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Factions

The political life of Cadwallon runs on three official pillars and a thicket of unofficial powers.

The Three Pillars of Power

The Duchy is built on a careful balance between three institutional powers. Each has formal standing, formal votes, and formal seats on key bodies.

Houses of Peers

The eleven noble families granted fiefdoms by the original Charter of Vanius (835). They hold land, levy local justice in their fiefs, and supply the ducal seat (currently from the Orrkrk line via adoption). Their power is land, lineage, and military tradition.

See: Houses of Peers, Fiefs

Guilds

The commercial guilds. Eleven recognized guilds plus the Guilds Council that meets them all in one room. Their power is money, infrastructure, and quiet leverage across the upper and lower city.

See: Guilds for the full list and Rag'narok alliance map.

Free Leagues

The heirs of the Dogs of War — independent adventurers who elect the Duke. The leagues are smaller than the guilds and less wealthy than the nobles, but they hold a formal veto on ducal succession that no other body can override. Some 300-500 active free leaguers across the city.

See: Free Leagues

The Enforcement Arm

Militia

The Duke's enforcement, peacekeeping, and city-defense corps. Not a guild. Run from the [[Fort Gentle|Militia's Club]] in Ghieronburg with garrisons in every fief. Reports to the Duke through Constable Kal Rajghur.

The Unofficial Powers

Bodies that have no formal seat at any council but shape the city's life enormously:

Other Organizations

The Shadow Powers

  • Sophet Drahas and the Court of Shadows — Drahas's hidden "fief" in the catacrypts and his agents in the Usurers, the Thieves, and the noble houses
  • The embassies — official seats of Alahan, Akkylannie, Syharhalna, No-Dan-Kar (plus the secret Cynwäll ambassador Dyrsin in his tower)
  • The Bards of Destiny — itinerant truth-tellers, intelligence brokers, and political agitators. Argos Brisandre is the most active in current events.

Cross-Cutting

  • Voyagers — magicians who walk the strange Realms; recruited and trained across many factions
  • The Free University of Cadwallon — politically neutral, professionally entangled. Trains scribes, cartomancers, alchemists, and historians for half the guilds.

See Also