Editing Lineage:House Lineages (section)

=House of Hapsburg=

[[Image:Stonelion.jpg]]

Positive Stereotype:  Skillful organizer.

Negative Stereotype:  Robber baron.

Symbol:  Red lion.

Signature Spells:  Create Servant and Shapeshift (Hawk). Known as “Slave” and “Hawk” respectively.

Magical Style:  A mixture of Ancient Roman and pagan Germanic.

The Hapsburgs are the richest and most powerful House in Europe.  Based out of Germany and Austria, they run a massive economic empire and have interests all over the world.  They see themselves as equals of the Stuarts and openly compete with them for control.  The Stuarts do not appreciate the challenge to their dominance and would like to teach the Hapsburgs a lesson.  Hapsburg possessions include General Electric, Bertelsmann, and Walt Disney Company.

From small beginnings in Swabia, the House of Hapsburg gained control of Austria in the 13th century and ruled the Holy Roman Empire from the 13th to the 19th centuries.  Over this time they have also ruled the low countries, Spain and Portugal.  Spain and Portugal were lost to the Capets in the 19th century and the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in 1806 by Napoleon, a puppet of the House of Carolus.  However, the Hapsburgs held onto Austria and Hungary in an unofficial capacity until the early 20th century, and remain the most powerful House in central Europe to this day.

Hapsburg policy in the New World was to allow the House of Trastámara to find and conquer native populations, then move in as liberators of suffering peoples who had been alienated by Trastámara cruelty.  The plan worked up to a point, asTrastámara states were overthrown in South America, the Caribbean and elsewhere in the 18th and early 19th centuries, but native mages had no intention of replacing Trastámara overlords with Hapsburg overlords.  Instead the Hapsburgs had to settle for being advisors, traders and mercenaries where they had hoped to be kings.

In North America, the abundance of space led the Hapsburgs to invest in land and in the construction industry, fighting with Lancaster in the 19th century for control over the railroads.  They supported the revolutionaries in the American Revolution, out of a desire to weaken Stuart, and with the Union in the American Civil War, believing that the Union’s use of rail would inevitably bring them victory.  They supported Germany in World War I, while their House held sway over the German government, but supported the Allies in World War II, after they had lost power over Germany to Nazis.  They opposed the wars in Korea, Vietnam, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq on the grounds that these should have been UN operations rather than US ones.  

Mortal Politics:  The US needs to pull out of the middle east.  The mission might have worked if it had been organized by the UN, but the bull-headed American government just doesn’t have the political finesse to pull it off.  Taxes need to be lowered to allow business to flourish.  Social services need to be cut so that people can learn to stand on their own two feet again.

Cost:  18 points.

Disadvantage:  The Hapsburg Gene.  The Hapsburgs have a strange ancestral ineptitude with information technology.  They are at -2 to use, fix or otherwise mess with computers, radios and any other information technology devices, and are -4 for skill use on the internet.  A Hapsburg may never learn to type, and is forever foredoomed to use the hunt-and-peck method with a keyboard.  At the GMs discretion, this should make some tasks take much longer than normal – Instant Messaging with a Hapsburg is maddening, waiting for one to write a program seems eternal.  (15 points)

Skills:  Accounting, Administration, Diplomacy, Geography (World), Occultism, Politics, Public Speaking, Savoir-Faire, Symbol Drawing (Western Hermetic), Thaumatology.

Spells:
Animal:  Shapeshift (Hawk).
Communication and Empathy:  Persuasion, Presence, Sense Emotion, Sense Foes.
Earth:  Create Earth, Earth to Stone, Seek Earth, Shape Earth.
Illusion and Creation:  Complex Illusion, Create Object, Create Servant, Create Warrior, Perfect Illusion, Simple Illusion.
Mind Control:  Bravery, Emotion Control, Fear, Foolishness, Loyalty, Lure, Weaken Will.
Sound:  Sound.


Relations

The Houses

House of Anjou:  They could be useful allies and soldiers in a war against the Stuarts, but they are too bloody-minded to see that their best interests lie with us.

House of Cain:  I suppose that once upon a time, mages were all brutish animals like these.

House of Capet:  A king in exile is no king at all.  They grow more feeble every day.

House of Carolus:  Their empire was rotten, so we took control.

House of Flavii:  Their temporal power is vastly underestimated.  From their capital in Istanbul, they hold sway over huge territories in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

House of Julii:  We are their rightful heirs to world history.  We shall become all that they ever were and the empire will never fall again.

House of Lancaster:  We must find a way to ally with them.  Their industrial might is the secret of the Stuart’s strength.

Order of Lilith:  They consort with vampires and always have done.  Only know what they have really been up to for all these centuries.

House of Medici:  Of late, they have forgotten who truly rules in Europe.  They must be taught their place.

House of Romanov:  Get with the times you fools!  The age of the royal tyrant is gone.  Long life the age of the tyrannical civil service.

House of Stuart:  For as long as the west can maintain control of the world, the final victory must either go to them or to us.

House of Trastámara:  They are incredibly useful.  Their cruelty makes us look so good by comparison.

House of Ummayad:  Either get over the loss of the caliphate and of Spain or die out.  Stop haunting.  It is annoying.

House of Warwick:  Expert propagandists and not above working for us if the price is right.

House of York:  We cannot compete with them militarily, and so we must triumph over the English Houses by other means.

The Rebellion

Order of Boudicca:  They hate the House of Stuart.  That’s enough for me to like them!

Order of Copernicus:  Useless.  The resources they find are too far away for us to use.

Order of Darwin:  They are planning to produce an agricultural revolution.  When they do, we must be ready to harness it.

Order of Eve:  Eternal malcontents, they make trouble for the sake of it.

Order of Jesus:  They are incomprehensible and anything incomprehensible is dangerous.

Order of Judas:  They are what all rebels are.  They are simply more honest about it.

Order of Siddhartha:  Just another spectacularly unsuccessful bid for religious power.

Order of Solon:  They are great at making plans, but they can never put them into practice.

Order of Spartacus:  Why do they pride themselves on their martial ability when they always lose in the end?

Order of Thales:  They aren’t really rebels.  They are just misfits who like to think they are rebels.

Order of Utnapishtim:  Surprisingly difficult to kill, it is less trouble just to leave them alone.