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The Scarlet Imperium
The Scarlet Imperium is the heart of the Span; its population covers a third of the known world. From the slopes of Mount Meru, the Emperor oversees two hundred thousand worlds and close to two billion citizens. With its Dragon-Blooded host, its Wyldfarer fleets, and its proud and ancient traditions dating back to the days of the Shogunate, the Imperium is a line of unbroken history to many of the people of the Span. Within its boundaries lie safety and tradition, an intoxicating mixture.
But all is not well within the Imperium. The Deliberative is a nest of vipers, politics and corruption determining social progression as much as any desire to protect or guard the people of the Span. Atop this poisonous mixture sits the Emperor, Soren Naganis. For over a hundred and twenty years, he has ruled the Imperium with a silken tongue and an iron fist, drawing ever-more power into his clutches. Now, as he ages and the Deliberative starts to look ahead to his inevitable death, the stately progression of the government begins to swirl with vicious politics once again.
Society
The Imperium's society is one of stratified aristocracy, supporting a rough democracy of partial effect. The population is divided into clear and stratified social structures, from which it is difficult, though not impossible, to move. These structures are generally accepted by the populace, and those seeking to change them are viewed with some suspicion. Lately, the Immaculate Order has resumed support of the structures completely, adding a theocratic tint to the nation.
The lowest social order are slaves. Slaves can come from captives of a war, or from those convicted of non-violent crimes, and the children of a slave is always a slave unless formally recognized at the time of their birth by a non-slave parent. By law, only the Imperial Houses may own slaves, as only they are considered to be of appropriate standing. Those of other nations who visit may retain any slaves they already own, but may not purchase new ones. Slaves make up approximately 10% of the Imperium's population, and are mostly used for service work and unpleasant support jobs, as well as resource production jobs deemed too dangerous or vile for normal peasants.
The second order are the peasant class. Peasants make up a narrow majority in the Imperium, and they have strictly curtailed rights. They may not own weapons unless formally inducted into the Legions, they may not own property (although they may own possessions), and they require special permits to travel between worlds. In total, about 50% of the Imperium are of the peasantry, and nearly all of them work in a primarily agrarian environemnt, as farmers, loggers, or miners, producing the resources that helps keep the rest of the Imperium rich. They are usually poorly-educated, although there is no law against their education. Peasants who prove themselves and can gather the necessary funds may attend an Imperial Academy; if they succeed in graduating, they are automatically promoted to the Patrician class. This keeps a small but constant stream of the brightest peasants flowing into the middle class, which prevents them from remaining amongst the peasantry. Peasant life is poor, but generally safe and not too harsh - very few peasants need to worry about where their next meals will come from, and the Imperium provides free basic medical and education services.
The third order is the patrician class. The middle class of the Imperium, they are the ones that people from outside the Imperium tend to think of when they consider the Imperium - educated, decently well-off, and able to easily access information and choose their jobs. Patricians inhabit the cosmopolitan worlds of the Imperium, working the artisan, scholarly, buerocractic and production jobs that require training and expertise; many of them are from former peasant stock, and are usually proud of having worked their way out of it. Patricians also have voting rights in the Lower Chambers of the Deliberative, and may run for office in the Lower Chambers, giving them a decent amount of sway in the local government. In total, patricians make up about 39% of the Imperium. Any Patrician who should Exalt is immediately inducted into the Imperial Houses.
Finally, the Imperial Houses make up about 1% of the population. The entitled aristocracy, only exceptional merit on the part of a patrician (or blood ties) can allow one to be adopted into the Houses. The Imperial Houses retain many rights denied to patricians; they may own slaves, Artifacts, and Manses, they can run for office in the Upper Houses, and they also have voting rights in both Houses of the Deliberative. In addition, the Imperial Houses tend to control many licenses, choosing which patricians may trade with foreign nations, and holding monopolies on most resources. Nearly all peasant cities are under the management of an Imperial House, which is entitled to collect taxes from said peasantry. The Houses then hand taxes from their own profits to the Imperium as a whole. The Dragon-Blooded make up approximately one in two hundred Imperials, an elite within the elite. While anyone may technically hold the highest offices of the Imperium, their skills and lifespans essentially guarantee that such positions will be held by the Exalted.
Government
When Tepet Ejava became the first leader of the Imperium, she did her best to root out corruption, and her changes survived three hundred years before they began to slowly break down. Now, however, the transformation is nearly complete; where the Imperium was designed to be a self-sustaining bureaucracy without the crippling internal divisions that epitomized the Dynasty, it has gradually evolved into a hundred feuding dictatorships, each theoretically answering to an elected government.
At the top of the bureacracy sits the Emperor. The Emperor's position is lifelong; upon his death, the Upper Chamber meets to elect a new Emperor from the leaders of the Great Houses. The Emperor acts as a governing and directing force for the democratic Chamber below him. His approval is required for any new taxes levied or for the removal of existing taxes, and for the elevation of a new Great House, as well as for any change made to the manner in which the government operates. In addition, the Emperor must approve any call from the Upper Chamber to go to war or to sign a military or trade alliance with another nation. Finally, the Emperor may choose to cast his vote in any motion being debated in the Upper or Lower Chambers; if he does, that motion requires two-thirds majority to oppose his wishes. The Emperor must do this before the vote; once cast, even he cannot change it. As a rule, the Emperors rarely exercise this right, as it is only important if the Emperor's wishes run counter to the majority of the Deliberative, and in such cases the Emperor does not wish to be seen as frequently undermining the will of the people.
Below the Emperor sit the one hundred seats of the Upper Chamber. The Upper Chamber holds the right to make or modify laws, after which they are sent to the Lower Chamber for ratification. Whenever a seat in the Upper Chamber is opened up, each Great House is allowed to submit one member to fill it; all Imperials then hold a vote. The top three candidates are then voted on again, unless one of them secured at least half the total vote in the first run. Upper Chamber senators hold their positions for twenty years, or until they retire; all elections for the Upper Chamber are held at the end of the year in which the seat is vacated. When the system was first designed, the chairs were deliberately staggered, with five seats opening each year; due to retirements and deaths, it is now somewhat less even, with anywhere from two to eight seats opening in a given year.
The Lower Chamber holds five hundred seats, each of which represents an area of the Imperium of approximately two million people. This Chamber must ratify any law passed by the Upper Chamber; if the majority of the Lower Chamber votes against a law, it must go back to the Upper Chamber for revision or abandonment. The Lower Chamber cannot change laws, although they can make suggestions while the Upper Chamber is doing so. The members of these seats are usually patricians, but about one in twenty is a member of the Imperial Houses. Elections are held once every five years, in the month leading up to Calibration, and any patrician or Imperial within a given district may vote for a candidate. The Lower Chamber does not have official political parties, but it does have common alliances and connections to the Great Houses.
The Great Houses
Of the eleven Houses of the Scarlet Dynasty, only seven survived the destruction of the Realm. House Iselsi, already fragmented, dissolved completely during the turmoil, and strikes from other Houses before the extent of the threat to the world was known undid Nellens. V'Neef and Sesus also fell during the wars, the former because their small size could not handle the death toll, and the latter because their Legions were on the forefront of the war, and were decimated even more fully then those of Tepet. There have also been two Houses that have been disbanded over the years, both Founding Houses whose influence finally dwindled away to nothing - Mnemon and Peleps, each of whom suffered greatly in the wars.
There are currently seven Great Houses within the Imperium, five of which are direct survivors of the Scarlet Dynasty, and three of which have grown up in the years since. While they have elemental associations, these are more fluid even than they were in the days of the Dynasty, due to the devastation of the end of the Second Age and the influx of the years of the Third.
House Tepet (Air): One of the Founding Houses, Tepet survived the early years of the Imperium only because the Empress was one of them. While Ejava did not show especial favour to her House, Tepet rallied simply by having the connection, and grew back into a military power. Now, although they are no longer the Imperial House, Tepet remains renowned for their strategists and generals; in the age of Wyldfarers, their knowledge is as valued as ever before, and they are a powerful and respected house, holding monopolies on the production of many army and naval weapons.
House Ledaal (Air): The House of Sorcerers remains the pre-eminant source of magic within the Span, and they have continued to study sorcery and the nature of Essence over the centuries, even going so far as to adopt the sorcerous branches of House Mnemon upon its dissolution. Ledaal helped to create the Wyldfarers, although the engineers that actually completed the work were awared Great House status of their own - a fact that continues to rankle with many elders of Ledaal. House Ledaal holds the monopoly on thaumaturgical instruction of mortals, other than those lessons taught by the Immaculate Order, and has extensive influence over the Imperium's education system.
House Ragara (Earth): Ragara was nearly undone during the tumults, and came within a hairsbreadth of being disbanded alongside Mnemon in the century following the Breaking. However, as the Imperium began to take shape, House Ragara put more effort into sliding back into their old role, increasing their influence within the Imperial Treasury and moving further into the bureaucratic and finance spheres, as well as absorbing much of the former House Peleps when it was finally disbanded. Now, Ragara holds the monopoly on the Imperium's loan network and banking system, giving them exceptional power over the nation's financial systems.
House Cathak (Fire): The Legion house remains intact, despite heavy losses during the wars. Cathak, in fact, absorbed House Sesus after the end of the Time of Tumult, merging the two into one powerful military House. Now, Cathak has incredible influence within the Legions, the ground-based division of the Imperium's armed forces. They also control the Imperium's military academies, making their martial arm one that the other Houses cannot ignore.
House Cynis (Wood): The survival of House Cynis was never in doubt. The purveyors of decadence suffered somewhat in the early years of the Imperium, but even then they were the only House to retain the drug trade, and they moved ruthlessly to take control of it on any world where the Imperium landed. Now, Cynis holds a monopoly on all recreational drugs used within the Imperium, alongside a near-monopoly on the slave trade. They may sometimes be discounted by the other Houses, but the Decadents have a solid position within the nation.
House Soren (Earth): One of the three new Houses raised during the first two centuries of the Imperium's reign, House Soren grew out of remnants of Houses Mnemon and Peleps that preferred not to join with one of the existing Houses. Soren himself was a former member of House V'Neef, who had forged a network of small nations before the Imperium located him. His network held over ten million people, along with four dozen Dragon-Blooded, at a time when the entire Imperium numbered only ten times that. Even more importantly, it held rich deposits of jade and silver, the largest the Imperium had found to date. As such, he lobbied for all of his Dragon-Blooded to be allowed to form the root of a new Great House, and after some debate, the Empress of the time agreed. House Soren then grew gradually, eventually gaining a monopoly over the mining trade, and serving as the official contacts between the Imperium and the Mountain Folk. When Soren Naganis ascended the throne, he increased this responsiblity, giving House Soren complete control over magical material trade prior to its transformation into official currency. This means that artificers must deal with the House, and that many artificers are simply members for greater ease.
House Hadana (Water): Ledaal Hadana was the scholar who eventually completed work on the Wyldfarers, and her work was considered to be brilliant. At the time, there was no Great House associated with Water, and Empress Ejava decided to elevate Hadana to the status of Great House in order to preserve elemental stability. As such, many Water-aspected Dragon-Blooded, as well as a certain number of artificers and explorers, were put into House Hadana, which was given control over Wyldfarer production. Now, House Hadana has extensive influence through the Imperium Navy, and its scions often find their way as ambassadors and explorers, extending the reach of the Imperium as they discover new worlds.
