Barony of Bonél-Ombér
Structure
Feudal, mostly. Most people in power are Arachne, and very few humans possess the title of a lord. The barony is obviously ruled by a Baroness who holds most of the political power, for the nation is matriarchal and the ladies make decisions while the lords are not burdened with such responsibilities. The Baron is the only one allowed to converse with the cadaverous ambassadors of the Quamites, and he supervises certain practitioners of wizardry who are bound to the service of the Baroness, and holds council with them on the topic of supernatural concerns and the matters of deities and spirits. Despite the matriarchal nature of the Barony (The 'Baronessy' sounds far too silly to be taken seriously, so the Baroness must title the kingdom after her weedy husband - such measures must be complied to in the preponderantly patriarchal Federation of Frastland) the centre of power is a diarchy.
Below her are the lords and ladies who grant burgages to the human landed gentry and their manors. It is widely agreed that by ordaining humans with knighthoods more Arachne lives may be spared.
Assets
Being a completely landlocked nation wedged in-between several much larger feudal states, there are very few boats or ships that are owned by the Baroness, most of which are modestly sized river-craft. arachne need no mounts, for they are tauroid creatures, and thus only human knights own horses - they also control the vast bulk of mundane weapons, and own several castles across the countryside. Their tithes have made them extremely rich, with vast stocks of copper, grain, and cedar timbers, and hundreds of men-at-arms at their service, although they are only a rotational, not career soldiers. Their subjects own many sheep and goats from which they have acquired much wool and cheese.
The arachne ladies are even richer, and the taxes they impose on their human and arachne subjects are more ludicrous than that which the human knights impose on their own - from their arboreal palaces they own vast amounts of amber and silk, entire woodlands guarded by their hired rangers. Art collection is a popular hobby among them, and they also fly in lavishly decorated hot air balloons moored to sturdy trees to survey their fiefdoms. In the hills, cinnabar is mined for jewellery's sake.
Also the priesthood possesses in their secret vaults magical items of immense outer-dimensional power which range from looms of ivory that allow one to glimpse upon the manifold futures, and another loom that can grant those attuned to it inter-dimensional vision and perhaps even travel.
Demography and Population
Two thirds of the population consists of humans descended from the mighty demigod Gorad, with strong Frocious admixture diluting them to the point where they have forgotten most of their heritage. They practice lower-class Frastrian culture and also mimic the culture of the ruling arachne class. Then the other third consists of Jieklian arachne, 4 percent of which possess authority of any kind. While the majority of both races are alike in that they are poor and plebian as fuck, only the arachne may own land larger than a knight's fee. They occasionally interact with each other in larger towns, but most segregate themselves into different settlements - humans live in valleys and arable plains, whereas the arachne tend to congregate in coniferous forests where they weave their tiny hamlets, with the exception of Jieklis Gorge and other semi-subterranean cities where they are more aloof.
Territories
Most assume that Jieklis Gorge is where the barony is ruled, but it just so happens that
The Barony's legislative power extends over eleven fiefdoms - the mountainous, windy fiefdoms of Bru'ubaat and Lahnod, and the heavily forested fiefdoms of Guren-Ged and Ormidoh and Narmallu, and the plainslands of Palavim and Werheem, and the shrubby, sparsely-populated hinterland fiefdoms of Alengo, Stombrid, Debb and Shmidstut where barely anyone lives. Arachne are native to none of them, for they immigrated here many years ago, but the fiefdoms of Guren-Ged, Werheem, Lahnod and Narmallu are where their enclaves are the largest and their numbers the most profuse. There are other great rifts settled in the same way as Jieklis Gorge, and pit-cities and caverns and chasms are done so in more sophisticated styles.
Foreign Relations
Their relations towards Tragemnorte is lukewarm at best. They trade and occasionally visit each other, but no plans for a railway to connect the two states is being proposed; though it is to the Archduke of Tragemnorte to whom they swear fealty. They are in turn considered a backwater community inhabited by a strange race of spider-people, spoken of neutrally or worse by the Tragemnorteans.
They do not like the Principality of Shibillon and find their manners disturbing and childish.
The silken atlases of Jieklis Gorge do not consider Jurelond to be a legitimate geopolitical division, merely a perfect indicator designated as the territory of a Selkie queen's own megalomaniacal vanity.
Type
Geopolitical, Barony
Capital
Demonym
Omberian
Leader
Head of State
Government System
Monarchy, Constitutional
Power Structure
Feudal state
Economic System
Market economy
Currency
Pentagonal, hexagonal and heptagonal coins made from bronze, pewter and nickel, engraved with the idealized visages of the first three Baronesses on one side and the corresponding deity on the other. These all have a round hole in the middle through which any arachne can string a thread through - most of them carry their money on their necks or around their waists, or even around their wrists. Most humans use alloyed metal ingots of a very specific weight engraved with the face of their lady.
Legislative Body
The Baroness and her court, consisting of her ministers and bailiffs, decide all the laws of the realm.
Judicial Body
Their nation is also somewhat theocratic, for the Baroness must answer to the priesthood of the spider-goddesses and their spooky superstitions that govern their daily lives and the way they think. These religious nutjobs control the judicial system and all within the Barony is subject to their justice, and control all the mysterious artifacts and hierlooms that they have possessed since time began.
However the barony must adhere to the convoluted Frastlandian Oath and other federal laws, which are persistently upheld by an insufferable bunch of stubborn Tragemnortean lawyers with copious amounts of bodyguards. Both factions hold heated debates regularly in the tempestuous Court of the Inner and Outer Earth, where they argue about various things and call each other unkind names. Every mediator between the two factions is a foreigner with a throbbing headache from their arguing.
Parent Organization
Official Languages
Controlled Territories
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