The Great Houses

1. Overview

No one can understand the Klingon Empire without understanding its houses. A Klingon is born into a family, and the family is part of a house: a line of descent with a name, a head, lands, followers and a reputation that its members carry wherever they go. The great houses hold seats on the High Council and choose the Chancellor. Lesser houses serve, ally with or quarrel with the great ones. Every Klingon officer a Starfleet crew meets belongs to a house, and what that house wants, fears and owes will shape what he does.

This article explains what a house is, what it holds, how houses rise and fall, as shown by the best known cases on record, and which houses matter in 2393. For the High Council itself and the office of Chancellor see The High Council and the Chancellor. For the wider history of the Empire see History of the Klingon Empire, and for Klingon custom see Honour, Faith and Custom.

2. What a House Is

A house is a family line, named for a founder or for a head of house whose deeds made the name worth keeping. A Klingon introduces himself by his father’s name and by his house, and expects others to know what both mean. The head of house speaks for all its members, settles disputes among them, answers for their honour, and in the great houses sits on the High Council. Sons serve the house as warriors and officers. Lesser families attach themselves to a great house as allies and followers, and in return share in its protection and its standing.

Leadership of a house passes by custom to a son or brother. The record shows that a woman may lead a house only by special leave of the Chancellor, and that women may not sit on the High Council. Federation observers have noted that these rules do not mean Klingon women lack power within their houses. The matriarch of a great house has a strong voice in whom its sons marry, and in the civil war of 2367 to 2368 the House of Duras was led in all but name by two sisters.

A house is also a set of debts. A Klingon owes his house loyalty, and the house owes him its name and its protection. A house that cannot protect its members, or that shelters a member who has shamed it, loses standing. A Klingon who betrays his house, or whose house casts him out, loses more than family. He loses his place in the Empire.

3. Lands, Ships and Honour

3.1 Lands

Every house of standing holds lands: estates on Qo’noS or on the colony worlds, with the people, wealth and rights that go with them. Lands are the foundation of a house’s strength, and the first thing it loses when it falls. When a house is stripped of its lands, they pass to others. When a small house dies out, its lands tend to pass to the strongest neighbour, and a house that has ambitions toward a neighbour’s lands is never quite above suspicion when the neighbour meets with misfortune. For the Empire’s worlds see Qo'noS and the Empire's Worlds.

3.2 Ships

The Klingon Defense Force serves the Empire, not the houses. In practice the line between them is not always clean. Ship captains are sons of houses, and their crews are often drawn from the same families and the same lands. In the civil war of 2367 to 2368, ships and their captains divided along the lines of house loyalty. A great house that counts many ship captains among its sons, as the House of Vreth does, has a voice in military matters that no Council vote alone would give it. For the Defense Force see The Klingon Defense Force.

3.3 Honour

Honour is the measure of a house. A house with lands and ships but no honour is despised; a poor house with great honour is respected. Honour is won by courage, by keeping one’s word and by answering insult, and lost by cowardice, treachery and deceit. It is also inherited. The sins of a father fall on his sons, and a house can carry the shame of one member’s act for generations. The harshest sentence the Council can pass on a Klingon is discommendation: a public casting out in which he is treated as if he did not exist, and his family’s shame passes to his descendants.

4. How Houses Rise and Fall

Four cases from the last forty years show how houses gain and lose power. Each is drawn from the record and told only as far as the record goes.

4.1 The House of Duras

The House of Duras was among the most powerful in the Empire, and its fall is the clearest lesson in Klingon politics of the last century. Ja’rod, father of Duras, gave the Romulans the defence codes of Khitomer, and in 2346 a Romulan attack on the colony killed thousands. The treachery was hidden, and when it surfaced, the High Council allowed the blame to fall on Mogh, who had died at Khitomer, rather than face what the truth would do to the Empire.

Duras himself sought the chancellorship and was found to have ties to the Romulans. He died in 2367. His sisters, Lursa and B’Etor, pressed the house’s claim through a young son of Duras, and when the claim was rejected they went to war. Romulan ships and weapons reached them in secret until a Federation blockade exposed the convoys. Without that aid the House of Duras lost the civil war of 2367 to 2368, and Gowron was confirmed as Chancellor. The sisters died in 2371. The house that had once nearly taken the Empire was broken, and its name is used today as shorthand for treason with Romulan help. See Klingons and Romulans.

4.2 The House of Mogh

The House of Mogh shows how a house can be made to carry a lie. Mogh died at Khitomer, and the Council later named him as the traitor who betrayed the colony. In 2366 his son Worf came to Qo’noS to challenge the charge. The truth, that Ja’rod had been the traitor, was by then known to the Council, but making it public would have set the House of Duras against the Empire. Worf accepted discommendation in his father’s name rather than see the Empire split.

The house’s honour was restored during the civil war by Gowron, whom Worf and his brother Kurn supported. Kurn took a seat on the High Council. In 2372 the house fell again, this time for loyalty to the Federation: when Worf refused to support the Klingon invasion of Cardassia, Gowron stripped the House of Mogh of its lands and its seat. In 2374 Worf was taken into the House of Martok. The story of the House of Mogh is told by Klingons in many ways. To some it is a lesson that the Council will sacrifice the truth to keep the Empire whole. To others it is a lesson in what a warrior will bear for the Empire’s sake.

4.3 The House of Kozak

The House of Kozak shows the quieter ways houses are taken. When Kozak died in the early 2370s he left no son. A rival, D’Ghor, had been working to ruin the house’s finances so that he could absorb its lands and holdings. Kozak’s widow, Grilka, brought the matter before the Council, and Gowron gave her special leave to lead the house in her own right. D’Ghor’s methods were judged dishonourable. The case is remembered as proof that a house can be destroyed by debt as well as by blades, and that the Council will sometimes bend custom to stop it.

4.4 The House of Martok

The House of Martok shows how a house can rise. Martok was of humble birth. When he sought a place among the Empire’s officers in his youth, he was turned down for his low birth by Kor, of an old and noble house. He won his commission in the field instead, and rose by deeds to general. His house grew with him. In 2374 it took in Worf, and in 2375 Martok became Chancellor. He has led the High Council since, and still does in 2393. The House of Martok is now the most prominent in the Empire, and a house whose founder rose from nothing is a lesson every ambitious lesser house has learned.

5. Alliances by Marriage and Blood Feud

5.1 Marriage

Marriage joins houses as well as people. A marriage between a great house and a lesser one raises the lesser house and gives the great one followers, ships or lands. A marriage between two great houses can change the balance of the Council. For this reason the matriarch of a house has a strong voice in whom its members marry, and a bride entering a great house must be accepted by it. Federation observers count marriage, not war, as the most common way in which the balance between houses shifts.

5.2 Blood feud

The opposite of marriage is the blood feud. When one house kills a member of another, or shames it beyond bearing, the injured house may swear to answer it. A blood oath binds those who swear it until the debt is paid, and it can outlive the people who first swore it. Feuds between houses are usually conducted outside the Council’s halls, and the Council rarely interferes with a feud carried on honourably. A feud carried on by poison, debt or deceit is another matter. For Klingon customs of honour and vengeance see Honour, Faith and Custom.

6. The Houses in 2393

In 2393 the Empire is led by an old warrior who has held the chancellorship for eighteen years. No challenge to Chancellor Martok is on record. The great houses are nonetheless thinking about who comes next, and the alliances they make now are read on Qo’noS with that question in mind. Three houses matter most to Federation officers on the Romulan frontier.

6.1 The House of Vreth

The House of Vreth is old, border-minded and rich in warriors. Many of its sons are ship captains, and a large number of them serve on the frontier facing the Romulans. Its head sits on the High Council, where the house argues for a harder line with the Romulan Star Empire. In 2393 General Kortaq, of the House of Vreth, commands the Narendra Command, the Klingon Defense Force’s border command facing the Romulan Zone, based at Narendra III. See The Klingon Frontier in 2393. The House of Vreth has never been shown to have acted against the Council’s wishes, but its voice on Romulan matters is loud and its captains are close to the line.

6.2 The House of Tarkesh

The House of Tarkesh is rich, and its wealth lies in shipbuilding and in mining on the outer colonies. Its head also sits on the High Council, where the house argues for keeping the alliance with the Federation steady. Its interest is plain: shipyards and mines want quiet space, open trade lanes and an ally that buys and sells. The house is not soft on the Romulans, and no Klingon house is. It simply does not want a war with them that the Federation would not join. The House of Tarkesh is joined by marriage to the lesser House of Qeylath, whose captains escort Tarkesh ore convoys in the outer colonies.

6.3 The House of Gharvel

The House of Gharvel is a lesser house. It has no seat on the High Council. Its name is known beyond its own lands mainly because its sons led many of the Klingon raids into Romulan space in the 2380s, while the Romulan Star Empire was turned inward after 2379. The raids won the house a reputation for courage among some Klingons and for recklessness among others. When the Romulan patrols returned to the Zone, from 2387 and in strength from 2389, the raids grew costly, and the house lost ships and sons before they tapered off after 2390. The Romulans have never forgotten the name. See Klingons and Romulans.

The High Council neither sanctioned the raids nor stopped them. Starfleet assessments suggest that the House of Vreth spoke for the raiders when the matter was discussed, and that the House of Tarkesh urged restraint. Neither house has said so in public.

7. The Houses and the High Council

The High Council is where the great houses meet. Their heads sit on it, argue there and vote there, and the Chancellor leads it. A Chancellor rules with the support of enough houses to keep his seat, and the record shows what happens when that support fails: in 2367 the death of a Chancellor and the rival claims of two houses brought the Empire to civil war. The Rite of Succession, which chooses a new Chancellor from among those with a claim, is meant to keep that contest within the law. It does not always succeed.

The Council can raise a house, by granting it a seat or lands, and can bring one down, by stripping both. It can protect a house, as it protected the House of Kozak, or sacrifice one, as it sacrificed the honour of the House of Mogh. It can also choose not to act. The raids of the 2380s were the work of lesser houses that the Council could disown if it needed to, and its silence about them is itself a measure of how the Council uses the houses: as instruments it can claim or deny as the moment demands. For how the Council works see The High Council and the Chancellor.

For Federation officers the lesson is that the Council is never a single will. When a Klingon officer speaks for the Empire, it is worth asking which house he belongs to, and which houses on the Council his words would please.

8. Notes for Federation Officers

Ask a Klingon officer his name and his house, and remember both. Do not speak lightly of his house, and do not speak of a fallen house in front of a Klingon without care, since he may be bound to it by marriage or by blood. Treat the head of a great house with the respect owed to a member of the High Council, whether or not he holds office. Above all, remember that a Klingon who has given his word has given it in the name of his house, and that he expects the same of you. For language and forms of address see Language, Names and Ranks.

9. See Also

The Klingon Empire · The High Council and the Chancellor · History of the Klingon Empire · Honour, Faith and Custom · The Klingon Defense Force · Klingons and Romulans · The Klingon Frontier in 2393 · Qo'noS and the Empire's Worlds · Language, Names and Ranks