The First Gnomish Hierarchy[1] was one of the three empires which ruled Cannor during the Age of Antiquity, and which remained as a major power for much of the Age of Ashes. Existing in total from 1127 BA to 470 AA, it was unique as Halann’s first technocracy, along with its first major gnomish nation. Centered around the Dragon Coast, [2] it consisted of gnomish, halfling, and human peoples. It was destroyed during the Dragonwake, though its mantle has been claimed by the Cliff Gnomes in the Nimscodd Hierarchy.
History[]
For all inquiries into the history of the First Gnomish Hierarchy’s, please refer to Chronicler Dirigible Bliebergander’s “A Tremendous Timeline of the Original Hierarchy.”
Government[]
The governmental structure of the First Gnomish Hierarchy can be divided generally into two eras: that of the “Conference” and that of the “Machine.” While both shared similar cultural backgrounds, the former has been defined primarily as a military dictatorship with a ruler elected by a cadre of regional elites, and the latter constitutes what is now known as a technocratic system.
The Conference[]
Upon the First Gnomish Hierarchy’s founding in 1,127 BA by Plaise Holderroy, it functioned as a loose confederation of city-states which had ties to each other only through trade connections and mutual subjugation. Ruling from Royvibobb after having conquered the Dragon Coast, Holderroy gave wide autonomy to the scholar-officials of each city-state, demanding only taxes and conscripts in return for self-rule. By doing so, the first incarnation of the Conference Hierarchy functioned primarily as a means for Holderroy to extract soldiers and coin from the rich cities of the coastal Dragon Coast, in return for her armies holding off raids from human and halfling tribes. The funds Holderroy collected went only towards funding these soldiers and defending the borders, with few exceptions.[3]
The “Conference” of the “Conference Hierarchy”’s name comes from 1,027 BA, when Holderroy retired. Having faced constant revolts from the Bay Gnomes,[4] she called a large number of Bay Gnome and Hill Gnome elites to the city of Widdechand, halfway between Oddansbay and Royvibobb. There, she announced to the collected officers, fortification engineers, traders, scholar-officials, and mages that they would choose her successor from within their own ranks. This was done to ensure that she would live to see her unstable empire carry on without her, and that whoever was chosen to succeed her would have consent from Bay and Hill alike.
This conference became known as the “Conference of the Hierarch,” wherein the current Hierarch would, after one hundred years, call for the elites of the Hierarchy to choose their successor. This system was notable for its disciplinary, rather than regional, character: those who were represented in the Conference tended to affiliate themselves not primarily by culture or region, but rather by classes of “officer,” “scholar,” “mage,” and so on. In these early years, the Conference was also not an advisory body, nor a structure of government; it existed solely to elect the next Hierarch. Importantly, its members were simply whoever the current Hierarch invited to attend, meaning that each Hierarch could choose only their loyalists without care for the consequences.
The Conference system underwent a radical change in 889 BA, when The Unnamed Hierarch[5] was murdered by Malliardth Onespark, a disgruntled mage-general. Onespark proceeded to call upon his troops to establish control and proclaim him Hierarch, but the army chose a different path: they arrested Onespark, and called for their own Conference.[6] This new Conference was made up of a far greater number of participants than any previous Conference, and explicitly, rather than implicitly, divided seats and apportionment by discipline and rank. The richest traders, the highest-ranking generals, the school headmasters, the city administrators, and so on were recruited from across the country, with no exceptions for personal loyalty. Before long, Iyam Antop would be elected Hierarch, but not without concessions: the Conference would become a permanent governmental body, with seats apportioned according to societal rank, rather than the Hierarch’s whims. The Conference became an arm of the state.
This “Second Conference” system survived for approximately seven hundred years. Throughout this time period, the Conference gained ever-increasing power over the Hierarchy, and took on a diverse number of roles within the state. It divided itself into multiple sub-committees in war, trade, engineering, diplomacy, and more; it oversaw the expansion of the Hierarchy into the Small Country and Lencenor; it aided in the creation of the Gommo, which was founded as a way to organize artisans and maintain supply lines; and it administered trade routes reaching from the Bay of Chills to the Bay of Wines to the Dameshead. The lines between the “Second Conference” Hierarchy and the “Machine” Hierarchy are blurry, and there is no particular date which can easily separate the two,[7] but this period can generally be seen as one of increasing professionalization and state control. As the Conference gives way to the Machine, the First Gnomish Hierarchy becomes recognizable to the Second Hierarchy.
The Machine[]
Beginning around 200 BA, the “Machine” system constituted a radical change in Hierarchal administration, politics, philosophy, and rule. As the Damerian Republic asserted itself onto the world stage, and as Castanor ruled in the east, the Hierarchy increasingly found itself with a need to justify its internal structure. After many years of argument in the Thoughtful Academies, the Oddansbay Academy of the Thought published the Manifesto of the Machine in 290 BA, which immediately took Hierarchal politics by storm. The Manifesto begins as such:
“1. Society must be organized as to maximize the greater good.
2. To effectively maximize the greater good, a society must comprehend how the world functions.
3. The functionality of the world is far too complex to be understood alone. Individuals must, together, contribute to the Theory of Everything.
4. The Theory of Everything is best-understood, best-applied, and best-contributed-to by the most intelligent and capable individuals.
5. The identities of the most intelligent and capable individuals may be ascertained through constant tests of mental aptitude, including tests of discipline, ingenuity, innovativeness, and skill.
6. Therefore, society must be led by those who have proven themselves in tests of discipline, ingenuity, innovativeness, and skill, as they are best-suited to maximizing the greater good!”
This initial syllogism[8] immediately ingrained itself in the minds of the Conference-members, who had already started experimenting with wide-scale civil service exams and career performance reviews. This combined with a general intellectual milieu musing about an alternative to democracy or autocracy, creating the word “technocracy”– rule by technology, efficiency, and knowledge– to prompt a change not only in government functions, but in the character of governance itself.
In 287 BA, the “Conference” was abolished, and the “Technocratic Machine” was established in its place. At the top of the Machine was the Hierarch. Its other members were Axles, each of which led a discipline-based division known as an Apparatus. Each Apparatus was divided ito sub-committees, known as Gears, and the members of each Gears were known as Cogs. Written tests and performance reviews became vital for promotions, as to try and make promotions more fair. [9] Bureaucracy sprawled in all directions, with more records, meetings, conferences, sub-conferences, and sub-sub-conferences established than ever before.[10] All aspects of life were given rules of order, but these rules are divided by Apparatus, or profession; scholars, army officers, and blacksmiths alike each had their lives dominated by an increasingly-centralized state, but the actual rules they would labor under would depend entirely on which Apparatus controlled their livelihood.
This level of control soon extended not only to the core Hierarchy territories, but also to their human and halfling subjects. The foods each community grew, the lands they were allowed to farm, and the places to which they could move were all determined by the Machine. In return, administrative campuses[11] were constructed in each community, from which they were given the opportunity to advance in society and prove that they were worthy of promotion. Literacy rates grew tremendously, as did population displacements and revolts from Hierarchal subjects.[12]
The Machine empowered certain communities and professions, while disempowering others. The Gommo, soon grandfathered into the Production Apparatus, became vastly powerful after artificery was invented and mainstreamed. Alongside the Gommo came the empowerment of artisans across the Hierarchy, whether or not they were engaged in artificery. Professors and educators gained a role in every Hierarchal city, ensuring that they always had work and were respected throughout the nation. The Merchant Apparatus had monopolies over all trade routes, though it was divided by rival organizations which each attempted to prove their own methods of maximizing profit were better than each other’s. Lost in all of this, though, was the peasants– the vast majority of the Hierarchal population– which had next to no representation in the Machine. Peasants were seen as a vast underclass of the “unpromoted,” who had not yet proved themselves as a viable contributor to the Theory of Everything. Their work was seen as a default state of life, not something to be celebrated, and so they were subject to whatever regulations local Apparatuses believed would increase agricultural production the most.
As time went on, the Machine underwent multiple transformations. After the Day of Ashen Skies, Beepeck[13], the creation of public works like the Gommoton Records, and increased autonomy for the Small Province. Many reforms also extended to the non-halfling population, including the establishment of some elected, rather than appointed, Cog positions.[14]
As a whole, the late Hierarchy was characterized by a Machine which compromised its centralized, technocratic character as to appease its shrinking dominion. When the Dragonwake took place in 470 AA, the Hierarchy was unable to defend itself, and many point to its weakened technocracy as one of the many reasons why it was unable to launch a sufficient defense. Notably, though, just as many scholars point to the Hierarchy’s initially-overbearing technocracy as one of the major reasons for the country’s eventual downfall. The technocracy of the First Gnomish Hierarchy remains a contentious system of government through to the present day, wherein many nations still take inspiration from its character. May debate over its merits be ever-fruitful!
Military[]
Upon its founding, First Gnomish Hierarchy’s military was divided into a three-tiered structure known as the “Holderroy System.” In order of importance, these tiers featured (1) an elite core of damestear-powered battlemages, (2) a body of semi-professional gnomes, and (3) an auxiliary of mercenary humans and halflings hired from outside the Dragon Coast. The battlemages functioned as a mobile, ancient artillery, spewing fireballs and other spells in an era before widespread adoption of war wizardry in Cannor. The rest of the army functioned mostly as a protective barrier for these mages: the body of semi-professional gnomes was experienced enough to hold the line and protect the middle, while the auxiliaries were relied upon for shock damage and raw strength. This system was deadly against disorganized tribes, and initially found great success against Castanor and Dameria, but relied too fully on the mages alone to maintain dominance of the battlefield for long.
The first change to this system came during the early years of the “Conference Hierarchy,” [15] wherein the body of semi-professional gnomes was educated in fortification engineering. While fortifications were largely important to the success of the Hierarchy from before its founding, their forts had, initially, been managed by a separate class of soldiers than those who joined the army on campaign. This was changed when the Hierarchy began expanding past the Dragon Coast, as their capability to quickly construct defensive lines and barriers was key to protecting the ever-crucial battlemages.
As time went on, greater emphasis was placed on the training and discipline of the human and halfling auxiliaries. Their mercenary character was lost as the Hierarchy expanded into the Small Province and Lencenor, and they were gradually trained in formation fighting. By the time of the “Machine Hierarchy,” the Military Apparatus had fully integrated countless humans and halflings as full-time members of the army, who were allowed to retire only after a decade or more of seeing conflict. These non-gnomish forces came to be a majority, then supermajority, of the army, but were almost always led by gnomish commanders. Since promotion required proficiency in the field alongside mastery of the Thought and gnomish education, and since most human and halflings commanders simply never given the required time to study these concepts, gnomes tended to dominate the upper ranks.
In the post-Dragonwake Hierarchy, military structures changed further. With the mass adoption of artificery, there were now two core gnomish regiments: the battlemages, and the artificer infantries. While the former[16] still took on a role much like that of artillery, the latter used state-of-the-art enchanted items and unique weaponry to become an elite shock unit. Even as the Hierarchy lost many human and halfling subjects, and therefore lost thousands of potential recruits, their elite units were still able to awe many of their foes on the battlefield. In addition, as lands were lost, the Hierarchy once again began to heavily utilize foreign mercenaries to fill up their ranks. No matter the era, the Hierarchy preferred to utilize gnomes as specialized elite troops, with the vast majority of infantry being constituted of humans and halflings.
Philosophy[]
In 1027 BA, the first Conference of the Hierarch inaugurated Gareson Roygibiv as the second Hierarch. Roygibiv, unlike his predecessor Holderroy, was a Bay Gnome philosopher by trade, and his election meant a focus on thought and education. To be elected, Roygibiv promised to the collected officials of the Hierarchy that he would bind gnomes together by perfectly synthesizing their philosophies into a singular, shared culture. In a massive campus wherein all future leaders would be trained, he said, stability– and progress– would be ensured forevermore.
The product of his philosophical experiments was the Thought,[17] which blended the pragmatism of the Hill Gnomes, the innovativeness of the Bay Gnomes, and the stories brought to the Dragon Coast by the Ambler Gnomes, along with hints of the Splinter Gnomes’ veneration of damestear. Ancient gnomish philosophies had centered around damestear, and often worshiped it as a god; but, by the time the Hierarchy had formed, this practice had mostly given way to more practical modes of interaction with the world.[18]
In Hill Gnome communities, a martial pragmatism– developed through centuries of conflict– had led to a focus on domesticating the world. Scholar-officials often spoke of the need to sculpt people, places, and concepts into whatever the gnomes needed them to be. With this in mind, those who held the greatest esteem in Hill communities were those who could develop efficient methods of farming, smithing, war, and administration; to build efficiency was to master the world, and to master the world was to protect the community. In the dangerous Hills, this was the highest calling one could reach towards.
In the Bay Gnome communities, [19] on the other hand, philosophies tended towards the redacted and dialectical. Seeing Hill Gnomes as lost in the material (and therefore unable to comprehend the true magnitude or nuances of the world), the Bay Gnomes held constant debates, plays, and rituals as to understand the greater workings of Halann. Gods were even relevant here, though not solely in veneration; the Bay Gnomes debated the virtues and merits of various halfling and human deities, experimenting with methods of worship to see if doing so could give them greater insights into the topics they cared about.
In Widdechand, then, the Thought was synthesized with both Bay and Hill influences. Through fifty straight years of argument, debate, and philosophy– all of which was between army officers, merchants, artisans, farmers, scholars, and more– a series of “Thoughts” were crafted, making up, in total, “the Thought.” This new Thought revolved around perfecting the Theory of Everything, or, in other words, fully understanding the world.
The Thought and the Theory of Everything[]
According to the early Thought, the Theory of Everything contains every aspect of life and functionality: how societies work, how physics work, what makes good art, what allows birds to fly, what justice means, and every other possible permutation of all concepts. It is vital both because to know it is the greatest way to improve the world, and also because it is the greatest way for any individual to improve themselves. The arduous study of any field or subject contributes to the Theory of Everything, for the Theory can never be conquered by any one person, and Everything is too vast for any person to master themselves. It is, by the Thoughtful’s claims, only through the intelligent allocation of resources, potential, sentience, progress, and mastery whereby the world may be understood (and therefore furthered). A fool may accidentally aid someone, but only one who understands what “aid” means, who they are dealing with, what their needs are, and how they might best contribute towards those needs may effectively maximize their contributions to goodness.
There are, according to the Thought, four core tenets which further the Theory: Rationalism, Progress, Sentience, and Onbekken. They are understood as follows:
Rationalism: the Thoughtful venerate reason and critical thinking. Debate is encouraged, as is experimentation, as is– to an extent– productive failure. To fall into a singular way of thinking, and to no longer be able to see outside one’s own perspective, is to cut oneself off from the Theory of Everything; and so the Thoughtful are expected to concede when they are wrong, assert when they are right, and constantly meditate on the biases which they hold. All beliefs must be supported by logically-sound syllogisms, or, at bare minimum, well-reasoned priors.
Progress: the world’s ends must be furthered. The intelligence of all creatures, every collective fields of knowledge, methods of engineering, creative wordplay: every piece of knowledge must be valued and cherished, for it adds to the whole. This extends not just to knowledge, but also to all other ends. People must be fed well, supported by solid structures, spiritually healthy, and happy; each of these is an end that must be furthered, constantly and aggressively. The principle of Progress may therefore be summarized thusly: all positives are possibilities which must be prodigiously pursued with passion!
Sentience: all intelligences must be valued, and to increase a being’s Sentience is to increase their potential contributions to the Theory of Everything. While some radicals find Sentience in rocks, trees, and society itself, most simply see it as a quality of all living things. To educate someone is to increase their Sentience, and with Sentience they may unlock Rationalism, Progress, Onbekken, and the Theory. Education is the greatest good, from which all other great goods flow!
Onbekken: [20] the Theory must be utilized. All the knowledge of the world is useless if it is not used; it merely grows, boils, and builds within a mind, bursting at the seams with no direction or purpose. In this way, the mind is much like damestear, the rock from which the concept of Onbekken derives. As damestear is capable of accessing change itself– of molding the world in its own image, and in the image of its wielders – so too does it corrupt and explode when not utilized correctly. Onbekken is the usage of the knowledge which the Theory imparts, ensuring that the Thoughtful are always productive and utilize their skills. While not every follower of the Thought may be a super-genius, they all have their talents; and each of these talents, when correctly applied, furthers the Theory for everyone!
The Thought has undergone numerous changes since its first invention, but the Thought of the Hierarchy held strongly by these principles. From the time of Roygibiv’s first publication of The Philosophy of the Thought, it ingrained itself fully into the governance, culture, and society of the Hierarchy.
Influences on Society[]
The Thought had numerous impacts of Hierarchal society, ranging from the continued elevation of scholar-officials, to the government-sponsored debates attended by tens of thousands of citizens, to the nation’s entire governing structure. During the Machine Hierarchy, the Thought and the technocratic system became intertwined: to support one would be to support the other, and to deny one would be to deny the other. This fact was cited by Fizwick Allspark in personal letters as one of the many reasons why he abandoned the Thought when founding the Kingdom of Iochand: to be Thoughtful, at the time, almost required one to support technocratic rule, and he was founding a new kingdom rather than a new Hierarchy.
The Thought had far more influences than simply in governmental structure, though. The Thought led to a consistent emphasis on education, debate, and philosophy, which led to the First Gnomish Hierarchy boasting the world’s best literacy rate;[21] it also spawned countless treatises on political science, math, economics, engineering, and magic, many of which are seen as the foundations of modern work on the same topics. At the same time, many scholars attributed the Hierarchy’s authoritarianism (especially towards the halflings and humans) to the Thought, as the ruling gnomes often deemed their subjects as “less sentient” and/or “less rational,” and therefore less capable of contributing to the Theory of Everything.
The Thought had countless other influences on the Hierarchy. It bound the state together, gave a shared philosophy of culture and rule, and affected every aspect of social interactions. It heavily influenced the creation of artificery, early didactic theater, debate as an artform, the Cannorian university, Cannor’s first recorded census, and more. Without the Thought, the Hierarchy– with all of its triumphs and failures– may have never survived past a few hundred years.
- ↑ Known in its time as simply “The Gnomish Hierarchy” or “The Hierarchy”; the title of “First Hierarchy” has been placed upon the nation by historians, as to differentiate it from the modern “Nimscodd Hierarchy” or “Second Hierarchy.” While many Cliff Gnome scholars see the modern Hierarchy as an extension of the empire of antiquity and therefore call both by the name of “The Hierarchy” or “Gnomish Hierarchy,” the Chroniclers have seen it within their best interests to separate the two for ease of scholarship and research.
- ↑ Known in its time as “Nomhom,” or “Gnome Home.”
- ↑ The largest exceptions were in multiple failed attempts at building a navy through which she might conquer the Splinters and secure a permanent source of damestear. These expeditions were all massive failures, and caused the Splinter Gnomes to temporarily cut off trade– including, vitally, the supply of damestear– with the nascent Hierarchy
- ↑ The Bay Gnomes were still incensed from “Holderroy’s Trick,” the maneuver of allowing raiders into the Dragon Coast so that she might follow them with an army and conquer the ashes which they left behind. In addition, the Bay cities were rich enough to hire these same raiders to fight against the Hierarchy, and had enough competent battlemages to put up consistent fights. By this time in her reign, Holderroy was often fighting Bay Gnomes and their armies far more often than she was actually defending the Dragon Coast from invaders.
- ↑ Referred to as such for the fact that, unlike almost every other Hierarch, there do not seem to be any records of his name. This presumably was a purposeful act, accomplished by his successor; we may imagine that this was because the Unnamed Hierarch was a legendarily bad ruler, but with so few facts existing about his life, how could we know what is true and what is not?
- ↑ The army, at this point, was disgruntled after 138 years of coastal Bay Gnome rule, but many still fondly remembered Holderroy’s regime. The elite officers, who had been trained in the second Hierarch Gareson Roygibiv’s academies in the now-formalized Thought, felt bound more to their nation than Onespark, who did not seem to be particularly popular. If a more popular general had launched the coup, or if the Thought had not successfully convinced the army that the Hierarchy’s interests were best-furthered by rationalized rule, perhaps history could have gone differently; but these did not occur, and so history proceeded as it did.
- ↑ Though many gnomes have attempted to create such a line: the most widely-agreed-upon dates are 296 BA (when the Cerulean League defeated the Hierarchy in the Vertesker Revolt), 294 BA (when the Damerian Republic was founded), 290 BA (when the Manifesto of the Machine was published by the Oddansbay Academy of the Thought), or 287 BA (when the Hierarchy first promulgated the use of the term ‘technocracy’). Each of these dates marks an important point where the Hierarchy begins identifying itself not simply as a system, but as a “technocracy.”
- ↑ Flawed as it might be; though it may be a core tenet of the Thought, there is no support for the initial assertion that the greater good is the greater end. Far more worryingly, there is no support for the assertion that intelligence may be ascertained through sufficient testing!
- ↑ And to counter Damerian claims of corruption and nepotism!
- ↑ By trying to perfect every technique (as to reach maximal efficiency), the Hierarchy drowns itself in orders and missives.
- ↑ Which acted as administrative centers, schools for children, schools for adults, centers of commerce, community theatres, and more, all combined into one!
- ↑ In the “Small Province,” the region where halflings are relocated, these policies caused incredible friction. The boundaries of many modern halfling settlements were established, but at great cost: halflings were fiercely resistant to being moved around. The Hierarchy tried giving them better farmland, incentives, and schools, but it did not matter; the halflings did not want to be controlled. The Small Province’s humans are settled away, and the vague boundaries of future halfling cultures are created through administrative boundaries.
- ↑ At the time, perhaps the Hierarchy’s second-most-important city, after only Oddansbay itself (and perhaps Widdechand); it was the example of a successful halfling city within the Technocratic Machine, it was the major trade route between the Dragon Coast and the Dameshead, and it hosted a vast percentage of the Hierarchy’s wealth]] defected to the Damerian Republic, partially due to long-standing issues with governmental representation. This led to a serious overhaul of gnome-halfling relations within the Hierarchy, including greater empowerment of halfling families<ref>Many of which would end up dominating the Small Kingdom’s various localities in the Small Kingdom!
- ↑ These Cogs were not be elected by the general public, but by the workers within each discipline: the artisans in Royvibobb, for example, could vote for the “Royvibobb Representative Cog, Eleventh Gear, Production Apparatus.” These cogs would never make up more than a fourth or third of any Gear, but they proved to be relatively-popular.
- ↑ See above.
- ↑ An ever-shrinking group, due to many gnomish mages preferring to aid in the creation of artificed weaponry rather than risking their own lives at war!
- ↑ Or, at least, the first recognizable strain of the diverse and multifaceted philosophy!
- ↑ The Splinter Gnomes, having been trapped for so long in their burrows with little more than damestear to guide them, continued to host pockets of damestear-worshippers well into the 500s BA.
- ↑ It is important to mention that the “Bay Gnome” culture existed primarily as a cultural backlash to the Hill Gnomes, not as a distinct ethnographic grouping. While heavily influenced by the Ambler Gnomes, the Amblers were always small in population; the Bay Gnomes (arising around 1,250 BA, not even a single gnomish generation before the founding of the Hierarchy) were primarily of Hill Gnome stock, but chose to settle in the richer regions of the Dragon Coast as to escape the harsh and brutal life of their forefathers.
- ↑ Onbekken generally translates to “mastery,” “dominion,” and/or “expertise,” though its meaning does not quite fit any of these definitions, so we have left it in its original Gnomish. Hold on, dear readers; all shall be explained soon!
- ↑ Still an abysmal number, notably; even the most literate ancient society still pales in comparison to any modern nation-state!