HOUSE VALRYTH

[LichinCrocs 257]

 

 

⬥- HOUSE VALRYTH -⬥

THE STITCHED MEN

"The Debt Is Always Paid."

FOUNDED BY SER CASSIUS  VALYRTH

 

CONTENTS:

I. OVERVIEW

II. ORIGINS - THE FIRST COMPANY

III. THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE HOUSE

IV. SIGIL & HERALDRY

V. THE STITCH - MARKS OF THE FOLD

VI. CULTURE 

VII. FEASTING, DRINK

VIII. CEREMONIES & RITES

IX. THE LAW OF THE HOUSE

X. ORDER OF THE CRIMSON PELT

XI. DAILY LIFE & TRAINING

 

A knight of the Crimson Pelt, leading a skirmish.

 

OVERVIEW - A HOUSE WITHOUT WALLS

A house that has no castle, that takes no taxes, that rules no village, that owns no land, that has no standard flying from any sort of hereditary keep. From its inception, the man who founded it, Ser Cassius, understood that what he built was unfinished.

What House Valyrth has is something that most landed houses are centuries in search of, and most don't ever truly find. A reputation built not on holds or towers, titles or bloodlines, but on the things the Stitched Men have been willing to do, and the consistency with which they have done those things.

it is young, it still remembers its days as the Free Company, sellswords with a rule, a mark, and a reputation. Cassius took those men and made something of them. He gave them a name, a law, and a symbol to follow. He gave them a house to serve and a name to follow. What he has not yet given them is land because the land will come only when the right lord is found, and Cassius will not rush that. He did not build this house up from nothing to see it bend the knee in service to someone who does not value them.

They are soldiers, executioners, and oath-keepers. They are the people who do what everyone else won't do, but what must be done, and then pretend they never needed to do it at all. House Valyrth did not pretend. They were what they were, without apology. And they feasted on it afterward, for what's the point of doing the dirty work if you can't also live?

 

 

ORIGINS - THE FIRST COMPANY & THE BIRTH OF THE HOUSE

THE FREE COMPANY OF THE STITCHED MAN

 

It began without ceremony. Not a single document signed, not a crown placed on any head, nobody noble there to see it happen. The house took shape like its ruler did - slowly, roughly, held together by martial arm and need, surviving only because it refused to break when everything pushed against it.

Before walls were built, these people moved across dirt paths. They were to Free Company of the Stitched Man - yet the smallfolk shortened it, often in hushed tavern talk or sideways looks. Hardly typical mercenaries drifting from battle to battle. Unlike those who looted the countryside once contracts ended, they stepped away from such mess. Even if twice the coin was offered, they would not sell their swords to opposing sides. 

With Cassius in command, a single rule held fast: the closing of any bargain rested with you alone - yet only once each duty ended. Death found those who ran. Skin came off the backs of oath breakers. Everyday treachery got no room in the compamy, because even small-time lies sank most hired swords - and these fighters, bound tight by their code, wouldn’t fall that way

The word spread the way such words do, carried by soldiers who had fought beside them and enemies who had fought against them and lords who had hired them and found the problem gone the next morning. When the Stitched Men took a contract, the problem ended. 

THE MAKING OF THE HOUSE

 

Years passed before the Free Company began earning notice from lord. Wandering far, their name spread bit by bit. Hired only for grim and terrible work, tasks where cruelty meant little. When violence was expected, they arrived. Lords turned to them when armies failed, when coin changed no minds. If betrayal festered within a lord's domain, trust vanished, then outsiders became necessary. Men unconnected, owing loyalty to none, untouched by bribes.

He’d had enough of being used then tossed aside like an old rag. Not because he disliked the job- it fit him just right, actually, since roughness was apart of who he was. It wasn’t the fighting that wore thin. Being easily swapped out did. Men like him got hired fast and vanished faster. Jobs finished, groups scattered, taking only their blades along while leaving everything else behind. Something took shape under his hands - meant to last beyond any single job. Beyond his own time, really. If cared for right, it could still matter a century on.

From among the company's men those sworn, tested, proven , he called together the trusted ones. Not by chance, but by fire, they had earned their place

He told them at this grand gathering, that he was building a house, with laws. With heirs. With a symbol on a banner and a code written down and a ceremony for bringing people in and a ceremony for cutting out the ones who proved rotten. A house that would know what it was and why, long after the men who first built it were gone.

 

THE PHILOSOPHY - WHAT THEY ACTUALLY BELIEVE

 

. What sets House Valyrth apart begins not with intent, but understanding. Cruelty taken for enjoyment finds no home there. Pleasure drawn from pain holds no place in their actions. These traits belong to smaller minds, those sheltering their weakness beneath cruelty, simply because they crave the act itself. The true way of the Stitched Men emerges elsewhere. . It is a philosophy. A complete and internally consistent worldview that explains what they do, why they do it, and why they believe it to be not just necessary but correct.

SKIN IS DECEPTION 

All men hide something. They hide with words or with titles, maybe even with sort of a dignified face that has practiced appearing trustworthy and honest, they all hide behind their skin and smile, the only thing between what they truly are and the lies they may project onto others. Remove their skin and their facade collapses. What remains is the truth made bare. House Valyrth believes that truth is worth more than the comfort required to maintain it. One honest man is worth more than a thousand smiling false ones.

PAIN IS CLARITY 

All men believe they can maintain a lie until they cannot. Pain removes the capacity for deception before it removes the capacity for sly speech. House Valyrth does not flay for entertainment. They flay with with a purpose and a precision unseen by others. each cut is a question made truth, each strip of bare skin stripped is a layer of deception removed. This is not torture in the purposeless sense. This is investigation. The body, in extremity, cannot construct lies fast enough to outpace true agony.

JUSTICE WITHOUT MERCY IS CLARITY WITHOUT SENTIMENT 

Mercy, applied with out cause, is weakness given a better name. Every exception made to a code erodes it. A code that can be eroded is not a code, it is nothing more than an a suggestion for weak men to follow. The Valyrth believe that a traitor shown mercy teaches every man watching that treachery is survivable. They will not teach that lesson. Terror applied to oath-breakers, to betrayers, to the men who compromise the whole for their own advantage make the world more orderly. Someone must be willing to be the instrument of that truth, The Stitched Men are willing.

A MAN'S WORD IS THE MOST VALUABLE THING HE OWNS 

What a man says lasts longer than their breath ever could. When promises crack, the sound carries beyond one's life. One lie does not only stain the liar. It weakens every vow others lean on to keep order standing. For House Valyrth, the break of someones promise is worse than murder. Their laws twist and turn but always return to this one truth.

MERIT ABOVE EVERYTHING 

an actual principle, enforced daily, without exception for rank or bloodline. The yard does not lie nor does the field. The record of what a man did when things were hard does not lie. No lineage, no stitch, no title granted by the lord himself can be substituted for that record when it says something unflattering about the man. Rank may be inherited. Respect is not. Every member of the Valyrth understands the difference between those two things and which one actually matters.

THE HOUSE ABOVE THE MAN 

Individual ambition is subordinate to the houses purpose. You exist to serve what the house is building. The house does not exist to serve the personal comfort or advancement of each man. This is not slavery, it is chosen, every day, by people who understand what they are part of and believe it worth the cost. When the house requires sacrifice, its members give it without any negotiation. The only acceptable question is whether an action serves the house or not.

 

“We are not heroes. We are not storybook Knights. We are the men who do what must be done when all prettier solutions have already failed. We bear the weight of being hated so that justice can stand. This is not a burden. It is purpose.”

SIGIL & HERALDRY

 

THE STITCH - MARKS OF THE FOLD

Every true member of House Valyrth bears a mark in the skin that cannot be removed, cannot be faked, and cannot be bought. A stitch drawn through the skin of the left or right forearm or, for the most senior of the house, through the skin of the neck. A hot needle. Thick thread, colored by rank. The needle is driven through, the thread pulled tight, it is repeated a dozen times until the stich is complete. It is done once. It does not come out. The stitch is the oath made physical, the house worn in the flesh. It hurts for months afterward. Every time the arm moves, there is a subtle pull at the tissue. This is intentional. Oaths that do not cost anything to keep are not oaths. They are wishes.

RED THREAD - THE HEIRS

Never more than three red stitches exist in the valyrth at any time. Red is not given by birth order, not given by age, nor given by who the persons father was. It is given by the lord alone, after watching and testing and waiting long enough to be certain. the heirs operate as his direct second in commands, his voice where he is not present, his hands in matters he cannot personally attend to. They do not rank above each other. They are equals in succession and fom the moment the red thread goes in, every other member of the house is watching them. Not out of hostility but out of the Valyrth habit of judging. Red carries the expectation of something akin to perfection, and the weight of that never fully lifts of their shoulders.

ORANGE THREAD - THE BLOODLINE

Orange marks those born into the Valyrth name the blood of the house. Not heirs, but not ordinary either. They carry the lineage. They tend toward officership, strategy and other roles of command.. It says absolutely nothing about what they will do with that fact. That is entirely up to them, and the house watches to see which way it goes.

BLACK THREAD - ADOPTED 

Black is for those who were not born Valyrth but were chosen. Adopted members, exceptional soldiers brought in from outside, those who proved themselves so thoroughly that the lord decided the house was the right shape for what they already were

REMOVING THE STITCH

House Valyrth considers anyone who removes their stitch to have removed themselves from the house and from whatever protections the house's name afforded them. Former members who flee and cut out their stitches are not forgotten. The house is patient. It has time. And it tends to find what it is looking for, eventually

CULTURE - HOW THE STITCHED MEN LIVE

The story outsiders tell about House Valyrth is that their hall is cold and silent and populated by men who have forgotten how to laugh. Men who live only for the blade and the knife and the grim way of their art. This story is wrong in the way that all simple stories about complicated things are wrong.

The Stitched Men are loud. They argue loudly, drink loudly, sing loudly and badly and with the unselfconscious ferocity of people who have decided that if they are going to do something they are going to do it completely. They tell stories about people who are still in the room, and the people in the room argue about whether the story is accurate, and the argument goes long.

The darkness is real. The Flaying Rite is real. The law is real and its enforcement is real and there are days in that hall when something happens that marks everyone present for a long time afterward. But darkness coexists with the rest of it, because the Stitched Men are people, and people who refuse to also live tend to become the kind of hollow, dead-eyed men that House Valyrth specifically does not want in its ranks.

RADICAL HONESTY AS CULTURE

The most disorienting aspect of Valyrth culture for outsiders is the complete absence of social lying. If your plan is bad, someone will say so and explain why. If your performance in the yard was bad, you will hear about it in specific detail. If a decision made by leadership was wrong, a subordinate will say so openly in the presence of the leader, and the leader will respond to the argument rather than the audacity of it being made.

. In a culture of complete honesty, you never have to wonder where you actually stand. You never have to decode a smile. You never have to navigate the elaborate politics that other houses use to manage the distance between what people think and what they say. 

FEASTING AND DRINK

When House Valyrth feasts, it feasts with the same total commitment it applies to everything else. The table is long. The fire is large. Meat comes out on bones rather than arranged prettily on serving platters, because no one here is trying to impress anyone with presentation. The ale and the wine move continuously. The hierarchy of the house does not disappear at the table, the lord sits at the head and that means something, and no one mistakes his position there but the societal distance between ranks collapses in a way it does not elsewhere. A sworn soldier can sit within a few seats of a red-thread heir. His cup gets refilled by the same hand.

THE BLACK

There is a house drink. dark, viscous, and highly alcoholic, tasting of woodsmoke and old iron, kept in the lord's personal stores and poured only when he judges an occasion worthy of it. The men call it simply the Black. Being offered a cup of it is a meaningful gesture, it means the lord has decided that you and this moment deserve it. 

CEREMONIES & RITES

A knight of the Pelt, bearing a severed head.

 

THE FIRST STITCH

The ceremony by which a person enters the house in full. it has no fixed age. The Lord decides when based on what he has seen, not on how much time has passed. When he decides, the household is called together. The candidate stands in the center. the lords holds the needle and the thread and he performs every First Stitch himself and he asks one question. "Will you hold?" Answered by extending the forearm. Or the neck, for those whose position demands it. The needle goes in. The thread is drawn through. The candidate holds. Most scream. Screaming is not shameful. Pulling away is. If you pull away, the ceremony ends, and you leave with the lesson and come back when you're ready, if you're ready. If you hold, the stitching is completed, and when the last stitch is in, Cassius says two words: "You hold." And thats the whole thing.

THE FUNERAL RITE

When a member dies in the field, in the hall, of age the body is washed and wrapped in a shroud bearing the chimera At the burning, before the fire is lit, the Lord recites what the house calls the Accounting, a summary of the deceaseds service. What they did. What they contributed. Where they fell short. The truth of them, complete. The body is burned. As the fire rises, each attendee present speaks one sentence towards the deceased. Sometimes they are compliments. Sometimes they are not. What they are is true, and that is what a life in this house earns, the truth told about you, all the way to the end.

THE BLADE GIVING

When a member of the house proves themselves exceptional, through sustained excellence, through a particularly difficult task done well, through years of the kind of reliable competence that keeps the house functioning , they earn the right to commission a personal blade. A flaying knife, custom-made to their specifications, balanced for their hand alone, maintained to an edge that catches light. The lord presents it, examines it first, tests it, and if it meets the standard, places it in the hands of the proven while saying "This blade will tell truth. Use it well." From that day the blade is theirs until death, when it is buried with them or passed to a hand worthy of it but Never to an unworthy hand.

 

THE LAW OF THE HOUSE

House Valyrth governs itself by its own law, not the law of whatever kingdom they happen to operate near, not the law of any lord above them, because there is no lord above them yet. The law applies the same way to every member. Red thread or black thread, twenty-year veteran or new stitch, the law applies.

I. FINISH THE CONTRACT

What you commit to, you complete. An task is not done because it became difficult, because circumstances shifted, or because you no longer feel like finishing. Difficulty is not an excuse. Fear is not an excuse. The only acceptable reason to stop is death, and even that is subject to interpretation depending on how it happened and why. Abandonment without cause is among the gravest offenses in the house.

II. KEEP WHAT YOU SWEAR

An oath sworn in this house is absolute. Swear to protect someone you protect them until the arrangement legitimately ends or they release you. Swear to speak truth in council, you speak it regardless of what it costs you. That Is Rule Two.

III. FLAY WHAT BETRAYS

Those who violate the first two commandments are not fined. They are not demoted. They are not exiled, because exile releases them into the world with the houses secrets still in their head. They are flayed. This is the laws oldest piece, inherited directly from the company, and it has never been amended. It the real and terrible cost attached to the breaking of the oath, which is what makes the oath worth anything at all.

 

We do not flay because we enjoy it. We flay because the alternative is a house where oaths are suggestions. And a house where oaths are suggestions is not a house. It is a gathering of strangers waiting to betray each other.

- HOUSE VALYRTH SAYING.

THE ORDER OF THE CRIMSON PELT

A band of Sutured, lead by a Peltsman.

"Stripped of Everything False"

There are knights, and then there are the men and women who wear red. The Order of the Crimson Pelt is House Valyrths formal knightly arm the warrior elite that stands above the house guard, alongside the best officers the orange thread produces, and at the cutting edge of everything the house presents to the world. They are the face that precedes the name. When lords want to know what House Valyrth is not in the abstract, but in the flesh, walking toward them this is what they see.

They are called the Crimson Pelt. 

THE ARMOR - WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE

Full plate head to foot. The base metal is dark red, unpolished iron the color of dried blood, never bright, never reflective. Over this base, every surface is enameled in deep crimson worked and crazed to suggest exposed muscle and tissue rather than metal. From a distance it is just red armor. Up close, the detail resolves into something that makes the stomach of lesser men drop, it is a suggestion of a man wearing what lies beneath his skin as though it were the armor itself.

THE PATH - FROM SUTURED TO KNIGHT

THE SUTURED

A squire of the Order is called a Sutured. The Minimum age fourteen, typical entry fifteen or sixteen with late bloomers going into the early 20s, selected by the Orders Captain from across the houses membership and sworn bannermen by demonstrated prowess and martial skill.

A Sutured serves an knight until the Captain declares them ready. Some are ready in four years. Some need eight. The length says nothing about worth. A knight elevated at year four who fails the code is worth less than a Sutured who spent seven years learning exactly what the Order demands.

 

The valiant men at arms of the Valyrth charging into battle.

THE TRIAL OF THE EARNED PELT

Before a Sutured can be considered for elevation to knighthood, they must fulfill the martial tradition that gives the Order its name. A squire must claim a trophy from an opposing champion or foe defeated in open combat specifically, the hide or skin of the fallen foe.

This trophy is cured, treated, and dyed to match the deep maroon of the Order, functioning as the heavy cloak of the to be knight. It stands as a permanent testament to the commitment of the knight to the order. A knight of the Order literally carries the weight of their defeated enemies into every subsequent battle, it is to wear the cloak to prove you have already broken the house's foes.

ELEVATION

When the Captain's judgment comes, elevation happens at a feast or other gathering, it is one of the few Valyrth rites that takes place in the presence of the whole household at table. It is a rare occasion for the house. It is treated accordingly.

The Knight of the Crimson Pelt shall obtain the complete armor and takes the Orders oath separately and additionally from their house oath. They receive their named blade from the lordsown hands, every blade named by the Lord based on what he has observed in the knight receiving it. It is The Lords judgement made manifest in steel.

THE CAPTAIN

Above the knights sits the Captain of the Order, selected by the lord from the exceptional of the knight order. The Captain commands in the field, sets training standards, reviews aspirants, and answers to the lord himself. They Act The Leader Of The Crimson Pelt.

 

The Crimson Pelt’s captain.

THE CRIMSON PARDON

While the Order primarily recruits from promising young men, there exists a secondary, less common path into the ranks of the Sutured. Those who have committed severe crimes against House Valyrth such as treason, high insubordination, or severe violations of house law but who possess exceptional martial skill or prowess, may be offered the Crimson Pardon as an alternative to execution or flaying.

Upon accepting, the criminal undergoes a oathing known as The Unmaking. Before they are permitted to touch a training blade, their name is struck from all civic records and their family ties are legally severed. They are then forced to don the sutured armor and kneel before the Captain to swear the Oath of the Unmade

"I stand before the Crimson Pelt stripped of name, blood, and honor. My past is ash and my face shall be steel. I swear to hold the line where the vanguard breaks, To march without question into the jaws of the rot, And to bleed until my crimes are washed away. If I fall, I die a nameless man. If I endure, I earn the pelt, or I die trying. From This Day On, I am unmade."

 

They must endure the exact same grueling training and discipline as standard squires. If they survive the years of service and successfully secure their earned pelt from a man of the houses enemies, they are granted the standard elevation. Upon taking the final oath, their past crimes are considered entirely washed away in service, and they are reborn as a weapon of House Valyrth.

 

THE FOUR TENETS

 

Hold the line. Name your oath. Remove the rot. Carry the fire forward.

• THE FOUR TENETS, ORDER OF THE CRIMSON PELT

Hold the line means no abandonment of position absent direct order from above. 

Name your oath means that every commitment must be spoken aloud, clearly, in front of witnesses, unnamed oaths will have unnamed consequences.

 Remove the rot means oath-breaking within the Order is reported to the Captain immediately, failure to report makes you equally punishable.

 Carry the fire forward means that the Order exists to endure past you, and every knight's conduct must reflect that.

DAILY LIFE & TRAINING

THE SHAPE OF A DAY

The yard opens before sunrise. It applies to everyone with a stitch and everyone who swears under the chimera. It applies to even the Lord Of The Valyrth himself. You do not outrank the yard. The morning block is physical and is made out of weighted sprints, grappling, the necessary work of maintaining a body that is ready for what it might be asked to do. The midday block is weapons with training in blade forms, shield wall drills, cavalry response, siege improvisation. The evening block is strategy and theory, conducted in the hall over maps and food, where anyone with a rank above basic soldiery may speak and any plan may be argued against. A bad plan that kills people is worse than the discomfort of a lesser rank being right about it.

Between training there is work. The house maintains its own armory, its own smithing, its own livestock. Members rotate through such labor regardless of rank. An officer who believes mucking the stable is beneath him will find the lord's opinion of that attitude applied to his standing in the house in a very lasting way.

THE ANATOMY & THE ART

Members with sufficient rank and demonstrated stability are trained beyond standard soldiery in the specific art of flaying of the house, the study of human anatomy, the techniques of prolonged interrogation, the skill of the knife applied with almost surgical skill. This training takes years and is not offered universally. It requires a particular kind of composure, the ability to be present and intentional in situations where most people's instinct is to either participate emotionally or remove themselves entirely. Neither works for what this house requires. What is required is the third thing, which is harder to teach and harder to learn, and which the house spends considerable effort developing.

 

An anatomical depiction of a flayed man.

FAILURE & DISCIPLINE

Failure is addressed immediately and in proportion. Minor failures such as poor form in the yard, almost no effort in training, a moment of weakness in a small thing will result in heavy work, additional duties, loss of personal time. Moderate failures such as repeated poor performance, a fundamentally bad approach to a task, result in formal remediation, unofficial demotion among peers, exclusion from advanced work until standards are met. Severe failures sich fundamental inability or refusal to meet what the house requires result in discharge

What House Valyrth does not do is carry people. It does not offer endless second chances packaged in soft language designed to avoid acknowledging the failure of men. It is honest about what you are and what you are not, and if what you are is not enough for what is required, it tells you that and ends the arrangement before more time is wasted on both sides.

RECREATION

Members of the house drink heavily, collectively, and as a genuine social activoty. They wrestle and spar and occasionally break each others bones without it becoming a blood feud, because physical contests are a way of establishing hierarchy and settling small disputes and maintaining fitness all at the same time. They also tell stories, sometimes the old ones about the company, the newer ones about the house, and even stories that feature people currently in the room who are permitted and expected to argue about whether the telling is accurate.

 

 

Spoiler

WHAT TO EXPECT

House Valyrth is made for players who want their words to carry weight and their oaths to mean something real. This is not a house for casual court politic rp, light adventure rp, or a community that will not hold your character accountable for the things they commit to. 

Discord:https://discord.gg/hJYGr3hgja

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 24 by LichinCrocs

[LichinCrocs 257]

 

Spoiler

 

 

Edited May 24 by LichinCrocs

[Martino 27]

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The man in gold would read upon this piece. His eyes squinting upon the letters content. Intrigued by the informations. Though he already knew about all of them beforehand. His reaction was merely produced by the beautiful depictions on the paper. He seems to float in memories of old times. 

"What a nostalgic experience... I am impressed he got to work this fast again after what happend in Idunia. Well, atleast now we will be able to fullfill our goals more efficently with no filthy parasites draining our energy..." , he would utter before once again, burning another letter. This time tho, the faint smell of smoke seems to stick around for longer, as if it had more meaning then the rest lingering about.
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Edited May 24 by Martino

[Pegleg_Bob 1107]

Spoiler

Welcome House Flay, True Kings of Haense