House Profile: House Castillo

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House: House Castillo
Also Known As: Hermits
House Castillo originally came to the Americas with the Spanish conquest of Central America, and in step with the more mundane conquest of the local empires, Castillo struck down, conquered, and absorbed for their own whatever native traditions they could find. Now, however, though the march of centuries move mage culture far less than mundane, the tables are turned, and Castillo, far more than most Houses, bears paltry little resemblance to its European ancestry.

Castillo's magic is built around the invocation of spiritual creatures. From poltergeists to elementals, simple sprites to roaring dragons, Castillo employs seemingly simple magical techniques to invoke families of spiritual creature, which in turn grant them their power. What other Houses see is the Castillo magi with simple charms or gaudy trinkets, or outlandish but easily managed tattoos, or even the strange, but minor deformations of the body that normally mark victims of magical accidents. Many view Castillo as layabouts and underachievers, for their conjurations thus appear trivial to the difficult diets, obsessive fashions, intricate forging, or simple reliance upon the fickle hand of timing required of some other houses.

The actual forging of those contracts, however, is a vastly dangerous, enormously difficult affair, conducted in hidden halls and secret groves, with components that straddle the line between rarity and outright legendry. Castillo's mages spend their entire young lives learning of the dangers of spirits; and their entire adult lives taming them. Some Castillo mages invoke individual spirits that can cast spells for them; others call upon magical spirits from which they draw out power. Others simply keep as pets creatures so fantastical that they must be forced into this world by the Castillos' magic.

Castillo's powers can strongly resemble Invocation, and certainly no small number of Castillo are Invokers. However, it is not mandatory; a Castillo with no skill at Invoking simply casts magic through a more ephemeral spirit, rather than the powerful, physically real ones, or even outright magical beasts, available to an Invocation caster.

House Castillo's roots in Latin America led it to support Communist revolutions there, and have heavy bases out of Cuba. However, it often disagreed with the policies of the Soviet Union; its leftist politics were much more concerned with the livelihoods of those in their homelands. They also retained ties to the Catholic Church, and supported Liberation Theology during the 1970's. Castillo cooperated with House Patisse to slaughter Almagoras at Tours, which came not only from distaste for how Almagoras treated mundanes, but from their ties across Cold War lines.

Living in House Castillo:
Due to a combination of heritage and the needs of monitoring the strange, fraught circumstances of a house of spirit contractors, Castillo is unique in the modern House society for having gigantic households. Most modern mage households are essentially the American nuclear family, with some connection through regular House meetings with far-flung relatives. Castillo children see their great-great-great grandparents almost daily, as every-day parts of their lives. Castillo's families are tightly-knit, with deep familial ties extending back many generations. Indeed, countless generations; for among the spirits that Castillo routinely summons up are the ghosts of their own ancestors, who provide the guidance of ages to youth and crone alike.

Castillo therefore can seem strange to the modern Houses, for Castillo is traditional to a degree even the houses actually led by thousand-year-old super-mages don't achieve. For Castillo mages, the world of the Houses is their world, much moreso than some of the after-school mages one sees in Weatherford or Schellenburg. They see those relatives all day, every day; and each Castillo household has a small shrine, dedicated for communing with ancestors.

Technically, they aren't supposed to use this for homework help, but teenagers will be teenagers, and the ancestors are usually entertained by such irreverence.

But inevitably, there is a dark side. Castillo's entire house is structured around contact and contract with spirits; and although this grants them great power and great leeway with it, it is slowly binding their behavior, both individually and as a group. In the mid-1600s, the last great head of the House forecasted that in time, these spiritual contracts would come together to force House Castillo, as a unit, to perform some great deed. He could not predict whether it would be wondrous or terrible; only that the alien minds of the Outside were beginning to sketch a noose around the House, driving them toward some end. But the spirits' minds, even the Ancestors', work differently from those of living mages; whatever they were doing would be beyond the prediction of any human. And so House Castillo continues to refine its craft, ever mindful of the day that the deterministic spark arrives, and they are propelled to change everything.

Politics:
House Castillo has not been the most politically savvy House, preferring to remain in the Western Hemisphere and concern itself with politics at home. Its largest interactions and competitors have been the groups of Amerindian shamanistic traditions that they have tried to co-opt and compete with. However, their limited Spanish holdings have drawn them into House politics in Europe. They have a good relationship with House Patisse, but their assistance in destroying House Almagoras has earned them the enmity of both House Schellenberg and House Weatherford. While the relationship isn't as frosty as the relationship Patisse has with those Houses, Castillo has still had few friends among them ever since Tours.

Major Personas:
Gabriela Dominga Estrella Marisol Castillo - Matriarch of the house. Gabriela is a kindly, loving old woman who is coming up on her 235th birthday. A devoted leader, she remembers the names of every mage under her care, and does the best within her slowly-diminishing ability to treat them all like her own grandchildren, however far removed from her own personal line they may be. She is aided in this by her constant spirit companion Prudencio, a satyr-like creature with a rare ability to appear very far from Gabriela's side. The entire House is tense, expecting her imminent passage from matriarch to Ancestor, but despite her advanced age, Gabriela shows all the energy she can possibly bring to bear. She attempts to maintain good relations with the other Houses and leaders, but is unable to contain her contempt for Gaius Vorinus, whose treatment of his descendents (and the immortality and power he gains from it) she finds repugnant. After some hundred years of her leadership in this way, that contempt has largely spread throughout Castillo.

Prudencio - Gabriela Castillo's foremost spirit companion, Prudencio is a powerful satyr-like spirit. Able to materialize far from Gabriela's side, Prudencio serves as her messenger and voice. Although rules prevent him from being appointed House Castillo's official representative at Paracelsus, everyone listens to him above the actual representative, who spends most of his time napping.