You deal with the Houses whether you want to or not. Need to send a message? That's Sivis. Need healing? Jorasco. Need to move cargo, hire protection, store valuables, or get a room for the night? There's a House for each, and trying to get the same service from a non-House competitor means paying more, accepting worse, or discovering that the competitor quietly shut down after the local guild made things difficult.
The dragonmarked Houses are twelve families — thirteen if you count the split between Phiarlan and Thuranni, which both sides would prefer you didn't — who carry hereditary arcane sigils called dragonmarks. Over centuries, they built those abilities into continent-spanning commercial empires. They are not governments. They are not noble houses in the traditional sense. They're bloodline corporations with magical monopolies, older than most nations on the map, richer than several of them combined, and embedded so deeply in daily life that removing them would collapse the infrastructure of civilization.
A dragonmark is a pattern of blue-black lines that appears on the skin, usually during adolescence. It can't be tattooed, taught, purchased, or transplanted. Either your blood carries the potential or it doesn't. When a mark manifests, it grants innate magical abilities aligned with the mark's domain — a Mark of Healing mends wounds, a Mark of Making enhances craft, a Mark of Storm grants influence over wind and weather.
Marks come in degrees of power. A least mark is the most common — useful but limited. Lesser and greater marks represent deeper expressions of the bloodline's magic, and their bearers tend to rise within the House. A Siberys mark — enormous, covering much of the body, manifesting rarely — is something else entirely, treated as both a gift and a political event.
Not everyone born into a dragonmarked family develops a mark. The Houses employ thousands of unmarked members and non-blooded hirelings. But marked individuals hold disproportionate influence, and the internal culture of every House treats the mark as proof of belonging in a way that bloodline alone doesn't quite match.
House Cannith — Manufacturing and arcane innovation. Built the warforged. Ran the creation forges. The Mourning destroyed their headquarters in Cyre and killed the patriarch, fracturing the family into three competing factions — South, West, and East — none confirmed as the legitimate head. The most powerful House on the continent can't agree on who's in charge.
House Deneith — Mercenaries and bodyguards. Sold military services to every side during the Last War, earning enormous wealth and a reputation for loyalty that extends exactly as far as the contract.
House Ghallanda — Hospitality. Halfling-run inns, taverns, and lodging. A Ghallanda-licensed inn is a known quantity — clean, safe, consistent — and in a postwar continent where trust is scarce, consistency sells.
House Jorasco — Healing. Professional, effective, and not free. Criticized for pricing lifesaving magic beyond the reach of the poor — a complaint Jorasco answers by pointing to its charitable programs and its critics answer by pointing to its profit margins.
House Kundarak — Banking and security. Dwarven-run, Mror Holds-based. The most secure vaults on the continent and the banking system most Khorvairian commerce depends on. Possessed of the particular confidence that comes from knowing everyone owes you money.
House Lyrandar — Weather and air travel. Operates the elemental airship fleet and provides weather management to agricultural regions. Half-elven, ambitious, and locked in a slow rivalry with House Orien over who controls transportation.
House Medani — Detection and threat assessment. Smaller and quieter than most Houses. Half-elven, with a reputation for knowing things other people would rather keep hidden. Whether that reputation is earned or cultivated is a question Medani declines to answer clearly.
House Orien — Land transportation. The lightning rail — magically powered carriages on conductor stone lines connecting major cities on a published schedule. The Mourning severed their direct line through Cyre, and the House has been scrambling to reroute ever since.
House Phiarlan — Entertainment and espionage. Officially: performers, artists, actors of exceptional skill. Unofficially: one of the most sophisticated intelligence networks on the continent, using performers' access to courts and private gatherings to collect and sell information. This is one of the worst-kept secrets in Khorvaire.
House Thuranni — The other entertainment-and-espionage House, split from Phiarlan during the Last War. Smaller, widely considered more willing to get its hands dirty. The mutual hostility between the two Houses is professional, personal, and unlikely to resolve peacefully.
House Sivis — Communication. Magical messaging, document authentication, translation, and legal mediation. In a postwar continent where nobody trusts anybody, a neutral party that can verify a document's authenticity is worth its weight in Siberys shards.
House Tharashk — Prospecting, bounty hunting, and dragonshard mining. Emerged from the Shadow Marches with mixed orc and human bloodlines bearing the Mark of Finding. Also brokers monster mercenaries from Droaam into the Khorvairian labor market — a business that makes the House wealthy and its neighbors uncomfortable.
House Vadalis — Animal breeding and handling. Operates out of the Eldeen Reaches, breeding magebred animals through a combination of the Mark of Handling and generations of expertise. Quieter than most Houses, but deeply entrenched in the economies that depend on reliable animal stock.
During Galifar's reign, the crown imposed the Korth Edicts to prevent any House from becoming a sovereign power. The edicts prohibit Houses from holding land as territory, maintaining standing armies, marrying into royalty, or assuming noble titles. In exchange, the Houses were guaranteed the right to operate across all provinces without interference.
The edicts are still technically in force. The kingdom that issued them is not. The letter of the law is observed. The spirit died during the Last War, when nations fighting for survival would overlook almost anything in exchange for services they couldn't provide themselves. Whether the edicts should be renegotiated, reinforced, or scrapped is a live political question nobody is rushing to resolve.
Your character has probably heard of aberrant marks the way most people have heard of a plague in another province — with vague unease and limited detail.
Aberrant dragonmarks don't belong to any recognized House bloodline. They manifest unpredictably and produce dangerous or destructive abilities. The Houses treat them as a threat — biological, commercial, and existential. For the marked individual, it's a power they didn't ask for, likely can't fully control, carrying a stigma that most of society absorbed from the Houses without questioning it.
You've interacted with at least one House. Probably several. Maybe you worked for one — marked or unmarked, guild artisan or caravan guard or file clerk. Maybe you carry a mark and grew up inside the system with all the privilege and expectation that entails. Maybe you carry a mark and walked away, which is allowed in theory and complicated in practice. Maybe you bear an aberrant mark and learned early to keep your sleeves down.
Or maybe you just resent them. You've watched a Jorasco healer turn away a patient who couldn't pay. You've seen Orien raise fares after cutting the only competing route. You've noticed that the Houses always land on their feet no matter who else gets buried.
However your character relates to the Houses, the relationship exists. They're woven into Khorvairian life too thoroughly to avoid. The only question is whether your character sees them as a resource, an obstacle, or something that needs to be watched very carefully.