Dragonmarked Houses - House Medani
Next up is House Medani, the half-elf house whose members bear the Mark of Detection. Unlike the half-elves of House Lyrander, the heirs of Medani are a secretive lot, and some may say downright sneaky. Of all the dragonmarked houses, House Medani purposely keeps the lowest profile. When your services include risk assessment, interrogation, and protection, a low key approach is probably the best way to go. Through the Warning Guild, they contract jobs as bodyguards, investigators, and sentries to clients across Khorvaire.
House Medani
Dragonmark - Mark of Detection
Race - Half-Elf
Traits - ASI, Deductive Intuition, Magical Detection, Spells of the Mark
Headquarters - Tower of Inquisition (Wroat, Breland)
Patriarch - Baron Trelib d'Medani
Emblem - Basilisk
Guilds - Warning Guild
History
The Medani half-elves have been around for quite a while. The families that now makeup House Medani worked together for ages in the provinces that were later united to Breland. When you're part human and part elf, you learn how to not only blend into each society but obscure whichever part of your heritage that people may have a bias towards. So when the mark of detection manifested, they were able to keep the mark hidden from the rest of the world, but it didn’t prevent them from using the mark's abilities. As they secretly used their new powers to carve out a reputation and reliable bodyguards and investigators, the other dragonmarked suspected nothing. These half-elves had no time for all the bullshit between the dragonmarked houses, so the quietly went about their business, no one the wiser.
And then the Last War happened….
House Cannith discovered the Medani elves and their dragonmark partway through the War of the Mark. You'd think the Cannith heirs would be too busy producing their warforged to do anything else, but unfortunately for our quiet half-elf friends, they were no longer unnoticed. The lore says that the mark of detection was first thought to be an aberrant mark. I can only imagine the houses thought this because, in their arrogance, they did not believe that another dragonmark would manifest after so long. Welp, they were wrong, and they couldn't have another dragonmark family running around like a loose cannon. So, out of the goodness of their hearts - ok, not really - they graciously invited the Medani half-elves to join. With no desire to grow in power beyond the lands of Breland, and not wanting to be involved in the infighting amongst the dragonmarked house, Medani promptly told them to fuck off. Not used to taking no for an answer, the houses unified in their approach and, after much negotiation, not so veiled threats, and a few strong-arm tactics, the half-elves relented, and House Medani was created.
Throughout the remainder of the Last War, House Medani did nothing to ingratiate themselves with the other dragonmarked houses. The Medani heirs could have cared less what the other houses thought, as they were loyal to Breland. Unlike the rest of the houses, who had to work covertly with the Five Nations in an attempt to keep up their appearances of neutrality, House Medani worked out in the open as the counter-intelligence arm of the Breland crown. While they never acted as spies for Breland, their primary business was discovering and apprehending spies and assassins from rival nations, and business was good. They were involved in various criminal investigations throughout the land. With most of the able-bodied people out fighting on the front lines, House Medani became the de facto law enforcement arm of Breland. This alliance between Medani and Breland still exists today, allowing the Medani heirs to have a subtle, but powerful, influence over matters of state.
The Mark of Detection
In 3.5e, the mark of detection was a series of three feats that focuses on detection spells. I know, you're shocked. The first feat was the Least Dragonmark feat, and the series culminated with the Greater Dragonmark feat. The prestige class in this edition was the Medani Prophet. They were Medani heirs possessing the ability to use the flow of magic, granting them heighten powers, and allowed them to sense poisons and see through illusions. The class features included:
Keen Sight: Grants you an insight bonus on Sense Motive checks equal to your class level.
Prophetic Vision: Visions of the past and future. Of course, with all abilities like this, they are usually cryptic, so you had to figure out what the hell the dream vision meant. Why can't they just tell you the bad guy is the rogue. It's always the rogue.
Blood Augury: You get augury as if you couldn’t have figured that out on your own.
Dragon's Shield: AC bonus.
Medani Guidance: You get divination. Hopefully, the answer to your question is straightforward, but there are no guarantees.
Visions of the Past: Looking into the past and ask three questions. The answers may be a little vague, but you won't have to translate some strange riddle you saw in a dream.
The marks of detection were as follows:
Least Mark of Detection: Detect magic 2/day or detect poison 2/day; +2 bonus on Spot checks.
Lesser Mark of Detection: Detect scrying 1/day or see invisibility 1/day.
Greater Mark of Detection: True seeing 1/day. If you ask me, this is one of the more powerful Greater Marks. In contrast, many of the other house's greater dragonmarks provide an offensive ability, true seeing one of the most powerful detection spells in 3.5e. You can view all things as they are. You can see through normal and magical darkness, secret doors hidden by magic, the exact locations of creatures or objects that think they are sneaky and using any sort of a blur, or invisibility effects, along with being able to see into the Ethereal Plane. You can also ignore all illusions and sees the true form of polymorphed, changed, or transmuted things. This helps when those annoying NPC's polymorph themselves in pixies… don't get mad just because the DM takes a play out of your playbook. With a range of 120 feet, it is a ridiculously overpowered ability.
The paragon path was the Medani Trueseer. Once again, you get to look into the veil and see things for what they are, which helps the Trueseer be one step ahead of their foes. Medani True Strike lets you see invisible creatures. Medani Foretelling allowed you to take a quick peek into the future, which allowed you to roll twice when attacking. Finally, there was Disruptive Premonition, granted you or an ally combat advantage to you until the end of your next turn.
Today
House Medani has no interest or tolerance for the bullshit political games played by the other dragonmarked houses. The house has a well-earned reputation for being distant and secretive. This has not endeared them to the other houses and some of the houses have been known to send spies into House Medani in hopes of discovering their secrets. It's a pretty stupid idea, and they have captured a number of the spies from House Phiarlan and House Thurannk.
The Warning Guild provides certification and brokers employment for bodyguards, inquisitives, and sentries across Khorvaire, with most work taking place in the larger cities throughout the continent. Through the use of their dragonmark, House Medani operatives are in high demand, as their focus is on determining potential threats before they happen, reducing the possibility of violence or injury. This gives them a leg up on House Deneith, whose bodyguard services depend more on eliminating threats when they happen rather than preventing them from occurring at all. The guild has enclaves throughout the Five Nations, but they are always small and unmarked.
House Medani's base of operations is the appropriately named Tower of Inquisition, located in the city of Wroat. Baron Trelib d'Medani maintains a strong relationship with the members of the royal family of Breland and still provides law enforcement and interrogation services for the current King. Members of House Medani are much more altruistic than other dragon marked houses. They provide their services to the community when a particularly tricky case may arise, or to outlying villages that do not have resources or financial means to handle more substantial criminal investigations.
In the 5th edition, the Mark of Detection is a half-elf subrace with the following traits:
Ability Score Increase - Your Wisdom score increases by 2, and one other ability score of your choice increases by 1.
Deductive Intuition - Add a d4 to Intelligence (Investigation) or Wisdom (Insight) checks.
Magical Detection. You can cast the detect magic and detect poison and disease spells. At 3rd level, you obtain the see invisibility spell with it. Once you cast any of these spells with this trait, you can't cast that spell with it again until you finish a long rest. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for these spells, and you don't require material components for them.
Spells of the Mark. If you have the Spellcasting or the Pact Magic class feature, you gain detection and foreknowledge spells, including detect good and evil, find traps, nondetection, divination, and legend lore.
