Clan Status across One Thousand Hierates

The clan generation system presented in Clans of the Aslan was born right here on this blog just about four years ago and I’ve continued to refine it ever since. An early version was used to flesh out clans for The Deep and the Dark, which fed into the next iteration of the system, which I used and further refined for Clans.

As I worked on The Aslan Hierate manuscript I used the published system to develop several new clans for Hlakhoi sector. And as I’ve noted before, I began to observe some emergent properties that hadn’t been obvious when generating clans within the context of a single subsector. At scale it seemed clear that the Holdings for Multiworld clans should follow a skewed distribution, and that change also necessitated a tweak to Vassal clans.

One of the key characteristics used in the clan generation system is Clan Status, which is roughly equivalent to Social Standing for individual Travellers. Aslan are extremely conscious about their place in Aslan society, and equally aware of their clan’s place within the Hierate. Clans have a pecking order in terms of social precedence, with roughly half of the recognized clans being assigned rankings that are followed (and debated!) as closely as the rankings of human sports teams.

Status follows a familiar range of 0 to 15 (F). Clans with older pedigrees, clans with larger holdings, clans with access to higher tech level goods all tend to have higher Clan Status scores than those without. A 1D roll is used to capture unquantifiable traits like luck, honour, leadership, or notable deeds.

Page 83 of Clans of the Aslan has a Clan Status table that assigns a range of rankings to each Status score. Status F, for example, includes clans ranked from 1st to 288th. The following page includes a discussion of the loose relationship between a clan’s Status score (used by females like a credit score to roughly assess economic clout) and a clan’s ranking (used by males to determine social precedence).

If Status scores are assigned to clans by Aslan corporations much like bond credit ratings, who determines clan rankings? I expect a Tlaukhu standing committee does nothing but debate the rankings of the top 2,048 recognized clans in the Hierate. (2,048 is 4,000 in the Aslan octal number system.) Although rank, like Tlaukhu recognition, is materially inconsequential, these debates are as fierce as any other in the Council of 29. As Sayre’s Law states, “In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake.” The resulting rankings are published on a regular schedule like an Aslan Who’s Who, maybe every four ftahea or so.

Prior to Mongoose Traveller, we knew the specific rankings of only a small number of clans, including all 29 members of the Tlaukhu. A sidebar in the MegaTraveller Referee’s Companion also gives the ranks of a few more random clans: Akhailrau (340), Aroaye’i (397), Loakhtarl (730), and Raohkerl (450), suggesting that at least the top 800 or so clans in the Hierate have designated rankings. But that was it for known clan rankings.

The Aroaye’i are known to us: as noted in CT Aslan, they are a vassal to the Tlaukhu clan Hlyueawi, ranked 6th, and overlord to the Wahtoi. No rank is assigned to the Wahtoi, but it would presumably be lower than 397. According to CT Merchant Prince the Aroaye’i and Wahtoi are equal partners in the ancient transport company Khu Su’ikh (“Five Shields”), which “maintains a benevolent monopoly on rift passage service.” This suggests both clans are well established and prosperous as of 1105.

We also know the Loakhtarl and Raohkerl, who are both described in the “Syareahtaorl” adventure from CT Aslan. These are Multiworld clans of significant means; the Loakhtarl were able to outfit an ihatei expedition of “ten armed 50,000 ton ships, each capable of jump-3 and 3-G.”

With only these few data points to calibrate a ranking system, I initially assumed rankings would fall into tranches of 288 clans each, so Status F would include clans 1–288, Status E would include clans ranked 289–576, etc. I wanted to preserve the MT rankings, and because the Aroaye’i and Loakhtarl both seemed like fairly powerful clans I reasoned each increment of Status must cover a fairly large number of clans. The relative rankings of various clans provided in Clans of the Aslan seemed right from a cursory look.

As I built out the clans for Hlakhoi, though, the absolute ratings for the new, larger clans seemed hinky, particularly after tweaking the Holdings of the Multiworld clans. In short, it became clear that relatively few clans would have very high Status scores: our model of the Hierate presumes significant resource inequality among the clans, with a small number of elite clans controlling a large share of the available resources. As a corollary to that assumption, there can only be so many slots in that elite tier of clans.

And if all that were true, the published rankings for clans with Status D or E were probably much too low and should be higher, and many unranked clans should have rankings. In order to test whether the range of rankings suggested in Clans was accurate or not, I needed to understand what the expected distribution of Status scores would be across the Hierate if using the clan generation rules in Clans of the Aslan.

So I built a spreadsheet that would randomly calculate full profiles for every recognized clan in the Hierate, and then I used that to generate simulations of 1,000 different Hierates. This proved a fairly effective way to test Status along with all the different clan characteristics. In order to keep things apples-to-apples, I kept the total number of clans constant for each simulation, as well as the distribution of clan types:

Aslan Clans

Clan Type	Number
Major	29
Major Vassal	350
Minor	1,200
Minor Vassal	860
Multiworld	156
Single World	930
Vassal	580
Total	4,105

My initial run used the rules-as-written in Clan of the Aslan, and I was happy to see the overall results fell within my expected parameters. I then retooled the generation formulas to include the tweaked Multiworld and Vassal clan numbers. Again, the results looked decent, but it was clear the revised sim was producing too few clans of Status D+. By giving Major Vassals and Vassal clans a +1 boost to Status, the distribution fell into place.

Here are the resulting Status scores for 4,105 clans across 1,000 simulated Hierates:

Sum of Status Results

Status	Major	Major Vassal	Minor	Minor Vassal	Multiworld	Single World	Vassal	Grand Total
F	29,000	961	0	0	2,808	180	13	32,962
E	0	3,429	0	0	4,840	908	179	9,356
D	0	10,234	0	0	10,009	4,764	855	25,862
C	0	21,840	0	0	17,886	15,753	4,099	59,578
B	0	37,007	14	6	22,782	43,362	12,739	115,910
A	0	51,477	307	137	24,454	103,569	30,733	210,677
9	0	56,906	2,827	1,365	23,796	150,160	63,321	298,375
8	0	54,603	16,944	8,812	21,188	153,915	93,377	348,839
7	0	48,109	85,475	44,045	16,294	150,273	96,028	440,224
6	0	36,418	188,782	132,596	8,327	139,211	92,221	597,555
5	0	21,217	199,556	143,707	2,878	111,955	83,860	563,173
4	0	7,180	199,798	143,059	682	51,063	66,040	467,822
3	0	619	197,026	142,157	56	4,887	33,198	377,943
2	0	0	309,271	244,116	0	0	3,337	556,724

Again, these numbers looked right to my eyes: a small number of clans for each of the top Status scores, sharply rising in number at each step before flattening out in the mid range. Some of the outliers are interesting: in 180 simulated Hierates, Single World clans reached Status F; in 13 sims humble Vassal clans reached this height.

Dividing these results by 1,000 gives us the average Hierate result:

Average Status Result

Status	Major	Major Vassal	Minor	Minor Vassal	Multiworld	Single World	Vassal	Grand Total
F	29	1	0	0	3	0	0	33
E	0	3	0	0	5	1	0	9
D	0	10	0	0	10	5	1	26
C	0	22	0	0	18	16	4	60
B	0	37	0	0	23	43	13	116
A	0	51	0	0	24	104	31	211
9	0	57	3	1	24	150	63	298
8	0	55	17	9	21	154	93	349
7	0	48	85	44	16	150	96	440
6	0	36	189	133	8	139	92	598
5	0	21	200	144	3	112	84	563
4	0	7	200	143	1	51	66	468
3	0	1	197	142	0	5	33	378
2	0	0	309	244	0	0	3	557

I think we could make a case for a new Status score of G (16), reserved for a handful of Major clans that lead Tlaukhu blocs. Using this data we can revise the Status table from Clans of the Aslan like so:

Clan Status

Status	Description
0	Exohierate clan
1	Exohierate clan, outcast or unrecognised Hierate clans
2	Unranked Hierate clan
3	Unranked Hierate clan
4	Unranked Hierate clan
5	Unranked Hierate clan
6	Hierate clans ranked 1,537–2,048
7	Hierate clans ranked 1,025–1,536
8	Hierate clans ranked 769–1,024
9	Hierate clans ranked 513–768
A	Hierate clans ranked 257–512
B	Hierate clans ranked 129–256
C	Hierate clans ranked 65–128
D	Hierate clans ranked 49–64
E	Hierate clans ranked 33–48
F	Hierate clans ranked 9–32
G	Tlaukhu clans ranked 1–8

While I think this is a much improved distribution of rankings, it unfortunately necessitates modifying either the Status or rankings for several clans as published in Clans of the Aslan:

• Aeahekihiykhiy – Change Status to 9 (694^th).
• Afaikhiyoi – Change Status to 9 (541^st).
• Ahroay’if – Change Status to C (71^st).
• Akhailrau – Change Status to A (340^th).
• Arao’e – Change Status to A (488^th).
• Arhiyao – Change Status to 8 (790^th).
• Aroaye’i – Change Status to E (34^th).
• Ftawsteaoihalr – Change Status to 8 (917^th).
• Hlaotiyoiho – Change Status to F (30^th).
• Hlyueawi – Change Status to G (6^th).
• Hrakoea – Change Status to E (37^th).
• Hrasua – Change Status to G (5^th).
• Hreakhari – Change Status to 8 (973^rd).
• Hweaolriya – Change Status to B (166^th).
• Ikhtealyo – Change Status to G (8^th).
• Iyhlua – Change Status to C (85^th).
• Khaukheairl – Change Status to G (2^nd).
• Khtiatiyeea – Change Status to 6 (1,751^st).
• Lahtouyo – Change Status to 6 (1,927^th).
• Loakhtarl – Change Status to A (271^st).
• Raohkeil – Change Status to A (450^th).
• Stahfiei – Change Status to 7 (1,350^th).
• Staoiyloulr – Change Status to 8 (874^th).
• Syoisuis – Change Status to G (3^rd).
• Tiykhisto – Change Status to B (145^th).
• Tralyeaeawi – Change Status to G (4^th).
• Uawairlew – Change Status to D (63^rd).
• Uiktawa – Change Status to G (7^th).
• Wahtoi – Change Status to D (49^th).
• Waisyauiai – Change Status to 7 (1,032^nd).
• Yehaso – Change Status to D (55^th).
• Yerlyaruiwo – Change Status to G (1^st).
• Zodia – Change Status to C (113^th).

Note that these revised rankings for Aroaye’i and Loakhtarl are higher than those published in the old Referee’s Companion. This can be explained by noting the MT rankings reflect the Rebellion period, when both clans suffer significant turmoil. MegaTraveller sources provide some of our most detailed information on the Aslan Hierate, but unfortunately it’s rarely clear if that information is accurate for the 1105 time period.

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