Interesting Fantasy Cultures

[Avoraciopoctules]

Gnomes are tricksters, right? Maybe they can spoof Moradin's AccessID or whatever keeps heartstone recharges priest-exclusive. Or maybe they've got tinkers who can make substitutes.

[Ted the Flayer]

Let's hear how the gnomes do it.

All right!

[Shatner]

Let's hear how the gnomes do it.

Gnomes: When Gnostics Go Roaming

It all started with dwarves. With decades to prepare their defenses, fill their storerooms, train their soldiers, forge their top-notch equipment, and build up a comfortable population "cushion", a dwarven clan can endure almost anything, and the dwarves are psychologically and socially primed to live for decades, or even centuries, under siege and assault. However, when denied any of those things, it can turn ugly, quickly. The sad fact is the dwarves, as designed by Moradin, have a hard time springing back from major set-backs. And while dwarven history has had some pretty high highs, it has also had some really low lows. During one such period, things looked very, VERY bad for the dwarven race and that made certain members of the dwarven pantheon... nervous.

Garl Glittergold, a major dwarven deity of ingenuity and goldsmithing, was growing increasingly convinced that tactics needed to be changed; namely, the dwarves needed to engage in a little more deception and tactical retreating and a lot less “death before dishonor”-style last stands. Moradin, head of the Pantheon, would have none of it; in his view the dwarves would most likely survive, and when you take the long view (and I mean, the LONG view), what's one dark age more-or-less. As the situation on the Prime worsened, Garl became convinced that Moradin's plan, such as it was, would see the race driven to extinction. And so Garl started working in secret with his followers in the Svirfneblin clan on a Plan B.

The Underdark is a huge place and most of it is very nearly uninhabitable. With no sun shining down to fuel the ecosystem, there are few places that can support an entire city's worth of humanoids, even ones that eat as much recyclable metals as the dwarves. Outside of these oases, across the vast, VAST stretches of tunnels that worm throughout the Underdark, very few places of consequence existed, and very few creatures of consequence dwelt there. Nearly every band of dwarven settlers start out life as an invading army who move in and evict some other race from the very oasis they intend to settle in. And one day a group of settlers, led by the mystic theurge Realgor Thunderbeard (editor's note: that name was chosen by my players during a campaign. It's canon but also kinda dumb. Oh well.), set off and weren't heard from ever again. In those dark days, it was merely assumed those dwarves were consumed by the twin dooms that were tearing the race, clan by clan, fortress by fortress, from the very bones of the earth. As a matter of fact, the Svirfneblin settlers were instead living hundreds of miles away in the "desert", as it were, shielded from detection by a relic of Garl's own crafting, in hiding from Moradin, the dwarves, and, really, just about everything else.

In those days, knowledge of the arcane arts wasn't as taboo among the dwarves as it is today, and the Svirfneblin clan boasted both more and mightier wizards in their group than any other surviving clan; in a previous age the Svirfneblin had been eclipsed by the arcane might of the necromancers of the Futhark clan, but things... hadn't gone well for them. And one of the beauties of being a wizard or sorcerer is that you don't have to report to a god each time you want to prep a spell. Despite his ingenuity, Garl was unable to provide the spark which, via an Ollam, keeps the dwarven heartstone charged; that secret remains one of Moradin's most carefully guarded treasures. Instead, the Svirfneblin paid a terrible toll for their apostasy by transferring what charges remained among an ever dwindling number of survivors; a trail of bodies left unclaimed and unmourned marked the clan's passage. Through a combination of arcane shaping and divine meddling, the Svirfneblin scoured the flesh and rent the bodies of their young with ever increasing urgency. Soon, the trail of spent adults were joined by the bodies of twisted children. Each day marked another failure, another death, and another batch of heartstones tapped. Surrounded by existential threats, both internal and external, Realgor's clansmen continued to labor upon their own dwindling numbers until eventually the experiment was a success: Moradin's handiwork was undone, subverted, and rebuilt. What remained was less -- small, weak, ill-suited to the toil and warfare endemic to the dwarven condition -- but also more -- immune to the limits Moradin imposed upon the very race he had created, and free from the dogmatic rule of his worshipers.

Realgor Thunderbeard, the last dwarf of the Svirfneblin clan, survived long enough on the essence stolen from his kin to bring up this first generation of non-dwarf. The clan survived in the wastes of the Underdark through food and drink summoned by magic, at first by Realgor and later by svirf-worshipers of Garl Glittergold. Illusions, stealth, and misdirection allowed the exodites (i.e. people of the exodus) to avoid confrontation with the larger predators and organized factions of the underground. When that proved insufficient, the entire clan would pick up and wander elsewhere. What magic couldn't provide, either in food or defense, was supplemented by alchemy. Among the many dwarven trappings that had been abandoned were the prized histories of the clan; engraved across massive stone pillars, these could not be carried by nomads, let alone ones that stood 3' tall. Instead, a complex oral tradition was developed to convey wisdom from one generation to the next. Eventually Realgor's borrowed time was exhausted and he went on to face whatever destiny Moradin has in store for a dwarven heretic. His legacy, the Svirfneblin race, lives to this day, some still wandering the desert, others having secured strongholds for themselves, but all follow his traditions: retell the stories, avoid rather than confront, maintain the disciplines of silence and song, stealth and distraction, alchemy and the arcane.

It was only a matter of time before some of the Svirfneblin found their way to the surface and adapted to life under the hills instead of life under the mountains. These surface-svirfs continued to be led by wizards and story-tellers but, due to the abundance of food and water on the surface, saw a decline in the importance of the clergy. Interestingly, the intersection of illusion-y arcane caster and story-teller is "Bard", and when you are led by bards a funny thing happens: you make friends. The gnomes (as they became known) learned surface agriculture from the halflings and entered into treaties and trade agreements with the surrounding human tribes. They were no more brutalized than anyone else by the orcs and goblins, though they found new enemies among the kobolds, whom they continue to engage in occasional, though bitter, turf wars.

By the time Moradin had a full idea of what had transpired, it was too late for the emerging svirf/gnome race to be easily snuffed out. Plus, the orthodox dwarves were too busy getting their shit ruined by the Hobgoblin Khanate (who had by this time stolen the secret of iron working from the dwarves) above, and by the primordial terrors from below to do much about it (the Flesh Wars burned hot in the Underdark and Deep Umber for several centuries longer than it did on the surface). The fallout from this was diverse. The Thunderbeard lineage of each surviving, dwarven settlement was the recipient of a massive, staggeringly huge honor debt that they are still laboring to repay to this day. Swaths of the dwarven genealogical records were purged or altered because the offending Svirfneblin clan dwarves were rendered "nameless"; they were no longer considered dwarves (which is true of their descendants, at least) and the histories are supposed to not remember them, but to do so in an especially mean way. Finally, arcane magic, which was on a sort of probationary status after the grand heresy of the Futhark clan, was rendered taboo for the dwarves; a stigma which also persists to this day.

The reason the svirfs/gnomes aren't hunted down by the dwarves today, now that the race is recovering from it's previous death-spiral, is for the same reason the Svirfs came into existence in the first place: Moradin's stubborn pride. Moradin believes that the dwarves cannot survive without him and that his creations will outlive all others. Therefore, in the long view (and Moradin takes the LONG view) all these once-dwarves will die out in due time, and everything will go back to the way it should be. Now, the dwarves are real jerks to the gnomes and svirfs when the opportunity presents itself, but open conflict is rare; neither Moradin nor the Ollamic Council want to draw too much attention to the heresies of ages past... or at least, not the successful ones. Members of the Thunderbeard clan have been known to go rogue and commit "honor killings" on occasion, as much a way to vent their ancestral shame as an ill-conceived attempt to repay their honor debt, but these really accomplish nothing save to further sour relationships between the races. Oh, and worship to the non-Moradin members of the pantheon got dialed way, waaay back. Other than estranged hicks, like the duergar who still insist on worshiping Laduguer too, there is really only Moradin. And you know what? Moradin likes it just fine that way. Oh, and he thinks that if you have the time to ask all these questions that you must not have enough work to do. Hop to it, you slacker!

[fectin]

Can Laduguer also recharge hearthstones? If not, How are the duergar alive?

Is the Gnomish Heresy why proper dwarves distrust magic? Nominally or actually?

Are all of the primarch names known? Has that always been true?

How much of this may I steal, and how would you like credit if I do?

[Shatner]

Can Laduguer also recharge hearthstones? If not, How are the duergar alive?

No he cannot; Moradin and Moradin alone can grant the power to recharge a heartstone. The duergar are alive and kickin' because they have not strayed so far from Moradin's intended course that he feels the need to kill them off. How are the duergar different from the normal dwarves? They work even harder and they are even more xenophobic than the norm; not qualities Moradin would want to snuff out. And their continued worship of Laduguer is tolerated because Moradin considers Laduguer neither ambitious nor clever enough to pull off the coup that Garl Glittergold managed. Over the ages, there has been a very broad range of differences between the various dwarven populations (though not by the standards of the younger, less conservative races) and that's been fine with Big M. The types of misbehavior that'll get a clan snuffed out are actually pretty few, so the race as a whole has a lot of conceptual space to experiment in without receiving the divine kibosh.

Is the Gnomish Heresy why proper dwarves distrust magic? Nominally or actually?

The dwarves are fine with divine magic, but they view arcane magic with deep seated suspicion. That's a pity because they are really good with it and it works really well for them. But yes, the grand heresy of the Futhark clan followed by the exodus of the Svirfneblin clan, both of which were driven heavily by arcane misbehavior, acted together as a one-two punch and got arcane magic snubbed.

It is important to note that Moradin hasn't actually issued any formal injunction against arcane magic; really, he doesn't much care. What he won't tolerate, especially after the Futhark and Svirfneblin cock-ups, is the loosening of his influence over the clergy nor the loosening of the clergy's influence over the clans. There had long been power struggles between the arcane smiths of the dwarves and the Ollamic Council, but these had generally been on a small enough scale that it didn't bother Moradin... but it bothered the clerics to no end. The faithful used the two events above as an excuse to get their political rivals ousted, and have continued that policy to this day.

Are all of the primarch names known? Has that always been true?

Yes and yes. The dwarven race originated as a single clan, and as a race they are OBSESSED with recording their own history. Now, there are gaps in the records, some large, some small, and some quite old. Many of those gaps the dwarves are desperate to fill, and some of them have been filled in a manner that is not entirely accurate. It is undeniably true that the records are biased by the heavily nostalgic zeitgeist of the dwarves. There may have been aspects about the Primarchs, or perhaps entire sagas, that didn't fit into the narrative the record takers were trying to craft and so have been tweaked or omitted. Finding the truth out, or dealing with the fallout of an irrefutable conflict within the histories, could even make for an interesting story... or adventure. But like the U.S. Founding Fathers, the identities of all the Primarchs are known.

How much of this may I steal, and how would you like credit if I do?

Anyone is free to use as much or as little of what I post here with or without accrediting the source. Of course, my ego wouldn't turn down a little acknowledgement, but what I post in The Gaming Den is intended to be used freely by whoever is interested enough in it to steal use it.

[Shatner]

My rough outline of the ages of the dwarven race.

• ++The Beginning++
• Moradin created the 64 primarchs during the late Stone age. These were bestowed with knowledge of mining, metal work, forging and so on. Dwarves came onto the scene at a much higher tech level than everyone else (though powerful individuals could challenge them, tribes could not)
• The dwarves have few meaningful enemies after they get their first fortress erected, other than the aberrations
• War of Flesh rages during this time
• The dwarves took a long time to get going but eventually population critical mass was achieved.
• slow expansion; new holds are ruled by Primarchs or their designated succesors
• This age ended with the deaths of the primarchs, whose ENORMOUS heartstones spur a population explosion.

• ++The Golden Age++
• The dwarves expand like crazy, building numerous holds above and below ground (some very, very deep). All sorts of wonderous architecture and items of power are created. The dwarves can and do march openly on the surface, their superior metal weaponry and armor make it so they emerge from the majority of engagements unscathed.
• The culture is very individualistic, where it seems that the dwarves are destined to be the dominant race of the Prime and can stomp around without repercussions. Holds are now ruled by charismatic, wealthy or privileged dwarves. Some are kings, others are despots, others are the center of their own cult of personality.
• The surface is populated by isolated tribes of the various races, with the elves being the height of surface civilization.
• The War of Flesh continues underground but has largely retreated from the surface. The ranks of the subterranean undead slowly begin to swell.
• This age ends with the great splintering of the race (Duegar, Deep dwarves, Mountain Dwarves, and Urllami necromancers)

• ++The Silver Age++
• Big civil wars erupt between dwarven clans. At this point the clans lack both a strong central authority and a shared culture. Some of the new holds have been dabbling in ideas and practices that "mainstream" dwarven culture (as it's recognized today) is deeply uncomfortable with. Some of the more "out there" ones have already suffered Moradin's kill-switch, but others skirt the line more successfully and have to be dealt with the old-fashioned way.
• This period coincides with the Iron Age of the surface races, beginning with the great territorial conquest of the hobgoblin Khanate (who stole the secret of iron-working from the dwarves), followed by the rise of the human, orcish and kobold nations.
• Between internal and external threats, many holds are lost, treasures are looted or lost or destroyed, and the dwarven population plummets.
• The surface is ruled by numerous nations, with goblinoids and humans being the biggest threat to the dwarves.
• The Umber is teaming with undead and aberrations; that shit gets REAL nasty.
• This age ends with the genesis of the gnomes (who set to wandering the Umber), the alliance between the Mountain Dwarves and the Deep Dwarves, and the consolidation of the Ollamic council. Also, with the war between the Druids and the Celestial Host (War of The Balance)

• ++The Copper Age - the Present++
• The dwarves have consolidated their territorial holdings and have become increasingly jaded, xenophobic, conservative and communalistic. Each clan is ran as a corporation by a board, with auditing and cultural oversight maintained by the Ollami. Strict modes of behavior defining dwarfishness are codified and enforced. The remaining arcane traditions of the dwarves are marginalized and begin to be suppressed or forgotten.
• The dwarves have become very backwards looking, exalting their ancestors and the accomplishments thereof. Slowly old holds are being reclaimed and the population is growing but the dwarves are constantly beset from above ground and below. Innovation is slowed way, waaaay down.
• On the surface, there is a prolonged dark age in the wake of the collapse of the Khanate and the Elven empires. The primary surface threats are orcs and (non-hob)goblins, who thrive in uncivilized times
• The Umber is populated by LOTS of kobolds, many of whom are warring with one another. The dark elves become a real threat as well. Of course, the undead and aberrations never fully die out or end hostilities, but a lack of give-a-damn by the dwarves and the collapse of the major surface civilizations are allowing nasty things to roam the surface once more.

[Shatner]

By the way, while I am perfectly happy to post my own notes and discuss them with folks, I intended this thread to be a place for other people to contribute their own ideas as well. This has happened a little, but I want to re-emphasize that others are welcome and encouraged to post their interesting bits of fantasy culture here. Don't be shy.

[Shatner]

Let's take a break from the dwarves for now and instead talk about hobgoblins. The content below is a snippet from the primer I was sending my players before starting a new campaign about adventuring within the Hobgoblin Khanate. The core of all this hobgoblin stuff was inspired by Frank's Races of War, and I even lift whole sentences from it here and there.

---

Hobgoblin Racial Info
"There's a long history of my people being bullied by the hobgoblins. All efficiency, and warrior's codes, and sense of duty, with their military this and their discipline that, and... and I'm not helping my case at all, am I?"
- Recloak trying to dissuade Xkyon from making the hobgoblins his minions


Hobgoblins are pretty generic monsters overall and don't stand out compared to their Monster Manual neighbors the Hippogriff and the Homunculus. However, they're an important part of the upcoming campaign so they need to be re-introduced. The monster manual says the following for hobgoblins:

"Hobgoblins are larger cousins of goblins. Hobgoblins’ hair color ranges from dark reddish-brown to dark gray. They have dark orange or red-orange skin. Large males have blue or red noses. Hobgoblins’ eyes are yellowish or dark brown, while their teeth are yellow. Their garments tend to be brightly colored, often blood red with black-tinted leather. Their weaponry is kept polished and in good repair. Hobgoblins speak Goblin and Common. Most hobgoblins encountered outside their homes are warriors; the information in the statistics block is for one of 1st level.

...

These creatures have a strong grasp of strategy and tactics and are capable of carrying out sophisticated battle plans. Under the leadership of a skilled strategist or tactician, their discipline can prove a deciding factor. Hobgoblins hate elves and attack them first, in preference to other opponents."

That's... not much to go on is it? Organized and hates elves. Hmm... let's expand on that a bit. And by a bit, I mean a lot.

First some physiological info. Hobgoblins grow about the same size as an adult human (ideally a little shorter but the average hobgoblin of the Khanate tends to receive better nutrition than the average human of the Khanate making the two more or less equal). They have brownish-orange skin, a lean build and short, coarse hair over their shoulders, neck and head and face, though they don't grow facial hair anywhere a human wouldn't (so, eyebrows, mustache, side burns, beard). They are completely hairless from the chest down. They have triangular shark-like teeth that are yellow by default, similarly "autumn" colored eyes and a brown, flat, pug-like noses which become blue or red colored for adult males. A hobgoblin becomes physically mature around the age of 15 and can live to be 70 if they're lucky but few make it into their 60s. Hobgoblins have one to three children at a time (called litters).

Hobgoblins eat a protein-rich diet comprised mainly of meat, fish and insects though there are a handful of plants they consume in modest quantities (mainly rice, a few bitter fruits and nuts). Cherries, cherry blossoms and the fermented products thereof are potent intoxicants for the Hobgoblins (regular alcohol works too but it's like drinking light beer for them). Hobgoblins originated in a dense jungle environment where being orange, sneaky and carnivorous was a valid way of eching out a living (see: tigers). Hobgoblins naturally are neither diurnal nor nocturnal but work in alternating shifts, taking several small (30 minute) naps throughout the day. Possessing darkvision, night time or even underground activity is sustainable. Hobgoblins are universally left-handed.

Modern hobgoblins have, due mainly to the fact that most of their slaves can't or won't work at night, become increasingly diurnal themselves though they tend to sleep through the night in two, four hour spans with a period of activity in between. Historically, excessive hair led to parasites and other hygiene issues; because of this, modern hobgoblins tend to shave or carefully groom any body and neck hair. Males typically keep their hair pulled back into a knot of some sort while females pin the hair closely to the top or sides of the head with most, if not all, facial hair shaved off.


There are two defining characteristics about the hobgoblin people: they are quiet and they are hierarchical. Understanding those two things fills in quite a lot of information about their race and the sort of civilization they would fashion for themselves.

Quiet
Hobgoblins (or hobs for short) are very, very quiet. Before they became civilized, they relied on ambushing their prey for food and they have retained that quiet ethos through the ages. They are, as a people, much quieter and more precise about their movements than other races. Since they used to rely on stealth AND numbers to hunt, the hobgoblins developed a gesture-heavy form of communication which would allow the hunters to coordinate their attacks without giving away their ambush. This sign language would eventually be incorporated into the the dialect of goblin originally spoken by the hobs and as a result the hobgoblins have their own distinct language which looks really weird to outsiders.

Hobgoblin incorporates hand gestures and body position to convey a great deal of information normally reserved for facial expressions or the tone and volume of the voice. Words are used sparingly and never said more loudly than is needed... it's not whispering, its just quieter than most people talk. As a result, hobs don't emote with their face nearly as much as other humanoids do; they also don't maintain eye contact when listening to someone because all the useful information is being conveyed from the hands and stance of the body. To non-hobs, hobgoblins are stupid and rude because they stare at your feet when you talk, say maybe a tenth as many words as they should and fidget with their hands while in a conversation. Also, they stand too close to you during a conversation. Heck, if the hobgoblins hadn't become the overlords of the most impressive land empire of it's time, no one would have given them the time of day. However, if your boss speaks quietly and has you whipped when you get orders wrong, you learn to listen real quick.

You can "speak" hobgoblin politely at a distance of up to 30' away. You can "shout" (sign slowly in an exaggerated fashion) and be understood up to 60' away but this is considered uncouth unless circumstances warrant it. Many hobgoblin military drills stress tight formations with gaps no larger than 30' between squads; both the language and the military doctrines are a natural evolution of the original hobgoblin hunting formations which would feature an interwoven picket of warriors spaced within range of each other's darkvision (which extends 60' out).

Shouting, singing, stomping your feet, clapping your hands or any other loud behavior is considered deviant. Children shout at each other because they are uncivilized little creatures who don't know any better... they also shit themselves; a hobgoblin would be just as scandalized to see an adult walking around with shit-stained pants as an adult walking into a room and loudly announcing they were hungry. A married couple might sing to one another and that's an acceptable, though private, activity just like a woman might wear lingerie in the bedroom. But singing in public would be on par with going to work in a negligee or ass-less chaps. Instrumental music is enjoyed but non-hobs would consider hobgoblin compositions subdued and needlessly complicated. Hobgoblin bards exist but theirs is not a well-respected profession.


Hierarchical
Hobs have an instinctual sense of hierarchy. Every hob is either above or below every other hob and those below listen to those above. Every group of hobs has a leader and if that leader gets eaten by a tendriculous then there is a clear answer to the question of "Who is the new leader?" A hobgoblin only goes up in the hierarchy through a combination of seniority and approval from those above him. The hob social structure does allow for contextual importance (if stuff is on fire, everyone should listen to the fire marshal even if they outrank him when stuff ISN'T on fire) but does not allow for peers (two individuals of the same rank at the same time). In the case of twins, a parent is expected to pick a favorite on the spot so there is no ambiguity. Let me reiterate this one point: all of this "he is my superior and that guy is my inferior" is entirely ingrained, automatic and unconscious among the hobgoblins. While a human might see a mess hall of workers milling about sitting where they like with whomever they like as pleasant or peaceful, a hobgoblin would see that as insane, deviant or mind bogglingly stupid.

All that makes hob society very orderly (clear master-servant relationships), very stable (clear line of succession) and their military very well organized. It does make them prone to stagnation if the leadership is especially dim. It also makes hobgoblins seem like jerks or sycophants to non-hobgoblins; unless a hobgoblin is used to the ways of the other races, he will either be overbearing or craven towards every other person he deals with. Because the other races just don't get it (i.e. don't have the hobs innate sense of who outranks whom), the hobgoblins have resorted to placing all non-hobs at the bottom of the hierarchy (as slaves) so that it is abundantly clear who outranks them (everyone) and who they outrank (no one). Still, there is no wickedly complicated social hierarchy that can't be made more complicated so now even slaves gain seniority, prestige and honor.

As time passed and hobgoblin society advanced, the things which made someone a "master" versus a "servant" became abstracted and morphed into the hobgoblin concept of honor. The elderly are honorable. The master craftsman is more honorable than the junior craftsman. A warrior is more honorable than a priest is more honorable than a peasant. Someone who kills up close is more honorable than someone who kills far away. Someone who kills openly is more honorable than someone who kills in secret but someone who loses openly is less honorable than someone who wins in secret. Someone who is strong is more honorable than someone who is weak, but someone who is quiet, weak and deadly is more honorable than someone who is loud, strong and a deadly. Obedience is honorable. Pleasing your superiors is honorable. Enslaving is more honorable than killing. Mercy towards a lesser is honorable (and embarrassing to the lesser) but excessive mercy is dishonorable. Mercy towards a superior is either supreme foolishness OR it means you were secretly the superior all along, in which case it is honorable (hobgoblin folklore has a lot of differing opinions about the hero who lets his enemies live). Fighting with a weapon is more honorable than fighting with divine magic is more honorable than fighting with sorcery. Shields are barbaric; a true warrior fights with one big weapon or two easily holstered weapons (because "speaking" hobgoblin fluently requires at least one hand free, hobgoblins almost universally dismiss shields... with the exception of the Kappa Warriors, who wear their shield across their backs).

Because hobgoblins are inherently orderly and make quiet neighbors, this allows them to live in much higher population densities than other races without going mad. And well, they totally do that. Hob settlements are, by the standards of other races, amazingly claustrophobic. Hob settlements traditionally make walls out of paper and place living quarters right next to one another to conserve heat. Those not blessed with the hob's natural silence find their every action heard many apartments away. And since being unintentionally noisy is a sign that says "servant" and therefore "boss me around if I annoy you" to a hobgoblin's social hierarch-o-meter, neither party will find the other particularly enjoyable neighbors.

[Shatner]

An Overview of the Khanate

The Khanate is a feudal empire ruled by a single Khan which, during its height, was the largest land empire in the history of the Prime. It was unusual for its successful blending of imperialism, heavy militarisation, bureaucracy, mass slavery, religious tolerance. It manages to simultaneously include back-breaking, land shackled serfdom along with decent upward mobility for the lower classes (the upper echelons of the empire remained fairly static over the generations).

The text from the above image included here, for anyone who wants to copy-paste it. It doesn't look good here, because the forum strips out a lot of the white space, but you can copy it into Notepad and pad it out manually if so desired.

Hierarchy of the Khanate (in descending order)


1) The Khan
/ | \
2) / | Shoguns
/ | | \
3) ....Daimyo.... | | \
/ |\ | | \
4) Magistrates | \ | | \
/ | | | | \
5) / | | | | Samurai
| / | | | |
6) | Nobility | | | | ?
| | | | | | |
7) | | Clerics | | | ??Kobolds??
| | | | | | |
8) | | | | Soldiers | ?
| | | | | /
^^^Land Owners^^^ | ^^^Iron Holders^^^
\ | | | \ /
9) \| Adepts / \ /
\ | / \/
10) \ | Citizens /
\ | | /
11) .......Slaves.......
|
12) Elves

General Hierarchy Info

Only The Khan, Daimyo, Magistrates, members of the Nobility and Clerics can own land. They are responsible for making the land safe, profitable and calm. What usually ends up happening is after a shogun has led enough successful campaigns in the name of the Khan, he is allowed one final campaign wherein he is made the Daimyo of that conquered land and settles down (his family becoming the new Nobility and his favorites becoming the new regional Magistrates and Clerics). That Daimyo has to keep the peace and, definitionally has a bunch of recently displaced and very angry neighbors. He uses his contacts within the military to get one of his Samurai promoted to Shogun. The new Shogun mounts a military campaign against the Daimyo's neighbors making the Daimyo's lands safer (and possibly larger) while getting the new Shogun one step closer to his own promotion to Daimyo. This cycle repeats until... well, there was a reason the Khanate was eventually the largest land empire ever known... and its enemies so very, very numerous.

Only The Khan, Shoguns, Samurai and Soldiers are allowed to wield iron. Any iron at all (weapons, armor, tools, etc.). Because of this there are a lot of craftsman positions filled by "soldiers". Iron Holders (other than the Khan himself) cannot own land. only Shoguns and the Khan can own forts, barracks and other military structures. Those things are considered temporary entities that are owned by the military rather than the person whose land those structures happen to be built on (kind of like how a US embassy in Germany is considered american soil despite being in another country entirely and if that embassy moved, so too would the designation of "american soil"). That being said, many forts have been around "temporarily" for a very long time, and in those situations the actual land owner gets shafted. This sort of situation leads to all sorts of squabbling between the land owners and the iron holders. All domestic iron mining is done by soldiers; iron mines tend to be converted into forts to protect the crucial metal and justify the military working the land.


Specific Hierarchy Info

1) The Khan: The most honored and venerable being of the Khanate and supposedly an avatar of Nomog-Geaya (despite the Khans traditionally being somewhat contemptuous of the clergy that serve the patron deity of the Hobgoblins), the Khan is the undisputed ruler of several million. With a single word he can launch and invasion that'll increase that number by many thousands of slaves... after his Shoguns finish rounding them up from the barbaric lands outside the Khanate. The Khan is supposed to be one of the three moral pillars of the Khanate (the other two being the Magistrates and Samurai), whose every action, every thought is said to be honorable in a way that is beyond the comprehension of non-hobgoblins. The day-to-day affairs of the Khan are steeped in ritual, tradition, honor, honor and more honor. It is considered right that a ruler be perfect and yet inscrutable in his perfection so a great deal of pomp, circumstance and downright misdirection occurs whenever the Khan delivers his edicts.

The current Khan, Azulon, is the 17th to hold the title and has held it well for many decades. However, he is growing old and he is expected to pass the throne (or just plain die) to one of his two sons: Iroh the most honorable or Ozai the fiercest. The Shoguns and Daimyo have been steadily aligning themselves with one son or the other in anticipation of this power change and some are nervous that if the position of Khan doesn't change soon and change smoothly than someone might do something stupid and cause all sorts of problems. Feudalism, after all, is a pyramid scheme and it all balances on one point, the Khan, so anything that jostles that point threatens to send the entire thing toppling down.


2) Shoguns: The generals of the great armies of the Khanate, the Shoguns are steeped in honor and second only to the Khan in terms of the military might they can bring to bear. Shoguns can't own land outside of the forts, mines and camps needed to maintain the effectiveness of their soldiers so they are constantly required to beg, borrow or steal from the Daimyo around them to keep their regiments full and equipped. Said begging, borrowing or stealing becomes significantly easier for any Shoguns involved when the Khan says there is to be a military campaign against the barbarians of Bumfuckistan. As such, the Shoguns compete heavily with each other for the Khan's attention and favor so that their legions can be given the imperial approval to invade, conquer and "self-finance" along the way. It's like having a bunch of mercenary companies who can only sell themselves to one client: the Khan. However, Shoguns are highly ranked, very honorable and have hundreds of armed humanoids at their command so they are generally able to get what they want even when they have to piss off a couple of Daimyo to get it. Since soldiers are the only ones allowed to wield iron tools, the Shoguns can be considered guild leaders in addition to military commanders and their soldiers' contract work helps finance the legions during times of peace. It is rumored that Shoguns use the contract work of their soldiers as a means of spying on each other, as well as on their chief rivals, the Daimyo.


3) Daimyo: This literally means "large" (dai) "property" (myo) and Daimyo are second only to the Khan in terms of the land they lay claim to. The Khan relies on the Daimyo to maintain the peace and prosperity of huge swaths of the empire so he can syphon wealth and recruits from them to maintain both his rule and the borders of the Khanate. The Daimyo, unlike the Shoguns, can't simply conquer a new region full of disorganized barbarians; Daimyo aren't iron holders so their military might is constrained to lesser-equipped guards and police. Because of this, the Daimyo are the most politically savvy and ruthlessly cunning members of the Khanate. They seek to expand their holdings, wealth and prestige through whatever means necessary, often at the expense of those around them. They aggressively pursue improvements of the interior of the Khanate (specifically their section of the interior) and support military campaigns only begrudgingly (they pay the majority of the costs yet get almost none of the glory). The rivalries between the Daimyo and the Shoguns is legendary; much to the delight of the Khan, who plays the two against one another in an effort to keep his closest political rivals otherwise engaged.


4) Magistrates: The dispensers of justice within the Khanate, the Magistrates are the honest scales used by the Khan to judge his subjects and ensure they know their place in the order of things. Magistrates preside in court over the inhabitants of a swath of land, hearing grievances and directing law enforcement. They wear elaborate and cumbersome robes that show that their life is one of philosophical and moral contemplation rather than labor or combat. Furthermore, Magistrates almost universally grow themselves a Fu Manchu mustache, since that's become part of the expected look for a wise and mysterious arbiter of law.

Aside from presiding in court, Magistrates are expected to be one of the three moral pillars of the Khanate and follow the Code of Ritsuryo. They must exemplify duty to their Khan, duty to their land and duty to Ritsuryo itself by diligently considering the best path to Order and Justice. In some ways this puts more restrictions on Magistrates than others of high rank because they must adhere to a monastic lifestyle of purity and contemplation. In other ways it frees the Magistrates from the scrutiny of the rest of the Khanate because no one can judge a Magistrates behavior except a tribunal of Magistrates or the Khan himself; the Daimyo the Magistrate pays fealty to can't punish him directly for dereliction of his duty to Ritsuryo (unless that Daimyo is also a Magistrate). Of course, the Daimyo can punish his subordinate in other ways: reassignment to crappier provinces, larger tithes, political undermining, etc., so the Magistrates are far from impartial when concerning their boss.

Technically all are answerable to the Magistrates but it takes 8 magistrates to condemn a Daimyo, 12 to condemn a Shogun and 144 to condemn the Khan; all of which are politically entrenched. The fact is, Magistrates are usually more concerned with order (news of unrest pisses off their superiors) than with justice and tend to use the Samurai and guards lent to them as riot cops more than actual police. It does make the Magistrates easy to bribe or distract and, in some ways, the legal and religious tolerance that was the hallmark of the Khanate came about because of the generally inattentive nature of its Magistrates.


5) Samurai: The elite fighting force of the Khanate, Samurai are the iron rod used by the Khan to maintain order and give pause to the Khanate's enemies. The title of Samurai holds as many cultural expectations as martial. Samurai are expected to be one of the three moral pillars of the Khanate (the other two being the Magistrates and the Khan himself). A Samurai is expected to exemplify the seven virtues of Bushido (Loyalty, Courage, Respect, Rectitude, Benevolence, Honesty and Honor) in addition to being able and willing to kick ass through superior weaponry and training. Samurai are usually allied to a Shogun and work under his direction. However Samurai are allowed considerable latitude when completing their duties so generally a Shogun will say something like "Go and maintain peace in the Gaki province for a year" and the Samurai is free to fulfill that order as he sees fit (usually by beating up or incarcerating whoever the local Magistrate tells him to).

Samurai who were never allied to a Shogun (which is rare because attaining the rank of Samurai normally requires a patron to pay for training and equipment, as well as to provide political backing) are known as Kensai. Samurai who have been turned loose (or quit) in disgrace from their Shogun are known as Ronin. Samurai are not allowed to own land but it is considered very honorable to aid a Samurai in his duties (and very wise if you value your head attached to your neck) so Samurai rarely want for shelter or sustenance. In modern equivalents, Samurai are the police, executors, SWAT team, detectives and role models of the interior of the Khanate. They are also the special operatives, assassins, and majors of the Khanate military. Though all Samurai are expected to maintain combat readiness at all times, there are plenty of Nobles and Magistrates who also hold the title of Samurai and never see combat... unless you count executions. In other words, some Samurai are really rich schlubs with a fancy weapon and an attitude, while others are hardcore, battle-hardened veterans with the right to pretty much kill any low-class member of the khanate who looks at them funny.


6) Nobility: Herein lies the middle management of the Khanate. This category is the catch-all for the not-truly-important family and favored toadies of the truly important land owners (Magistrates and Diamyo). The ranks of the nobility are very diverse, some competent and ambitious, others stupid and idle, but all are expected to maintain the wealth of their lands and homes as tribute to their betters. It is traditional for Magistrates and Diaymo to vacation by making extended visits to the noble houses beneath them. The nobles are honor-bound to host their guest in as much comfort and splendor as they can muster for as long as said guest decides to stay. As such, the nobility tends to become very anxious (and by extension, harsher to their slaves and subjects) once their betters decide to "tour the realm" or "commence an inspection of the countryside".


7) Clerics: The Khanate does allow heathenous worship provided the clerics thereof don't subvert Khanate authority and dedicate at least a few of their members to being scribes for the Khanate's beaurocracy. This has proven a sound policy because without the Clerics keeping records and conveying edicts, things would have fallen apart long ago. However, the original Khan was openly disdainful of the godly so Clerics have traditionally had a hard time advancing up the rungs of society and their rank below the nobility reflects this. Clerics of the hobgoblin patron deity, Nomog-Geaya, do have the culturally crucial task of tending the ceremonial fires, which gives them a little more internal influence than the clerics of other faiths. Once every 12 years those ceremonial fires are brought in tribute to their god to the Khan's palace; during that time the Clerical caste gets more clout because they are briefly of more contextual significance in the hierarchy than everyone except the Khan and his Shoguns.


8) Soldiers: Being a large, imperialistic and massively slave-holding empire, the Khanate employs a whole lot of soldiers to maintain the peace (i.e. dealing with uppity locals, slave revolts, crime, etc.) in addition to filling out the rank-and-file of the military. Soldiers are beholden to their Shogun for space to live and work to perform but shoguns are an ambitious lot so there is always plenty for the grunts to do. Soldiers can not travel beyond their Shogun's holdings (which are generally a fort or military camp and its surrounding perimeter) unless acting on behalf of their Shogun abroad. Such trips are rarely anything glorious or interesting, because Shogun generally prefer to send their Samurai for anything important or high-profile. As mentioned earlier, a great deal of skilled and unskilled labor is done by soldiers because they are the lowest rank allowed to handle iron; if you want to use iron chisels in our quarry then you have to employ soldiers as the quarry workers... and don't even think of hiring a blacksmith that isn't a soldier or the Magistrate will send a Samurai after you.


9) Adepts: Adepts are beholden to their Clerics for space to live and work to perform. Adepts can not travel beyond their Cleric's holdings unless acting as that Cleric's representative abroad. Adepts perform the bulk of the khanate's quill pushing and bean counting as the clergy represent the only widely-literate group within the empire.


10) Citizens: Citizens are the broad middle-class of the Khanate and are technically free to move anywhere within the empire the Khan himself could go. In reality, many citizens have family who are still slaves and the owners of those slaves discourage the citizenry from moving away (especially if they are skilled laborers). Generally citizens will ally with a land owner (often as part of the deal that got them freed from slavery in the first place), wear the owner's colors, and travel on the owner's business under their protection. Still, if suitably determined or unfettered a citizen can wander the khanate looking for wealth and adventure on his own, he just needs to step lightly around the local Samurai and Magistrates 'lest he be caught breaking one of the Khanate's many, many laws (both regional and empire-wide). The really sneaky or desperate can feign having a powerful, if distant, political ally by wearing the clothes of a remote noble's house, be a convincing liar and hope said noble doesn't find out. The beaurocracy of the Khanate is ponderous and communicates poorly across its vast expanse, which means this sort of bluff CAN work, or it means the locals know your incarceration, enslavement, or death is unlikely to bring down a timely official response. In otherwords, tread lightly and try to blend in with the locals.


11) Slaves: This demographic makes up easily 40% of the Khanate's population. Everyone except elves and other slaves can keep slaves; a family is considered pitiable if it don't own at least one slave. Slaves are bound to their master's property if their master is a land owner, or their master's work and/or sleeping area if they aren't. Communities often have communal slave quarters built to more efficiently house and guard the surrounding families' slaves. Slaves are never allowed to travel unless traveling with their master or a representative thereof. All slaves are branded on their right shoulder to indicate their status and original owner (though the brand of a a slave who is sold to a different family will, of course, be outdated). Slave garments often leave that shoulder exposed or thinly covered to make it harder for slaves to be mistaken as citizens. The children of two slaves are themselves slaves. The children of a slave and land owner (i.e. cleric, noble, or higher) is a citizen. If an adept or citizen have children with a slave then one child of the litter must be a slave and the rest can be citizens, with the parents deciding which will be which. This last law ensures the enslavement of new generations of non-goblinoids, because few races (Hobgoblins and Goblins primarily) routinely give birth to more than one child at a time. It is taboo for Iron Holders to have children with slaves, so slaves of a non-sexually compatible race (i.e. one that they can't interbreed with) are popular among Soldiers, Samurai and Shoguns. However, having a concubine go "drinking with the smith" (having a pregnant woman drink several cups of the water used to dowse red-hot metals and therefore contains high levels of lead) is a common, if unhealthy alternative for more traditionally-minded Iron Holders.

An owner can nominate their slave for elevation to citizenship once every four years by bringing the matter before an honored Noble or Cleric. Normally a slave (or the slave's family, be they citizens or slaves themselves) are expected to save up enough money and/or curry enough favor to bribe or compel the owner to go through the process (typically the Noble or Cleric receives a similar bribe or has similar favors called in from the petitioning owner). Traditionally the cost incurred to the slave goes down each year they have been in the owner's service, but dishonorable activity by the slave or their family can raise the price. However, having slaves worthy of elevating to citizens is considered a sign of the owner's virtue (the idea is that the owner's family is acting as a civilizing force on the barbarians and honorless skum under their care). Of course, elevating too many slaves is expensive (both in bribes and the cost of replacing them) and casts the Noble or Cleric involved in suspicion of being morally inattentive. Because of this elevation process, there is considerable upward pressure within the slave caste of the Khanate (by ancient standards, anyway... the Khanate's institution of slavery is still monstrous, just less-so than that of other cultures of the time). This means that the ranks of the slaves must continually be refilled by capturing more barbarians and/or having more slave babies.

Slaves are technically entitled to justice and thus are able to have their grievances heard before a Magistrate. In practice, this rarely goes well for the slave. Slaves are not allowed to enter a court room (unless they are the accused) so their case must be made by a sympathetic Citizen, Soldier, Noble, etc. Furthermore, the testimony of 1 citizen is equal to the testimony of 4 slaves, so a slave would have to have an important witness or a lot of brave slave-witnesses willing to testify along with him. Note that if the Magistrate rules against the plaintiff, then the slaves involved are punished for bearing false witness... as a rule, slaves are reluctant to testify for anyone other than their owner's family. The rest of the witness-equivalencies are: an adept's testimony is equal to 6 slaves, a soldier = 8, a Cleric = 12, a Noble = 144 (12*12 or a gross), a Samurai = 1,684 (12*12*12 or a dozen gross) and Magistrates on up are untouchable as far as slaves are concerned.


12) Elves: Hobgoblins have ancient religious and historical grudges with the elves so it comes as no surprise that as the hobs have risen to power, they have done so at the expense of the elves. The more conservative elements of the Khanate (mainly hobgoblins and orcs) consider the elves to somehow be possessing of every single negative character trait someone can have, even when those traits contradict (e.g. they are cunning tricksters who can't be trusted BUT ALSO too stupid to govern themselves). Elves have time-and-again been used as scape goats for social problems as well as common victims of invasions from the Khanate's armed forces. The fact is, the Shoguns want to go to war with SOMEBODY so they can gain wealth and honor, so they propose invading the elves pretty often because it's an easy sell to make. As a result the Khanate has a whole lot of elves in chains and is divided on the whether to keep them that way, allow them upward mobility like the other races, or to genocide the lot of them. Let's just say that life is easier for an elf in one of the peripheral provinces than in the center of the Khanate.

The the debate about the "elf situation" continues, the current stance is that elves are unable to gain honor and therefore unable to advance up to the rank of Citizen, or even the rank of Slave; they have their own rank of "Elf" which puts them on level ground with mangy dogs and lame mules. Slaves can own elves for the same reason they can own pets. Whereas slaves receive a brand on their right shoulder, elves are branded on the back of each hand, an act which is a punishment usually reserved for the irredeemably dishonored; the idea behind branding the hands is that a person couldn't "talk" (i.e. sign in Hobgoblin) without broadcasting their status as an honorless pariah. If an elf is especially skilled or lovely, the branding might be gentle/small enough so as not to ruin the elve's hands (especially if they know their way around an instrument, more on that in below). Elves are never allowed to roam without their master or one of his representatives (even if that "master" is a slave) and elves are almost guaranteed a steady stream of insults and abuse from the larger public in all but the most tolerant of provinces.

That said, elves have an eerie and mystifying quality which is all the stronger because of the cultural taboos surrounding them. When combined with the fact that they have no honor to lose, it means that elves often find themselves employed in all sorts of unseemly business. Smuggling and prostitution are common elven pursuits, but both are second to performing. Since singing and the more emotive sorts of music are strictly taboo, most performers in the Khanate are elves. Going into a Song House is a dishonorable act, though the area might be sufficiently seedy and/or "ethnic" (i.e. non-goblinoid) that no one cares. Even members of the nobility are occasionally in attendance (though in disguise or under some other pretense) when a big name like Lo'Arean the Bard or Lean'Thal Willowcomb is performing. The association between elves and non-hob music has become so strong that non-elven performers have began performing in "Pointed Ear", where they wear make-up, ragged clothing and fake hand-brandings to make them look like stereotypical elven slaves (including the eponymous pointy ears) while they perform.

Finally, since elves have the least to lose, anywhere you find pockets of anti-establishment rebellion you will find at least a few elves involved. Smuggling elves and dwarves (both of which might have wealthy barbarian relatives willing to pay for their return) out of the khanate is a dangerous and highly dishonorable, though profitable, undertaking.


13) Kobolds: The hobs have a complicated history with the kobolds. One the one hand, kobolds are VERY dishonorable (small, weak, tricky, prefer to fight at range or through traps, sorcerous magic users, seemingly disorganized, and deceptively loud for their size) and practically scream "servant" to any hob who interacts with them. On the other hand, the two races have many of the same enemies, aren't competing for the same territorial gains, and the kobolds are just about the only people willing to trade the hobs arcane items and magical services. As such an awkward peace has developed between the races.

Over time the kobolds have become a common figure of occultism among the hobs. If a hob wants to purchase something "exotic" or "mystical" they buy it from a kobold. It has become expected for truly large or significant undertakings to be preceded by a consultation with a kobold soothsayer (sorcerer) to make sure it won't end in disaster. The kobolds play their part well and seem to delight in being able to wear gaudy, mystical attire and inspire a mix of suspicion, fear, awe and curiosity just by walking into a room full of hobs. Its uncertain whether the kobolds consider the whole thing as serious business or some sort of elaborate joke they are playing on the overly serious hobgoblins. Regardless, the money is good.

No one is really sure how to rank the kobolds within the Khanate, since their position is "inscrutable mystic". They're generally placed somewhere around the level of clerics. The fact that the position of inscrutable mystic is usually reserved for priests AND the fact that the clerics get to share rank with a tiny, blue lizardman wearing a pointy hat means the clerics are the most outspoken critics of the kobolds. Since kobolds are outside the hierarchy, no one really knows what the appropriate punishment is for wronging a kobold. However, enough nobles, samurai and magistrates have bought into the superstitions surrounding kobolds that crossing one without strong political backing or a very good escape route is ill-advised. There are no kobold citizens of the Khanate but some are employed as occult advisers for years at a time within the Khanate; they are only a rare sight for those below the rank of Noble.



Ranks traditionally available to the various races within the Khanate
Hobgoblins: 1 - 11
Humans: 5 - 11
Orcs: 5 - 11
Half Orcs: 5 - 11
Halflings: 7 - 11
Dwarves: 8 - 11
Goblins: 8 - 11
Gnomes: 9 - 11
Half Elves: 10 - 12
Elves: 12
Kobolds: 13

[Shatner]

Concerning Hobgoblin Hierarchical Intuition and Honor

One of the most defining things about the hobgoblins is their inherent sense of hierarchy. It has massive, massive influence on their society which in turn has massive influence over the largest land empire ever seen on the Prime. But before we get into the macro effects, let's start small. Like, "two hobgoblins" small.


You have two hobgoblins. One is the boss, the other is the servant. If the boss tells the servant to do something, the servant will feel very persuaded to follow that course of action. Note that this is not an actual, magical compulsion effect, nor is it mind control of any stripe; the hobgoblins are free willed and sentient beings who simply find their superiors to be very persuasive when giving orders. If the superior told the servant to do something the servant had strong reservations about (such as betraying a friend, destroying a prized possession, or breaking a strong cultural taboo, to name a few examples) the servant would most likely not follow through unless the superior had further means of persuasion ("Do it or I'll kill you and/or your loved ones" being a classic example). You can think of it like a hobgoblin superior having a circumstantial boost to his charisma when ordering around his lackeys.


On the scale of a tribe, having this inborn sense of hierarchy and obedience is awesome. It allows hobgoblins to quickly and efficiently mobilize to threats. It allows them to painlessly accept a change in leadership (they are biologically predisposed to follow the new chief) making their tiny society all the more stable. It also allows the hobgoblins to mass easily: if a hobgoblin clan conquers a rival hobgoblin tribe, suddenly the conquering chief has way more loyal followers at his disposal than would be the case if he had conquered a bunch of humans or halflings. Hobgoblins do the tribal thing very well.


If we scale it up to the size of a really large (city) or spread out (scattered, conquered villages) population then things start to break down. While every hobgoblin would agree that the chief warlord who lives in the capitol is undeniably The Boss (complete with capital letters), he lives way over there and therefore doesn't trigger that deep sense of "obey this dude". The local sheriff, however, is right here telling you to make weapons so he can overthrow the Warlord and that's the voice most rank-and-file hobgoblins are going to listen to unless they have very strong reservations against betraying said Warlord. Suddenly the Warlords territorial holdings are schisming all around him and things devolve quickly from there. This is where honor comes in.


Over the course of centuries, hobgoblin civilization has created a new concept called "honor". It is drilled into all hobgoblins through out their entire lives that having honor is good and whoever has the most is "The Boss". Not coincidentally, obeying the honorable is itself honorable and therefore heavily encouraged. The tenants of hobgoblin honor heavily mirror the instinctual sense of hierarchy that the hobgoblins possess. Being big and strong is honorable, which is handy because hobgoblins are already predisposed to obey those bigger and stronger than themselves. Being successful, healthy, stealthy, wealthy and a hundred other things makes you honorable and therefore worthy of obedience. Honor then becomes a sort of communally recognized status or currency; person A is honorable not because he's taller than you but because enough people around him say he is. Which works great if person A is sufficiently well known, like say the conquering Warlord or the Great Khan everyone keeps talking about.


So, everyone in the village agrees that the Warlord is the most honorable hobgoblin. That means if the sheriff tells everyone to work against the Warlord, suddenly he is asking everyone to cross a deeply entrenched cultural taboo. This means the sheriff is not honorable (to work against the honorable is dishonorable, naturally) and that means he shouldn't be listened to. Heck, an ambitious hobgoblin would probably get a promotion for arresting or killing this dishonorable sheriff. And so the social construct of honor has once again maintained the status quo, which is great news for those in charge. In effect the hobgoblins have abstracted their obedience reflex, allowing larger populations to fall in line when their master is elsewhere.


Now, scale things up to the level of the Khanate and things start getting... complicated. The Khanate is enormous. The hierarchy of the Khanate is vast and convoluted. The Khanate is very multi-cultural and multi-racial. This means that for the concept of honor to be binding across so vast a populous it has to be really, really abstracted. Suddenly ANYONE can be honorable, not just hobgoblins. Having humans, orcs, dwarves or even goblins bossing around hobgoblins is not only possible but, in some places, common. There are people from really far away who are honorable because a bunch of people you've never heard of agree he is. And know he's here bossing you around. Do you listen to him? People can and do lie about how honorable they are; when their fraud is eventually revealed it cheapens the currency of honor and makes the locals a little less cooperative with the rest of the empire. Furthermore, the meme that is honor is beginning to differentiate and mutate in the outskirts of the Khanate, making the outer territories further alienated from the core. The fact is, the Khanate has gotten so enormous and so diverse that the fabric of society has gotten worn from the strain. The hobgoblin construct of honor is impressive but it can only go so far...


The take away message from this is that the hobgoblins of the Khanate take this honor stuff seriously. It would be very accurate to say that honor has become their religion. This is one of the reasons that actual religious figures hold such a low position; the priests of honor are the Samurai and the Magistrates, with the Khan as their pope. The new generation of hobgoblins are more refined than their primitive fore-bearers and won't immediately fall in line with whoever carries the biggest stick... though speaking softly and carrying a big stick doesn't hurt.

[Shatner]

Life within the Khanate

The Khanate is a big place with a lot of different ranks and races within it. The combination of the two is likely the biggest factor in how a character is treated by NPCs.

Hobgoblins: Within the Khanate, hobgoblins are the "humans" of the empire in that they are the racial majority and their presence is just sort of accepted wherever you happen to be. A sort of orange ceiling exists within the Khanate because the ranks of the Magistrates, Daimyo, Shoguns and the Khan are always filled by hobgoblins. The rhetoric used by the Khanate is racist but its couched in rhetoric of honor rather than species: "only a hobgoblin could possibly be honorable enough to be worthy of such a position; the other races just aren't civilized enough".

Humans: Since humans are such a versatile species, they are able to fit in just about anywhere within a generation. From the hobs' perspective, humans are the most receptive of the barbaric races to hobgoblin attempts at civilizing them. Humans can fill any position from Samurai on down. Humans within the khanate almost universally have one skill upgrade in Move Silently.

Orcs: There are thousands of cues which inform a hobgoblin's "master/servant" reflex and they do funny things when interacting with completely different races. By happy coincidence, several of the traits which make a hobgoblin think "master" are possessed by orcs. As such, the orcs are treated with more respect and tolerance than one might think. The hobgoblins have employed orcs in wars past and find the orcs to make particularly agreeable taskmasters; the orcs can live and work among noisier races (keeping them in line and on task) and report back to their hob masters without making said masters wince at the sight of them. Plus, both races have darkvision allowing more military compatibility when fighting together. If humans are the most civilizable barbaric race, then orcs are the most inherently honorable and have filled all positions from Samurai on down, though the vast majority are either samurai, soldiers or slaves who will enlist as soldiers once they become citizens.

Half Orcs: The hobgoblins find it curious that the other races can interbreed at all and there exist all sorts of half-baked theories about bloodlines or purity of essence which view this genetic versatility as somehow a sign of weakness. Regardless, half orcs are treated like orcs if they look orc-y and treated like humans if they look human-y and most hobs can't seem to be bothered to care beyond that. Now, the humans and orcs often feel differently and if the human or orc in question holds the other race in contempt, they'll likely disapprove of the half-orcs all the more.

Goblins: Hobgoblins loathe goblins; they look like tiny hobgoblins but are weak, cowardly and disorganized, making the entire goblin race seem like a cruel parody of the overly proud hobgoblins. As a result, goblins are kept to the bottom rungs of society though they are welcomed as cannon fodder (if infantry) or as outriders (if worg cavalry) in the military.

Halflings: Just as goblins are the smaller, more embarrassing and less honorable versions of hobgoblins (at least, to said hobgoblins), halflings are the same to humans. As such, few halflings rise beyond being clerics and the majority of non-slave haflings are citizens rather than soldiers. The halfling penchant for wanderlust makes them especially disliked by land owners (especially Magistrates) who prefer people to stay put and follow orders.

Dwarves: Due to a long lifespan, hairy appearance and mastery over metalworking, hobs hold the dwarves to be strange fairy-tale creatures who exist to forge wonders, steal children and grant cruelly-literal wishes to those foolish enough to bargain with them. Furthermore, the secret of iron working was stolen from the dwarves and some hobs are fearful that the dwarves will somehow steal them back if they aren't watched diligently. Needless to say, there is a LOT of misinformation surrounding dwarves.

The fact is, the dwarves have a long tradition of paying very nice ransoms for the return of their enslaved brethren... and the hobs have a long tradition of capturing any dwarves they can get their hands on and holding them until they feel the price is right. These hostage negotiations can take a long time when neither party cares for the other. So there are cities within the Khanate containing dwarven ghettos; the people therein simply biding their time until they can return to the Umberhome via smuggling or a paid ransom. As a result, dwarves have been born and raised in the Khanate filled with the need to return to somewhere they've never been. Often times dwarves will get one of their numbers made into a citizen (so they don't have a master who will steal their savings) and then pool their resources until they can pay for the families return to their clan.

Non-slave dwarves are pretty much forced into the soldiery because EVERYONE knows that ALL dwarves work iron ALL THE TIME and a dwarf that isn't an iron holder MUST be breaking the law in secret. Most are employed as full-time blacksmiths but some go on to attain honor, recognition and (hopefully) wealth for their services in combat. While dwarves are not allowed to attain the ranks of Cleric or Samurai, there actually are dwarven clerics and samurai in the khanate; they just aren't recognized as such by the state. The general population is pretty ill-disposed towards dwarves (think gypsies in Europe) and many works of dwarven artifice are re-branded as kobold workmanship to help it sell better; a fact which annoys dwarven craftsmen to no end.

Gnomes: Same as halflings, gnomes are considered little, embarrassing dwarf-goblins. The fact that the dwarves don't like them either doesn't make life any easier for the gnomes. Still, gnomes are clever and more widely literate than most of the denizens of the khanate so they have been allowed into the ranks of the adepts. Gnomes tend to fair better when they wear the colors of a respected land owner than when they try and travel as unaffiliated citizenry.

Elves: See the Elves rank description from the hierarchy section.

Half Elves: If a half-elf has predominately humanish features than they can maybe get as far as becoming a citizen, though their life will be one of constant fear of being defamed as an elf and having their hands branded. Those which look too elven to pass as a human are in the same situation as their fully elven peers and can only hope they are looked upon kindly by their pointy eared fellows... because no one else will.

Kobolds: See the Kobolds rank description from the hierarchy section.

---

Poor (Elf, Slave, Citizen): At this level, the amount of freedom, food and overall quality of living is heavily based on how prosperous and generous their master/land lord is. Many citizens at this level are slaves in all but name either because they are indebted to a land owner (whether the terms commonly used are a financial debt or an honor debt vary from region to region). This represents the very wide and very unfortunate base of the social pyramid that is Feudalism. Almost all the people at this level are either farmers or servants.

Provinces which are heavily non-hobgoblin tend to treat their lowest class the most differently. The society of the halfling yeomen and their large network of interwoven family ties hasn't really changed much from it's original form except they're paying protection money to their hobgoblin lords rather than to the neighboring human tribes. However, the laws of the Khanate won't offer much protection to a dwarf who travels into the predominately orcish provinces of Uru'tai, or a gnome who travels to the kobold trading posts in the province of Sinju.


Middle Class (Citizen, Adept, Cleric, Soldier, Noble): The Khanate can be considered a beacon of progressivism for having both a middle class AND a mechanism for people to advance into it. The middle class is pretty sharply divided between the scribes, stewards and craftsmen that are employed by a land owner and the soldiers/craftsmen employed by the various Shoguns. The land owner side involves less people screaming at you while charging at you with weapons (unless the lady of the manor is particularly excitable) but a whole lot less time and space to yourself. The life of a soldier varies wildly between being crammed ten to a room and being force marched 8 hours a day for the lowly infantryman to having a spacious living area, servants and steady, skilled work as a regiment's quartermaster or mastersmith. You tend to live more as soldier even if you tend to live longer as a scribe. Nobles of minor houses can be counted among the land-locked scribes and butlers of the realm because their extra obligations to their betters can more than cancel out the benefits of having more legal freedoms and some land.

There is a narrow third option which are the free citizens who actually succeed at making their own way through the Khanate. These are generally merchants or skilled laborers (architects, apothecaries, etc.) who travel from province to province, staying as long as there is profit in it and then leaving for greener pastures/disinterested magistrates.


Rich (Noble, Samurai, Magistrate, Daimyo, Shogun): The wealthy few at the top of the pyramid live very, very different lives than the teeming masses beneath them. They are the primary employers of the realm and with a single decision can irrevocably alter the lives of hundreds of families. Land owners are primarily concerned with expanding their lands and then extracting as much wealth (or paying as little to their betters) as possible. Iron holders tend to be more concerned with accruing personal honor and recognition for their achievements, as well as out competing their peers for the favor of their superiors (be they a Shogun or the Khan himself). The elites travel often (or send family or trusted servants in their stead) and under heavy guard to fulfill the complicated dance of submission, subterfuge and subjugation that is hobgoblin feudal politics. If the various elite within the Khanate weren't constantly trying to dominate one another, the Khanate would probably have expanded to twice it's already impressive size. But that's the iron age for ya.

[Shatner]

People and Places of Note within the Khanate

People
Great Khan Azulon: the 17th khan of the Khanate, Azulon has ruled well for decades; his reign marked by several successful military campaigns and some of the most masterful manipulation of the rift between the Shoguns and the Daimyo ever seen. Azulon is in his late 50s and no khan has ever ruled while in their 60s; the rest either died or abdicated beforehand. Azulon is masterful playing the inscrutable ruler so no one is really sure when, or if, he plans to step aside. His health is in decline but not enough for his sons to challenge him with their honor intact.

Shogun Iroh: the eldest son of Azulon, Iroh became a renowned samurai whose honor was unimpeachable. He then became a shogun who led three highly successful campaigns as well as one disastrous campaign against the eastern dwarven clans. Before his failed military attempt, his place as next in line for Khan was assured. However, the totality of his failure as well as the death of his only male heir has caused many former allies to withdraw their support. Still, Iroh has almost universal support among the iron holders.

Samurai Kuzo: Samurai Kuzo is a half-orc who has gone on to become a living legend for his skill and ferocity in battle. He began as a kensai and was courted to extravagant lengths by all the Shoguns of the Khanate until Iroh offered Kuzo a place as his left hand man (hobgoblins are left handed, remember?). Were he a hobgoblin he would have been made a Shogun years before. Kuzo is the only samurai to have ever been brought to court by the testimony of slaves: a bitterly jealous and bigoted Daimyo had all 1,800 of his slaves testify that they had witnessed Kuzo defile a sacred shrine and engage in elf-song with a bard. Kuzo had his name cleared by a little used legal option known as Agni'Kai wherein the accused can prove their innocence by slaying their accusers in honorable combat. Over the course of six months Kuzo killed each and every slave that his rival had testify against him, even when the magistrate grew bored of the spectacle and began having him fight two dozen slaves at a time. Agni'Kai cannot be used against one's betters so the Daimyo was spared Kuzo's wrath but was ruined politically and financially thereafter (turns out replacing 1,800 slaves is expensive).

Daimyo Ozai: The youngest of Azulon's sons, Ozai has long been in charge of managing much of his father's considerable estates. Ozai has proven to be at least as gifted as his father in the realm of khanate politics and so all his lands have been spared the cost of wars (recruits, supplies, gold) while gaining most of the spoils (slaves and additional provinces). His fellow Daimyo have been uncertain of him as a rival until Iroh's defeat by the dwarves made Ozai a contender for the throne. Now Ozai has been rallying the land holders around him under the promise of a Khan who will shift power away from the iron holders and into the eager clutches of the land owners. It is worth noting that Ozai was actually the khan's fifth son but all save Iroh have met with one grisly end or another, all having been investigated and proclaimed accidents by the tribunal of most honored Magistrates.

Places
The Falls of Lake Laoghi: Considered by many to be one of the most beautiful places within the Khanate, Laoghi province has extensive waterways which all flow through elaborate waterfalls that empty tumultuously into Lake Laoghi. The place is home to countless spirits including the fearsome and revered kappa; it is from Laoghi province that most Kappa Warriors receive their training. For reasons unknown, an enchantment makes the lake breathable during a new moon and it was during this time that the first kappa was successfully petitioned for training. Also, once every thirteenth spring the falls will flow in reverse. Some claim that bathing in the waters while this occurs will wash away the last twelve years and the locals often claim to be tens or even hundreds of years older than they should be. However, Azulon's great, great grandfather bathed in these waters every thirteenth spring and died at only 52 so conventional wisdom is that the locals are simply lying, idiots or both.

The Khan's Inferno: In the outermost courtyard of the Khan's palace is an enormous brazier which is kept lit at all times. During the fealty of fire, in which a flame from the hearth of every land owner in the khanate is carried and combined at that site as tribute to the Khan and to Nomog-Geaya. During this time an enormous bonfire is maintained and the twelve banquets of Nomog-Geaya are hosted, one a night. The first night is raw beast, the second is scorched beast, then raw fowl, scorched fowl, rice, nuts, cherry blossoms (that night is VERY popular), fire (each person attending eats a cooling cinder), gold, iron, scorched slave and finally raw elf. Those last two are hallmarks of a more primitive and xenophobic time among the hobgoblins and those two banquets are the rallying points of more slave/elf uprisings as anything else.

The Abominable Flats: There is a vast and desolate salt flat that ends near the western-most province of Supanku. It is said that at the center those flats is an enormous hole from which abominations crawl forth to continue the War of Flesh that they lost more than an age ago. Regardless, the Khanate has to maintain heavy patrols along that area because all sorts of really nasty things come wriggling up looking for something tasty to eat and/or drain the fluids from and/or lay eggs within. The entire region has the stink (sometimes literally) of career-death about it. Dishonored soldiers, nobles and magistrates are sent there as punishment and there is an expression among Samurai that goes "Better seppuku than Supanku".

The Banemire: The holiest site in all of the Khanate is easily Xiando Wat, final resting place of Xiandir the Great and home to what was once the finest temple to Nomog-Geaya in all the Prime. Unfortunately, a coven of very nasty witches and warlocks (mainly human but also elven, goblin and lizardman) cursed the place something fierce. The once pleasant land became a flooded and brackish swamp and every night thousands of shadows rise from the mire to assault the living. The shrine itself is sacred ground and has been heavily warded to prevent shadow incursions but that hasn't prevented the odd and grisly incident. The swamp has been the exorcised and blessed and consecrated and desecrated and just about every other thing the clerics of the region can think to do but nothing seems to stick for more than a night. Eventually another, nicer temple was built away from all the swampy death but every attempt at moving Xiandir's remains has been met with disastrous results... like, "there were no survivors" results. Some claim that Xiandir himself was cursed, that he is now a general of undeath and the shadows are his former soldiers trying to free their commander. Others claim that only the blade of an honorable samurai can permanently put a shadow to rest and so it is considered a very honorable, though dangerous pilgrimage for a samurai to serve there. Few that go return unchanged and many that go never return at all. Kuzo went twice.

Rust River: There is a trio of peaks that stand near the Southern border of the Khanate which provide nearly 80% of the iron used by empire. The mining operations there employ hundreds of soldiers and the frequent subterranean combat needed to keep the area secure employ hundreds more. That region is contested by a nearby dwarven clan, two rival kobold tribes (who refuse to negotiate with the Khanate) and is home to a surprising number of troglodytes as well. And just as the underground sometimes runs red with blood, the river that runs through the mining camp has grown red with rust from all the iron debris that gets washed into it. Shoguns have lost as many soldiers from ill health and accidents as they have from enemy activity but despite it all, the level of mining has only grown over time. The Khanate was founded on iron and is maintained by iron, so the Khanate has no problem sacrificing a steady stream of soldiers to keep the iron flowing.

The Elf-Song Forest: There once was an enormous forest, home to numerous elves, which was invaded early and often in the history of the Khanate. Eventually the elves were killed, enslaved or driven off and all the land around the forest seized. Over time the forest was chopped down and converted into farm land until eventually only the heart of the woods remained. And it remains to this day. There are ancient trees which make up the remainder of Elf-Song forest, trees so large it takes entire teams of woodcutters to fell. The wood from those trees release a most terrible odor when burned, cause ill-health in those who breath the smoke, and seems determined to rot at the earliest opportunity, rendering it worthless as timber. In erratic intervals a great wind will issue forth from Elf-Song Forest and great fog will enshroud the area. Within the fog is an unearthly song sung by an elven voice of unknown gender; when heard different witnesses, even when they were standing right beside each other, have given emphatic but conflicting reports about the sound and gender of the singer. Once the fog recedes all the great trees are restored and many of the people that were caught within it are missing and never seen again. The neighboring elven kingdoms have attempted no less than four times to regain the woods but each time they have been rebuked by the legions of the Khanate. At this point the Khanate prefers to pretend the woods don't exist but every so often a band of fanatics will attempt to burn the place down or run in and slay all the elves which they assume are hiding in there. All those efforts are met with no resistance until the wind picks up, the fog rolls in and the singing starts. Then people start vanishing...

[Shatner]

Neighbors of the Khanate

N: Elven druids, gnolls
NE: orcs, some dwarves
E: Dwarves, lizardmen
SE: Elves
S: Humans (Borgeous), Dwarves (Brassforge), Kobolds
SW: Humans (Sheaim)
W: Abominations
NW: Orcs, Gnolls

You can think of the Khanate as being roughly circular in shape, located in a large swath of land with the Omsk mountains (from the second campaign) to the North, the Brassforge mountains (home to the dwarves from the first campaign) to the South, the Abominable Flats to the West (which mark the Easternmost border of the Wildlands from the forth campaign) and the great swamps of the East (home to the Lizardmen of the third campaign). The Khanate is a big place so it has a lot of neighbors. Because the Khanate became big by bloody conquest, a lot of those neighbors are very unfriendly. Let's take a look at them, shall we?


Elves: To the north is Elf-Song forest, which is only a few provinces removed from a highly contested border with a series of elven tribes who live south of the Omsk mountain range (these elves would ultimately be responsible for thwarting the early Shoka Vedic expansion out of the Omsk and destroying the floating city of Gujarat). The elves there have suffered large territorial losses to the hobgoblins and are getting increasingly desperate because the Khanate just loves invading them. Most of the enslaved elves within the Khanate are from this region. Once Elf-Song forest was lost, the druids of the tribes became galvanized to serious action and those hippies have been beating the war drum ever since. Not that it's done them a lot of good...

To the south east is a large and powerful elven nation which has only recently begun skirmishing with the Khanate. Given the hobgoblin love of invading elves, you can expect a lot more combat along that border in the future. In fact, it's practically tradition for a new Khan to invade the elves as a sign of respect of the Khanate's history so the next invasion may get underway within the next five years; especially if Iroh takes the throne.


Gnolls: The hyena men make really vicious warriors but are way too lazy to every organize into a serious threat. The gnolls along the Northern and upper edge of the Western borders raid the khanate more or less every winter when they run out of easy sources of food and every winter their war bands are forced to retreat. Neither the gnolls nor the hobgoblins have any intent of negotiating in good faith so both parties expect this cycle to continue indefinitely.


Kobolds: Since the kobolds are just about the only race that has large-scale alliances with the Khanate, they have expanded along with, but below, the Khanate. As such, there are tunnels built for three-foot tall, blue reptile-men that criss-cross nearly the whole of the interior of the Khanate. In fact, if the Khanate knew the extent of this network it would probably be unnerved but as is the hobgoblins aren't asking and the kobolds aren't telling. Now, there are several tribes of kobolds that haven't gotten with the program but they're mainly constrained to the Southern border near the Brassforge Mountains and Rust River.


Humans: There are two rival human nations that border the Khanate; to the South-West are the Sheaim and to the South are the Borgeous. The Sheaim are a mystical tribe full of sorcerers and Druids (yes, capital D) who were the major participants in the Flesh War. They created many new creatures to battle back the abominations and every time the hobgoblins invade, the Khanate finds itself fighting dire animals, giant insects and the like as often as shape-shifting casters. The Borgeous are more mundanely militant, having a sparten-esque warrior code and penchant for slavery that the hobgoblins find charming. As such, the Khanate has largely been arming or aiding the Borgeous as a way of fighting a proxy war against the Sheaim. Between the orcs to their north, the abominations to their north-eest, the hobgoblins from their east and the Borgeous from the south-east, the Sheaim are feeling increasingly besieged. The council keeps asking if they should release "the big one" but so far the Druids have counseled against it. So far...


Orcs: There is a great and stubborn collection of barbarian orc tribes that life to the west but because of the Abominable Flats, don't share much of a border with the Khanate. Still, orcs are willing to raid pretty far from home if there is enough profit or violence in it. As such, the western borders of the Khanate have to deal with horrific abominations, winter gnoll assaults and the occasional orcish barbarian incursion.

There is also a rabble of orcs living in the North-East who skirmish with the dwarves and the Khanate in equal amounts. These orcs are accomplished sailors and so they have led some surprisingly effective raids across the series of inland lakes the stretch along this border. Still, the Khanate doesn't consider that region particularly valuable so they haven't bothered building up their defenses enough to put the orcs in their place.


Dwarves: The dwarves have strongholds in the Brassforge mountains and in the rugged terrain that empties into the great eastern swamp. However, the dwarves HAD two strongholds that were eventually overrun by hobs and kobolds in centuries past and are still really, really pissed about it. Hell, some of those dwarves are still captives as a result of it. Regardless, the dwarves are ill-suited to offensive surface invasions and their attempts at raiding from below have been stymied by the seemingly endless kobold warrens that have been built there. The Brassforce clan has decided to make hobgoblins pay in blood for each ingot of iron they pull from the Rust River mines. The eastern dwarves kicked a legendary amount of Khanate ass when Iroh invaded their way but unless the hobs decide to invade again, there really isn't much else the dwarves can do. Both clans have taken to paying smugglers to secret dwarven captives out of the Khanate ghettos and into the Umberhome and, like all things dwarven, it a solid plan that's making steady, but very slow, progress.

Lizardmen: The only real population of lizardmen near the Khanate is in the great eastern swamp. The hobs have tried to invade their twice now because the hobgoblin creation myth states that their proud race originated in the jungles that lie buried behind the swamp. However, lizardmen are very big, very stubborn and very well suited to defending their squishy homelands and haven't been meaningfully budged. It's not that the Khanate couldn't attrition them into submission (it could), it just hasn't been willing to and likely never will.

Gnomes: Unbeknownst to the Khanate, there is a massive gnomish war going on within their borders. Every day pitched battles in tiny burrows are being held where alchemical artifice clashes with reptilian sorcery. Many of the provinces in the Khanate have been home to gnomes and often times the larger races never knew, simply because the gnomes keep their burrows well hidden through cunning and illusion. However, the gnomes and the kobolds are bitter rivals and with the kobolds moving in, the gnomes have been pushed... up. Many of the gnomes in the Khanate are refugees or the children of refugees whose hidden homes were overrun by kobolds. The Khanate has no idea why gnomes seem to be springing up from the woodwork; some nobles and magistrates just assume the little fuckers hatch from mushrooms or something. Still, there are hidden gnomish hold outs scattered throughout the Khanate and those guys are desperate for weaponry and supplies to forestall the assault of their burrows. If you need something small smuggled in or out of a province or need to literally lay low, the gnomes can be your friends in low places.





History of the Khanate
- written in the style of Stephen Fry

Once upon a time there was a Bronze Age and it was full of lots of very tiny tribes squabbling with one another. Oh, there were also Aboleth global domination schemes and invasions of horrors from beneath the earth but mostly it was lowly clans making due with a river, a swath of forest and maybe a valley or two to call their own. They would have liked to call more their own but all the other tiny tribes that lived there had bronze weapons, which made moving-in such a hassle. The problem with bronze weapons is that they're made from a combination of tin and copper, both of which are kinda hard to come by, and the darn things can't hold an edge very long, requiring them to be reforged anew after each battle (you can't sharpen bronze). This meant that those tiny tribes could only give proper bronze weapons to a couple of warriors, which wasn't enough of an army to conquer a population that was determined to resist. Or so everyone thought.

Then came Xiandir the Great Khan whose mind was unrivaled in terms of tactical brilliance and whose orange skin was unrivaled in terms of looking quite fetching in his burgundy-colored armor. Xiandir had an elite squadron of hobgoblin hoplites and goblin worg cavalry, both of which he used time and again to crush his enemies, see them driven before him, and hear the lamentation of their women. He conquered more land than many knew existed, named it the Great Khanate and promptly died. Poor thing. He looked good to the end though. Without another dapper and genius leader to re-conquer things every few years, people started to think they didn't have to show up for work at the Khanate anymore and before long everyone was shouting and shoving and causing quite a fuss. Within a generation the Great Khanate had splintered into more than a dozen bickering, angry and decidedly-less-great khanates and things went more or less back to normal for the Bronze age (see: tribes, small, and squabbling).

Of course, to call it the Bronze age was somewhat inaccurate since the dwarven bronze age had lasted all of sixteen minutes and occurred centuries before a hobgoblin father looked down at his little orange son and thought "Xiandir has a nice ring to it". Because of some inside info from their creator, the dwarves had been using iron weapons and tools for ages because the stuff is everywhere and you can sharpen it with nothing more than some spit and a rock. And much to that god's dismay, a small and bickering splinter of the Khanate stole that secret and ran off looking smug. Ooh, he gave the dwarves such a scolding after that, but the damage was already done and there was nothing to do but add more locks to the doors and hope the folks upstairs didn't do anything too stupid.

This splinter of the once Great Khanate was a curious lot by Khanate-splinter standards. In particular, they had a most peculiar habit of treating their clerics more like slaves and treating their slaves more like, well, not-slaves. The clerics were expected to shut up about how great Nomog-Geaya was and instead write down about how great the current ruler was. Also, they were expected to copy this report of greatness and spread it around so that everyone in that little Khanate-splinter knew exactly what their great, great Khan wanted them to do. And that great, great Khan wanted them to make their slaves into soldiers, at least the honorable slaves who were polite to their masters and wiped their feet before they came in through the back entrance, and give them very pointy iron weapons so they could convince all the other Khanate-splinters how great and clever their Khan was. They still used pointy bits of bronze too, as people grow attached to these sorts of things, but it was mainly the iron that did the persuading.

And the little-splinter-that-could, did, with more and more slaves becoming soldiers, who enslaved other people, who told everyone about how their khan was just the bestest khan you could ever hope to meet and the whole cycle repeated until all of the Great Khanate was glued back together. And this time it stayed together because there were all these clerics who had all these things written down that made it so the people in one valley were treated just as well, or poorly, as the people in all the other valleys. These were known as laws and everyone involved thought it was a grand idea, especially the magistrates, who know a thing or two about job security. And so it was that with laws which were written down and with iron that was kept very sharp that the Khanate prospered.

Of course after a while people started noticing that they were running out of slaves, what with them becoming citizens and all that (another idea that everyone was especially proud of). So the Khan decided to send his soldiers over to those outside the Khanate and convince them come in, be fitted for a dapper length of chain and tidy up around the place. Then some Daimyo, who is like the Khan's jealous kid brother, convinced the khan that it was easiest to just expand the Khanate around their newly enshackled janitorial staff... and, he added, that same oh-so-clever Daimyo should keep an eye on this new land since it was his idea in the first place. Naturally all the other Daimyo wanted in on this and before you could say "Rampant Imperialism", the Khanate was so large that even Xiandir would have been astonished... if not for the whole "being dead" thing, of course.

So it is at the start of the campaign. Things have gotten a little too big and things are a little too tense between the Daimyo, the Shoguns and the Khan but it's an impressive sight none-the-less. Of course we the players know it will all end in tears but history is rather a big place and has more than enough room for your plucky little band to have adventures within the Khanate. Just don't tell them the ending... it would ruin the surprise.



Misc. Notes

This document evolved from lots and lots of random ideas scrawled on scratch paper or crammed onto a notepad file. The following are additional tidbits that didn't fit in the overall Campaign Setting sections and have been unceremoniously dumped here. Enjoy...

1) In this era, technology is lower, populations are smaller, casters are much rarer and the reach of civilization is shorter than in some previous campaigns. Per timeline below (from "Post Mortem 8/29/10 and 9/5/10"), events of campaign take place during #C and before #D. The Hobs are like Shogunate Japan, with holdings the size of the Roman Empire. The party will be within the Hobgoblin Khanate after the Hob empire has peaked but before it's decline is obvious.


2) There are no wizards as we know them. There exist individual alchemists and hermits who are seeking to codify sorcerous magic but they have a long way to go before they can be used as a cover for narrative inconsistencies ("A wizard did it!"). The learned tradition that is wizardry does not exist, nor will it for centuries.


3) Sorcerers are rare and feared; the hobgoblins rose to power on strength of arms and their warrior tradition offers little respect to those who don't solve their fights up close and personally. Just as the Feudal Japanese banned and destroyed firearms because it threatened their warrior code, the Khanate views non-divine casters with suspicion and sometimes outright hostility. The big exception to that are the kobolds. The hobgoblins have a loose alliance with the very-sorcerous kobolds similar to how your stereotypical fantasy human nation will have a non-aggression pact and/or trade agreements with your stereotypical fanatasty dwarves. It is the kobolds who craft most of the non-divine magical equipment for the Hobs. Furthermore, it is popular among the Hob nobility to consult a kobold soothsayer (a.k.a. sorcerer) before any major undertaking. The hob infatuation with kobold wares and divinations is similar to the ancient Romans and their fixation on chinese silk and mysticism.


4) Clerics and adepts (an adept being the crappy, NPC-class cleric knock-offs) are the most common casters and they are well integrated into society as priests, healers and officials of the Khanate (think chinese eunichs or dark age scribes). As a caste, only the clergy puts enough emphasis on literacy to perform clerical work; a shogun who would have to struggle to get through a Calvin and Hobbes strip wouldn't seem out of place within the Khanate.


5) Druids exist and have not yet schismed into renegade and orthodox factions. However, they are aloof and their only interactions with the Khanate are done in secret (often without the Hobgoblins themselves knowing). Lower-case d druids are also rare but that's because almost all of them are elves and elven reproductive rates being what they are... Furthermore, elves and hobgoblins don't get along so druids are especially rare within the lands of Khanate.


6) The official language of state is Hobgoblin, a variant of goblinoid that incorporates hand gestures and body position into it's vocabulary... it is much quieter than most languages and has become increasingly nuanced and difficult to master as generation after generation of Hobgoblin nobility has tried to exclude those below them from being able to engage in courtly politics. Goblinoid is the main day-to-day language of the Khanate and spoken by everyone who belongs to anyone of any importance at all. Common is considered a gutteral language of the lowly masses with many in the nobility not knowing it, or at least pretend not to when asked. Literacy is rare so characters don't start off literate. To become literate, you have to spend one of your bonus languages (from having a high intelligence or from becoming trained in the Speak Language skill) on literacy. The official languages of the church (called the Legion of Nomog-Geaya) are Infernal (the language of devils) and Ignan (the language of elemental fire). Hobgoblins are Lawful Evil by nature and so too is their empire.


7) slaves are members of the khanate and have more legal protection and privileges than barbarians... though not much. Slave revolts are a regularity; the hobgoblins consider it inevitable and maintain large garrisons in trouble areas.


8) This is feudalism so the Khan is at the top, having oaths of fealty from the shogun who in turn receive oaths from the generals, lords and clerics who make up the bottom layer of the nobility. Those higher up can demand four things from their lessers: regular tithes (though this usually takes the form of wealth, slaves or iron, it sometimes is something more exotic like access to kobold magic, drow spices, etc.), force of arms (must raise an army of X size in time for whatever campaign their better is planning), hospitality (if their lord decides to visit, the lesser nobility is expected to spare no expense in making said visit pleasant for as long as he decides to stay) and lastly fire.


9) The hobgoblin patron deity, Nomog-Geaya, has this thing about fire and how it must be used to constantly purge some stuff and re-forge others; he's a very jealous and militant deity. So, the main temples have these fires that they keep burning based on some sort of... alternative fuel (wood from elven forests, the fat from heretics, the bodies of disloyal slaves, etc.) and during celebrations those fires are stoked up to giant bonfires. However, let me specify that the hobgoblins are not crazy sacrificialists like the Sahagin. The flames that burn on the fat of heretics actually burn wood but every morning, or every twelfth day (or whatever the local custom is) a priest comes buy and adds a token amount of actual heretic fat to the blaze. This still makes them seem diabolic to outside cultures, and every so often the priest will have to have a heretic rounded up and harvested because the tub of blasphemer paste is empty, but the actual rates of ritualized murder/sacrifices are pretty small. You're way more likely to be killed for looking funny at a samurai than by being turned into a fuel source for the temple's fire.


10) Each fiefdom is expected to maintain their own fire and once every twelve years (the hobgoblin numeric system is base-12) each of those flames must be combined. All the lords bring a burning torch from home and toss it in the general's hearth, the generals bring a burning brazier to their shogun's pyre and so on up to the Khan's personal inferno. If noble's flame is extinguished for any internal reason (incompetence, domestic misfortune or unprovable sabotage) then it must be re-ignited by the immolation of that lord and many of his slaves. This is considered very honorable for the families of the lord and the slaves; those being sacrificed may not share that sentiment. If the flame is extinguished for external reasons (invasion, provable sabotage) then the offenders must be hunted down, their people enslaved and those personally involved (plus their family) used as kindling. More than a few military campaigns have been started as an excuse when a shogun bungled his flame and blamed it on the elves/dwarves/whoever who live just outside his borders.

[Ted the Flayer]

I'm stealing a bit from that. My hobgoblins are more roman than japanese, and some of those won't fit, but I can steal a good bit of that. I like the idea of mystic kobolds and kobolds taking advantage of that.

[Avoraciopoctules]

I just wanted to say thanks to Shatner for the cool hobgoblin empire posts again. I'm going to be ripping off a lot of this in an upcoming game.

[Lokathor]

This is a lot to read, and I will probably read it all, but it'll take some time. What I've read so far is pretty cool.

1) seriously I had to bash my brain to get myself to write two mini-paragraphs about Humans and Dwarves each. And you've got pages man. Shit.

2) Yeah I'm gonna put a lot of this stuff into my big tome PDF in the racial writeups section (with credits!). Though I'll have to change the name of the gods to stuff that WotC doesn't own.

[darkmaster]

Well, since we've been talking about Dwarves and there was an invitation I have been thinking on and off about Dwarves in a setting I came up with. Would you prefer I take that elsewhere or is an entirely incompatible view welcome here?

[Lokathor]

Well:

By the way, while I am perfectly happy to post my own notes and discuss them with folks, I intended this thread to be a place for other people to contribute their own ideas as well. This has happened a little, but I want to re-emphasize that others are welcome and encouraged to post their interesting bits of fantasy culture here. Don't be shy.

Looks like you should throw it right in here alongside the rest.

[darkmaster]

I had read that, I just wasn't sure if he meant anything goes or what?

[Avoraciopoctules]

Does your idea count as interesting? If so, post it.

[darkmaster]

It's about dwarves who are isolationists because they are pathologically terrified of getting injured. Does that count?

[Shatner]

Let's see it.

[Lokathor]

It's about dwarves who are isolationists because they are pathologically terrified of getting injured. Does that count?

Perhaps related? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierson%27s_Puppeteers

[darkmaster]

You asked for it.

So, a while ago I created a setting for a game, I called it Sarindor, which, as you can see, is a peninsula with desert on one end. That grey area on the tip is the land made uninhabitable a war with invading demons thousands of years ago. That big brown block is the wall manned by representatives of every race and maintained by that red nation (which is called Farcil but isn’t marked because... I couldn’t find the finished map) in order to prevent literal hell spawn from eating the land. Now I’m planning to go through as many races as I can be assed but since the Dwarves were here first I figured it’s only fair to start there, so let’s put on some tunes from Cave Story and write about some dwarves.

Rorn: The Striking Hammer

Ye did the great god Rorn imbibe of the finest liquor of the divine realm such that when Fernes the Everburning inquired of him the location of the spirits the Striking Hammer could only complain of his headache.

In this state of divine intoxication the most exalted Rorn looked down upon his mountains and said onto himself.

“How wondrous would it be to people these empty mountains with children crafted from the rocks!"

And so it came to be that the dwarven people were born and when the gods looked upon their brother's creations they burned with envy and said onto him.

“Oh exalted brother what wondrous beings you have
crafted we too shall create children of our domains and people the earth we have created."

Rorn is worshiped as the god of hard work, discipline, and tradition, a fact that causes him no end of bitterness. He was the first god to create creatures to walk the earth but by no means did he do so purposefully, rather the creation of the dwarves was happenstance. One night when Rorn was engaging in his favorite drinking game he became so inebriated that when the thought of creating tiny men out of the rocks on the mountain side crossed his mind he didn’t give it a second thought and so the mighty dwarven race was created.

However like so many who have woken up to wonder what they’d been doing the night before he came to regret his decision. Not making the dwarves in and of itself, which made him something of a celebrity among his peers, but rather that, because of his state of mind when he’d stuck his divinity in a mountain, so to speak, he hadn’t really chosen any of the traits of his new followers. So while Mala, who was fascinated by plants crafted her children from trees and gave them properties pleasing to her he could exercise no such creative control, worse, he found himself quite bound by his children’s expectations. Thus he is responsible for a race of beings, with tasks and responsibilities, he never asked for, always wondering what it would have been like if he could have just made more decisions about them. But at least they enjoy drink almost as much as him.

The Dwarves

The Dwarves are the first race wrought on the earth by the gods. Created from stone by the greater god Rorn, whom they call the striking hammer they have many of the properties of rock. They are quite heavy and strong for their relative size and are also quit difficult to damage. They are the longest lived of the races surviving thousands of years unless killed, it is said that dwarves do not age but rather weather, and the analogy is not unfitting of the slow degradation of a dwarfs body and mind over many long centuries. Dwarves have no sex, each and every one lacks any primary sexual characteristics when dwarves wish to breed they do by subduction. A dwarf will pick a friend and both parties then dig holes in the stone and slowly move toward each other pushing a new dwarf up over many months when they meet. What dwarves aren’t is resilient. Dwarves see any injury as a grievous one, and for good reason as an injury so seemingly simple as a broken bone can leave a dwarf crippled for their entire life and should a dwarf suffer a wound and should that wound become infected it is unlikely the dwarf could be saved. Amputations are common among dwarves, often being the only way to save a victim of infection from succumbing to the illness though the process itself often kills the patient.

This base frailty informs much of dwarven society, each and every dwarven city is a massive religious structure exalting both their Patron deity Rorn, and Hari: the goddess of healing. The clergy of the Striking hammer and the Cult of the Soothing Hand more or less run dwarven society, though day to day governance is handled by a local council. Dwarves form tightly knit societies based on familial bonds partly because each individual wants someone there to care for them should they fall ill or be hurt, but also because they want to bring as many bodies to bear in any engagement as they can, they constantly experiment and tinker to improve their arsenal because they never want an enemy to have better equipment than they do, they build the entrances to their cities as small cramped tunnels to allow them to defend more easily, and constantly train for battle to prevent any opponent from ever being more skilled than they are.

The great strength of the dwarves is their ability to function as a unit. Each and every dwarf will subvert their own needs in favor of the dwarf next to them and will expect the same of their neighbor and each one has an instinctual understanding of group dynamics ingrained into them during their youth. During times of strife or danger it is extremely unlikely dwarven society will collapse.

This cohesiveness is especially beneficial as individually dwarves match members of other races in very little. An individual dwarf is not as agile or dexterous as other races and lacks much reach causing an individual dwarf to pose very little threat in single combat, and for all their obsession with technical advancement dwarves adapt their methodology very slowly meaning only by sharing information and poring more man hours into experimentation and crafting to they maintain parity.

However the dwarves do have time, they are by far the longest lived of the races and this allows them to simply wait for any threat to pass, if the enemy is at their gates they will hole up behind tiered defenses and simply wait for the enemy to starve or break through into the inner sanctum. When a political opponent stands in their way they can often simply sit back and wait for that opponent to die of old age or complications rather than attempt to push their ambition through opposition. This propensity for patience carries through to the dwarf’s personal life as well, and dwarves will often plan excursions or gatherings for decades before carrying through, often to the detriment of the event. They easily become fixated on such plans failing to take possible complications into account and if their plans are somehow disrupted they quickly become flustered and off balance before doubling down upon making the event happen exactly as planned after whatever interruption caused the disruption is cleared up.

The dwarves, as a race, are loathe to leave their cities. To the thinking of the dwarven peoplee they are safest in their homes and in danger all other places. Very few venture out on their own, and often these “adventurers” are seen as mentally unstable for doing so, instead, when matters of governance, diplomacy, or trade require dwarves to leave home they do so in armored columns, each individual fitted with thick armor and tower shields as though attempting to recreate the safety of their stone halls and doors with their very own bodies. For this reason Dwarves are often seen as somewhat suspicious by their neighbors, a sentiment the overly cautious dwarves are more than happy to reciprocate even if their neighbors have never shown any ill-will toward the dwarven nation or individual dwarves. Individuals are not in a much better position in the eyes of the dwarfs, visitors are welcome in dwarven cities but they often find themselves under constant scrutiny, immigrants are also welcome so long as they are part of a trusted family or faction, the list of which is perishingly small. Any outsider who is seen as posing a threat, real or imagined, is barred from entering any dwarven city, should such a person sneak their way into a city and be found they will immediately be imprisoned and never released again under any circumstances.

Despite their views on diplomacy, and rather Draconian laws, dwarves are fair trading partners. Very little of dwarven land is arable, and though they can subsist on what is available from their mountain homes very few non-mineral luxuries and resources are available to them. So they freely exchange the wealth to be extracted from the mountains for the items and resources they need. Most often immigrants are made up of merchants who have come to be on friendly terms with the local population by bringing needed goods to the city, or members of a guild associated with such trade.

So that’s the dwarves and their god, it’s not an in depth look, just an over view but maybe I’ll have time to write up about more specific parts of the culture later. Feel free to tell me what you think I’m always open to feedback.

[Omegonthesane]

Shatner - what exactly did the Futhark dwarves do?