According to Gabriel McNally’s reconstruction (generally accepted by scholars of Ambrosian legend, always excepting Julian Emrys), the Wardlands were an anarchy with no formal government at all. According to legend, the Wardlands had not been a kingdom since the golden age at the beginning of time, when the King (usually identified with the divine aspect known as God Avenger) ruled in person in Laent and elsewhere. Since then it has been considered blasphemous, or at least irrationally presumptuous, for any person to assert a claim to rule the Wardlands. Those who try to do so are exiled or (in extreme cases) killed.

What in other cultures would have been state functions (national defense, dispute resolution, even road-building and repair, etc.) were carried on by voluntary cooperatives: the Arbiters of the Peace, the Guild of Silent Men, the League of Rhetors, etc. Most famous in the unguarded lands was the Graith of Guardians, sworn to maintain the guard.

The Graith had three ranks of Guardian: the lowest and most numerous were the thains, wearing a gray cape of office. They were hardly more than candidates to the Graith proper, and they undertook to obey their seniors in the Graith, even more senior thains.

Vocates, in contrast, were full members of the Graith, privileged to stand and speak at the Graith’s councils (known as Stations). Their only obligation was to defend the Guard, and the Guarded, as they saw fit. Their cloak of office was bloodred.

Most senior in the Graith were the Three Summoners. They had no power to command but were generally conceded the authority to lead the vocates of the Graith proper. The Summoner of the City convened and presided over Stations of the Graith. The Summoner of the Outer Lands was charged with watching for threats to the Guard from the unguarded lands. The Summoner of the Inner Lands was charged with watching for internal threats: those who would try to disrupt the fertile anarchy of the Wardlands and establish the sterility of political order.

The greatest danger to the anarchy of the Wardlands was obviously the Graith itself. Members of the Graith were pledged to abide by the First Decree, which forbade any acquisition of power or authority over those under the Guard. Nevertheless, Guardians were exiled more often than the Guarded for political aspirations to government (euphemistically referred to as “impairment of the Guard”). Power corrupts, and the Guardians wielded power more often than their peers among the Guarded.