Editing Lineage:House Lineages (section)

=House of Lancaster=

[[Image:Rose.jpg]]

Positive Stereotype:  Methodical realist and master of illusions.

Negative Stereotype:  Dangerous lunatic, lost in their own fantasy.

Symbol:  Red rose.

Signature Spell:  Independence.  “Breath of the Aelfe”

Magical Style:  Medieval English, with Anglo-Saxon influences.

The House of Lancaster is industry.  Almost everywhere where there are factories or manufacturing plants, Lancaster’s influence is felt.  They were the first to show the imagination to recognize and capitalize on the industrial revolution and have ridden it to great power and position.  They are known for both their capacity for reason and discipline and also for their creativity and ingenuity - it is theorized that their studies of illusion magics have helped them to develop both sides of their character.  Even for members of a great House, they have a reputation for going mad and losing touch with reality.  Lancaster possessions include the General Motors corporation.

Originally a splinter-House from the royal House of Anjou in the 14th century, the House of Lancaster became powerful enough to defeat both the House of Anjou and rival House of York and seize the English throne in the 15th.  However, they lost it to York again before the century was out and the crown remained contested between York and Lancaster until the eventual victory of the upstart House of Stuart over both of them in the 17th century.  Lancaster’s fortunes fell so far at this point that some predicted the House’s extinction.  However, it had the foresight to see the potential of mechanical manufacturing and rose to prominence again on the back of the industrial revolution, becoming perhaps the most powerful House in Britain by the end of the 19th century.

The House of Lancaster had little to do with the Americas until it came to build factories in the 19th century.  While it theoretically supported the House of Stuart in the revolutionary wars and practically supported the revolution as a means to reduce Stuart power, it lacked the presence in the Americas to make much of a difference.  By the time of the American Civil War, on the other hand, Lancaster was well established in the industrial North and worked hard to ensure that the war would result in a Northern victory.  They supported American entry into the two world wars, both because of their British ties and because they hoped for an increased government dependence on their factories.  For purely economic motives, they also supported the involvement of the US in other foreign wars, including the conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq.  

Mortal Politics:  Whoever controls the oil controls the future.  Therefore, the US must conquer just as much territory in the middle east as it can.  If a technological solution to the insurgency must be employed, so be it.  We have too much taxation in this country and too many social programs.  While we do need nationalized healthcare to keep the work force operational, there is no need to throw so much money at education, the prison system and foreign aid.  We can also stop funding this useless war on drugs.

Cost:  5 points.

Disadvantages:  The Metal Allergy.  Mages of the House of Lancaster suffer from an aversion to iron that has only manifested within the last century.  Outsiders like to ominously point out folklore associates an aversion to iron with the fae.  Lancaster mages have the disadvantages Revulsion (Iron) (10 points) and Weakness (Iron, 1d per 30 minutes) (5 points).

Skills:  Administration, Folklore (British), Musical Instrument, Occultism, Public Speaking, Savoir-Faire, Symbol Drawing (Western Hermetic), Thaumatology.

Spells:
Earth:  Create Earth, Earth to Stone, Seek Earth, Shape Earth.
Illusion and Creation:  Complex Illusion, Create Object, Illusion Disguise, Independence, Perfect Illusion, Simple Illusion.
Plant:  Identify Plant, Seek Plant.
Sound:  Sound.


Relations

The Houses

House of Anjou:  Bastards to the core and our eternal rivals, but we are too alike not to cooperate against strangers.

House of Cain:  Keep them around if necessary, but no longer.

House of Capet:  Hopelessly stuck in the past.  They couldn’t even recognize the importance of the steam engine.

House of Carolus:  They want to lead humanity backwards into the past.

House of Flavii:  Fear their treachery always but listen carefully to their advice.

House of Hapsburg:  They have made themselves economically indispensable, making it impossible for us to declare war on them.

House of Julii:  They were giants in their day, but they don’t have the subtlety to run a modern empire.

Order of Lilith:  Decentralized enough to hide, but too disorganized to ever amount to anything.

House of Medici:  We rely on their professionalism and they do not disappoint us.

House of Romanov:  They stopped adapting to the modern world.  Of course their power failed.  It will not rise again, it is too late for them.

House of Stuart:  They have come to rely on us.  We must work with them until the time comes to take back that power that has so long been contested between us.

House of Trastámara:  Politics is give and take, but giving goes against their every instinct.

House of Ummayad:  They do nothing and so are nothing.

House of Warwick:  Time and again they have betrayed us, but how could we stand without them?

House of York:  Enemies, allies, enemies against throughout the centuries.  Make use of them, but remember that they have always hated us.

The Rebellion

Order of Boudicca:  Too ineffective to be a real problem, there is something charmingly romantic about them.

Order of Copernicus:  The solar system is ripe for the plundering and these mages will help us do it.

Order of Darwin:  Perhaps they could help us to build a better humanity.

Order of Eve:  They care not what their cause is, as long as they are fighting the power.

Order of Jesus:  They side with the poor and against money, and we are money.

Order of Judas:  They love violence and do not care who their victim is.

Order of Siddhartha:  They make a virtue of laziness and try to corrupt others.

Order of Solon:  When the plebs take political power, the economy withers.

Order of Spartacus:  A force of blind, mindless destruction.

Order of Thales:  Two and half thousand years of no progress has not discouraged them at all.  Now that’s stupidity.

Order of Utnapishtim:  Worthless relics of a dead age.