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Eventually, it was March that asked about the beastkin, just to get the conversation going again. She was unafraid of breaking the silence. It was a big step forward for Ulf yes, but not one that would be completed anytime soon, even if it was something that he was interested in. So she asked, "Tell about the beastkin, and what sets them apart," 

Oditr took a quick swish of juice and few bites of food before she began. "Right, the beastkin. Ok, to really get into it, I have to lightly touch on everyone else first. We\'ve got a… sort of balance between everyone now. We did a long time ago as well, though said balance wasn\'t as clear back then. That\'s why we had a war about, or at least. That\'s what my grandfather likes to say as a joke. 

"Beastkin, have always had the most martial might ready to be mustered at any one time. Not necessarily the most powerful fighters, or the best equipped or any number of other things, but ready, martial might. Beastkin tend to get to Rank 2 or 3, and even most of there \'civilian\' members still get to Rank 1 to help support their lifestyle. Which isn\'t uncommon exactly, but for beastkin it is only the truly infirm that don\'t know how to fight at all. 

"So that obviously gives them a pretty big stick at the negotiating table. Still, to counter this, the elves tend to have the highest quality fighters. We\'re ignoring the dryads by the way," Oditr mentioned almost offhandedly. "Things get really complicated if you include them, but there isn\'t even one hundred thousand dryads in the world so we can do that. Anyway back to the elves. They tend to live long, and get to pretty high levels of power… but not all of them are fighters and their population is a lot smaller then that of the beastkin. So if it came to a straight up fight… could go either way really. 

"The humans have, or had perhaps, Ulf. I touched on it before, but he was scary before he became king, and only got stronger from there. Now… they have the most population and possibly the most land? It depends how you account for certain things like oceans so I won\'t get into that part much. It does however, mean they probably have the most food production which is also really important. Especially when the beastkin don\'t farm all that much, so their food production is rather poor. 

"Then you have the fae. They tend to be really good at spying and many people say their magical scholars are unrivalled. It makes fighting an aggressive war against them arguably impossible. They can just ward the absolute shit out of their cities and turtle up until you run out of food. Unless it\'s the humans, but as we established, Ulf isn\'t going to help with an aggressive war, and the fae aren\'t really that scared of the humans otherwise. They\'ve got firepower enough to return fire if it came to it. 

"Now, my people, the dwarves… well we used to have the arms and armour advantage. We could equip whole squadrons with the best armour you can possibly imagine… but we kept up with the practice even as we entered times of peace and we\'ve handed out quite a lot of said arms and armour just because… well a blacksmith needs to make a living doesn\'t she?

"I\'ve been trying to get my people to innovate a bit. Perhaps come up with new arms or armour to help bridge the gap but research is slow going. I\'ve got my own secret project that has promise… but it\'s still got a lot of problems, and while I don\'t mind chatting with you, military secrets are staying secret. 

"Anyway. So that\'s the basic balance between the races as I see it. Perhaps I\'m right, perhaps I\'m wrong, but considering who my teachers were, I\'m rather inclined to believe it." *Yeah if anyone would know it\'s the other royals. So they\'ve probably got a pretty good idea.* "Which leads us back to the beastkin. They\'re pretty scary on paper. They can start up a war faster then anyone else, and if they time it right, they might even be able to end it. Theoretically. 

"See the problem with that idea is that all of them serve under a different leader. There is no beast king. So they\'re actually a bit of a paper tiger. Oh sure, if we attacked them they\'d all unite together faster then you can say savagery so it\'s still a concern, but not as much of one as they like to pretend on the regular. 

"Which leads us to the jokes. The problem for the beastkin is that they\'re dealing on inherently unequal footing. They don\'t have a powerful king or queen, politically powerful that is, I know a few beastkin chiefs stronger than I am, that can get shit done. So when they come to ask for trade deals and the like… 

"Well it\'s hard for them to bargain properly. Who do they go to? They find it insulting to go to duchess or even a marchioness… but that\'s all they are really. Oh we have different titles for important dwarves but that\'s what the other races use so I\'ll use it here as well. So then we have a problem. They can\'t come to say, me, because I\'ve got way more authority then them, and they\'ll end up with a poor deal. 

"They can\'t go to someone of lower station though, because that would be setting precedent that they ARE only on the same level as, probably duchess is what they\'d choose. Now, even I think they\'re basically a collection of maybe marchionesses if they\'re lucky, not even to the level of a duchess except for maybe one or two… they\'d never admit to that. So trading with them becomes really awkward. 

"How do you go about it? If you send it to the council they have, all that will happen is they\'ll debate it endlessly and then conclude that trade deals are up to the individual members, but then said individual members won\'t want to negotiate as a group, they want to do it each separately. Which we don\'t want because that just becomes an extra headache. 

"But say you do go that route? Perhaps it all works out perfectly. You get the trade deal set up. It\'s all going well… oops what\'s this? You need to cross some other tribe\'s land to actually complete the deal? Well shit now you have to work something out with those guys as well, even if, technically speaking, it should have nothing to do with them and beastkin long ago agreed to give free right of travel through their lands… that all stops when there\'s money on the table," 

260

Oditr sighed and continued, "Look, it just becomes a hassle. We can\'t NOT deal with their government as a proper recognised nation… but we can\'t really deal with it either because how things are set up doesn\'t really let us. We\'re supposed to respect each individual chief, but nobody can agree on just how much power they all should have and…" Oditr threw up her hands, "It\'s just a massive mess.

"So we joke about it amongst ourselves. Arguably… something that the beastkin as missing out on. They don\'t exactly share the same comradery the other royalty do… but they\'re stubborn and, as I mentioned earlier, powerful so they can continue with their weird form of government despite its problems because apparently it works for them.

"So there\'s the joke. Can\'t work with this, can\'t work without them. Can\'t work with individuals, or groups. Yet the joke is that it all somehow works… oh and animal puns. Might be a little racist, but we still do it."

*It\'s really weird that the beastkin have the government most similar to our own, and one we might be tempted to argue for… but here it just doesn\'t work out. Or at least, it causes issues with the other nations.*

[I think that has a lot to do with the fact you can get so much individual power in a world with magic. A king or queen doesn\'t just need to decide policy. They need to be a symbol. A symbol of the countries power. A ruler with the ability to personally defend their country with fire and brimstone if necessary. It\'s basically like electing a talking nuke as your leader. You need one, because other people have one. The beastkin seem to get away with it by… I guess in this analogy having a lot of smaller bombs that are still quite deadly? Just, obviously not on the same level as the nukes, and everyone knows.]

*What a weird but oddly accurate mental image you paint.*