Monkey Business

Monkey internal structure, such as Ilba would explain it.

Monkeys divide responsibilities (such as they are) among both gender and caste lines. The two genders are male and female, and the two castes are Court and Country.

Monkeys are territorial and thus regions are divided up among separate “kingdoms�.

A kingdom’s Court is linked to the physical territory of its kingdom, which is divided along predictable social and geographic lines (with some neutral “free space� in unpopulated areas).

A kingdom’s Country is of flexible membership, and males in particular are able to move between kingdoms with relative fluidity, providing they show obeisance to the local Court in question.

Because of this, outright conflicts are rare among the approximately twenty kingdoms. A loose cooperation is more typical, and a major threat to well-being will provoke full-scale coordination. Country-based coups against an entire Court are unheard-of (the mental control exerted on the Country is too strong), but a Court can fail and be subsumed by more ambitious Court candidates.

“Country� is composed of recruited individuals (ie, they are born in normal circumstances and have no Gift). Monkey priesthood does indeed run in some families, but other individuals are recruited based on having a pliable psychic profile and some relevant set of skills or circumstance. The average age for induction varies, with the earliest being pubescent and the latest being active middle-age. Obviously one can be a Monkey while simultaneously maintaining another priesthood.

MALE Country (low priests) are free agents, and the lowest on the Monkey ladder. They are often kept in a sort of dormant reserve. Something like a mob connection, they might only be used for extraordinarily minor tasks, or even just random ones that occur as a sort of involuntary result of their “membership.� Most often a Monkey of this type will be compelled to fulfill a task. Sometimes they are informed of why, and are full accomplices in the act; sometimes they do so under what amounts to a trance. In exchange for their services, they receive the same sorts of protection that a mob connection might. If they damage the collective through their behavior, they can be very cruelly eliminated.

FEMALE Country (crones) are contact points. They are generally fixed in location, most often in the more populous villages within a kingdom. For Monkeys they serve as a recruiting station, a broadcasting tower, and a coordination point. For the rest of the local population they serve as the local hedge-witch, providing magics of differing degrees of efficacy. To this end they can soundly manipulate a community to the advantage of the local Court. Crones are almost always aware of their situation and actions. Crones maintain an open connection to their local Queen, through whom they exert authority on low priests. They are most often older women, but frequently have younger apprentices (maids). The most powerful Crones are former Queens or Brides.

COURT. Court is composed of a King, a Queen (or Bride), and a host of High Priests. All of these are Monkeys by birthright. The royal couple is preferably born exclusively of other kings and queens, but this is less than universal; so long as they demonstrate enough Gift and have at least one King or Queen for a parent, they are acceptable.

High priests are typically the progeny of a King. Sometimes they are inactive Kings, either younger or less powerful than the resident King. Sons never serve under their own fathers; they must relocate to another Kingdom either to serve or rule. If a power struggle emerges between a potential and a current king, no holds are barred; the last one alive claims the throne and the Queen. Some High Priests are actually nomads in search of a vacant throne or a Court willing to accept them; others are exiles fleeing retribution from a failed attempt at takeover. Unlike Country priests, High Priests are indoctrinated in Monkeydom from early childhood, if not birth. High Priests are responsible for the execution of higher-grade magic than Low Priests and Crones, and will participate in larger-scale actions.

Kings are not monogamous to their Queen and often father children on local women. The more isolated kingdoms produce many of their members by means of rape. However, it is “common knowledge� that stronger royalty is produced when children are born by King and Queen. Most likely this simply increases the incidence of Giftedness.

While becoming King is a relatively free-form procedure, the life of Queen is more closely structured (in keeping with the gender dichotomy). Effective female candidates are located at a very young age and examined very thoroughly, first by the local Female Country and then by the High Priests. If she is found to be sufficiently gifted, have a good chance at fertility, and display no other defects, she is marked to be a Bride and taken under the care of a suitable Crone (sometimes a Lover Priestess serving double-duty). At the beginning of each spring, any King currently without a Queen is matched to a Bride of his choice.

At the age of sixteen or on the date of first menstruation, the Bride’s mental abilities come into maturity and she either becomes officially a Queen (if she is betrothed) or is relegated to being a Crone (if not chosen). A Queen is deposed and subsequently executed when she fails to produce a child for five consecutive years. Queens are capable of communications with any and all Monkeys; their connections are strongest to Crones, and they generally deal with low priests through that vehicle.

The magic in which Monkeys deal is mostly instinctual and imprecise, which in the wilder Gaetani environments is more than sufficient. It tends more towards the destructive than creative, and centers on human-made artifacts, the human body, and the more general elements of the human psyche. Many Monkey ceremonies require samples, objects, and totems to focus their effects. Objects that have been significantly touched by Monkey hands (or faces) become psychically “highlighted� to other Monkeys, and regular enough contact will actually imbue the object with a small but chaotic magical aura. (This explains the strong connection of individual monkey masks to their owners.)

A normal person who touches such an object will then also be somewhat highlighted, and therefore becomes more likely to be targeted. Monkeys can place “specific� magic on objects to produce a particular effect, but this can distort very readily and therefore it is inadvisable to accept even a friendly gift from a Monkey.

The mental elements of Monkey magic are accessible only to hereditary members of the Court. While Kings typically show no less ability than Queens, Queens actually siphon off some portion of the nearest King’s abilities and concentrate it with their own. (If a Queen misuses or withholds it from executing his desires, of course, she can simply be killed, and the King’s powers will default to him once more.) While Kings hold the closest thing to ultimate authority, short of the Monkey God itself, Queens are the primary channel for that power. The intensity of this task combined with childbearing means that most Kings host a series of Queens over their tenure.

All Monkeys host a common mental pathway. Low Priests do not have the ability to distinguish this pathway in others unless the Monkey in question is wearing their mask (although they will be “inexplicably� drawn to and compliant towards Crones and Court members). This prevents them from informing on each other.

However, a Crone or a Court member will be able to distinguish another Monkey almost without fail. A powerful Queen can physically locate and transmit suggestion to individual Monkeys within the general radius of her kingdom, although this is taxing when more than a few individuals are in question. In this case she will transmit to the nearest Crones who will in turn act on the necessary Low Priests. Suggestion from Crones is inevitably cruder than that from a Queen, but physical proximity tends to make the equation tilt in their favor.

This sensitivity to mental pathways also enables Kings and Queens to detect the presence of non-Monkey individuals with particularly strong mental reach or connectivity. They do not have access to this foreign channel, but they can detect its very general characteristics and it will likely provoke their curiosity (or irritation). In this vein, a royal Monkey would never mistake a familiar for an ordinary animal, and would be able to easily guess the mage to whom it is connected---however, they would not be able to explain the exact details of the relationship and would likely be, if not shocked, somewhat startled by its conscious behavior. Monkeys are naturally suspicious about foreign mental connections and generally view them as a threat.