House Sivis
The Mark of Scribing deals with communication-both the written and spoken word. A gnome who bears the mark can feel words as though they are living creatures, struggling to make their meaning known. The mark provides a range of gifts. It translates languages, but it also allows its bearer to communicate with others at a distance.
Bearing the emblem of the cockatrice, the gnomes of House Sivis facilitate communication. This is seen most literally in speaking stones, magic items allowing a Sivis heir to send a short message to another speaking stone. House Sivis's message stations employs these items as the backbone of their long-distance communication network. The house also trains and licenses scribes, notaries, interpreters, cartographers, barristers, heralds, bookbinders, and others who work with words. House Sivis has an especially close relationship with House Kundarak, as Kundarak letters of credit must be notarized with a Sivis arcane mark.
House Sivis takes great pains to maintain the trust of its clients and holds a position of absolute neutrality in all disputes, whether between houses or nations. Sivis gnomes are typically friendly, curious, and engaging, but that kindly exterior might conceal a scheming mind. Gnomes have a natural love of intrigue, and the different families within the house often engage in subtle schemes and feuds. Doyenne Lyssa Larriman, the leader of the house, takes pains to ensure that these intrigues never threaten the house or its reputation.
Structure
House Sivis is a dragonmarked house of gnomes who carry the Mark of Scribing in their bloodlines. The gnomes of Sivis are the masters of language. In addition to maintaining the magical lines of communication that link the nations of Khorvaire, House Sivis produces scribes, notaries, interpreters, barristers, and others whose specialty is the written or spoken word.
House Sivis is one of the most insular of the dragonmarked houses, and it has been centuries since anyone outside a Sivis family was permitted to marry into it. Foundlings can rejoin the house, but Sivis has little interest in inducting strangers into its mysteries.
In addition to the Speakers Guild and the Notaries Guild, a number of other important agencies operate within the house. Oversight is the security arm of house Sivis, and defends the house’s reputation for absolute confidentiality and impartiality. Oversight protects Sivis from spies and scrying eyes, but also polices the house membership, swiftly punishing those who threaten the stability of the organization. In addition to its own highly skilled operatives, Oversight often works with operatives of Phiarlan and Thuranni, House Kundarak, and the Trust, creating the tightest web of secrecy that gold can buy. As with Zilargo and the Trust, Oversight is allowed a great deal of latitude in its methods: Gnomes who leak house secrets have a tendency to simply disappear.
House Sivis is composed of twelve families, including the Torralyns, Severins, Lyrrimans, Syrralans, Corralyns, and Santors. Political games can be found at all levels of the house, and even a house matriarch can be replaced if a sufficient number of viceroys stand against her. The stability of the house takes precedence over personal ambition, though, and the current matriarch, Doyenne Lysse Lyrriman d’Sivis, has held her post ably for some ninety years.
Culture
For nearly thirty centuries, your family has worked to maintain order. Communication is the cord that binds civilization together, and your ancestors have settled the disputes of kings and helped the dragonmarked houses fi nd a place in the world. Few people realize the influence House Sivis has had on the shape of the modern age, just as few know how often a royal advisor holds more power than the king himself. Let Cannith and the others fight for fame and recognition. You know that the greatest work is done in silence.
Your upbringing has taught you to see life as an extended game. As an adventurer, you might be playing a long game, building influence only usable in years to come. On the other hand, you might simply enjoy the challenge of the moment, and the thrill of pitting your wits against the world as you unravel the most difficult puzzles. Your family has always found a way to cut through chaos and produce order, and you endeavor to do the same. Never reveal your full strength or your true goals. Always watch for ways to gain an advantage over your enemies.
Sivis heirs are typically polite, well spoken, and firmly committed to the neutrality of their house. Even when he has an agenda, a Sivis heir is more likely to direct actions subtly—making suggestions but allowing others to take the credit and glory when they act upon those suggestions.
Public Agenda
House Sivis goes to great lengths to preserve its position as an impartial force in the world. As a result, adventurers are more likely to encounter the house when they need its services, not because they have been caught up in its schemes. At the same time, the gnomes are driven by a thirst for knowledge, a desire for order, and their own maze of internal intrigues—any of which could draw House Sivis into an adventure.
House Sivis was instrumental in standardizing the system of viceroys, ministers, and seneschals that forms the backbone of dragonmarked hierarchy. Beneath this, the house employs a dizzying array of titles and offices that are largely cosmetic in nature. When two viceroys meet, the Bearer of the Thirteenth Word has a slight social advantage over the Bearer of the Fourteenth Word, but both are still viceroys. Some of these honors can be granted or transferred by a viceroy, some require the intervention of the matriarch, and some are based entirely on social custom. For example, any heir who invents a new idiom is entitled to the honorific “Wordsmith.”
Members of House Sivis are often experts, magewrights, bards, or (less commonly) rogues. A small number of respected wizards and artificers can also be found within the house, as well as a few adepts and clerics dedicated to Aureon, regarded as the patron of the house.
Members of House Sivis are expected to master the arts of communication. Mediators and barristers need to be skilled in Diplomacy and Sense Motive, and language skills are important for members of all classes. Artificers and wizards spend their time constructing the magical tools of the house or investigating new modes of communication.
Assets
The oldest Sivis enclave is located in the city of Korranberg in Zilargo, and this remains the heart of the house in the present day. The regional viceroys coordinate efforts from enclaves in the capital cities of every nation of Khorvaire, including Droaam and Darguun. Though Sivis enclaves are designed to facilitate interaction with people of all races, the inner heart of an enclave is constructed for Small humanoids. As such, members of larger races fi nd it difficult to infi ltrate a Sivis citadel. Secrecy is of paramount importance to members of the house, and Oversight uses abjuration magic to shield critical areas from prying (or scrying) eyes.
History
The society of Zilargo has long revolved around houses: alliances of families wielding great social power. Sivis was an established house even before the Mark of Scribing appeared among its members. Though the mark originally manifested in only a few of the bloodlines within the house, it has since spread to all the Sivis families. The gnomes are a race touched by magic and driven by curiosity, and the bards and sages of Sivis worked quickly to unlock the mark’s full potential. Recognizing the risk of being ostracized for the power they held, the Sivis dragonmarked also sought to make themselves useful to Zil society, even as they distanced themselves from the politics of those they served. In this, they laid the foundation for what would become the standard for the dragonmarked houses: mercantile forces whose neutrality increased their commercial power.
Within a few centuries, House Sivis spread to other lands, where its heirs’ skills as translators and linguists proved invaluable to the young nations of Khorvaire. Many Sivis gnomes claim that their house was responsible for the refinement and spread of the Common tongue from the Old Common of the earliest Sarlonan migrants.
As House Sivis spread beyond Zilargo, it made contact with the leaders of the newly created dragonmarked houses, helping to establish the common traditions shared by the houses to this day. As time passed, Sivis would play a critical role in discovering new dragonmarked bloodlines and helping the younger houses establish a foothold in the world. Of all the houses, Sivis has historically had the most interest in the draconic Prophecy and the role of the dragonmarked houses within it. Ever since Alder d’Cannith’s assertion that twelve contemporary dragonmarks would one day be found in Eberron, the sages of Sivis searched for the missing marks.
Despite its influence, House Sivis has never sought to dominate the houses, instead working to be a friend and ally to all. Of course, the gnomes are a subtle people, and many dragonmarked wonder if the vaunted neutrality of House Sivis is not in fact a mask shrouding a far-reaching hidden agenda.
Though the sending ability of the Sivis heirs has always been treasured, the house’s greatest turning point was the development of the speaking stone in 783 YK. Conceived by Tasker Torralyn d’Sivis and developed by the Twelve, the speaking stone allows Sivis heirs who carry the least mark of the house to transmit messages between stones. In 789 YK, the first Sivis message stations appeared in the capital cities of the Five Nations. Since that time, they have multiplied and spread across Khorvaire.
Today, the house continues as it always has, doing its part to stabilize a world torn apart by war. Though some are quick to write off the importance of a house of scribes, Sivis is an invaluable, integral part of modern civilization.
Communication is the lifeblood of civilization.
Type
Geopolitical, Great house
Alternative Names
Gnomish House of Scribing
Subsidiary Organizations
Location
Controlled Territories
Related Species
