The Great Houses
The Great Houses of the Scarlet Dynasty comprise ten thousand Dragon-Blooded champions and thousands of mortal kin. The Empress inaugurated the first Great Houses in RY 103, establishing a handful of her children — some biological, others adopted — as matriarchs of sprawling Dragon-Blooded clans drawn from outcastes and Shogunate gentes.
She toppled old houses when it suited her and elevated new ones in their place. After centuries of intermarriage, virtually all Dynasts trace their lineage back to the Empress. Each of today’s ten Great Houses commands enormous wealth and power. Prefects and satraps funnel tax revenues into their houses’ coffers.
Satrapial garrisons are drawn from house paramilitaries, and even in the Empress’ time, some houses were permitted to raise their own legions. Dynastic households lease vast estates from the throne, administered by loyal patrician families. In their home prefectures, the houses have clustered their estates, imposed their mores, and influenced culture through policy and behavior.
Since the Empress’ disappearance, the Realm’s fate has fallen to the Great Houses. Once carefully manipulated and counterpoised by the Empress, now they struggle to balance forging useful alliances against undercutting rivals for the throne. The Great Houses consolidate political power: raising taxes, dominating once-neutral prefectures, subverting ministries.
The legions that once served the Empress have been divided among the houses, their officer corps replaced by partisans who place house interests above other concerns. Every day, the prospect of civil war looms nearer; if it comes to pass, the Realm’s common people will suffer as the houses clash.
Parent Organization
Subsidiary Organizations
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