Politics & Powerful Organizations · Other
The Great Houses of Nashriam
- Nation
- Nashriam
- Standing
- The nation's landowners, patrons and principal employers
- Hold
- The great farmland, and the jālaorin that work it
- Patronage
- The Vellidan, the theatres and the schools, collectively
- Forces
- Each keeps a moderate one. Combined, they outnumber the national army
- Seats
- Manors and chateaus, where the real bargaining happens
- Number
- Seven
- The Houses
- Vaskel, Rundmar, Haelnor, Storjeld, Brannvik, Oskaren and Ilvaset
Nashriam is governed by a council its citizens elect. It is run by the Great Houses, and the two facts sit comfortably beside each other in a way visitors find harder to accept than residents do.
Nothing about the Houses is secret. What they own, fund and protect is entirely visible, and it adds up to most of the country.
The seven Houses
Each House is known by what it holds. The holdings are not formally divided — nothing stops a House buying into another's trade — but in practice each has spent generations making one thing its own, and the prestige that comes with it is not lightly given up.
| House | Holds |
|---|---|
| Vaskel | The threshing jālaorin, and the grain lands that feed it |
| Rundmar | The milling jālaorin, and the flour trade that follows |
| Haelnor | The senior patronage of the Vellidan |
| Storjeld | River trade along the Storjot, and the wharves at Rikjosom |
| Brannvik | The University of Rikjosom, and the engineers it produces |
| Oskaren | The theatres, and most of what the country calls its arts |
| Ilvaset | The yellow quarries west of the capital |
Seven is enough that no single House commands a majority and few enough that every one of them matters. Alliances between three or four decide most things; which three or four changes with the season.
The land and the machines
Where Caliharah farms in small family holdings and Curath farms feudally and by hand, large stretches of Nashriam's farmland are owned and worked by the Great Houses directly. That is the root of the nation's food supply and therefore of its wealth.
It is also the root of its secrecy. The Houses have developed jālaorin for large-scale, specialised work — one takes cut wheat stalks and returns dry, clean, separated grain; another turns grain into smooth flour at speed. These are closely held secrets. Each is accompanied by at least a platoon of guards and stored in a secure warehouse when not in use.
What the surplus buys
The Houses have put the resulting wealth into theatres, schools and healing centres, and compete with one another for the prestige of new ideas, inventions and accomplishments. The patronage of a Great House is the goal of any serious academic or master craftsman in the country.
They are also the collective patrons of the Vellidan at Rikjosom, the continent's centre of healing.
The yellow-stone decree that gives Rikjosom its colour is theirs: passed long ago, still enforced.
Their own forces
Each House keeps a moderate force of its own. The stated purpose is protecting House interests and, above all, the agricultural jālaorin.
The arithmetic is worth stating plainly, because it is the whole shape of the country: banded together in a national emergency, those House forces outnumber Nashriam's army.
Where the politics happens
The council sits and votes. The bargaining happens elsewhere — in the manors and chateaus of the Great Houses, where alliances are made and broken. Many of the Houses also keep a presence in the Rangalan Chateaus, which are neutral ground and exist for exactly this kind of arrangement.
Citizenship in Nashriam is open in principle to anyone of any species or origin who earns it through exceptional research and contribution, and it is genuinely common to see Synthoids and Cryptum take part.