The World

The Seven Houses

No crown rules the city. Only seven Houses, each holding its own piece of power, watching the other six as closely as they watch the dark.

The Dominion The Undeniable

Dominion blood makes a promise permanent the moment it's sealed. What gets sworn there doesn't bend, doesn't blur, and doesn't get forgiven, not by the Houses, not by time, and not by the Dominion elder who spoke it either. They don't rule the Order's table. They're the reason nothing said at it can ever quietly stop being true.

Sigil: a wax seal stamped with a single black flame
Blood Gifts

The Binding Word · The Ledger

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The Hollowmere The Watchers

Hollowmere blood never bargained and never fought. Their ancestor simply let go, trusted whatever was happening completely, and never came back from that surrender. What's left is a permanent awareness that's never faded, every scent, every lie, every silence in a room that shouldn't be silent. It isn't discipline and it isn't strategy. It's the only way a Hollowmere has ever known how to exist since that first night, so they watch, not because the Order asked them to, but because they've never once been able to stop.

Sigil: a single lidless eye with faint rippling lines radiating outward
Blood Gifts

The Tell · The Long Watch

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The Velmarq The Beautiful Ones

Beauty is their currency and their weapon. The Velmarq command the art world, high society, and the desires of anyone foolish enough to look too long. Behind every gallery opening and every masquerade in the city, there is a Velmarq deciding who gets to be seen.

Sigil: an oval mirror, cracked down the center, with a rose blooming from the crack
Blood Gifts

The Mirror · Heal at Will

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The Gifted The Foreseen

Psychic, prophetic, unmoored. What sets the Gifted apart is not a talent but a burden: every vision pulls them a little further loose from their own place in time, until past, present, and future stop staying where they belong. Every gift has its price, and the Gifted are still paying theirs.

Sigil: two crescent moons overlapping slightly out of alignment, joined by a single thread of blood
Blood Gifts

Sight · The Shared Sight

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The Corvaris The Scholars

Masters of the old rites and the forbidden histories, older than the city itself, the Corvaris remember what everyone else has been made to forget. Knowledge is their House's true bloodline, passed down, guarded, and occasionally weaponized.

Sigil: a chalice with a single eye reflected in its dark surface, an open grimoire resting beside it
Blood Gifts

The Craft · Blood Memory

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The Ashvane The Unbound

Anarchic and impatient, the Ashvane have no use for the old order and even less patience for anyone still defending it. Every generation, someone predicts the Ashvane will finally break the balance for good. So far, the balance has held. So far.

Sigil: a clenched fist gripping a shard of broken glass, blood welling between the fingers, a frayed rope snapping loose around the wrist
Blood Gifts

The Refusal · The Severing

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The Serathe The Silent Blades

Contracted killers, led by tradition by an outsider to their own ranks. The Serathe serve no House, only the contract, and the contract is always fulfilled. Being asked to lead them is not an honor most would want, and even fewer are offered.

Sigil: a dagger, its blade reflecting a single watching eye, with a small brand etched near the hilt
Blood Gifts

The Killing Eye · The Mark

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