House of Crows: Velabanchel

The House of Graves
A prime example of the Antivan Crows' power, the infamous and feared prison is known for being the place where unfortunate victims are incarcerated for “fun and torture”. One mistake and a man could spend the rest of their days shackled and forgotten in the ancient cells. Built upon a rock island surrounded by the Venification Sea a single bridge leads to the prison. Despite being in Antiva, Velabanchel is eerily cold due to its location, harsh gale winds often whipping around it, wearing away at the stone just as the waves do down below. As soon as one enters Velabanchel, the crisp air is filled with a chorus of constant screaming. Often the Crows jest that this cacophony (or melody, depending on one's taste) is often a sort of welcome for those entering. If you ever leave you either hear the screams of the residents, or your own as you plummet down from one of the balconies and into the sea below, assuming you do not perish during some form of torture practice.

Velabanchel is, chronologically, one of the more recent additions to the arsenal of Crow strongholds, second to the Archive in Antiva City acquired some years before. The prison is, however, far more infamous than the Archive. Before the acquisition of the prison the Crows used an expansive, ancient underground catacomb system not too far from the prison itself. To this day the system is simply referred to as Tombs, the original names long buried in the Archives, or under the sands of time, and is still used as a more private torture facility. Crows who flee the House or fail in their missions often find themselves locked within Tombs before they are sent off to Velabanchel. There are some that never even make it to the House of Graves, and simply vanish, becoming playthings to the Punitori, who use the Tombs as their base of private operations.

Near the end of the Storm age, Tombs was horrifically crowded. There were cases where Crows were even disposing of what would have made prime hostages. During the war with the Qunari and all years prior, Velabanchel was owned and operated by the Chantry, used as a prison, in addition to the Aeonar, to house enemies, heretics, madmen, and anything else mundane the Chantry felt needed to be imprisoned. For some years, the Crows had been eyeing it with envy. During the time of war, the cells and even the very walls of the prison held mostly Qunari prisoners and ironically, many Crows in years before. Over the course of the Steel Age, somewhere close to two hundred Crows were captured and interrogated about the assassination of Queen Madrigal, and to this day the Chantry and the Antivan Royalty alike have no idea why the assassination took place or who ordered the contract, though the number of Crows that were taken and tortured does vary depending on the documentation.

There was a time in which the Chantry were losing to the Qunari horde in Antiva, the oxlords dominating most of the coast and countryside and working their way in, a countless number of people forced to flee west into Tevinter or south into the Free Marches. They were losing and were near their wits end. Like the opportunists they are, the Crows saw this as a golden opportunity, if a risky one. The Crows soon surfaced from their virtual lockdown and struck a deal with the Chantry. In exchange for the whitewashed prison, every arm of the Crows in Antiva would be used to attack and drive out the Qunari. Tentatively, the Chantry agreed, though many a brow was raised at fighting beside the assassins in battle. No such thing occurred, however, for the assassins did not fight with them during skirmishes with the kossith. The Crows were not an army.

Instead, the Crows attacked in the night on their own terms, with their own ways and their own orders, decimating the Qunari armies with whatever way possible. It took some time, the exact amount of time unknown, but with with the collaboration (more or less) of the two forces, the Qunari were eventually expelled from Antiva. The exact death toll on the Crows' end is unknown, but many records, Crow and Chantry alike, suggest it was higher or at least close to that of the Chantry and the Templar Order, though the accuracy is up to perception. During this time there is very little documentation, much of it lost and unrecorded, and the Chantry have done much to strike the collaboration with the House of Crows from their records altogether.

Although begrudgingly, the Chantry kept their word and Velabanchel was given (though some say sold), but to the state of Antiva rather than the House of Crows. This did not last long however, for the money seeping into the royalty and Merchant Princes eventually secured the partial and then total control of the prison itself, though the Merchant Princes still have much influence and pocket change within the prison and it's operations.

The guards of Velabanchel are not all Crows. In fact, they are usually supplied by the Merchant Princes of Antiva. They wear red cloth, silver helms decorated with skulls and a red feather, steel gauntlets and a weapon of choice, usually either a sword and crossbow. The prison is virtually impenetrable and often swarming with seasoned assassins. Amongst the assassins and guards, there are always a few Kossith placed with tasks of guarding the outer reaches of the prison. The House of Graves contains many levels, most of them designed to be difficult to navigate should the rare occurrence of an escape occur. There high towers and winding staircases, as well as the basements, which is usually a place where most of the more permanent residents reside.

Most Crows that are within the Antiva compound see Velabanchel a few times in their life. It is a favorite place to first induct recruits into official training once they have grown old enough, to set in a good example of where you will wind up should you fail the Crows, prior to your death of course. A few assassins even wind up operating as interrogators, rather than actual assassins, showing a true, often perverse sort of penchant for torment, be it dealt to them or others.

As far as who actually runs the prison, apart from the House as a whole, it is an interesting thing. Many of the guards are, indeed, provided by the Merchant Princes, the carceriere the man who runs the whole process of simply guarding the prison. As for what goes on within... that is a matter the Crows control directly, so much so that an elven master, lovingly dubbed 'The Rat', has overseen the interrogation and torture operations and everything that occurs inside the prison for over a decade, and he nor the Crows seem to be in much of a hurry to change that...