House Carna

House Carna rules Carna and controls the largest gold mine in the world. This has made them extraordinarily wealthy and correspondingly certain of their own superiority—over other houses, other nations, and other species. Their bigotry against non-human races is not incidental to their identity; it is central to it. What keeps them relevant is that they are very good at the business of being rich.

Charles is 6' and 180 pounds, dark-haired and sharp-faced, with blue eyes and more gemstones on his person at any given moment than most people own. He runs House Carna's day-to-day affairs, manages the gold mine operations, and makes himself unpleasant at every social event he attends. His contempt for non-human races is not performance—he has simply never interrogated it. This would be a problem if he were stupid. He is not stupid; he is a shrewd businessman and a capable political operator, and he is fully aware that his personality costs him goodwill he could use. He has decided the goodwill isn't worth the adjustment.

Victoria is in her late 50s, 5'7" and 140 pounds, with silver hair in an elegant updo and icy blue eyes that give nothing away. She is the matriarch of House Carna—the reason the house functions as a unit rather than a collection of competing egos. Her business instincts are sharp; her political maneuvering is sharper. She does not tolerate inefficiency, sentiment, or deviation from the family's interests, and has never felt the need to distinguish between the three.

Reginald, in his early 30s, is 6'2" and 220 pounds, with dark hair, blue eyes, and the bearing of a man who has spent most of his life being told he will one day run everything. He is the eldest son and heir, a knight who leads the family's private army, and is being groomed for the business side of operations. His skill in combat is genuine. His brash personality is also genuine. Whether the business acumen will follow is, for now, an open question.

Beatrice is 5'6" and 140 pounds, with hazel eyes and auburn hair piled into elaborate curls adorned with jeweled pins. She is Victoria's younger sister and shares both the family's contempt for non-human races and the sharper edge of the Carna tongue. She has no formal role in mine or household management, but this understates her actual function: she works the social and political dimensions of the court, trading in influence and information where her relatives use gold and soldiers.

Malcolm, in his late 40s, is 5'9" and 230 pounds, round-faced, with black hair going grey and brown eyes that have gotten good at concealing how closely they're paying attention. He married into House Carna and has since adopted their worldview entirely—whether genuine conviction or professional prudence is not a distinction he encourages. He runs elements of the gold mine operation, and his jovial exterior has served him well: no one expects the man in gaudy clothes to be the sharpest negotiator in the room. He often is.

Isabella, in her early 20s, is 5'4" and 120 pounds, with emerald green eyes and light brown hair she keeps loose. She is a distant cousin—daughter of one of Victoria's distant relatives—and shares the family's prejudices, though more subtly than most. She works as a rogue: stealth, deception, information-gathering, quiet manipulation of circumstances the family would prefer not to handle directly. She is young and already valuable.

Anastasia is 5'5" and 130 pounds, with striking blue eyes and blonde hair in loose curls. She is the youngest member of House Carna, spoiled and demanding and intelligent in the particular way of people who have never been told no: she is very good at reading what people want and using it against them. She has no formal role. She attends court events, manages her personal wealth, and accumulates leverage. It is not yet clear whether she has a longer plan.

Frederick, in his early 50s, is 5'10" and 180 pounds, with brown eyes and short grey-streaked hair. He is Victoria's younger brother, built for the same work: harsh, uncompromising, not particularly interested in being liked. He oversees portions of the gold mine's management and does this competently without distinction. The family's disposition toward non-human races is his own. He would not have it any other way.

Clarissa is 5'6" and 135 pounds, with hazel eyes and chestnut hair in soft waves. She is a distant cousin and the only member of House Carna who does not share its bigotry. The family has not exiled her for this, but they have excluded her from their business and political work. She lives on a small estate outside the family's main holdings. She is a bard—she performs at court, uses her influence to push back against what her family represents, and remains, against all reasonable evidence, hopeful about this. She is kept at arm's length precisely because she is capable enough to matter.

Brutus is 6'5" and 250 pounds, bald, scarred, with cold black eyes and a build that makes the nickname self-explanatory. He was born into violence and hired by House Carna for his expertise in it. He handles the work the family's public faces cannot—intimidation, beatings, the kind of problem-solving that doesn't appear in official correspondence. He does not enjoy this work. He also does not decline it. He carries out his duties with a grim, professional consistency.

Seraphim, 40 years old, is 5'10" and 160 pounds, with silver-white hair, eyes to match, and a smile he has spent decades perfecting. He was raised in a family of diplomats and entered House Carna's service as their public spokesman—the voice that explains, smooths over, and reframes whatever the family has recently done. He is very good at this. The combination of genuine charm and professional detachment is unusual; most people have one or the other.

Benedict, having just turned 60, is 5'8" and 150 pounds, with white hair, blue eyes, a well-groomed beard, and spectacles that have become part of his face. He is a learned wizard hired as House Carna's advisor on magical matters: threats, opportunities, artifacts, situations that require something beyond gold and soldiers. He is well-respected in arcane circles and, despite his age, remains formidable. He wears his authority lightly, which is part of why it holds.

Sir Geoffrey, 45 years old, is 6'1" and 190 pounds, with brown eyes and short black hair, clean-shaven, carrying the bearing of someone who has been in command long enough not to think about it. He is a seasoned knight and captain of House Carna's guard: training and deployment, security coordination, personal command in a crisis. He is loyal, disciplined, and professional in the specific sense that he does not allow his private views about his employers to affect the work. He protects them regardless.

Elias is barely in his teens, lean, sharp-featured, with blue eyes and dark brown hair he keeps short and usually hidden under a hood. He looks like his father. He is his father's illegitimate son—conceived when Charles was barely a teenager himself—and his existence is a secret the family maintains without acknowledging they are maintaining it. He has not benefited from this. He grew up outside the family's protection, developed his skills accordingly—stealth, thievery, deception—and has a standing policy of stealing from House Carna whenever the opportunity presents. He maintains a code: he doesn't harm innocent people. He has not included the Carnas in that category.

Percival, 45 years old, has dark brown hair shot through with grey, kept neatly combed, and piercing blue eyes that are always occupied with something the people around him don't notice. He is a distant relative, an academic by disposition, and the family's least typical member. He has spent his life collecting and studying ancient artifacts, and is respected in scholarly circles for the quality of his collection. His family considers this eccentric but harmless.

Then he found the Eye of Ix—said to be a fragment of the original shards—and the vision it gave him made his family's certainty about human superiority look like what it is. He saw the ancients. Whatever he now believes about his family's ideology, he keeps to himself. He is calm, precise, prefers books to people, and strokes his beard when thinking, which is most of the time. He still carries the family crest. He hides it, but he carries it.

Henry is young—tousled brown hair, deep chestnut eyes, the easy confidence of someone who has rarely lost a fight. He is House Carna's celebrated tournament competitor, exceptional at jousting and formidable in small group combat, and carries a Zoranti weapon that signals both his status and his seriousness. He shares the family's belief in human superiority, but distinguishes himself in how he expresses it: he fights with honor and expects the same in return. His goal is proof through demonstrated excellence, not humiliation. This has earned him grudging respect even from those who find the underlying conviction repugnant.

Off the field he is genuinely affable—treats people with respect regardless of race or station. The contradiction between his warmth and his convictions has not yet resolved itself. He is still young enough that it might.

Marcella is in her advanced years, with silver hair that was once red and blue eyes that have lost none of their precision. She is a traditionalist in the most committed sense: she believes in human superiority, has believed it all her life, and has organized her entire worldview around it. She wears the family's deep crimson and a brooch bearing the Carna crest, and carries herself with an air of superiority that has long since become indistinguishable from her actual bearing.

She is also formidable. Her understanding of politics and strategy is deep; her advice, however condescendingly delivered, tends to be right. She is formal, stern, quick to dismiss, and quick with a cutting remark—and she keeps her word absolutely. A promise from Marcella is a promise. This is the one quality that earns her respect from people who otherwise find her entirely without warmth.