Hunter houses of Terra are decentralized cells of monster hunters. House Jade, the ex-family of both Jaina Jade and Pasht, has been the most explored in writing, but there are many others.
Overview
Introduction
Hunters are always human women, although some (like Jaina) gain superhuman abilities in a variety of ways).
"House" refers not to a building but to the adoptive familial ties between members. Girls who are adopted young and raised to be hunters know no other family. Houses also recruit adult members; these generally don't become hunters themselves, but assist in other ways (raising children, maintaining cover stories, that sort of thing).
Hunters speak the language(s), wear the dress, and generally practice the customs of the surrounding people (though it must be said that it is a rare huntress who wears a skirt willingly).
Religion
Most hunters practice (or at least pay lip service to) their own cult revolving around the concept of taint. They worship a distant goddess and believe that only by good works may they be saved, namely dealing death to once-human monsters. Some non-hunter members follow as well, casting their lot in with a hunter or hunters (usually sharing a House or a romance) and relying on the hunter's salvation being enough to cover more than one person.
The Great Mother existed before there was time. She caused herself to give birth to the world, and the world gave birth to many kinds of beings and life, both mortal and ethereal.
The ethereal beings could not feel and experience as the mortals could. Many of them begged the Great Mother to grant them this gift, but she refused them.
The jealous ethereals lied to the mortals, claiming that the Great Mother needed all her descendants to join together to help the world to grow. The mortal women all knew their Mother and suspected treachery, but some of the men were swayed, and threw their lot in with the deceivers.
The union of ethereal and men attacked the Great Mother, cast her out of her own world, and mystically barred her return. They expected her to die. Instead, her loving daughters managed to rescue her and to save a thin connection to her consciousness.
These women were the first hunters.
Membership
There are two ways cells gain new members: adopting children and recruiting women.
Children
When the cell leader is satisfied that a specific child has been chosen by their Goddess, the girl is adopted into the cell and raised within it. She will be renamed with her House name in place of her old surname (e.g, Jaina Jade) and sometimes with a new personal name, subject to the whim of the cell leader or aunt who cares for the children. Such adoptions are almost always huntresses, unless the child is unfit to hunt despite the Goddess's selection of her.
Jaina was adopted on the basis on her blood-red hair, which House Jade interpreted as an indication that the Goddess had already chosen her.
Adults
Women are rarely recruited outright. Most are offered safety within the cell's haven if a huntress encounters a victim in the course of a hunt. Some opt for a fresh start under a wholly new name, selecting an (often ridiculous) personal name and taking their House as surname; others serve the cell part-time and keep their original names and occupations. Members not named for their House will append it to their name when identifying themselves as such to known members of other cells or houses, e.g. "Emily Parker of House Glass". These women act as support staff to the huntresses: working security for cell safe havens, researching new methods and weapons to combat the monsters, or co-rearing young adoptees. They are never huntresses, though they may assist battles in non-combat roles, such as backing up daylight raids on vampire dens.
Notable hunter houses
- House Vidro (Brazil, rumored to have the best hunters of any House in the world)
- House Jade
- House Quartz (more cells than any other House)
- House Glass?
- House Diamant (Austria, lately fallen into disrepute)
Notable individual hunters
- Jaina Jade (former)
- Pasht (former)
- Claridad Diamante
- Amber Glass
- Cate Whitlen
Everything below this point is subject to change
Despite being identified as vampire hunters, the organisation is far more diverse. Different branches are dedicated to killing various monsters, studying them and how mundane science may affect them, and protecting themselves from public knowledge.
Branch map (incomplete):
- Hunters
- vampires (JJ was here)
- zombies
- werewolves
- ghosts/demons (exorcism unit)
- R&D
- branches parallel to hunting, plus:
- intel
- academic research
- experimentation
- Terran science
- weapons
- med tech
- gene therapy
- experimental magic (rarely pays off)
- Support staff
- med tech (overlap w/ R&D)
- haven guards
- "mother hens" to raise adoptees
- assorted external contacts
- sympathetic law enforcement
- mages
Reality
The Hunter Houses drew some inspiration from Arak Calandryll's vampire hunter class for AD&D. He's a friend and graciously permitted me to use his work to shore up my own. Thanks, Arak.