Lineage:Main Page

Lineage

Place: USA. Time: The modern day.

Throughout history, humanity has been secretly ruled by the Houses, powerful mage families whose ambitions have been checked only by one another. In the USA, power is concentrated in the hands of 13 great Houses, always conspiring against one another for ultimate control. “The Thirteen Houses” as they are known, compete and cooperate to control the government, dominate the great corporations, and concentrate wealth and power in their own hands. The run the banks, the universities, the media and the churches, along with anything else they can gain control over. The most powerful faction is comprised of four English Houses with a history of collaboration; Lancaster, Stuart, Warwick and York. Stuart ruthlessly enforces its dominant position in the alliance and all four jockey for power. Also particularly rich and influential in the US are the Houses of Anjou, Capet, Carolus, Flavii, Hapsburg, Julii, Medici, Romanov, and Trastámara. The Houses are blood relations of the mortal clans of the same names, although not all in the mortal clan are mages.

Alongside the Houses, for as long as history records, there has existed an independent body of mages, who recognize on authority beyond their own ranks. The Rebellion, as it styles itself, is not a rebellion against the Houses, at least not directly. It a rebellion against Heaven and Hell themselves, in the name of all humanity. Both supernatural powers are seen as enemies and enslavers of human beings. The mages of the Rebellion gather in Orders, not Houses. Unlike Houses, into which a mage is born as a member of a certain family, the Orders recruit their apprentices as adults. Mages or the Orders, like mages of the Houses, may speak of a mage’s “lineage”, but they see this is something passed from teacher to student rather than from parent to child. Throughout most of history, the Houses have tried to suppress the Rebellion, which they see as a destabilizing influence. However, in the modern western world, the Rebellion rages openly, the Houses having conceded that trying to suppress it had become more trouble than it is worth. The Houses and the Rebellion live in uneasy peace, with frequent local skirmishes.

PCs may choose to work with the Houses, maneuvering to acquire power, knowledge, or whatever else they choose to desire. Or they might join the Rebellion and fight for humanity against Heaven and Hell. Or they might take the power they have been given and carve a new path of their own design. The options open to a mage are as wide as the mage’s imagination.