On 11/21/2015 8:43 PM, Jim Vassilakos wrote:
> However, there is also this idea in the literature that sometimes
> imperial worlds fight among themselves, so for purposes of the story,
> I had a baron who succeeded in conquering the only other nation on a
> world that he inhabited, reuniting the world under his rule. At this
> point, he'd issued an application up the chain of nobility to be
> recognized as a marquis, and he wanted to install various officers or
> children as his barons, so they had to submit applications as well,
> and the whole thing started to seem rather... silly, I guess. I mean,
> I suppose he could have just started calling himself a Marquis, but
> one would think that given that these titles have specific meanings,
> one would be careful about entitling oneself, as any sort of overreach
> might anger the higher-ups. Likewise, the imperial nobility might not
> want their nobles constantly waging wars against one another, so
> perhaps a top-down rearrangement of deck chairs, as you proposed,
> might be preferable to a bottom-up approach.

I recall reading somewhere in one of the products that touched on this
topic.  The crux of the essay was that it seemed to be tied not to land
specifically but to revenue.  It used the example of a frontier Baron
having a fief of a largely undeveloped world compared to one from one of
the Core Barons who might only have a city or perhaps even a few square
blocks or kilometers as a fief and have rough economic parity.

Based on that, it would almost suggest that economic affluence would be
the gauge of noble rank.

--
Kurt Feltenberger
xxxxxx@thepaw.org/xxxxxx@yahoo.com
“Before today, I was scared to live, after today, I'm scared I'm not
living enough." - Me