#furysong

She lives in my head rent free

It’s kinda late, and there aren’t that many changes that I want to detail in this post, so I decided to do Norcia right now. I’ll do Callipolis part II soon, and that’s going to focus on Callipolis’ electoral system.

First of all, I’m operating under the assumption that Norcia’s political system was based off of the Gaelic Tanistry system. For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, in Tanistry the successor to the throne was shortlisted via derbfine, a family tree of sorts connecting candidates to the current High King through a shared great-grandfather.

While this would be Norcia’s historical system, I imagine that Griff, who was already very conscious about power and leadership and worried over what type of leader he’d be throughout Furysong, wouldn’t want any sort of heredity in Norcia’s system. After growing up a squire to lords like Ixion and Rhode, who inherited their titles and were terribly cruel, Griff would be wary of any amount of heredity, even if it wasn’t the deciding factor, and even it was only just heredity.

At the kingsmoot, Griff would warn to the voting elders that he would abolish the derbfine system in Norcia as one of the first thing he did as High King, but he would keep his country’s other traditions (such as legal codes and petition) intact. Though there would be some more traditionalist elders voting in the moot who would be drawn toward Seanan and his pure revival of Norcian traditions (including the derbfine), most of them, similarly wary of the throne moving through any family line, even if they were well-meaning and not colonists, would vote for Griff in the kingsmoot.

The system Griff would implement in its place would be something similar to the Polish-Lithuanian system. However, due to the lack of a true class of nobles in Norcia at this point, absolutely anyone born in Norcia, whether a fisherman’s son or a government official’s daughter, could put themselves forth if they wished. Everyone in Norcia would be educated by teachers from places like Callipolis.

Coronations would be quite similar to how they were before Norcia’s colonization under Griff’s new system. Prior rituals, the officiator declaring that the High King/Queen was chosen by the clan elders and asking if the people wish for the individual elected in the kingsmoot. However, instead of shouting the surname of the elected leader like before, they would shout “aye”.

Griff would also limit his power immensely. While Norcia’s native legal codes (which I imagine are based on Gaelic Brehon Law) didn’t allow High Kings absolute power, I imagine they still would have had a lot of it. Due to how small and centrally-administered Norcia is, I imagine that her native legal code would have called for High Kings to hold petition once a month, with sort of lawyers speaking on behalf of petitioners.

However, the result of the ha’Aurelian rule would have been fragmentation of clan unity. While the humble-riders were friendly with each other and there were occasional unions between Norcians of different clans (such as Agga and Eamon), the clans still wouldn’t trust each other that much. Instead, post-Liberation justice would mainly be seen to through clan elders. It was only when an issue involved more than one clan that petitions were brought to Griff.

Despite the fact that petition wasn’t a central thing now, Griff would still host it at the citadel. However, it wouldn’t be petition. It would mostly be a chance for members of all clans to share meals and hopefully get closer. Whenever there were petitions, however, their presentation would take a few hours at most. Mornings would be dedicated to educating adults, the first few hours after the midday meal would be for petitions (if there were any), and then it would just be chill. Any leftovers from lunch and dinner (petition would last the entire day) would be taken home by the common workers, who would have moved into the evicted ha’Aurelian manors after the kingsmoot.

The model I’m basing Griff’s limit of his power on is Norway’s monarchy, purposely designed to prevent the king from abusing his power, with a bit of Sweden’s Age of Liberty. He would make the clan elders an advisory council, and add three more elders for each clan. Traditionally, each clan only had two elders. Under the ha’Aurelians, there was only a single elder per clan. However, Griff would add the extra three to ensure more voices were heard. Griff himself would be part of this advisory council.

However, after each clan’s three extra clan elders decided to stay in the evicted manors with the people, Griff decided to give one member of each clan (even Thornrose) oversight over certain areas of Norcian life (inspired by @skyfiish’s reblog of this post). A seat on the advisory council would be given to each of the sheriffs. Similarly to Sweden’s council, there would be 17 votes spread out amongst 16 members. Even though Griff had two votes and the other members had one, all of them were still entirely capable of outvoting him. This council would be in charge of creating laws and judicial things. The laws they discussed and voted on would be recorded by Delo, Norcia’s Head Secretary, into the Norcian Lawbook (which would serve as their constitution).

When it came to the matter of Griff’s acceptance of the new law, this system stated that he had a suspending veto, not an absolute veto. That meant that, after he refused to pass a law, it went back into debate and discussion. However, there would be an exception to this rule. Whenever Griff was out on official business in another country, laws would still be debated and all, but instead of awaiting Griff’s approval of the new law, a meeting would be held on the Moot Hill, a convention of all Norcia’s people. If it got a majority vote by the people, it was passed. In the lawbook, it was recorded as normal, but it had the seal of Norcia next to it, signifying that the law was legitimized by the Norcian people. I also imagine that both Callipolis and Norcia would have a more rehabilitative justice system. Punishment would be based on number of offenses and severity of offenses, and, in Norcia, would be based around the citadel lairs (got this idea from @skyfiish’s Take This to Heart, after Delo’s (I think) comment about making Seanan shuck oysters as punishment for his disruptive behavior).

Besides that, the ha’Aurelian manors would be where the common workers live and where their children were educated. Each manor would have 4-5 floors.

After the Great Leveling and the destruction of many Calllipolans’ homes, I imagine a lot of Callipolans would stay in Norcia until rebuilding was complete. These Callipolans would be in charge of teaching the children of citadel servants in Provisional Palace apartments.

Finally, in the Greatlord’s former study (Griff would move his quarters to the other side of the citadel, the lair side, while still being as near as he could within the Riders’ Wing to the rest of the government) would be where Becca, Astyanax, Duck’s younger siblings, Seanan’s children, and others would be taught by Duck and Lena. Astyanax would, of course, be far ahead of his peers (maybe besides Duck’s brother, Greg, who I imagine would be ten). I imagine Sty was eight during the Liberation (like Lee during Palace Day), and with his dragonborn education, would have gone up until a third-grade education in just a year. Meanwhile, Greg, who, though he was a fourth/fifth-grader, had a generally medium-quality education in Callipolis under Atreus, which would amount to being about a year behind (third grade in fourth grade).

As for the Greatlord’s and his children’s apartments, I imagine that they would serve as a warning of the ruler Seanan would be. While Griff took a more plain, austere suite in the Riders’ Wing, Seanan would keep the Greatlord’s apartments for himself, his children, and his parents. Rhode’s and Roxana’s former apartments would be claimed by Seanan’s cronies and their families. As Seanan probably didn’t have a ton of paperwork (I imagine the paperwork would be handled by the ha’Aurelians, who were banished from Callipolis about three months post-Furysong due to there being no utility for them there and Callipolans loathing them, seeking refuge in the island which was formerly their family’s jurisdiction, and to no one’s surprise, the only reason they would be allowed to stay there was because no Norcian adult had been granted education enough the handle all the mountains of government-related paperwork, and it would be daunting for Delo to do mostly on his own), the Greatlord’s office would fall into disuse as he used the study within the Greatlord’s apartments to complete any paperwork which was sent to him.

I was just researching Imperial Russia’s education system to get an idea of the education dragonborn children received under the Triarchy and Triarchy-in-Exile,, and then felt compelled to search up Nordic education systems and found the perfect model for Norcia: Norway, with Denmark’s short days and year-round schedule.

Norway’s education system focuses on outdoor learning and practical skills, which I feel fits pretty well with Norcia. Classes would be taught practically, outdoors, until age 13. At that age, weekly outdoor time would reduce and be replaced with long expeditions to learn practical skills. Age 13 would also be when students could decide to be taken for the Choosing and dedicate themselves entirely to primarily outdoor education (Becca would do this if there were dragons ready to Choose when she was 13).

For riders, a day would begin with a three-hour classroom block, then pivot into observation of the full members of the fleet in training for an hour. Afterward, they have three-hour training sessions of their own, including sparring, aerial tactics, and a mock-battle serving as military history. Afterward, the cadets would come before Griff and a panel of clan elders and Woad-riders to give them a rundown of what they did during the battle. Griff purposely speaks last out of the panel and also makes it clear that no confession from a cadet could result in any sort of punishment, as they were just completing a task Griff gave them.

Anyway, for the students who choose the comprehensive route (Astyanax would do this), they would take mostly electives focusing on their area of interest until age 15, when they have the option to choose 1-2 areas of interest to either study the entire year as a test run, or distributed over the warmer and colder seasons. At the beginning of the following school year, students had an option to commit to a path or further explore. For those who committed to a path, it remained highly practical, sort of like extended job shadowing or an apprenticeship under an experienced professional.

As opposed to Callipolis’ more rigid assessment system (grades introduced at age 10), Norcia wouldn’t have grades. Until age 13, there would be verbal-only feedback. There wouldn’t be formal portfolios or assignments marked with “proficient” or “needs assistance”. Instead, there would be parent-teacher conferences where a student and one of their parents met the teacher to get feedback every 2-3 weeks. Following in-class assessments (which would either be projects or practicals), teachers would meet with students individually to give feedback.

At age 13, portfolios would start for both tracks, but for the riders’ track, there would also be a Fleet Message Book. Unlike Callipolan message books, this one would be accessible to all cadets. At the end of daily training (Monday-Friday), cadets would be log their strengths and weaknesses in the book. On Saturday, the final day of the work/school week, cadets would be paired based on their strengths and weaknesses. For example, if cadet A is skilled at using gravity to their advantage but weak at sharp banking turns and cadet B is skilled at sharp banking turns but weak at using gravity to their advantage, they would be paired together that Saturday in a sort of peer mentor program.

Monday-Friday, school would be five hours, and Saturdays, it would be three hours. Depending on the day and the season, after-care would be provided, lasting a certain length. Monday-Friday, warmer seasons, parents would work for nine hours. Saturdays, warmer seasons, they would work for six hours. Sundays would be off. During the colder seasons, parents would work for six hours on Monday-Friday, 4.5 hours on Saturday, and they would also have Sundays off.

On weekdays (summer), children would be at school from 9am-2pm and parents would work from 8am-5pm (nine hours). On Saturdays, school would last from 10am-1pm and parents would work from 8am-2pm (six hours). In winter, weekdays would see children going to school at 10am and returning at 3pm and parents heading to work at 9am and returning at 3pm (six hours). Saturdays would have children heading to school at 11am and returning at 2pm and parents going to work at 9am and coming home at 1:30pm.

However, after a petitioner brought up having to work on Saturdays as a grievance, he looked into it. Since Norcia received and gave a lot in trade during the warmer seasons, Griff told the petitioner that working on Saturdays in the summer was necessary, but he would shorten their hours and give them more time to sleep in the morning. During the colder seasons, on the other hand, Saturdays would be made a break day for both parents and children.

The new schedule would look something like this: weekdays in both summer and winter unchanged, Saturdays in summer having parents work 4.5 hours (9am-1:30pm) and school hours being the same, and Saturdays in winter having no work or school hours. However, students would still get a slight bit of homework to ensure that they don’t forget what they learned over the week, though it would be purposely designed to be finished in a day.

Also, the justice system would be massively overhauled. Unless someone proved repeatedly, after multiple chances, that they weren’t willing or able to coexist peacefully with other Norcians, punishment would be community service.