Category:Bureau of Nature

The Superintendency of Nature Grand and Humble (the Bureau of Nature) is, to many both within and without, a shadow of what it once was. Home to gods of land, animal, and plant, it suffered greatly when the Great Contagion wiped whole species from Creation and reduced its size significantly, making this bureau the most common source of unemployed Celestial divinities. And yet, though its numbers are reduced the Bureau of Nature has lost none of its complexity, its offices and committees stacked and interwoven amongst each other. In principle, the Bureau is divided into two Hierarchies, the Hierarchy of Type and the Hierarchy of Function, divisions which emerged in the wake of the Primordial War.

The Hierarchy of Type is primarily home to the gods of what things are, mountains and islands, Dogs and Gudi Vines. It considers itself to be the heir to the original Bureau because in the Prehistoric Age the type of a thing dictated its functions, before chaos seeped in to confuse the matter.

The Hierarchy of Function is primarily home to gods of what things do, predators and natural flight, leaf-eaters and fruit-bearers. It considers itself to be the heir to the original Bureau because in the Prehistoric Age everything fully embodied its function in Creation, and there was no need to define ‘type’ beyond this before chaos seeped in to confuse the matter.

Each of the Hierarchies is led by a Shogun. Beneath these are various councils and committees, starting with broad categories of creatures and of their behaviors within which are assembled successive layers of narrower, more specific offices. Each office is headed by a Daimyo, though few would claim the shared title speaks to similar power and influence. The largest groupings in the Hierarchies are instead headed by Eminences, whose task it is to approve new species and new geographies, opening up a new position in the Bureau and assigning it a place within the complex chains of command. Even beyond this, the Bureau also assembles gods into regional committees, headed by Overseers, coordinating the various spirits responsible for Nature within one of the Five Directions. These include the Harmonious Conciliation of Northern Nature, the Serene Assembly of Southern Nature, the Peaceful Adjudication of Western Nature, and the Calm Parliament of Eastern Nature, within whom various subcommittees work to coordinate the interconnected regional ecosystems of Creation. There are also more general inter-Hierarchy committees, such as the Infectious Diseases Department (which is responsible for the Bureau’s interactions with the Bureau of Humanity’s Board of Ill-Health and the Bureau of Destiny’s Convention on Plague), or the Commission for Administrative Complaints (the Bureau’s internal affairs and intelligence department), as well as Terrestrial Courts such as the Glorious Creation-Dominating Assembly of Saline Salvation which operate near-entirely under aegis of Nature.

While an individual god is officially employed and receiving salary from only one of the Hierarchies, they are often answerable to superiors spread across both (for example, the superiors to whom the god of Sea Eagles reports include the Daimyo of Raptors and the Eminence of Avians in the Hierarchy of Type, the Daimyo of Aerial Predators and of Domesticated Creatures, and Eminences of Predators and Carnivores, in the Hierarchy of Function. As numerous Sea Eagles dwell on the islands of the West, the god must also answer to the Overseer of the Peaceful Adjudication of Western Animals and the assorted heads of various inter-Hierarchy subcommittees operating under her aegis. Additionally this convoluted system means many gods are simultaneously the superior to a colleague in one circumstance, while an equal or even subordinate in another. While many in the Celestial Bureaucracy bemoan such arrangements as chaotic, some have spoken that it leaves the Bureau far less vulnerable to attacks such as that when the Bureau of Heaven exploited the clearer hierarchies there to gain control of a large swathe of the Bureau of Humanity.