The two factions within Giff society are not split for political or religious reasons like other races because all Giff known their true purpose is to recreate the big bang, instead they are divided over how to pronounce their race's own name. Currently the G-iff faction is dominant claiming it is the more natural pronunciation based on their language, yet the J-iff faction maintains their claim that the first gunsmith, and founder of the blastocracy, Jermaine Jefferson's last words after he was shot in a duel were that it was pronounced J-iff.
The Giff were mere intelligent animals until very recently, voidonomically speaking. Theorized to be the first new major race uplifted by Itoa's Rebirth at the end of The Reckoning likely thanks to their planet's relative proximity to Itoa. Unlike other Humanoid races the Giff didn't naturally evolve into their sentience but rather it was sparked by the Rebirth when Itoa exploded in their sky and sent giant asteroids hurling through their skies and meteorites slamming into their world. Those original Giff's first true memories of this primeval explosion shaped their entire culture towards recreating that big bang. This pseudo-religious fervor drove them to inventing gunpowder which, after acquiring their first Spelljammers, they have been exporting zealously through both trade and out the end of their cannons.
The Giff are ruled by the Blastocracy, a council of the race's greatest gunsmiths. Every four years there are elections were each Giff fills in a ballot ranking each eligible gunsmith between 1 and 5 explosions. The seven gunsmiths with the highest amount of explosions nominally rule the country for those four years but the Giff are a very independent race so they mostly do whatever they want regardless of laws. These elections take place over two weeks which are a great national festival in the nation's capital as all gunsmiths put on displays, give discounts on their wares, and many grudges are settled through public duels.