House Dricaal

## **Aspects:**

* Situational Aspect: Secrets Found in Dreams and Lies
* Situational Aspect: The Craft in Blood is Thicker Still
* Situational Aspect: Footsteps Shrouded in Mist

## **Overview:**

One of the Hidden Houses within Pirika's Wall, House Dricaal first rose to Great House status 124 years ago. Studying the Craft of oneiromancy, they quickly established themselves as potent agents of diplomacy and intrigue, rivaling even House Melifloran in that respect. While weak among the Great Houses in terms of the strength of their Wards, they nevertheless maintain an advantage in secrets and spycraft that they use to potent effect. While House Melifloran works in favors and rumors, House Dricaal trades in secrets and blackmail. It is rumored that within the vaults of the Great Library of House Dricaal, each Oathsworn and Housebound of any status at all within the city has their own bound book, full of rumors and hearsay.

* Situational Aspect: Secrets Found in Dreams and Lies

## **History:**

House Dricaal was a Minor House for most of its history, bound together by the Craftswoman Ida Dricaal fifty years after the city's founding. Despite the shape her House took, Ida was not actually a master of the Craft of Psyche, but rather that of Divination and Corpus. Employing her skills, she began a breeding program that became foundational to the House's core. While she initially sought to pass her own talents on to the next generations (herself baring seven children), she found vastly more success in bloodlines with talent for the magic of the mind. Since her death, there has never been a Head of House Dricaal who was not of her bloodline. Not because of nepotism, for House's that value name and title more than intellect and skill rarely rise high, but because of carefully selected hereditary talent. The blood of Dricaal carries potent Craft, and the House has used the success of their breeding programs to rise high indeed.

* Situational Aspect: The Craft in Blood is Thicker Still

## Domain:

House Dricaal is a Hidden House, disguised somewhere within Scala, well hidden from prying eyes.

* Situational Aspect: Footsteps Shrouded in Mist

## **Housebound:**

### **Alaric Dricaal, Head of House Dricaal**

Alaric Dricaal has been Head of the House which bares her name for 16 years now, inheriting the position following the death of his great uncle. There was no question of nepotism in his ascendency, as even in his youth he was a generational prodigy in the House's Craft. There are some rivals to his talent within the House now, younger Craftsfolk who had not come into their power by the time his great uncle passed. Some of these are direct blood relations of his, for he would have been a fool to abandon the centuries of work Dricaal has put into its breeding program. Ever a pragmatic man, he is proud of the House's successes, and commits much of their resources to the endeavor.  Such was the vision that allowed Ida Dricaal to pull her House from obscurity to its current great heights, and he has been presented with no reason to walk a different path.

### **Oathsworn Curt Dricaal**

When the Oathsworn of Dricaal fight, they do not typically do so with blade and crossbow. The Bound of Dricaal do not fight with such things, but with the dreams of their foes, twisting them with Craft into living nightmares. There are those who joke that Oathsworn Fischer has never touched the hilt of a knife, and certainly wouldn't know what to do with one if he should ever find the need. He's typically seen out in public in mail, but without dent or scratch upon it, and none can recall him ever needing to rely upon it.  Elegant and refined, he speaks with the curt accent of the nobility, of those familiar with wielding wealth and power.

### Oathsworn Arden Dricaal

House Dricaal isn't renowned for their duelists and knife fighters, their Oathsworn relying more on nightmare and shadow to carry a back alley skirmish. Arden is the exception to the rule, having developed a number of utterly horrifying techniques that she has built a bit of a reputation on. Impressive, for one so young. Her tongue is as sharp as her knife, and between the two the weapon she's the most likely to employ.