Hainish Politics

The Kingdom of Hain is not known for its political simplicity. Its decentralized feudal system enshrines the power of local nobles at the price of political cohesion. Politics revolves around family and land ownership before anything else.
To explain Hainish politics, I will begin with the basics of the system. Then, I will get into the details of the Eight Great Houses that control much of Hainish politics. Then, I will get into the current leadership as people. And lastly, I will explain Hainish recent history - the reigns of the six Tulip Court Monarchs in brief.

System Basics

Eight noble houses rule above all others as Elector-clans, who command even the Herzogs and Margraves. These eight families serve as the upper crust of the feudal elite, and they have special rights and privileges that make them essentially untouchable. Even the monarch of Hain must answer to the Electors, as representatives of each clan sits on a legislative body that has immense political power to police the monarch's actions. This council of Electors also elects the monarch of Hain - the crown is not hereditary, but passes between candidates. Every monarch for the last two centuries has originally come from one of the Elector clans, though they don't have to have been an Elector to qualify.
Beneath the Elector clans are the landed nobility: Herzogs (the major liegelords under the Electors), Margraves (border princes), Grafs (middling nobles), and Burgraves (lesser nobles). To give some numbers for scale, there are 15 Herzogs, 5 Grand Margraves, 45 - 50 Grafs, and about 150 - 300 Burgraves. Countless knights operate even smaller estates. These numbers are not set in stone, but are intended to give a sense of how important or unique any given title is. There are also Junkers - city lords. A Junker can rule only the city itself (these are typically rather weak), or hold the title in parallel with another (as some do).
Hain is not a country with great fluid wealth; most taxes are paid in labor or goods rather than gold, and coins are not a common sight in all villages. Instead of coin alone, the nobility leverage Honors for influence and power in Hain. Honors are basically inherited marks of status that are earned through infrastructure projects, monster-slaying, and other acts of public good and recorded by the priesthood.
Supporting the noble structure is a unified Uvaran religious hierarchy. The Autumn Court is the heart of religious authority, led by the Archdruid and the Head Priests elected to the Council of Six. Beneath them is an elaborate court structure that selects Rosgen, or regional high priests, to lead urban communities or rural regions. The Rosgens and Court priests are almost all recruited from the nobility, though the occasional hyper-talented commoner can rise into the ranks.

The Electors

The Electors have divided the lands of Hain between them - as well as the lands of Andrig, Gennorholn, and Tugrik.
For a map of who generally owns what in Hain:

But, be warned: the actual property map is too complicated to reasonably make or read. Houses Halar and Savadan have lands all through the heartlands, and everyone has little scraps and vassal relationships that transcend the de jure agreements of the map above.
Now, to the Houses: House Hunain: The youngest house, and the weakest by most estimations. Known as the bitter outsiders of the political scene, Hunain proudly controls the Northern marches of Graefsher. Known for their loyalty and willingness to pay debts, particularly to their ancient ally House DevHauzen. As a general rule, they are known to invest heavily in people rather than places - they are quick to throw their patronage behind champions, artists, and inventors they consider brilliant, but are more stingy when it comes to their unimpressive vassals. House Hunain is stagnating.

• House Hunain is Dryad Starspawn
• The House symbol is a cat with a hammer, or a cat with a hammer's head for a head; this comes from a relic that the Ketarun Cat gave their family - supposedly the hammer of the legendary hero Iteksa. The cat-and-hammer also symbolizes independence with a willingness to slaughter Kivish
• House Hunain also has land in the Kingdoms of Dovenar and Tugrik
• The Current Elector Princess is Kardelia Hunain, the intense defender

House Neshelna: The house of the middle-North and defenders of Graefsher. Reasonably old as Electors go, Neshelna rose to Clan status in the 1400s, after the Fourth Scouring. Neshelna is known for being commerce-minded and interested in boats than is entirely right for nobility to be. House Neshelna is said to only have courage on the water, as they tend to favor fortifications over adventure - and, until recently, they have not produced the finest knights. The recent generation of House Neshelna has sought to change that (perhaps in reaction to these accusations), and the new head of the Spring Knights is, proudly, from this House. House Neshelna is rising.

• House Neshelna is Half-dryad
• The House symbol is a winged spear. This is the spear of the Irunek's justice, that will one day fall from the sky to impale every evil heart.
• House Neshelna also controls significant lands in the Kingdom of Vetenka (in Andrig), and has been exploring further probes Northward
• The Current Elector Princess is Telba Neshelna, the soft-spoken knight aspirant

House Hugelma: The house of the Delent and the political wildcard of Hain. Hugelma rose as a House in the late 1500s when it conquered the Delent from its prior lords (the Yolpine Margraves, native to the Delent). House Hugelma is known for its hands-off attitude towards vassals and chivalrous distance from the political mess of the other houses; it is tolerant towards its subjects, but perhaps a little too distant at times. House Hugelma is comfortably stable in influence.

• House Hugelma is Starspawn-half-prism (known as Goliaths, or Clayfolk)
• The House symbol is the lance-pierced serpent. This represents the legendary founder of the clan, Heillish, who is said to have slain a hydra and converted the Delent to Uvara
• House Hugelma controls the Kingdom of Nidever, but little else outside of Hain
• The Current Elector Prince is Olgar Hugelma, the spiteful master of intrigue

House Savadan: An old and very powerful clan that controls much of the Eastern heartlands, and controls lands scattered across Stildane. House Savadan descends from General Savad, the champion of the Third Scouring who united Hain and established a hereditary monarchy centuries ago. While the direct descendants of Savad died off long ago, this cadet branch decided to inherit the name. House Savadan have a history of keen politicking and land acquisition, and they have been a rising star since the early 1900s. While skilled at intrigue, House Savadan has struggled with the Autumn Court - they often overplay their hand and end up in legal trouble, and the Court deeply resents Savadan's attempts to influence temple politics. While not all of their members have problems with the clergy, the House as a whole struggles to get them to cooperate. House Savadan has been quite aggressive over the last century, though they ae often sly in how they go about that. House Savadan is on the rise.

• House Savadan is star-touched human
• The House Symbol is a sickle and a book - the law and plenty.
• House Savadan controls the Kingdom of Dovenar and has land in Gennorholn
• The Current Elector Princess is Shavra Savadan, the bold cavalier

House Dezuren: The oldest and perhaps most powerful clan in Hain - so old that there will be a House history section after this summary because otherwise they will seem like a timeless monolith (they arguably date back to 300 ME!!). House Dezuren is proud, esteemed, overflowing with honor and easily provoked. House Dezuren swings between political hyper-aggression and political seclusion, sometimes getting too involved in other House's business and rocking the boat with highly ambitious takeovers and then suddenly closing itself off and "hibernating" for decades. Dezuren controls the capital of Ozaren and is the most militarily robust clan, so the other Houses treat them like a sleeping bear much of the time. Dezuren's confidence and ambition obscures the House's weakness, though: Dezuren, simply put, has no idea how to not spend money - frugality is weakness to them, and teaching one of their many princes to not spend money would be to discourage vital confidence. As Hain has little commercial fluidity, Dezuren leans on its Honors to try and move resources - which means that the House is constantly bleeding either gold or prestige. Despite this, Dezuren is on the rise.

• House Dezuren is prism and half-prism
• The House symbol is a sword hanging over three hammers - representing persistence and hard work for three seasons, and war for one.
• House Dezuren has land in the kingdom of Vetenka and the kingdom of Gennorholn
• The Current Elector Prince is Yelven Dezuren, the bombastic poet
• House Dezuren has placed one of their own, Zenalim, on the Hainish throne in the last election

House Dezuren History: It was formed as a federation of prism tribes in the 300s ME, and eventually transformed into a single elite clan in the 500s and 600s ME - it was one of the original Eight Clans that the current eight electors now represent. In the 700s, invading prisms from the far East - the Aentenshen - toppled House Dezuren and drove their remnants to isolated corners of the prism lands. The new ruling Aentenshen clan of the South - the Mermensun - feuded with various splinter-Dezuren groups for control of the Hohenvern mountains over the 700s, 800s, and 900s. A new Dezuren clan was forged in the 900s, initially as a faction and then as a ruling faction that controlled the Hohenzerns by 1000 ME. When the Mageplague jumped to prisms in the 1100s, the fighting between clans ceased, and the New Dezurens absorbed many of the old Dezuren splinters and Aentenshen newcomers. As prisms new no diseases before 1150, the Hohenverns were largely depopulated. It took centuries for the Dezuren lands to repopulate, and the clan began a policy of 'political hibernation' focused entirely on stability and total political neutrality.
The Dezuren The clan suddenly opened up and spread its influence in the 1600s, when it seized the crown from the children of Savad and effectively vassalized all prism lords in Hain. This led to wild overextension, and House Dezuren faced constant internal conflict for two centuries. When the clan was almost split in three after taking heavy casualties in the Fifth Scouring, they relied on House DevHauzen to help them restore unity - and promised DevHauzen support in making the monarchy hereditary in exchange. The two houses were fused at the hip as a power-alliance for a century, even after the DevHauzens lost their throne. The alliance shattered in the 1870s, and the Dezuren entered their modern phase of political aggression and power accumulation.
House Geinmen: Supposedly, House Geinmen are the descendants of the last emperors of Andrig, though this claim is somewhat dubious. The House rose in Hainish politics in the 1400s, and have long controlled the Western coastline of Hain. House Geinmen is known to be friends to Burghers and Junkers, quick to grant cities autonomy and to fight for free trade in Hain. They have long styled themselves as the Gentle House, poets and scholars who prefer words to swords. They have certainly been fond of words, but despite their marketing they have been quick to quarrel over trade and coin. House Geinmen has been slipping into political isolation for a while now, and the current prince has only reinforced this trend. House Geinmen is stagnating.

• House Geinmen are Human-starspawn
• The House symbol is a human leg wreathed in fire or shining light; this symbolizes Kofalin, and the heritage of art and culture he represents
• House Geinmen has lands in Dovenar and Vetenka
• The Current Elector Prince is Yamar Geinmen, the prickly duelist

House DevHauzen: Another ancient and esteemed House, this time on the decline. This house represents the most direct line to King Endrig DevHauzen, the creator of the Honors system and co-creator of wizardry. DevHauzen has risen and fallen dramatically over the years (going from Margrave to Elector to Herzog to Burgrave back to Herzog to Elector to Hereditary Monarch and finally back to Elector again). Currently, DevHauzen has a reputation as calculated lorekeepers who see themselves as more knowledgable and prestigious than everyone else - they are snooty and unwilling to share. This attitude, combined with their fixation on past status and past wrongs, has gotten in the way of new alliances and relationships. Two centuries ago, DevHauzen was easily the greatest among the Houses - even after they lost total control of the throne in 1800. But now? Now, they cling to what lands they have left, on the perpetual defensive. They also are known to be more controlling over their lands and vassals, which makes them unpopular among the lower nobility. House DevHauzen is on the decline.

• House DevHauzen is a mix of species; they often marry Kobolds (randomizing the child-species) and have a relaxed attitude towards adoption. The current "main line" is Starspawn-human
• Their House Symbol is a ring of chain or rope, burning like the sun. This symbolizes the eternal bonds connecting DevHauzen to the Goddess Silsta and her son, Haru, who are said to have personally blessed this family
• House DevHauzen is the only House to have lands in Verzavek; they also have lands in Tugrek.
• The Current Archdruid is a DevHauzen
• The current Elector Princess is Karra DevHauzen, The reclusive scholar

House Halar: Halar is an odd one, a fringe House that has ambitiously transformed itself into a main player. The second-youngest of the Houses, Halar and Eastern lands are new and unstable. Halar is known for casting a wide net in all things, and focusing on the big picture: they grab lands and vassals wherever they can, and keep their investment light to avoid losing too much in any one defeat. They are quick to offer aid, but just as quick to abandon a lost cause. Some say that this makes them false friends and untrustworthy scoundrels, but the strategy has netted them major victories in the past and so they continue anyways. Halar has estates and connections everywhere - while their bastion is in the isolated and besieged East, you are never safe from some Halar princeling riding in no matter where you are in Northern Stildane. Halar looks very big on a map, but it is worth remembering that their Eastern lands are mostly difficult-to-control border-wastes. House Halar is on the rise, but timidly so.

• House Halar are starspawn-half-dryads
• The House Symbol is an eagle with a wolf's head (sometimes breathing fire), a depiction of the Beast of Ten Valleys who the Halar faced in claiming the Eastern marches
• House Halar rules the Kingdom of Gennorholn, and has small lands in Dovenar, Vetenka, Nidever, and Tugrek
• Their current Elector Prince is Leiven Halar, the grim crusader

The Current Leadership

The last royal election was in 2016-2017 ME, following the peaceful death of Queen Frashia Savadan. The last archdruid was chosen in 2000 ME, after former Archdruid Sandra Yulahosk retired.
King Zenalim Dezuren is the young king of Hain, a half-prism and son of the Elector-Prince of House Dezuren. Zenalim is imperious and sometimes arrogant, but seems to be skilled enough at administration to get away with it for the most part. More damaging than his arrogant attitude and defensiveness around status is his fear and discomfort around violence - he is happy to make battle-plans, rattle his saber, or order an execution, but panics quickly and acts foolishly if that violence begins to involve him. Some whisper that his honors earned fighting bandits and securing the Southern marchlands were done entirely from behind a desk, and that the man swordfights like squire. This, combined with his youth, has severely impacted his legitimacy - it is not entirely wrong to say that he was handed the crown by his father, and that his ascendance is a culmination of everything wrong with the electoral system.
While it is true that Zenalim is a novice with more book smarts than experience in most fields, he is an experienced political operator with a keen eye for intrigue. He has been recently turning his focus towards isolating and humiliating the Prince-Elector Yamar of the Geinmen family, who he has a personal grudge towards after Yamar dragged his failures as a swordsmen into the public eye during the 2016 election. Zenalim does have one major weakness as a politician, though - he is prone to completely discounting non-nobles as court actors with their own agendas.
Whether Zenalim is a spoiled brat who will drive the kingdom to ruin, or an insecure genius with a long reign of growth ahead of him, the young king will likely rule for many years unless House Dezuren loses so much ground that the Electors can force him to abdicate.
Archdruid Hodrik DevHauzen is the old archdruid of Hain. He is a man of piety, who lives an ascetic and disciplined life even in his age; he is also, unsurprisingly, a stressed out and exhausted man often described behind closed doors as "Old Haggard Hodrik". Hodrik is an intense spiritualist, popular among orthodox theologians and deviant mystics alike. He is disillusioned with the material world - and, not so quietly disillusioned with the priesthood as well. Hodrik is a skilled druid whose reign has been one of general efficiency.
Hodrik has had his fair share of problems, though. For one, his ascetic tendencies have rocked quite a few boats in the clergy and made him a number of enemies. To add to that, he has not been quite about his disdain for nobles he does not feel live up to Hainish standards of moral behavior, making him even more enemies. And, while Hodrik is generally competent with administration, he inherited a severe staffing problem from the prior archdruid that has caused priest shortages and corruption problems that Hodrik has had to work overtime to try and solve. And not all of these problems have been solved - the archives and clerical centers of research have been allowed to fall into disarray, for example. And his constant political battles has normalized a culture of backstabbing and open political skirmishing throughout the upper priesthood.
While Hodrik is a fine enough archdruid, many in the upper clergy are starting to get ready for the next election once he dies. Whether this will be a messy, partisan affair or a clean transition is yet to be seen.

History: The Tulip War

For a century prior to the current regime, House DevHauzen ruled Hain as a hereditary monarchy. This began with King Volstr DevHauzen, who assumed emergency royal powers in 1724 after his mother, the elected Queen, was slain in battle. King Volstr's rule was ratified by the Electors in 1750, 25 years into his rule - and he had grown very accustomed to the idea that his own son would inherit the throne. Volstr spent the decades after his victory against the Kivish rebuilding and hoarding political influence. In 1781, the aging Volstr wanted to retire, and he officially enacted what he had been building to for a decade: he dissolved the Elector Council (the legislature) and declared his son heir to the throne of Hain. Not long after this, King Sandor DevHauzen ascended to the throne.
King Sandor DevHauzen was a disciplined and pious man with an eye for numbers and a head full of ambition. He was also, unfortunately, terribly unpersuasive to his fellow nobles. King Sandor had come to believe that all politics was intrigue - that nobles could only be moved by threats or bribes, and that only those held by blackmail could be relied upon. He hardly bothered justifying his plans to centralize Hain through an expanding military bureaucracy; he left that to his Archdruid, who he greatly empowered. The sudden shift of power to the priests, the poor communication, and the incredibly difficulty Sandor had in making his bureaucracy all made the regime vulnerable. And yet, thanks to his father's legacy, his competency with numbers and intrigue, and his brilliant ally Archdruid Ginshka Dezuren, he held onto the throne for nearly twenty years. But, in 1797, Archdruid Ginshka died and was replaced by a slightly more skeptical archdruid (Archdruid Gollara Hugelma) that was not willing to support Sandor's vision uncritically. And then, a year later, the King's own blackmailed allies were able to get blackmail on him - and when the King refused to budge on giving them power, they released knowledge of his mistresses and his dishonors to the court. Humiliated, politically bludgeoned, miserable, and convinced he was unfit to rule, King Sandor decided to abdicate and hand the throne to his own son, Floriv. 
As Sandor prepared the government for his son to assume the throne, his nobles began to act against him. The Elector Princess of House Halar, Tonma Halar, became a symbol of rebellion after she made a show of humiliating Prince Floriv in a duel (and one theoretically stacked in his favor) - challenging his readiness to assume the throne. Elector Halar rallied the princes and lower nobility against the king, and held an election for the new monarch against his will. The election, unsurprisingly, chose Tonma as the new Queen. Queen Tonma rode against Sandor and Floriv with an army of rebel nobles, and waged a brief but blood war. Sandor was killed in battle, and Floriv was left hiding in the capital while the countryside was consolidated against him. In 1801, Floriv accepted exile, and Tonma became Queen of Hain. This conflict between the line of Volstr and the Elector-rebels became known as the Tulip War - for the rebels each picked a tulip from the garden of where the election of Tonma was held to symbolize the beauty of a restored chivalrous age. Monarchs after this conflict became known as the Tulip Monarchs. 
I write of such ancient history not just because history is my scholarly calling, but because this war shaped how the current Hainish monarchy sees itself - as a reaction against a very specific kind of royal excess.

The Six Tulip Monarchs

Queen Tonma Halar, 1800 - 1826: The first Tulip Queen is a divisive figure. She was a nostalgic idealist who did dismantle formal royal power to an impressive degree, but she also deeply enjoyed the informal power she had - she had a tendency to accuse anyone she didn't like of being a traitor tied to the old regime. Her early career was brilliant, and basically laid the foundations for the modern power of House Halar. In her later years, she grew strange. She alienated many of her subordinates, became more casual with her violence, and became known for her quirks (which many said were madness she banned all dogs from the palace for sedition, for example. In political storytelling, she serves as both a romantic herald of a return to greatness, and a reminder that power cannot be trusted in the hands of any one monarch. House Halar is quick to defend her, though, and asserts that stories of her later corruption were exaggerated by her successors (who feared that House Halar was building its own ruling federation). 
Queen Bolta Hugelma, 1826 - 1837: The safe choice intended to bring the kingdom together, Queen Bolta was a cautious and quiet woman. She ruled with an even, stable hand - though she did also allow existing problems to get worse, as she was slow to act. In her later years, she turned away from people-pleasing and towards actual problem-solving reform, which angered many of her core supporters. During a critical time of court intrigue, Queen Bolta ruled without a stable spymaster due to personal concerns, and she completely missed a covert Elector that completely changed the political landscape. She was pressured into abdication not long after. She is remembered to this day for her patronage of the arts, as well as for her own post-abdication paintings.
King Kasbar Dezuren, 1837 - 1885: A brilliant man with vision, Kasbar won the 1837 election with his persuasive explanation of a plan to consolidate Hain's power over Northern Stildane for centuries and to ensure that Kizen would safely become a political satellite of Hain. It is ironic, then, that Kasbar's reign saw the greatest loss of Hainish power in the North and is remembered now as a time of chaos. The years of Kasbar were good. But in 1839, he was hit by a major scandal - the archdruid leaked his family's backroom electoral deals and manipulation of the clergy to the other houses. Two years later, Kasbar's brother was implicated in the assassination of the archdruid; rather than investigate, the King covered it up. The illusion of House unity against foreign threats was shattered. 
King Kasbar began relying entirely on his House's allies, notably DevHauzen, to get work done - he gave up too quickly on cooperation, and actively led the factionalization of his own government. The crown became transparently partisan over time, as Kasbar began openly using royal power to expand his House's lands. But none of this was too new. What really doomed Kasbars's legacy was the poisoning of his critical friendship with the Prince of DevHauzen, who Kasbar became convinced was manipulating him. This alliance kept Kasbar's faction together, and when it fell apart so did his political power. Eventually, Kasbar tried to reunite his political faction by force, which provoked a House war between Dezuren and DevHauzen that the other Houses leapt into. While parts of this House war were waged in Hain, it never became a full civil war there. In the Hainish protectorate-kingdom of Ustavet, the House War rolled into an existing succession crisis to become an all-out nightmare proxy war. While House Dezuren ultimately won over DevHauzen and took a fair amount of their lands and power (beginning DevHauzen's true decline), all of Hain lost. This also ended the old alliance between Dezuren and DevHauzen, and led to a new series of alliances taking over Hainish politics. 
Queen Gevess Neshelna, 1885 - 1930: Queen Gevess was a conservative monarch who grew to be a stabilizing influence over time. During the first half of her reign, she fed into the partisan politics of the House wars and even prosecuted new ones - she had a particular vendetta against House Dezuren that led to many small local wars. Over time, Queen Gevess grew more and more committed to unity and compromise, and open warfare between nobles declined after 1905. Gevess was fond of bribing those below her with gold and titles as a way to secure peace and power, and increased the crown's position as a provider of patronage to lower nobles. This led to the crown playing a larger role in local infrastructure projects, such as major roads or fortification efforts. This also produced monetary problems. 
King Oshlo Geinmen, 1930 - 1965: King Oshlo should have been a destabilizing influence by all accounts of his personality and tendencies, but he ultimately built on Queen Gevess's stability instead. King Oshlo was blustering, decadent, and often fixated on foolish military adventures and quests - and yet he managed to divert a great deal of noble agitation into Questing, and he greatly strengthened the legal system of Hain. King Oshlo was a fan of courts and laws as a space to resolve conflicts, perhaps because of his own legal training when his family was grooming him to be a priest. Oshlo connected his regime with the priesthood to a larger extent, and increased the sources of royal revenue in the process.
Oshlo's foreign policy, meanwhile, was a kind of aggressive bravado that led to pointless fighting in the surrounding wastelands as well as an intense short-term rivalry with the Empire of Kizen that only strengthened Kizen's position in the long-term. House Geinmen's reputation as cool-headed scholar-poets took a major hit from this man's reign, and while that reputation survived King Oshlo the House as a whole lost friends. While the stronger legal system and externally-oriented politics did basically end open warfare between nobles during his reign, he did little to help the political gridlock that had become commonplace.
Queen Frashia Savadan, 1965 - 2016: The Election of Queen Frashia was famously close, which provoked a great deal of controversy right out the gate. Thankfully, the Queen was a skilled political agent who prioritized stability over her own House's short-term gains. Queen Frashia established House Savadan as the connected soft-power house - previously, it had been better-known as the hyper-formal tradition and ritual House. Her strongest weapons were benevolence and compromise, which turned her opponents into boat-rocking aggressors by making Frashia synonymous with the system itself. Do not think she wasn't partisan towards her house in her own way, but it was a quiet and slow favoritism that ways always cleverly disguised. 
In many ways, Queen Frashia represents the first House-neutral monarch since Queen Bolta back in the 1820s. Frashia's reign legally centralized Hain, while also administratively decentralizing it. She lessened the boundaries between fiefs, and made it more difficult for lords to put up tariffs or embargoes against each other; she also reigned in some of the more wildly deviant legal codes of local nobles. This more-coherent legal system even further strengthened the courts that her predecessor had built up. At the same time, she handed off as much of the infrastructure of Hain as she could to nobles, Burghers, or priests, and shrank the crown's bureaucracy back down to early 1800's levels. This pleased many of her vassals and led to a balanced (if anemic) royal budget. Later in her reign, Frashia struggled with a division between her and her own House, as House Savadan became more aggressive in its policy than Frashia felt wise. This led to a major scandal when Savadan was implicated in trying to use bribes and threats to rig the election of the new archdruid in 2000 ME. Rather than side with her House, Frashia investigated and sanctioned them - causing a schism within her family and poisoning House Savadan's relationship to the clergy.