Blue House of Vala

The Blue House of Vala is a noble lineage of the extended cosmos whose members appear in different cosmological geographies while keeping the same heraldry. It is identified not with a fief but with a bloodline, a color and a crystalline infrastructure larger than any one place.


Type	Faction (noble lineage)
Color	Blue
Emblem	Crystal seal
Seats	Blue Towers of Caldero and Ardisvala; Azure Keep
Spanish entry	Casa Azul de Vala

Names

It is “the Blue House” at court, the “House of Old Vala” to heraldic chroniclers and the “blue lineage” in provincial archives. The Vala are in Caldero and in Ardis Vala, and were in earlier geographies known only in fragments; all share the blue braid, the blood and the doctrine.

Heraldry

Blue, with no fixed tincture (from cobalt to crystal-blue with green and white glints): a blue mantle with thorcin gold braid, a crystal-embroidered doublet, or, in the oldest branches, a long plain cape. Other signs are secondary.
The crystal seal, always present: a gem, cut crystal, a fragment of Vala Cristalis when the line has one, or a heraldic copy. The crystal is the pattern of the greater crystalline veil the lineage guards or, in some readings, of which the lineage is an incarnation.

Doctrine

The inner doctrine, kept in private archives of the major branches and not in the Decadian metropolitan apparatus, rests on three principles:

The lineage is trans-geographic: members appear in parallel folds, with varying awareness of the bond.
The lineage guards the crystal. Every manifestation acts, knowingly or not, as custodian of cosmological crystallization; Vala Cristalis, the veil that keeps out what should not enter, finds its natural operators in Blue blood.
The lineage crosses by love or politics. Marriages to outside houses are made with heraldic care; Vala blood keeps symbolic precedence, and children of mixed unions carry the blue as a second surname.

Manifestations

Ardis Vala

The valley takes its name from the lineage; older codices call it “Valley of the Blue House”. Early Archontean ruins in the Mega-Dungeon keep blue heraldic traces in deep chambers the Seekers have not explored. The Azure Keep, restored by Lady Alexia, the Green Lady of the Basileon, is a recent manifestation of the House. Alexia is of the Blue House by her mother’s line (or, in another reading, by a hidden paternal line), which backs her agenda of recovering the Archontic regalia.

Caldero

In Caldero (December 1824 AE), Vitalis, the Sorcerer of the Blackwater River, newly joined to La Jabalina, comes from the Blue House of old Vala. He is Blue on both sides: son of the triple father Lotario / Oratiol / Taylor and of the crystal paladin Thalia Cristalia. Thalia’s marriage and his birth fall in the Templar / Regulators period. He works as a talent of time in the high society of Star City: he appears at Titti Frame’s gathering, infiltrates the Twin Towers and serves arcane cocktails while watching future heroes. His gift of traveling between moments of history belongs to his branch, not to the whole lineage. He carries secrets on a raft down the uchronic river, linked to the River Ucronos and to the crystal.

Other manifestations

Platforms of Vala-Ely (Islaires / Elysian), an ancient, now stagnant zone of exchange between planes: the House was present there before the stagnation; probably its first geography, or one of the first.
Suspected, undocumented: the Mediterraneum, Albion, Torregrises.

Traits

Blue garments and gems set in silver; often light eyes; restrained bearing; natural access to arcane magic (crystal, time, the zodiacal platforms), producing many sorcerers, wizards and scholars.

Notable members: Lady Alexia (green by choice over the underlying blue; Blue House Basileon); Thalia Cristalia / Swedenborg, crystal paladin, wife of Lotario / Oratiol / Tailoor and mother of Vitalis; and Vitalis himself.

Vala Cristalis and the House

Vala Cristalis is the cosmological crystal veil, not a person; the Blue House is the lineage that guards it. The relation is one of operation, not identity.

The Borg papacy

The House has a tense relation with the Borg Popes:

Pope Alejandro Sixto, the positive Borg pole, rules from the ruby throne of the Palace of the Prism on Blue soil in Ardis Vala without having the blood.
The Pope Borg of Caldero, the negative pole, was crushed by the Ancient Giantess, who is not of the House; by a minority reading of the Chronicler of the Plata, her Sword of Judgment resonates with the Vala crystal.

One hypothesis holds that the Borg papacy seeks Vala geographies to reach the greater crystal: it fails where the House is active and watchful (Caldero) and advances where it is dispersed (Ardis Vala during the Hiatus).

Conflicting accounts

One reading holds that the crystal chose the lineage; another, that the lineage emerged from the crystal in a primordial cosmological act, as an incarnate branch of the veil. The thesis is unconfirmed.
Official Decadian doctrine, when it has ruled, prefers that the Blue are the veil’s operators; the House’s private archives prefer that they are its begetters.

ATEM — Glosario