KANLY: The next step forward from espionage is assassination. To avoid chaos, the Great Houses agreed on a set of rules for assassination to prevent a slaughter. These forms of kanly are designed to limit both assassinations and the inevitable responses and are ruthlessly enforced by all the Houses. As such, they are also a lucrative area of business.
- Machinery: Assassination weapons and traps (hunterseekers, mines, bombs, etc.)
- Produce: Poisons (not just to kill but to stun or weaken and to be near-undetectable)
- Expertise: Assassin masters, operation planners, and trainers
- Workers: Assassins, thugs, infiltration specialists
- Understanding: Means of assassination, infiltration techniques, deadly combat strikes
MILITARY: While war is rarer than assassination, no House wants another to see they have a weak military, as that may be considered an invitation. Military actions are costly and logistically difficult, often requiring expensive Guild payments to move troops to another planet. But if you want to take land or facilities from another House you need soldiers to claim and occupy it.
- Machinery: Battlefield weapons, artillery, large-scale shields, tanks
- Produce: Ammunition, personal weapons, small arms (rifles, pistols, etc.)
- Expertise: Tacticians, officers, strategists
- Workers: Soldiers, engineers, pilots, logistics personnel
- Understanding: Military strategies and new tactics
POLITICAL: To some Houses, politics is their meat and drink. These social gadflies don't just play the complex games of the Landsraad for extra power, they make these games their business. They don't have much personal power, but they have powerful friends, very useful for a Minor House seeking to rise. Such Houses are the ultimate courtiers, and the leaders of style and etiquette. They know who is doing what to whom and how to get the ear of the most powerful figures. However, they also make good mediators, understanding the complexities of House politics and how to keep everyone happy.
- Machinery: Couture fashion, expensive trinkets, courier services
- Produce: Information, secrets, and favors, possibly even from the Imperial House
- Expertise: Political analysts, mediators, diplomats, fashionistas, social planners
- Workers: Courtiers, spies, administrators, servants, entourage
- Understanding: Diplomacy techniques, forms of etiquette
RELIGION: Faith still plays a large part in the society of the Imperium. It remains a force powerful enough to create leverage in business ventures and is even a service that can be sold. The trappings of religion are popular, and some Houses have found a way to monetize religion and package it for sale.
- Machinery: Churches, statues, prayer beads, religious symbols, religious books
- Produce: Prayers, hymns, religious and inspirational writings
- Expertise: Philosophers, clergy
- Workers: Choristers, altar servants, community managers
- Understanding: New religious philosophies, new forms of faith
SCIENCE: While the tenets of the Butlerian Jihad remain in force, it does not mean humanity cannot research and develop new scientific ideas. Many Houses have a research and development department to advance their domains and keep ahead of the competition. This domain often couples well with Industrial domains where a House might take full advantage of what they discover, rather than pass it on to others to make money from.
- Machinery: Laboratory equipment, quarantine areas, entire scientific facilities
- Produce: Chemical compounds, drugs, genetically adapted humans and animals
- Expertise: Scientists and researchers
- Workers: Lab assistants and managers
- Understanding: New scientific research (many different possibilities in many areas)