SCHRECKNET VLA-7 // RECOVERED FILE classification: nodes-only provenance: "SOMMER" lecture cache (unverified) — transcribed, not confirmed topic: GIOVANNI & HECATA — THE FAMILY LEDGER (1005 to now) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- TIMELINE 1005 Cappadocius Embraces Augustus Giovanni, a Venetian merchant prince, inside the monastery of Erciyes. The clan of scholars acquires a banker. Nobody counts the cost of a loan for three hundred years. 1444 Augustus diablerizes Cappadocius. The ususrpation is complete: one night of murder buys a clan. The Cappadocian line is hunted, the family closes ranks, and necromancy becomes bookkeeping. 1685- The Family expands as literally a family — marriages, blood, ledgers. Venice, Rome, the Americas, Manila. The dead are moved like cargo. 1999 The Week of Nightmares cracks the Shroud worldwide. The Harbingers of Skulls surface — the old clan, not dead after all, and angrier than anything the Family ever financed. 2000s SI pressure + a wraith maelstrom break the Giovanni safehouses. The ledger is audited by fire. 2010s FAMILY REUNION: the branches are read back into one name — CLAN HECATA. One clan of death, last of the independents. The Anziani Council rules de jure; the Capuchin rules de facto. Nobody has seen him lower the hood. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- HOW THEY OPERATE NOW - They do not Embrace outside the blood. Being hired is the only door in. - Necromancy as finance: souls are collateral, ghosts are brokers, burial rites are contracts with enforcement clauses. - SchreckNET's standing experience: their terminals receive cold packets — messages addressed from numbers that do not resolve. Directive unchanged: DO NOT REPLY. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- THREE NAMES THAT MATTER AUGUSTUS GIOVANNI — the founder. Status UNKNOWN since the Second Inquisition reached Venice. The empty palazzo is either a tomb, a trap, or a tax dodge. No one has audited which. THE CAPUCHIN — hooded, chairing, de facto head of the Family. Speaks for the ledgers. Never for himself. JAPHETH CAPPADOCIAN — the first childe, kept chained in a Venice cellar since 1444. Still alive. Still the best living witness of what was actually eaten. The Family denies the cellar. The cellar does not deny the Family. // end of recovered file