Klerosia — The Kindred Flame

The Ruby's gift to her children was not power, but belonging.

An officer of the Klerokon fire-corps looses the gathered flame of his bloodline.

Klerosia is the magic of bloodlines — the dynastic schema woven by the Ruby, the Elder of fire, family, and freedom. Where a lone sorcerer must hoard their own strength, a Klerokon line shares a single living reservoir of thymara — the inner fire of will, memory, and wisdom from which all sorcery is drawn. Every child born to the blood is born already wealthy, heir at once to the gathered strength of every ancestor and every living cousin.

The great magic-dynasties of the human world are Klerokoi: the fire-sorcerer officer-corps of Andronis, the steadfast Caidar of Darolas, the trackers of Navalis. To be of such a line is to never truly cast alone.

"A flame shared is not a flame divided. Ask any hearth."

• A shared hearth. The line's thymara is a common pool. Any member may draw from it and pour into it; the strength of the dead and the distant flows to the one who needs it now.
• Kindred sense. When one of the blood draws deeply, the others feel it — a hum at a minor casting, a flare in battle, a storm felt across a whole realm when a Klerokos burns everything they have. A great dynasty is, in effect, a single nervous system spread across a continent.
• Sealed by blood, not by oath. Membership is a fact of birth, never a credential. It cannot be granted, sold, forged, or stolen — one either is of the blood, or is not.
• Self-sustaining. The Ruby's hand was needed only to kindle the first line. Once founded, a dynasty maintains itself forever, with no master to administer it.

A dynast-sorceress draws deeply upon the shared hearth of her kin.

• No exits. What cannot be stolen cannot be surrendered. A member may not refuse their kin, nor resign from the line; the only release from the Kindred Flame is death.
• No new blood by choice. The bond passes only by birth. You cannot adopt a stranger into the pool, however worthy — and a line that dwindles cannot simply recruit.
• Everything is felt. The same sense that unites a dynasty betrays it: a death, a secret working, a catastrophe — none can be truly hidden from the rest of the blood. Privacy is the one luxury a Klerokos can never afford.
• Strength follows the family. A small or fading line is a shallow well. The mightiest dynasties are those with the most kin living and remembered — and a house brought low in numbers is brought low in power.