Maveren

The Maveren are a Viking-like group of seafaring traders and raiders, the original founders of the city of Malfa. Like the historical Vikings, the Maveren are very diverse; anyone can become Maver, through a combination of earning it at sea, and inheritance. But very few people do. Most Maveren are mixed sea-elf and human; they are long-lived but there are very few of them, which is partly why they accept other peoples as Maveren, at least in theory.
The Maveren have always practiced democracy with religious fervor, but only amongst the Maveren themselves, who are the only people who count as citizens (“Maveren” literally means “people”). At the time of the founding of Malfa, everybody else— the majority—were thralls in the Maveren’s service, a bit like Sparta. The Maveren themselves were a small minority.
The Maveren who settled on the peninsula still control the mature city, and still consider themselves to be the only real citizens, even though many other people now live there. Since the original Maveren are mostly very long-lived, it’s possible that some of the Maveren living in Malfa today remember the founding of the city, three hundred-odd years ago.
Some other current Maveren are humans or other races, descended from Maveren forbears. There are strict inheritance laws that include the responsibilities of citizenship, which makes it possible to fall out of the Maveren; there are a small number of ex-People about in Malfa, disaffected pseudo-nobles with no rights, no money, and a chip on their shoulder.
The Maveren still govern by democracy—amongst the Maveren, who still have the only votes despite making up maybe 10-15% of the population. Ministers and secretaries are appointed to take care of things, but they are thralls; there is no one ruling figure, not even a prime minister. The Maveren as a whole are autocratic and arrogant, and many of them are individually very powerful magic-users and fighters.
The Maveren and their thralls are organised into Houses. There were nine founding Houses in Malfa, of which eight have any real presence in the current city.