The Realm’s social hierarchy is based on the ideals laid out in the Immaculate texts. According to the faith, a society which arranges itself according to the path laid out by the Five Immaculate Dragons is blessed with Heaven’s mandate, while those societies which embrace the Anathema or which do not arrange themselves properly must be put right.
At the top of the pyramid are the Dynasts, those Dragon-Blooded who belong to one of the Great Houses. Members of lesser or fallen Houses, as well as outcastes adopted into the Realm, are considered second-class citizens by only the greater Dynasts themselves—to mortals of any social class, they are indistinguishable from the members of the Great Houses.
The next strata is made up of mortal members of the Dynasty, those who carry but don’t express the blood of the Dragons. Each house treats its un-Exalted members differently—in conservative houses like Mnemon, they are second-class citizens, higher than other mortals but still expected to bend knee to the Dragon-Blooded. In younger, smaller, or more liberal houses, mortals will often take up positions of power over young or ill-favored Dragon-Blooded. And House Nellens, derided for being descended from a mortal lover of the Empress and chided for its weak
bloodline, is quietly governed by an almost entirely mortal council.
Beneath the Houses are the vast patrician estates, run by powerful families descended from mortal military heroes, members of the Lesser Chamber of the Deliberative, and wealthy, successful merchants. The patricians have reached as high as mortals alone can in the Perfected Hierarchy—to reach further, they must marry into a House, which the most successful of patricians achieve by offering wealth, political connections, or evidence they carry Dragon’s blood. For a patrician, the award of marriage into the Dynasty is the highest social achievement, whereas for a Dynast, an assigned marriage to a patrician is a sop or a slight.
Under the patrician class is the peasantry, bound to the land and serving a Great House in lieu of the Empress. Peasantry are forbidden the use of weaponry and may not legally travel from their home communities without documentation. Underneath the peasants are slaves, usually imported as tribute from Threshold satrapies and distributed within the Realm by House Cynis, who possess an Imperial monopoly on their sale. Slaves are not persons under Realm law but instead the property of their Dragon-Blooded owners—mortals, even un-Exalted Dynasts, cannot own slaves in the Realm.
Underneath slaves are the dispossessed, those who’ve been declared outlaw by an imperial magistrate, her archons, or a judge in the service of the Houses. The dispossessed’s lives are even more miserable than slaves’ or peasants.’ They are completely valueless, have no rights under the
law, and are not protected by the Perfected Hierarchy from slight, theft, exploitation, violence, or even murder in any way—though the Immaculate Order often preaches against their abuse. Individuals are seldom dispossessed; the custom is to dispossess the entire population of a peasant community if it cannot keep its criminals, dissidents, and malcontents in check. Under the current economic strife, the Great Houses experiment with mass dispossession to seize land for development in ways previously denied them—a tactic already provoking peasant unrest. To the majority of Creation, patricians—second or third-class citizens within the Perfected Hierarchy—lead lives of incredible privilege unrivaled by anyone but the rulers of the various Threshold states. Even the Realm’s peasants enjoy lives of stability that many Threshold farmers could only dream of—or they did, until the disappearance of the Empress.
The Great Houses
The Great Houses (officially numbering ten) are now the powers behind the Realm. For centuries, the Empress played the houses against one another and kept them in check through her own cunning and skill, but now that she’s gone, they’re torn between cooperating long enough to administrate the Realm and civil war for control of the Imperial Manse and Scarlet Throne. The current front-runners for the throne are Houses Mnemon, Sesus, and Ragara, with V’neef, Peleps, and Cynis as potential spoilers.
House Mnemon: Strict traditionalists, whose balance of religious devotion provides them power in the Immaculate Order while skillful manipulation in the Deliberative and the Thousand Scales affords them political clout. Mnemon herself is the most prominent surviving child of the Empress and much like her mother in political savvy.
House Cathak: The strongest military house remaining in the Realm, Cathak can field the largest number of legions of any house and uses their military might to keep jade funneling into their coffers from their Threshold satrapies. House Cathak is famous for its heroes.
House Ragara: Ragara is the chief economic powerhouse of the Realm and a rival to the Guild in many Realm satrapies. It has adequate military might, but controls banks, insurance brokerages, and innumerable markets within and without the Realm, giving it leverage which was checked only by the Empress herself while she ruled.
House Peleps: The most powerful navy in the Realm belongs to the disciplined Peleps, who have used it to open up massive new trading corridors into the West. House Peleps is growing in power at an incredible rate, and other houses are torn between attempting to stymie them and allying with them.
House Sesus: Widely derided by the other Great Houses as brutes and thugs, the ruthless and savage Sesus are the second-most powerful military house in the Realm and deeply allied with House Cynis. What the Sesus lack in subtlety they make up for in brutality, and those who challenge them regret it more often than not.
House V’neef: The youngest Great House and most favored by the Empress before her disappearance, the eager and clever V’neef managed the mercantile navy for the Empress along the Inland Sea—the Empress was grooming them to
keep House Peleps in check while she strengthened her Dynasty’s grip on the West. Without the Empress’s favor, they are struggling to exploit opportunities for themselves in the West while avoiding open warfare with Peleps.
House Cynis: The second most powerful economic force in the Realm now behind House Ragara, the decadent Cynis trail Ragara in raw economic power but make up for it because of their ties to the Guild (giving them access to markets in the middle and deep Threshold) and their stranglehold on the Blessed Isle’s slave trade.
House Ledaal: Famous for its subtlety and political acumen as well as its staunch support of the Immaculate faith, House Ledaal has eyes on the Throne but are content right now to play their enemies off against one another while seeking every advantage for themselves. House Ledaal is well-balanced economically, politically, and militarily. A significant contingent of House elders are much concerned with the loss of Thorns, dividing the House’s attention in the face of looming civil war.
House Nellens: House Nellens is widely derided for its weak blood, but it makes up for this by avoiding fights and slowly cultivating (possibly forbidden) power. House Nellens is the most popular house with the patrician and peasant classes, and is willing to make secret overtures to powers outside the Blessed Isle in exchange for the ability to seize the Throne.
House Tepet: Formerly one of the most powerful military houses in the Realm, House Tepet’s legions and many of its Dragon-Blooded heirs were slaughtered on a doomed campaign in the North. Now, House Tepet is a dark horse widely derided by the other Great Houses, and willing to do anything to climb back to power.
House Iselsi: In disgrace and officially dissolved, the Iselsi maneuvered against the Empress in a doomed power-play generations ago and now survive by her sufferance. Wholly disregarded by the other houses, Iselsi has spent decades cultivating a massive intelligence and assassination network both in the Realm and abroad in the Threshold, which they made available to the Empress and now discuss providing to whichever House they believe will treat them best upon taking the throne.