Talingarde - political organization
While the kings of Talingarde claims rulership over the whole island, in truth they're fully aware that their power doesn't match their claims. The island itself is generally divided in seven main areas: the savage north, the Caer Bryr, the Borderlands, the Daver Coast, the Heartlands, the Southern Holdings, and the Sunrise Ports.
Of these, only five are fully under control of the kingdom; the savage north is a completely indipendent area where monsters, bugbears, nantanuk and jotun fight each other, while the Caer Brys is extremely dangerous and ruled over by a sect of hidden elves and their human and half-elven followers who, despite nominally aknowledging the Talingardean's crown authority, are entirely self-reliant and completely unwilling to allow any interference in their own private affairs.
The remaining areas are ruled over by four Dukes, except for the Heartlands (the richest and most bountiful portion of the island), which are the direct domain of the royal family itself. The nobility is otherwise organized in regional (counts, earls, marquis) and local (viscounts, margraves, barons) rungs, although the complex relationships between these are something that only actual aristocrats themselves are really knowledgeable about, with most people otherwise considering it sufficent to know that regional nobles are more important than local ones.
Knowledge (Nobility) 15
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The actual rungs of nobility in Talingarde are not very straightforward.
The various nobiliar titles all derive from an ancient tongue from the kingdom the Talingardean refugees originated from, and the positions themselves arkens back to those said kingdom offered, although filtered through a different worldview.
What is called "ranked" nobility consists of the rungs of Duke, Marquis, Baron and Margrave.
Duke comes from "commander", and the noble initially elevated to the rank of Dukes were the leader of the conquering army the refugees used to take over the island. They have both authority and rulership over very large areas and are only one step removed from kingship itself.
Authority and rulership are two different sets of rights that nobles can have. Rulership is the right of making laws, administering justice and collecting tributes from a land under the ruler's control, which makes the ruler also responsible for any crimes carried out within their domains. Authority is the power to bestow rulership of portions of said land to subordinates, to allow for better administration; also, the authority is not considered responsible for what happened under the rulership of a subordinate, other than in having selected the subordinate themselves.
This is important because it's the difference between full nobility and lesser nobility - lesser nobility has rulership, but not authority, over the territory assigned to them.
Marquis comes from a word meaning notable or important, and as a title, it was assigned to those who were leaders or officiers in the conquering army, but not absolute commanders of it. Marquis are named by the king, but put under the direct authority of a duke or another, and from that moment on answer to them. Marquis are also full nobility, so they can ennoble subordinates if they want.
Baron has its origin in a word meaning "soldier"; these titles were assigned by Dukes to grant reqards to those among their followers who distinguished themselves in the war, although the current use is as a simple reward for services, not necessarily for service in war. Barons are always lesser nobility, having rulership but not authority over the lands they govern, and are also always directly named by the Dukes they obey, rather than the king. As a result, it is not unhead of for Barons to have more actual power than Marquis in specific circumstances, depending on how close they respectively are to the Duke ruling over them.
Margrave is a combination of "marquis" and "grafted"; since the notables and officiers in the conquering army were often rich nobles who had their own private soldiery, they requested the same right to give lands to their own soldiers, much the way a Duke could. Margraves are thus exactly like Barons, except that they're directly loyal to a Marquis rather than a Duke - they still have to obey the Duke who commands the Marquis they're subordinate to, but it is rare for a Duke to overreach on a Marquis' authority in this manner, instead of simply giving their order to the Marquis themselves.
While Margraves and Barons are both lesser nobles, the fact that Margraves receives their nomination from a Marquis, while Barons from a Duke, means that they are generally considered the bottom rung of nobility, although it's not at all rare for individual Margraves to control richer or larger lands (and thus have more power) than a Baron, since it all depends on the generosity of the one who ennobled either.
While this is relatively simple, in addition to "ranked" nobility there is also "direct" nobility; these are nobles that answer directly to the king themselves, and thus can ignore a Duke's orders, although they also cannot command a Duke either, and will generally control much smaller partitions of land than most dukes world - but even that is not certain; Markadian I was a count when he waged war on the Barca royal line.
Count comes from "companion", and ideally it was meant to symbolize that the person receiving the land was ennobled due to special service or closeness to the king or the royal family. However, due to the fact that the King directly administer the heartlands, a number of the most important nobles in the original expedition, which could not receive the title of Duke due to the limited amount of land to go around, were also given this title in its stead. Even so, the practice still remains for the king to occasionally ennoble people who performed exceptional services for the crown, and when this is done, the person is made a count.
As a result, count tends to be a very fluid title in the perception of other nobles - some counts have very small holdings and less power than even the lowest Margrave, while the biggest and most powerful can well rival even a Duke in the amount of influence and power they can wield in the kingdom's politics. The general consensus is, when in doubt, to always treat counts as above Marquis but not as high as Dukes.
Vicsounts means "assistent to the count", and is basically the Count's equivalent to a Duke's Baron or a Marquis' Margrave - i.e. a lesser noble who is sword directly to the count themselves and wields power in their name. Even so, due to answering to a count, viscounts are outside the "ranked" ladder of nobility, making it difficult to decide their relative importance when compared to their peers.
Earl comes from the world for chieftain, and while also a "direct" nobility title, it is very different from count, in that it is an elective title ratified by the king, rather than a title the king confer themselves. Earls are choosen by a preexisting population as their leaders, and then aknowledges by the king as having rulership (but not authority) over whichever area the group that elected them happens to live in. One thing that sets Earls apart is that, unlike all other nobles, their succession doesn't progress through ereditary means, but rather through wathever means the population that selected them prefers. This is intentional, as the position was originally created to allow for the integration within the government of Talingarde of groups (particularly powerful dwarf clans) which would not subject themselves to full control.
While the Earl title is tecnically lesser nobility, as they have no authority and are only given rulership, they are generally treated as full nobility, equivalent to a Count or even Duke in their importance, since the mere fact of receiving a Earl title, with its greater authonomy, implies superior power in their relationship to the crown: the most notable example being that the nominal leader of the Caer Bryr is an Earl in Talingardean law.
Savage North
This area is separated from the rest of Talingarde by the Lastwall, a nearly 100 KM long set of fortification meant to block invasion, the area is highly mountainous and very cold. It is inhabithed by a population primarily made of bugbears, althogh jotun tribes are also present and the nantanuk held the northeastern corner of the region as their own exclusive territory.
Overrun with many different type of monster, favoured hunting ground for the two evil dragons living in the area, and covered in wilderness that is extremely perilous to navigate, the area is not well suited to civilization. Combined with the aggressive attitude the locals tend to have, the many different tribes inhabiting it are in a constant state of strife for both survival and petty powerplay; even the most recent threat they posed to Talingarde, the one repelled over twenty years ago by Markadian II, only counted less than a fourth of the tribes in the area, and even that limited cooperation was, reportedly, riddled with inner strife.
Essentially, the area is more of an hiding place and battlefield for creatures uninterested in anything but near-constant slaughter, and no real concern for the Talingardean government.
Caer Bryr
Probably the most dangerous part of the entire island, this area of overgrowth jungle that clings to the nearby mountains and the weird spyres of stone that peppers it a locale of weird encounters and fae magic - many suspect that, somewhere in the dept of the jungle, is hidden a portal leading directly to the world of the fae themselves.
When humans arrived, the area was under the control of a isolationist sect of elves; those humans who attempted to colonize the area soon enough abandonded their brethen to turn into a cult dedicated to the worship of said elves, with a ruling caste composte entirely of half-elven druidess directing them. Not much more is known of the going-ons of the Bryr, as the locals do not share any knowledge they might have over what goes on inside.
The local Earl is always the current leader of the half-elven druidic group, which said druids choose themselves; the agreement by which the leader of the cult accepted this title, and thus put themselves (if barely in name only) under the Talingardean crown was signed under the Barca dinasty, and nobody seems quite sure what the deal was precisely. Regardless, what does is known is that what few communication existed between the locals and the crown ceased after the Darian family won the throne, making the Bryr more misterious than ever.
Heartlands
The largest, most prosperous and richest portion of Talingarde, this large area of fertile land hosts nearly two thirds of the kingdom's entire population, as well as producing over 80% of the food and being the primary provider of many other primarily agrarian resources.
Despite being so rich and filled with people, the area is actually quite scarse on actual habitation centers; almost the totality of the popolation lives on farms or near the keeps of the local nobles. This is due to a large number of exceptionally good roads and a local administration handled by a large number of nobles that respond directly to the crown rather than intermediaries, making it so that almost all of the areas' production is funnelled into the kingdom's capital, using a large number of small trade town that are less centers of trade and more pit-stops and stockage location for the stuff that is eventually taken to Matharyn.
While this large amount of resources makes the area potentially capable of fielding more soldiers than the all the others combined, the dispersion of the population make it actually take a very long time for such an army to mobilize. As a result, protection of the area is one of the kingdom's priorities, and the local nobles have quite a lot of influence at court.
Borderlands
Laying between the savage north and the Caer Bryr, with only an handful of passes through the Evergreen Mountains connecting it to the more civilized area of the Daver Coast, this area is tasked with being the bastion protecting the south of the islands from the threats laying to the north. This is not made easier by the area being mainly composed of rocky hills and its general lack of vegetation and arable lands, making it so that the population is small and concentrated around a small number of not-so-big town.
Perhaps because of this, it is not uncommon for the population here to be particularly pious, likely in the hope of benefitting from Mythra's protection. It's also easy to find especially martial attitudes among the nobles, with many volounteering to join the defenders at the Lastwall or otherwise make themselves useful to the defense of the kingdom.
Daver Coast
Sitting on the northwestern side of the island of Talingarde, the Daver coast is the closest one to the mainland the human colonizers came from and, as a result, is the center of trade for the kingdom's relation with its mainland. The area was also the first to throw their support behind the Darian dynasty and, as a result of their continuing support, the nobles in the area are among the richest and most important in the Kingdom. They also form the core of the royal-supporting faction in the kingdom's internal politics, and the city of Daveryn, capital of the area, is generally said to house the most fervent Mythran believers on the island.
Southern Holdings
This area is characterized by a generally hotter climate than the rest of the island, allowing for a number of exotic crops to be grown - while nowhere near as fertile or productive as the Heartlands, the area compensate for it by providing the majority of the most costly, luxury type of foods, particularly wines. Due to this, many of the older noble
families were installed here at the time of the colonization, and the area eneded up developing in a serie of fiefs who have especially poor peasants supporting especially rich nobles.
Due to the dynamics of the battles fought, this area was the less touched by the civil war that saw the fall of the Barca, despite providing the majority of the Barcan's troops; the nobles involved had thus enough power to weather what punishment Markadian I inflicted them, which consisted mostly of big fines. The area is thus currenrtly the primary bastion of Barca nobility remaining in the kingdom, and said nobles makes up the core of the political opposition to the Darian royal family.
Sunrise Ports
Generally considered the most exotic area of the kingdom, the Sunset Ports include the entirety of Talingarde's east coast and, as a result, handle the majority of the trade with the far-off countries to the east. Since this also makes Talingarde itself the primary channel by which the goods from these countries reach the mainland, this makes the area invaluable as the source of more than half the economic gains from external trade for the entire country.
Geographically, this is facilitated by the structure of the coast being mostly a handful of cities sitting on the mouth of rivers admist what's otherwise a very poor, mountainous area whose only other useful resources are the mines controlled by a number of local dwarven clans. Despite this apparently unappealing setting, the area nevertheless hosts the most varied population of the kingdom within its cities, mostly due to the Mythran praecept of justice and understanding making Talingarde itself an ideal place to stop at for outcast running away from problems in their eastern countries.
In order to avoid reducing the gains from the area, the kingdom's punishement for lawlessness are somewhat softer - not to the point of crime being overlooked, but more to the point of inflicting less severe penalties to minor perpetrators, while coming down much harsher on those who commit bigger crimes, in an effort to balance things out.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:15, Thu 04 Apr 2019.