How often is most honourable house decided?

Whenever another house surpasses them, I'd assume.

Only thing I noticed--

There's a line in the announce about the ruling council not being able to remove family members from the aligned org? This seems to have... Abusable potential, unless it's just automatic patrician/what-have-you.

No - previously, a ruling council could remove a family from being aligned with a city. Particularly, this was intended as a 'safeguard' - if a family had a seat on the council, they couldn't 'abuse' it because of the threat of removing the family.

Unfortunately, it rather felt like an abusive situation where the seat was relegated to being a yes-man - if the city does not like who is appointed, the family could (and perhaps should) change it.

No individual family member is immune from being kicked out. The person in the council seat will have the same protections as any GM, but nothing more.

As a quick thing, thank you for making the Stormcrow race Elfen rather than Faeling!

I'm not sure how I feel about the orientation, time will tell!

Stormcrows are historically elfen. Nightshade was made faeling as, while they are historically both, one of their greatest achievements was the birth of the shadow faeling species - and the first two were Nightshades.

Stormcrows are also historically very devoted to Crow, which falls into the realm of Letters (spirituality & scholars). Nightshade was a pretty encompassing family, but Culture felt appropriate (both because Stormcrow felt more Letters-y and because it just seems more... Rowena-esque, I suppose!).

They may change (not too likely), but I felt bad leaving them empty.

Yeah, I know, when it was announced I was a bit worried that Faeling might've been chosen because it is a Glomdoring family. I'm reading the help file now and I do agree it seems more in line, but it was not my first impression from the description in the news post. Just from the blurb on the news post it didn't seem like the lovely Stormcrows.

Seeing that there is a malus applied to hunting denizens, is this to sentient denizens?

There's a malus on honour gains from hunting denizens (any mob). That means instead of getting 100 honour you might get 80 honour (random number). You still get honour, just not as much as another family might.

Oh okay, thanks.

Shevats still need an orientation. Seems like it's going to be letters, but dammit the suspense kills!

I wonder if they are waiting for Elo to come around, since I think he was the one who handled our historical family application as Hallifax patron.

EDIT: lolwut?

The rationale I was given was that historically the Shevat family tended to be fairly cultured, even while many of its peeps were scientists; think refined artist rather than the usual snobby flippant whimsical Trill image.

Can you point me to where this history is coming from? The history I've read, including what we submitted to get historical status, was almostly entirely scholarly oriented.

I've done that four times now in three different orgs. And they keep electing me.

I think it's the Shevat Gallery thing, but I dunno.

...so the one mob who owns an art studio outweighs all the other historical shevat scientists?

At a glance, the history submitted sits pretty borderline. For every instance of a scholar there's an artist - and the artists tended towards the highest echelons of artistry, while I can only think of one instance scholarly-wise. Even still a Shevat holds a gallery and status as a Master Artist (and is the only lucidian to do so!). When designing cultural-type they were given scholarly bonuses (just smaller than a Letters house) because of Hallifax houses, actually, recognizing that such a house probably has both 'types' (and historically, Hallifax only really had 'science' guilds, ie Aeromancers/Institute).

Obviously if Elostian wishes to spank me with Shevat history corrections, we'll talk about it and make adjustments as necessary.

But I think if there was a historically artist-leaning lucidian household in Hallifax, it seems like it'd fall into the lap of the Shevats.

Edit: However, it seems you all feel particularly wronged/insulted/upset regarding it, so I've removed the House Orientation and it can sit until Elostian and Estarra can address the matter.

I'd be perfectly happy with a Culture orientation.

Stormcrow is going to be awkward no matter what, because it is historically divided. I envisioned culture as being more appropriate myself, but letters fits in with Emar and Brennan well enough.

I'm not so sure about the decision on Nightshades either, but I don't think there's enough active to really argue one way or another unless Astraea pops up again suddenly. It's probably not a big enough deal to fuss over either way at this point, as this system as a whole is a lot more flexible and equitable than the prior one.

Also, what's the honour hit like for divorcing now?