Human Dynasties

Human governments operated superficially similar to satyrs': city-states were ruled seperately, but often still had ties with each other. However, human cities warred more often among themselves than satyr cities, fighting for resources, land, and power, whereas satyr cities generally considered themselves to be part of a whole; diplomatic strife aside.

Human cities were ruled monastically, queens in all but very few cases. Political power was passed from mother to daughter, usually by choice of who would lead best rather than by who is firstborn. If a daughter lacked her own daughter, though, this greatly decreased her chances of suceeding the throne, as there would be concern of whether she would be able to pass it on herself when the time came. The queen's husbands, of which she often had many, aided in her rule, rather than being more akin to a concubine. Queens would often take husbands strategically based on their skillset- the queen and her circle of husbands operated as a sort of council (with her at the top, of course), so it was benefitial to have many husbands with experience or knowledge in different parts of the ruling process.

Some queens were known to take the occasional 'recreational' husband: that is, a husband taken for lust or love rather than governing strategy. This wasn't looked down upon, persay, but it sometimes evolved into a topic for rumor or gossip, and was generally considered dangerous. If a queen took a recreational husband who had little to no knowledge of governance, any of her other, more knowledgeable husbands could, if they so chose, manipulate him to sway her where they otherwise would not be successful.

Particularly powerful cities, especially in the Scaled Forests, had a long history of resolving disputes which may otherwise lead to wars, by proxy- by dragonfighting. Each city had a figurehead dragon, kept in captivity and- usually- treated well enough to be physically healthy. When cities fought, rather than send fighters to war with each other in a process that took years to resolve, lost population, and risked backlash or revolt if the soldiers did not believe in what they were being sent to fight for, cities would arrange dogfights between their figurehead dragons. It generated enormous spectacle and was an expected part of the political process. The city whose dragon lost would be forced to cede to the winning city, accepting the terms of their agreement as pre-arranged in the case of defeat. The losing city would be weakened for a time, not only in morale but in ability to diplomatically defend itself against further disputes, as it would be without its draconic decisionmaker. Some cities kept multiple dragons prepared to fight in the event they lost one, but this was percieved as the act of a weak city- expecting to lose. Usually, there would be a period of years after losing a dragon during which a city could not challenge outsiders, as they raised, trained, or otherwise prepared a successor.

Wars definitely still happened, but they were rarer than before this practice was adopted, when skirmishes between cities were near-constant. True wars are instead fought only for very important issues, of which neither city is willing to bet on the outcome of just one fight.