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04-17-2007, 12:38 AM #1
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04-17-2007, 01:10 AM #2
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.
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04-17-2007, 01:46 AM #3
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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:
>
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>
> 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.
>
>
>
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> http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
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04-17-2007, 02:05 AM #4
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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04-17-2007, 02:15 AM #5
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.Last edited by Beruin; 04-17-2007 at 02:18 AM.
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04-17-2007, 02:29 AM #6
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04-17-2007, 02:45 AM #7
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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:
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>
> 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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04-17-2007, 02:45 AM #8
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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.
>
>
>
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04-17-2007, 03:15 AM #9
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.
Originally Posted by Machiavelli
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04-17-2007, 03:48 AM #10
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.
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