Judge (Ufmarkt)

The judges of Ufmarkt are the closest thing the fornacic world has to a government. While Ufmarkt has few structures resembling formal states, there are individuals who wield enough influence due to their power or their reputation for wisdom and judgment, or both, to be de facto rulers, at least over certain areas. Fourteen such individuals are sufficiently well known and well regarded to have bandon over most of the world; these individuals are known as judges, and their word is more or less law. Even if not every inhabitant of Ufmarkt respects the judges' authority enough to follow their word, there are many who do respect them enough to enforce their edicts on the unwilling, giving the judges effective dominion over the veigur.

History

The history of Ufmarkt is forgotten even by its inhabitants, and that of the judges is no exception. Though Ufmarkt's current judges have held their positions since time immemorial, on Ufmarkt time immemorial is only a few centuries ago. How long beyond that the judges first rose to power, nobody knows... and, in keeping with the veigur's residents' odd incuriosity about their own dysmnesia, nobody raises the question.

Nevertheless, while it may not be possible to know for sure, it's not hard to guess at a likely scenario. If there was a system of government in place before the judges, it must have collapsed, and if, as many believe, Ufmarkt was once a terrestrial world and owes its current state to some long-ago disaster, then it seems unlikely the government survived that catastrophe. In any case, before the judges, Ufmarkt was presumably in a state of anarchy. In such a state, charismatic leaders tend to arise, and the judges would have been just such leaders. Whether today's judges are the same judges that existed from the start is unknown, and at this juncture possibly unknowable.

There has, in recorded history (what little there is of it), been only one case of a change in the roster of judges: just over a hundred years ago, one of the judges, Thucovàlaç, made a bid to increase his power, apparently trying to establish himself as the head judge and ultimate authority over the veigur. Thucovàlaç's coup was quashed, and he is no longer considered a judge—not that he was ever formally removed from office, but then he and the other judges had never formally been installed in office either, at least as far as anyone knows. Thucovàlaç is now sometimes called the "fallen judge", and if he still exists his current whereabouts are unknown.

Relationships

There are no formal maps or agreements codifying what territory is under the jurisdiction of which judge, nor are the judges assigned separate dominions in any systematic way. Nonetheless, conflicts between judges rarely arise, partly because of tacit, informal conventions associating particular judges with particular purviews, and partly due to the judges' own discretion. Once a judge has passed down a decision, trying to appeal the decision to a different judge very seldom bears fruit; the judges almost always respect each other's decisions and make no attempt to overturn them even if they might have decided differently in a particular case. On those rare occasions on which two judges do have a meaningful disagreement, the lock is usually broken by petition to a third judge (usually whichever happens to be closest).

Perhaps an even rarer event than two judges coming into conflict is two judges actually meeting. Some of the judges have lairs they seldom leave, or in two cases have never known to leave. But others wander the veigur, which means that it's far from impossible for two judges to end up in the same place. However, Ufmarkt is big enough that this seldom happens by happenstance, and the judges seem uninterested in meeting on purpose. The judges aren't all asocial beings uninterested in forging relationships with anyone else (although arguably some of them are), but at least they don't seem to have forged any deep relationships with each other. At best, a few of the judges maintain distant friendships with each other through correspondence.

List of judges

The following is a list of the fourteen current judges:

• Alabaster - A mute, white-skinned man with a flame in place of his head, who lives in a compit called Aorhem.
• Draga the Drowned - A ghost living in the Torpholian Sea, who has the bloated appearance of a drowning victim.
• Hriidia - An elemental creature composed of lava, dwelling in a labyrinth of her own creation.
• Jreaga - A ghost somewhat resembling a one-eyed infant, who floats in the air above the veigur's rogal surface.
• Khelghamira - A woman made of ash who creates krtaks as her agents and servitors.
• Morrgom - A shapeless being of black cloud, with the apparent ability to be in multiple places at once.
• Mydiri - A large woman made of stone, who some say originated as a statue brought to life
• Great Noribella - A creature resembling a giant octopus made of fire (but somehow still able to exist underwater)
• Pune - A detic being apparently made of a number of blackbones combined together
• Rdodio - A great being that appears to be a skeleton of some sort of crustacean, made of crystal.
• Tarach Heiergon - An undead whale that swims the welling seas of the veigur.
• Ullogora - A pseudocentaur with the anterior part of a worm, who makes her home in extensive burrows.
• The Voice of the Dome - An apparently disembodied voice existing in a gigantic lava cave, emanating from no obvious source.
• Yu I Jao - A ghostly cat with mysterious powers the full extent of which remain generally unknown.