Fontaine Bloodline

The Fontaine Bloodline is an ancient bloodline which appears in A Children's Anuad. It is nearly extinct by the time A Children's Anuad begins, having faced internal destruction, although it has started to rebuild.

In the Reboot of ACA, it is a fairly normal noble bloodline, although it retains its unusual roots.

Creation
The Fontaine Bloodline was when a certain magus, the wizard Sebastien Fontaine, Grandmaster of a Daedric cult and former priest of the Eight Divines, discovered a method to replace his heart with a daedra heart, imbibing daedra blood in the process, gaining great powers and immortality.

Sebastien performed the procedure on his compatriots and they gained unnatural powers. Sebastien's wife was a Dark Seducer named Vylliara, bound from the planes of Oblivion, and from her he sired twelve children. Of the twelve, the first eleven were born deformed and monstrous, more daedra than human, and they were mated with the acolytes who survived the testing. The Twelfth, Kyaran Fontaine, son of Sebastien, ran from home, although he was eventually recaptured and used as breeding material, being mated to his very own brethren.

Eventually, every mage of the coven contributed at least some genetic material to the Fontaine bloodline, and deformity and genetic damage was selective eliminated through a form of eugenics, with Kyaran Fontaine serving as the main genetic template. Kyaran Fontaine was driven insane by this and he ran away, his fate unknown, since he was immortal.

The Fontaine bloodline was only fully established in 2E 14, when the last deformed member was killed off and the children were finally human looking (since the daedric blood was diluted enough by Breton Blood). Sebastien himself committed suicide for reasons unknown, and he was entombed within a grand underground mausoleum, underneath the future Fontaine estate.

The Fontaine bloodline eventually flourished as a noble bloodline when one of them, the notable siblings Raghnall Fontaine and his twin sister Caitlin Fontaine rendered meritorious service under Tiber Septim, fighting in his army as sorcerers. They were awarded with riches, which they used to build the Fontaine mansion atop their ancestor's mausoleum, as he wished.

The Fontaines had a variable grip on power, their clout waxing and waning rapidly as the years passed, but they were always an extremely rich family from the way they gathered wealth and hoarded gold. They slowly became complacent over the years, losing political clout over time, despite the fact their wealth was never affected.

Destruction
In early 4E 33, the Fontaine family's influence had shrunk the the extent that they willingly took part in self experimentation to create a perfect warrior or mage who would take them to glory again. This was done by feeding daedra blood to expecting mothers, along with strange herbs and rituals, which led to high infant and maternal mortality. The numbers of the Fontaine clan fell sharply due to this process, but the individuals of each generation started to stop aging younger, and grew more powerful.

The experiments led to the creation of the renowned Battlemage Raphael Fontaine and his infamous sister Remillia. Raphael was the very person who exterminated all his family members other than Remillia, after seeing them as monsters and vile beings who would bring the world into ruin if they succeeded. The Fontaine family was thus led to ruin.

Raphael completely burned down the Fontaine mansion utilizing his great powers, reducing it to nothing but a ruin. Many techniques that the family possessed was lost because of this burning event by Raphael, as he completely destroyed the library of the house first.

The Fontaine clan still survives through Raphael, Remillia and their descendants, though, as it starts to fan out once more. Despite the fact that many of the original Fontaine clan has been eliminated, they successfully produced multiple beings of great power, including Raphael, Astarael and Sariel.

Most of the Fontaine family now lives in the Imperial city, where Raphael is Commander of the Royal Guard and Samael is a scholar for the Mages Guild.

Sebastien, after his reawakening, reveals there is more to the clan, and allegedly read a prophecy that claims the "Son of the familial destroyer will produce the high evolutionary as his own son. The one who will wield the cosmic force of evolution at his fingertips. He who can change his power to respond to any situation. Yet, the high evolutionary will only be born after the fall of the prime evil.". Sebastien alleges that Raphael's grandson through Seth will therefore possess the greatest power.

ACA Reloaded alternate timeline
In the alternate timeline, the Fontaine family never loses their political grip, and remain a noble family in High Rock, although they prefer not to be too involved in politics. They are a regular noble family in these regards, and therefore have never faced destruction at Raphael's hands. The family is not exactly widespread, but many of them are still alive, and most live in Daggerfall and the nearby cities.

Also, Sebastien is seen less as an evil who spawned the bloodline, but rather a tragic hero, and his body is kept in a crypt on the grounds of the Fontaine mansion, within a small mausoleum, alongside that of his dear wife Vylliara. Unlike the original, Sebastien is truly dead, having chosen to die after purifying the bloodline and ensuring his descendants would prosper. The Fontaines here see him as their first ancestor, and it is Sebastien who left his spirit echo bound to the lands, to protect his descendants.

After Sebastien, and many, many generations of incest, a single male child, Elric Fontaine, was born, along with his stillborn twin brother. The boy was obviously born deformed and crippled, but he was a full human, except bearing the pure daedra blood of Vylliara. In him awakened the greatest Fontaine power - the Reality Phantasm, which allowed him to turn illusions into reality. With this power, he fixed his own body, and made himself flawless, both externally, and his genetic structure. As his bride, he took a certain princess of a long forgotten nation, sometimes thought to be an akaviri woman who fled from her home during the Tsaesci devouring of humans there, and the First Patriach Amaris was born.

Amaris had nine sons and one daughter, and the Fontaine family spread from then on. After a couple of millennia, the Fontaine family has a considerable size, and has branch families all over High Rock, a testament to their success at continuing the generations. The bulk of the family settled in High Rock, and began to take up businesses and jobs there, pooling their money together. Eventually it transformed into the noble house that it currently is.

Of note is that the Daggerfall Royalty in ACA Reloaded is tightly wound with the Fontaine family, who has provided them with many brides in the past. Many ancestors of the Fontaine main line were also princesses of Daggerfall (since the inheritance is through the male line). The Fontaine family is subdivided into three classes:

The main line, descended from chosen sons from every generation. These families comprise the purest and most "original" Fontaines, who have unbroken male line descent from the original Fontaine, Sebastien, and his grandson Amaris the first Patriach. All main line sons and daughters have a specially crafted sword made for them at birth. Raphael is a member of the main line. So is his sister Remillia.

Sons who are not chosen and daughters of the main line form the "inner houses". Unchosen sons take the last names of their wives and are treated as branch families. Many future brides to the Daggerfall Royalty are drawn from these houses, and they match their main line contemporaries in power levels. Also, these lines tend to remarry back into the main line after more than seven generations, to preserve the bloodline. These houses use the swords of ancestral Fontaines who started them, passed down through the generations. The Daggerfall Royalty is technically an Inner House.

Daughters of inner houses and sons not chosen as patriachs of the inner houses will begin "outer houses". These form the bulk of the Fontaine family, and will serve and protect the inner houses and main line. They are still all noble houses, and considered such by law. The Fontaines that are classified here do not have any less of status as their main line counterparts, other than the fact they have to protect the main line. Only after at least 20 generations will they be able to marry back into the main line. The swords used by these houses are generic Fontaine forged swords unique to no Fontaine, recycled again and again.

Raphael evidences he has more siblings than just Remillia, and his family probably isn't small, unlike the original. Raphael did mention having a pair of elder brothers, and has evidenced one of his elder brothers is called Sam.

ACA Original
In general, members of the Fontaine Bloodline have light blue eyes that glow when they utilize their powers. Also, most members of the bloodline have black hair, although this is not as common as their blue eyes. The only Fontaine family member who does not have blue eyes is Celestine Fontaine, although her eyes do glow blue when she is enraged and uses her powers.

Every member of the Fontaine family has tremendous innate capacity for electrokinesis, able to use electricity to attack their opponent if needed. Still, the capacity has to be trained and is only the potential to use lightning in a far more potent and efficient manner, not an inborn skill with lightning (training is not only easy, but very fast). Fontaine family members do have a subconscious ability to control lightning, though, such as when Celestine purges illusion, generating a lightning blast that only harms enemies.

All members of the Fontaine family possess a unique power, known as their "primary mutation" from birth. It is a general power that allows them to control a certain element or concept, with diversity ranging from mental manipulation and immense healing capacity all the way to light bending powers. This ability generally manifests from childhood and is exremely easy to train. This ability is completely random and unlucky people might gain a useless ability, such as the power to catch fire, without the fire resistance. The weaker the primary mutation, the older the Fontaine member will stop aging, thus the younger looking members tend to be the most powerful.

Members of the Fontaine family will also gain a secondary mutation by the time they reach 20 years old. This is a specific ability that develops based on environmental factors, and is always a singular power that might or might not have a wide range of applications. Examples include forming biotic swords, powerful magicka beams, creating deadly claws, or melding with liquid. The Secondary Mutation is generally of use to the person who manifests it and can even eclipse the primary mutation of the Fontaine family member.

Quite curiously, female members of the family tend to develop strength based or generally durability related skills, such as super strength, a personal force shield or fast healing, while male members tend to develop powers with a more magical bent, such as plasma, light or heat manipulation. As a result, the male members tend to be very powerful battlemages, while the best warriors of the clan are all female. Every single Fontaine family member is taught swordsmanship, so there are no pure mages in the clan (even those that appear to be mages can handle swords). Some are even capable of handling many weapons.

The Fontaine Family possesses Animus like Souls. This recycles through the dreamsleeve like any normal soul, but is immune to soul trap, cannot be manipulated and prevents necromancy on those who possess a Fontaine Soul. If a Fontaine family member is killed, and their soul recycles to a new body, bringing the person containing the Fontaine Soul in contact with the corpse of the dead Fontaine can revive them. Also, summoning the soul back can revive a dead Fontaine.

All the members of the Fontaine family are biologically immortal. The more powerful they are, the faster they stop aging, with a minimum age of 17. The original family maintained their numbers and prevented exponential expansion by killing the lesser members, especially those who had low peak power potentials, which they manifest as a more natural aging. Astarael Lightbringer is the most powerful of them and he is biologically 17 eternally. The original Fontaine family had people age till they were in their 50s to 60s, where they would commit suicide out of the fear of living as an old person forever, lacking in vitality, but the genetic experiments and purification processes shifted this down to an average of 30, with many younger looking members.

ACA Reloaded (Reboot)
In the reboot of ACA, the Fontaine family members all retain the light blue eyes that characterized them in the original ACA, along with the jet black hair (which is common, but not all encompassing). However, the eyes of a Fontaine no longer glow when they exert their powers, and their eyes do not glow brightly in the dark either, or change color, instead limited to a faint bio-luminescence in darkness. These eyes are mostly passed down from parent to child. Only in a rare circumstance will a mother not pass the eye traits to her child.

The gender ratios of the Fontaine family is highly unique. For every girl in the main line, on average four boys will be born, in one generation. This makes main line females incredibly rare. In the branch houses, though, the ratio is less skewed - for every two girls, three boys will be born. This grants main line females a very high status in the Fontaine family, although girls of both inner and outer houses hold normal rights, equal to their male counterparts only.

The Fontaine family's affinity for lightning is increased as compared to the original, and they can learn lightning based spells far faster than a normal person. Also, electricity generation is pretty much an inborn skill in the reboot, unlike in the original, although actually using the electricity for utility and combat does require training. All Fontaines can already use a shocking touch at birth though.

Compared to normal humans, Fontaines possess much stronger skeletons which heal fast and are highly resistant to fracturing, due to their partially daedric anatomy. They also possess slightly greater strength than normal humans at peak conditioning, and blood that is highly toxic to all manners of supernatural creatures, such as werewolves, vampires and daedra.

The Fontaine family retains having a primary power for each member. It is still a wide ranging power that can be applied to many tasks, and there are often creative applications for the powers that each Fontaine manifests, although unlike the original, the powers do require training and intelligent application to be used effectively, and no Fontaine has absolute control over their power. However, this also makes their powers safer, and no Fontaine is born with a wholly useless power, and will always have the required secondary powers to make their ability useful in at least one way.

The secondary power for each Fontaine member has changed. Rather than the original second mutation, all secondary powers are an electromagnetism based ranged attack that costs no magicka, stamina or life force to cast. It does low damage, and is the equivalent of a ranged "basic attack". The power can manifest as light beams, electricity, magnetic bolts or even more esoteric things such as hard magicka blasts. It also tends to have an extremely long range, far beyond that of normal magic Thus, no Fontaines use bows without a good reason to do so.

The Fontaines now also manifest a tertiary power. The male members all possess a permanent, passive ocular ability known as "truth reader", which allows them to read and process information faster than normal, granting heightened reflexes, and nothing else, unless their mind is able to make good use of the information (this has aided them in using very skillful swordplay). The female members, on the other hand, can develop almost anything as a tertiary power, but it is always specific. It can range from a hypersonic scream that disintegrates structures to simply extremely fast and precise penmanship, but more often than not, it is also ocular in nature, such as Remillia's "eye of perception", which allows her to see weaknesses and counter accordingly (along with giving her extremely good reflexes).

Like the original, the females tend to develop strength based abilities and combat augmentations, making them far more vicious and deadly in non magical combat than their male counterparts, and the female Fontaines comprise their best warriors. The male Fontaines develop magical or otherworldly powers, and tend to make strong mages, although they aren't physically inferior either, and all of them are trained as Battlemages. Some females will develop magical powers, though.

All male members of the Fontaine family are biologically immortal and do not age (they are permanently locked at an age of 19 - 25 once they reach it), while female members exhibit greatly slowed aging and normally can live longer than an elf, for about 350 - 500 years without magical life extension, appearing to age only near the end of their lives, unless their tertiary mutation is immortality. Both genders can choose to die peacefully in their sleep after they reach 77 years old, though. Both male and female Fontaine family members can pass on their blood, and their children exhibit the full abilities of a Fontaine family member. Thus, not everyone with the powers of the Fontaine blood have "Fontaine" as their last name.

ACA Original
The Fontaine family, before the purge by Raphael Fontaine, was a cult like organisation who clung on to their ancestor Sebastien's dream of creating the perfect Warrior-Mage who would lead them into an age of glory and prominence, which is why they endlessly performed experiments to create the perfect child, who would fulfill their goal.

Despite this, the clan is taught to hate and despise Sebastien, partially because of a curse by Hermaeus Mora, but rather because Sebastien himself was utterly disgusting and cruel in his original attempt to perfect his bloodline and himself. Sebastien is seen as both the creator and the adversary of the Fontaines.

All marriages and unions had to be sanctioned by the family, with non compilers being exiled or killed, depending on the severity. Anyone who married a Breton of acceptable qualities was exiled. Unions with other races, or Bretons of questionable provenance, was answered with death, including the assassination of the entire family of the offender. Only with very exceptional cases will the offenders be readmitted to the family.

The Fontaines value their Breton ancestry heavily, believing it is the one race above all, as it combines the best traits of man and elf, and thus in inherently superior to both. They also worship the Daedra and spurn the Divines, for their immortality was a consequence of Daedric blood, and that Sebastien was only inspired by his hatred of all things "good".

Despite their racism, though, the Fontaines would arrange for marriages to members of any race, so long as they could bring their own genetic advantages into the family. The only unions that are forbidden and will definitely lead to death would be unions with beastfolk, whom the Fontaines viewed as animals (incidentally, breeding with a beastfolk will not produce any children, for the Fontaine family, so it also prevents any wasted unions). Still, the entire family is almost purely Breton.

Weakened or deformed infants were often killed and disposed of by the family, via execution. Since the women in the family retained their ability to bear children forever and were as fertile as normal humans, along with the fact that the male fertility did not decline over time, the life of a child meant very little to the Fontaines, and a "weak" child was not even considered a person, but a subhuman or a daedric changeling. Thus, the Fontaines only allowed the best to survive and utilize resources. Weaker members were also barred from marrying and having children. This was what led to the evolution of progressively more extreme powers in the family.

The Fontaine family hated vampires and werewolves, for they viewed such creatures as the perversion of humanity by the daedra. They have advanced knowledge on how to purge either sickness from a person, turning the person mortal again. The Fontaines themselves cannot be turned into either, as they essentially are part of a third daedric "blessing".

Raphael himself came to despise most of these bigoted, twisted and immoral views and thus he slaughtered his entire family in cold blood, to end the systems in place. Raphael himself generally does not believe in any of the views and he is embarrassed to be of such descent, which is why he never tells his family background. Some views that Raphael personally agree with include never marrying a beastfolk, the fact that Sebastien was evil and not worshipping the divines.

ACA Reloaded (Reboot)
Other than retaining the hatred for vampires and werewolves in general, along with their tradition of having their high level swordsmanship taught to every child, the Fontaine family does not seem to hold to the ideology they held in ACA's original run, as evidenced by Raphael and Remillia happily leaving home, with none of their family dead. The family appears very well off, and owns many properties across Daggerfall.

The Fontaines do not seem to be obsessed with creating the perfect human being, although they apparently still take weak and deformed infants to be slaughtered, with the rationale of spending all their resources on only the best and brightest (along with the fact babies are easily replaced, as with the original family). They also still worship Daedra, rather than Aedra.

The Fontaines still regard their Breton blood highly, but they are no longer racist, and they do not openly discriminate against non Bretons. There are racist family members, but these are far and few, and most of the members are quite open minded.That being said, Fontaines still prefer only marriage to Bretons, although not necessarily of pure blood or a noble background (any non beastfolk race is fine, though). The main criterion is simply a person of great talent and beauty.

Other than that, the Fontaine family follows generic Breton noble traditions, and do not deviate much from whatever is the current fad in High Rock.Also, most of the members do learn proper etiquette, as befitting of a noble, although some take longer to put it into practice.

Traditions
In the ACA Reboot, the family still holds to their Swordsmanship tradition, their education on illusion rejection via emotional control and their statements when laying a person to rest - they do not feed their children poison or have purely functional marriages.
 * When a Fontaine family member lays a person to rest, they sometimes mutter the phrase "Oh divine lord of cycles, take him/her away to a better place, where he/she belongs. Let him/her be reborn through the dreamsleeve again, so he/she might live the life he/she never got to live. Meridia, Jyggalag, Azura, bring peace to his/her soul." This is because they reject the Divines, yet are not exactly patrons to the Daedra either. This phrase has remained unchanged and Raphael keeps it in the family.
 * Most marriages are not celebrated as grand ceremonies, unless explicitly demanded by the party marrying into the family. This is because of the view of marriage not really as a ceremony of commitment and love, but only for advancing genetics. Raphael kept this custom as he didn't want to flaunt his wealth or status, not because of genetic concerns.
 * Every child, male or female, must learn how to use a sword. This tradition is held at the highest level of sacredness within the family and mastering the use of the sword is regarded as a rite of passage. Remillia was the exception as she was raised away from the family. Raphael maintains this tradition for practical reasons - his children must learn self defence.
 * Every Fontaine member is taught a meditation technique to still the mind and see the world for what it truly is. They also have to undergo rigorous mental training to allow them to conquer their fear, despair and even calm. This is why many of them have extreme resistance to any form of illusion or mind control, along with a strong control over their emotion. Those who are not diligent, though, like Sariel, do not possess this resistance.
 * The previous generations of Fontaines were fed toxins to build up their poison and toxin resistance. Raphael was one of the last ones who did this (and one of the few survivors), which is why he has inhuman poison resistance. The daedra blood that runs in the family gives partial resistance to poison and immunity to sickness, especially vampirism and lycanthropy.

Known creations

 * Human - Daedra grafts. They mastered this technique under Sebastien
 * Human - Daedra hybrids. Many of the earliest Fontaines were such.
 * The art of turning humans into daedra
 * Eternal enchantment. This technique was used to make the unbreaking sword Crimson Vision. All of the Fontaine swords are made with this method. Swords made with this do not blunt or break, they can kill spirits, ghosts and ethereal beings and do not collect blood when they kill. They cannot be enchanted, though.
 * Armor removal enchantment - allows the armor to take itself off and put itself onto the wielder on command. This enchantment is ubiquitous among the current day family members.
 * Strange Daedric rituals to summon even stranger entities, such as:
 * Daedric weapon infusion - infuse weaponry with the powers of Oblivion, granting the weapon dangerous properties. This art is now lost.
 * Power infusion - infuse weaponry with one's own inner power and magic, granting it elemental ability. Raphael uses a form of this art to channel his plasma along his sword. Many male Fontaines can do this.
 * Living weapon - summon weaponry that are also daedra, the weapon can act independent of the user, this art is now lost.
 * Multi-summon - summon more than one daedra with a single spell cast, allowing the user to violate the laws of summoning on a grand scale, lost art.
 * Oblivion powers - use of daedric grafts and daedra blood to simulate the power of Oblivion (practised by Samael Fontaine only)
 * Daedric fusion - summon the very powers of a daedra into one's body. Can also summon daedra into opponents to possess them. Fontaine family members are immune to this. This art is lost.
 * Eugenics supported with genetic purifiers, which were medicines that killed the genetically inferior. This is also why many older Fontaines were poison resistant or immune, as they are fed toxins from young.
 * Modified Lichdom, where phylacteries were not needed, instead leaving a part of their body vulnerable.
 * The knowledge on how to turn daedra into mortals. Sebastien used this on the Dark Seducer (Vylliara) he bound, to make her his wife.
 * Extreme forms of exorcism rituals that can permanently remove a daedra from Mundus, or even erase the animus.

Surviving members
Original: Some children descended from the original family might still exist, but none are known. Remillia Fontaine also has other children, which are not recorded.
 * Raphael Fontaine
 * Samael "Sam" Fontaine
 * Sariel Fontaine
 * Seth Fontaine
 * Celestine Fontaine
 * Astarael Lightbringer
 * Hayden Fontaine
 * Emily Fontaine
 * Alistair Hearth-Fire
 * Alistair's two sisters.
 * Astarael's children.

Reloaded:
 * Raphael Fontaine
 * Remillia Fontaine
 * Sam Fontaine
 * Seth Fontaine
 * Ariel Fontaine
 * Celestine Fontaine
 * Syaran Fontaine
 * Elisa Fontaine
 * Syaran Fontaine
 * Amarie Fontaine
 * Fionn Fontaine
 * Astarael Fontaine
 * King Casimir II of Daggerfall (Daggerfall Royalty)
 * Prince Alan of Daggerfall (Daggerfall Royalty)
 * Astarael's children

Former Members
Original: Reloaded:
 * Sebastien Fontaine (Undead
 * Vylliara Fontaine (Undead)
 * Remillia Fontaine (deceased)
 * Raghnall Fontaine (deceased)
 * Caitlin Fontaine (deceased)
 * Kyaran Fontaine (missing, presumed deceased)
 * Sebastien's 13th child, the brother of Kyaran (Unknown fate)
 * Sebastien Fontaine (Deceased)
 * Vylliara Fontaine (Deceased)
 * "Infinity Prism" Elric Fontaine, Ancestor of All (missing, presumed deceased)
 * First Patriach Amaris Fontaine (Deceased)
 * Unknown witch who stole Remillia's eye
 * Brother of unknown witch

Trivia

 * The Fontaine family was retconned from Raphael, since his creator wanted to beef up his backstory. It evolved into one of the most detailed family biographies, especially in the reloaded version.
 * The Fontaine family's inglorious beginnings seem to echo a sense of "genetic supremacy" and Eugenics. It also seems to take inspiration from early Egyptian practices by the Pharaohs.
 * The special powers of every Fontaine is not derived from Oblivion, or Daedric Princes, despite the heavy connection between the bloodline and Oblivion.
 * Fontaine abilities are very similar to "Esper" powers from A Certain Magical Index. Unlike Espers, though, they use their magicka as a power source for most of their ability. Some portions of their ability may be passive, or require no magicka, though.
 * Fontaine is also the name of an Antagonist from Bioshock that performed self mutations to gain power. A fitting name for a family dedicated to such.