Thessalia Thessalia was chatelaine of House Ixion and the Order of the Weal . Biography . Thessalia grew up in House Dvora ( PROSE : " The Book of the War " ) with the Imperator , and in adulthood they shared a common philosophy as well as a romantic attraction , ( PROSE : " The Return of the King " ) as speculated by historians in Faction Paradox . She was later appointed chatelaine of the barren House Ixion . ( PROSE : " The Book of the War " ) A week before the Imperator ' s ascension to the Presidency , he visited Thessalia at House Ixion . Wanting someone with a similar philosophy in his administration , the Imperator created the Order of the Weal for Thessalia to lead , knowing that he might turn against her one day . At the time , she kept an oracle in House Ixion . The meeting was recorded on a registry . Indeed , Thessalia and the Order did assess the Imperator as a threat , and she shot off his jaw to prevent him from speaking ( PROSE : " The Return of the King " ) while she denounced him to the ruling Houses . However , she played no part in his trial and execution , ( PROSE : " The Book of the War " ) instead going into seclusion . Some who knew her at the time said she committed suicide by putting a gun in her mouth in an attempt at self - improvement . After the fall of the Imperator , the girl who would become Larissa and the boy who would become Lord Yellow Dog of the Thirty - One Cuts were moved from House Dvora to Ixion . Their playing brought Thessalia wrath ' s upon them , and Larissa was terrified of her . At the time , Thessalia appeared as an old , hunched crone , with shambling footsteps and jangling keys on a metal ring on her belt . ( PROSE : " Newtons Sleep " ) As chatelaine of the Order of the Weal , Thessalia directly controlled all operational matters alongside her heir , whose identity shifted as Thessalia ' s allegiances unpredictably changed . She had a bodyguard of myrmidon s . ( PROSE : " The Book of the War " ) Thessalia grew younger , taller , and healthier ; Larissa speculated this was during the worldquake or the goblin infestation . She recruited Larissa to become her mnemonic , claiming she distrusted registries after the Imperator ' s were used against him in his trial . She used Larissa as her living diary and called her " my little book " . ( PROSE : " Newtons Sleep " ) The Chatelaine became obsessed with the war to come , and she sent all of the Orders ' timeship s off - world to monitor Violent Unknown Event s to try to divine the future . ( PROSE : " The Book of the War " ) Beliefs . The Chatelaine considered all oral mythology to be a lie designed to obscure or excuse contemporary political activity . She held that the only truth was what one could directly sense , intuit , or reason . ( PROSE : " The Book of the War " ) She identified five organisations on the Homeworld , mainly the most extreme intervention groups , that might encourage an aggressive foreign policy for their own profit , as well as thirteen potential external aggressors who might be the Great House s ' future enemy . ( PROSE : " Newtons Sleep " ) She predicted that the enemy would be motivated unambiguously by a racial - survival agenda and mainly concerned with maintaining the integrity of its own history . She also expected the first attack on the Homeworld to be aimed at its noosphere , with physical fighting only occurring in the final stages of the war . In anticipation of this , she commissioned the babel s as a defence for the Homeworld ' s noosphere . ( PROSE : " The Book of the War " ) She wrote in " The Little Book of Absoute Power " that she thought the Faction Paradox bloodline was an ingenious hoax . ( PROSE : " The Book of the War " )