Fun with Family Trees #4

Building Houses 2: Expanding the Family to a Dynasty

In my previous post I suggested a relatively simple method for generating a family for a character. The idea was to give each character a little extra depth.

For Houses Major - the planetary ruling noble dynasties - I tend to simplify my Family Generating rules even further as I am inevitably attempting to construct a lineage that stretches over several centuries.

Usually, I have a date when the dynasty first gained its title. A number of the Rimward dynasties, for example, were established during the Trumer Restoration, the campaigns of Sector Duke Leonid I Trumer that ended the chaos of the Sarkul Wars in 906. 906 is the official date for the establishment of Miazan Subsector, the founding of the Duchy of Miazan and the accession of House Geyukthi as Dukes of Miazan. It also marks the accession of House Mahuran as Counts of Bromus. Obviously, there were antecedents in the family lineages of House Mahuran and House Geyukthi but, prior to 906, these antecedents were just members of the teeming mass of Houses Minor and other functionaries who had found themselves drawn into the orbit of House Trumer and, in particular, the orbit of the man who would become Leonid I, Sector Duke of the RimWorlds.

In the case of the House Geyukthi lineage, with the chronological start point established  I pretty much rolled 1D6 and declared that Duke Arkuru I had three siblings, assigned them spouses, and went from there. The width of the page of my notebook pretty much decided the maximum number of descendants per generation, and I kept a close eye on my History of the RimWorlds document to check for events that might lead to major die-offs amongst dynasty members, such as the 3rd Outrim War that devastated the Geyukthis.

The Geyukthis of Miazan are a patrilineal clan - in fact, by default, I tend to construct patrilineal clans as Western European History tends to accept inheritance - of the family name, in particular - as passing through the male line. We accept women taking their husbands' surnames, we accept lines of descent being plotted from father to son, and we are only just beginning to question male primogeniture in the English royal succession. In my notes I have one House Major, House Hikasaku of Gazul Subsector, who practices pure primogeniture - the successor of the first Duke was his daughter, and her husband was bestowed with the honour title of Count, but not Siridar-Count as he did not rule an Imperial County of more than one star system.

When I pretty much pulled the family of Saariki Hassoon out of thin air for my previous post, the dice dealt me a sequence of female characters in all the critical age groups to keep the family viable. Pushing the ages around a few years avoided child brides and child mothers, but pretty much confirmed a matrilineal descent from Liriansa, through Goushansu, to Saariki Hassoon the Marine. I wrote and posted that post at work (a slow day in the data fields) and mulled it over on the way home. The most difficult part of the family tree construction was that I had opted for a vaguely Egyptian naming style and it wasn't immediately obvious which names were male and which female. Other than that, I was suddenly presented with the question of why the 53rd Century Family Trees I had been constructing were so concerned about male lineages when, basically, girls could do anything, including be Marines and Fleet Admirals.

Chagrined, I had a look at House Mahuran, Siridar-Counts of Bromus and the first House Major I had constructed in a couple of decades.

In building this House, I had a character, Count Sakkan III, already extant in my game notes. Looking through my extant family trees, I picked up three female members of House Mahuran who had married into other Houses Major. My usual practice to now has been not to record the ages of females marrying into a House, I have worked under the assumption that their age will be similar to that of their spouse. Working backwards from their spouse's ages, I was able to place these women both generationally, and then temporally, and discovered that the current Count of Bromus had two aunts -sisters of his father - who had become Duchesses of Miazan and Gamelea, respectively. Not bad for a couple of gals from the potato fields of Bromus.

While filling in the generations back to the establishment of the County of Bromus in 906, I realized I had to fit in two more Sakkans, and any number of other holders of the Honour. Somewhere along the way, I discovered that Sakkan I had lingered on as Count for a lot longer than the standard human lifespan. This gave rise to the intrigue about his possible use of anagathics (and possible rumours of a haunted tomb) which, in turn, gave me more scenario ideas.

For those interested in this sort of thing, this Wkipedia article gives a good explanation of what we perceive as the "standard" form of succession, as well as some that are, perhaps, not so familiar.

I particularly like the idea of the Lateral Succession where the Septs of the Clan of the House Major effectively form the Houses Minor of a planetary system, as well as filling its senior military and administrative roles. Upon the death, or retirement, of the current holder of the House Major honour, the heads of the Septs meet in conclave to elect the most suitable member of the Clan to succeed him or her. This person may not necessarily be the head of a particular Sept, but that Sept will gain status for having produced the successful claimant.

History of the RimWorlds – Design Notes

When I began constructing the subsectors that were to become the core areas of my Traveller campaign, I had no idea of their history. Later, as I learned more about GDW’s 3rd Imperium campaign setting, I envisioned my campaign area as being “just off the map” of the Spinward March. Later again, when I discovered that the Trojan Reach had overwritten “my” bit of space, I ignored the entire issue of interlinking until my friend Chris came up with the concept of the Whisp and the Veil. In the interim, for the RimWorlds I had developed a List of Sector Dukes, Subsector Duke Lists for the four Imperial Subsectors of Gamelea, Nolgor, Miazan and Gazul, and family trees of the Houses Major that held these four Subsectors.

In 2008, as I began writing up my Traveller material for my website, I worked up a History of the RimWorlds from the 1984 chronology. This, in turn, led to an expanded Imperial History of the RimWorlds. As this History grew longer and longer, I eventually broke it up into the various sections, or chapters, that it now appears in. The Imperial History of the RimWorlds drew heavily on the Sector and Subsector Ducal Lists, and as I came to consider dates and events in the chronology, and what was actually happening behind the scenes at those times, having the family trees proved a real bonus. In one place I suddenly had a cast of characters, in the relatives of the ducal encumbrants, who had their own motivations and desires and whose actions and reactions could also reverberate both forwards and backwards in time. This was all some years before I discovered T4’s Pocket Empires, but the principle was very much the same.

The current power structure in the RimWorlds dates back to the initial Imperial colonisation of the Sector by Lord Kolin Venuraski of Deneb and his Chartered Private Equity Company in the early Sixth Century of the 3rd Imperial era. This is very much based on a form of the comitatus system, similar to that used and understood by Count Belisarius in the Sixth Century AD on Terra, crossed with the merchant-adventurer company common in England in the Sixteenth Century AD. Under this system, Houses Major and Minor contributed resources to Lord Kolin’s exploration and settlement of the RimWorlds in return for resources and land (ie planets or systems). Under Lord Kolin’s leadership, the Houses Major and Minor agreed to contribute military forces for the mutual defence of the territories claimed for the Imperium and to support such Imperial Forces and agents as were assigned to the RimWorlds.

So in the RimWorlds, unique amongst Imperial Sectors, the Subsector, or Colonial, Fleets are the first line of defence and maintain law and order within the various Subsector Duchies. The nine Imperial Subsectors share between three and four Imperial Fleets amongst them, so these fleets tend to act as a strategic reserve under Sector Ducal control. RimWorlds Subsector and Sector Dukes have traditionally led their forces from the front and the chronology and family trees are filled with the premature deaths of senior figures during various battles. This becomes understandable if one is also aware that many members of the Houses Major and Minor also hold senior command positions, either within their Household forces, their Subsector forces or the Sector Command Structure.

Traditionally, most Houses Major practised patrilineal inheritance for their major titles and offices. Daughters tended to receive minor holdings and offices and were married off to secure alliances between Houses. Heiresses often found themselves in the position where they could hold command rank in the military but were somehow considered incapable of holding a political position in their own right. House Hikisaku of Gazul/Gazul was unique amongst Houses Major in that they practised primogeniture inheritance. This policy was attributed to Admiral Alleen hault-Hikisaku, Governor of the Trans-Nolgor Territories, who was confirmed as Subsector Duke Alleen I of Gazul Subsector in 593, upon the elevation of his family to House Major status. Amongst Houses Minor, patrilineal, matrilineal and primogeniture inheritance all find their supporters and adherents.

In reviewing the Imperial History of the RimWorlds document on my website, I feel disinclined to cut and paste it into this blog as this would be, I feel, lazy blogging. Instead, I will endeavour to précis what I have already written and, perhaps, expand upon it so that readers of both sources will see a campaign’s deep background unfold and grow before them, hopefully for the betterment of my on-going game.

Accidents in Astrogation: Gazul Subsector #2

Gazul Subsector is an artificial construct. The bulk of the subsector’s Imperial population dwells in a system midway between the two political hubs of Dokar in the Dokar Main and Gazul in the Gazul Run. The political astuteness of House Hikisaku brought Gazul Subsector into existence and House Crensea has maintained it for the last three centuries as an independent Imperial political division, not just as a frontier zone of Nolgor Subsector. During this period, two Gazul Subsector Dukes wore the Sector Ducal coronet and Gazuli Naval units defended both their own Rimward frontier as well as the Spinward frontier in Miazan and Gamelea Subsectors in various border wars, which, considering that the bulk of the Gazul Subsector Navy operates with Tech Level 11 or 12 equipment, is no small achievement.