i also think that the crow houses do have to watch their fucking step w the general populace of antiva. they need the public as much as the public needs them. the houses rly do seem v house of medici, house of borgia, etc, and tho it makes so much sense that ordinary ppl would see the crows as a step up societally â that they see the acclaim and romanticism of the crows and aspire to that â crow houses can't rely on that entirely. you need propaganda.
you need houses sponsoring public utilities like wellheads. plaster your emblems and heraldry all over the cities in your territory. when ppl go out and enjoy the luxury amenities available to them, they should be constantly reminded that the crows aren't just a military organization, they run the country, and you can thank your local crow house for well-managed trade or even streets or a flourishing artistic community. let houses be patrons. let various famous artists create gorgeous works of art and tombs and frescoes and CHAPELS AND CHANTRIES that show off how much money a house is throwing at things that make living in antiva enviable. for the glory of antiva, for the glory of the maker and his bride, etc.
they need popular opinion, bc popular opinion fluctuates. if the other non-assassin guilds shun you, if the merchants won't do business w you, if even the other houses ice you out, it doesn't matter how many ppl you kill: you'll end up a cuchillo expeditiously. and taking too many foreign contracts..........well are you more loyal to them than antiva????
this is why i do lean so hard into the italian inspiration that antiva draws from â there are so many rich and salacious and fascinating examples from that history in particular of what it's like to live in a plutocracy where a bunch of families in different territories are jostling for influence. where, you know, there's a medici duke here and a medici duke there and a medici pope and they've paid everybody off. and the medici family came from merchants. and they had to maintain the power they accrued w an incredible amount of wealth and violence and also propaganda that sometimes failed.
it behooves an ambitious house to be able to know which way the wind is blowing. if the ppl feel, for example, that house valisti has started to prioritize its own interests over the interests of antiva, if i'm, say, house dellamorte, i'm jumping all over it. these traitors to the nation and The People! these grasping, greedy fools who have forgotten what it means to be a crow, to be the inheritors of those true antivan monks who murdered an unjust duke w herbs grown in antivan soil! one house falls down the ladder and the other scoop up the spoils. house de riva and house cantori being the faces of saving treviso and defending her and her people when the original order of monks the crows formed out of were in the hills of treviso should be a big fucking deal after veilguard.
there will be ppl who are so so thrilled at the idea of joining up w the crows bc of the massive amount of social mobility they afford the average person, all the perks, the ballads abt crows, and the stories abt heroic monks in the hills, and their reputation for being sexy and suave and lethally competent. but they wouldn't have to snatch up orphans and shipwreck survivors, they wouldn't have to buy marginalized children from brothels if volunteers were enough. and i think it's v v v possible for a house to overstep, to foment resentment, to create an environment where a folk hero like black shadow who culls corrupt crows can become a different story ppl tell abt the crows. it goes both ways.
dededos
kianamaiart
turnnoffyourmind
prguitarman
annaxmalina
