House Garbonzo

Identity & tradition

House Garbonzo was loyal to House Fachelli from day one, swearing its banners to the Fachelli family. Unlike the marriage ties connecting Marino and Bambino, Garbonzo allegiance creates no blood relation to Fachelli. The Houses remain distinct families on the same side of the early struggle for the throne.

The words passed down

“The hearth must outlast the winter.”

Where the saying comes from

In the Orsava Uplands, the worst northern winters closed roads. Stored grain, maintained tools and fuel kept households alive until the southern passage reopened.

Build and preserve what others need to endure. Winter also becomes the long memory of hardship, betrayal and obligations never repaid.

When it is heard

While counting reserves, teaching a craft, repairing a home or asking relatives to survive another loss together.

Workshops and crews inherit the hearth’s meaning. An elder may use the saying to keep a feud alive in memory; a younger relative may use the same words to argue that reconciliation will keep the household alive.

The name you carry · Crafting & production

Crafting, building, repair, resource processing and dependable production.

The duty forged in the Doom

Winter survival becomes the craft of keeping an exodus alive: repairing transport, making equipment and preserving working tools and reserves.

The inherited duty in the modern crew

Crafters, builders, repair specialists and production organisers. Materials may be gathered locally or supplied by the other Houses.

Turns materials procured by Bambino into equipment and goods needed by every House. Their practical dependence exists alongside a generational feud; cooperation is necessary and trust must be earned.

This historical specialty carries into the modern crew. Members can develop secondary skills; the Commission confirms crew placement and appoints actual ranks.

Read the Ashen Compact and the seven duties ↗

The homeland in Vardessa

The Orsava Uplands · Orsava Hold

The harshest winters in Vardessa fall on northern Garbonzo: the highest, most exposed Greyspine holds endure deep snow, frozen roads and a short growing season. Conditions ease southward toward Orsava Hold; lower terraces grow oats and barley, while the southern Fachelli border is milder still. Wooded mountain slopes, upland grazing, barley and oat terraces, storehouses and the pass road descending toward Crownspire.

Winter storage and keeping the southern road open make continuity and provision sources of pride. The Hearthbound Way binds the uplands to the Fachelli market and court. The original allegiance remains sworn service between separate families: Garbonzo has no blood relation to Fachelli.

The bear belongs to the northern forests and their brutal winters: endurance, shelter, stored reserves and fierce defence of the household. It explains the House’s seasonal habits as well as its strength.

Trade partners

Fachelli is the strongest landward market and sworn ally. Marino needs its timber; Vespucci arranges river transport and purchases of coastal salt. Winter reserves are built from both local harvests and imported supplies.

Music & oral tradition

Low communal winter singing, slow hearth refrains and work rhythms for hauling timber. Bear imagery belongs to survival, patience and the defence of stores.

Find the hold, roads and borders on the ancestral atlas ↗

The early allegiance

Sworn to Fachelli · no blood relation

Modern history

Luciani proposes the first union after Cenerath’s eruption: the Ashen Compact brings the survivors beneath the Fachelli crest before they flee Vardessa. Later divisions culminate in the 1935–1940 Red–Blue Civil War between Fachelli and Vespucci, which nearly destroys Garbonzo and Bambino. Luciani brokers the 1940 peace that establishes the seven-seat Commission. The Houses arrive in Montaro in 2026. Shared origin, complementary duties and unfamiliar outside powers make cooperation necessary; unity does not create one bloodline or erase what one family did to another.

No individual modern events have been added to this House record yet. Its early role and membership in the united Family in Montaro are established.

What survives the union

Old grievances travel in household stories, pauses and jokes whose humour can conceal resentment. A slight can reopen an old wound, but love, marriages, new alliances and shared challenges can also bind descendants their ancestors taught to distrust. Do not assume either inevitable betrayal or automatic reconciliation: each generation chooses what to carry forward.

Relationships

These relationships begin in Vardessa and carry different pressures into later eras. A House tradition does not fix every descendant’s allegiance. Specific marriages connect named people; sworn banners do not create kinship.

See the early factions and their later union ↗

Founding family & descendants

Meet the elders and explore the recorded family tree ↗

Modern characters

Notable characters will appear here as their histories enter the public record.

Campaign appearances

Campaign participation has not yet been assigned in the public record.

Values & reputation

The defining inheritance is loyalty to a sworn banner. Land, provisions and old wealth remain part of Garbonzo identity, but its place in the early conflict is clear: it stands with Fachelli. The bear carries the weight of that steadfast allegiance.

What the family passes down

Garbonzo remembers the original pledge as an oath between separate Houses. Shared service must never be mistaken for descent from a Fachelli ancestor.

The tension within the tradition

Fachelli accepts Garbonzo loyalty while reserving genuine respect for its own family. That unequal bond leaves room for pride, resentment and hard choices across generations without rewriting Garbonzo’s original allegiance. Garbonzo and Bambino have rivalled for generations. Their original service as proxies of Fachelli and Marino turned the great Houses’ contests into personal losses and conflicts their descendants regard as unforgivable. That feud survives changes of faction, feeding internal rivalry, betrayal and disputed loyalties; it is an inherited pressure, not a command that every descendant must hate. Their modern dependence on one another for making and distributing goods forces cooperation without requiring forgiveness.

The banner of House Garbonzo

The bear · Dark umber & harvest gold

The House’s early role is established. The founding register fixes the first named households and two Marino–Bambino marriages. Unknown intervening ancestors, additional marriages, oath terms and battle accounts enter the chronology as the Commission and community develop them.

A question for the next generation

What did the first pledge require, and how did later Garbonzos justify loyalty to a House that would never regard them as equals?

Members: develop a biography, descendant line or chapter resolution ↗