History of House Perhonen

House Perhonen was founded millennia ago by some exceptionally murderous bitch. There are a few books about her, but I never bothered to read them. It wasn't until the time of my great great grandmother, Anna Perhonen, who took advantage of the chaos caused by the separation of Aushodore from the other planes of existence to seize power in the city that is now named Perhonas, it's previous name has been obliterated from history along with the house for which it had been named.
 
House Perhonen is built on an unusual thing in Drow society, cooperation. Conflict within the family is forbidden, outside of a few rather large exceptions. Instead, priests of Lolth that are members of House Perhones adjudicate disputes, making use of house bylaws and the ideal of strengthening the house's power to make decisions. Intra-house conflict still occurs, but everyone knows it must be kept quiet and limited or else everyone involved suffer the wrath of the Matriarch. This system has broad support across the family because it has worked. Family unity has enabled the family to proliferate and prosper.
 
The Academy did not come into existence as a discreet creation, rather it slowly emerged out several systems to cultivate the strength of the House. The first recognizable antecedent were games where sons of the house would compete to become the consort of the Matriarch. The coopetition, repeated every five years, cultivated a stronger "stable" of men to serve the house. A ruling by Priestess Iralyon that Matriarch Janna had neglected the wellbeing of poor kin led to the creation of a single school where all daughters of the House would receive equal instruction and opportunity to excel and rise within the house. In the year 4566 AMW Matriarch Vanna Perhonen formally established the Academy where all sons and daughters of the house would be educated. It became a carefully engineered outlet for the family's divinely ordained need for competition. All the aunties, a nice way to refer to rabidly ambitious matrons of House Perhonen, compete with each other to see who can produce the most successful progeny.
 
Each Matriarch has left her mark on the institution. My mother, Matriarch Maj'Ryd Perhonen, left her mark with the aggressive use of mutagens. Following a failed war with the neighboring Drow city-state of Heilbronn, the ranks of the house had been greatly depleted. Unwilling to wait decades to replenish the losses, Maj'Ryd synthesized a mutagenic agent that cut the time between her pregnancies from ten to fifteen years to only a few years. The first few children were horribly deformed and were disposed of, but once the toxicity of the drug had been reduced the whole family joined her. As my mother continued her experiments mutagens took on a greater role in the family and the Academy. Mothers took mutagens to rebuild their bodies in the hope that improved traits would pass onto their children. Those children would also be pumped full of mutagens to increase their size, strength, durability, intelligence, magical ability, and virility. There were of course costs, mostly borne by children, but as the mutagenic program matured the quality and number of children passing through the Academy increased.
 
When I ran away, there were about six hundred adult members of House Perhonen and eighty children enrolled in the Academy. This number has been trending steadily upwards since my mother became Matriarch. The family has grown so large that it no longer fits within the estate in Perhonas.