|
The lost families of Vodacce still have a firm grip on the imagination of the populace. The old romances of the Dark Ages, reinterpreted for the modern opera, typically feature a cruel Lorenzo king as the chief villain. The specter of the Serrano still haunts places like Dionna University, where every new advance in medicinal drug-making is greeted with wariness and suspicion. And no one elicits shudders and signs of the cross like the Bianco; in eastern Mantua, where they once lived, to even mention their name is thought to invite bad luck and misfortune. Who were these men and women, that they should be so hated and feared generations after their names disappeared from Vodacce?
LorenzoThe Lorenzo were one of the first three ruling families of Vodacce. The Galili, who controlled the southeast, were descended from Numan scholars. The Delaga, controlling the southwest, could trace their ancestry to one of the Senators who Bargained for sorcery with Legion. The Lorenzo, in Mantua in the north, claimed descent from a daughter of Imperator Tiganus, his oldest child. Although many years had passed from Tiganus's reign to the Bargain, the Lorenzo would righteously call up references to "the Senators who brought the sin of sorcery into the world, overthrowing the proper Imperator and rendering the great and ancient Numan Empire vulnerable to the northern barbarians" when it suited them to raise public opinion against the Delaga. The Lorenzo were militarily very strong. Their ruthless reputation and natural charisma combined to make them effective, if vicious, generals. The lords of the southern provinces were generally happy to let the Lorenzo princes and kings defend the northern borders from foreign incursions. It kept them safe and gave the Lorenzo an outlet for their aggression. This military strength was used at home as well. Lorenzo lands were typically ruled absolutely, with very little leniency or mercy expected of the rulers. Lorenzo kings were not uniformly cruel and oppressive toward their subjects - but frankly, most were. In rarer, gentler reigns, subjects could expect to abide by most common laws (against murder and robbery and other such widely recognized crimes) and live quietly. Punishments even for small crimes were dealt with harshly, but an honest man could be safe. More commonly, the kings made outrageous demands on their subjects and levied strict punishments if they were not met. The family's enduring reputation, the one that is remembered past their military accomplishments and their strength of government in a time of chaos, was their extravagant cruelty and sadism. It's said in Vodacce that the Lorenzo invented the arts of torture. They took it to strange and unusual lengths, often delighting in contrasting it with pleasant surroundings. Their torture chambers were plushly decorated solars (the medieval Thean equivalent of a drawing room) as often as they were dank dungeons. One demented but pious prince demanded that every martyr's feast day be celebrated by a re-enactment of that martyr's death, to remind the populace of their virtuous sacrifice. Dozens of villagers were executed in horrible ways until finally, during the year's-end Prophet's Mass, the prince, now feeling very holy after a year of meditation on the martyrs of the Church, insisted that he himself take the role of the First Prophet and be burned alive during the passion play. His son's first act as prince, of course, was to execute the men who had lit the bonfire for killing his father. By burning, naturally. They are remembered for actions like that, and of course, the fact that they made their island disappear. Not on purpose, though. Mad Queen Marietta Lorenzo serves as a perpetual reminder to young strega not to become overly fond of their powers. While the witches of today are unlikely to cause bits of the landscape to vanish, Queen Marietta was also thought to frequently curse her family's retainers to break their wills, incurring Fate Lashes in the process. Among the strega, this sort of reckless use of Sorte is considered as much a Lorenzo trait as cruelty is by the general populace.
SerranoThe Serrano were a cadet branch of the Lorenzo. A favorite Lorenzo princess was married off to a nobleman of the Serrano family; her indulgent father raised the new family up in worldly esteem and granted them the right to administer the eastern third of his lands. The Eisen Imperator Gottschalk I was at that time (c. 782) dashing about Mantua and conquering sections of it, so stronger local rule was needed. When Lorenzo Island disappeared in 1088, the Serrano family found themselves defending their lands from Caligara and Bernoulli depredations without assistance from their militarily-minded cousins. They lost a few borderlands and could do nothing to stop the Caligara sweep up through central Mantua. A generation or so later, when the Caligara were militarily exhausted, the Serrano made their move to take back those central Lorenzo lands. But they didn't fight fairly, on the battlefield, as the Lorenzo had. They earned themselves the name of poisoner and assassin. Governors of cities and their captains of the guard would simultaneously succumb to mysterious ailments just as Serrano forces made their way to city gates. Some just surrendered, fearful of an apparently inescapable death by poison. Techniques used by the nobility for ages to avoid poisoning didn't seem to work against the Serrano. Their drugs and their agents were highly developed and subtle. They were too unstoppable for their own good. No one was safe from their poisons, so everyone benefitted from their destruction. The Caligara begged the Hierophant for help, and a deal was struck with the strong young Vestini family. Landless, but with sufficient resources to hire mercenaries, the Vestini were engaged to crush the Serrano. The Serrano were not good in pitched battle; while their efforts to assassinate key Vestini leaders were often successful, the young family was sufficiently stubbornly vital to soldier on despite their losses. This was their chance for a princedom and they would have it. They also were receiving substantial assistance from the princes who wanted to see the Serrano gone, but who were unwilling to risk themselves directly. As their cat's paws, the Vestini performed beyond all expectations. Most of the Serrano nobles were found and killed; those who escaped would be hunted men.
BiancoNobody inspires supersitious dread like the Bianco do. They were descended from an illegitimate Lorenzo son, and so were never considered a truly noble family. The Bianco didn't seem to especially care. They were bankers, really, really good bankers, and hence really, really rich bankers. Most of the crowned heads of Theah and even the Hierophant owed them large sums of money. Their support could make or break a king's ability to pay his army. The Vendel consider themselves very modern because their people are judged on their own merits (well, their earning potential, anyway) as opposed to some ossified system of class inheritance; the Bianco beat them to that idea by several hundred years. Money could buy power; the Bianco didn't need an island or an agricultural land-base. And they were as ruthless as any Vodacce businessman today. Scarovese's "Means to Ends" was written about Capello Bianco. Their continued power rested on their continued wealth, so they were... vigorous in collecting the interest owed them. Bad things happened to those who borrowed from Bianco banks and couldn't make their payments. Why, exactly, the family felt the need to pursue further sorcery isn't known. Since they weren't noble, they had a hard time finding Fate Witch brides, and their own blood wasn't strong in Sorte. Even with all their money, they still weren't in the club of noble families, and it was a step down for any princely family to marry their daughters into the Bianco. The Vestini, in need of support and money, might have considered it, but the Vestini weren't any stronger in sorcery than the Bianco and besides, they hated each other. The Bianco had received favorable treatment from the Serrano in recognition of their shared ancestry; they got exactly the reverse from the Vestini, for exactly the same reasons. Whatever the reason, the Bianco became heavily and systematically involved in Legion-worship. Supposedly, these dark rituals succeeded enough to grant the Bianco the sorcerous edge they felt they needed to defend themselves against their rivals, even to the point of them having male Fate Witches, strego, in their line. If that is true, then what the priests say about Legion is entirely true - that they are false and lead men to their destruction. The Bianco eventually began to insist that those who would borrow funds from them do homage to their dark masters, or otherwise revile the Vaticine Church. They would demand that churches be torn down, if the borrower was of sufficient rank to command such a thing. Even desperate bishops agreed to such terms, calling the destruction "rebuilding" or "renovating" and then mysteriously never coming through with the funding to erect a new church where the old one had been. Such activities could not go unnoticed long, and in 1398 enough reports had come in for the Vaticine Church to declare the entire Bianco family to be corrupted. A crusade was called; the Vestini were again at its forefront. Whatever infernal powers the Bianco had, they seemed sufficient to hold the Vestini at bay. Or perhaps it was their near-limitless coffers of gold that hired ever more mercenaries. Whatever the case, the Vaticine Church was so alarmed at the situation that it called in the Inquisition and its Knights of the Black Cross, an Eisen order of militant warrior-monks. The holy warriors turned the tide; especially remembered by legend was the saintly Sir Andare de Casigula Rosa, a Vodacce knight of the Black Cross who appeared immune to Bianco sorcery. The Black Cross eventually surrounded a mansion where the main body of Bianco were making a last stand, but the night before the attack was to be carried out, the manorhouse burned, killing everyone within. Legend is that Legion arrived to carry the damned souls to the Abyss. The Vaticine Church declared the Bianco utterly erased from the face of Terra. Their holdings abroad had been siezed eagerly by local rulers when the crusade was called; if perhaps not all of the family had been accounted for, they were at least penniless and powerless, and that was considered good enough.
Game Mechanics
Players who wish to play a Serrano or Bianco can chose to take certain packages of benefits and penalties at character creation, just as members of all Theah's noble families can do in the Nations books. The Serrano gain Free Raises to Poison checks and a free Poison Immunity Advantage, while also gaining a 3-point Nemesis Background, representing the Vestini hunter who knows where they live and is coming after them. Bianco PCs can buy Unbound for 10 points instead of 15, but the GM is permitted to use the hounds of the Vaticine Church to make their lives miserable. (In Red Ribbons, that includes being targeted by the benandanti.)
|