House Teach is the noble line of the King of Chains, rulers of Freedom Bay and keepers of Arnot’s slave fleets. Once feared pirates, they have since become legitimized as one of the Empire’s great vassal houses — though their methods have never changed. Their banners still fly skulls, their ships still raid foreign coasts, and their markets still thrive on flesh. What separates them from common pirates is that they do so under the sanction of the Emperor.
To the Arnothi, slavery is not shame but wealth; and in this, House Teach are undisputed masters. They claim their line descends from the First Giants who chained the lesser tribes in ages past, making bondage itself their bloodright. To outsiders, they are monsters. To Arnot, they are indispensable.
Build: The Teach are often massive even by Arnothi standards — broad, towering, with giant-blood that seems to breed endurance and brutality. Their presence is as suffocating as their reputation.
Style: They adorn themselves in plundered silks, gold piercings, heavy chains, and sea-leather cloaks. Each Teach dresses like both noble and pirate, flaunting their wealth in a way no desert-born house dares.
Mark of Chains: Many Teach bear scars from shackles burned into their flesh as children, a rite of passage meant to remind them that chains are both weapon and inheritance.
The stronghold of House Teach is a ruin-city of the First Giants, carved into a crescent bay.
Architecture: The city sprawls across titanic ruins — half-drowned plazas, shattered causeways, and towers whose doors were built for beings three times the height of men. Arnothi pirates dwell among these god-sized bones of stone, carving docks, forges, and slave markets into structures that loom like temples.
The Docks of Madness: The shipyards are unlike any in the world. Using the bones of giants, iron scavenged from sunken wrecks, and their own twisted genius, the Teach build ships that appear impossible: hulls that lean at strange angles, masts sprouting like forests, sails cut asymmetrically. To outsiders, they look like wrecks waiting to happen — yet on the sea, they are unmatched in speed and resilience.
The Market of Chains: Slaves of every race and creed are auctioned beneath the shadows of broken giant statues. The market is as permanent a fixture as the tide, and its profits keep both the Teach coffers and the Emperor’s tribute flowing.
Creed of Chains: To the Teach, chains are not symbols of captivity, but of dominion. “To bind is to rule.” Slavery is not an industry; it is the natural order, with the strong enslaving the weak as proof of their right to dominate.
Pirate Aristocracy: Unlike the desert nobility, who boast of blood and duels, the Teach boast of raids, fleets, and captives. Their feasts are notorious for displaying chained enemies as trophies.
Fear as Power: They understand that terror itself is currency. Every story of a Teach raid — whole villages dragged in chains, fleets burned for defiance — adds to their invisible empire of fear.
The Rise of Chains: Legends claim the Teach were among the first pirates of Arnot’s coasts, their ancestors binding whole tribes in chains and offering them to the First Giants. Whether myth or truth, their dominance of slavery is unquestioned.
The Blackbeard Rebellion: Edward Teach, called Blackbeard, rose as heir to the King of Chains. His rebellion nearly fractured the empire — a bid to crown himself not as vassal but as Emperor of the Seas. His fall humiliated the Teach and scarred their name, but the family endured, more ruthless and vengeful than before.
The Iron Pact: After Blackbeard’s fall, House Teach swore eternal tribute to the throne, cementing themselves as one of the Emperor’s pillars. But every Arnothi knows that oath is kept not out of loyalty, but calculation.
Today, House Teach is both reviled and essential:
Their fleets secure the empire’s southern seas, ensuring no rival power dares encroach.
Their slave markets fuel Arnot’s wealth and armies.
Their shipwrights are unrivaled; even the Emperor commissions their “impossible ships.”
The King of Chains himself rules as one of Arnot’s four vassal kings, but his loyalty to the Emperor is always suspect. For in Freedom Bay, amidst the ruins of gods and the cries of the enslaved, whispers still circulate of Blackbeard’s dream: an empire of chains that bows to no throne but its own.