House Corvus

House Corvus is one of the four ruling houses of Deus. Their primary focus is on gathering knowledge, particularly secrets, and preserving it through time.

The headquarters of House Corvus is technically located in the Sea of Ice, though this is mainly used for welcoming and acclimatizing new members, as well as a holding place for books that are yet to be filed in its libraries and a location for meetings between House Corvus and the other houses. Most activity within the house, or between the house and the general populace of Deus, happens at its libraries.

House Corvus maintains seven libraries. The first six are scattered around the main continent of Deus and each focus on a single subject, aiming to collect every book on Deus pertaining to their focus. They are as follows:

The Library of the First Crow, dealing with plays, poetry, visual media, and other non-prose forms of writing
The Library of the Second Crow, dealing with prose fiction
The Library of the Third Crow, dealing with social science, languages, and philosophy
The Library of the Fourth Crow, dealing with natural and applied sciences
The Library of the Fifth Crow, dealing with arts and religion
The Library of the Sixth Crow, dealing with history and geography

The seventh library is the Library of the Seventh Crow, which holds information on all the above subjects, as well as a repository of secret information. While the first six libraries are free for all to enter, the seventh is only open to House Corvus members.

Unlike the other three houses, House Corvus has no formal application process. Its members simply conduct investigations into potential hopefuls and send their findings to the librarians, who review the person and determine whether to send them an invitation. Those invited to join the house are then reached out to by members in the area and brought to the house's main building to accept their invitation.

Structure

There are only two divisions within House Corvus, librarians and ordinary members. Librarians are organized within both a loose hierarchy of respect, wherein those looking after the seventh library are considered senior to those within the other six, and a definitive hierarchy wherein one Head Librarian from each library partakes in a Council of Seven which presides over the entire organization.

Librarians take on many roles, the most obvious of which is curating the collections of all seven libraries. A select few librarians stationed in all seven libraries are also tasked with admitting entrance to the seventh library from one of the other six, via teleportation circle. The last major role of librarians is to review new candidates to the organization, deem them worthy or unworthy, and direct other members to approach those candidates deemed worthy. All librarians live onsite in the library in which they work, and most interlibrary discussion happens by secure magical communication. The Council of Seven meets in-person four times a year, on the solstices and equinoxes, at the seventh library.