Category: Houses of the Blooded

Bureaucracy
Let’s pause a moment and talk about how ven law differs from our own. First, the ven do not have a word for “law.” The closest word the ven have is pallentarro, which best translates as “bureaucracy.” It literally means “the proper way.”

Ven law is a long list of decisions agreed upon by the Senate. The Senate is made up of nobles. No commoners. Just nobles. The legal code is a series of “decisions,” each one giving a proper punishment for a crime. Let’s look at one as an example.

(The translation is difficult here. Ven language has about a dozen different connotations for a single word. I’m going to do my best.)
If the unblooded shall steal from the blooded, this High Crime shall be punished as the Authority sees fit.

So, what we’ve got here is a decision on theft. Notice the language.

The decision specifically says “unblooded shall steal from the blooded.” In ven law, if a decision doesn’t say something, it doesn’t say it. I know that sounds redundant, but it’s an important idea. The little things matter.

This decision deals specifically with the unblooded stealing from the blooded. It says nothing about the blooded stealing from the blooded, so it doesn’t apply to that situation.

Also, note how it says “as the Authority sees fit.” That means the person with the highest authority decides how the matter is resolved. That person may be the blooded in question, or it may not. “The Authority” refers to the highest authority present. So, if a servant tries stealing a spoon from one of the blooded at a party, the highest authority in the room decides the punishment.

Ven law is tricky this way. Some decisions say “the Victim.” Some decisions say “the Authority.” The little things matter.

LOW CRIMES, HIGH CRIMES
Ven law is broken into low crimes and high crimes. As might be expected, low crimes are those committed against the unblooded, while high crimes are those committed against a noble’s kith and kin. Thus, stealing a peasant’s cow is a low crime, punishable with a lash of the whip or perhaps a small fine. On the other hand, a servant stealing a spoon (like I mentioned above) from one a noble is a high crime, punishable by dismemberment, disfigurement, or death.

A noble’s roadmen are directly responsible for maintaining justice in his lands. Roadmen protect the people from dangers (monsters, brigands, etc.), but they also investigate crime. The noble seldom (if ever) concerns himself with low crimes; the local sheriff and his constables handle such matters. In the matter of high crimes, the noble’s personal guard are dispatched to investigate the matter and bring the criminal to justice.

Of course, each noble looks at low and high crime differently. For some of the blooded, a crime against one of his peasants is a crime against his own person. Each noble has to make up his own mind how to treat crime.

Inconsistency is the seed of dissent.

JUSTICE FOR THE UNBLOODED
For the unblooded, there is no right to remain silent, no right to legal counsel, no jury of peers. Nobles give roadmen the right to mete justice as they sees fit. A roadman’s decision is usually swift and final. The accused can beg for the right to plead his case, explain the evidence against him, but he has no right to such treatment. A fair roadman will grant a hearing, but he is not expected to do so. Nor is he likely to be punished if he does not.

If the accused is a noble or a roadman, the matter must be turned over to the lord of the land, who then makes a decision. Judging another noble is always a politically charged situation, one that can bring war if it is handled without care.

JUSTICE FOR THE BLOODED
One of the blooded accused of a crime may call for a jury. Matters of law are brought before the Senate. The Senate votes whether or not to hear the matter, then elects three judges to hear the case. Both sides make their arguments. At this time in ven history, evidence and testimony are not well-tested ideas. Procedure? Nonsense. Make an impassioned plea. More likely than not, if the issue is murky, the side that protests loudest and most convincingly will carry the day. But sometimes, just sometimes, testimony and evidence can make a difference.

FUTALI: RANSOM
An old tradition from the dark days. Before the Senate, before the Houses. Ransom. Holding a noble for a price. Futali.
If a noble is found guilty of crimes, he can be held ransom until the price is paid. His home court can decide to pay the ransom in exchange for his life or refuse to pay it, granting the holding noble the right to do as he likes to his captive.

If a noble is captured, he falls under the same laws as those who lose control of their possessions. If you don’t have the strength to protect yourself, you don’t deserve protection.

Futali is the polite way of asking, “Do you want this back?” Refusing to pay is the polite way of saying, “No.”

TAXATION
Nobles reserve the right of land ownership and the right to tax the land they own. The fisherman catches ten fish, the lord gets eight. The farmer grows one hundred bushels of corn, the lord gets eight. The blacksmith makes ten swords, the lord gets all of them.

Some nobles even take more than that, although doing so runs the risk of angering the merchant class. While merchant have little military strength, they do prove to be powerful spies for enemy lords…

A noble owns land, and thus, anything produced by the lord’s land rightfully belongs to the lord. A farmer’s crops can be taxed, as can a fisherman’s take. While hunting is generally reserved for the noble and his retinue, any product produced by wild animals is also taxed. Any derivative products can be taxed, such as beer (from wheat and barley) and clothing (from cotton and wool). The iron forged by the blacksmith came from the lord’s land, as did the trees pulped to make paper for the printer’s presses.

Nobles entrust the collection of taxes to their sheriffs. Each sheriff is responsible for collecting and transporting the taxes of his shire. The opportunity for corruption is always present for a sheriff, a fact nobles know too well. Nobles usually assign a sheriff a large staff to collect and protect the noble’s taxes… and to keep an eye on the sheriff.

THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS
Nobles (and roadmen) have the right to bear arms, which holds a double meaning. Not only does it mean the noble has the right to carry a martial weapon and wear armor, but it also means he has the right to his own coat of arms. Any non-noble bearing anything more than a simple weapon takes his life in his own hands; most nobles do not take lightly those who walk into their lands wielding martial weapons and wearing armor; they see such actions as defying the noble’s rights (and the rights of his roadmen). Mercenaries wandering the countryside, hunting orks and robbing the corpses, looting the ruins of the sorcerer-kings… some may call these sell-swords “adventurers.”

Nobles call them “bandits.”

And by “bandit,” I mean “soon to marry the ropemaker’s daughter.”

The punishment for carrying martial weapons without a nod from the land’s noble can be as simple as confiscation of the weapon or as serious as hanging, crucifixion or evisceration, depending on the noble’s attitude toward taxing adventurers (re: possible roadmen).

FRAUD
The ven have a peculiar notion about fraud. It can be summed up in a single sentence.

“If you got beat, don’t whine about it.”

What we would call “confidence crime” is what the ven might have called “gulling the sucker.” If someone is foolish enough to fall for it, they deserve what they get. Crying about being a pigeon—I mean, informing others that you were a victim of a confidence scam—only furthers your own shame.

You got beat. Live with it.

One man spends his days asking others for justice. The other plots revenge. Who is the wiser?

THIEVERY
Another matter of perspective. If you can’t keep it, it isn’t yours. Of course, this law only applies to the blooded. If an unblooded picks a noble’s pocket, he loses a hand. If he’s lucky.

MURDER
Let’s talk about the big one.

As far as the law is concerned, the unblooded are not entirely citizens. They are still ven, but they are not blooded. Ven law has a tendency to be murky in most areas, but in this one, it is quite clear. Murder is a crime among the blooded. Only the blooded may murder the blooded. As far as the unblooded go, they can murder each other all day long. It is a courtesy that the blooded take notice and perhaps act to make justice.

Remember: crying about it is no way to win friends. Even if you’re one of the unblooded.

Unblooded to the Blooded: He killed my wife!

Blooded to the Unblooded: What are you going to do about it?

PERSONAL GUARD
Okay, let’s talk about the biggest and baddest law. After the Betrayer War, the Senate passed one of its most powerful decisions.
It is the decision of this Senate that no blooded may gather an army.

That’s it. No army.

On the other hand, the following decision was not as powerful, but perhaps more interesting.

It is the decision of this Senate that every noble is allowed a retinue of personal guard to protect his person.

That following decision made all the difference. Nobles made arguments in the Senate that their lands were, in fact, part of their person. By extension. An offense against my people is an offense against me. A noble does have an obligation to protect his people. Should he not also have the ability to protect those people?

Soon, every noble had a “personal guard” large enough to protect his lands. Not an army. A personal guard.

And so, seeing a loophole in the law, the ven danced around its primary intention. Which leads me to one final point about ven law.

LOOPHOLES
Now, I have found three entries in the Senate records where lords were brought to task for violating the first rule by exploiting the second. On one occasion, it seems Duke Chyvn’s enemies in the Senate used the loophole to force him to reduce his armies just before they sent their own to demolish him and cut up his land. On a second, Countess Upala’s army had marched almost half-way across Shanri, destroying the smaller baronies as she went. The barons united in a vote and declared the size of her personal guard violated the army decision. She was forced to disband her personal guard down to reasonable size, giving her enemies enough time to rally and cut her down from a countess to a baroness.

Ven law is full of loopholes. I’ve included what remains of the Senate decisions list in this book. Where I could, I filled in missing spaces or used other scholars’ ideas on what might have been there based on readings of ven works. Read it carefully. Study it. Find them. The loopholes. And exploit them as the ven did.

Don’t be ashamed. The ven won’t be disappointed.

Important Assumptions
Some things you may know about our own legal system, important assumptions we live with every day, that ven law does not recognize.
No habeas corpus. “Produce the body.” The ven justice system can arrest anyone at any time for any reason and keep that person in custody for any amount of time. The prisoner does not have the right to see anyone, including a lawyer. Of course, the ven don’t have lawyers. See the next assumption.

No lawyers. The ven see understanding the Law as a vital part of being a citizen. If you don’t know the law, you aren’t being a good citizen and you deserve all the punishment you can get.

Right to privacy
Ven law does not recognize privacy as an inalienable right. Or even an alienable right. Or any kind of right at all, for that matter. Privacy is polite, it is not a law.

Freedom of Speech
No such thing. Suppression of information is common.

Freedom of Religion
No such thing. A lord is free to ban the reverence of any suaven. The only justice he may face is the wrath of the suaven in question.

Freedom of the Press
No such thing. See “freedom of speech,” above.

Innocent Until Proven Guilty
This may be the most difficult concept of ven law to understand. The ven do not assume innocence. Of course, the ven also don’t assume guilt. The ven assume nothing. In matters of legal dispute, the burden of proof rests on both parties. Whomever presents the best case wins the argument.

This is the ideal. Now, we all know in our own culture, our own ideal—innocent until proven guilty—is just that. It is an ideal. Do we always accomplish it? Of course not. But it’s our standard. It’s what we hope to achieve. The same can be said of the ven.

Right to Trial
Any ven citizen—that means the Blooded—has a right to trial. Note the lack of the word “speedy.” A criminal can be held without bail, but he cannot be held without trial. When that trial happens is up to the lord holding him.

This is where bribery comes into play. Otherwise known as ransom. Otherwise known as futali.

The Code of Law
Unfortunately, we do not have the complete ven code of law. We do, however, have some very good fragments giving us a good idea what it looked like. Not having the entire code is a good thing, though. It means the players can add to the law as they go along. You can find out how to do that later in this book. But, for now, here’s what we got, straight from the documents to you.

For the purpose and greater good of all ven, this Great Work has been undertaken. For those who follow its dictates, may they prosper. For those who do not, may they suffer their impertinence.

Established in this Year of the Founding, we hereby and forthwith put to page our names, validating this document, binding ourselves and our vassals to its Truth and Beauty.

May the righteousness of this document reach as far as ideas may reach. May it destroy wickedness, protect the strong from the weak, enlighten the land, and further the well-being of us all.

1.    All blooded are equal before the Law, regardless of rank or title.

2.    If a ven bring an accusation, and the accusation prove false, the accuser shall suffer the penalty for the crime.

3.    If a judge try a case, reach a decision, and present his judgment in writing; if later error shall appear in his decision, and it be through his
own fault, then he shall pay twelve times the fine set by him in the case, and he shall be publicly removed from the judge’s bench, and never again shall he sit there to render judgment.

4.    If any one steal the property of a temple or of the Senate, he shall be put to death.

5.    If any one buy from another without witnesses or a contract, he is considered a thief and shall be put to death.

6.    Or the son or wife of another.

7.    If any one steal cattle or sheep, or an ass, or a pig or a goat, if it belong to a suaven, the thief shall die.

8.    If any dispute of ownership should come before the Senate, those in dispute shall bring forward witnesses to testify on their behalf on the claim. Punishment for false testimony before the Senate is death.

9.    If a servant of one man be found in the house of another without permission of his owner, the servant shall be put to death.

10.    If any one receive into his house a runaway male or female servant, and does not bring it out at the public proclamation, the master of the house shall be put to death.

11.    If any man should trade cattle or sheep and find the sheep to be rotten, he shall have twice the trade from the man who traded to him.

12.    If the lord of a land should die, he who may control the land may claim it.

13.    Unlawful murder among the blooded shall be tried by the Senate.

14.    He who is found guilty of unlawful murder shall die.

15.    Planting crops in a neighbor’s field without the neighbor’s permission gives no right to harvest.

16.    The ven who seeds the field has the right to harvest the field.

17.    If any one owe a debt for a loan, and a storm prostrates the grain, or the harvest fail, or the grain does not grow for lack of water; in that year he need not give his creditor any grain, he washes his contract in water and pays no rent for this year.

18.    If a ven be too lazy to keep his dam in proper condition, and does not so keep it; if then the dam break and all the fields be flooded, then shall he in whose dam the break occurred be sold for money, and the money shall replace the corn which he has caused to be ruined.

19.    A ven shall study the suaven and learn their lessons.

20.    All children shall be sent to tutors.

21.    A husband who finds his wife in another man’s bed has right to Revenge.

22.    A wife who finds her husband in another woman’s bed has right to Revenge.

23.    It is better that men and women should remain single till death rather than marry unsuitables.

24.    These are the legal forms of sexual congress.

25.    This is ada: mutual consent of both the bride and groom

26.    This is eda: gift of a Blooded daughter to a priest of a great suaven

27.    This is paja: mutual consent of families for the purpose of a child

28.    usha: marriage upon bribing of the bride and groom

29.    These are the illegal forms of sexual congress.

30.    dava: intercourse of maiden and her lover out of sexual desire

31.    shasa: forceful abduction of bride

32.    sacha: where bride is intoxicated, sleeping, mentally disordered, in the order of piety of the marriage.

33.    If the husband does not please his wife, she being unhappy, the whole family is unhappy and miserable; but if the wife be quite contended with her husband, the whole family enjoys felicity.

34.    Let women be always propitiated (worshipped) by their fathers and brothers, by their husbands and the brothers of their husbands, in other words, they should speak sweetly to them and provide them with good food, nice clothes and ornaments, and thereby keep them happy. Those who seek great prosperity and happiness should never inflict pain on women.

35.    Fate and Chance decreed a ven’s station. Let him be happy with it.

36.    Only the Blooded may change a ven’s Fate.

37.    Lawful murder must be approved by the Senate.

38.    Blood contracts may be used to enforce the most important matters where the consequences are dire, when no other alternative is possible.

39.    Because no ven may enter a duel without equal advantage, the Blooded may use a blood sword if his opponent is guilty of the same crime.

40.    Sorcerous ritual is forbidden

41.    A thief will be punished by removing the offending hand.

42.    An Unblooded who insults a Blooded with gross invective, shall have his tongue cut out; for he is of low origin.

43.    Anything belonging to the Unblooded belongs to the Blooded.

44.    An Unblooded who lies to a Blooded shall have hot oil poured down his throat.

45.    If conspirators meet in the house of a tavern-keeper, and these conspirators are not captured and delivered to the court, the tavern-keeper shall be put to death.

46.    No ven shall make a verbal contract without witnesses.

47.    No ven shall make a written contract without witnesses.

48.    Matters of small note may be contracted without witnesses.

49.    Matters of small note may not be disputed if unfulfilled.

50.    Every farmer shall keep one oxen, one bushel of corn any seed and the tools he needs to perform his duty.

51.    In matters of dispute regarding possession, he who owns the item is the owner unless proven otherwise.

52.    If any ven break a contract, the punishment shall be decided by the offended party.

53.    Any service agreed upon unprovided shall constitute a broken contract.

54.    If a ven should so offend a suaven, be it through disgrace of the shrine or temple or any other thing, he shall be put to death.

55.    Judgment of any crime may be decided less if the punishment be called for death, as determined by the judge of the matter.

56.    Willful violation of the laws of Revenge shall be punished by death.

57.    Unknowing violation of the laws of Revenge shall be punished as the Authority sees fit.

58.    Unfit offering shall be punished by stoning and decapitation.

59.    If peace be offered between offending parties and another seeks to break that peace, he shall be put to death.

60.    Assault upon a merchant and his goods shall be punished by death.

No self-respecting man or woman of the Senate would ever be caught dead in a theater. Where the commoners put on their unremarkable pageants. Where actors summon inspiration from their own hearts and minds with something they call “improvisation.” As if the words of the author were not good enough for their peasant tongues.

Filthy. Uncouth. The crowd screaming at the actors, throwing biscuits and fruit. A mob, not an audience. And high above this mob, high above the rotten straw and the spilled beer, are the cloaked boxes where hooded men and women watch. And smile.

No self-respecting man or woman of the Senate would ever be caught dead in a theater.

The theater is the common man’s opera, but ven nobility have discovered a Truth about theater. It is where actors embrace what the ven call “the recalcitrant heart.” Plays are written by authors, but the actors are not expected to memorize the lines. Instead, they learn the part well enough to bring the true emotion of the character to the stage. Summoning the spirit of the character. Letting him enter you. Letting him speak for you. Letting him guide your hand, your tongue, your heart.

Often, the character cannot keep with the script. His own desires, his own passions. They guide him. Not the passions or desires of another. Actors on the stage know this and embrace it like a dagger through the chest. They allow the character to take over, to take the lead. Some ven claim to see a different person when an actor takes the stage. Possessed by the character, he is a different person.

Dangerous magic. Peasant magic. Not the forbidden sorcery. Something different all together.

This is the holy rule of the theater. Allowing the character to take the stage.

No set number of plots or characters. No rules. But the audience is always watching. The audience is unforgiving. They came to see that magic. Possession. And they can tell when an actor has it and when an actor does not.

Ithuna. “Faker.”

Cabbages and biscuits.

In the theater, the audience cheers, the audience cries. They boo and jeer. They grow deadly silent. Waiting.

When the ven go to the opera, they know what to expect. No-one knows what to expect in the theater. Anything could happen. Love. Revenge. Murder.

And an actor cannot be held responsible for what his character may do.

Love. Revenge. Murder.

The theater.

Nothing compares to opera.

The high alchemical Art, incorporating all other Arts. Drama. Music. Architecture. Dance.

And, of course, love and revenge.

Ven opera (the actual ven word best translates as “The Art that encompasses all other Arts”) is full of spectacle. Jim Steinman meets John Woo. The thunder of the music cracking the plaster in the walls. Actors bursting their throats, their eyes full of rage and tears. Musicians in the pit, playing furious anger and beatific joy. Choirs chanting choruses over and over and over.

There is no word in the ven language for “understatement.”

Like everything else, the ven are obsessed with the proper presentation of opera. So much so that they only recognize six plots as appropriate to the stage. This requires a bit of explanation.

Think for a moment about our own King Arthur. Just saying the name summons images and names. Camelot, Gwenevere, Lancelot, Excallibur, Mordred, Merlin, Morgana, love, loyalty and betrayal. Arthur’s story has been told thousands of times in thousands of different ways, but the key characters and elements remain. And though storytellers have taken liberty with Arthur’s tale, we accept those liberties so long as the truth of the story remains intact and honored.

When Arthur’s story goes too far from what we expect, we feel betrayed. Not an emotion easily explained. An instinct. An understanding. Almost as if we have to protect the story in some way.

So are the ven and their opera.

Only seven stories are worthy of the stage. The ven recognize these stories from the character’s names. Just as we would know the plot the moment Hamlet’s name was mentioned. Or Odysseus. Or even James Bond. And while the plot may weave differently, certain key elements remain. Secondary characters come and go, but the lynchpin personnae remain.

Authors and composers work to re-tell these six tales with different voices, using each to communicate a new moral, a new truth. Just as Arthur’s tale can communicate the conflict of true love and duty, so can it tell the conflict of Christian against pagan. So can it tell the tale of Britain’s natives against her invaders. Just a tweak of the pen and a familiar tale delivers a different message.

So are the ven and their opera.

Lesser tales are delegated to playhouses and street theater. But not the opera house. Not that great and sacred place. Seven stories. Only seven.

And there is only one ending. Blood.

The High Alchemical Art, combining all the disciplines into a transcendent experience. Music. Poetry. Drama. Transforming the opera house into the place of imagination, where heroes and stories wait to be discovered.

This time in ven history is the golden age of opera. Unfortunately, we have precious few texts from this time (because of the Dire Times that would soon follow), only a handful of the manuscripts from these amazing works. Most of the documents we do have are severely damaged, giving us only a glimpse of the work.

WORKS AND FOOLS
“Fate and Chance are the undoing of us all.”
— from the libretto of Ufaltir by Rhondir Yvarai

The ven were very specific about their opera. So much so they recognized only seven operas as “official.” All other operas were lesser works, not truly inspired, not Art.

These seven operas, or Great Works, may be called tragedies if there were not so much joy in the libretto and orchestration. It seems the ven found great joy in blood and death and calamity. But ven tragedy is very specific, and since the word has taken on so many different definitions in our own culture, I’ll take a moment to specify what the ven meant by the word.

For the ven, tragedy has specific necessary elements. To begin with, the ending must include the death or undoing of the hero. Also, the hero of the tale must be responsible for his own undoing. This may be a slight at the beginning of the opera that triggers a series of events eventually leading to his demise or it could be a deliberate action, a decision that destroys him. In short, “accident” does not belong in ven tragedy. Chance and Fate work against him, his end always inevitable, but his end is due to his own shortcomings. His own lack of Virtue.

The Great Works are based on seven characters that appear in all operas. Each opera focuses on one of these seven characters, otherwise known as “the Seven Fools.” These seven characters alternate as the main character. While the appearance of the characters may alter—the genders, the names, the relationships—the Seven Fools are consistent through all the Works.

Like I said, the Seven Fools have been portrayed as both genders, but the role itself is always referred to as gender specific. For example, there have been both male and female characters who fit the role of “the Rake,” but because he first appeared as male, that role is always referred to in the male gender.

The Seven Fools are: the Actress, the Dowager Duchess, the Husband, the Rake, the Swordsman, the Wife and the Wise Man.

THE ACTRESS
The character known as “the Actress” rises up through ven society through some sort of Art. She comes from humble beginnings, but convinced by the praise of others, she loses sight of those beginnings.

The first Actress was Q’vanna Yvarai from the opera of the same name. A common theater actress she took to the stage only to bring enough coin to feed her aging and crippled father. She was discovered by a slumming lord (the Rake), and enchanted by her beauty and talent, he trained her in the ways of the Great Art, bringing her to Shanri’s most magnificent opera houses. But her pride blinded her. She abandoned her lover, destroyed her reputation with scandal, and ends her life with suicide. The variations on the Actress are many, but nearly all of them end with the ambitious youth taking her own life.

THE DOWAGER DUCHESS
The Dowager Duchess is a woman (or man) who is advanced in age, but refuses to acknowledge the inevitable grasp of Solace. She acts like a young woman until the cruel truth of the world comes knocking on her door, and finding her unprepared, she faces death, losing the sleep of Solace forever.

The first Dowager Duchess was Lady Peacock, a very popular character in ven literature. A tragedy in every sense of the word, the opera begins as pure farce, a comical satire of ven culture’s hypocrisies and double-standards. She spends so much time with banter, she never takes advantage of opportunities to say something meaningful, to say and do the things she should before Solace takes her away. The opera ends with the Duchess’s inevitable passage into Solace, surrounded by friends and family, unable to speak, weeping, longing for just one more minute so she can say what needs to be said, to alter a tragedy of her own making. Of course, Solace claims her voice and all she can do is watch. The theme of the opera is plain: the end is sooner than you think.

THE HUSBAND
The Husband is often portrayed as the neglectful spouse. He is often male, although he has been portrayed as female on rare occasions (and equally rare success). His undoing is underestimating his wife’s (or husband’s) desires for independence and happiness.

The first appearance of the Husband occurs in the opera Darby’s Pride. Darby Steele spends all his time securing his lands, building a great castle, and ruining his enemies. All the while, his wife’s own desires are neglected. The opera portrays her as devoted, loving, and willing to sacrifice for security. She gives away a chance at true love with a less ambitious baron for Darby, and slowly regretting her decision. At the end of the opera, Darby discovers her in the arms (and bed) of another man. He kills them both and burns down his castle, racing into the wilderness, completely mad.

THE RAKE
The Rake is unmarried, either male or female, looking to rise through society through romantic conquests. His undoing is his own shallow heart and misunderstanding of the sacredness of love.

Of all the Great Works, it seems the ven were most liberal with the Rake. Identified by his name—a play on Sh’van, the original Rake—each opera seems to be a different argument about the true nature of love. He may be young, he may be old, he may even be a woman, but he always faces the conflict of love versus duty. In the original opera, he is a young noble seeking to restore the lands of his wounded father. Unable to maintain the lands himself, the Rake seeks allies by seducing wives of other nobles, secretly making alliances behind their backs. But true love calls in the form of a family friend, thought long lost, and everything the Rake has worked to accomplish comes crumbling to the ground when he must choose between the woman he loves and a woman who can save his lands. How the Rake chooses changes with each tale, but it always ends with a betrayal and tragedy.

THE SWORDSMAN
His prowess unmatched, he walks the streets of Shanri unafraid, taking all challenges. This is Cyrvanto, the Swordsman. Arrogant, and proud of it, he refuses apology, demanding the sword answer all threats to his honor. All of which, of course, lead to his undoing.
In Cyrvanto, we see the swordsman: a man of courage, wit, and cruelty. He has no mercy for those who would oppose him, no mercy for those who taunt him, no mercy for those who question his honor. But then, he meets his match: a woman of equal skill, of equal wit, of equal cruelty. It is she who undoes him. Looking to make a reputation for herself, she wins his favor and eventually his heart. Then, using the knowledge and trust she gained, she challenges him to a duel. Unable to kill the one thing he learned to love in all his life, her sword finds his heart, ending his life and the opera.

THE WIFE
The Wife is demanding, selfish and proud; the things that allowed her to reach the pinnacle of society. Unfortunately, these same qualities are her undoing.

The story of Benejitrix is a familiar one to the ven, found in the opera, One Stitch Too Many. Benejitrix is a beautiful woman married to a scoundrel of a man. Marrying for his lands, she hopes to end his life prematurely, claiming his lands as her own. Her stepson, equally ambitious, plots with his mother. (Many versions play up the sexual implications only hinted at in the first production.) Her plans are thwarted, however, by her own ambition and the betrayal of her stepson, leaving her scandalized and alone.

THE WISE MAN
The character of the Wise Man is one of the least popular subjects in ven opera. Of all the Fools, his tragedy seems the most difficult to make compelling to a ven audience. Most Artists see the Wise Man as a challenge, attempting to make this character into high Art. Most fail. Neglected for decades, it seemed the Seventh Fool would fall from grace… until one Artist succeeded to such a degree, all his following work was said to pale in comparison.

Entitled Bjornae, this particular Wise Man was not wise at all. Instead, he was a simple soldier thrown into circumstances beyond his control. On the verge of an attack from a legion of swordsmen, the desperate Count turned to a ragged soldier, seeking any advice at all. The soldier, completely over his head, gave the Count his advice. “Swimming requires stamina,” he said. This nonsensical statement was seen as deeply profound by the Count, who used it in a brilliant maneuver to defeat his enemies. After that moment, Bjornae becomes the Count’s advisor, giving him nonsensical advice the Count interprets as deeply insightful. The tragedy of the tale, of course, does not fall on the Wise Man, but on those who think themselves wise. Yvala Mrr wrote the opera, a daring shift from paradigm that stuck in ven consciousness for generations.

THE SERVANTS
Another omnipresent element of ven opera is the presence of “the Servants.” Two Servants, always named Ythala (a woman) and Talsho (a man), appear in all variations, acting as a kind of Greek chorus, giving exposition to the audience with their gossip.

Traditionally, the servants have the last word, giving the moral of the opera to the audience, although more bold artists use the Servants to comment on the moral. Dangerous. But then again, true Art is always dangerous.

Sheldon was a bullfrog. Was a good friend of mine.

Actually, Sheldon is an actor and a musician. He’s still a good friend of mine. And by “actor,” I mean real actor. Not us wanna-be community actors, no, my buddy Sheldon has skills.

So anyway, Sheldon and I used to go to LARPs. (That’s “live action roleplaying” for all you unsophisticated heathens.) A lot of LARPs. But Sheldon and I seemed to have a problem. We were driving home from a particularly boring LARP, complaining as we usually do. I don’t remember which of us suggested it, but one of us said, “Maybe we’re doing something wrong.”

But what could we be doing wrong? We had great characters. Characters with history. Deep history. Well-written and easy to work with. We were rich with potential. Untapped potential.

And yet, there we were. Bored out of our skulls. We’d interact with the other players, but only in a shallow way. There was just nothing to talk about.

And when we looked around, it seemed to us that the most successful players had the most shallow characters. That is, there really wasn’t anything to them. So, again, why were we having such a miserable time when those other folks were having so much success?

That was our first observation, but in fact, we were wrong. Our observation had betrayed us. It took deeper analysis to understand our problem. So, we sat at Norm’s (at 2:00 AM) and talked about it. Sheldon came up with the solution.

“We’re playing the wrong game,” he told me.

I grabbed the ketchup and Tabasco for my eggs. “What do you mean?”

“Our characters have deep secrets.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“That nobody knows but us.”

That made me pause. And think. “Yeah,” I said. Slowly.

We spent the rest of the night talking about the problem. It wasn’t a problem with the other players. They were playing the game correctly. The problem was with us.

I think Sheldon also nailed down the guy who could solve our problem. David Mamet. The director/screenwriter. His books and essays on “the method” approach to acting really inspired Sheldon, which in turn, inspired me. Using Mamet’s critiques, we came up with a solution to our problem.

From Mamet, to Sheldon, to me. To you.

What’s Wrong?
So, after that long introduction, let me explain what Sheldon and I were doing wrong and why it relates to David Mamet.

“The method” is an acting technique. Actors try replicating real life emotions, calling on sense memories from their own past similar to the emotions the character experiences. Method actors also create “rich interior landscapes.” That is, they create detailed histories for their characters. They know everything about their characters, so when a circumstance arises, they’ll know how their character would respond.

Rich interior landscapes.

Watching an actor on stage, watching him respond to something seemingly innocuous with a cryptic sigh or a mysterious glance or some other enigmatic gesture. The audience doesn’t know what it means, but obviously, the actor’s done his research. He’s done the work. He’s using the method.

Unfortunately, the audience doesn’t know what it means. The actor isn’t communicating anything to the audience.

In other words, he’s failing the entire purpose of acting. Communicating to the audience.

As gamers, we have a similar problem. We come up with elaborate and detailed backgrounds. Rich internal landscapes. And then, when we start playing, whole sessions go by without the other players having a single clue. Cooperative storytelling.

Characters have secrets. Sure they do. That’s fine. But authors use devices to give the audience clues as to why a character responds a certain way. We get to see that rich internal landscape. Even if a reaction is a mystery, we trust that somewhere down the line, the author will let us in on the secret. We’ll eventually understand all those cryptic sighs, mysterious glances and enigmatic gestures. Eventually.

But in roleplaying games, we keep secrets. We write the GM private notes. We take him aside for a whispered meeting. We keep that 24 page background to ourselves. Nobody else gets to see it. It’s ours and ours alone.

The method. Secrecy. Otherwise known as mental masturbation.

You are, quite literally, playing with yourself.

Nobody else is invited. Nobody else gets to know about your character’s past. That lost lover. That blood feud with your father. That secret conversation you had with your mother. Your childhood rivalry with your sister. Your secret marriage. That secret you’ve kept for twenty years and never told a soul.

All that rich background you’re selfishly keeping to yourself. That no other player will ever know about. It’s yours and yours alone. And you’re the only one who will ever enjoy it.

This is what’s wrong. We’ve got great characters and nobody knows but us. Why is that? Why do we feel we need to hide our characters’ secrets from the other players?

Well, most LARP settings are PVP (player vs. player), so we don’t want others to know our secrets. We assume the other players will take advantage of out-of-character information. And, sadly, we’re usually correct in this assumption. But at a table top game, surrounded by friends and people we trust, why do we still follow the same behavior?

Reflex perhaps. Maybe it’s just habit.

Well, let’s break that habit. Let’s get out of the “method” philosophy of character creation and play. Let’s try something different.
Let’s have open secrets.

A Novel Approach
Now, I should be up front about this. Many of these techniques are not new—I didn’t invent them—but putting them together in one set, with one philosophy guiding them, I think qualifies as “a new approach.”

I’ll take you through it, step-by-step. Read through them, adopt the steps you like, throw out the ones you don’t, come up with your own. After all, this whole chapter is about modifying things to your own group’s tastes. Step-by-step.

Character Background
One page.

That’s all you get. One page. I’ve provided a page for you at the end of the book for your character’s background. That’s all you get. Don’t try writing small or using a tiny font.

One page.

I know, you’ve got a lot to say about your character. This is what I call “Character Control Syndrome,” or “CCS.” You think this is the last time you’re going to have any control over your character, so you want to squeeze as much content and detail in there as possible.

Relax. Take deep breaths.

Just write one page. In fact, don’t even finish filling out the page. Leave a few details open. Figure out what you think is important, but leave the rest blank. Vague. Open. Let me tell you why.

I was playing a character once. A magic cop. I really didn’t have any idea about his past. I just kind of made him an arcane Columbo. But I bumped into a story involving a kidnapped girl. Something triggered in my head. I had no idea about my cop’s family. Wife, kids. No clue. I hadn’t really thought about it. But at that moment—that very moment—I knew he had a daughter. And he lost that daughter. I didn’t know how or why. I just knew it. I knew it.

That one little detail, a detail I didn’t know until I started playing, changed the entire course of the character’s past and future. Completely changed him. Turned him from an arcane Columbo into something much deeper. And, in a lot of ways, a lot scarier.

All because I had kept a detail open and filled it during play.

So, one page. That’s all you get. If that. You don’t need to know all the details before you roll dice. Some details—most, in fact—you can discover days, weeks, even months after the first session. You’ll bump into things that inspire you to fill in those blanks. Keep an eye out for even the tiniest details. After all, like grandma says, it’s the little things that make the soup.

External Exposition
Tony is a friend of mine. He has a style of play that’s always intrigued me. Specifically, he practices external exposition.

He doesn’t just tell you what his character is doing, he tells you why his character is doing that. Like an author, he gives you subtle clues. For example…

Tony’s playing RevQ’an Burghe, a minor Baron from the northern islands. He’s one of the many nobles at a party both of you decided to attend. As the GM, I ask Tony, “What are you doing?” This is his reply.

“I stand up,” he says. And he stands up. “And I walk across the room. My pace is slow. My head, hung low. My hand hangs on my sword pommel. Gripping it. Like I don’t know what to do with it. When I get to Baron Vaccon (that’s you, by the way), I hesitate. You can see there’s something in my eyes that tells you I don’t want to do what I’m about to do. And I think about the promise to Lady Shara I made. And the promise she made me. And then, I say, ‘Baron… I find myself in the position where I must challenge you to a duel.’”

Tony pantomimes all these behaviors. He pantomimes his hand on the sword. He walks across the room slowly. Uncertainty in his stride. And when he talks to you, his tone reflects the exposition he’s giving.

The exposition punctuates the action. Not only does he give you external clues, but he gives you internal clues as well. “I think about the promise…” He even gives a bit more information than he should. “And the promise she made to me.”

Tony leaves himself wide open when he plays. He exposes his character’s weaknesses, keeps no secrets. Why does Tony do this?
Because he knows his friends won’t take advantage of him and sabotage his fun. Besides, part of the fun is knowing other character’s weaknesses. And having other players know yours. We put weaknesses on our sheets because we want them exploited. We want to get hurt, get knocked down, get beaten within an inch of our lives. How can we come back from the bottom if we never even get knocked down?

You’re probably familiar with the term “Mary Sue character.” Over-idealized characters who never make a mistake, never flounder, never flub their lines. You see them all the time in fan fiction. You see them all the time in professional fiction, too.

You see them even more in roleplaying games. A lot more. Especially when you run con demos. Oh, Blessed Eris. Flashbacks. Flashbacks!
Excuse me for a moment…

It’s okay. I’m back.

One of the reasons I designed Houses with weaknesses was to avoid Mary Sue characters. The ven aren’t just bigger than humans in good ways, they’re bigger than us in every way. That means their flaws are bigger, too.

Now, if you play your character close to the chest, if you don’t let the other players see his foibles as well as his strengths, no-one will ever get to see that great background you developed or hear that inner monologue they’d usually get to hear if they were reading a book or watching TV.

Use external exposition. You don’t have to do it like Tony does. You can find your own way to do it. But do it. Let the other players in. Let them see the man behind the curtain. Armed with wagers, they’ll be more than happy to let your character live out that tired old Chinese cliché about “interesting times.”

And you’ll thank them for it.

No Passing Notes in Class
A lot of players like passing notes and having secret meetings with the GM. Especially in a game like this one where everyone has a secret to keep.

Here’s the news. That’s done.

It’s no fun to sit around while the GM goes off into another room with another player and has a private chat. For those of you who’ve done this (including in games I’ve run myself), I applaud your patience and your selflessness, but you don’t need to do it anymore.

Secret meetings get handled in front of other players. You got a note? Say it out loud.

Once again, we’re all grown-ups. We’re all friends. We all want to have a good time.

And nobody gives a single flaming turd about your rich internal landscape if they never get to see it. So, be a ven. You’ve got it. Flaunt it!

Share Plots
One of the side-benefits of being open about your character’s past is finding parallels with other characters.

You’ve got a vendetta? I’ve got a vendetta!

You’ve got a romance? I’ve got a romance!

You’ve got a hated uncle? I’ve got a favorite uncle! Maybe they’re the same!

The more connections with other characters you can make, the better. Giving you both something in common, something to talk about, something to commiserate about.

Trigger Plots
This takes a lot of trust. Use at your own risk.

The GM is a busy guy. He’s got five to six players to worry about, and sometimes, he just doesn’t have the time or focus to hit everybody every session. Sometimes, players get overlooked. Sad, but true.

With this little trick, you’ll never get overlooked.

As above, share your backgrounds with the other players. Send them all around the table. Everybody gets a peek. Look for trouble areas. You know, places where you could cause trouble if you were the GM.

Then, when you see an opportunity to do cause trouble, do it.

For example…

Shara has a problem with her father. All the players know this because they’ve read Shara’s background. They also know that she’s looking for the man who killed her mother. Armed with this knowledge, they start screwing with me.

They use wagers and style points to have Shara’s father come walking out into a party half-dressed and fully drunk. They use wagers and style points to have NPCs drop suspicious hints about secrets only Shara’s mother would know. And then there’s the kicker. One player uses style points and wagers to have Count Xanosh mention he has the missing pages from her mother’s diary.

Wagers and style points.

One more example. (Although, this one is kind of a cheat. I’ve changed the details a little bit for illustration purposes. I hope the people involved will forgive me.)

Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, there’s a young woman named Ro. She’s been playing a kind of dowager duchess in one of the playtest games and that character has a beloved servant:  her frightened and fragile maid, Alice. Now, for a few months, Alice has been shivering and quaking and nervous around all the big, bad, violent beautiful noisy people. Alice doesn’t talk much, fetches tea and biscuits really well and stays out of the way even better.

But then she got caught in a little bit of trouble and someone used sorcery to force Alice to tell the truth. Someone asked her, “What have you been up to?”

And someone spent a style point and answered for poor, little Alice.

Pantomiming the whole scene, the player shows us what happens when Alice is asked the question.

Poor trembling little Alice suddenly straightens her back. Her face calms. Her breath shallows. Her eyes fill with confidence. And Ro’s little helpless maid, speaks in a deep voice she’s never used before.

“I’m a house assassin, spying on my lady, sending information to Lord So-and-So.”

The whole room was stunned. Now, that’s a typical revelation for a game like this, but what can make a revelation like that great is that it can come from the players.

The GM could have done all the stuff we’ve been talking about, but he’s just one guy. Plus, he’s got five other players to worry about. I’ve got six GMs now, each complicating my plotlines, making things more difficult for me.

Just the way I like it.

When other people know how to punch your buttons, they get pushed. And as bad as that might sound, it’s a lot better than getting overlooked by a busy GM.

Flashbacks
I also allow other players to trigger flashback scenes with style points. If another character does something odd, reacts in an unexpected way, or otherwise catches the players off-guard (even if it’s the player in control of the character), someone spends a style point and we’re off to a flashback sequence.

Each player can spend a style point to participate, playing a part in the flashback. The player with the spotlight can run the scene as the GM or let the GM do her own job or let another player be the GM for a while. We invent a scene, right there on the spot, with circumstances similar enough to the scene we were just playing, adding deeper meaning to the scene and the character.

But remember the Lost Rule. Don’t make the flashback more important than the current scene. Flashbacks provide additional flavor to current action. Flashbacks do not eclipse current action.

Of course, you could run an entire session as a flashback scene if it’s really important. An example of that may be Shara reading her mother’s missing diary pages, finally getting her hands on mom’s missing diary pages. Three degrees of cool here.

• First degree of cool: the GM tells me what they say. Eh.
• Second degree of cool: the GM makes the prop pages himself and gives them to me to read. That’s pretty hip.
• Third degree of cool. The group plays out the events in the pages with all of us discovering together what happened. Yeah, it’ll take me weeks to recover from that.

Remember, the ven go to eleven. Or, in this case, to the third degree.

Conclusion
Here’s the big lesson here. Keeping secrets is fun. Revelation is fun. Revealing a secret you’ve been keeping for months is a lot of fun. You don’t have to use all the techniques I’ve listed above, nor do you have to get rid of secrets. But keeping everything to yourself isn’t just selfish, it’s spoiling everyone’s fun. Including yours.