 150 gold per month for an unmarked Defender, or over a thousand for a Least Deneith Defender. All fees are payable in advance or on contingency, provided a certified bounty has been posted by a third party.
House Phiarlan and House Thuranni
House Phiarlan is the oldest Dragonmarked House, originating in Aerenal alongside the House of Vol. Prior to the Last War, Phiarlan was the largest House currently in existence, with over 20000 marked members at their peak. The decline of the House was swift in the last century, starting with the destruction of the Paelion family and the defection of the Thuranni during the Shadow Schism, followed by heavy losses during the Day of Mourning. Today, there are only 10000 surviving Phiarlans and less than 5000 loyal Thuranni alive today. Today, the Five Demesnes of House Phiarlan host the majority of their surviving members:
Politicians, poets, authors and playwrights all study in the Demesne of Memory at Fairhaven, where House Phiarlan teaches the written and spoken word. Nearly 1200 marked Phiarlan are also in attendance. The local sect of Serpentine Table works somewhat regularly with the Royal Eyes of Aundair in investigations, both groups sharing a appreciation for the usefulness of divinations. Although illegal, members of the House do on occasion make use of the Suggestion abilities of the Lesser Mark of Shadow in Fairhaven. Phiarlan leaves any such criminal foolish enough to be caught to their punishment.
Second only to Shadow in popularity, the Demesne of Music is found in Flamekeep, Thrane, near the Entertainers and Artisans Guild International Headquarters. Admission is extremely limited and requires either proficiency in three relevant skills, or a Lesser Mark of Shadow. Phiarlan's heirloom performances, including thousands of arcane compositions, are kept in storage here when not entrusted to a performer. Currently, 1700 students at this Demense bear the Mark of Shadow.
The Demesnes of Motion and Shadow are both found in Breland, with the former teaching dance and acrobatics in Wroat while the latter teaches illusion and deception in Sharn. Shadow is more popular by far, with 2000 marked heirs to Motion's 1300 and only slightly more even numbers in the unmarked enrollment. The Shadow Initiate program teaches disguise illusions, both to members of the Serpentine Table and to the escorts at Demesne of Motion.
The original Demesne of Shape was located in Metrol, Cyre, but was destroyed on the Day of Mourning alongside the the leadership of the House at the time. Subsequently, two new Demesnes of Shape have been established: one in Thaliost, Thrane, by House Phiarlan and a second in Atur, Karrnath by House Thuranni. Traditionally House Thuranni has been far more talented in the arts of craft and design, and so it is no surprise that House Thuranni's Demesne of True Shapers hosts over 3300 heirs compared to the scant 1000 at the New Demesne of Shape. Unlike House Phairlan, the Thuranni Shadow Network is not separate from the Demesne of True Shapers - all who attend are taught espionage and architecture equally.
The remaining 2800 Phiarlan and 1700 Thuranni operate from no fixed address, and often at odds. Phiarlan prefers to work within the law, while Thuranni is not above breaking it. See "The Espionage Clusterfarce" for further details.
House Lyrander
House Lyrandar bears the Mark of Storm and runs the Windwright and Raincallers Guilds. The name Lyrandar is elven for "Children of Lyran", and many of the House today believe that their founders - Lyran and Selavash - watch over their heirs even today. There may be some truth to this claim, as a perfect storm of circumstances (elven lifespan, safe work, high fertility, few losses during the Last War, and strong public support) has made the House one of the largest at over 14000 living members.
Much like Houses Orien and Ghallanda, Lyrandar is spread widely across Khorvaire. Port Enclaves are maintained at Flamekeep, Thaliost, Rekkenmark, Sharn, Trolanport, Korranberg, Zarash'ak, Newthrone, Varna and Regalport, with nearly 8000 marked Lyrandar residing either at one of these ports or onboard a ship. Stormhome, the House Seat, is also a port, but maintains a permanent residence of 2000 heirs at any given time. Likewise, Lyrandar's illegal holdings in Taer Valaestas host a further 1200 heirs and the House's largest temples to Arawai and Kol Korran. The remaining 2800 marked heirs reside either at the Raincaller's Guild Staging Enclaves (found in Wroat, Korth, Zolanberg, Athandra and Vedykar) or wandering the world as their wanderlust takes them.
Unlike many other marks, there is a strong degree of vertical integration found in the Mark of Storm. The ability to swiftly glide while falling is significantly enhanced by the ability to fly at will, and those granted an affinity for ships see their abilities shine ever brighter aboard an Elemental Vessel. Likewise, while there are over 4000 Least Lyrandar capable of manipulating winds, their abilities only truly shine when combined with the Lesser and Greater Lyrandar capable of lifting clouds and shaping weather fronts. When combined with a Siberys Mark of Storm (of which currently three exist: one at permanent residence in Stormhold, one abroad and one excoriate) the Windwrights can extend their reach worldwide.
Lyrandar's trade winds all begin in the air above Stormhold, where a circle of around 30-40 specially chosen Lesser Lyrandar (selected for a combination of wind manipulation and personal levitation manifestations, the number depends on availability) surround the Siberys Heir and pry the hurricane force winds surrounding her out of their spiral path. These winds are sent hurling in brief gusts across the continent, with coloured smoke added as a signal to other Windwrights further along the route. Such a gust might travel from Stormhold to sails in Kraken Bay within six hours, then be angled (and slowed, as to spare said sails from being damaged by a 200 mile per hour gale) by the local office.
The lack of infrastructure investment required for this process, combined with Lyrandar and Orien's direct competition, have made relations between the two houses very strained in the postwar era. Although not as aggressive as the Deneith-Tharashk disputes nor as deadly as the Phiarlan-Thuranni Schism, many among the Twelve predict conflict between the two Houses is inevitable if House Orien cannot find some new way to compete.
House Kundarak
House Kundarak bears the Mark of Warding and is the only Dwarven Dragonmarked House. While House Kundarak is today synonymous with the banking industry, the House has traditionally been more focused on warding and defense, owing to its descent from the defenders of the Korunda Gate against the exiled Dwarven Clans. Owing to this ancient heritage, the House's enclaves have traditionally been built such that their entrances and interiors are protected by the defensive aura of the Vaults created using the Greater Mark of Warding just as the Korunda Gate itself was protected. As there are currently 27 Greater Kundarak who are able to create Vaults, there are currently 27 major Kundarak Enclaves. They are located in Cliffscrape, Delethorn, Fairhaven, Flamekeep, Frostmantle, Gatherhold, Greywall, Irontown, Krona Peak, Korunda Gate, Korranberg, Korth, Newthrone, Passage, Regalport, Rhukaan Draal, Sharn, Sigilstar, Skairn, Stormhaven, Stormhome, Taer Valaestas, Tantamar, Thaliost, Trolanport, Wroat and Zarash'ak.
Presently, each of the Vault Enclaves hosts around 300 heirs, with the Korunda Gate Enclave having an exceptional 1000 heirs and the Krona Peak branch hosting around 500. Greater Heirs (and all others, to a lesser extent) are shuffled around from branch to branch as new heirs are discovered or pass away. When one of the Greater Heirs passes, it is expected that either the Cliffscrape or Delethorn branch will be demoted to subsidiary branch to maintain full services elsewhere. Should a new heir be discovered, it is expected that House Kundarak will submit proposals for a new Enclave to established in the Great Crag or in Greenheart, should the local governments finally assent to House Kundarak's presence.
While nowhere near all of House Kundarak's 9000 marked heirs actually work for the Banking Guild directly, the public perception is that all members of House Kundarak live and breathe finance, that they literally live inside the bank itself and that each is, individually, a wealthy banker with vast personal wealth. In truth, the average Kundarak heir lives alongside his or her family in an underground complex accessible through discreet and guarded stairwells inside the Enclave and opposite from the entrance to the bank. Typically, they are located in the same building, with the Bank on one side and the entrance to the underground housing complex located discretely on the other.
In the average Kundarak Branch, roughly a tenth of the heirs work with the Banking Guild directly, either maintaining the Vaults, maintaining the supplementary wards around the Vaults, adding or removing coins on behalf of the tellers, or working as accountants. A quarter will go (under guard) to and from the subsidiary branches of the Banking Guild in order to pick up deposits and conduct inspections. Where possible, this is done via Lightning Rail, but in areas where the Rails do not run, Kundarak brings along a company of Iron Gate defenders to guard the shipments (often including one who can call cages from the Iron Vaults). The remainder of the marked heirs work for the Golden Door, House Kundarak's security specialists.
House Tarkanan
House Tarkanan is a criminal syndicate founded for the benefit of those who bear an Aberrant or Mixed Dragonark. The only predictable features of aberrant manifestations are that the children of mixed houses will always bear a mixed mark and that the aberrant mark itself manifests more commonly in the region around the bearer of a Khyber Mark. By bringing all of the mixed mark heirs and the elusive Son of Khyber together in a single city, Thora Tavin was able to reestablish House Tarkanan in the city of Sharn.
With a population in the millions and an Heir of Khyber influencing much of the population of Sharn, around 4 new aberrant marks manifest each day in the City of Towers. Presently, House Tarkanan has approximately 4700 members with aberrant marks and 300 with mixed marks, the majority of which still live in and around Sharn. It is unknown how many aberrant marks truly exist in the larger world, as less than a third of those who manifest outside of Sharn can be contacted by House Tarkanan before being discovered by agents of the Twelve, injured by the unpredictable nature of their powers or otherwise killed unexpectedly. In Sharn itself the odds are much better, with nearly half of all those manifesting in Sharn being inducted without their identity being discovered. Once a new Tarkanan Heir is discovered, they are trained extensively, both in criminal enterprises and in the control of their mark's powers. Heirs are repeatedly instructed not to reach for powers they cannot safely wield and to always test new manifestations in the safety of Tarkanan's secured guildhalls, with someone on hand to help if anything goes wrong.
Membership in House Tarkanan is illegal and strongly persecuted by agents of both the Twelve and of King Boranel. Coupled with the often destructive nature of aberrant manifestations, the majority of House Tarkanan's heirs are employed in criminal occupations. Theft, manslaughter and assassination are the three most common and profitable services offered by the House. Theft of a specific item will generally costs 30 gold or 10% of the item's value (whichever is greater) with the expectation that the heir sent will be allowed a share of any other valuables present and easily taken. Manslaughter costs around 50 gold and will involve one heir and a small gang of unmarked thugs being sent to kill the target as soon as is feasible, followed by a second if the first is slain, or a refund of 25 gold if the target is determined to be too dangerous to practically attack. Assassinations are more subtle and more likely to work, but take longer and cost much more - often in the range of 25 gold a day for up to two weeks before a chance presents itself. House Tarkanan does not accept contracts of any sort on major criminal or governmental organizations inside Sharn itself or murder contracts against targets likely to survive an attempt and retaliate against the House as a whole.