♦ Starting Factions -

At the beginning of the game, all Player Houses are formed up, having established their loyalties as they head into the brewing Jarlsland Civil War. On one side, ‘The Covenant of the Iron Watch’ stands with the incumbent Tribune in Rolcebad. Opposed to them stand the Rebel forces, and instigators of the current turmoil, The Volchenks Union who back the Governor in Tennan and their blood claim to the Tribunate. House teams will also have their own agenda, with reasons to support their side being stronger or weaker depending on what they expect to receive should they be victorious. Players should always remember that Babayaga is a game about diplomacy, as much as it is about conflict and a well timed olive branch may secure even a better outcome than winning the war itself, if negotiated correctly.

The Covenant of the Iron Watch

Ready to defend the current regime against the upstart rebels led by the pretender in Tennan, the Covenant is an alliance born more from convenience and loyalty than any true political movement. The Houses that make up the Covenant are wealthy and have a vested interest in things going on as they always have. Complaints of favouritism and wealth disparity fall on deaf ears for the most part, and for those who have signed the Covenant, the prevailing opinion is that there were other vectors through which to air these petty grievances beyond full scale conflict. The Covenant sees the Rebel Houses as petulant and reactionary. They are, for the most part, keen to show those traitor territories the true power of their current empire and it is widely thought that with a short, sharp lesson, the rebels will see their error and fall back into line quickly. It really is only the pretender to the crown who has stoked the revolutionary fervour, and with their death, things will likely go back to the way they always have been.

Houses of the Covenant

House Raieth of The Capital Territory

House Raieth hold the family name of the original Jarl, their eponymous progenitor and leader, responsible for the establishment of Jarlsland. After arriving in their lands, by ship, over five centuries before, the Jarl established dominion over the lands now known as the Jarlsland Tribunate. Since that time House Raieth have presided over the entire Tribunate from their capital city in Rolcebad, which sits on the mouth to the river Eiunge. All other houses are said to be branches of that original family, friends and benefactors of the first Jarl. It was that leader who is also said to have, on his own beneficence, seen fit to gift the various lands and territories which each other House now hold and which form the rest of the empire through their fealty to the descendants of the Jarl.

The Tribune, by convention gives the other Governors a relatively free hand to manage their own affairs but a tithe, later taxation, has always been required by House Raieth of the other Houses. House Raieth is at the centre of the current rebellion by the outer territories, not only due to the question of their true lineage from the Jarl, but also through their apparent propensity to tax the outer territories at a higher rate than those who are at the centre and in greater standing with the Tribune. This favouritism has never been proven, however, and House Raieth will always claim that any discrepancy in revenue is proportional, based on population and production per head in the less developed Territories. What this really means and how proportional taxation seems to work has never been clearly outlined by the capital’s Ministry of Revenue.

House Garvin of Badenfall

House Garvin, ruling family of the most southerly territory in Jarlsland is the founding House of the Covenant for the Iron Watch, the Iron Watch being described by the House, originally as the last line of defence between civilisation and barbarism. Curiously Badenfall was, until recently classed as a borderline, outer-territory and had strong ties to the Tennan and their Governor, who is now a pretender to the throne. House Garvin was also one of the most outspoken Houses against proportional taxation, feeling slighted by their distancing from the capital and being classed along with those affected by the program. Many expected House Garvin and Badenfall to be amongst the first signatories of the Volchenks Union but would later refuse to attend the rebel congress when it was signed. House Garvin would instead later agitate for the creation of the Covenant in opposition to the Rebels and in doing so carved for themselves a leadership role that cemented their position as a central territory, and first in favour to the Tribunate. How or why Badenfall followed that course, in opposition to expectation, is a mystery to most and the true motivation is known only to the decision makers in House Garvin.

House Teff of Greylune

House Teff are one of but not the richest House outside of the capital and hold one of the largest territorial claims of all the Houses in Jarlsland. A true central territory, Greylune is infamous for both it’s industry and high levels of personal wealth among it’s middle and upper classes. Comprising most of the northern step region out to directly above the Rayleigh Delta and the Capital Territory, Greylune is some of the most temperate and livable land in all of Jarlsland. Having first made their wealth on largess from the capital and then later by supplying the northern expansion into the territories of Eidenor and Orien, House Teff made some key, early choices that have led them to immense comfort and positioning within the Tribunate. This bounty was not entirely based in luck and cunning, however, as it is said that the first Governor of House Teff was in fact the Jarl’s sibling and received much of the fledgling nation's wealth while the original Jarl was still alive.

Greylune’s recent, generational shift into manufacturing as its industrial base has had some contributing effects in the other northern territories which House Teff first helped to seed. Specifically, much of the farmlands that used to feed the north have been paved over or given to other crops, mining, and industry. It is said that the tension between these territories over food availability was one of the fomenting catalysts for the rebellion, though many in House Teff deny the fact openly.

House Teff joined the Covenant more as a formality, after the Rebels in Orien started to raid Greylune’s northern regions for food and supplies. With House Teff seeking legitimacy for the austerity measures which they have imposed towards the northern Houses, they claim it has become necessary in order to defend their own citizens from the same privations seen to the north.

House Baffin of Moorscap

House Baffin is truly an outer territory in all but status, being the most westerly territory in the Tribunate. House Baffin, however, are traditionally staunch monarchists and have not suffered so blatantly under the current Tribune’s, proportional taxation. Mountainous and remote this territory is less interested in politics and knows full well the breadth of other troubles that face the people of Jarlsland from both inside and beyond. To Baffin, all other Houses seem eager to face inward alone, focused on their own bickering and bloviating rhetoric. Alongside the rebellious territory of The Greenfold, Moorscap stands vigil in their mountain holds, defending the western boundary of the kingdom, silently, from dark infiltrations of unknown threats, too nightmarish to mention in polite company. House Baffin signed the Covenant as a way to ensure that supplies were still available to them as the country descended into what they view as a misguided and damaging conflict.

House Ferrith of Eidenor

House Ferrith are of hardy stock. Eidenor sits on the far side of the Craegfall Saddle, an often snowed over pass allowing passage from Greylune, into the eastern fingers of The Outreacher Ranges. House Ferrith is said to be the lucky House, though this is not always meant in a complimentary way. The House’s progenitor is famously unrelated to the true Jarl’s bloodline setting them to be viewed, by some, as lesser amongst the aristocracy. The appointment of one of the Jarl’s servants to the position of territorial governor was a scandal at the time, and the echos of that disruption are felt to this day, though often forgotten for how remote their House is to the goings on of the court in Rolcebad. It is an ongoing mystery amongst the other Houses, what deed led one such as the founder of House Ferrith to receive such an ennobling gift, but in the centuries since the Ferrith have proven themselves as a true power in the north, in possession of one of the smallest, but most adept professional armies within the Tribunate.

House Ferrith, though usually seen as loyalist, mainly due to the scale of their perceived debt to House Raieth are, in point of fact, practical to a fault. The Ferrith signed the Covenant, not out of any true, lingering sense of debt to their monarch but from a responsibility to their own people who would suffer even more hardship, should the pass at the Craegfall Saddle be closed to them. Indeed, the ongoing privations have somewhat soured the loyalist cause in Eidenor. In reality the northern territory is more of a country onto itself and powerful in its own right. Isolated from its neighbours and the sea as they are, House Ferrith will do nothing to endanger their standing with the Tribunate, but are also disinterested in policing the comings and going of armies along their border, intent on wasting precious supplies in pointless skirmishes. Given the option and good relations with the other territories in the north, there would be nothing truly compelling Eidenor to maintain their position within the Iron Watch.

The Volchenks Union -

Comprised of the dissatisfied Houses of Jarlsland, the Union have vowed to supplant the sitting Tribune and replace them with the true heir to that seat, the Governor of Tennan and leader of House Theddis. The Governor’s claim is bolstered by writings, found recently, and supposedly penned by the hand of the original Jarl. The letters are purported to claim that not only is House Theddis the true lineage of the Jarl but that the current House Raieth have long ago usurped the crown and perverted the true intentions or their country’s leader.

Many Houses of the Union have publicly accepted this version of events, though it is true that most of the Houses in open rebellion are doing so for more local, practical and financial reasons. With hardship in the north, the threats from the east, unfair taxation and a general want for change, the Volchenks Union seeks to bring about a new age for Jarlsland and a more fair and equitable future. The strength to which each House holds to these values is for their own council to keep. The Union itself is named after the town of Volchenks, that was unfairly destroyed by a group of mercenaries working under the auspice of the Tribune, in order to collect overdue taxes. The Union decree itself is said to have been signed with ash from the bones of the town’s residents who were burned in their homes for failure to pay. The Volchenks Union has seen a groundswell of military enlistment and has attracted popular support in many territories for their apparent vengeance agenda, a goal which speaks more favourably to those of the lower classes than any high minded notions of politics and primogeniture. Though the Houses, signatory to the Union Decree, are largely separated across the breadth of Jarlsland, they have found their ability to coordinate comparatively unhindered due to this broad support, even throughout the central territories themselves.

House Krebb of The Bleakset

House Krebb and their territory are the most northern territory of the realm that still have access to the sea. A maritime culture has seen their population largely keep to the ocean side, relying on seatrade (that not controlled by Clan Varrik) and fishing for their prosperity. The Bleakset is one of the least populous territories but has suffered some of the worst privations of the north, stuck as they are between the antagonistic Orien and an unforgiving sea, that seas its waters frozen over for the majority of the year. The proportional taxation laws have also seen House Krebb squeezed harder than most, and even through their preexisting ties to Orien, they have been increasingly limited in access to the bounty of the rest of the country via the punitive trade policies in Greylune and guilt by association. House Krebb heard about the massacre in Volchenks long after the fact but saw in it the kind of change in headwind that meant if they weren’t out in front of it, they too may be similarly crushed. House Krebb was a late but enthusiastic signatory to the Union Decree, seeing an immediate benefit from the emerging industry of letters of mark for privateers, and the bounteous spoils such adventures could bring back to The Bleak Set's frost covered ports.

House Draeger in Orien

House Draeger has been the problem child in Jarlsland since their establishment as a breakaway territory of Greylune, during the original Jarl’s lifetime. Orien’s progenitor was said to be a very close relative of the Jarl who made it their mission to keep the emerging dictator honest throughout the foundation of Jarlsland and the Tribunate. It is said that the Draeger family branch has kept that spirit very much alive in the proceeding centuries, taking obstinate defiance to new and unprecedented art form. Positioning themselves as the opposition on any matter of state that required consensus, the Draegers were the hammer to the Tribune’s anvil. A position both parties traditionally appreciated but has led to bad blood in the Capital of late. Naturally, when the Union Decree was signed, the Draeger of Orien were first at the front of the line. House Draeger was the first signature to follow that of the claimant Tribune on the decree and the territory has done everything in their power to follow through. Orien has provided the most soldiers, the most resources, and has suffered the greatest casualties in the opening skirmishes of the rebellion, even over Tennan, and with their only complaint so far having been that the other signatories should be following their lead in doing so.

House Draeger might have had the temperament of a rebel from the start, but their secession was far from guaranteed. Sealing the deal for them was the long running grain embargoes and other trade restrictions placed upon the northern territories by Greylune, as well as the privations which followed. Orien, having been originally broken from a greater Greylune territory always maintained a particular rivalry with their southern neighbours. Jockeying for influence and primacy was nothing new. But when the more recent, and particularly strong, trade embargoes lead to the Capital Territory following suit, with the intent to enforce their proportional taxation laws, it was a feather fall that broke the dam. To a great extent, Orien and House Draeger were already close to open rebellion by the time of the raising in Volchenks, and to the noble family there, signing the Union Decree was all but a formality. House Draeger is less concerned with what the Tribunate looks like in the wake of the rebellion, only caring that its better than what they have now.

House Samvid of The Green Fold

The Green Fold is both a true frontier and the breadbasket of southern Jarlsland. House Samvid, in turn, reflects that duality in both their reputation as iron blooded centurions to the west and mercantile savants to the east. Unlike Moorscap, the other frontier territory, The Green Fold has a large, dispersed population who are each able to own the lands upon which they reside. With every family presiding over their own lands and large villa estates, managing their own affairs, and generally keeping their business, just so; House Samvid spend trivially little of their time in a managerial, or punitive mode. Where other noble houses spend their time counting taxes and raising militias, Samvid have always found a much easier course to prosperity through the lubrication of commerce in their lands. By offering their comparatively rich populace a free hand and some reasonably subsidised civic and logistical services, House Samvid has built up a generational treasury to rival that of even the Capital. That is not to say that the Green Folders are without threat, however; And as a part of the agreements made to the people of The Green Fold, each family must send their young adult members for a period of territorial service in The Pathfinder’s Guild. The Pathfinders guard the western border of The Green Fold from anything, or anyone who may take the mind to entering Jarlsland through the twisted bows of the continent’s largest forest. Officially this is a moot precaution, satisfying the requirements of an easy life without heavy taxation, but ask any Pathfinder who served and it becomes clear that the cost is well paid for some, and others may never return from that wall of tangled green.

This being the ancient agreement between the Samvids and their citizens, the punitive application of the Capital’s proportional taxation laws fell flat on the ears of those for whom revenue, traditionally, only flowed one way. If that wasn’t enough for them to sign the Union Decree, The Green Fold would see the time for a new Tribune in Rolcebad as an opportunity for their grievances to be aired, under the auspice of a leader who better knows the problems that they face in the south. The Green Folders see Tennan as a generally soft territory, with neither the callouses of a bow or the honed rhetoric of commerce lending them favour. But if that is the option available to them, they’ll take the erstwhile Governor in Jarlingston over another northerner any day. Heraldry for the Green Folder’s, after all, is just a matter of formality. All that really matters is the next fletching or stroke of the quill.

House Theddis of Tennan

For the nobles of House Theddis, the question of which House, truly, calls claim to the throne is Rolcebad is the wrong question entirely. Though the palace sits proudly atop the Noonberg, overlooking the river Eiunge, and ‘supposed’ first court of the Jarl in Jarlsland; The Jarl is said never to have even looked back once pronouncing their new nation into being. The Jarl is claimed instead to have swiftly followed the smaller rivers, upstream and straight inland, into the glorious bounty of the region which would become Tennan itself. Jarlingston, the Capital of that territory would become the home seat of the Jarl’s court for the remainder of that tenure, with the Noonberg resembling nothing more than a traditional place of gathering amongst the territorial Governors, used for various ceremonies after the Jarl’s death. Indeed the Jarl is said to have hated the place, demanding it be kept bare of anything useful for the remainder of their nation’s history. The palace, a later addition is often justified as a way of ensuring that wish be observed. But House Theddis (and others) claim that this is a convenient misinterpretation of the instruction. That is, in holding the mound itself as some sacred or other nonsense that tends to come up around these stories. Of Tennan itself, the territory would act as the capital until the establishment of the Capital Territory in the time of the Jarl’s grandchildren, and has always claimed the spiritual leadership role despite the mechanics of the state that grew up around it.

Officially House Theddis drafted the Volchenks Union Decree in order to avenge the raising of the town of Volchenks by Central Territory forces. This was as well as to enforce the abolishing of proportional taxation in the territories. Secondarily, of course, this outrage proved fertile ground for a new claim, discovered long ago and only revealed to the people of Jarlsland recently; That the Raieths were not the true claimants to the Tribunate throne and that, beyond this, their ancestors had stolen leadership of Jarlsand away from Tennan through guile and trickery. For evidence the Theddis show a letter penned in the Jarl’s own hand which mentions them by name and calls for the capital of the nation to forever be centred upon Jarlingston. The latter being a city which the Jarl built and within which they were later entombed. House Theddis have cast the nation into turmoil with these claims and though they extol the truthfulness of their assertions, one thing is true beyond a shadow of a doubt; Jarlsand will never be the same.

The Varrik Clan of Dethe

The founding of the City State of Dethe was, depending upon who you ask, either a masterstroke in realpolitik, or a complete, bumbling accident. When the Jarl’s fleet first arrived from the sea, Dethe was the first landmass to hove into view. Crossing the eastern seas was nothing short of miraculous, and the sight of land after such a perilous journey was one that many would claim as the most beautiful they had ever seen. The fact that the island was almost entirely girt by impassable rocks and shear cliff faces would soon dampen that view for many aboard the Jarl’s longships, but a great majority still savoured their hope, at being no longer adrift on the unforgiving ocean and at the mercy of the waves. After circumnavigating the island, the fleet was finally able to anchor in the somewhat sheltered but still treacherous “Bay of Mourning,” on the West side of the island. Unbeknowns to the crews at that time, they were only another day’s sail from the land mass that would later become Jarlsland actual. It was impossible for the fleet to know that, however, and many were scarce enthused with the prospect of leaving their, admittedly bleak and savage, saviour behind. That is, to once again sail off into the unknown. The first hand records are incomplete from that journey but what is true without a doubt is that some of the fleet, with the Jarl, sailed on and others, led by the ancestors of The Varrik Clan, did not.

In the current time, Clan Varrik is a power onto their own and honorarily given the respect due any other noble House with a Territorial Governorship. That deference is due to a long standing trade pact between the two nations, a lifeline that bolstered the adventurous part of the fleet as they tried to establish themselves in their new home. With bountiful resources, despite their isolation and bad weather, Clan Varrik was able to quickly build for their island a robust maritime tradition. Though this came at the expense of the forests that once covered Dethe, they still hold a vast majority of the trade contracts throughout the territories that border the Herring Bait Sea and along the Rethied estuary where the river Eiunge gives way. With the largest commercial fleet in all of Jarlsland, Dethe is the unofficial master of maritime trade in all the Tribunate. Clan Varrik, by their own assertions, are neutral in the brewing conflict on the mainland. Their neutrality is largely practical, with the Varrik holding no real enmity toward either side. Though, as with all things, the facade is beginning to slip. With Baden Fall seemingly intent on overtaking their trade, garnering favour with the Capital, and generally increasing their activity around the islands, things are becoming less certain or simple. The Capital has no reason to hold to their ancient contracts, seeing in the Varrik no method of taxation beyond annexation. On top of this, with The Bleakset increasingly relying on what amounts to piracy in order to sustain itself, Clan Varrik have begun to make overtures towards the Union and Tennan. Perhaps they will see more value in a future collaboration where the current Tribune does not?