The Cratztas are the hub of human society. Their alliances with the elves, the favour of their deities and the size of their population have made the Cratztas the force which enforces law to the world. Their society is fluid enough to accept the more human-like of their neighbours into their midst, thus it is not uncommon to see elf walk footlock with human or halfling. Old, powerful and decadent, Cratzta promotes its upper class by schooling them in the arcane, the physical and the diplomatic. Generally speaking, to live in the cities, a person must be of wealth and noble birth. Only the markets and stables house citizens of moderate influence.

For this reason, mages, paladins and even fighter classes in the Cratztan community tend to be well respected and highly regarded. Mages in particular are well received because of the importance of mages in the Confederate, and are not the doddery old recluses they are in other circumstances - mages in the Confederate tend to be straight of back, well groomed and proud of their heritage - and rare enough in public to be a spectacle.

Thieves are reviled within the Cratztan confederacy. One of the reasons (among the many) that humanoids are genereally regarded as little more than animals among the Cratztan lords is that they are, by and large, theives. Thievery is dealt with in the most dramatic of forms - typically thieves are thrown to the wargs and dire wolves of the great Arenas of the cities.

Assassins, however, are among the very highest echelons of the Mage Guard. They are generally treated by upper class society as dignitaries, because in fact, that is largely what they are. All assassins are first and foremost emissaries of the Mage Confederate, with the ability to execute when they cannot compromise.

Political parties within the Confederacy form and disintigrate as mages align themselves behind the strongest of their peers to support the ideals of an individual or party of mages within the Confederacy. This action should not be confused with democracy, however - each of the lords of the Confederacy is very much interested in their own requirements before considering the whole.

There is no voting within the Confederacy except behind closed doors, in the great Halls of Bentt in the largest of the three Cratztan cities. It is here that, just outside the confines of the mage Academy, that law is written.

The Cratztan Government keeps a very active and well trained Guard for its major cities, and elsewhere companies of soldiers patrol borders and occassionally seek to gain more holdings for the Confederate. All borders are well manned, and the ports along the SouthWest are well protected from conquest by sea. Very little of the Cratztan's dominance in hte land is left to chance - it is not uncommon to see a very high ranking Mage wielding great powers above the heads of a company of soldiers, decimating the morale of enemy soldiers.

Little is known of the society to the East, such as it is. Once, trained ambassadors were sent there to discover the depth of their governmental control, and few returned with anything that could be considered encouraging. If any parallels could be drawn with governmental influence, it would be the role of feudal lords, each striving against the other for a larger share of power.

Society there seems to be by rote - that is, the most powerful make the rules and enforce them by strength of arm. The East has never presented a risk to the Cratztas. Hundreds of leagues by horse are required to reach it, and its self-serving, self-appointed lords rarely take it upon themselves to band together for any purpose.

The Elves are (as elves often are) ruled by a group of high-born elect, fair of character and of wise of brow. Their society is not well understood by the Confederate, however. Elves are notoriously secretive of their society and the contstructs within it. What's more, ambassadors are often led to the feast, rather than the bartering table - making it very difficult for an emissary of Cratzta to actually make any demands or position their ideals on the Elven nobility. Literally nothing is known about the Gnomish, Dwarvish or Halfling governments, if indeed they do exist. All of these humanoids keep very much to themselves, and appear to be clan-based, with a leader or leaders among a band of a few hundred or, in true centers of their civilization, thousands of their kind. It is known that at least the Halflings meet at a great feast where young members of their society are traded amongst clans.

The demiHumans - orcs, goblins, and the like, are virtually a mystery. Their nature is clear, to thieve and rend, but their society is not. Is there an overlord? Certainly there has been talk of such a thing. Are they all related? They tend to work together in concert for the purpose of carnage, but they also compete and there is strife amongst rival clans. If there was any word for the societies of these creatures, it might be anarchy - unfortunately it isn't that simple, because there does seem to be a driving and organizing force behind these vicious and warlike denizens. Their nature has led the Cratztans to generally consider them vile animals with no governship.

It is known that the orcs, at least, will patrol their areas and have been known to sail the seas in crafts of their own design. There is certainly more to the orcish society than can be met with the typical Cratztan off-handed remark of "filthy animals".