Dynastic Houses

Dynastic Houses

Prelude: The extreme durability of the Kindred gives them much longer timeframes to work with when planning for their Requiems. Being essentially immortal, they don’t need to adopt the short-term strategies they relied on as mortals. The scheming, plotting Kindred of the Invictus see this durability as one more advantage for them to exploit in the Danse Macabre. Longterm planning, after all, leads to long-term rewards, and the Invictus is a great believer in moving slowly and cautiously.

Invictus Kindred consider it a luxury to be able to spin their webs over a span of centuries, and while they aren’t obliged to plan for their deaths the way mortals must (at least not with the same degree of certainty), they do find it practical to plan for the next time they fall into eclipse (i.e., the fitful sleep of torpor). To that end, Invictus Kindred find themselves thinking in cyclical, not linear, terms. Yes, they will, eventually, fall into torpor, but they will also rise from torpor to feed and plot again.

In brief, that means that they do pay attention to matters of estate planning — they didn’t establish their empire of influence and money just so they could lose it the moment they fall into torpor, after all. To that end, many Invictus Kindred choose an “heir” who gains control over their fortune when they enter torpor. But not only have the Invictus established a system of inheritance, they’ve also established a system for inheriting their empire back when they rise.

The vassals of such elder Kindred all strive to be their mentor’s favorite so that they can be the executor and heir of their patron’s estate when the elder next goes into torpor. This in itself is the basis for many games of one-upsmanship among Invictus ancillae. Some try to prove their worth to their wouldbe patron through flattery, others through strategy and others yet through simple overall competence. To become the chosen protégé of a powerful patron is among the greatest honors (not to mention strategic benefits) an ancilla can aspire to.

For his part, the patron wants to treat his heir with the greatest respect and kindness. After all, at some point he will be entirely vulnerable to his protégé, and he wants the full measure of his protégé’s goodwill during that period of eclipse. (This is one of the many mechanisms the Invictus has adopted to ensure that elders don’t simply grind down those beneath them in the hierarchy.)

There is more to the system, however. Once the patron has reawakened from his long sleep, he is weak. He will have lost Blood Potency and all that comes with it. Meanwhile, his protégé will have been advancing in age and growing in power. And, at this point, the patron and the protégé effectively change places. The once powerful elder gets back his estate and all that goes with it, but he is likely weaker than the Kindred who was once his heir.

And when, in the fullness of time, the former protégé himself succumbs to torpor, it will be his former master who oversees his empire in turn. After one or two cycles of this, the two vampires’ fortunes begin to meld together.

The elder may have originally gathered much of the wealth, but it was nurtured, grown and added to by the younger while the elder was in torpor. Likewise, the younger should have generated his own fortune while his patron was in eclipse, and his mentor is responsible for building on that when the younger, in his turn, reaches a point where he must enter torpor. As time goes on, the “estate” winds up belonging neither to the patron, nor to the protégé, but to that cyclical dynasty. It is theirs jointly, because each builds on it when he is the more powerful and guards it when the other is in torpor.

The Invictus calls this system of alternating fortune and eclipse “a cyclical dynasty” or “a dynastic house,” and this system is one of the underpinnings of the Invictus’ power. There are those within the covenant who see cyclical dynasties as “the Invictus among the Invictus.” Those involved in such arrangements clearly think of themselves as major anchors of the covenant’s power. Those who participate in this practice may even make statements implying that only those in a dynasty are real Invictus members, but since they’re in the minority, they don’t say it as loudly as they might prefer.

Most Kindred refer to a cyclical dynasty simply as a “House” in common parlance, as in “Michael, of House Glamorgan.” The House name itself, traditionally, is not the name of any vampire in the cyclical dynasty, as that would imply the superiority of one member over the other, which, most Invictus Kindred will tell you, is a fleeting illusion in this ongoing system of revolving ascendance. House names, then, are frequently the name of a place (generally the place where the House was first established) or a new name entirely arrived at by both parties to represent the nighttime empire they hope to establish together.

Establishing a cyclical dynasty, obviously, requires great trust, faith and responsibility on the parts of all Kindred involved. What may appear to be a simple property-holding arrangement inevitably becomes a very intimate partnership, like a marriage in many ways, often with a blurring of separate identities into a shared House identity. Active members of a cyclical dynasty frequently pass their days next to their torpid partner(s) as an expression of intimacy, loyalty or trust, and this comes with advantages, as you’ll see shortly.

A handful of the cyclical dynasties that exist in the modern night were established as far back as the age of the Roman Republic. These are the great anchors of the First Estate. Members of these cyclical dynasties are among the wealthiest and most powerful Invictus Kindred. Their fame is such that young Kindred will grow familiar with their names within a few months of their Embrace, even if they have no idea what or to whom that famous name refers or why. It is common in these oldest of Houses that members of the House are often known only by their shared House name, their personal names long ago having dissolved in the corrosive nightmares of torpor. In such cases, the personal identities of these Kindred became subordinate to the dynastic identity, just as their personal agendas are replaced by the dynastic agenda: the continuation of the dynasty and the maintenance and growth of the House’s holdings.

Neither is this the whole of the system involved in a cyclical dynasty. The waking member of the dynasty is entrusted to look for a suitable third member. A cyclical dynasty can exist with two members, but it is considered to be more stable with three; with more than three members, a House begins feeling crowded. In a two-member House, the Final Death of one party causes the entire House to collapse instantly. A third member grants a House greater resilience and more companionship to the members of the house as a member spends one half of his active span with each of the other members. A three-Kindred cyclical dynasty is not unlike a revolving ménage à trois, with two members active at any given time while the third is in eclipse. In situations like this, an arrangement is struck so that each member sleeps for one century out of every three.

A two-member House may easily transition into a three-member House, and this is not an uncommon occurrence as both parties keep an eye out for other promising young Kindred to include in their revolving dynasty.

Some Houses have been known to incorporate four (or even more) vampires into their dynastic cycle, but some Kindred find that they don’t like that because they then have to share their “shift,” and hence their empire, with too many others. It gets messy, power struggles ensue and it detracts from the elegant simplicity of the two- or three-Kindred dynastic model.

Whatever the specifics of the House system, Invictus Kindred agree on one thing: those admitted to a House unquestionably weather the ages better than other Kindred. The fortunes of Invictus Kindred who are part of a House do not stagnate while they sleep, and their minds are less battered by the rigors of torpor. Having a trusted companion during torpor and, in particular, at the moment of waking into a new age, appears to mitigate the cumulative weight of centuries to a remarkable extent.

Some younger members of the Invictus have tried to get around the “generation gap” that exists between elders and younger Kindred by forming Houses with others their own age. While it’s theoretically possible for a group like this to coalesce into a House, it doesn’t have the same advantages, specifically the great accrued experience, wealth and influence, that an elder can bring to the arrangement. Elders themselves are inclined to quietly scoff at younger Kindred trying to form a cyclical dynasty on their own; they call it “playing House,” and, while they applaud the urge behind the attempt, they find it amusing that ancillae (or even neonates) would even contemplate entering such a relationship without an elder to guide them.

The Risks The advantages of cyclical dynasties are numerous and profound. They help younger Kindred advance, provide elders with security, ease the burden of torpor and help the Invictus as a whole remain strong. And yet, for all that, a minority of Invictus Kindred takes part in the House system. The covenant’s paranoid elders keep this number low. Horrifying stories that tell of ungrateful protégés who gleefully take responsibility for their patron’s estate and then commit foul diablerie upon their prone forms circulate through the population of elders. When carefully investigated, only a handful of these tales have ever proven to have any basis in fact, but the popularity of the stories reflects the degree of paranoia felt by Kindred elders. It is not easy to give up an empire for the uneasy sleep of torpor and harder still to trust that another Kindred will be capable of competent, loyal guardianship over the span of the elder’s decades of eclipse. Kindred know themselves, and they know how little they would trust themselves — so it’s extraordinarily difficult to trust others, particularly to this extent. Trust issues may prevent Houses from forming, but such issues rarely enter the picture after the first decade or so.

When Houses do fall apart, it is rarely due to betrayal or the catastrophic mishandling of the estate, but rather over timing. Cyclical dynasties are often very particular about the timing of each member’s torpor and rising. No Kindred wants to remain in torpor any longer than necessary, and the notion that another in their House is getting more “active time” doesn’t appeal to members of such a House. When dynastic Houses break apart, petty issues of timing are the root cause more than any other factor. In the 17th century, House Marzandi came apart after the waking Kindred brought their third member out of torpor two nights later than agreed upon. While that’s an extreme case, it illustrates the crucial role timing can play in House politics.

Truth be told, other covenants eschew the House system for precisely these reasons. The Invictus’ emphasis on loyalty, order and hierarchy, however, make Houses a feasible system.

That and a system called the tribunal.