Dvekmenu Great House

The Dvekmenu Great Houses (Dvekmenu: Ашанай Двекменай Дома) are political entities within Dvekmenu society. Having their origins in earlier Skorbund society adopted and reinterpreted by the Duekmen, they began as families or clans of power and significance. Gradually their identity shifted to being "big tent" factions of smaller houses and families united under the leadership of the original members of the great house. Throughout much of the second to fourth eras they remained essentially aristocratic bodies, with representation proportional to familial prestige, while in the fifth era, with the resurrection of the Dominion of Dvekmenya, many transitioned to an increasingly meritocratic system, in line with the increasing power of finance and the middle class. The exception to this was House Varani, which was a meritocratic magocracy from its founding by the eponymous Gadvyn Varani.
Throughout much of Dvekmenu history, a country would be composed of multiple great houses, with one great house being the royal house, but the other houses having large degrees of autonomy within their regions. There were, though, various states, usually broken away from a larger Dvekmenu polity, that were the exclusive territory of a single great house. The most long-lived of these single house states was the Kingdom of Ros, existing from 3E509 to 5E18. The Dominion of Dvekmenya is divided into many small and largely autonomous entities, some ruled by great houses, and others by now autonomous lesser houses.