House Volkert
“Ah, I’m afraid I really can’t speak on that. My benefactor values privacy... and you should as well, Miss Alvetra. Still, the fact you’ve made it this far? Impressive. Most would’ve stopped asking long ago. I sincerely hope your editors appreciate your initiative.”
The House That Was Always There
House Volkert is often referred to by political insiders as “the last great anomaly” among the Great Houses of the Pan-Solar Consortium. Their ascent to Great House status was done with a secrecy that defies the usual spectacle and ceremony associated with such an elevation. Official records list House Volkert’s entry into the rolls in Year 277, but curiously, their entry is backdated to 138 YAC—just after the unexplained slaughter of a pirate enclave on Eris. The implications of that date, their holdings, and the timing are widely speculated on, but any definitive answers are cloaked beneath clearance levels held only by the Speaker for Mankind himself. Their domain encompasses Eris, the cryptic Black Forest of Ariel, and the Crags of Byleth in the Wolf System—a fact that sets them apart as the only Great House besides Haus des Drachen with any official presence in that lawless frontier. Their origins are undocumented, their history undocumented, and their purpose... whispered.
Nano-Empires and Quiet Economies
Despite their ghostlike administrative profile, House Volkert is no hermitage of obscurity. Their technological exports, particularly in nanometallurgy, medical Nanorobotics, and cognitive interface enhancements, are among the most prized in the Solar System. They operate largely through intermediaries—obscure shell corporations, enigmatic liaisons, and well-compensated proxies—and rarely appear at trade summits or political councils themselves. One strange and consistent cultural trait: they do not accept currency, preferring instead to barter their technologies for antiquities—old books, pre-Collapse tools, cultural artifacts, and unknown relics that seem to serve some inscrutable internal value system. Their breakthroughs in post-trauma neurosurgery and autonomous surgical swarms have saved the lives of high-ranking officials across the Consortium, which makes their diplomatic immunity less questioned than it should be. Nobody knows exactly what they want—but when they appear, people tend to listen.
Shadows with Charm
Though their men and women are rarely seen in public, when they do accept ceremonial invitations or diplomatic appearances, members of House Volkert tend to be eerily courteous, intensely well-spoken, and almost universally described as morbidly charismatic. Yet their public façade masks an interior of disturbing capability. Their Men-at-Arms, when deployed, leave no survivors. Their enemies disappear—sometimes whole outposts, ships, or units are erased, with bodies taken and data wiped clean. What remains is whispered fear, not strategic analysis. Even their apparent slowness to anger feels more like observation than passivity—a long silence before something is efficiently and totally removed. Whether this is due to advanced cloaking technologies, highly specialized warfare, or something more esoteric, no one can say. In a world of honor-bound Houses and corporate gladiators, House Volkert represents a third thing entirely: the ancient, the subtle, and the unfathomably dangerous.
Lapsus Inter
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