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[Vanigo]

There have recently been major changes to goverment, due to the infamous 'wood' tax where elves had to give 20% of all their wood... Now there is a circle of elves, each elf representing a 'group'. The groups are: The learned, huntsman, life-bringers, water-stealers and the home builders. They hold meetings and decide on what direction the city should go for the year, the sage's daughter oversees the meetings, and makes notes on what happened, although with no way to put down into words remembering it all can be a chore..

[/quote]Water-stealers?
I'm not really sure how you went from point A to point B, there. And did you have some kind of government in the first place to impose this tax?

[Ochita]

Fishermen.

Lets say... The rich imposed it.

[Vanigo]

Who were they expecting to enforce it?

[IronyOwl]

I'm having trouble coming up with anything. Could you give me a suggestion/example maybe?

[Ahra]

Beacause of the abundance of food the kasrs got from the ground the very ground of the first farms is considered blessed by the lords beacause of the plentiful rains that gave the fields their lavish gifts of food dwarfing anything the kasrs had ever known but as old habits die hard the kasrs continued  to kill the beasts of the forest.

with the great change to society the council arose the head farmer, the woodsmen, the artisans and the warriors all had to accept changes to do them.
as the times continued the kasrs got shaped by their work the woodsmen became as swift as the hyenas, the farmers became wide over their shoulders and strong as oxes
the artisans shrunk becoming agile and fit for their delicate work and the warriors that retained their kasr bodies.

The end of the first age, also known as the golden kasirian age was marked when the very sea itself turned against the kasrs and it was a sight to behold as it wihout destoying almost nothing swept away almost a third of the kasirian population and drowning their animals.
But they was not to be demorialised so easily as the temple itself had not been touched, only the village had been flooded.
it took them many harvests (a kasrian measurment of time) to regain their animals and technology but they still lack the numbers they had before the great sea devoured so many of them but when the kasrs was suddenly struck by the thought.
The skylords were not alone there were lords of the earth and water and fire as well as the ones of the air, the high priest is said to have kneeled before the core and asked why the sealords had done this they had answered:
-you honour all but us, was all they said.
shocked over the simple reason the council immediatly proclaimed the classes to become castes dedicated to one lord each they were the
the farmers-earth caste
the woodsmen-air caste
the artisans-water caste
the warriors-fire caste
and now they still hold the sky as the highest but all are revered for their power, and their fickle nature.

ok more bullshit if this doesent work i dont know what.

[Vanigo]

Well, basically the issue is finishing this sentence: "The end of the first age and the dawning of the second was marked by ________." Some sort of major event goes there - pretty much any will do. It might be a new ruler, a new religion, a natural disaster and the recovery process, a major figure emerging or an old one dying, whatever. A battle would be perfect, except that they tend to involve two civilizations, which is less than ideal. Something like that.

[Vanigo]

The end of the first age, also known as the golden kasirian  age was marked when the very sea itself turned against the kasrs and it was a sight to behold as it wihout destoying almost nothing swept away almost a third of the kasirian population and drowning their animals but they was not to be demorialised so easily as the temple itself had not been touched, only the village had been flooded.
it took them many harvests (a kasrian measurment of time) to regain their animals and technology but they still lack the numbers they had before the great sea devoured so many of them. (-4-3-2 to population?)

When I said "a natural disaster and the recovery process", I meant one that had some sort of major cultural impact. If everything's pretty much the same afterward, the only thing it marks the end of is a bunch of people's lives. Besides, you already had a reasonably clear division in "the emergence of farming as a major institution and the different subspecies appearing". You don't need to throw in a big dramatic event just for the sake of doing so; a gradual but major cultural change works just as well.

[Ahra]

i got to learn to wright fluff better.
added some more so only 3 fixes until its done.

[Vanigo]

i got to learn to wright fluff better.

First suggestion: Break your writing into the smallest possible sentences. You have a ridiculously severe problem with run-on sentences - in fact, I don't think I've seen you write a normal sentence anywhere in your fluff.  There are times when putting multiple thoughts into one sentence is appropriate, like in this sentence and the previous one, but you don't seem to be able to identify them. If it's a matter of using short sentences exclusively or having every paragraph consist of a single sentence, you should definitely go for the former.
I still don't know about that flood. It feels like drama for the sake of drama. (Nirur Torir's civil war, by way of contrast, is drama for the sake of getting his society where he wants it.) If that's the way you want to take things, well, it's your civ, but don't throw something like that in for my sake. Catastrophes are not inherently interesting. (Real-world catastrophes are interesting because they impact thousands of human lives, but a bunch of nameless fictional lizardmen are much less significant.) Disasters in your fluff are like disasters in any other fiction - they should serve some purpose in the greater storyline. Introducing a psychological quirk doesn't really cut it. If it destroyed something important (to the narrative, that is), or if the government changed in response, or if a new religion arose in the hopes of placating the water spirits... those would be good reasons to have a giant flood.

[lemon10]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The past few years had a very large effect on the Hinor of Ljus faller. Perhaps the largest change had been militarily, the Hinor explorers had went from triumphant heroes at their first exploration, younglings sure that they could take on anything, to being humiliated and powerless. They decided that the Council of twelved was a just a bunch of weak old men. And feta, their mentor, must have betrayed them to the ape men, they could think of no other reason that they could have lost with such good odds, the first and second time was understandable, but the third time, when he had assured their victory and led them personally was not. They stormed the residences of the council of twelve and Feta, and imprisoned them. Taking control of Ljus faller. Despite being too weak to win those battles, they were still the only people with weapons and experience in the city, and they seized control easily with the council and Feta out of the way. Instead of the council of twelve, they changed is to a council where the leader of each military squad would get a vote, irregardless of age and combat experience.
After this, the Hinor had turned inwards, choosing to focus on economic growth instead of focusing on exploration and combat, of which they had had their fair share. The military men were ironically peaceful, not looking to suffer another humiliation at the hands of monkeys.

Is that ok?

[Vanigo]

Hmm. It's a way you could take things, but... the army's credibility with the populace has to be extremely low. I'm not sure they could hold power for any length of time. You can't rule if you're not respected, or at least feared, and fear doesn't work very well when your advantage over everyone else is a pointy stick.

[lemon10]

They still have pointy sticks though. But most importantly, its not like many people will really care that much when their society goes from a oligarchy (old people)-> oligarchy (military). You can rule if people don't really care enough to depose of you, even if they don't really like you.
The main reasons that people overthrow governments is economic hardship (france, egypt recently, russia) and the military will be just as good as the council at the economy. And as for any kind of democratic ideals, they won't care because they never had any kind of democracy or really even any ideals of it. Sure, their are struggles for independence from foriegn nations (not applicable here), but those are generally economically and racially motivated (eg. english are taking away the rights of the chinese and seperating them economically).

And while tradition is somewhat important to them, about a thousand of the Hinor are old enough to remember the founding of the council (of which about 40 rotate through council seats), and as the most influential hinor, they don't even really care about tradition since they remember the founding.
They are still trained troops, pretty bad troops (evident from them losing EVER SINGLE ONE OF THEIR BATTLES), but they would still be able to take on 2 or 3 times their numbers of Hinor at once without any trouble.

[Vanigo]

I'm not sure you know what an oligarchy is. That aside, the problem with staying in power due to apathy is that you can't really do much - if you try to do anything that's more than slightly unpopular, people will start caring again. And it makes you really easy to depose, since people are going to care even less about keeping you in power. I had assumed the council of 12 stayed in power because people viewed it as legitimate, for one reason or another. That's something you can't win in a military coup, and something to rally the masses against you besides.
And winning when you're outnumbered three to one isn't that helpful when you're imposing your will on forty or fifty times your numbers, especially if the mob can find people happy to run themselves through on your spear so the two guys behind them can move in while your weapon is stuck. Not like they'll stay dead, after all. Mind you, the mob would have to be fairly upset to go that far, since they know exactly how much it would hurt, but all in all the regeneration thing can't help but make "Hey, let's all 800 of us charge at the army; they can't possibly kill all of us" a much more attractive prospect.

[lemon10]

I'm not sure you know what an oligarchy is.

The oligarchy (from Greek ὀλιγαρχία, oligarkhía[1]) is a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with a small number of people. These people could be distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, corporate, or military control.

So yeah, they are both oligarchies.

That aside, the problem with staying in power due to apathy is that you can't really do much - if you try to do anything that's more than slightly unpopular, people will start caring again. And it makes you really easy to depose, since people are going to care even less about keeping you in power. I had assumed the council of 12 stayed in power because people viewed it as legitimate, for one reason or another. That's something you can't win in a military coup, and something to rally the masses against you besides.
And winning when you're outnumbered three to one isn't that helpful when you're imposing your will on forty or fifty times your numbers, especially if the mob can find people happy to run themselves through on your spear so the two guys behind them can move in while your weapon is stuck. Not like they'll stay dead, after all. Mind you, the mob would have to be fairly upset to go that far, since they know exactly how much it would hurt, but all in all the regeneration thing can't help but make "Hey, let's all 800 of us charge at the army; they can't possibly kill all of us" a much more attractive prospect.

I can't think of anyone motivated enough to try to kick them out of power. Sure, if they got genuinely unpopular, people would kick them out, but its true for the current ruling council as well. The general populous is happy with good economic growth and a good quality of life. If the city undergoes famine/lack of prosperity, then i could see them getting kicked out of power. And while the general populous is rather apathetic to who is in control, no one is going to outright ignore the military, if bob the general says to a labor leader "we need 100 people farming", then people will farm.

And sure, if the whole populous decides to attack the military, then they are screwed, but its the same for all the other forms of governments for all the other cities.
The whole old power structure is still in place, it just got replaced by the military at the top instead of old people.

[Vanigo]

I'm not sure you know what an oligarchy is.

The oligarchy (from Greek ὀλιγαρχία, oligarkhía[1]) is a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with a small number of people. These people could be distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, corporate, or military control.

So yeah, they are both oligarchies.

Oh, right. You're right; I got it mixed up with plutocracy.

I can't think of anyone motivated enough to try to kick them out of power. Sure, if they got genuinely unpopular, people would kick them out, but its true for the current ruling council as well. The general populous is happy with good economic growth and a good quality of life. If the city undergoes famine/lack of prosperity, then i could see them getting kicked out of power. And while the general populous is rather apathetic to who is in control, no one is going to outright ignore the military, if bob the general says to a labor leader "we need 100 people farming", then people will farm.

And sure, if the whole populous decides to attack the military, then they are screwed, but its the same for all the other forms of governments for all the other cities.
The whole old power structure is still in place, it just got replaced by the military at the top instead of old people.

What is the old power structure, anyway? Not too clear on that, and many types of power structure react poorly to bumping off the old head and trying to replace it.

The situation you describe... is foreign to human psychology. People instinctively want to move to the top of the social pecking order. Not everyone wants it all that badly, and not everyone who does decides that it means going for political power, but enough do that any government this weak would be toppled in short order. I mean, "Hey, guys, we totally rule this city now." "Yeah, sure, whatever." "Oh, and we're passing these laws. Go along with it." "Sure, why not?"? Their main power base is a weak and largely discredited military, and they have practically no legitimacy - if these were real people, someone would make a power grab within six months. But then, that's the rub - they aren't exactly human. They're close, regeneration aside, but who knows what kinds of psychological differences there are? I've been assuming they think pretty much like humans do, but is that not the case?