House Hierophant
One of the oldest noble houses in the city of Carcino, the Hierophants have acquired a vast amount of wealth and connections to the academic, industrial, and religious sectors of the city. Owning every bank in the Dalelands, and acting as tax collectors for the state the family enjoys a lifestyle that would make the most vain royal flush with envy.
History
Since the dawn of time people have had a need for commerse and religion. None have been able to sieze the oppertunities therein like house Hierophant. Back when the city was young the first banks where actually temples that held the cities coin in basements to be safeguarded or lent out to others at a rate. Because temples where constantly visited by locals, priests and priestesses, and contsantly guarded, they where already extremely safe places for Carcinians to secure their money. Often at this time Carcinians would put their money into several temples incase one burned down or was ransacked during war. It was up to priests to keep track of coins coiming into temples and coins being lent out as loans. Temples did not pay interest on deposits but charged great interest on loans and were frequently involved in curency exchange and coin validation.
It was out of these practices that the first ancestors of house Hierophants would begin to carve out a name for themselves. As already influintal senetors the family pushed for privatized banking in the Dalelands. While pushing these legislations through the Council the house would begin buying up wealthy and wealthier churchers and temples; so that by the time privatized banking was pushed through the family could dominate the fresh market. Flawlessly executing their plan the family quickly became one of the most powerful and influential, and the richest in all of the ciivlized world.
During the Year of the Bee (c.3995 M.E.) the Mercantile Republic would be thrown into chaos with the assassination of the Emperor Elio Ignasio VII. With no heir being found or claiming the throne, the city entered a massive depressive haze where many spent and lost their money gambling and drinking, growing Hierophants wealth even more as they had come to own many of the cities places of commerce and debauchery. This would lead many civilians to believe that the Hierophants had become so powerful enough to purchase emperor's murder, and as a result public opinion of the house drastically fell.
Just a short year later (c.3996 M.E.) the head of the Hierophants Vene Bene was found dead in the parlor of the family house, lying facedown in a pool of his own blood. While it would take an extreme wealth to procure emperor's murder, it would be vastly cheaper to purchase murder of a disliked public figure. Because of this fact, no one has been able to place full blame on any one noble house or guild.
Racked with grief and pain, the matriarch of the Hierophants, Lady Basilinna, would enter a great depressive episode. At first Basilinna was seen visiting the churches and the family morgue daily. Over the next several months, she would become distant and rumors of mingling with the dark and distant elves of the Tablelands, and the coldness of the great family house would deter once close friends from visiting. Rarely leaving the house, the once adored wife of the richest man on the planet was forgotten about within a couple of years, believed to have eventually succumbed to her own death in private and succeeded by one of her sons.
In the Year of Winds the great capital of the world would find itself under the shadow of an unnaturally dark storm clouds. As the storms black thunder raged on above in the heavens, a secret and profane ritual was performed in an act to bring back the life of a dead one so dearly missed. While no one can prove with any concrete evidence that it was Basilinna that brought the storm that turned 4.8 million citizens of Carcino into undead, no one denies that it is strange that they began serving the family of Hierophant within hours of the incident. It is also no hidden fact, that everyone who died, did so in a district that had some tie to the now cursed house. It was at this point that Basilinna would publicly appear for the first time in years.
During many trials and hearings that would decide the potential fate of Basilinna, the family would be called into the council chambers for neglecting to redistribute wealth collected from taxes back to the nobles. In these times Basilinna would send vast amounts of money to various guilds, sponsoring them and helping them grow into a force that could rival the power of the nobles that had held Carcino in their hands since its inception. With yet still no evidence against the family all charges had to be dropped.
Foreign Relations
Type
Geopolitical, Great house
Capital
Alternative Names
The Black House, The House of Undeath, The Death House
Leader Title
Family Leader
Head of State
Head of Government
Parent Organization
Location
Controlled Territories
Comments