Shendenflar like most kingdoms in the Flanaess is a Monarchy. The King holds absolute power and his decisions are final. Also like most kingdoms the actual situation is rarely this simple. Shendenflarian kings have historically never allowed the decentralization of power. There are no “Counties” or “Duchy’s” in Shendenflar. This does not mean that there are not other sources of political power in the kingdom however.

The Royal Family The Baras family can trace it roots as ruling family of Shendenflar back to the formation of the Kingdom, no one not named Baras has ever ruled Shendenflar. Like most monarchy’s Shendenflar follows the progeny standard meaning that succession goes to the first born son of the current king. In the event no son is produced the throne would go to the oldest son of the kings eldest brother and etc etc. There has never been a ruling Queen of Shendenflar.
The Baras family is quite large and only a small fraction of it has ever sat on the throne. Simeon is the eighth member of his family to carry that name and be king. His brothers: Kerron,Gired,and Derru all carry names of previous Baras kings. Although Simeon only has two children, the Crown Prince Kadre and the Princess Caieda this is rare in the Baras family. Simeon’s brothers all have several children both male and female. With the oldest of these having children of their own. It would seem that the Baras family is destined to sit on the throne of Shendenflar for quite some time yet.
Of course as with all families there are squabbles, ranging from mostly friendly feuds to outright threats of rebellion. Simeon’s Uncle Berrin was exiled from the kingdom for threating his brother Kadre who sat on the throne at that time. In the years since reports have reached Shendenflar of Berrin the “Traitor” who is said to have built up a large army of less than honorable soldiers and is hiding somewhere in the Wolf Nomad lands to the East of the Kingdom.
There are also many many “unacknowledged” offspring’s of the Baras kings that occasionally return to make a claim on the throne.Of these the most dangerous was Geddran who claimed to be Simeon’s older brother and rightful heir to the throne of Shendenflar. Because both of Simeon’s parents are dead no way could be found to refute this claim and even magical scrying seemed to substantiate Geddran’s claim. Simeon very nearly abdicated his throne in favor of his older “brother” stopping only when the Archmage Tommanproved Geddran a liar. A fight between Geddran and Simeon broke out and only ended with Geddran lying on the throne room floor with Simeon’s sword in his chest.

The First Families of Shendenflar These families are all nobility from the Great Kingdom. Many of them can trace their lineage back to the formation of that empire and hold their titles and power tightly. King Baras can ignore what they say but he does so at his own peril. The First Families control a great deal of the commerce in Shendenflar whether through the guilds or through ownership of shops and businesses. It has come to pass in the past that these families have had to “remind” the kings of Shendenflar that they do indeed wield some power. Strikes and production shutdowns have nearly brought the kingdom to it’s knees. There is also a sense in the oldest of these families that one of their members should have been Shendenflars’ first king. It is a common occurrence to hear the old nobles talk of the “Game-master King” as the Baras family served the Overking as forest wardens prior to Shendenflar’s independence. There has never been an outright attempt at a coup by these families as the Shendenflarian kings have been wise enough to placate them. The collapse of the Great Kingdom during the wars has shocked the older families and the rise of Ivid and his evil has sickened them. They are proud of where they come from and sad for their ancestral home. For his part King Baras like his ancestors has a deep desire to see the Great Kingdom fall as a sort of revenge for the abuses to Shendenflar in it’s earliest days.

The Guilds Of Shendenflar For obvious reasons the guilds wield considerable power. Almost all of the commerce in the kingdom is derived from the guilds. The kings of Shendenflar have always walked softly around the guilds. King Baras is the one exception. He has imposed several new forms of regulation and leveed several new taxes on them. This of course has caused some discontent among the guild masters but King Baras has explained the new taxes and laws as a security measure to ensure that the goods and services that the guilds provide can keep flowing. Even the most angry of master agrees that without money everything in Shendenflar would grind to a halt and that is good for no one so they accept King Baras’s heavy hand for now. For his part King Baras has played a bit of a masterstroke with the guilds ensuring a steady stream of coin into the kingdoms’ coffers and making it that much harder for the guilds to become a political problem.

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