Land of the Eleven Tribes

[Juggernaut1981]

I am not saying that "The Truiet claim the throne". What I am saying is "Nobody gets to be the King without the Truiet agreeing". Because when it comes down to it, it wouldn't be hard for them to let the ships of a bad ruler get destroyed by Pirates while they carefully protect the ships of an ally.

Don't assume people play politics nicely.

If you control the trading, you control the value of commodities and resources. Via the shipping paths (the only credible export path based on this map and their apparent isolation), the Truiet will have the physical (and therefore political) power to basically destroy whichever guild/family or tribe angers them by cutting off their supply of cash.

What makes OPEC powerful? They all agree about the value of their goods and it's hard to get them any other way. They control the shipping of oil. Even if they didn't already control its production.

What made the Dutch East India company powerful? Control of the delivery of goods, and so on.

It isn't the MAKERS of materials that always hold the power, it is often those who TRADE it.

Negotiations over the trade lanes, I would suspect, would follow this kind of format:
Tribe A "Why should the Trueit control the sea lanes?"
Trueit: "Sure, we'll take our ships out of the water and let the pirates get your ships until you can defend them yourself..."
Tribe B: "But we can't afford to lose many cargo ships to pirates, they are already taking enough"
Tribe A: "But we don't want to pay taxes to the Trueits"
Tribe B: "Taxes vs complete losses... we'll take Taxes"
Tribe C: "I agree with (side)"
Tribe D: "We agree with (other side)"
... [insert stalemate here with Trueit retaining the role and power associated with protecting shipping for the whole nation]

[LonewandererD]

That is true but with a few exceptions. Only about a quarter of the nation's Magice is traded to other countries, the rest is used by the tribes themselves and the Belphradunn and Arathyl Tribes control the mining and distribution of Magice and so they remain on an equal standing with the Truiets who need their Magice for their own needs. The Lobradis Tribe, while not as financially powerful as the other three have been able to maintain their high positon becuase they control the routes in and out of the capital and are the only tribe that can claim direct blood relation to the Jha'N (monarch) as the Uniter, the first and greatest of the Jha'Ns, was originally of the Lobradis Tribe.

Also trade ships of the Wanderer Caste returning from the south have brought with them The Enlightenment, and with it comes airship technology. Currently only the Jha'N and the Wanderers posses the only working airships in Evelakaia but this still threatens the power of the Truiets as airships can bipass their trade routes altogether.

Theres a lot of stuff about this world that complicates things and I don't want to bore people with the details just yet but hopefully this info helps to clear up the matters.

-D-