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There are hundreds of clans present all throughout Kathartome. There are about 350 clans, of which only about 50 hold land that is more than just a small village. The greatest clans all claim to have originally been founded by descendants of various individuals mentioned in the epic poem and the Xeros.

A clan is like a noble house, but one does not need to be related by blood to be a part of a clan. There will always be a dynasty that rules the clan and many clans have swapped dynasties multiple times. In general, the members of a clan are the ruling family as well as their subjects.

Clans are the owners of their lands and can do anything they want with it. Most of the time though and still in the present day, they all remained as vassals of the Gharkost that gave a levy, tax, and other assorted tribute to the Gharkost. Clans have the authority to rebel against a Gharkost if they believe that the Gharkost is an unworthy ruler.

A clan can also have "sub-clans", an equivalent of what would be called as a cadet branch of a noble house. They can do most of the things a normal clan can do but are usually smaller than their original clan and do not have the right to be represented in any governmental assembly.

If a "sub-clan" is large enough, it can eventually become the dominant clan. The leader of a "sub-clan" can duel the leader of their original clan on the pretense of becoming the leader of the original clan. If they win, the "sub-clan" becomes the dominant clan and the original clan becomes the "sub-clan".

A clan usually consists of three major components. There is often a leader that rules the clan (called a Stotëo, and is the most recognizable aspect of a clan most of the time), a priest, as well as a "speaker" that relays information to the member of each clan. These speakers are essentially diplomats, wisemen, and regents for clans. The priest fulfills the religious responsibilities of the clan, in relation to seeing whether members of the clan do not commit sins, and to officiate any ceremonies. These three can decide how the rest of the clan is structured, what roles are there, and other such things.

These three major roles are the trifecta that these clans build themselves up upon. The largest clans have a wide-reaching hierarchy consisting of these three roles, that contribute to something akin to that of a Byzantine bureaucracy. Larger clans are structured on councils upon councils in charge of every fief that the clan possesses. A council of a village reports to the council of what is essentially a province or duchy, and then that council reports to the head council.

Cities can be divvied up by area to each have their own councils as well. Each council has at least the three main roles followed by any other positions that are deemed necessary. The head council chooses amongst themselves somebody worthy of being called the leader of their clan, which can either be done through a vote or through a duel.

This head council almost always consists of individuals of the same dynasty who repeatedly elect those of their own dynasty. Whereas the succession laws of Gharkosts is always primogeniture, clans are almost always having an elected leader from a singular dynasty. Whenever somebody succeeds in a duel to take leadership of a clan, the head council is filled up again with people of their own dynasty. The lower councils beneath them largely stay the same, because this approach of taking control of a clan is considered legal and non-actionable by most.

This system of councils has proved to be the most effective system of governance in the region for millennia. The drawback to this system is that each lower council remains largely independent and aloof from the authority of the head council and that decisions take a lot of time to be implemented.

This government system most likely originates from tribal wisemen and village elders, that eventually expanded to be the main way to govern. Each clan varies in how it handles this system, sometimes being very authoritative or being very lax. As long as taxes and levies are being provided, the head councils usually didn't care.

Many clans also have an assembly in their capital cities, where representatives from each council (in larger clans, it may only be representatives of the larger councils) can petition the head council, vote on bills, and other such things. This is because while the power of the head council is quite significant, the head council in most clans do not have absolute power for passing laws. The lower councils can vote on laws related to money as well as laws related to the responsibilities and tribute of the lower councils. Except for these privileges, the power of the elected leader is otherwise absolute.

In the modern age, this bureaucracy is now very much accountable for their actions and clans usually act in unison. The mandate of the Gharkost is the most overarching priority and openly ignoring it is a cause worth getting challenged to a duel for. The bureaucracy still remains to be time-intensive, however, as only orders of the Gharkost are done with any real pace. Orders of clan head councils will have arguments and discussions that can go on for years.

The clans in the pre-modern period were essentially feudal lords that held complete say over their land and resources. Every clan must swear fealty to the Gharkost, whoever it may be, assuming that they are not a sinner or a bad ruler in some other way shape or form. However, the extent of how much the reigning Gharkost wanted to exert power varied. Some let the clans do whatever they want, whereas others maintained an iron grip on them. A loose central control over the clans is considered one of the main reasons for the Hyrellian invasion.

After the Hyrellian invasion, the government that took over was a fairly liberal constitutional monarchy. However, it continuously siphoned resources from the clans and did not really do much to develop them. This Hyrellian monarchy tried hard to integrate itself within the Kathartomari, trying to gain their trust and ensure stability. While not the best for the Kathartomari, it was not exactly the worst.

The worst was when a dictator called Alexhandler Khalon Hyrell took over the nation. He spread the belief that he was the reincarnation of a deity and therefore everyone should worship him. Over his some 40 years of rule, he nearly completely erased the Kathartomari identity to replace it with Hyrellians. The Hyrellians went from some 20% of the population to 40% during his reign. His totalitarian policies eventually led to him ending up fighting a war, a time for partisan groups to seize control and organize an active insurgency.

Following the Kathartomari rebellion (known as tur-Revalutson or the-Revolution) that deposed Alexhandler Khalon Hyrell's tyrannical government and the disappearance of the Kerkoste, many of the clans went their own separate ways. However, a minor family within the Stratao clan had much greater ambitions. They challenged the ruling Stratao rulers and won, gaining control by law.

Inspired by the model followed by many nations on the world stage, this family created an egalitarian Kathartomari republic. It was a parliamentary democracy wherein the legislators were elected from within member clans. This fledgling republic found only a few members, with the only other major clan joining in being the Ghotern clan.

In any other scenario, the Republicet would have gathered steam and have procured the membership of all clans. However, the nation of Kathol rift had sponsored a cultural resurgence of the clans and thus began the end of the Republicet as a viable option for a Kathartomari nation.

The Federaṣi Corakorinja was an interim government formed by Gharkost Sero when he ascended to the throne in order to consolidate his position and get his bearings. It lasted for a few months before a restoration to the current system with all clans swearing fealty to the Gharkost. Extensive lobbying was conducted by the clans to expedite this process, to avoid losing all of their power.

Using his unlimited authority, Gharkost Sero funneled billions of verusâ into media and propaganda houses that in turn spread favourable news about Sero and brewed Kathartomari-first sentiments, moulding a populace into a vehicle of political gain. Doing this allowed for Gharkost Sero to gain leverage over clan leaders. While clan leaders did lobby for a return to the feudal system, Sero granting it was a move only to gain the support of even more Kathartomari.

While media is still largely independent, this focus on creating popular support means that anything that seems remotely against the government gets boycotted and declared by common people that it is "against the nation's unity".

In the pre-modern era, allegiances were usually to both an individual's clan and the Gharkost. There was no allegiance to the idea of a Kathartomari nation. This was not much of a problem prior to the Hyrellian invasion, but it did become one after the invasion. An insurgency only concerned with one clan, or one person could not actually free the Kathartomari from Hyrellian oppression.

Thus, the idea of Kathartomari nationalism began to form. Allegiances to the nation would be foremost, only then followed by the Gharkost or clan. However, while partisans now agreed with the idea of a unified Kathartomari nation, they were still disunited politically. Many insurgent groups found themselves with wildly varying political ideologies across the political spectrum. This was an issue that was seemingly resolved by the last decade of the Hyrellian regime.

Perhaps the greatest failure of Kathartomari nationalism was the ignorance of Hyrellians in a post-revolution state. Not many thought much about the life of Hyrellians in a post-revolution state. In the modern day, the Hyrellians are in a limbo. While being the largest minority in the nation with some 40% of the population being Hyrellian, they are not really considered as citizens of the nation. The Hyrellians also have no political representation for them. In time, it is clear that this will become a major point of contention between Kathartomari political organizations and government.

The red revolutions of Wubdich and Strala were the greatest inspirations for Kathartomari revolutionaries due to their relative proximity. Communist thought and philosophy quickly became a favourite of partisans and insurgents as they sought for political ideas that would be an effective government for a post-revolution society.

The basic tenets of communism called for the abolishment of the class system and for power to go to the workers. Yaist thought under Strala modified these tenets to suit the agrarian Stralan society. Similarly, Kathartomari thought they too could modify these tenets to serve the Kathartomari people best.

The port city of Irotara was where the ideologies of Arenism and Harākemism first took root. Irotara was a largely self-administered territory that nominally swore fealty to the Hyrellian government, but eventually Alexhandler Khalon Hyrell tried to exterminate the clan and seize its territory. The reason for Alexhandler Khalon Hyrell's decision to do so was because Irotara was an intellectual hub for educated Kathartomari formulating dissidence against him.

Harākemism (harākem being 'crimson') is largely an economic theory that takes influence from communism. While outside of the scope of this dispatch, Harākemism usually signifies that the government plays an important role in influencing and directing the free-market economy. In the modern day, it also refers to a type of command economy wherein there is not much government bureaucracy in the activities of state-owned corporation, and they compete with each other as in the free market.

Arenism is the political thought that elaborated on the political and administrative execution of Harākemism within a state. Construed by the revolutionary Aren Vāl (who was killed when Alexhandler Khalon Hyrell seized Irotara), Arenism is a rather moderate ideology that does not lean towards the far-right or far-left. Thanks to this trait, it secured support from nearly all revolutionary groups as a unifying ideology and even the current government under Gharkost Sero considers itself Arenist-Harākemist.

It is important to note that Arenism, and more broadly Arenism-Harākemism, cannot really be considered a communist ideology. It strays far from communist political thought and could be considered as more akin to social parliamentary democracy or constitutional aristocracy.

The most important differentiator between Arenism and regular communism is that it keeps the clan structure intact. Each clan holds onto its fief and retains some power. In essence, it draws out a federation of clans held together by a central authority. During Aren Vāl's life, he did not go into much detail about the central authority. He described that the central authority could either be led by an elected official or some sort of constitutional monarch.

What he did specify is that in an Arenist government, there would be an assembly of representatives from each clan who would be able to vote on decisions and propose laws. Every representative would be picked for the job through elections where each local clan council had one vote. The candidates for this election would be anybody who is a part of the local clan councils, which adds even more democratic processes into the administration of clans. This allows the ability for political parties to be organized. Assuming that the central authority was led by an elected official, the assembly of representatives would vote one amongst themselves to become said elected official. Otherwise, if the central authority was led by a person akin to a monarch, the representatives would be able to have checks and balances on their power.

Aren Vāl was planning to release a comprehensive document of this ideology but was killed before he could. Thus, Arenism in the modern day is simply an interpretation of his sayings and ideas. Ultimately, Arenism played the role of helping to carry out a unified revolution that did not get bogged down by political differences.

Arenism is the fundamental base for modern governance in the clans. The United Clans are governed by a strong central authority, known as the federal authority, internally. The central authority is officially under Gharkost Sero. The central authority largely lets the clans administer themselves, but whenever it feels that the clan rule is no longer adequate, it is more than capable of taking control. The central authority manages the economy and most major responsibilities (such as the military, education, and healthcare).

Each clan has its own central bureau wherein all administration on the behalf of the central authority is conducted, which is usually located in the capital city of the clan. Smaller clans are sometimes clubbed together under one bureau to reduce administrative costs as each bureau employs hundreds or even thousands of civil servants, clerks, and support staff.

The representatives of each clan gather in an assembly known as the huclāfelm (lit. hall-clan-listening), with each representative known as a honëd (lit. caller). The honëdâ have the ability to propose laws, and therefore are a legislature body. There is no upper or lower house in the United Clans, therefore we can see that the United Clans has a unicameral legislature.

There are 233 honëdâ in the huclāfelm for the current year. While there are ~350 clans in total, many are unlanded or do not meet the land requirement to be eligible to have a seat. The exception to this rule is the hūnamatâ clans who were given very small parcels of land so that they could become eligible and be represented. The below image shows the current allegiances of all honëdâ.

It is important to note that the allegiance of each honëd is not set in stone. Their decisions may vary, but in general the above image can be used as a rule of thumb to figure out which factions within the clans hold most of the power. This is especially true for pragmatist honëdâ who will almost exclusively vote according to the benefit they receive from doing so.