Canath is a region with a pervasive and expansive Caste System, a classification of social hierarchy along various groups, the castes, each with their own social roles as well as laws and privileges. While rising in the hierarchy generally grants one more privilege and opportunity, the lower castes retain a number of specific protections against abuses by those above them. Caste differences are somewhat less important in the cities of Canath, even if it still exists there.
The caste system of Canath is also complicated by the ongoing Canathi Guildwar, in which two to three broad factions of guilds in the cities have an intense rivalry and vie to suppress their opponents. If a Caste Elder is sympathetic to an enemy faction of yours for example, you’re likely to get assigned a much harder trial.
The castes are plentiful and vary by areas in Canath, but are categorised into a series of ranks and columns. The specific castes have and can change their positions during the course of History.
The culture of Vön takes the intense stratification less to heart, and tend to simplify it down to only a few ranks. Many are of the opinion their elders guard the castes too weakly, and thus some think that rising the ranks in Vön accounts to a cheat and an illegitimate rank.
While one is born into a caste, there are pathways to gain or lose rank. Rising the ranks is usually bound to accomplishing great deeds, usually in the form of specific trials, which need to be recognised by three Caste Elders - one from the Caste you’re graduating from, one from the Caste you’re graduating to, and one from an unrelated and neutral third caste. The types of deeds required as well as the difficulties in getting the approval of all the Caste Elders required, thus makes rising in the hierarchy mostly for adventurers.
Those on top of the Caste System become something known pejoratively as “Untouchables,” whom are immune to essentially all laws of Canathi realms. The exceptions are those of war, they can still be captured in a battle they fight for example, or those contexts in which laws can be enforced by the religious hierarchy, such as for desecration while on their property. While popular heroes can hold this title, it is a status often looked down upon by the common folk as something that protects criminal elites - and thus is often rejected by folk heroes. Commoners are taught growing up to not interact with people of this status, for fear of what they could do to you without consequence.
Note that in real life “untouchables” are the complete opposite, those considered beneath the entire system whom do ‘dirty’ work and thus shouldn’t even be interacted with. This inversion is intentional.
Religious hierarchy, and especially those who more directly did tasks on behalf of Titans or took their messages, are at least in the middle to upper castes.
Those born far outside of Canath or at least outside a Canathi family are outside of the Caste System, which makes you highly lacking in the protection of the law besides the utmost basics. Some exceptions have been made for foreign merchants in certain towns, which have given them more extensive specific protections. Others have merely allowed for outsider merchants to earn their place in a Canathi merchant caste, which over time opened the door for more people of various walks of life to do so. Some foreign adventurers have joined and then risen through the ranks, for example.
Tribes or those in the borderlands of Canath, often considered hostile to Canathi civilisation, have a special denomination akin to a wooden caste. This gives them some rights in the wilds, but restricts them in the cities and even makes them an easier legitimate target in battle. Those of this semi-caste have been given wooden tokens by certain border settlements as a way to prove their rights to, for example, hunt in nature. Mercenary types of the grimmer variety have taken to hunting tribesmen, and then collecting their tokens back, as a way of proving their deed ‘clearing’ the lands.
The element above is highly characteristic of real life ethnic discrimination and cleansing, and thus needs to be treated carefully. Make sure your players are comfortable and on board before using this in your games, and if not, leave it out.
History
The Canathi Caste system has ancient roots, but has changed and evolved over millennia. Canathi Castes may come from the designation of those performing certain Alchemy and Magic as polluted, and in need of separation.
The most recent form of the system can be said to have started under the Western Governors of the Idurian Empire, which envisioned it as a way to keep the order and hoped to implement it across Mogxa society too (partially to break up their Societies, and even the Guilds of Philosophia). While it was not implemented across the eastern lands, it ensured social stratification across Canath - and particularly intensified after the abdication of Idur and the fragmentation of the empire. Since the former governors feared losing their fiefs, they used it to sow division amongst the common folk, and to reward the powerful local aristocrats with near legal immunity.