Nobles

Noble houses

There are at present 143 registered greater noble houses and as many as several thousand minor houses and trade groups in Hive Babel. Each house has various commercial holding throughout the city which provides them with income and resources. The rules defining what makes a noble house and complex and labyrinthine with minor houses constantly jockeying for position, greater noble houses are required to pay tithes and provide troops for the pdf, in exchange they get one or more seats in the conclave and influence on the city governor.

There are three tiers of noble houses with various renown if not necessarily power. The most renown houses and the oldest are those descended from the original imperial guard regiments sent to pacify the planet. The city itself was founded by the remnant of over half a dozen regiments and several noble houses can now trace their ancestors back to one or more of these organisations, houses who can trace their lineage back to a specific regiment are often allied as they have similar culture. These houses are often the most powerful although many have also fallen from grace over the years. Second tier houses are descended from organisations which settled on the planet shortly after the conquest of the planet, normally in the first few decades. Almost as old as the first tier and more numerous these houses tend to be less powerful but still have significant influence. Third tier houses represent the concerns that have arrived or have formed in more recent years (the last few hundred years), these groups tend to be smaller and more specialised that the other tiers, the majority of the lesser houses are of this type, most have limited resources but some are now important major houses.

The city is currently governed by Lord Randolf Branden-Smythe of house Branden-Smythe his position is dependent on the will of the planetary governor Lord Odinson who can appoint a new city governor at any point. Lord Branden-Smythe is advised by a council made up of the major noble houses which is called the conclave, each major house has one or more seats on this council.

Most of the majority of the houses holdings are located in the outer ring of the city near the wall well away from the city core and the mines although most houses have scattered holdings in the guild areas as well. Conflict between houses both physical and political is quite common. Most conflicts are political with each house employing a legion of spy’s and informers in an attempt to obtain blackmail material on their rivals. Large scale combat is fairly rare but each house has a substantial PDF levy which act as a personal army meaning if fighting breaks out it can be large scale and devastating. In addition each house has a smaller house guard which are more skilled and better equipped than most PDF units and often act as body guards and enforcers for the house. More common conflicts are constant border skirmishes between houses located near each other, it is common for gangs of younger nobles and their retainers at attack and sabotage enemy holdings near their homes in some cases leading to permanent no man’s lands between rival houses territories.

Duels are common ways to deal with disagreements between lower ranked nobles. The rules and methods of duels have change every decade or so as new fashions come into place. The present normal method of duelling is using shock swords. Between nobles these combats are normally to the first strike or more commonly to the pain with the first fighter to cry out being the looser. Fights to the death are less common and are more likely to involve champions rather than nobles. Fights normally take place naked to reduce cheating and to allow more vulnerable locations to be targeted. The blades are blunted but designed so that each hit will result in a larger charge being released. Early blows only tingle but after a few hits the voltage will have a numbing effect before causing pain and after a dozen or more blows death becomes likely.

Although their structure varies largely between houses an average house will have one or two primary families, given imperial technology, 4 or more generations may be alive at once, these individuals normally do not have ‘day jobs’ and spend their time running the house itself although they may have specific roles such as in charge of the house levy. More distant members of the families, cousins and those marrying into the family are often given specific roles in the family’s business, managers of various house holdings, PDF officers, priests, tech priests members of the Adaptus Terra, etc. although in many cases these roles are largely ceremonial. A family may well have several hundred cousins and in the case of larger houses maybe thousands. Outside of the family themselves are various servant families who may have worked for the same household for several generations and are often trusted and supported by the family. For exceptional service some of these groups may eventually marry into the lower levels of the noble house becoming nobles themselves although this is very rare. This level of servant’s number in the tens to hundreds of thousands. Below the servant families are temporary workers hired as needed normally from the guilds or even the slum dwellers. These individuals hope to be recruited by the house as long term servants and thus provide security for their families. Thus almost the whole population of the hive works directly or indirectly for the noble houses.

Example Houses

House Branden-Smyth is the primary house of the hive and the home of the current governor. House Branden-Smyth has always been a strong first tier house for the life of the city but it has only been in the last century that it has risen to its current position. The house has a broad power base but controls a large chunk of the banking and finance sector as well as much of the hives infrastructure such as water reclamation and power generation. The houses rise to power started with the current Governor Randolf Branden-Smyth becoming house patriarch upon the poisoning of his father (rumour has it that Randolf or his sister arranged the assassination). Randolf then reawakened an old feud with house Thig leading to him killing the leader of the house in a duel this brash action almost lead to an all-out war between the houses and resulted in the then ruling house stepping in and forcing house Branden-Smyth to pay reparations. However, before his house was weakened the previous city governor was found guilty of treason and executed by the inquisition, it is believed that Randolf provided evidence against the governor as he was rewarded with much of the fallen houses resources as well as city governorship. He used his new powers to avoid the reparations and shift the charges to House Thig weakening his long rivals. House Branden-Smyth is by far the most powerful house in the city larger than its two nearest rivals, however, it is not indestructible and Randolf still requires the support of the conclave to enact laws on the city. In addition to Randolf’s position as city governor, his twin sister is also the head of the house levy and his younger maternal half-brother Marcus Silverman is the cities Cardinal giving the house both temporal and spiritual power.

House Thig is a strong first tier house which had long feuded with house Branden-Smyth although the conflict has rarely escalated to full scale warfare. The feud was at its strongest 60 years ago when the then leader of the clan and father of the current clan patriarch Erasmus Thig was killed in a duel with Randolf Branden-smyth. This resulted in the houses levy’s be mobilized and the fighting having to be stopped by the then governor Eliot Macon who blamed house Branden-Smyth and forced them to pay crippling reparations. With Branden-Smyth becoming the ruling house 40 years ago Thig has been forced to ‘play nice’ with them but Erasmus still attempts to do what he can to weaken Randolf’s power base. Thig has very strong links to the Adaptus Mechanicus with each family’s oldest child joining the priesthood of the Cog, in exchange the priesthood has provided Thig with the plans to various high tech equipment that they sell on to other houses in exchange for support.

The Quidatch – Smaug trading alliance has only been promoted to the ranks of the greater noble houses within the last decade. The trading alliance was formed from the marriage of two minor noble houses. Due to their upstart nature and small size the house is in danger of losing its position unless it can ally itself with a larger house. However, due to its rapid rise it has few friends at this time. Its current leader Akhmed Quidatch only barely survived a recent assassination attempt which killed his wife and the houses future seems dark.

House Quich is an example of an average noble house. It is a second tier house formed as part of an investment cartel exploiting the recent imperial occupation of Telos. Quich is not a specialised house and holds a wide variety of holdings throughout the hive. The current leader of house Quich is Herman Quich who generally supports the status quo of the hive as his house is currently doing well.

House Mongo is a first tier house. Once very powerful it has suffered reduced fortunes over the centuries although it remains a significant force in the politics of Babel. They have long been a significant manufacturing concern and produce many vehicles, however, other smaller hungrier houses have risen up and taken more and more of the market weakening the once great house. The house also has a strange culture leading back to their original home world of Artemis, the house has very defined gender roles with the two sexes remaining socially separated for much of their life even after marriage. Un married women are expected to join the PDF and fight, upon marriage women move into politics, police work and espionage. Men are expected to learn a practical trade usually working in a house factory until marriage when they are moved to management and scholarly pursuits. House Mongo is also famous for only breeding within their own house and the few other houses descended from their home planets regiment leading to an inability to ally with other houses via marriage. The current house matriarch is Alisha Mongo and the Patriarch is Anansi Mongo.

House Still Water is a first tier house of great influence. It was formed from the officers of a regiment from the plant Typhon IV. Typhon IV consists of a single large ocean dotted with thousands of small islands which periodically would be flooded by massive storms, thus the people lived most of their lives on boats travelling from island to island. As Telos has no large bodies of liquid water the troops from Typhon IV were badly out of place and were mostly destroyed by orks in the battle of Valenville, the survivors formed house will water and put their skills to operating transport craft between the hives. In the present over 40% of all inter hive trade goes via House Still Water vehicles making them a very wealthy house with a good information gathering network throughout the hive. The nobles of this house are considered jaded even by the other nobles with little to do but spend their fortunes they throw some of the most lavish parties of the hive and are known for sudden changes in fashion, one week they may be paying exalbident prices for exotic offworld drugs the next demanding to be taken to safaris away from the hive to hunt native animals. It is this house which started the current fashion of duelling although few members are still interested in that. The current head of house Stillwater is Alexia Still water the house matriarch.

House Grizburn is somewhat of an oddity. It is a second tier house formed early in Telos’s life as an imperial colony. The majority of the vehicles on Telos run of hydrocarbons derived from the sap of certain types of native trees, although there are some imperial plantations most harvesting of these trees is undertaken by the native human population. House Grizburn is the result of a collaboration between several native tribes and imperial merchants resulting to a house containing the blood of both groups. Although quite wealthy the house is considered barbarians by most noble houses. House Grizburn’s holdings in Babel are relatively small as many of the houses members spend much of their time in the wilderness, however, they have strong trade connections with many of the houses particularly Thig and Mongo. The current head of the house in Babel is Gunther Grizburn.

House Odinson is the house of the planetary governor. Although not native to hive babel the house has some limited holdings in the city. It is widely known that these holdings are largely a front for a spy network to allow the governor to keep an eye on what does on in the city. Although originally allied to house Branden-Smyth house Odinson has become more adversarial as the city governor has revealed his plans to become less dependent on the planets capital city for its trade needs leading to the city governor being snubbed several times by his superior including having his choice of PDF head being denied. The current head of the house in Babel is Grimma Oldinson.

House Macon was the ruling house for over 100 years until 40 years ago when they were replaced by house Branden-Smyth. Their fall came when the then governor Louise Macon was found to be involved in selling military vehicles to other planetary regimes that intended to try to secede from the Imperium. Both the planetary governor’s forces and the Inquisition fell upon the house and its members were ruthlessly purged. Only by spending all of their political capital did the few survivors remain their major house status. It is rumoured that house Branden-Smyth was the one that informed on the previous governor but if so the current head of the house Claude Lefoux does not openly seem to hold a grudge as he supports the current ruling house.

House Sun is a small third tier house with more power than their size and position would suggest due to their specialist trade. House sun runs factories that produce a variety of chemicals and medicines, primarily they sell recreational drugs to other houses which bring in large profits but at this role they are one among many. However, they have a second semi-secret role, they also produce poisons and for an extra fee someone to administer those poisons. House sun remains entirely mercenary in this role they will work for anyone who is willing to pay them and do not take sides in conflicts. The current leader of house sun in Hiro Sun.