[Mau] Is cats relation to Great House more cultural or more loyalty?

[wyrdhamster]

Finally got my Mau corebook! Yupi! And when starting to prepare introductory scenario, I uncovered that I may not understand idea of Houses in this game. ( The 'von' part of cats names. ) Minor spoilers for All Hail Rat King! adventure to follow...

Scenario takes place on in town on lands of House Cymric, near border with House Korat. One of major NPCs is mayor of the town that is Misty von Mau! What's more, quest is given to PCs by local Castellan - Mischa von Angora!

If the cat's House would be simple pointing to official, medieval and dynastic relation - it would be logical that local Castellan and Mayor on the lands of particular House ( in this example Cymric ) would be from this House ( so with name 'von Cymric' ). But this is not the case. They are from other Houses, so it seems to imply they moved to this location, from their homeland. And still local Dynast ( from House Cymric ) is trusting them to run local House ( as Monarchy ) affairs.

So my theory is this - House is 'culture' of the particular cat, not the real loyalties of it. Of course, most local figure in lands of this House - will be 'von' this House. But most cats characters are putting 'von' part only to mark from where they come, not to whom they are really loyal.

[Heavy Arms]

It's both?

Since Cats don't have the same devotion to family that Dogs have, they're free to join the House with a culture that most suits them. So in that sense, House is culture.

However, loyalty still matters to Cats quite a great deal, or rather being trustworthy by their largely cultural concepts of such. One that, say, was born into House Cymric and thus knows many Cymric secrets, but opts to join Siberian instead, shows their trustworthy status by never betraying the secrets about Cymric they know (and it would be rude to ask), and by being true to Siberian values as well.

Trustworthy Catys loyal to the ideals of secrecy, face, and so on are thus worthy of positions of power even in lands controlled by a House they're not members of.

So, no, there's no reason to assume that members of one House being minor officials in the lands of another means they have to be imports. But it would be very rude to remind a local of good standing that they joined a House different from the one they were born into.

[wyrdhamster]

As I was asked by my player on related to topic question - How Secrets work when you were raised in House A, but later change loyalty to House B?

Answer in on page 86 of Mau corebook:

'In general, cats keep house affiliation all their lives, but some choose to join a different house once they become adults. For the purposes of creating your cat, choose which house your character grew up in, and decide whether your character’s loyalty to her current house, or rebellion against her previous one, defines her more. Characters loyal to their original house can take House Upbringing from her current house, while characters who rebelled against their original house can take House Upbringing from her previous house. Or, in either case, they can be a Cat of the World.'

This fluctuation in choosing Secrets seems to imply that cat's relation to House is really more loyalty than culture...

[Heavy Arms]

Except the line, "For the purposes of creating your cat, choose which house your character grew up in, and decide whether your character’s loyalty to her current house, or rebellion against her previous one, defines her more." clearly keeps it in the 'both' camp.

Really... what are you trying to get at here? Social structures are complicated and messy, and the game is trying to give a decently simple way to abstract it. It doesn't have to be a binary thing just because you have to make some character trait choices.