Factions

 

Over the course of most of the recent history of Tear, political power structures have been fairly decentralized. There are numerous reasons for this, but the first and foremost is that the scope and inertia of hereditary power on Tear is severely limited due to the number of humanoid species on Tear. Hereditary familial power structures simply cannot become as big when there are eighteen different species sharing the resources of a region. This puts fairly hard limits on how much power a single family lineage can accumulate, and severely limits the ability of powerful families to combine their powers and wealth through intermarriage.

Additionally the species of Tear are fairly evenly distributed and mixed, and not regionally clustered. This means that with few exceptions, everyone is a minority, everywhere. This has historically made it even more difficult for familial factions to form into regional powers. While nation states so exist on Tear they have been the exception and not the rule, and power structures on Tear are divided into three major categories States, Religions and Factions.

The Faction

'Faction' is a general word to describe a wide range of different kinds of legally constituted and empowered collective. Factions are formed by groups of people with a common interest, and are chartered and registered with either civil or religious authorities, or in some cases both. Factions can differ enormously in terms of their scale; some are local, some are regional, some are continental, and others are global.

An example of a local faction would be a military order formed by a group veteran soldiers in a single city to recogize one another and to act as a reserve force in case of emergency. A regional faction might be a ranger order who police and protect the underdeveloped commons or wilderness - charting the region, hunting bandits, and ensuring no one exploits or develops the region illegally. At the continental scale, a faction such as a magical university might unify a large number of local or regional magical colleges, developing a single core curriculum, thereby controlling and monitoring the instruction of magic and ensuring professional, ethical, legal and religious standards are upheld. On the global scale, a bank might operate offices in major cities and branches in smaller cities and towns, issuing currencies backed by enormous reserves, and facilitating economic transactions between individuals or between factions using documents and contracts instead of cumbersome precious metals.

Formation of Factions

As a general rule, factions such as those described above, must petition to governmental authority in order to legally operate. This will typically be a civil government in the case of a city state, or a national government in the case of a nation state.

A group of veteran soldiers can sit in the tavern and talk about the glory days for as long as they want, swearing they'll be ready if called upon again. This does not make them a faction. If that same group of veterans establishes a meeting place, elects or appoints leaders, creates a founding document that explains their collective decision making process and their principles and goals and requires members to swear an oath they will all report for duty as a unit if called upon, then they could appeal to their local government to be recognized as an official faction.

This recognition and status might allow them to collect dues, establish insurance or retirement payout plans for their members, grant them reduced rents or taxes on their meeting hall, or even win them a stipend or grant from the government to pay some of their costs. Furthermore, this faction would likely be recognized by the governments of neighbouring and allied states, possibly granting their members certain benefits there, or making expansion of the faction easier.

Covert Factions

Some factions are covert, meaning they are legally founded, but not publicly known to exist or recognized. An intelligence agency formed to serve the interests of state might allow its members certain extra-legal powers, but would not be publicly recognized. Additionally, large factions will often have covert branches within them; such as groups of spies, smugglers or enforcers that work on some of the 'rougher edges' of their business. These branches may even be legal, if the faction can convince state that recognizes them that these covert branches are necessary to the function of the faction and are beneficial to the state. More commonly, however, they are illegal, and their operations, while perhaps necessary to the function of the faction are deniable by it.

Illegal or Heretical Factions

Some factions are explicitly illegal or heretical, such as an organized criminal syndicate or a cult. Obviously, such factions are not granted their status by petitioning a state for recognition. On the contrary, once such factions are discovered and determined to exist, the state will define the scope of their known activities and the nature of their membership, and then explicitly label them as an illegal or heretical group - making dealing with them a punishable offence.