When the houses were first revealed I wrote a long-winded Facebook post explaining my initial thoughts on each. I thought there might be one or two people interested in seeing that post again, so here it is:
"As promised, here are my thoughts on the New World Magischola and its Houses: Obeah, Du Bois, Croatan, Calisaylá, and Laveau. I should make it clear at the outset that these are my musings alone, separate from anything the school's creators have said and mostly assembled from my own rambling ideas.
In the first place, I love the themes evoked by the school itself. I believe that The College of Wizardry larp that inspired NSM, as well as the fiction that it draws from, is best understood as contextually situated. The politics that surround that environment have one foot enmeshed in the history of regions and people that tend to define themselves in a fairly strict manner, and many of the stories that spring forth represent what happens as these roles, identities, and histories grind up against modern conceptions and realities. From that tension arise questions about what is to be treasured and valued, and at what cost are a people willing to stand for those values.
NWM, being housed in the United States, has a different set of histories and conflicts that boil into its being. As an American I will testify that as a people we tend to state that we believe in freedom and equality, but have a difficult time confronting its historical absence or active repression. This is not to say that we do not still believe in those things, but that it is common for us to convince ourselves that either 1) those are problems of the past, best understood from a much wiser today, 2) that confronting these issues will actually create sadness and strife, and that they are best handled only through the most objective of lenses, or 3) that unfortunately someone else will have to deal with the problems someday because we must instead deal with those things that matter to us either immediately or personally. This is a tension that I think has been a constant thread in my country, an eternal struggle between who we have been and who we wish to be.
NWM places this struggle center stage by highlighting not just the diverse peoples and histories of the United States, but also the beliefs and ideas that bubble up in our discourse. It has been my experience that none of these ideas, no matter how profound or inane, ever completely triumphs or disappears. This is both what is fantastic and frustrating about my country, that we are eternally in a state of change. Sometimes it is not the change a person might wish for, and they might even fear it, but as a people we recognize change as inevitable. The American ideal is that we can influence the direction of that change, for good or ill. NWM asks what that means on a fictional level, but in a setting where you are literally bending reality the idea seems to me to take on a wonderful metaphorical quality.
And so we come to the Houses. You may have caught on to my general scheme already, which is that the school and its Houses are postmodern constructions. They are neither wholly good nor bad, but really just a set of ideas, histories, principles, and practices that frame an understanding of the world. As each House was revealed I found something to love and fear in each case, a beckoning and repulsion to different parts of my personality. Whether I am alone in this I cannot say, but I have found the experience useful for reflecting upon who I actually am as well as who I might be interested in being for the purposes of the game.
Dan Obeah- When I took the test on the website I got this house, though to be honest I felt like a linguistically based quantitative analysis was a poor tool for choosing a House. It is entirely possible that this outlook is part of what puts me here. Its animal is a Raven, a character I have felt an affinity with ever since I played The Tribunal. It emphasizes wisdom and foresight, the breaking of barriers, and healing. These all sound fantastic at first, but an understated belief in this house is that a part may be sacrificed for a whole. The combination of good intentions and thoughtfulness has not, frankly, always turned out all that well for me in the past. I have hurt myself or others for reasons that I thought were important, only to later wonder if I should have followed my instincts. In short, foresight is great... but it does not discount reflection or responsibility.
Maison Du Bois- As a bear-like individual, there is a certain inherent appeal to Du Bois. They are supposed to be survivors and heralds of justice, tough wizards who do what is right no matter what. In some ways this creates almost the opposite problem I see in Dan Obeah, leading with belief instead of thought, and presuming to know what is "just" or "right" used to be a lot easier for me once upon a time. To me Du Bois is a combination of the ability, the desire, and the responsibility to perform acts of justice in the world, if not necessarily the wisdom or patience to see it carried out in the long term.
House Croatan- "To dare is to do" is the motto of this house, and it has a very "fortune favors the bold" approach. I have seen enough of life to know that this is often the case, and the tack that Croatan takes puts them in a position to be leaders of their world. Its history is also bound up with a high degree of empowerment from financial and social connections, which combined with the drive of its members can create a kind of "first among equals" vibe that makes me antsy. I love its explorer nature, Croatan's fascination with undiscovered and unexplored shores, but fear that I myself seize opportunities that I not only do not have a right to, but that are actively harmed through my enthusiastic embrace.
Casa Calisaylá- Casa Calisaylá is all about crossing borders, an activity very near and dear to those of us in the arts. This means pushing secrets into the light, exploring the unknown, pushing against personal and communal boundaries. Nothing is off limits for this house, which grants them a certain status as shamanic provocateurs. The transgressing of borders is part of how we grow as individuals and as people, in the exploration of the unknown and in the challenging of what is known. However, when this transgression is forced it can feel more like an assault than a gift, and constant questioning can become a shield against realizations just as much as it can reveal them. The danger of championing an in-between state is not just that you might tweak someone’s nose, but that in attempting to occupy that void you sacrifice the ability to help construct meaning.
Lakay Laveau- Where Casa Calisaylá is about transgressing borders, Lakay Laveau views life through a series of transitive states. For a living creature death is just one possible state, though philosophically the house does not draw a difference between artifacts and people. In this way they remind me a little bit of “hard” sciences that distinguish people and things solely by tangible characteristics, notwithstanding their concern for aesthetic ideas, and indeed the house emphasizes the idea of measurable improvement. In many ways this apparently “practical” outlook leads to the creation of affordances with real and immediate applications. In Lakay Laveau there is no question of “should we do this”, but rather of “what will we gain if we do this”. This stance discounts the human element of all research, in both what we choose to do, how we choose to pursue it, and how we perceive it. As a maker of things the House’s tradition of artificiers is a siren’s call, but a career in the humanities keeps me away from its shores."
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