House Anteos

House Anteos

"Heads High!"

Personages

Patriarch: Urbezsath Anteos Consort: Eleelae Anteos (f) Heir: Nolmar Anteos (firstborn son) Membership (Nobles): 17 Predominant Faith: Loviatar

Faction Details

Common Descriptors: Sinister, cut-throat, scheming Primary Classes: Fighter, Rogue, Cleric (Loviatar) Alignments: LN, LE

Faction Ranks

• Favored: Rank 1. You are a favored member of the House. If you are a scion of the House, you have pleased the patriarch sufficiently to gain his notice. If you are an agent or retainer of the House, your efforts to aid the House have gone well-noted. • Lynchpin: Rank 2. You are given a position of some responsibility in the House's operations. If you are a scion of the House, the patriarch considers you one of the favored scions of the House, and consults with you on matters of House importance. If you are an agent or retainer, your contributions and skills in service of the House have won you a position of no small regard and respect in the patriarch's eyes - although that may earn you the jealousy of his blood kin who are less favored than you. • Matriarch/Patriarch: Rank 3. You are the acknowledged and legal head of the household.

Interests

Trade & Interests: Trading, money changing and barter; former interests in slave trade Holdings: Waterdeep

History

Ethnicity: Tethyrian Founded: 1248 DR Previous Eras: 1354 DR

An old Waterdhavian family long involved in trade, money-changing, barter, and land-owning. Three to four hundred years ago, House Anteos was involved in the slave trade in the North; even though they have officially set this aside due to law, various Anteos scions have been caught involved in black market slavery over the year, sufficiently to retain that identity in most folks minds when they think of House Anteos. In the years since the Wailing Years, House Anteos was among those who sold titles to cover debts, losing their title. Even so, the House has focused on what it has always been good at: banking and money-changing. With Laeral's Restoration, they are once again nobility in Waterdeep.

Members of the Family

• Lord Urbezsath Anteos: Patriarch (Renown 10) • 54 years. Lord Urbezsath has been haunted by his family's sinister reputation for all his life. The patriarch seems aged beyond his actual years, and in some ways it is thanks to that reputation. During their time as commoners (albeit very rich ones) his own older brother Thaunilvil was found to be engaging in black market slaving, tried and convicted to flogging and sixty years of hard labor; he did not survive the first decade of the sentence. Today, Urbezsath works to counter all of this bad air with an almost surprising degree of business honor and goodwill.
• Eleelae Anteos: Consort (Renown 3) • 51 years. Disinterested in the trade of her House, and having raised her children, Eleelae is an amateur historian, with a fascination for the ancient elven kingdoms of the Waterdeep plateau and surrounding areas. She is quite involved in some of the local elven culture, insofar as any human is permitted to be, happy to contribute coin to whatever causes strike her fancy, especially if it means that she gets access to elven scholars and dignitaries.
• Nolmar Anteos: Heir, firstborn son (Renown 6) • 31 years. Thin and somewhat sickly, Nolmar is very much what Waterdhavians think of when they utter the name "Anteos": he is cruel and petty, with a vindictive streak a mile wide. He orbits the social scene of Waterdeep mostly because the worthies are afraid to risk his wrath, for his petty but often painful vengeances are notorious in his generation. Even now, he has begun to age out of the young nobles' social scene, as many of them marry off, leaving him the leering scarecrow in ballrooms full of folk younger than he by a half-decade or more.

Holdings

• Resources Limit: If necessary, House Anteos could probably generate about 40,000 gp in liquid coin and valuables within a month.

Pikesheight (Villa)

Anteos Lane, North Ward

A dire wall of black stone, seven feet in height, the last foot of which is a row of pikeheads projecting up out of the wall, surrounds the villa of House Anteos. The villa itself doesn't see a great deal of traffic or local scrutiny: not only is it tucked away near the northern wall of Waterdeep, but House Anteos has something of a sinister reputation, and most wise folk give it a wide berth.

• Anteos House: The oldest and original structure, Anteos House is modest sized compared to the grand manors of many of Waterdeep's nobles. Two stories in height, the Anteos seat is wrought all of marble and ironwood, with iron fixtures. Its space within is exclusively set aside for the family's daily use: living spaces, parlours, and a dining hall on the first floor. The second floor has been divided into lavish apartments for the head-of-house's family, including lavish private apartments for the heir. By and large, the Anteos House contains only the Lord or Lady's immediate family. The basements contain offices, the family vault, and the kitchens, with the old servant's quarters turned into roomy but dark rooms for the head-of-house's immediate retainers.
• The Ledgers: Formerly a set of offices, the Ledgers are now entirely housing for the majority of the Anteos family. The first floor has a fair-sized series of parlours around a small ballroom for entertaining, with apartments at the back of the building facing the gardens. The second floor is nothing but interconnecting single rooms, and a few common spaces for those who live in those adjoining rooms. The basements here are small, with a few offices and miscellaneous rooms often used for retainer housing, and a respectable wine cellar.
• Arenethla's Hall: If a single location might be pointed at as both a source and an example of the Anteos reputation, it is this single-story structure. Named for one of the early Anteos scions who rose to high rank and magical power as a priestess of Loviatar, Arenethla's Hall contains a grand ballroom and parlours across the northern half of the building. The quarters in the other half of it are generally given over to those who strongly worship the Lady of Pain, with preference given to those who actually take oaths to her. Predictably, it is the basements – which are largely off-limits to visitors, save those who are close personal friends with similar inclinations – where the Anteos demonstrate their devotion to their patron goddess. Down a flight of stairs that opens from the gardens lies a large ballroom sized area, interspersed with pillars and lit only by braziers: the Hall of Agony. It is here that the rites of pain to Loviatar are observed, and in the far side of the chamber a short flight of stairs leads up to a shrine to the Painmaiden. Arches that open from the Hall of Agony lead to smaller chambers meant for more private delectations by the faithful.
• Servants' Hall: This single-story structure was built in order to reclaim space in the Anteos House devoted to living quarters for the servants. A modest set of good living quarters, with single, small rooms for each rather than forcing the help to sleep in bunkrooms or share quarters with others.

Waterdeep Property

House Anteos has a variety of properties throughout Waterdeep, mostly among the very poor and working class areas. Though they lost the majority of their better-paying properties some thirty years ago to House Ralnarth, they have since made up the difference, particularly with Field Ward properties.

Sword Coast Traders' Bank

A relatively recent endeavor sponsored by Lord Urbezsath some twenty years ago, the business model for the Bank is simple: in addition to serving as a normal bank, providing loans and wealth-keeping services, the Bank is also capable of taking in coin in one of its three locations (Waterdeep, Baldur's Gate, and Daggerford), and communicating those numbers to any of its other branches magically, almost instantaneously. Rather than risking transporting coin on caravan or shipping routes, merchants moving between one of these three sites may simply place coin in their keeping in one spot, and come by to withdraw it from another (for a modest fee). The branches are each run by a member of the family, with Lord Urbezsath running the Waterdhavian branch, a cousin named Belinda (Rank 7) running it in Daggerford, and an uncle named Indar in Baldur's Gate. So far, the business has met with modest success, which Lord Urbezsath wishes to reinvest into more branches (aiming for one in Athkatla and another in Silverymoon).

Known Faction Perks

Scions and agents of House Anteos in good standing might receive the following benefits:

• Living Quarters: Renown 1+. Those in good standing with the House are given quarters within the House's Waterdhavian villa appropriate to their role in the House.
• Living Expenses/Salaries: Renown 1+. Those in good standing with the House also receive a stipend of 1gp plus 5sp per day per point of Rank. This is not actual cash, but simply familial credit towards payment of Lifestyle costs. This stacks with the same kind of familial credit received from the Waterdhavian Noble Background (see Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide).
• Business Opportunities: Renown 3+. Lynchpins to the House's operations receive access to a variety of business opportunities within the House's money-making endeavors. This is handled as "Running a Business" in downtime months. This does not incur a business expense, but if too many of the character rolls results that end in a loss of money, he can and will find his Rank in the House reduced.
• Heir or Consort (Title): Renown 3+. The holder of one of the legal titles Heir of House and Consort of House, as recorded with the city of Waterdeep, is entitled to an additional 2gp per day in familial credit, per the "Living Expenses/Salaries" entry above. The heir is also accorded certain privileges within the legal system of Waterdeep, including the ability to speak on behalf of his House in some legal proceedings and the like.
• Wealth of the House: Renown 10. The patriarch of the House is in total control of the House's finances and various holdings, established by the laws of Waterdeep.