Kirkhurst
Structure
High Speaker
Though the governance of Kirkhurst has functioned independently from the total theocracy of the Church of Farlith, its leader remains beholden to the words of scripture and the Holy Interpreter both.
Contrasting the vast majority of other positions within the clergy, that of the High Speaker was not one ordained in the writings of Hurst Farlith. The office was crafted by current Interpreter Martin Orvus in the year 1464 to facilitate the Divide of Great Haversham. Speakers are imbued with a similar level of authority within the Church hierarchy as Haversham's High Scribe, though are naturally afforded much more autonomy in the affairs of local religious law and peacekeeping.
High Speaker Barclay Medford, a former Archvicar of Farlith's Third Order, was appointed to the position by Interpreter Orvus after being volunteered by the order's local chapter.
Military
Despite the span of Kirkhurst's borders, the nation does not produce nearly enough riches to keep a large standing army for itself at any given time, instead relying on the more traditional feudal hierarchy of calling upon lords to raise levies should the need for soldiers arise. The lack of any real threats to its borders, however, means that said need should rarely arise in the first place.
Kirkhurt's standing forces, then, can be neatly divided in half; those serving locally, and those serving under sanction of the Church. As with many other feudal states, the guardsmen for cities and hamlets are conscripted beneath the pay and watch of local nobility and landowners. Unlike many other feudal states, the decades across which said cities and hamlets saw their denizens slaughtered by the hundreds in the worst era of the great plague has instilled within them the need for a more centralized system of communication. Lords frequently receive extra funding from the Church – both domestically and from its head in Yherwich – specifically intended to properly equip their city watchmen with more adequate training and protective gear. While cutting down on criminal behaviors within city walls, the longer-term intent of this policy is to keep a patrol both well-paid and well-instructed to ensure that any instances of suspected plague are swiftly reported to Church authorities so that proper action may be taken.
True power resting in feudal holds is a concept from before the living memory of most Kirkhurstians, and many fear that this return to less centralized power may cause the nation to fraction even further away from the once-whole Great Haversham and that peasants may soon be conscripted for war within the nation's own borders. Others argue that the strict and prevailing authority of the Church itself will keep any feudal lords beholden to the word of their High Speaker.
Harvestmen
The Three Orders hold as much of an established presence within Kirkhurst as they do across Greater Haversham, but said orders are also beholden to the Church itself rather than to immediate domestic law. The Harvestmen, then, are Kirkhurt's response to the Church's Third Order. Naturally not intended to combat or siphon legitimacy away from the Church Vicars in any way, the Harvestmen are instead meant to take the rigorous training and high-quality supplies afforded to the so-called "Witch Hunters" and direct them more closely to legal concerns than blasphemous ones.
Unlike the nation's feudal forces, the Harvestmen are sworn strictly under the command of the High Speaker, and act as his personal authority and bodyguard in the absence of Church personnel.
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