The Great Houses

The Great Houses of the Scarlet Dynasty are given the designation of "Great" by the Empress herself. Their position is not static, and houses have risen and fallen countless times over the history of the Realm. Currently, they are:

House Cathak
Fire Aspected

Famed as one of the most militaristic of the Great Houses, House Cathak has been blessed by the Dragons with a better Exaltation
rate than any House but Mnemon’s. Even more auspiciously, House Cathak has produced more children than any other Great House
for 80 out of the last 100 years. For other Great Houses, this would be a blessing. For House Cathak, it’s necessary to offset the House’s
equally high mortality rate. The majority of young Cathaks (Exalted or not) enter the legions, where they strive to equal or surpass the
legends of the House’s great war heroes—and the House’s casualty rate reflects that. More tragedies befall the young soldiers of this Great
House than any other. Publicly, this is attributed to the fearlessness of House Cathak. Privately, it is often claimed that, while members
of the House are long on bravery, they’re short on judgment. Some members even secretly claim that it’s an extravagant conspiracy
engineered by Mnemon to keep House Cathak from taking control of the Dynasty simply by outbreeding the rest of the Great Houses.

House Cynis
There is no denying that House Cynis has made its own reputation, but it is equally true that the other Dynastic Houses have blown that reputation far out of proportion. Yes, the Cynis throw orgies, and yes those events are engineered to be spectacles. For the most part, though, those affairs are nothing like the unflattering accounts say they are.