The politic of the Great Continent

[Dracoc00]

Hi all, there is a topic that I wanted to discuss a long time, and is about the politics of the great continent, it is a thing that has intrigue me for a long time.
I know that the humans have the kingdom of wesnoth, they hace a king and i supposse noble houses, the merfolk have also a king.
But the orcs, the elves and the dwarves seem to have completely diferent goverment system, the elves have the ka'lian a council of elven lords but there's no more details about how it works, how the lords are choosed, and if this council rule all the elves because it is in wesmere, and we have others forest were are more elves, the govern all elves or only those of wesmere.
About the dwarves they seem to have a clan structure, every clan is indendent? or they have somentig to unite them all?, an the orcs, they seem to only follow the more stronger, but they have some social and political structure? or they only follow orders?




pd: I have to say that i'm not a native speaker, still practicing my english, so feel free to correct me.

[Andrettin]

There seems to have been an important change in dwarvish political structure somewhere between The Sceptre of Fire and The Hammer of Thursagan. While in the time of all dwarves seem to have lived under a clan structure, by the time of Hamel and Angarthing we have many dwarves living in more complex polities, the Lordships (Knalga and Kal Kartha); some dwarves still live under the old clan structure, however (the Shinsplitters). I imagine that the clans still exist within the Lordships, but have been emptied of much of their political power: dwarves would recall their ancestry to a particular clan; or clans could even be subunits in the political system - but whichever the case, they are no longer independent, being part of the Lordship.

[TheGreatRings]

Apologies for posting in a somewhat old topic, but this is a subject that intrigues me. If I'd been around here more recently I might have noticed this sooner.

I think the OP is half-right when it comes to Wesnoth. They do have a monarch and nobles, but the structure seems to be less purely feudal and more a hybrid of feudal and military dictatorship, with outlying territory under the control of nobles and the central areas often directly under the control of the crown's army/regular military officers.

And I recall reading somewhere on this forum that orcs basically choose leaders by survival of the fittest/combat.

But the one that interests me the most is the Northern Alliance. If I weren't so lazy/otherwise occupied, I'd make a campaign on the subject. Perhaps a fanfic...

The Alliance seems to be just that- an alliance rather than a single state. In Hammer of Thursagan, the dwarves have their own judicial system and conduct an independent military expedition despite being part of the Alliance. However, the Alliance works together in certain matters. NATO or the EU might be a good analog. In at least some respects, the Northern Alliance seems a very modern state in an archaic setting. Its very diverse, for one thing- multiracial, its founder even working with undead and being in an interspecies romance (the only one in mainline material that I'm aware of).

I'd really like to know how its leader is selected. I doubt heredity would work- you can't have the leader of a multi-species alliance always coming from one background that doesn't represent all the members. What about elected? Rotated between leaders of different factions?

[Raijer]

About the northern alliance: I doubt there actually is a single leader. It is more likely for it to be an assembly of the respective leaders of each faction composing it, something like a council of 4 to 5 people (orc, dwarf, elf, human and maybe undead) deceiding for the alliance, instead of having a single leader. Tallin was probably an exception as the founder, but I don't see him abusing his power, so he probably tried to put every members of the alliance at the same rank. Though, at the beginning, they forced the orcs to join it, but that's another thing...

[TheGreatRings]

The Timeline of Wesnoth refers to later individuals as Lord Protector of the Northern Alliance, so the position of a single leader appears to have survived Tallin's death.

However, I like the idea of a council of leaders of various factions (with each faction presumably picking their own leader in their own way).