History
The source material states that each of the houses are not traced back to a single member bearing a certain mark, rather that certain marks manifested in certain regions on specific races and families. After several generations these families began to understand the significance of each individual mark and came to see certain marks as "true marks", marks that breed true in a bloodline. Aberrant marks are those that manifest as a consequence of interbreeding of bloodlines.
Ultimately the true bloodlines would wage war on those with aberrant marks in a conflict known as the War of the Mark. The results of this conflict would unite the true bloodlines officially into the current houses represented and lead to a founding of the council known as the Twelve. The Twelve would become responsible for codifying the traditions of the dragonmarked families and set forth the standards by which the current houses are governed.
Eventually a man who famously became known as Galifar I would succeed in uniting the continent together into the nation of Galifar, the house leaders would come together in the city of Korth and make arrangements with the would-be-king that would limit their political power in exchange for assurances of their continued economic strength. These would become known as the Korth Edicts and would last for a thousand years and were designed to prevent members of any of the dragonmarked houses from creating standing armies (excepting House Deneith to provide mercenary services), disallowing members of the houses from marrying into the aristocracy of Galifar, and insuring that no house could hold a grant of land.
By the time the Last War was in full swing, the Korth Edicts would be set aside allowing house enclaves to maintain forces and by the end of the war several houses now have large land holdings of their own. Many of the houses themselves were said to wield as much power as the nations themselves and it is doubtful any of the twelve new nations have enough power to enforce the terms or renegotiate the edict.
Read more about this topic: Dragonmarked House
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