The Institute
Twelve school Houses, one recreated medieval valley, and a war the Proctors were paid to rig.
The Institute on Mars is where the most elite Golds are trained in Pierce Brown's Red Rising; Darrow enters it under the fabricated identity 'Darrow au Andromedus' and is drafted into House Mars, one of 12 school Houses. It begins with the Passage, in which students are paired off and forced to fight to the death barehanded, and then each House is given a castle in a massive recreated medieval region of the Valles Marineris and told to conquer the others, watched from afar by the Proctors.
Lore & Background
A House's standard can be used to enslave the students of other Houses, who must then obey its commands. Darrow kills Cassius's brother Julian in the Passage, takes over House Mars after manipulating House Minerva into defeating Titus's faction, and is nicknamed 'Reaper' for his scythe. Nero Augustus bribes the Proctors so that his son, the Jackal, will win, but Darrow's army of freed slaves storms the Proctors' base, Olympus, and with House Mars having conquered all the others Darrow wins the Institute's title.
More in Story Arcs & Timeline
Elsewhere in Red Rising
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