A woman with blonde hair styled in an elaborate updo, wearing dark clothing and gothic jewelry, standing against a wooden background.

The Griswold Family

The Griswold Family is the dominant force on Brownstone Island. While they are feared across the Wailing Shores for their reputation, rituals, and cold efficiency, the truth is that the Griswolds are not a bloodline—they are a structure. Membership is earned, not inherited. Loyalty, usefulness, and proof of worth are the only paths to entry.

The Griswold Family is not a single household. It is a network—dense, branching, and deeply entrenched. The family is broken into subfamilies, each with its own leaders, responsibilities, and areas of influence. Some handle trade and logistics. Others oversee research, security, body harvesting, or quiet diplomacy. Each subfamily answers to the greater structure, but often competes with one another for favor, influence, or resources.

At last known count, the Griswold Family includes over four hundred active members, not including their retainers, contractors, or silent assets. Most reside on Brownstone Island, but many operate off-site across the Wailing Shores and beyond. While the Griswold Family first started as a group of Elitariat that were related, it has since become something larger and far more effective.

The family’s power does not come solely from violence or science. It comes from their ability to function as a closed system. They trust no one outside the family. They share nothing with outsiders. Once inducted, you are Griswold for life—and the family never forgets its own.

The Griswolds operate more like a syndicate than a traditional family. Members are adopted in after long periods of observation, trial, and contribution. Most come from varied Lineages: Semper Morte, Full Dead, Lascarians, and Unborn are most common, but there is a large contingent of Elitariat, as well. Those who succeed are inducted fully into the family and granted the name.

The final stage of Griswold induction is a ritual known simply as The Rebirth. Leading up to this moment, potential members accumulate coffin nails—small metal rods, each embossed with a symbol representing a successful task, mission, or service. Nails are not handed out lightly. They are kept, counted, and catalogued by existing family members.

Once a candidate is deemed to have enough nails—enough to seal a coffin shut—they are summoned without warning. The ceremony is private. The individual is restrained or drugged, and placed in a hand-built coffin constructed from local timber and stone. The coffin is sealed with the very nails they earned.

The sealed coffin is taken to the edge of the island, or in some cases offshore, and lowered into the ocean. No further assistance is offered. If the candidate escapes, returns to land, and presents themselves to the family within one day’s time, they are welcomed as full members. No questions are asked. No words are needed. If they fail, the coffin is simply gone, like many others before them.

A man with tattoos on his arm, wearing a vest, white shirt, and a flat cap, sits at a table playing chess with a glass of whiskey nearby, in a dimly lit room with wooden paneling.

The MErchant House of Harkness

Efficient, shrewd, and infuriatingly self-righteous, the Merchant House serves as gatekeepers for ship production, trade negotiation, and quality control. Based in the islets, they favor unionized labor and workers’ rights—so long as they control the rights in question. Their ability to stifle or facilitate trade makes them indispensable, if not beloved. Their diplomacy often stings like a sea nettle—painful, but hard to avoid

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The Brick Workers Union

They build walls that last through storms, radwinds, and undead sieges. The Brick Workers Union is a power unto itself, commanding infrastructure and construction like a feudal guild of masons and engineers. Betrayal within the Union is a one-way trip to the jail cells they personally mortared—some of which still hold failed dissidents, locked behind stones that whisper loyalty or death.

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The Leatherman Caravan Company

The Leatherman Caravan Company operates as a semi-nomadic group of hunters, artisans, and logistics experts. While not always traditional in structure, they are considered a legal business force. Their direct interactions with other powerful groups such as the Griswolds and Merchant House of Harkness, as well as their critical role in the harvesting of valuable resources, position them as a necessary ally to many settlements.

Person with long hair and chains holding a skull mask to their face.

Pig Head Trade Company

Traders in food, flesh, and favor, the Pig Head Trade Company thrives in the gray. Known for moving meat, leathers, and timber across undead-infested routes, they maintain cordial ties with groups too disreputable for polite company. Their roots may stretch back to the Dead Market, and their wagons often carry goods that were someone else’s limbs not long ago. Yet they are necessary, and in the Wailing Shores, necessity is virtue enough.

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The Wellsworth Family

The Wellsworth Family of Saltwater Islet serves as a local political and agricultural force. Centered around Wellsworth Farm, this family commands respect in regional governance and festival planning. Made up largely of Quiet Folk and Landsmen, their influence shapes local policy and community safety, reinforcing their role as lawful stakeholders in the islet network.