Seven Clans of Alt'Ena

Leading Dwarven Clans of Alt'Ena.

The seven dwarven clans in Alt'Ena rule the whole city in a voted parlament made up of members of each clan. Each clan represents a virtue given by the Old gods to the first Dwarven.

Clan descriptions

1. Voimakallio: (Strength) - "Voima" means strength, and "Kallio" means rock or cliff. The name signifies a clan known for its physical prowess and resilience. Voimakallio are organizing the guard and military units of Alt'Ena.


2. Löytosatian: (Discovery) - "Löytö" means discovery or find, and "Säätiö" means foundation. This clan is renowned for its explorative nature and the discoveries it makes in the depths of the earth. Löytosatian are managing and finding new ressources in the Tyr Mountain Ridge but also in the Jerulian Jungles. They are more closely in contact with several adventuring guilds.


3. Jarestvuori: (Order) - "Järjestö" translates to organization or order, and "Vuori" means mountain. This clan is known for its disciplined and structured way of life, maintaining order and stability within their community. Jarestvuori is the clan ruling over laws and conflict in Alt'Ena.


4. Taiturikivi: (Craftsmanship) - "Taituri" means artisan or master craftsman, and "Kivi" means stone. This clan excels in craftsmanship, creating exquisite works of art and practical tools from stone and metal.


5. Taikakyli: (Magical Talent) - "Taika" translates to magic or enchantment, and "Kylä" means village. This clan possesses innate magical talents, with members skilled in the ancient arts of rune-crafting and earth magic. They were the ones that created the Magical Academy of Alt'Ena


6. Kestavsrotu: (Endurance) - "Kestävyys" means endurance or resilience, and "Rotu" means race or lineage. This clan is known for its endurance and resilience, enduring hardships and challenges with steadfast determination. This clan has organized a number of sportsmanship events and games in and around the city. They generally excel at peaceful conflict resolution.


7. Dilokallio: (Diplomatics) - "Diplomaatti" means diplomat, and "Kallio" means rock or cliff. This clan is skilled in diplomacy and negotiation, often serving as mediators between other dwarven clans or even with other races. This clan builds and mantains most of the connection towards the outside world.

General power of each Clan relative to each other

Clans are supposed to be equal in power. But like many things in life this does not reflect their reality. Some of the clans simply have more power depending on the areas they are most specialized in and how dependent other clans are to them.
The two strongest clans are clearly Voimakallio, that govern the millitary might, and Jarestvuori, that control most of the laws in Alt'Ena. Consequently, their decisions can easily tripple down to affect any of the other clans more than would be normal. This "problem" is only mitigated by all of the inter-clan marriages and relationships that regularly occur. However, this at the same creates tension with each change of leadership. In particular which other clan marries into the leadership of the two former clans.
Moreover, outside of Alt'Ena clan Dilokallio has the most connections and thus the strongest influence, while they are relatively weak inside Alt'Ena. This has been noted several times by other clans since depending on the situation Dilokallio may become the in facto strongest clan of the city. It has also been speculated that this is the reason why the clan of diplomats has mostly outward oriented efforts on the cost of their power in Alt'Ena. Some conspiracy theories also claim that the clan is faciliating problems in order to strengthen its power due to need of outward forces.
A particular situation also arises due to the Domin Andaimon, the unit that is specialized in fighting and handling Daimon threaths. This unit is influenced by several of the clans directly. For example, the clan Löytosatian controls plans of venturing into the differen dungeons. The Taiturikivi has to build specialzed weaponry and equipment that is usually not necessary to that extend for guard units. Moreover, Taikakyli often forms specialzed magical rituals and further enchants equipment, The clan Voimakallio has to train these units and is in theory direct organizer of the unit. In practice due to outward stations, clan Dilokallio handles most of the missions of the Domin Andaimon. Finally the clan Jarestvuori has to make specialzed laws for all of these to work in harmony in the ever-complex Dwarven law system. This makes the Domin Andaimon maybe the only truly independent organization in Alt'Ena.
Last but not least, there is one clan that lacks any of the aforementioned roles. This is clan Kestavsrotu that on the surface has no truly influential tasks and seems to sink into the background of Alt'Ena politics. But this is also a strength of this particular clan. Its decisions have way less political weight making most of the members more independent from the other clans. Thus, they are also more free to give support to other clan in certain scenarios which can often be decivise in tricky political votes. In short this clan is always in the background but never forgotten. Furthermore, they arguably also make the best beer since clan members have way more free time to experiment with brewing techniques.

Current Leaders of each Clan

Each Clan has several leadership structures with one central leader figure that is inherited by the individual. By tradition this is a male dwarv son of the former leader that marries one dwarv from another clan that joined the clan from outwards. In rare cases of no sone born it can also be the eldest daughter that inherits the title. Either way this marriage strenghens the bond of each individual clan to a specific other clan. Thus the marriage of each dwarven leader is highly political in nature.
Once a dwarv has been chosen to be the next leader of a clan, everything will be prepared to officially give him his position. A grand ceronomy allows him then to take on the title and the former leader would retire. Usually this would happen immediately after marriage of the future leader. But there are two recent examples where a proxy leadership position was given to the next in line despite being still unmarried. these will be expanded below.
Leader of Voimakallio - Thorinvald Voimakallio of the clan of strength. Still being unmarried he eventually took up the mental of leadership spiting tradition in the process. This caused uspset amog other clans leaders that did not want the power equality of the clans to falter. But Thorinvald's was more of a peace-loving and diplomatic man than almost all of his ancestors. Thus, his unusual position was eventually accepted. Of course, with many clans still grasping at the chance of marriage.
Leader of Löytosatian - Hjalmur Löytosatian of the clan of Discovery is the leader of exploration in Alt'Ena. He is more concerned about organizing the clans ressources to have meaningful relations than exploring himself. Accodring to some of the younger clan members this makes him out of touch. Hjalmur is currently the oldest of the residing clan leaders.
Leader of Jarestvuori - Kjellbrand Jarestvuori is the second clan leader after Thorinvald Voimakallio that got his position wihtout marriage. He is very brazen for a Jarestvouri and rather than mind old and new laws lifes the life of an adventurer. In fact, Kjellbrand is one of the most prominent dawrven adeventurer in the world right. To fuel his lifestyle he uses a lot of the wealth of the clan and leaves the handling of the more delicate operations to the clan elders. These very same elders complain about their leader's behaviour in public, but in truth are very happy about this arrangement. Hjalmur Löytosatian and Kjellbrand Jarestvuori were in Kjellbrand's youth mentor and student, respectively.
Leader of Taiturikivi - Magnus Taiturikivi is the clan leader most often forgotten about. This is despite his (for a dwarv) enormous size and effort to create more technical advanced workshops in Alt'Ena than ever seen before. Though the latter might also be the reason why he is often overlooked since this creates many weeks where he is bound to internal meetings with his advisors and best inventors. Magnus' most important work until now was a complet restoration of the teleport in 3281 without having to stop the transportation activity at all.
Leader of Taikakyli - Astrid Taikakyli is the currently only female clan leader among the seven clans. While still unusual, it has been historically happened quite often that a female dwarv would take up leadership. Yet, Astrid fight's for a change in the system so that women become more common in leadership positions among dwarves. Her tendency to break tradition made her also support Thorinvald Voimakallio's decision to stay unmarried for now. With her many involvements many people forget that Astrid is an extemely accomlished mage who is said to maybe the most talented graduate of the Magical academy in the last decades. She turned down many positions offered due to her abilites to take up her leadership position of the Taikakyli.
Leader of Kestavsrotu - Stenrik Kestavsrotu is mostly concerned with perfecting his latest exotic beer brews.
Leader of Dilokallio - Drottmir Dilokallio is the leading diplomat of Alt'Ena clans. He is known to usually be out of Alt'Ena on a diplomnatic mission but always bringing exotic goods for his contacts in Alt'Ena.

Clan Joining

It is common for dwarves not born into any of the seven clans to come to Alt'Ena and join any of them depenidng on occupation. This is a relatively straight forward process that does not involve much more than a signature and a starting fee. Of course, staying a member of a clan involves more time and effort since clans tend to silently exclude inactive members if they cannot provide enough evidence that they indeed provided value to the clan while being inactive. Dwarves can be pretty petty. The same process can be applied to dwarves already born in Alt'Ena but that were not assigned to a clan at birth. This has become more common since newer generation tend to not follow in their parents footsteps.
In rare occassions it is possible to change a clan. In this case, a dwarve has to submit papers describing why he is unfit for his current clan and a better fit for the other clan. This can be an exceptional long process in itself so that many dwarves wishing to undergo that process simply stop being active members, get expelled from their old clan and finally join their clan of choice. While being easier all of this can still easily take one or two years until change is made and the change can generally bite a clan changer in later job prospects or marriage propositions. Dwarves can also be very stubborn and suspicious. More famous dwarves or even known to be talented dwarves have a harder time undergoing such processes. Generally a clan wants to keep its most valuable members in order to retain power relative to other dwarves. This even if the member that wants to change would be a much better fit for another clan.
In recent times discussions have come up of allowing non-dwarves to join the clans. This has mostly been proposed due to the population growth of other sentient species in Alt'Ena. Voices against argue that sentients not born as dwarves are less likely to hold up all of the rules and laws of their clans. They worry that allowing this will eventually corrupt and destroy their delicate system. Members in favor of this change argue that the system is already broken and changing it might actually benefit all members.

Trivia

There are two legends of how the clans came to be. One tells of a founding father or family depending on the story. The other claims that all clans were seven families to begin with. Of course, in reality both of these might be true and all legends around the founding of Alt'Ena have common points.

Controlled Territories

• Alt'Ena