House Aiolfi

The Aiolfi are a gang.

Not that they would admit it outright; the family is of old blood, descended from refugees and mercenary armies that crossed the moon-gates of Aetheros around the tumultuous time of Thornmouth's founding, and organized, disciplined venture captains and soldiers-for-hire who gained their repute and fortune from their many successful ventures. Whatever the family may claim, never mind with whomever they currently offer patronage or trade, the old foundation of this house is mercenary money, and it's a rare battle, expedition, or treasure-hunt in the recent history of Anexus that was not won without the involvement of the paid condottieri of the Aiolfi.

Success and a growing reputation - as well as a knack for knowing the right people - ensured members began dictating their own terms to their employers and eventually worked their way into larger and and more prominent positions, exercising power, amassing wealth and land, and eventually rising to prominence as a mostly-reputable noble house of the city of Thornmouth

Though shifting loyalties between Aiolfi, their partners and their employers were as historically commonplace as shifting loyalties within it...

Quite traitorous in the human dynasty was a recurring appearance of supernatural natures which seemingly skipped along generations at random. Often at a rather young age, the infected would display raw, reactive and troubling affinities with wild elements and magics, an undesirable (if not outright fae) trait rumored to be passed down from the founder, himself - though blessedly wiped clean on every aberrant appearance, often by other members.

Its volatile reputation hasn't completely been scrubbed under Galen's reign, but the house's current, enigmatic and somewhat eccentric head, Signore Alessandro ('Sandro') di Aiolfi has done well to temper it in recent years. He maintained that while he was of another time and old habits had a way of dying hard, Aiolfi would enter Galen's new order without issue, and Sandro would ensure a future for his House and for his children.

Within this order, mercenary tasks are still pounced with a greedy glee, and alliances are freely forged with establishments who do not claim much of a military or exploratory force of their own - most notably the prolific mercantile House Grimani - but it is with the patronage of exploration, the arts, the Faewatch and the esoteric sciences rather than with the old fury and bloodlust of the fae-human wars that Aiolfi conducts its business, today.