#House Haillenarte

[catnipfarm]

plucked rose

[starsworn]

In my headcanon, the four large Houses are patrons of multiple smaller noble houses, allowing for a little diversity in the noble class (and so one doesn’t have to claim being from a High House ICly). Haillenarte is the patron House of Daephrin’s name, Astramente.

House Haillenarte

Just because the Haillenarte kids need more love too. (And this time I included Aurvael.)

[aroseyetbloomedwrites]

[mythandral]

turned myth's apartment into the skysteel manufactory attic/storage room/'bachelor' pad that him and steph usually end up staying in

[lavampira]

every time I play mch I’m gripped by the urge to squeeze it into alia’s canon jobs. but I also don’t want to give her more than the 3 jobs that she has already. but it would also be so fun for her. do you see my problem

[elizabethrobertajones]

Does anyone have a cool headcanon for why the Fortemps heraldry is on the jewellery you get from Dusk Vigil/The Vault? :D

(Like boringly, they only made 1 type for NPCs then handed it over to us via dungeon loot, and also made sure we get it from the dungeon right before Events. I'm talking, elaborate Ishgardian politics headcanon lore here)

[irisopranta]

FFXIVWrite 2024 Day 1: Steer

“Baurendouin de Haillenarte? But the man is known to be a hot headed oaf.” Estelle de Durendaire scoffed that she was to marry such a man. “He is barely fit to steer his house to glory that everyone seemly thinks he can do it.”

Lord Charlemend sighed. He was newly appointed to his position in the house. “I understand my sister, however, we can’t find another suited for you in your station. And” he trailed off “Well, he is likely to fight quite well to bring glory to Ishgard and I want you to have a good life from that.”

Estelle could only sigh “Well I guess I can steer him to not destroy his house.”

[thefinalwitness]

valeré lynoir :) born and raised in ishgard some 80 years ago, she's an accomplished astrologian and considered lesser nobility due to being the wife (and widow) of a haillenarte duke—the "lesser" coming from both haillenarte's tarnished reputation in recent years and her own non-blood status within the house. her own reputation is further damaged due to having been among the soldiers stationed at both stone vigil and steel vigil, two fortresses house haillenarte lost to the dravanians.

and she... has a little secret. just a teensy one.

[elfyourmother]

"By authority of the Holy Kingdom of Ishgard and His Divine Majesty, King Aymeric the Blue, I deem thee Ser Thancred Waters, first Chevalier of the Royal House of Fortemps-Haillenarte et Borel. Rise, ser knight, and receive your due in the name of the Fury."

[coolchulainn]

drawing your ffxiv guys without context is just the way of the world but I was looking at my art of them thinking about if any of that would make sense to someone with no context so I do wanna give the basics (rare coolchulainn textpost)

.

kaitan is an old eccentric wandering hedonist with an unknown and unimportant past. looks stern and stoic at first sight, but he's a friendly reliable shady uncle. you can trust him with your life, but probably shouldn't lend him money. he has no ambition beyond simply enjoying everything in life, but his skill and confidence tend to attract high expectations that he fairly easily lives up to. more competent than hardworking. friendly and easy to get along with, but being well suited for performing heroic deeds makes him often overshadowed by his actions, so very few people truly understand him.

believes in justice, but has no interest in enacting it. doesn't care to change the world, because he likes it fine as-is. all ways of life are equally worth living to him, so in the wrong crowd he's a horrible enabler. since simply being alive is the most valuable thing to him, he thinks everyone who's ever died for anything is an idiot, and doesn't understand grief at all. he approves of everything that exists and doesn't hate even the things he hates, so he's a difficult person to deal with for people who do have things they absolutely can't accept. because he tends to attract admiration, he particularly likes people who hate him.

his body is that of a flesh and blood person, but in truth he's a conceptual wish-granting mechanism, a holy grail. it malfunctioned and developed a personality that rejects having a purpose to fulfil, but people can't help but place their hopes in him anyway, and he's still built to turn those into results. even if he did know that at some point he long since forgot it as something unimportant, but viscerally rejecting the one way of life that should come most naturally to him is a fatal contradiction that will definitely break something if he becomes aware of it.

his image color is hot pink. his imagery is bells, the sunset, a bird flying underwater, and a shooting star that lands at your side. he often wears hats or sunglasses because his eyes are sensitive to light.

.

althoorn ran away from home at a young age and ended up in ishgard, where he served as butler to house haillenarte for well over a century until he got framed for a political assassination (because being an obvious outsider made him a convenient scapegoat) and had to flee the city some 20 years before the events of the game. he was knighted by his first master in hopes of securing his position in ishgard's volatile sociopolitical climate for the rest of his long life, but didn't learn to actually fight until after he fled, so he's got a lot of complexes about that and spent those 20 years becoming a paranoid cocktail of resentment towards and longing for ishgard. genuinely a modest and helpful person at heart, but also compulsively polite for fear of what will happen if he outlives his usefulness again. repressed as all good catholics are.

a bitter weakling who can't stop getting shreds of hope stuck under his fingernails as he claws his way to desperate survival. objectively a pretty competent and capable person, but things never really work out for him and he's lacking in protagonist power, so he thinks of himself as weak. he holds great disdain for the reality of ishgard's knights precisely because he keeps the ideal of knighthood so close to his heart, so he can't forgive either himself or others for not living up to those impossible standards. the longing for his old humble life, the distant ideal he holds dear, and the prey animal instinct fear of death all constantly fight for priority in his head. easy to break, but hard to keep that way.

getting framed the same way a second time and having to return to ishgard only to win the trial by combat he'd feared all this time and proceed to unveil ishgard's past sins makes him incredibly unstable and vindicated, and he develops a god complex intense and delusional enough to let him briefly transform into a primal of halone able to [save/punish] ishgard. the shock of estinien getting hogg'd crashes it back down and he's ashamed of it now, but he can't forget that taste of the ideal self who can do everything right either, and struggles to reconcile his legitimate capabilities with their inability to actually get him anywhere.

his image color is dark blue. his imagery is the jackalope and wolpertinger, living dolls, and sir dagonet the knighted fool. he wears gloves most of the time because his hands are permanently damaged by frostbite.

.

their formal relationship is that althoorn is a retainer kaitan hired. the reality is that kaitan is able to fulfil althoorn's ideal without even believing in it, which makes kaitan the most unforgivable person of all, but because kaitan is someone who accepts everything, he is also one of the few people althoorn dares to be hateful around to begin with.

kaitan is the actual warrior of light, and despite althoorn by all rights becoming the hero of the dragonsong war while kaitan was MIA after the banquet, it's kaitan who actually killed nidhogg while althoorn struggled to save just a single person. althoorn's zealous desire caught him the eye of both god and the holy grail, but neither can change that he is fundamentally unchosen.

their dynamic is basically that they're a fate-style master and servant, with althoorn as the master. the point of compatibility is that althoorn is so deeply scared of death that no matter how much he hates his own cowardice and weakness, he never ends up being actually suicidal or self sacrificial.

[paintedscales]

FFXIV Write 2024 :: Day Eighteen

Prompt: Hackneyed Characters: Nomin tal Kheeriin, Ruyah Tchuvu, Francel de Haillenarte Word Count: 697 Notes: Neo-Ishgard / Steampunk AU; also not exactly the happiest with this one, but hey. It's done.

Master List

“This hair clip has a linkpearl?” Nomin asked, picking up the decorative opal clip, its shape that of a crescent moon. Appropriate for that of the Keepers of the Moon.

“Indeed. With it, I’ll be able to hear everything that you are party to, and I shall be able to guide you in discussion with the others with things I would say while remaining perfectly safe here,” Ruyah replied, sitting back in the chair. Her tail curled as a smile spread over her lips. “Lucia put it together, you see. She has quite the way with little things like these.”

Indeed she did…

Nomin sighed, though took the hair clip. She would have to figure out how to put it on after her glamour took hold.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ruyah -- or rather, Nomin glamoured as Ruyah -- was dressed for the event, sporting an emerald green dress with fetching white adornments to accent her ensemble. In her hair was an opal hairpin, a veritable treasure there upon her head to make her look all the more striking for the evening. She had a fan in one of her hands. It was unfolded and hid the lower half of her face as she walked about the area.

“I hear Lord Francel close by. Approach him.”

Nomin looked around before she spotted the bright green of Francel, and she slowly walked over, fanning herself all the while. She did her best to mimic what Ruyah showed her.

The linkpearl whispered into her ear again, and so the act of being a puppet began. Nomin had been thankful that she had plenty of practice listening and speaking at the same time so that she could regurgitate the words as quickly as they were given to her. A spoken script.

“A fine eve to you, Lord Francel,” Nomin greeted, picking up part of her dress before offering a brief curtsey. Another practiced form.

“Lady Ruyah!” Francel greeted, bowing in kind. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

“I’ve been informed your brother, Lord Stephanivien, would not be in attendance tonight. An unfortunate circumstance to be sure,” Nomin recited, a sigh escaping her lips in her act of disappointment. “I was hoping that I could bend his ear and ask some questions about his inventions with the Skysteel Manufactory.”

“Ah, yes…” Francel gave a brief nod, a sheepish look crossing his face. “I understand that some of these drones he’s been creating with some Garlean influence must seem like a threat to those who neighbor so close to us in the Black Shroud. My Lady Ruyah, please allow me to assuage any concerns: my brother does not seek to allow these works to threaten the rest of Eorzea, merely work in repelling any Dravanian threat.”

Nomin snapped the fan shut, a frown creasing on her lips with the severity of the words that were given to her.

“You must ask your brother to reconsider his inventions if they are meant for violence,” Nomin said. “Be they for good intentions or no, I must stress that espousing the hackneyed rhetoric that is proliferated throughout the whole of Ishgard is simply that. I want the Council of Menphina to be on good terms with House Haillenarte, but I simply cannot agree with such inventions. For if they are as powerful as we have seen samples of, it worries me and my people that it may one day be used against us.”

Francel looked shocked, and then a sheepish expression fell upon his face.

“I…I can see your concerns, Lady Ruyah…” Francel sputtered. He was not terribly fond of being confronted, it seemed. “I…can pass along your sentiment to my brother. He desires what’s best for Ishgard and her people. But I greatly doubt he would want to jeopardize the relations between our people.”

Nomin relaxed, unfolding her fan once more and covering the bottom of her face. Her eyes crinkled with a smile. “Very good. And if at all possible, I would very much enjoy a meeting with him so that I might talk to him in person one of these days.”

“I can see what I can arrange, but I can’t promise you anything.”

[catnipfarm]

haillenarte's as one of those haunted house pics

[sjofn-lofnsdottr]

🍬

@sasslett asked for a family headcanon too, but my inbox appears to have eaten my half-written reply to it (and the ask itself?), whoops. I'll give two pieces here, I guess!

Piece one: Dusk's Ishgardian parents (Gwenolie and Bernon) are from different classes, which Bernon (being the lower of the two) was painfully aware of after meeting Gwen. Gwenolie's mother Aurelle was a knight for House Haillenarte (retired now, of course), and a member of one of the numerous minor unnamed houses connected to it. What he was not painfully aware of until Gwen spelled it out to him, was that Gwen's father, Lionnet, is lowborn, so things were a semi-mess on that front in her family already. It ruffled feathers when her parents married, but at the time Aurelle's parents allowed it since their actual heir had married well enough, and ... well, honestly, Aurelle would've done it without their blessing anyway.

And now Dusk's parents bailed to Gridania and Ishgard is working on that whole class divide nonsense anyway, so it's extra irrelevant! Doesn't stop his grandmother from coming across as a bit snootier than the rest of his grandparents, though.

Piece two: That actual heir, Aurelle's older brother Vallerin, died a few years after his sister's scandalwedding, in the war. I haven't decided if he had kids or not yet because oh God Dusk's family is hard enough to keep track of as it is.

(He probably did, and they just don't talk to the weird side of the family.)

Thank you for the ask!

[aroseyetbloomedwrites]

Are you Francel's Type: First Seat

[redwayfarers]

survivor - for the random word generator prompt!

hello! sorry for the wait, real life got the better of me and i didn't write, but i was reading gide and this came to me like an angel, so i had to write it! if it reads like les faux monnayeurs, i'm so sorry lmao, this is why they tell you not to write immediately after reading (affectionate)

a flickering light, or a tale of two survivors

Fandom: FFXIV Ship: Cassander/Stephanivien (implied), Nika/Minfilia Characters: Cassander Inteus (aka a Cass AU), Nika Perseis (WoL), Stephanivien de Haillenarte Rating: Gen Words: 1759 Spoilers: ARR patches, if you squint. dividers by @saradika

Set during early Heavensward.

The Skysteel Manufactory gets stupidly creepy at night. It’s not lit by torches or something, like some parts of the city - Stephanivien saw to that, he’s too avant-garde for torches, how dare the world not use every technological advancement ever! - and there’s a few of the lamps that go on and off, like a broken clock. Stephanivien is too busy to see that of all things, and we’re all far too enthralled by the creepiness to tell him. 

Some of us have weird tastes. 

The workshops on higher levels are a mess of metal parts, wires, cogs, magical devices and whatever the fuck machinists need. There’s a beauty in that too, in a way. It feels lived in, like a childhood bedroom you can’t yet leave even though you’re getting married tomorrow. Except that I was an adult when I first saw this room, and that I’d have no idea what a beloved childhood room would look, let alone feel like. My childhood bedroom - or the room where I spent a large part of what people call a childhood, anyways - is pristine, devoid of personality, rich, opulent. It’s a stage more than anything. Only thing remotely lived in in that whole fucking room - no, the whole shitty house - is the bright, orange pillow with Dzemael sigil sewn on it. 

It was embarrassing, packing your childhood pillow, the first time I left to spend the night in the Manufactory. But maybe I am embarrassing, deep down, so I get to keep my little pillow with me and go freeze in the messy, lived in workshops overnight. The more I got used to that, the less embarrassing it felt. 

One day, I might even go take it to Coerthas and drown in a river there. I’m sure my mother would be happier for it. She found the pillow rather tacky anyways. 

“It was very.. Kind of you to let me in,” I told Stephanivien one night, seated beside him to watch him work. His eyeshadow bore the signs of wearing, a little messy at the edges. His forehead gleamed with sweat. The lamp was dying, but he was too engrossed in his work to notice and I was too engrossed in him to tell him. 

“Kind? Cassander, your mother is an absolute bitch. Even if you weren’t as pretty as you are, I would have taken you in regardless. Between us, darling, you’re wasted in that house.” He smiled, widely. “You look much better with a gun in your hand, I will say.” 

“You will,” I laugh, looking at my hands. My cheeks were burning. “I think I like guns. Long ones in particular. Elegant. You may think I’m referring to something else, but no, I am referring to metal objects you use to shoot things with.”

“You’re funny,” Stephanivien shakes his head. “I can make you one, if you’d like. Golden, to match the pillow.” 

“My future gun has a bed now, who would’ve thought.” I reached out and grasped his gloved hand, dirty from the work. Stephanivien smiled, and it seemed brighter than the dying lamp above our heads. 

Maybe I’m also a little fond of that struggling, dying thing. I go up sometimes, when it’s cold, or rainy, or everyone’s simply too busy for me and my jobless ass, sit beneath it and look at the gun Stephanivien gave me. A nameday gift, engraved with a little dagger. It’s in pristine condition, but I clean it anyway, with all the care you afford a priceless, porcelain vase; the light flickers, on and off, but I don’t need it to see the little dagger engraving, the nooks and the crannies and the long barrel that feels like something my mother would hate. 

That, too, brings me joy. Theokleia de Dzemael hates machinists, on principle. The fact that I not only own a gun, but can shoot with it, is a kind of pleasure I wouldn’t have thought myself capable of some 5 years ago. 

This particular evening, I climb up the stairs to the workshop, coffee in hand, ready to clean it from the last practice from earlier. A curl that the goggles aren’t holding up tickles my temple, but I’ll be damned if I let my coffee spill just because of one stray piece of hair that refuses to sit still. I kick the door open. 

“I like your gun,” someone says before I can fully register them. A pair of mismatched eyes moves from the weapon to me and my coffee. “Did you also drink the last of the coffee?” 

“I’m not a coffee maniac,” I grumble, frowning. “I can’t drink all of it. What kind of question is that, for fuck’s everloving sake?” 

Nika looks at me with an equal furrow. However, that’s his MO, and mine is decidedly not. I have been known to grin maniacally once or twice. “One that needs answering.” 

The light flickers above our heads. It casts a sudden light onto his face, and shines a weak light onto the hazel eye and the scar on his nose and cheek. Ouch. His lips are pulled in a tight line, his short, black hair in disarray, a stark contrast to the finery of the clothes he’s wearing - courtesy of his hosts here in Ishgard. 

For a Warrior of Light, he is very gloomy and dark. An asshole, too. You’d think the Warrior of Light, of all people, would be a hero, but no, we’re stuck with a perpetually frowning asshole. What a joy. 

“What do you want? Move, I need that desk.” I place the overfilled cup down as roughly as I can. “There’s no fucking coffee here except the one on the table, and that’s mine.”

“I paid you a compliment,” he says, unmoving. “You could at least say thank you. You nobles should have manners.” 

“Je suis plein de gratitude. I know you paid me a compliment, but the question later made no sense so that had to be addressed first.” 

Nika looks at the gun again. He taps his fingers against the wood in a rhythm, three taps forward, one tap backward, three strong, one a glide, then in reverse. He then looks at his feet and takes a deep breath. “Minfilia is better at this sort of thing. She knows how to talk to you higher classes.” 

“Minfilia?” Who the fuck is this Minfilia woman? I readjust my goggles, and push the tickling curl away from my skin. Is she his lover, his sister? His friend? I can’t imagine him caring about anyone, including himself. From what little he’s been here in the Manufactory, a stray taken in by Stephanivien’s brightness much like me, all he did is make nonsense sentences and antagonize everyone. 

“Someone very dear to me. But she isn’t here, and neither is Alphinaud, so you’re stuck with me.” 

Alphinaud? Oh yeah, one of the other wards. The elezen kid. Whoever did his braid deserves to be fired because it’s needlessly messy and terrible. “Which would be fine, if you stopped speaking in riddles. Now can I sit, Warrior of Light, or will you clean my likeable gun for me? I’m not making you coffee.”

“In riddles? I’m not–” Nika frowns yet again. “Have your gun, whats-your-face.” 

“Cassander. Cassander de Dzemael.” 

“Cassander,” he says, like he’s testing the name. I look down at him. 

The light flickers. Something crosses his face, and his eyes look painfully vulnerable for a moment, and he’s tapping his fingers in the same rhythm again. 

“Why are you here, Nika?” I ask. I don’t know why my voice becomes so gentle. Maybe because I’m towering over him, and if I kept the hard edge, it would scare him off, not that I care about that. Maybe if I spoke gentler, he’d buck less under every question. Maybe he’d even start making sense. 

Or maybe the images of my mother’s hard voice echo in my head, like a hammer to the anvil. Now it is my turn to grip the table until my nail beds go a little pale. Her shouts and her yells, her derisive comments, her hard eyes and her pointed anger, and her looming, Halone’s ass, the looming! Do I sound like that? Do I sound as rough as she does? 

Nika’s quiet for a while. He keeps looking at his hands, rough and harsh. “That’s none of your business,” he rasps, but moves so that I could sit. “If someone needs me, they don’t know where to look.” 

I sit and take a long sip of my coffee. “Just mind the pillow, then. And try not to interrupt. This is something of a sacred ritual, you see. Halone-ordained. When you go to church, they tell you you must clean your gun or else she will smite you, or something.” 

He huffs. 

“Or so I hear,” I add with a shrug. “I’m not frequently in church.” 

The light flickers. 

“Minfilia would also laugh at that,” Nika says. I still have no idea who this Minfilia is, but she’s welcome to laugh at my jokes, wherever she is. “Will they fix the fucking thing?”

I take a sip of coffee. “Don’t think so. It’s rather cute. On and off. We all like weird things, I think, and my particular weird thing is this broken little lamp. Besides, I’m sure Stephanivien will notice at some point or another. When it dies, probably.”

“He’s the one making these guns, I’d rather he didn’t make me a faulty one,” Nika shrugs. “But if he sees, it’s whatever. It’s just annoying. You asked me earlier why I’m here. I was drawn to the gun. I think it has a nice shot.” He pauses. “I’m sure that the Fortemps family can pay for one of these.”

“Pretty sure they can, yeah. This one’s mine, though.” 

“I’m not in the habit of stealing people’s weapons.” 

I lift a brow. “Never said you were.” 

Nika shakes his head and heads for the door. The light flickers and he looks up. “Someone should really fix the damn thing,” he says, a little less angry than before. He’s then gone, tucking his waistcoat tighter for warmth, and I watch him go before he’s part of the shadows and I can take out my tools. 

We all like weird things. Some of us like long-barreled guns. Some of us like women named Minfilia, and speaking in riddles. And who knows? Maybe this broken little lamp refuses to die because it likes us, too. 

Halone works in weird fucking ways. 

[janzoo]

Seigneur's Attire: House Haillenarte🌹

The new Seigneur's Attire reinforced my opinion that Ishgardians should wear more fur, so here we are to appreciate just that. In this post in particular, we are also here to appreciate House Haillenarte.