Thunderhead Dominion

The name 'Thunderhead' has many meanings.   Thunderhead is the great; anvil-shaped cloud in which the palace of Rastan is concealed. It is also used to describe the anvil-shaped, dormant volcano, Mt Asteria, on which the first council of the tribal leaders and early kings created the Dominion. That council, and its successors, are also called Thunderhead, as is the Circle that grew up on the mesa, in which the council still meets. It is also the name of the Dominion's symbol, the Thunderhead Axe.  

History

The Minotaur were one of three Greatfolk lineages to emerge in northern Caino. They call themselves the Children of the Storm, and their creation myths tell how Rastan the Divider split them from the stone; how Rastan's first children, Asteroth the Stormherd and Urthara the Earthdriver raised them from savagery; and how the children of Astaroth and Urthara brought them civilisation. While the rites of Storm and Stone are still observed. most Minotaur religion is focused on their children: Iserith, Asterion, Karvan, Knossor and Eldorn, each of whom nurtured a different part of the minotaur being to ensure that they succumbed not to mindless fury, nor passionless gentility; neither reckless kindness nor callous cruelty.   Originally nomadic herders – the minotaur see no connection between themselves and their domestic cattle – under the influences of their Culture Gods, the early bands of minotaur united in the sprawling and anarchic chiefdoms known as mobs. Although they had a proud warrior culture, these proto-tribes sought balance rather than conquest, and so they grew slowly, yet inexorably. Where the mobs came across the Mathom who shared the north, they did not clash, but instead found common ground and complimentary natures. The mathom tempered the minotaur, and together they grew strong, chiefdoms growing into tribes, which began to ally into nascent kingdoms and to form settlements in what had once been seasonal camps.   Without the immediate threat of the Legion and the Regime, the minotaurs never forged the kind of unity that developed into The Elysian Federation, instead gradually coming together under the impetus of a shared drive and a unity with their immediate neighbours, both the mathom and small human tribes, who found a place in the emergent civilisation as administrators, facilitators, and eventually bureaucrats.   At last, with the threat of war between these growing kingdoms, the leaders of the largest factions came together in council in the caldera of Mt Asteria, also called the Thunderhead. There, they forged a Union which they named after the mesa: The Thunderhead Dominion. They structured this state on a model which they called the Axe of the Thunderhead, represented by the form of a traditional minotaur war axe, long-handed with double blades, shaped like crescent moons or butterfly wings. According to this model, the ideal government is represented by the blades - the minotaur themselves, the cutting edge - the socket and head - weighty and crucial to directing the blade, the gravitas of the mathon - and the haft - the hard-working bureaucracy, mostly human, that keeps everything swinging together.  

Political Structure

As a result of its increasing organisation, the largely informal definitions of minotaur social terms have gained much more specific meanings. In the Free Moblands, a mob is simply the social unit ruled by a Moblord; in the Dominion, it is the key unit of social organisational. A Dominion mob consists of twenty-to-fifty minotaurs, and usually half as many mathom and twice as many Humans. The mob has two leaders, one for peace and one for war, the Master of Hooves and the Master of Horns. The mobs in turn are organised into Standings. Similar in scale to the traditional drift - five-to-ten mobs sharing a nomadic territory - a standing is led by a Thunderlord. In addition to the people of their mobs, a Thunderlord is responsible for the Standing's burgh, a central town hosting the market, law courts, treasury and other administrative offices in the compound known as the standing hall. The Thunderlord's offices and advisers are known as the standing court, and represent the Lord's local authority.   The Thunderlords also have a wider political role. Like the drift lords of the free mobs, they have a responsibility to represent their mobs in the wider polity. The court of a Thunderlord is the basis of representation on the Thunderhead, each lord appointing a representative from the court and one from each of their vassal mobs. In theory, each representative speaks for their own mob, but in practice the representatives of a Sform a voting bloc controlled by the Lord.   As the mobs are ordered into standings, so the standings form into larger alliances. These alliances are led by the Thunder Kings - like 'lord' the title 'king' is ungendered among the minotaur - whose courts are housed in the Circles of the Dominion, great cities serving as higher administrative hubs, diplomatic centres and seats of government. While the court of a Thunder King sends only a single representative to the Thunderhead, the King also exercises a strong influence on the combined voting blocs of their standings. In addition, a King is also a Thunderlord on their own right.  

Economy

Increasing stretches of land – especially around the cities – is given over to farmland, to feed the growing population. Mines in the rockier areas of the Dominion produce gold, silver, copper and tin in great quantities. Minotaur warriors still favour traditional bronze blades, while a growing soldier class prefer steel traded with the The Elysian Federation, a dichotomy that is seen as the archetype of the clash between modernity and tradition.  

Military

While geographically separate from either the Federation or the Empire of the Southern Sun, the Dominion has a powerful navy, which it uses to ensure its control over territorial waters and its ability to influence the political balance between the two southern powers. Should the Empire and the Federation ever come to blows, the Dominion could swiftly project a force to take advantage of the conflict.