| “ | House Dormentaire picked me up. They’re pretty easy to understand—it doesn’t matter if you're black or white, if you’ve got blue blood or not, or anything else. What they care about is how much you can help them. In other words, as long as you can make them more money, they’ll take you. | ” |
–Victor Talbot on House Dormentaire, 1711: Whitesmile | ||
House Dormentaire is a powerful and wealthy aristocratic family from Spain, almost rivalling both House Medici and the Mars Family at the height of their power in the 1700s. The family has survived into the 1930s, and though its influence has declined remains one of the most wealthy and prominent financial conglomerates in the world.
Chronology
1700s
In 1700, a Dormentaire son by the name of Gardi Dormentaire attempts to rape and murder Maribel Boroñal, a young daughter of the noble Boroñal family. He kills her parents when they try to save her, only to be murdered by Maribel in self-defense. Wanting to cover up Gardi's actions, the Dormentaires and Maribel's brother Count Esperanza C. Boroñal work out an agreement in which Maribel is sent to live in the Italian port city Lotto Valentino under the new name Monica Campanella while Esperanza takes the reins as the city's new governor.
In 1709, Lady Lucrezia de Dormentaire orders her bodyguard Carla Alvarez Santonia to lead a Dormentaire delegation to Lotto Valentino and find Gardi's killer, whom their Dormentaire spy believes is hiding in the city. This is actually a pretext for their real mission: Lucrezia and the Dormentaires have heard rumors that Lotto Valentino is rife with counterfeit gold and drugs - and something about immortality - and they want Carla to investigate those rumors and claim those riches (such as the formula for the counterfeit gold) for the Dormentaires. Gardi's killer does not actually matter to them.
Several months later, Carla's delegation of Dormentaire soldiers arrives in Lotto Valentino around the late autumn-winter of 1709 and make contact with Esperanza and Dalton Strauss. The delegation grows over the next few months as more and more soldiers make port in the city, which over time becomes used to the Dormentaires' presence. Trouble brews when Jean-Pierre Accardo's newest play is performed in theatres and Carla realizes that part of his play is based off House Dormentaire.
Months later in 1710, Monica Campanella turns herself in to the Dormentaires as Gardi's killer, and Carla is shocked to learn from Monica that Jean's play - the one currently performed in the city's theatre - now depicts the story of House Dormentaire and Gardi's murder. She manages to bring the play's theatrical run to a halt, but her Dormentaire soldiers are unable to find the now-vanished Jean. Thanks to the play, the Dormentaire delegation now has to act according to their decoy mission despite the fact that they already have Monica in their possession.
The Dormentaires keep Monica under lock and key on their gigantic black warship over the course of the next several months, during which time Monica gives birth. One day, Lotto Valentino finds itself ablaze, and Carla and her closest soldiers are knocked out on their ship. When she awakes to find one of her Dormentaire ships on fire, she declares that Lotto Valentino has made itself the enemy of House Dormentaire and that action will be taken in due course.
At Elmer C. Albatross' badgering, Carla makes him a Dormentaire spy.
By exactly one year later in 1711, the Dormentaires have taken full control over Lotto Valentino; the Dormentaire crest hangs from every building, and a 'floating fortress' of Dormentaire warships is installed in its harbor. Meanwhile, Dormentaire-sponsored alchemists Victor Talbot and Szilard Quates arrive in the city under orders to investigate the counterfeit gold and drugs circulating the city.
At some point prior to to their arrival Huey Laforet snuck into Lucrezia's bedchambers and proposed an exchange: his counterfeit method in exchange for the use of the Dormentaires' alchemy workshop. Lucrezia agreed.
Multiple Dormentaire buildings suffer incendiary attacks during this period by The Mask Makers, including one of its firearm stores, one of its food stores, and eventually Szilard's ship and a manor on the hill. A ship carrying Lucrezia is due to arrive the day after Szilard's ship and the manor burn, only for her ship to explode while at sea in full view of those at the harbor - leading both the locals and the Dormentaire soldiers to believe her dead. Over the next five days, the Dormentaire soldiers grow increasingly alarmed over the disappearance of the city's alchemists, desperate to both take their revenge and find the culprits behind the attacks lest the Dormentaires hold them responsible instead.
Several days later, several explosions rock Lotto Valentino. Carla tries and fails to prevent the alchemist-laden Advena Avis from leaving the city, and is shocked to reunite with Lucrezia, who had only faked her death. Lucrezia reveals that the entire incident was according to House Dormentaire's plan; the Dormentaires intended to take over the alchemists' research while letting the alchemists escape all along.
1930s
Although House Dormentaire has been on the decline since the modern era began, they remain an impressively wealthy financial conglomerate by the 1930s and are still heavily economically active in Spain and Italy with some amount of influence in the world economy. Over the years, they've split up their fortune from overseas trade and stashed chunks of it all over the world in what Victor has called their "centuries-long master plan for tax evasion."
The Dormentaires are also active in alchemic research, including their research into homunculi and Immortality. One of their test subjects includes Lord Avaro, whom Lucrezia made a complete immortal in the 1700s and lived as a Dormentaire test subject for the next two hundred years.
One of the results of those two hundred years of experimentation is the homunculus Melvi Dormentaire, created from Lord Avaro's cells before 1930 in order to devour Szilard Quates. Melvi's arrival onto the New York scene by February 1935 under Dormentaire instructions to become the subordinate to Huey. At least one Dormentaire ship accompanies his arrival, along with several seaplanes from Huey's faction Time. This is the same ship that Melvi keeps Ennis on under Dormentaire guard after he kidnaps her.
As arranged by Melvi, House Dormentaire organize ships around the world and summon the 'demon' Ronny Schiatto continuously over the three-day period during which the Runorata Family's casino party at Ra's Lance is taking place.
The Dormentaires have colluded not only with Huey and the Runoratas (the Dormentaires and the Runoratas remain officially unaffiliated), they have also enjoyed limited contact with Szilard's factions before his death in November 1930 - Szilard routinely used some of their cash to buy the rare materials he needed to make his homunculi.
Members
Dormentaires
- Gardi Dormentaire (deceased in 700)
- Lucrezia de Dormentaire (Gardi's sister; publicly faked her death in 1711)
Employees
- Carla Alvarez Santonia (Lucrezia's bodyguard)
- Szilard Quates (Dormentaire-sponsored alchemist)
- Victor Talbot (Dormentaire-sponsored alchemist)
- Huey Laforet (sponsored alchemist)
Spies
- Lebreau Fermet Viralesque
- Elmer C. Albatross (for Carla)
Homunculi
- Melvi Dormentaire (not Dormentaire by blood)
Test Subjects
Family Crest
The family crest is that of a golden hourglass, surrounded by multiple circular designs. It bears a resemblance to the Medici crest. The crest has survived with the family into the 1930s.
Trivia
- The hourglass motif of the Dormentaires has a history of use with pirates. Before the skull-and-crossbones design was popularized, pirates' flags had a multitude of designs - the most popular of them the hourglass. Blackbeard would eventually cement both the hourglass and skull-and-crossbones designs when he used them for his own ship.
- The inventor that the Dormentaires hired to design and build the floating fortress is Carnald Strassburg, a character from Ryohgo Narita's light novel series Vamp!.
- Since House Dormentaire had people continuously summon Ronny in 1935, it is clear that they know the secret to summoning him - though how is uncertain. Ronny has speculated that Lucrezia may have shared the secret with the summoners, and briefly considered Rosetta as a potential culprit as well.