The Imperial Powers

2.0 The Imperial Powers
Each Imperial Power represents a select group that wields enormous influence. The Imperial Powers in the Landsraad are House Corrino, House Atreides and House Harkonnen. Alternatively, the Spacing Guild, the Bene Gesserit Sisterhod, and the Fremen emerge as powerful groups in CHOAM. Finally, the Spice Miners Guild, the Water Sellers Union, and the Dune Smugglers are not recognized in any official sense, but they have strong leverage among the many Houses that rely on Arrakeen commerce. Choose a benefator carefully, for each Power has its own strengths, fiobles, and enemies. Each card is aligned to exact one Imperial Power, this alignment can be recognized by the color of the card background.

2.0 The Major Houses

2.0.1 House Corrino
The royal familiy of the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV exerts tremendous influence in the Landsraad and CHOAM. House Corrino maintains its supremacy through extreme caution, employing its dreaded legions of Sardukar when all other measures have been exhausted.

2.0.2 House Atreides
Led by Duke Leto, House Atreides enjoys great popularity among the great houses and serves as the informal speaker of the landsraad high council. Not among the wealthiest of the great houses, house atreides maintains greatness through its reputation for justice and honor.

This noble house hailing from Caladan employs unlikely methods in its struggle to secure Arrakis: noble spirit, just ways and unfailing virtue. Ruling its homeworld Caladan for ten generations with justice and generosity, House Atreides has perfected a form of government that results in a well-organized society and a spiritually satisfied people. Little wonder that Caladan is the lush, prosperous paradise that it is.

Such conditions have inspired a fierce loyalty in the people, making the Atreides’ army one of the most devoted — and deadly — in the universe. These qualities have inspired ire in Atreides’ foes, such as the Harkonnen, but admiration in the would-be allies such as the natives of Arrakis, the Fremen. The devotion of Atreides’ troops are matched by the House’s formidable military, which boasts an exceptional air force of Ornithopters and respectable array of ground vehicles. But the Atreides’ fighting spirit and unflinching belief in its claim to Arrakis are its best weapons.

2.0.3 House Harkonnen
Directed by the baron vladimir, house harkonnen has risen in power through its immense wealth and naked ambition. House Harkonnen fosters a long standing enmitiy with house atreides and conspires to bring an end to the Atreides line with the death of Leto and his only heir, Paul.

The House Harkonnen is built on a simple foundation of fear and terror, two tactics that make the Baron Harkonnen’s troops that much more dangerous: risk death on the battlefield, or suffer a slow, excruciating death in the Baron’s chambers as he watches with relish. With an order based on treachery, soldiers rise through the ranks through deceit, trickery and, if necessary, assassination. The ruthlessness of the Harkonnen army is legendary; but the rumors of its illegal atomic weaponry are more frightening still.

Hailing from an industrial wasteland of a planet called Giedi Prime, The House Harkonnen is much like its Baron: cold, ruthless, egomaniacal, but brilliant and lethally efficient. Most of all, it’s driven by a kanly ,or vendetta, against House Atreides, which the Harkonnen feel has taken a piece of what’s rightly theirs: the whole planet of Arrakis.

2.0.4 House Ordos
These aristocrats of the universe are shrouded in mystery and speculation — which is just how the statesmen of Ordos want to keep it. Run by a secretive cartel of the rich and powerful who specialize in trade and smuggling, House Ordos has no identifiable leader. Even the citizens on this ice-coated, remote planet have little grasp on who controls their fate.

What is known, however, is that the reclusive elite of Ordos has at its disposal radical new technologies that it hopes will put all of Arrakis in its hands. Buying illegal armaments from the House of Ix, the Ordos equips it troops with high-tech weaponry that puts the Harkonnen and Atreides technology to shame. However, money can’t buy loyalty: Ordos troops desert with alarming frequency, and, despite its wealth, the Ordos’ military strength is shaky at best.

2.1 The Minor Houses

2.1.1 The spacing Guild
Represented by Oberon, a third stage navigator, the guild enjoys a monopoly over instellear space travel. through it carefully guards its neutrality, the guild views the political meddling of the bene gesserit sisterhood as a serious threat.

The Guild have a monopoly on the technology that allows instantaneous travel across vast reaches of space; using Navigators — humans mutated by saturation in “spice gas,” created from Melange — they travel in massive ships called Heighliners, and, for a price, will ferry the cargo of other Houses.Working secretly with the Tleilaxu, The Guild has been venturing into the field of weaponry, and are biding their time until a strike on Arrakis is opportune. Dismissed as mere intergalactic ferrymen by the other houses, The Guild hopes to get a stranglehold not just on interstellar transport, but the planet Arrakis as well.

2.1.2 The Bene Gesserit Sisterhood
The Emperor own Truthsayer, Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, helps the Siterhood control Imperial affairs through political conniving and CHOAM membership. An ancient school built upon esoteric Ways, the Sisterhood has developed a program for selective breeding and human development to produce the Kwisatz Haderach, the super being who may be at many places at once.

2.1.3 The Fremen
Guided by their mysterious leader Liet, the Fremen are mistakenly regarded as a populace of scattered tribesmen, dispersed among the cities and urban fringes of the planet arrakis. officially recognized as neither a landsraad nor a CHOAM power, the fremen are the true wardens of dune, secretly controlling most of the affairs that occur on-planet.

The natives of Dune are a tightly knit tribe of skilled warriors whose years of enduring life on the desert planet have made them tough, resourceful and highly adaptable. They worship — and fear — the giant sandworms that tunnel beneath the planet’s surface. And like the sandworms, the Fremen prefer to stay underground, living in secret oases until their dream of turning Dune into an oasis can be realized.

war. Respected and loathed by their rivals who covet the planet, the Fremen are the wild card in this drawn-out game of planetary conquest.

2.1.4 The spice miners Guild
A group of veteran spice workers under the guidance of director ormi b’riccan, this is a force not to be crossed. only the fremen know the ways of the worm as do the miners, if this group of hardened desert harvesters were to strike, the flow of spice would stop, and the imperium would find itself rapidly brought to its knees.

2.1.5 The Water Sellers Union
Arrakis may be the center of the universe, but the center of every arrakeen city is the water sellers domain. everyone on the planet is trapped between the scorching sun and the merciless sands, and water is precious as air to those who work here. and rest assured, if lingar Bewt, their leader, could charge for air, he would.

2.1.6 The Dune Smugglers
Deep in the recesses of Tuek’s Sietch, Esmar Tuek leads his followers among the cities like the Fremen move among the dunes. He recognizes no Imperial overlord, and will bend his knee to no so-called Great house, for he knows the Houses may hold wealth, but people like his actually earn it.

2.1.7 CHOAM
CHOAM, the Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantile, is the universal corporation responsible for regulating interstellar trade. Officially controlled by the great houses of the imperium, the welfare of CHOAM depends heavily on the secret melange stockpiles of the Spacing Guild. CHOAM functions as a vast financial exchange, regulating commerce through the twin reserves of the imperial treasury and the guild hoard.

2.1.8 House Tleilaxu
Calling themselves the Bene Tleilax, the leaders of this house are religious zealots who preach ceaselessly about the evils of machines. Thus the technology of House Tleilaxu exalts the primacy of organic life through cloning and re-animating the dead. The House’s technologies are as twisted as its religious belief in an imminent holy war that will cleanse the universe of machines.They are despised by their rivals for different reasons: the Ix hate them as business rivals, the Sardaukar loathe them for defiling their tombs, the Fremen are disgusted with their gruesome technology. But the Tleilaxu, having allied with The Guild, know that the coming Jihad will prove them right.

2.1.9 House Ix
These fascist arms dealers have access to terrifying technologies — and they’re happy to pass them along if the price is right. And with Arrakis at the center of an intergalactic struggle, the ambitious Ix only stand to profit. But the wealth isn’t exactly shared among the people: a virtual slave culture, the Ix are ruled by an echelon of scientists and technocrats, while the masses toil in the factories and labs and that are the lifeblood of House Ix. Never wishing to soil themselves with actual battle, the Ix feel they are well above the clash over Dune — but not above profiting from it.

Loathed by many houses such as the Fremen and the Sardaukar for seeming effeminate and overly delicate, the Ix look down on most of their clients as little more than brutes and primitives.

• Continue reading the second chapter (soon)