Hierarchy Ideas

Traditions
+10% Infantry Combat Ability
+0% Yearly Army Professionalism

Reconstitute, Reconstruct, RepatriateWith the reestablishment of the Gnomish Hierarchy, the Dragon Coast is ours to reclaim! Omni-skilled gnomes from across the world now flock to our shores, and we welcome them with neatly-printed forms and boxes full of tools. Each returning gnome submits their qualifications to the nearest authority, and is assigned with haste to their most suitable task. Scholars are absorbed into the bureaucracy, artificers are directed towards state laboratories, smiths are always in great demand, and the unqualified are sent all across the Coast to learn of construction, mining, and agriculture.\n\nSince the previous Hierarchy’s destruction, every ancient community has been razed to the ground: so now we can replan them to be even more efficient than they were before. Cities are springing up with fractal grids that minimise walking- and cart-distances! Neighbourhoods are built with the perfect balance of workshops, markets, artificeries, and schools! Even mine-tunnels are designed better, using standards (stolen from kobolds) which minimise the chances of collapse. This reconstitution, reconstruction, and repatriation will allow the Gnomish Hierarchy to once again dazzle the world with its constructions and wonders.
-15% Development Cost

The All-Small ArtilleristsGnomes and kobolds are renowned for four shared traits-- being small, hating each other, artificery, and artillery expertise-- all of which are mutually reinforcing. Tiny hands find it easy to clean cannons; frailty forces a reliance on firepower; artificery makes firearms when few have them; reciprocal wars strengthen the tactics of both. Gnomes have become experts of perfectly-staggered artillery assaults, in which rows of cannons are timed so that no enemy has a single moment to duck or return fire. In contrast, kobolds developed cannon-traps, hiding batteries behind camouflage until the unaware came too close. These tactics countered each other perfectly for years, creating a Coastal chess-match between gnomish suppression-fire and surprise kobold barrages. The balance was only broken once gnomes developed lenses that could detect kobold traps.\n\nThe Hierarchy, full of gnomes and kobolds both, has become the master of firepower on the battlefields of Cannor. The exact nature of the interspecies relationship has changed over time (and has never, at any point, been harmonious), but no matter the army’s internal contradictions, one thing remains clear. The Hierarchy has rarely found a castle it could not siege or an army it was unable to outgun.
+10% Artillery Damage from Back Row
-10% Fire Damage Received

Damestear-Born, Damestear-DevelopedThe current theory of gnomish origins is told as follows: around ten thousand years ago, a damestear comet smashed into the present-day Dragon Coast, splintering a section of its bay into a thousand tiny islands. Halflings settled these "Splinters," were affected by the damestear, and slowly became the gnomes of the present day. This "damestear theory" was born of scholars in the fields of (dames-)teariology, archeology, and physiognomey (a comparative science of the brain and face, developed in part to explain why most kobolds never became as learned as the average gnome). It is seen as strongly-supported, yet not necessarily within the scientific canon.\n\nWhether or not the theory is true, damestear has always been essential to gnomish civilization. The first gnomes likely settled down around Bayscodd so that they could study (and, perhaps, worship) the damestear. Ever since, it has given gnomes wealth, magic, and curiosity. Without damestear, the Hierarchies-- the empires of antiquity and of today-- would not have had the affluence required to invest in their schools or fund their bureaucracies. Without damestear, the Hierarchies could never have invented artificery. Perhaps, without damestear, the gnomes never would have been gnomes at all.
-10% Idea Cost
+5% Production Efficiency

The Theory of GnomeostasisGnomeostasis, a Portnammteau of "gnome" and "homeostasis" coined sardonically by the Baycodds lecturer Royfan Limbermitts in 1574, has become a key principle of Hierarchal administration. While most Thought regulations focus on hyper-debated means of furthering the collective utility, Gnomeostasis emphasises the increased contentment and innovation which can arise when new systems are allowed to settle into place on their own terms. Anything new, it is said, must work out its own kinks and idiosyncrasies; it must find equilibrium with other parts of the Hierarchy by experimenting with its place in the world. To a Gnomeostater, regulating too early in people's affairs only creates resentment and ruins a chance for progress and improvement. Especially when old gnomes may have centuries of experience (and stagnation), younger generations must be given opportunities to challenge the status quo. Therefore, those in the Hierarchy may initially succeed, or fail, on their own terms. After results have been ascertained, the State may do what it will.
-2 National Unrest
+0.5 Yearly Harmony

Aggregate! Integrate! Associate! Amalgamate!Gnomes are constantly chartering artificeries, businesses, corporations, trading posts, guilds, artisaneries, and factories, and these organisations must be calibrated and maximised. Through the AIAA (Aggregate Integrate Associate Amalgamate) System, scholars of Thought shall be deployed-- at least one per workplace-- to standardise procedures and ensure production standards. These scholars must also ensure that inefficient organisations are consumed by greater ones. While new initiatives must be given time to experiment, a failed experiment need not continue. Instead, underperforming companies shall be assimilated into their betters, creating a glorious and aggregated economy of scale in any and all industries. Small companies are allowed to innovate, but those that fail are brought into collaborative, state-run, state-invested entities. With the dual policies of Gnomeostasis and AIAA, our economy will reach heights previously unknown by all of Cannor!
-0.025 Monthly Autonomy Change
+10% Goods Produced Modifier

From the Shattered Sea to the Dragon CoastAfter hundreds of years of Hierarchy development, then centuries more of gnomes adapting to life without a state, and then the present combination of both traditions into a singular revitalised Hierarchy, we have now expanded our holdings past our wildest dreams. From Widdechand to Noo Widdechand, from Oddansbay to Noo Oddansbay, and from every other great city to every other new colony, we have created a network of trade and administration across Aelantir. Each colonial region is specialised in the creation of particular goods, and far-flung administrators are given particular leeway in experimenting with new principles of Thought administration. Industrial and agricultural experts are then sent to each colony, ensuring that production is maximised and working towards the wealth of the greater Hierarchy. Finally, raw goods are sent back to the Dragon Coast, to be used in our world-class facilities (and then exported abroad). With these methods combined, the Hierarchy has reached heights of wealth and power that even our ancestors never could have imagined, and yet every year we outdo ourselves. Let us celebrate this apotheosis of gnomish strength, and enjoy the benefits of our cross-continental empire all the while!
+15% Trade Efficiency

The Age of the HierarchThe age of the makeshift and improvised Island Fleet is over, and the age of the Hierarch is upon us! We mean not just the Hierarchy, nor our country’s leader, but a vessel: for The Hierarch is a flagship made of iron itself, the first of its kind, the greatest ship on all the seas. Our engineers have discovered how to shape metal so that it displaces water rather than sinking. Our gunsmiths have crafted a century of omnidirectional cannons, each reaching over a mile away with force that could crack a star fort. Our artificers have invented not only naval mageshields, and not only artillery autoloaders, but also Sparkdrive engines, those beautiful concoctions of damestear and electrical magic which can push metal through water as if it was as light as a feather. Together, The Hierarch alone matches entire navies. None can pierce its hull, outgun its cannons, nor outlast it in combat. And yet, despite it all, we do not stop here. We will begin the construction of ten Hierarchs-- no, dozens of Hierarchs-- no, a hundred Hierarchs! We will dominate the seas like no nation ever has! Through metal and magic, the great gnome gunboats will be unconquerable!
+10% Heavy Ship Combat Ability
+10% Ship Durability

Ambition
+5% Discipline