Does Aeric Boeruine rank higher in station than Darien Avan?

[Beruin]

Just a small bit I came across when reading up on heraldry:)

From Robert Innes-Smith, An Outline of Heraldry in England and Scotland:


"Dukes are technically 'princes' and although at first sight it seems that in this country a prince is higher in rank, it must be remembered that Royal children are born princes but are raised to the rank of Duke..."


The Archduke would certainly approve...;)

[kgauck]

Based on European heraldry, princes out-rank dukes. Prince means First, as in Principal. Augustus Caesar adopted Principus as his title, and Prince derives from that. Dukes are only "princes" in a technical sense. First there is the Imperial case, where the dukes are soveriegn and may act as soveriegns despite the Emperor. The second case, as in England or France, duke is a royal title, where the only dukes are royals. If we look at the three ancient duchies of France, Burgundy, Brittany, and Aquitaine, each has its own royal pretensions. Each was occupied by a Capetian prince, a brother of a king. When Edward III created duchies, he only made his sons dukes. Again duchy is used as a royal office.

But at other times and in other circumstances, dukes who are not royal (say the Duke of Wellington compared to Prince George, Duke of York), the non-royal dukes are clearly inferior to non-ducal princes. So in modern England, Prince Harry outranks Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who is the grandson of George V. Prince Harry is the son of a Prince. Duke Richard is the son of a Duke. Both are the gransons of Kings.

The reason princes can be created dukes is that as the son of a king Prince is an honorary title. The Prince of Wales has no lands. But the Prince of Wales has been the Duke of Cornwall since Edward the Black Prince, and has lands and income as Duke. So you make your sons, princes, dukes because you are giving them incomes, not titles.

[dalor]

My head hurts...

This is the reason most of my D&D Fighters are
Warlords that don`t give a dump about nobility! LOL

It is too complicated for their sword weary arms to
worry about lifting a book to read when they can just
take the land...and use the Duke or Prince`s Heraldry
as the necessity in the privy afterward!

I suppose that comes from my U.S. origins though, with
little knowledge of how nobility and royalty work in
the day to day lives of others in the world.

I think that is also the reason many fantasy fans of
the D&D game have little understanding of what true
feudalism is all about at any rate...we just aren`t
from a country where such things happened (though our
ancestors are).


--- kgauck <brnetboard@BIRTHRIGHT.NET> wrote:

> This post was generated by the Birthright.net
> message forum.
> You can view the entire thread at:
>
http://www.birthright.net/forums/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=3599
>
> kgauck wrote:
> Based on European heraldry, princes out-rank dukes.
> Prince means First, as in Principal. Augustus
> Caesar adopted Principus as his title, and Prince
> derives from that. Dukes are only "princes" in a
> technical sense. First there is the Imperial case,
> where the dukes are soveriegn and may act as
> soveriegns despite the Emperor. The second case, as
> in England or France, duke is a royal title, where
> the only dukes are royals. If we look at the three
> ancient duchies of France, Burgundy, Brittany, and
> Aquitaine, each has its own royal pretensions. Each
> was occupied by a Capetian prince, a brother of a
> king. When Edward III created duchies, he only made
> his sons dukes. Again duchy is used as a royal
> office.
>
> But at other times and in other circumstances, dukes
> who are not royal (say the Duke of Wellington
> compared to Prince George, Duke of York), the
> non-royal dukes are clearly inferior to non-ducal
> princes. So in modern England, Prince Harry
> outranks Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who is the
> grandson of George V. Prince Harry is the son of a
> Prince. Duke Richard is the son of a Duke. Both
> are the gransons of Kings.
>
> The reason princes can be created dukes is that as
> the son of a king Prince is an honorary title. The
> Prince of Wales has no lands. But the Prince of
> Wales has been the Duke of Cornwall since Edward the
> Black Prince, and has lands and income as Duke. So
> you make your sons, princes, dukes because you are
> giving them incomes, not titles.
>
>

>
> Birthright-l Archives:
> http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
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[kgauck]

It is too complicated for their sword weary arms to worry about lifting a book to read when they can just take the land...and use the Duke or Prince`s Heraldry as the necessity in the privy afterward!

Surely once your warlords have won their states they hope to leave them intact to heirs, who having not won their states by force of arms are forced to make arguments of birthright and lineage. If your bold and ready warlord is contemptuous of titles and heraldry he makes the task of his heirs much harder.

[Beruin]

First off, Anuirean titles have been discussed quite a few times before here, so sorry for opening this can of worms again, but I think there are some new ideas here.

IIRC, in early medieval Europe 'duke' was a military title going back to the time when the Germanic peoples elected their (military) leaders. When things settled down after the fall of the Roman Empire and the Germanic peoples, notably the Franks, settled down on former Roman territory, powerful dukes became kings as their position became hereditary. In this sense, the title duke precedes the title king.

I see a similarity to the Anuireans here. The dukes were the leaders of the Andu clans when they came to Cerilia and the most powerful of them later became the first emperor.

AFAIR Octavian, better known as Augustus, adopted the title princeps to denote his position within the senate as primus inter pares ('first among equals'), i.e. to show for propaganda reasons that even if his position was superior he was still part of the crowd so-to-speak. He received the title Augustus, meaning 'The Divine', only later, shortly before his death, IIRC.

Also see these links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princeps
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primus_inter_pares
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princeps_Senatus

If we follow this example for the Anuireans, it becomes possible to explain the title 'Prince' for Darien Avan, provided you use a kind of Imperial Senate in your campaign:
The Avan family has traditionally held the presiding seat in the senate and after a few generations the title prince went along with this office.

[prince_dios]

This is the reason most of my D&D Fighters are
Warlords that don`t give a dump about nobility! LOL

You are talking about non-BR settings, I should hope.

[dalor]

The only two pure fighters I ever played were both
humans (in birthright); and didn`t care much about
what happened to their kingdoms after they died.

One, Barak, was a Vos Mercenary warlord. He used
human mercenaries, goblins and gnolls to establish his
Warhold upon the remains of the Chimaeron (after
killing the resident Awnsheigh). He had perhaps
dozens of children, and didn`t care about any of them
more than the others...it was up for them to establish
who took control after he died...he was Vos and
believed that might made right. He went on to invade
Coeranys and take it as well as large parts of
Rhormarch (sp?), but made the fatal mistake of
becoming overly greedy and invading the dwarven
kingdom in alliance with Orogs...he got bogged down
and lost his head as well as his holdings against the
Dwarves and their elven allies and other human
mercenaries that their massive gold stores hired.

The other, name I can`t remember, carved a holding for
himself in the Five Peaks and then invaded Thurazor.
The game stopped too soon and never started
again...but he too didn`t care about his heirs because
he had never considered that he would even live to the
next day, let alone worry about children he never saw
unless he was visiting one village or another he had
conquered.

I did play a Paladin Monarch of Talinie in Anuire as
well as other realms; but I never played just a
fighter who ruled a land from the start.

That is the problem with Anuire though, why its people
haven`t been brought out of centuries of minor wars:
there hasn`t been a powerful ruler who came along that
didn`t care if he had the Iron Throne or not...someone
who just decided to take what he could and let the
Nobles and Royals go take a flying leap. Someone
needs to come along and establish a new order...

But unlike Europe, there are no slavering hordes of
"barbarians" that can sweep in and do that...(although
I did play with the idea of a Vos Horde coming to
Anuire and conquering it...or at least uniting what
was left that they didn`t conquer to unite Anuire
again).


--- kgauck <brnetboard@BIRTHRIGHT.NET> wrote:

> This post was generated by the Birthright.net
> message forum.
> You can view the entire thread at:
>
http://www.birthright.net/forums/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=3599
>
> kgauck wrote:
> ------------ QUOTE ----------
> It is too complicated for their sword weary arms to
> worry about lifting a book to read when they can
> just take the land...and use the Duke or Prince`s
> Heraldry as the necessity in the privy afterward!
> -----------------------------
>
>
>
> Surely once your warlords have won their states they
> hope to leave them intact to heirs, who having not
> won their states by force of arms are forced to make
> arguments of birthright and lineage. If your bold
> and ready warlord is contemptuous of titles and
> heraldry he makes the task of his heirs much harder.
>
>

>
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> http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
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[dalor]

In general yes...but not entirely.

The Vos don`t care much for Anuirean Noble
titles...they are meaningless to them...as well as to
the Rjurik for the most part and the Khinasi as well
(again for the most part).

Anyone coming from those lands would bring their own
ideas of how they wanted to rule their lands.

No need for "putting me in my place" as if there
aren`t examples already for nations in Anuire that
don`t care at all for Anuirean titles:

Medeore (Theocracy, and thus outside the "rules")

Endier (has "nobles" but completely powerless and the
leader there obviously has no use for a noble title)

Aerenwe (hasn`t the ruler there forsworn the usual
Anuirean "rules" for nobility and royalty...I could be
wrong)

Ilien (Magocracy)...even though I think the ruler is a
Count, he obviously doesn`t go by the book since the
ruler of Ilien MUST be a Wizard by tradition.

I think there are others...but I think I`ve pointed
out enough.

There is no need for a ruler in Anuire to stick to the
rules of nobility and royalty in Anuire unless he is
FROM nobility and royalty...and not all characters
are.

So to answer your "question" the answer would have to
be: Yes, in Birthright.

......as if I`m a dolt and need to be reminded of my
place...sheesh!


--- prince_dios <brnetboard@BIRTHRIGHT.NET> wrote:
> prince_dios wrote:
> ------------ QUOTE ----------
> This is the reason most of my D&D Fighters are
> Warlords that don`t give a dump about nobility! LOL
> -----------------------------
>
>
>
> You are talking about non-BR settings, I should
> hope.
>
>

>
> Birthright-l Archives:
> http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
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[kgauck]

I'd figure it would be more likely that these examples just complicate the picture, rather than standing outside the nobility. The nobility is not a closed system. Once you run domains you're in it. Participating in existing power structures is something people do because it serves a purpose.


Those who by valorous ways become princes, like these men, acquire a principality with difficulty, but they keep it with ease. The difficulties they have in acquiring it arise in part from the new rules and methods which they are forced to introduce to establish their government and its security. And it ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them. Thus it happens that whenever those who are hostile have the opportunity to attack they do it like partisans, whilst the others defend lukewarmly, in such wise that the prince is endangered along with them.

[Beruin]

IMC, I see Endier and Ilien as Free Imperial Cities with a bit of surrounding territory, akin to quite a few larger and wealthier cities in the Holy Roman Empire. They have been granted self-administration by the Emperor in times past and do not have to accept a land regent above them, except of course, the Emperor. In these troubled times, they are strong supporters of the Chamberlain, as the last remaining institution willing to back their claim to independence.

[AndrewTall]

On the specific title point: Aeric ranks higher when you are in Boeruine, Darien when in Avanil. Otherwise it depends on whether you openly support one or the other, want to curry favour, and the skill of the chamberlain to avoid the issue...


On some comments by Dalor (and others), not meaning to 'put you in their place' at all, your game is yours to enjoy as you will - but my tuppence is:


It's certainly possibly to run a realm ignoring the rules of polite society (i.e. nobility in the terms of Anuire), albeit much harder in a diplomatically based game, but over a generational game its very difficult to keep a realm together without a substantial number of people supporting your PC's.

It should be noted that the nobility of Anuire is likely to be strongly inter-related, and if an external force threatened all of them - for example a new realm which scorned their system of hereditary rule, etc, then they would likely unite (temporarily) against it - and in Anuire the nobles stayed noble by being a) rich and b) strongly blooded, c) good at fighting, d) ruthlessly pragmatic...

From a bloodline point of view it should be noted that unless the newcomer marries into one of the noble families their bloodline will swiftly dissipate - and without a high bloodline score rulership is very difficult - try contesting Darian Avan for a key law holding and see how far your regent with a bloodline of 20-30 gets...

In Anuire I would expect that the concepts of deference and duty are deeply ingrained throughout the entire society, anyone who casually ignore the duties of a noble may find themselves deserted by their people who are unnerved by rulers who shun the system ordained by the gods (Haelyn, patron of Anuire is god of nobility after all). Its worth remembering that the state is unlikely to provide any charity - that all comes from the church (run and paid for by the nobles) or directly from the nobles - attack a man's lord and you are attacking the lord who paid for grain when the harvest failed...

Further, if Anuire is anything like medieval England the nobility own most of the land, command the armies, run the law, dominate the upper echelons of the churches, run the guilds, etc - the rulers of the realms are just the tip of the iceberg, making it very hard to beat the system just by war without killing just about everyone with any power at all.

Also the social order went far beyond just the upper class - the middle class supported the system as it held them above the lower class, while the lower class had dozens of stratifications between skilled and unskilled workers, oppose the nobility right to rule and you also oppose the blacksmiths right to train his son to follow him and for the both of them to hold themselves better than the ditchdigger...

A good example of this in practice is Alexander the Great - he ruled Persia as a Persian Emperor not as a traditional Greek ruler to avoid constant rebellions - his new people expected certain behaviour and rules of society and so he had to adhere to them.

You can of course ignore this sort of thing in your campaign - whatever makes the game more fun is what's right for you, but using the rules of nobility against the nobles can be a lot of fun if you want to play the outsider... :)

It's worth looking at Elinie however - the Khinasi came saw and conquered - but have ruled as Anuirean nobles.


Regarding the 'non' noble Anuirean realms mentioned:

Endier. Kalien is the first non-noble to rule Endier - and has done so for only a decade or so - does anyone think that his children will starve in the streets? Or will his feelings towards inherited wealth undergo a substantial shift now that he has ended arguments against his rule? As he gets older he may also want the respect from his peers that accepting a noble rank would bring - I see Kalien as having opposed the nobility simply b/c he needed to break its power in Endier to takeover, not from some dislike for the system.

Ilien. I would expect that the counts have always trained in magic - much like the counts of Danigau. It's an easy way for them to have greater influence than the single city would normally indicate, although some of the previous lords haven't been mages (Soleme). The previous lord to rogr died without a direct heir breaking the normal inheritance but I would be surprised if that was the norm for the realm, and with only one mage in the city, a magocracy it ain't...

Aerenwe has named its rulers kings and queens - not the normal dukes and duchesses you would expect in Anuire but still clearly aristocratic and probably as Anuirean as any other system even if they don't officially strive for the Iron Throne.

Medeore is less than a decade old - and Suris is the daughter of the former baron, her child is likely to be a priest as well - possibly a paladin, so again you get the normal Anuirean rule from parent to child just with a religious focus.

Taline is similar, although older. Thuriene may currently be the last of her line, but unless killed by Torias (i.e. in the PS) is likely to have children in due course - who would be raised in the faith and have the bloodline to command it in due course.

[Corneel]

There is a bit confusion because English uses one word "prince" to refer to two different titles/functions, as they existed in Germany (and realms to the East influenced by Germany).

Fürst: ruler of a semi-independent realm, a principality, more or less equivalent in power to the traditional duchies (though somewhat lesser in status or rank, since of more recent creation within the Empire), and which included also Princes of the Church (Prince-Bishops - Fürstbischof). But within the HRE the Prince-Electors (Kurfürst) were in fact again more powerful than ordinary dukes (as they got to elect the Emperor) and they actually still had other titles to (Duke, Count Palatinate or Pfalzgraf, King (Bohemia), or Archbishop) and there were only 7 to 9 of them (at least 3 of them church leaders).

Prinz: male, non-ruling member of a ruling family.

And it can be a general term for a ruling noble without any strict reference (as in Machiavelli's work)

The Birthright situation seems fairly equivalent to the HRE situation, so I'd guess than that Avan is of lesser rank than Boeruine.

[vota dc]

Well,prince rank can be lower or higher than duke title.
For example prince of Monaco has less power than a duke,but usually prince is higher than duke.
A barbarian leader when he conquer a realm he will legitimate his power and will compensate his lieutanants giving lands and titles.

[Dcolby]

Considering that in most campaigns they are the two primary claiments/rivals for the throne and neither is willing to give way to the other and the Anuirean social order is shattered above local authority does it matter any more?

If the Chamberlain who issupposed to be the arbiter of the succession is unwilling to appoint either one and is holding is out for a "worthy" canidate are we to think that the Chamberlain views worth as "Blood" and or "Birthrank" or rather as "fitness" to rule the former Empire?

If the Arbiter is disregarding "rank" and "blood" then really the whole point is moot and perhaps the better question is who do you as Game Masters and Players prefer?? (That is of course if you don't have better canidates among your players!! ;) )

If I had to choose I would throw in with Boeruine, He seems more likely to reward loyalty and repay debts than the oily (to me at least) Avan.

:D

[Thelandrin]

As I recall de Brett's Peerage, a duke ranks higher than a prince but not as high as a prince of the Blood Royal. Likewise, an hereditary peerage always ranks higher than an equivalent life rank.

(Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.)

[irdeggman]

As has been pointed out in many discussion in the past the "titles" used in BR are "vague" at best.

They will depend on the culture they are used in.

For example in elven culture the "titles" used are most likely the same ones they have always used (that immortality thinng) so they still have the same meaning.

In Anuire (the main focus) they have most definitely changed since they were originally used. And as AndrewTall pointed out it depneds on where you are as to who specifically has a higher "rank".

Avan has at sometime decided to claim the title of "prince"- most likely gradually over time so as to go unnoticed in order to help solidify his claim to the Iron Throne. But that doesn't really have much sway in the overall schem of things.

Heck Aerenwe has a "queen".

[Thelandrin]

Then again, I think the Aerenwe queen was allowed to keep her title in return for accepting Imperial overlordship and agreeing to join Michael Roele in his attempt to reunite the Empire. (I'm a little hazy on the details.)