The humans of House Vadalis bear the Mark of Handling, which gives members a bond to natural creatures. The most significant business of the house is the breeding and sale of animals. Through use of the mark and primal magic, House Vadalis has developed the art of magebreeding—weaving magic into natural bloodlines, binding new strengths into mundane creatures. The Mark of Handling has also allowed Vadalis to domesticate creatures that few unmarked trainers could manage. If one wants a griffon mount or a warhorse with preternatural strength and speed, House Vadalis is the place to find it.

House Vadalis is a family first and a business second. Although many heirs choose to work on one of the massive ranches, others prefer to wander the world, and are often found in places too small to support dragon marked enclaves. A village with no Sivis message station might have a Vadalis heir who raises birds, using the Animal Messenger ritual to help his community speak to the outside world. Wherever they go, whether they work for a house business or find their own paths, Vadalis heirs are expected to respect the bond of blood and to help one another in times of trouble; the family comes before all else.

The Mark of Handling has a primal aspect, and House Vadalis has produced a number of gifted druids. Over the course of the last century, the house has sought to strengthen ties to the druids of the Eldeen Reaches. The Wardens of the Wood are on good terms with House Vadalis, but the Ashbound druids despise the magebreeders, and have attacked Vadalis ranches on many occasions.

Symbol

House Vadalis claims to have bred the first hippogriff. Whether or not this is true, they were certainly the first to domesticate the creatures and sell them as mounts; this was a strong part of their early success and an obvious choice for house symbol. However, as the house breeds many flying mounts, it’s not considered gauche for a Vadalis to back a different creature in the Race of Eight Winds.

History

Around 2,000 years ago, a few human families traveled west to settle in what is now the Eldeen Reaches. It was a hard land, but they endured—and two centuries later, the Mark of Handling appeared on their children. This event was seen as a gift from the Sovereign Host, a way to help the Vadalis families survive and prosper in the hard lands.

Today House Vadalis is seen as fairly benevolent, but there are dark secrets in its past. The Seryan line of the house has always been interested in the dark power of the natural world. While others focused on breeding better livestock, the Seryans studied the displacer beast and the dire wolf. Their research came to the fore during the War of the Mark. House Vadalis takes bloodlines seriously, and it was quick to join the other houses in the effort to eliminate bearers of aberrant dragon marks. During that war, the Seryans revealed the fruits of their labors: horrific living weapons. Much of their work was so terrible that records of it have been suppressed. Following the war, their creations were destroyed and their practices outlawed by the new Council of the Twelve.

Following the War of the Mark, the heirs of House Vadalis settled into their work, breeding mounts and livestock and wandering the world. House Vadalis has never been one of the most powerful or profitable houses, and it has never tried to be. The Vadalis heirs are a family, and they do what they love.

The Last War: The Last War was good for house business. House Vadalis produced magebred bears for the Brelish special forces, dragonhawks for Aundair, and all manner of mounts and warbeasts. It was during the war that the organization known as the Feral Heart rose within the house—a group that sought to re-create and improve upon the forbidden techniques of the Seryan line, including the practice of magebreeding humans.

During the Last War, the Eldeen Reaches seceded from Aundair. Even though its seat of power lay within the newly independent Eldeen Reaches, House Vadalis remained neutral in this struggle and still takes no side in the clash between the two nations.

Toward the end of the war, the hunters of Balinor’s Blessed ignited a bitter feud between House Vadalis and the Valenar elves when they sought to steal a herd of Valenar horses. House Vadalis is fascinated by these animals, and is always interested in acquiring a Valenar steed; however, to date it has not managed to breed one of the fey horses.

Family Business

The dragonmarked houses consist of extended families—separate bloodlines that all trace back to a common ancestry. However, the sheer size of most houses means that few house members can claim any sort of relationship outside their immediate family unit within the house. House Vadalis is the exception to this rule.

While the other houses have done their best to increase their size and influence on Khorvaire, House Vadalis has taken almost the opposite stance. Every Vadalis heir over the age of 10 can recite his family lineage on both sides for several generations. This is not a matter of rote memorization for the purpose of pride, but information that sees daily use. Through this knowledge, any heirs of House Vadalis can determine their exact relationship to one another within an hour’s time. This in turn creates a strong bond between them. It is one thing to work alongside someone who shares your name, but another to aid your grandmother’s sister’s great-grandson—at least to a Vadalis heir.

House Vadalis is a family first and a business second. Commercial deals that might threaten the larger family unit are ignored, while plans with less profi t that accommodate the house’s structure are taken up instead. The other houses are routinely astounded by the Vadalis way, often ridiculing the house’s limited wealth and influence, but Vadalis simply takes a different view of the world. In their minds, no one of their blood is a stranger, and no amount of money can take the place of kin.

Members

Vadalis admits new members into its ranks only rarely, and those seeking to marry into the house are carefully vetted. Heirs are allowed to wed for love, but only with the permission of the elder council. As serious as the house takes the bloodlines of its beasts, it gives the same attention to its own. This has made Vadalis the butt of numerous jokes, but house members typically take little notice of what the outside world has to say.

House Vadalis is the smallest of the dragonmarked houses by both wealth and population. This is as much by design as circumstance, and ambition within House Vadalis is sometimes unrecognizable to the members of another house. The bucolic lifestyle that most house members lead keeps them tied to the cycles of nature, instilling a patience that few outside a farming community ever know.

Vadalis is flexible when it comes to the career preferences of its members. Experts form the bulk of the house’s breeders and record keepers, as well as the merchants charged with selling animals. Warriors and fighters often become teamsters, driving caravans for House Orien or providing security at house enclaves or on the road. Rangers support the care and training of animals for Vadalis clients, and travel unexplored lands to seek out new specimens, retrieve lost animals, or act as couriers in areas too remote for Orien to serve. Druids work to protect the land and safeguard the policies and processes of the house. They act as an ethical compass for the family, and are central to the magical research needed to develop and improve existing breeding programs.

House Vadalis in the World

House Vadalis makes an excellent option for working a dragonmarked house into a wilderness or rural campaign. Vadalis rangers and fighters can be encountered across Khorvaire, wherever people are scarce and animals abound. Whether wandering the open road, stationed at remote outposts, or conducting business in small towns across the continent, Vadalis heirs can motivate players to look beyond the cities for their adventures.

PCs can become involved with House Vadalis by joining up with an Orien caravan, either as passengers or hired help. Alternatively, if a marauding beast endangers a settled area, a Vadalis ranger can make an appearance to either control the animal or kill it. Such a character might become an ally of the PCs—or could become competition for a party of adventurers seeking their fortunes in the wilds of Khorvaire.

The most famous member of House Vadalis is technically no longer a member at all. The consort of Queen Aurala of Aundair, Sasik d’Vadalis renounced all position and ties to his house upon marrying the queen, though he remains a member of the Vadalis family. His brother is the patriarch of the house, Dalin d’Vadalis (CG male human expert 8), and the two remain close despite Sasik’s change in station.

House Vadalis is the only human house to have its center of power outside the Five Nations. Its members have no titles, not even the patriarch. Vadalis makes no claim to nobility or greatness, a fact that aggravates the more ambitious houses. Outside the house, guild members who have attained excellence in their fields are known as breedmasters, but this title is designed solely to inspire confidence in those who have business dealings with the house. No set council advises the patriarch; rather, decisions are a family affair, with all adults present in the enclave giving their opinions on important matters. These meetings can be long and chaotic, but members of Vadalis consider them integral to the function of the house. Patriarchs who ignore the will of others quickly find themselves replaced.

NPC Reactions

Members of House Vadalis go their own way, not caring what others think, and this willfulness feeds into the antipathy some have toward the house. Though few common folk are foolish enough to subscribe to the tales of Vadalis as a breeder of monsters, members of the house typically cannot be bothered to deny those tales. As a result, the people of rural Khorvaire are friendly toward Vadalis heirs if they have worked with them, but unfriendly if they haven’t. City folk are typically indifferent, but a Vadalis heir in the city might be met with thinly veiled contempt.

Members of most dragonmarked houses have an initial reaction of indifferent upon meeting a member of House Vadalis, given the difference in approach and style between Vadalis and the other houses. The exception to this is House Orien, whose members are uniformly friendly toward Vadalis heirs. Members of the Wardens of the Wood also have an initial attitude of friendly toward members of House Vadalis, while most other druidic sects have an initial attitude of indifferent. The exception is the Ashbound, whose abhorrence for magebred animals makes them hostile toward the house.

Holdings

House Vadalis had its home in the western wilds of Aundair long before Galifar came to pass. When the Eldeen Reaches withdrew from Aundair, the house saw little reason to leave.

The small city of Varna acts as the seat of Vadalis power. Most of its people work in some way for the income generated by Vadalis trade, but the house uses its enclave within the city primarily as a place to conduct business with the outside world. The majority of its research and bloodline development takes place at Foalswood, the sprawling ranch that the Vadalis family calls home.

A far cry from the defensible keeps maintained by other houses, Foalswood is a complex of barns, warehouses, and homes nestled among the rolling hills around Varna. Though one of the smallest house headquarters by population, Foalswood features uncountable acres of pasture and meadow where Vadalis animals roam. Though he spends his days in Varna, the patriarch lives at Foalswood, as do most of the heirs to the house. The largest building designed for human use is the ranch’s great meeting house.

Outside Varna, House Vadalis maintains enclaves in small towns across the Reaches, including Merylsward, Delethorn, and Erlaskar. It has a large ranch outside the village of Shavalant and another on the outskirts of Wroat. The house also has holdings in the cities of Fairhaven, Flamekeep, Newthrone, Pylas Talaear, Sharn, Stormreach, and Trolanport.

Members of House Vadalis in the game

House Vadalis makes an excellent addition to a wilderness or rural campaign, or even a low-powered game where a traditional dragonmarked house would prove disruptive. Because Vadalis thrives away from the cities, it can show up in places where the other houses would not normally be found. Given its base in the Eldeen Reaches, House Vadalis also provides a connection for shifter characters, allowing them to more easily fit into a game involving the machinations and plots of the dragonmarked houses.

Playing a Member of House Vadalis

You have grown up with respect for both family and nature. You understand the culture of the Five Nations (as least as well as you want to), but are not drawn into the games of ambition and status others play. You know the beauty and power inherent in life, the mysteries of birth and death, and the miracles that happen in between. Those divorced from the land might offer scorn and ridicule at your lack of supposed sophistication, but your world holds far more truth than those who inhabit the cities will ever know.

The modern age is a tangled web of plots and plans, but the forces of nature are stronger than the machinations of people. Your insights into the natural world allow you to easily see through the lies and deception of the cities and their folk—and never to let on how much of their subterfuge you see.

Whether you were born a Vadalis or married into the family, you carry the blood of your house now. Regardless of what direction life takes you, your place here is secure.

As long as you pursue a career within Vadalis, the house pays for the training and equipment you need to complete your goals (within reason). The house might arrange instruction for you if you pursue an outside vocation, but you must pay your own way. Dragonmarked heirs are expected to continue using their marks for house business even if their main career takes them far from house and birth. Regardless of career choice, an heir of House Vadalis is family. Unless you harm the house, your place within it is always secure.

House Vadalis is bound to the natural world, and its heirs strive constantly to maintain the balance of that world. As a member of the house, you act as both shepherd and hunter, traveling through the wild areas of Khorvaire in search of new bloodlines, or preventing Vadalis stock from disrupting the natural order. Not all Vadalis missions will keep you on the frontier, though, and you might accompany Orien caravans to any corner of Khorvaire, or act as handler for rare magebred creatures in the nightclubs of Sharn.

Members of House Vadalis typically play a support role in combat, since their abilities are often secondary to those of the animals they command. They use their creatures to help control movement on the battlefield, driving their enemies into the waiting arms of reinforcements.

Magebred Animals

Vadalis magebreeders combine ritual magic and science in their work, drawing on both mystical power and ancient traditions of animal husbandry to strengthen a breed and draw out those characteristics that will prove most useful to the clients of the house.

As far as the public knows, Vadalis magebreeding techniques can be used only on natural beasts. The simplest way to approach magebreeding is to add one of the improvements below to a standard creature. The most superior beasts have templates. The DM could certainly create additional and unusual magebred creatures by adding fantastic improvements or allowing templates that can normally be applied only to humanoids to be applied to beasts

House Vadalis and the Druids

With its headquarters in the Eldeen Reaches, House Vadalis is in frequent contact and occasional conflict with the druidic sects of the Reaches (see page 132).

House Vadalis makes extensive use of primal power in its work, and claims a significant number of druids, shamans, and wardens among its members. The Handlers Guild generally gets along fine with the Wardens of the Wood and the Greensinger sects, who view the work of the house as an acceptable use of nature’s power to serve the needs of civilized society.

The Ashbound sect, however, views all the operations of House Vadalis as an abomination, a warping of nature’s pure and perfect state. The Ashbound wage a constant war of sabotage and vandalism against Vadalis holdings, and they have been known to slaughter magebred animals wherever they find them. In certain areas of the Reaches, farmers refuse to buy magebred draft animals from House Vadalis, fearing that the Ashbound will simply kill the animal.

All of the druid sects oppose the practices of the Seryan line and would condemn the Feral Heart and its operations if they were aware of that branch of the house. There’s a good reason the work of the Feral Heart is centered outside the Eldeen Reaches.

Guilds

House Vadalis runs the Handlers Guild, devoted to the business of breeding, caring for, and selling prize animal stock. Membership in the Handlers Guild is not mandatory for all house members, but for heirs who intend to work outside the main enclaves, the guild establishes a good working relationship with ranchers and other breeders.

In the same way, membership in the Handlers Guild is not automatically a stepping-stone to status in the house. Both guild and house are vital in their own right, and joining one solely to make progress in the other is actively discouraged.