Nobriskov Family
The Nobriskov family is one of Borca’s oldest noble lineages—a house of cold pride, sacred rites, and secret hungers. Pious to the point of severity and relentlessly formal in both speech and conduct, the Nobriskovs present themselves as the moral conscience of Borca, guardians of ancestral values in a land corroded by poison, scandal, and ambition.
Behind the high collars and ancestral hymns, however, lies a blood-bound curse: lycanthropy. It has haunted the Nobriskov line for generations, passed in silence from one generation to the next. Within the confines of their ancestral holdings, the Nobriskovs speak of it as a “family illness” or “ancestral trial,” never aloud and never before strangers. Their lives are structured around ritual, repression, and rigid self-control—all efforts to keep the beast at bay.
Every few generations, a Nobriskov child succumbs too early to the beast within—and must be “retired to cloistered seclusion,” according to the official record. In truth, such individuals are either locked away in ancestral crypts-turned-prisons or quietly dispatched by elder kin. These are the family’s true tragedies, mourned in candlelit silence during moon-dark nights.
It is said that the family matriarch, Varka Nobriskov, bears the curse in full and has done so for decades without ever surrendering to it. If true, she is a marvel of willpower—or something more terrifying.
Among the Borcan elite, the Nobriskovs are both respected and avoided. Their moral severity is off-putting, their rituals strange, their eyes too keen in dim candlelight. And yet, when matters of death, honor, or ancestral legacy arise, no other house commands such reluctant deference.
To cross a Nobriskov is to risk incurring their silent wrath—not through poison or politics, but through grim, ancestral judgment. And if the rumors are true, that judgment may come with claws.
Public Agenda
The Nobriskovs place ritual and religious devotion above all. Their family observes the old rites of reverence to saints and martyrs—especially those tied to protection, sacrifice, and transformation. Every member of the household participates in weekly fasts, silent prayer vigils, and ancient chants passed down through blood alone.
This piety serves both public image and private necessity. Controlling the beast within requires tremendous discipline, and the Nobriskovs believe their faith and rituals are the only bulwark between civilization and savagery. Most among them live with deep self-loathing and fear of shame; a single slip risks destroying not just the individual, but the family’s austere reputation.
Though they lack the glamour of the Boritsi or the economic weight of the Dilisnya, the Nobriskovs command a powerful moral authority. Other nobles turn to them for religious legitimacy, blessing ceremonies, or discreet disposal of dangerous magical afflictions. They sit on various cultural councils, and their word carries weight in any gathering that involves tradition, law, or the gods.
Their politics are conservative, measured, and strategic. The Nobriskovs rarely act swiftly, but when they do, their decisions are near-impossible to overturn. They support stability above all—and will quietly oppose any force that threatens to unravel Borca’s fragile social order.
History
The Nobriskovs trace their ancestry to the first Flan and Oeridian clans to settle the Borcan valleys. They claim that, long before the Boritsi or Dilisnya rose to prominence, it was Nobriskov ancestors who held vigil over the land’s sacred places, kept the dead honored, and preserved the rites of hearth and moon. Whether this is truth or invented myth, no other family dares to challenge them on it—at least not directly.
Their estates in the shadowed western forests are built in a style older than modern fashion: black stone towers, timbered halls, and family shrines half-buried in ivy and fog. Wolves howl often in these woods, and travelers speak of strange figures pacing the treelines under full moons—tall and silent, watching with eyes that gleam unnaturally in starlight.
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