Rahal

The **Rahal** are one of the six factions that governed the hexarchate in the Machineries of Empire universe.

Notable Rahal include Hexarch Rahal Iruja, Magistrate Rahal Ienora, Captain-magistrate Rahal Gara, and Captain-magistrate Rahal Korais.

## Role

The Rahal are a high faction; their corresponding low faction is the Nirai. They oversee Doctrine, the hexarchate's legal code, and are in charge of maintaining common welfare, investigating crimes, and sentencing wrongdoers. While the Vidona specialize in sentencing and punishing heretics, the Rahal have broad jurisdiction over all other types of transgressions. They also maintain and update the high calendar. Rahal captain-magistrates serve on warmoths to oversee remembrances and ensure adherence to Doctrine.

The faction regards the Vidona as natural allies, along with the equivalently communal and conservative Kel, and maintains strong ties with the Nirai due to their shared responsibility for calendrical mathematics. They consider the Shuos both necessary and troublingly ruthless and amoral, and see the Andan as diplomatically important but dangerously xenophilic and flexible. Meanwhile, the Nirai prefer the Rahal to keep out of their way, and the Andan consider them too rigid to adapt to circumstances. The Vidona greatly respect them and the Kel appreciate their conservativism, but the Shuos barely tolerate their leadership and frequently test their authority.

## Government

The Rahal seat of government was Wolf Hall. Its emblem was the scrywolf, also known as the Execution Wolf, and its colors were gray and bronze.

The most recent Rahal hexarch was Rahal Iruja. Under normal circumstances, the Rahal hexarch appointed their successor from among the faction's senior magistrates.

Rahal councils were modeled after the old Liozh councils, operating on consensus and stressing adversarial oratory skills.

## Technology

The Rahal are able to scry a subject's dreams for signifier responses, prying clues out of the subconscious, an ability not equivalent to mind-reading but more useful than a guess. Up to six Rahal inquisitors can participate to strengthen a scrying, although use of a full hex inquisitors is usually reserved for dire emergencies. Scrying may take as long as several days. Subjects do not need to be asleep for a scrying to take effect, though the ability does not work on revenants. A singularity response, where the only response to scrying is a single unchanging signifier, can render scrying pointless.

Both Kel Brezan and Shuos Jedao were subjected to scrying.

Lensmoths are also particular to the Rahal, who maintain swarms of them as symbols of their mission.

## Recruitment

Appropriate Rahal candidates have excellent memories, devotion to the law, and tolerance for the faction's communal lifestyle. They are trained in oratory to take part in Rahal councils and interpret the hexarchate's legal code. Due to their role in managing the high calendar, they compete with the Nirai for mathematically adept cadets.

Heptarch Nirai Esfarel was originally a Rahal cadet. After attending Nirai Academy Prime for a year in order to study under one of its renowned mathematics instructors, he transferred to Nirai Academy in his last year out of frustration with the "overly legalistic" Rahal mindset.

## Culture

The Rahal are considered fussy about protocol but also take pride in rationality, accepting circumstances that require a lower level of formality.

They wear ornate clothing on casual occasions; their version of full formal is a plain gray robe with a bronze hem.

## History

The Rahal were originally the heptarchate's magistracy, investigating crimes and sentencing wrongdoers according to Liozh laws, along with legislating the high calendar. During the heptarchate's first century, Magistrate Rahal Ienora adapted the calendar to allow all citizens to live by their local circadian cycles.

After the Liozh were purged, the Rahal claimed leadership of the remaining factions and took responsibility for the welfare of common citizens.

## Trivia

* The Rahal were represented by the Anemone Ward in the Fortress of Scattered Needles. Kel Niaad felt that only a Rahal could have designed the efficient hivelike layout there.

## References

1. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 2
2. ↑ The Factions: High Faction Rahal
3. ↑ The Factions: High Faction Rahal
4. ↑ Author's website
5. ↑ The Factions: High Faction Rahal
6. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 2
7. ↑ The Factions: High Faction Rahal
8. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Raven Stratagem
9. ↑ Hexarchate Stories: Glass Cannon
10. ↑ The Factions: High Faction Rahal
11. ↑ The Factions: High Faction Rahal
12. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 12
13. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 20
14. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 12
15. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 20
16. ↑ The Factions: High Faction Rahal
17. ↑ The Factions: High Faction Rahal
18. ↑ The Factions: Low Faction Nirai
19. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 12
20. ↑ The Factions: High Faction Rahal
21. ↑ Hexarchate Stories: Hexarchate (And Heptarchate) Timeline
22. ↑ The Factions: High Faction Rahal
23. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 8
24. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 13