The Rise of Magnus

by Duffman18

Chapter 5 Interlude

While my readers will know something of the Confederacy already, it is important to go over just what it was and how it formed before any real discussion of its political system could begin. The Confederacy is estimated to have formed in late 200 B.M. (Before Magnus). Humanity had undergone a terrible cataclysm perpetrated by the race we now know of as the Equestrians. Their near genocide thinned mankind’s ranks to the point where twelve tribes became a mere four.
Following their invasion, mankind fled north to escape the wrath of these creatures and eventually discovered the continent we now inhabit. They were tired, beaten, and low on supplies and it was in this state that the leaders of the four remaining tribes came together to discuss the future of their people. It is important to note that many have criticized the laws and ties that bound the four tribes together into the Confederacy as too weak. However these do not realize that such a binding was both politically and intellectually impossible at the time.
Humanity had existed until this point as a tribal society loosely bound and barely associated with one another. The Confederacy, while a weak system in contrast to the current imperial system in use today, was a union constructed of necessity and even then was bitterly opposed. The tribes were loath to give up any sense of their tribe’s identity or freedom and bitterly opposed anything in that vein.
More to the point, the idea of permanent union and anything more than aiding one another when in need was not something that had ever been raised before and thus was not an ingrained concept in the minds of the people. It was not until the Pretender Wars, their fallout, and the arrival of Magnus that the people were ready to even consider adopting such a new system as the current one.
At any rate, the Confederacy had a strictly defined hierarchy originally laid out by King Volksson of the then Shadow Tribe and heavily edited and refined by discussions and compromise between the other three tribal chiefs present at the clansmeet which gave birth to the Confederacy. In descending order, it is the King, the Council of Four, the Tribal Chieftains, and any local governments the chieftains dained to establish. As you can imagine, this led to each tribe having any number of functionaries and lesser positions which could and did heavily differ from another.
For example, the Shadow Tribe was well known to have a position known as the Listener which, while originally created to help keep the chief informed of events outside of Shadow lands, would evolve over time into a spymaster in all but name.
The position of “King” was far less powerful than a modern audience might think as while the title projects the image of a powerful figure making important decisions, the King of the Confederacy acted more as an administrator. He served to keep the tribes working together, acted as tiebreaker in the event of a hung council, and generally only exerted direct control over the King’s Lands which occupied a central point in the Confederacy given over to the King and his functionaries.
The position of king was also an elected one as when the sitting king died or could no longer fulfill his duties, the Council of Four would elect one of their own to ascend to the position of king. While possible to elect a figure other than a sitting councilor, it was extremely unlikely and only occurred an estimated 2 times during the Confederacy’s existence.
The Council of Four, while officially under the King, exerted far more power on a day-to-day basis. The council consisted of elected councilors from each of the four tribes. When one of their number was elected to sit on the throne, a new councilor was elected from that former councilor’s tribe. The ascended councilor had no official power or privilege to pick the next councilor, but many times, a king’s influence was leveraged in favor of a particular candidate. However to prevent the king stacking the council in his favor, the council had the ability to examine and question the candidate and approve or block his election to the council.
The council’s duties consisted of ensuring that each tribe did their duties to the Confederacy. These included a tithe of men and wealth to fund and man the Confederacy’s armies which were controlled by the King and the Council jointly. The council also served as a court of law and would hear and adjudicate the many inter-tribal disputes that would arise to prevent the wars of the past. In this the council would prove to be remarkably successful with war between tribes occurring only rarely and almost never evolving into more than skirmishes with notable exceptions including the Battle of Red River, the Wars of Bloodied Stone, and the Pretender Wars.
The Council and the King’s army were used numerous times to try and prevent these kinds of wars as well as enforce the will of the Confederacy. The idea of the Confederacy’s survival being more important than individuals was exemplified by King Volksson who said: “For every life lost I feel the deepest sorrow, but if there are those who would challenge the unity that protects our future then I will go forth and strike them down without compunction.”
The Tribal Chiefs were the leaders of the individual tribes which made up the Confederacy and how they were picked or chosen to lead was a decision left in the hands of the tribe. The Shadow Tribe favored bloodlines and the mantle of leadership passed from father to son and occasionally from father to daughter should no sons be able to lead. In contrast the Eagle Tribe believed that only the strongest should rule and the leader was chosen through a grand melee. Only the one who emerged victorious from this ferocious brawl was fit to lead.
The chiefs had complete power over the inner workings of their own tribes and as long as they did not try to extend this power beyond their tribes, neither the council nor the king would challenge them. However many tribal chiefs were said to have chafed under the rule of the Confederacy and these sentiments were many times the cause of the internal struggles faced by the Confederacy.

The Confederacy consisted of the four surviving tribes of the Cataclysm and the minor tribes which were eventually just folded into the four main tribes. While land disputes would persist throughout the history of the Confederacy, land ownership eventually stabilized into four main regions belonging to each tribe subdivided into smaller lands controlled by various clans. More information provided in The Early Clans: Precursors to the Great Houses.
The Shadow Tribe controlled the Eastern coasts and much of the Eastern mainland. The Thunder Tribe controlled similar regions to the west. The Eagle and Lightning Tribes controlled the central regions of the continent. The one exception to these regions was the King’s Lands which were partitioned out of land from each tribe.
These lands occupied the central point between the original lands of the tribes when they landed on the continent. After many years of expansion the original King’s Lands would be returned to the tribes and a new site would be selected in the centermost point of the continent. These lands would eventually become the current Imperial capital of Megbízás.
For all its problems and struggles the Confederacy accomplished its long term goal: allowing humanity the time and security it needed to reestablish its society after the struggles of the Cataclysm and build up a relatively secure State. However this existence would be challenged repeatedly over the years with some of the more immediate challenges being the wildlife of this new land. More information in the chapter: Northern Wildlife: Challenges to the early Confederacy.