Worlds to play, cards to import

Ash-priests who ration the city's last clean fire.

The war-hero house of Flame and Iron: claim by battlefield regency, beloved of veterans, whispered to prefer another war to a lost vote.

The commons' house of River and Grain — young, charismatic, broke, and possibly steered by its own stewards.

Salt-oath bankers turned claimants: patient, contractual, convinced the crown is a formality they already own.

The provisional government: seven Oathseats and the Graftwarden, paralysed by design.

A commons movement from the print-shops and tenements: let the Tree choose no king — let it choose the realm.

Organized crime wearing banking's face — or the reverse. They finance all three claims and keep the receipts.

The united guilds — weights, wages, and gates. Officially neutral; actually the city's second government.

Coronal's city-legion, sworn to the Crown Ward stones themselves — stretched thin, bribed often, prouder than paid.

Tenders of the Concord Tree — part clergy, part arborists, part forensic lawyers of the Oaths — losing authority by the week.

A heresy inside the Graftwardens: the Tree is not sick — it is deciding. And lately, they say, answering.