House Lombardo

Identity & tradition

House Lombardo travelled as sellswords, mercenaries and knights for hire. It offered a formidable force to whichever side would pay the right coin. Beneath the armour, its reputation was closer to pirates than idealised chivalry: Lombardos were also known as double agents, thieves and scammers.

The words passed down

“The road owes us nothing.”

Where the saying comes from

The thin soils and exhausted workings of Ironwake sent armed companies onto roads toward employers and coves. Armour needed repair and a company needed feeding long before a patron’s promises became coin.

Survival depends on skill, preparation and a bargain that actually pays. The House uses that hard lesson to defend both resourcefulness and its reputation for taking what it can.

When it is heard

Before a company departs, when inspecting equipment, or when a recruit trusts a promise without considering its cost.

Modern fighters inherit the demand to earn their place and maintain their kit. An honourable captain hears self-reliance; a double-dealer may use it to excuse abandoning an employer.

The name you carry · Combat & armed operations

Fighting, shooting, combat training, tactical teams and armed protection.

The duty forged in the Doom

Companies once hired by rival courts defend the common evacuation and its vulnerable convoys. Their fighting force acquires a lasting Family obligation.

The inherited duty in the modern crew

Combat-focused players, shooters, tactical squads, trainers and protection details. Weapons and tactics follow each game’s rules and era.

Protects Bambino deliveries and Marino operations using Luciani information and Garbonzo equipment.

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 Ironwake Reach · Ironwake

A dry rain-shadow region with hot exposed summers, thin soils and sudden runoff after storms. Broken hills, exhausted workings, fortified road stations and steep paths descending to concealed southern anchorages.

Armoured companies can earn more beyond these poor lands than within them. Roads connect them to employers in either faction; coves offer an escape or an unrecorded landing. Lombardo’s reputation for double agency, theft and scams follows from these choices, not from an honourable-knight ideal.

The hammer recalls ironwork and weapons repair; the tower recalls fortified stations and the knightly appearance sold to clients. Together they mask the reputation of pirates in knight armour.

Trade partners

Bambino supplies mounts and leather; Vespucci finds employers; Fachelli buys armed service and Marino buys escorts or discreet passage. Company income depends on outsiders because local harvests are poor.

Music & oral tradition

Marching rhythms, iron struck in repair yards and gambling refrains that change with the employer. A boast is a company’s claim until a chronicle supports it.

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

The early allegiance

Knights for hire · allegiance for the right coin

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

Coin, opportunity and the strength to make themselves useful shape the House tradition. A contract can put their force behind either claimant, but hiring Lombardo does not guarantee honest dealing or enduring loyalty.

What the family passes down

The knightly appearance and fortified banner are part of the contradiction. Clients see an armed company capable of holding a position; rivals remember that the same armour may conceal a thief, a swindler or a second employer.

The tension within the tradition

The House profits from being strong enough to hire and dangerous enough to distrust. A Lombardo character may honour a contract or betray it, but must contend with the reputation of pirates in knight armour.

The banner of House Lombardo

The hammer & fortified tower · Charcoal iron & rust red

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

Who paid for the most consequential change of sides, and which employer never learned that a second bargain existed?

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