House Sivis — Dragonmark Focus Items

"You want to know how the speaking stone network works? Imagine whispering wind — a message cast to a specific place, limited by range and breath. Now imagine that every speaking stone in Khorvaire is a throat. The message doesn't travel from my lips to yours. It travels from stone to stone to stone, arriving intact. The world is getting smaller every day." — Tasker Torralyn d'Sivis

Mark: Scribing | Symbol: The Cockatrice Production: House Sivis and the Twelve (exclusive) | Requirement: All items below require the Mark of Scribing unless otherwise noted.

The Principle

House Sivis's focus items are shaped by the nature of communication itself — items that translate the Mark of Scribing's gifts into reliable, repeatable systems for transmission, authentication, and recordkeeping. Most of the house's most important tools are not carried in a pack. The speaking stone network is an installation. The Wordbinder is a piece of furniture. The message station is a building. The personal items below are the portable and individual layer of a much larger system.

The structural basis of Sivis's communication monopoly is not that they have speaking stones — it is that the network requires a mark-bearer to operate and the connection protocols are proprietary. A foundling who somehow acquired a speaking stone could not simply use it; the network is the product, and the network requires authorization.

Focus items are produced by House Sivis and the Twelve. They are not found in shops. Each bears the Mark of Scribing and typically the cockatrice.

SPEAKERS GUILD — FOCUS ITEM PROTOCOL All dragonmark focus items bearing the Sivis cockatrice remain the property of House Sivis. Standard-issue items (Scribe's Pen, calculating lenses, channel) are replaced on loss; all others are recovered on reassignment. Speaking Stones are house property and installed, maintained, and if necessary recovered by the Stone branch. The Pen of the Living Parchment is restricted to Canon-branch use under court authorization. Unauthorized possession of any Sivis focus item is treated as fraud against the public trust.

Mark-Specific Focus Items

Wind Stones

Wondrous item, common (requires attunement by a creature with the Mark of Scribing) Duplicates: sending stones

A matched pair of smooth engraved stones the size of a chestnut, each bearing the cockatrice in miniature. Allows casting of sending between the two paired stones. Each pair is a closed channel — they do not connect to the broader station network. This makes them the tool of choice for house agents who need a private line.

House role: Mid-grade field agents, Oversight operatives, Torralyn artificers. Also the focus item most likely to appear outside house channels — their compactness makes them a target for theft.

Scribe's Pen (Lyrriman Quill)

Wondrous item, uncommon (requires attunement by a creature with the Mark of Scribing)

A narrow darkwood rod with a Siberys dragonshard at its tip, producing vivid purple-blue lines. The bearer can write on any surface and choose whether the writing is visible or invisible; any creature with the Mark of Scribing can always see it. When used to produce spell scrolls, it halves the production time. The basic Scribe's Pen is standard issue; the Lyrriman Quill is a crafted personal tool, often given by a senior heir to a promising student.

House role: Every licensed notary carries one. A notary's pen is their credential. Losing it is humiliating and documented.

Calculating Lenses

Wondrous item, common (requires attunement by a creature with the Mark of Scribing)

Spectacles with Siberys dragonshard inlays. The mark's facility with language extends to the language of numbers — the lenses allow a marked heir to perfectly perform mathematical operations on any visible figures. Developed by the Severin family for the Ledger branch.

House role: Standard for Ledger-branch scribes. Increasingly common among Sivis accountants seconded to House Kundarak.

Listening Stone

Wondrous item, uncommon (requires attunement by a creature with the Mark of Scribing)

Appears to be a standard spellshard. When activated, it records conversations as words — all speech within ten feet, or only the speech of the creature holding it. The house's most quietly controversial focus item: its legitimate applications are substantial (depositions, treaty negotiations), but a Listening Stone looks like a spellshard. It sits on a table. It records.

House role: Canon barristers for depositions, Oversight for handler debriefs. The Hidden Word has proposed encrypted variants; the Doyenne has not yet approved them.

Sivis Slate & Wordbinder

The Sivis Slate (common) is a sheet of engraved metal — write on it with a Scribe's Pen, place it against paper, and use a magic action to duplicate the contents. The Wordbinder (uncommon, stationary installation) transfers a loaded slate's contents to multiple pages simultaneously — the basis of Sivis printing.

House role: The Slate is for Stone-branch stonespeakers handling high-volume traffic. The Wordbinder is a Binding-branch tool for producing books and mass-certified legal documents. The Torralyn family built the first; the Tarlian family maintains them.

Windcaster

Wondrous item, uncommon (requires attunement by a creature with the Mark of Scribing)

An amulet bound at creation to up to twelve Wind Stones. The wearer speaks a message of up to 25 words; any creature carrying a linked stone hears it and can respond with 25 words. Maximum range: one mile. A command-and-control tool developed for Wandaryn exploration teams.

House role: Wandaryn expedition leads and senior Oversight coordinators managing multi-agent operations.

Universal Channeling Items

Dragonmark Channel (Mark of Scribing)

Wondrous item, common. Brooch with cockatrice and Siberys shard. Casts any 1st-level mark spell once per day. For a new heir, this — alongside their Scribe's Pen — is their professional equipment. It ensures they can notarize, translate, and transmit reliably on their first day.

Dragonmark Reservoir (Mark of Scribing)

Wondrous item, uncommon. 7 charges, usable for 1st- or 2nd-level mark spells. The working backbone of a busy message station, where sustained mark output across a full day is a practical requirement.

Channeling Wand (Mark of Scribing)

Wand, rare. 7 charges, regaining 1d6+1 at dawn. Extends range, duration, or casting speed. The duration extension allows a Canon barrister to sustain tongues through a long proceeding. The range extension transforms whispering wind into something targetable across a crowded hall. The casting-time reduction allows a Sivis heir under pressure to send a message and draw a weapon in the same moment.

House role: Senior Canon barristers, Hidden Word cryptographers, Oversight senior agents.

Greater Siberys Items

Speaking Stone

Greater Siberys item — Mark of Scribing

The Speaking Stone is to House Sivis what the lightning rail is to House Orien — not a personal tool but the infrastructure itself. A large, fixed installation at each message station, attuned to the house's continental network. A stonespeaker draws on the mark through the stone continuously, routing messages using proprietary protocols. A foundling who acquired one could not connect to the network.

At the Dragon Towers station in Sharn, two Greater Mark heirs process sending

• level transmissions a handful of times per day. The rest of the network's traffic runs at the

whispering wind level, which a standard stone sustains continuously.

House role: House property, Stone-branch operated. A station lost to war or disaster is replaced at house expense.

Pen of the Living Parchment

Greater Siberys item — Mark of Scribing

A narrow darkwood rod that inscribes permanent arcane marks onto living flesh — an area no larger than two inches square, requiring at least one minute with the target restrained, unconscious, or willing. Removal requires break enchantment (DC 18), limited wish, miracle, or wish — and removing it is a crime under the Galifar Code of Justice.

House role: Restricted to Canon-branch notaries under court authorization only. Unauthorized use is a criminal offense pursued by the Blackened Book.

Acquisition & Distribution

None are available for open purchase. House Sivis has a very long memory.

A Note on the Catalogue's Shape

Sivis's catalogue tells a story about systems. There are no weapons here (the Pen of the Living Parchment does not count — it marks, it does not harm). There are no shields, no tools of force, no instruments of combat. Every item in this catalogue does one of three things: it sends a message, it records a message, or it authenticates a message. The speaking stone sends. The listening stone records. The scribe's pen authenticates. The Wordbinder duplicates what has been authenticated. The Windcaster coordinates. The calculating lenses verify.

The progression runs from the individual (the pen in your hand, the wind stones in your pocket) through the institutional (the Wordbinder in the enclave, the slate on the stonespeaker's desk) to the continental (the speaking stone network that spans Khorvaire). At every scale, the logic is the same: the word must be sent, received, recorded, and trusted. House Sivis exists to guarantee that trust. The items exist to make the guarantee reliable.

And then there is the Pen of the Living Parchment — which writes on flesh instead of paper, permanently, by court order. It is the mark's authority made visceral: not a message sent across a continent, but a message inscribed on a body that cannot be removed without magic beyond most people's reach. It is the most unsettling item in the Sivis catalogue, and the house restricts it more tightly than anything else it produces. The pen writes what the court commands. The body carries the record. The house does not enjoy this service. It performs it because someone must, and because no one else can be trusted to do it impartially.