House Iselsi

The common peasant knows little of House Iselsi. Perhaps she’s met a monk who bears the antiquated name, or heard stories in her mother’s lap of the Great House’s fall from glory.
To maintain the charade that they’ve been truly brought low, a few live openly as patricians in the shadow of manses and estates that once were theirs, places now overseen by other houses.
Enough time has passed that inhabitants of formerly Iselsi-controlled prefectures and satrapies remember little of the house’s governance. Without holdings, House Iselsi is hard-pressed to maintain its spy network.
Informants and other agents require payment, affluent cover identities must dispense largesse, and bribery demands sizable slush funds.
Of the house’s limited income, funding to maintain temples in Incas Prefecture may be cut off at any time by Deliberative political maneuverings, small commercial ventures are imperiled by piracy and war, and scions’ moneymaking activities in the Threshold are cut short by recall to new duties on the Isle.
Iselsis in positions of wealth and power borrow money and disappear, burning lifelong cover identities.
Others extract funds and assets through criminal acts, leaving trails pointing to various houses to further inflame their enemies — blackmailing ministers for depravities performed at Cynis parties, extorting money from crime bosses while in the guise of Sesus agents, or robbing Mnemon-owned caravans in Corin Prefecture.

Parent Organization

The Great Houses