Editing Dynasty & Decadence/Worldbuilding (section)

=Current Context for House V’Neef=

V’Neef, V’Neef, V’Neef – if you talk politics, it is all you ever hear. From the technical officers in the ministries in charge of manse allocation to the roughest fisherman in the furthest northern tip of the Isle, her name is on everyone’s lip.

Twenty-three, stunningly beautiful, effortlessly charming and holding in her veins the purest blood in the entire Realm (bar, possibly, the Empress herself). A golden child, beloved by the entirety of Creation, she was without an enemy in the world – until she was given her own Great House two years ago. Suddenly, her fast-tracking through the Spiral Academy isn’t talent, but favouritism; her marriage to Cynis Thepru isn’t romantic but jade-mining; and the extraordinary Exaltation of her first child at age six is less a draconic miracle and more a harbinger of interesting times.

The first sign of danger was Cynis Thepru’s poisoning at the hands of the Society of the Veil & Lilly. The fruitless investigation has lead to accusation and counter-accusation – was it House Cynis? V’Neef? A would-be suitor? And then Mnemon, previously the youngest child of the Empress to receive her own House (at age 55) and formerly the very image of an affectionate sister, has been marked by a new chill, though no hostile action has been taken.

Offshoots of House Peleps rise and fall almost as often as they have a member to powerful to control and not powerful enough to oust the current leaders. These only last a generation before reabsorption, and the reabsorption usually goes down with minimal hard feelings. Usually, this is done with the a pragmatically ruthless appraisal of what the new House contributes by having its own ‘brand’ and whether they are worth protecting from hostile outside forces.

In your case it is different – senior figures in House Peleps wants you gone and the name ‘Taric’ to be forgotten. Taric offended the House seniors greatly by courting V’Neef as a potential husband, doing her favours against the interests of Peleps and implicitly offering to defect with his entire family (and critically, their incredibly vast wealth) if she accepted.

V’Neef has managed to offend House Peleps thrice over– first, by cancelling her importation of wine from the East and relying entirely on her own vineyards to meet demand; second, by sponsoring the young libertine and famously sarcastic playwrite, Cynis Somat, to the senior post of minister of the Righteous and Accountable Ministry of Weights and Measures as a ‘new broom’; and finally and most critically, by adopting as ‘children’ a retired Leedal naval general and a Lost Egg Guild factol with a fleet of vessels plying the Inner Sea, raising questions as to her House’s interest in maritime trade.