| Ganza | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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Overview
Northernmost of all the Matoran holdings, facing the borderlands between the republic and the Divine Empire, is the territory that belongs to Ganza. Although one of the most ancient of the Matoran noble families, their reputation and past are both checkered.
The family name by itself has some peculiar connotations, although all three are fairly archaic and not often used. Ganza: a kind of owl, by a flock of which a master scholar was fabled to be carried to the stars. Or an improvised torch crafted from dry branches, also a form of kindling. Or… a mistress.
The exact origins of the house is shrouded in mystery, but there is a story. It goes all the way back to the equally legendary beginnings of the Savon Empire. A wayward son of the legendary second king of Savo, thirsty for discovery and adventure, found his way eastwards, claiming a small holding in the northeastern mountains and foothills of modern day Matora. He had brought his wife and a group of faithful warriors, and things seemed peaceful for a time. However, he began to sleep poorly, with vivid dreams and periods of sleep walking that would bring him outside the castle. One evening, instead of going to bed, he opted to take a walk. He found himself wandering up into the mountains. He met a woman there, pale and beautiful, and they fell in love. It continued for a while that he would go up into the mountains instead of going to bed. However, his wife tired of this.
The legends divert here, with some claiming the wife a witch, others that she was a near-saint with divinely provided powers. Either way, she found out that her husband had a lover, and cursed the pair to never see each other again. During the day, her husband would turn into a flock of ravens. During the night, his lover would turn into a flock of bats. Despite this, the pair found that for a little while at the break of dawn and rise of twilight, they could still be together: this way they even managed to have children. The wife, enraged, swore to hunt down the mistress and the bastard children. However, the next dawn, walking along the wall of the holdings she was mysteriously distracted by a flock of birds or bats, lost her footing and fell to her death. With that, the curse was broken, and the Savon prince married his mountain mistress, and thus begat the origins for the Ganza family.
As appropriate for such origins, the family in modern nights has a reputation for great adventurers and madness alike. Their members can be found obsessing over obscure scrolls in the darkest of libraries, or fighting their way through brigant guarded mountain passes to explore distant tumbled ruins, or encountered while they leap and climb down ancient tombs. They are scholars, explorers, pioneers, romantics and teachers. They tend to marry young and have many children ("they breed like the mushrooms they sell!") but also tend to die young, either out on adventure or frothing at the mouth mad. They have a penchant for finding out things that were not meant to be known, the blackest of lore, and suffer for it.
Perhaps because of their constant reminders of the shortness of life, or perhaps because of the family's origins, the di Ganza tend to be soft hearted when it comes to love. They tend to at least try to accommodate feelings of romantic love in their members, and such love matches are typically more common in their midst than in most other Houses. Of course they'll encourage practical marriage ties that give financial or other bonuses, but at the end of the day theirs is a House that came from a legendary romance. They would not be di Ganza without it.
In practical terms, the House gains its main source of income from those same mountains that it came from. Anything that can be mined or quarried is in their grasp, from precious raw ores and rough gems to marbles, granites, slates across the spectrum to flints and rock salts. They also have a small side lined in mushrooms, grown within the deep dark mountain caves, mostly courtesy of the newest generation of family members.
Concepts
Think Addams Family meets Lovecraft, with a pinch of classic fantasy adventurers and Medici intrigue. Scholars and (mad) scientists, Indiana Jones types, spooky courtiers, at least one Lurch, black knights, warped philosophers and crooked savants, some poor shellshocked soul that saw too much (or was seen by Something That Should Not Be) and somehow survived it but isn't all there any more… Any and all are welcome. But please. No pastels.
Family
| Carel di Ganza |
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One of the sons. |
| Matilde Leonor di Ganza |
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One of the many daughters of Ganza. |