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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6111776" data-attributes="member: 4937">There is no single answer to this question.  It's like asking, "How are societies organized?"   Military ranks tend to follow particular patterns, but then they tend to acquire peculiarities based on the social structure of the society they are drawn from.  For Dwarfs in my campaign world, they are organized according to families and family heads are pretty much required to fill in for the duties of military officer.  There is no passing the duties of military officer off to anyone - the whole culture is a military unit.  These are the military ranks:1) High Thane: The leader of the clans.2) Thane: The head of a clan and all its septs.  They swear fealty to the high thane, and act as his generals and advisors.  In particular, the younger thanes are expected to act as field commanders, and the older thanes are expected to serve as a general staff and aide de camp to the Thane.  When a clan goes to battle, if the Thane is infirmed, his eldest son or else his eldest capable male relative (nephew, brother, etc.) leads the Clan in his name and has the rank of Chief.  Thus, "Who is your chief?", will be answered with, "Thane Borion of Clan Proudhammer" or "Chief Borion, son of Thane Borion of Clan Proudhammer" depending on the circumstances.   Thanes very widely in effective rank depending on the number of sept in their command.  A minor Thane might command 500 male dwarfs.  A major Thane might command 6000.  If a Clan is very large due to a great many septs, the Thane will need to break his command down into subcommands.  More on that later.3) Chieftain: The heads of the septs.  They swear fealty to the thane, and act as his captains and advisors.  Rank here is as above, save that the Chieftains son is usually a Carl.  Generally, a Chieftain commands between 100-300 male dwarfs.4) Carl: The head of a family.  They swear fealty to the Chieftains.  Generally, speaking, a family is about 20-40 male dwarfs, but some families can dwindle so that an entire family might field only 5 male dwarfs.  Those that dwindle too much are usually incorporated into a larger family by agreement (generally solemized by marriage), and fight under their banner until such time (if ever) the line is restored.  Those that get big, form septs with the permission of the Thane and break into subfamilies.5) Huscarl: This one gets wierd.  The rank is roughly equivalent to 'Knight', but the relationship doesn't have an equivalent in humanity.  This is an unmarried dwarf who has pledged himself to the spouse of a dwarf - usually of a noble family.  The Huscarl becomes, if the spouse accepts, essentially a platonic spouse in the household.  The rank and honor derived thereby therefore depend on the rank of the spouses husband.  The Huscarl of the High Thane is a very important dwarf.  The Huscarl of a low ranking dwarf is a nobody, and a figure of both romantic ballads and comedic ridicule.  Regardless, they are more or less outside the chain of command.  It's generally from the Huscarl's that a high ranking dwarf will look to for subcommanders if the host he commands is too great to maintain direct control.   For example, a Chieftain with 40 dwarfs in his command might assign leadership of 10 dwarfs to himself directly, another 10 to his eldest son, and 10 to each of his two huscarls.6) Captain: In dwarf culture, this isn't a permenent rank.  This is merely the title given to the 'Dwarf in Charge' or acting commander of a unit.  Usually nobody claims to be 'the captain', but if you ask the question, "Who is your captain?", you'll get the name of the Dwarf that that dwarf is looking to for leadership.  Since dwarfs tend to be keenly aware of social standing, age, and geneology, it really doesn't matter how many dwarfs die, everyone will know who the Captain is supposed to be and who the burden of command has fallen to.7) Dwarf: This isn't really a rank.  Every male dwarf though is assumed to be a soldier. Now, there are jobs that involve having authority at all times.  The jobs don't really have to do with rank, but obviously you get more honor (and thus rank) the higher the rank of the person that appointed you to the job.1) Reeve: This is a police officer2) Auditor: This is a detective3) Warden: This is gaurd, or more literally "a person whose job it is to watch the door"So you might get something Warden Captain Bofudas Steelhand of the City of Dwarrowmere, who is also the Huscarl of the Thane (technically, the vassal of the Thane's wife!), and who is also brother of one of the sept Chieftains.</blockquote>

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