Social Status in Falnorian

Falnorian is a stratified society that, on its surface, resembles a feudal system. It is, however, very much not; and the underlying mechanics of social class and mobility are quite distinct from a feudal system. The following is an outline of how social status actually works in Falnorian and what it is founded on*.

Social status in a feudal system is determined primarily by land and sometimes wealth; this is very much not the case in Falnorian. It would not be unheard of for a freeholder to own land and a noble not to; and the middling social classes are often wealthier than the highest ones. Social status depends much more on what responsibilities your family has; and, as such, social mobility is fluid based on those responsibilities. Wealth and education can help with mobility, particularly within the lower grouping of social statuses; but neither will help you move into the upper grouping of social statuses, which are defined far more by the responsibility of governance than they are responsibility to their families or immediate communities.

The two most common social statuses are commoner and freeholder; the two are relatively close when it comes to wealth, quality of life, and treatment by others, although commoners tend to have a little less and freeholders have a little more. Both are defined by responsibilities that are rooted primarily in their immediate surroundings: their family, their neighbors, and their work. The major distinction is that freeholders have an additional responsibility to maintain some sort of small property while commoners do not. This property might be a house or family farm; it might also be the community barn, local pond, or other communal place. Commoners do not have the same responsibility to a location, and their responsibilities are mostly to people.

The next two social statuses up, craftsman and practare, also resemble each other in many ways. Both include a responsibility to practicing a craft and performing it well, in addition to the responsibility of a workshop; both tend to be wealthier than freeholders or commoners due to the more skilled nature of their work, but wealth is in no way prerequisite for either. The primary difference between the two is that craftsmen are responsible primarily for their own work; whereas a practare generally employs several craftsmen and is responsible for taking care of them as well as for a larger business and service. Both also have larger responsibilities to their communities than freeholders or commoners: if there is a community event, it is assumed that a craftsman or practare will at the very least put more work and resources into planning it if not host it themselves. Both social statuses also have the same responsibilities to family, friends, and their immediate surroundings that commoners and freeholders have.

Gentry is the next social status up after practare, and the final social status in the lower grouping. Gentry are defined primarily by wealth; they are by far the most wealthy of any of the social statuses period, and it would not be uncommon for a gentry to hold more personal wealth than even royalty. Their responsibilities are related to this wealth: in addition to the responsibilities that come with overseeing several businesses and larger properties, gentry have the responsibility of supporting the upper grouping of social statuses in carrying out their duties. A gentry who owns a large blacksmithing business may work closely with a noble whose responsibility is to run the army; a gentry who owns many farms may work closely with a coronate to ensure that food resources are being distributed adequately; and so on. And, as with the other lower social statues, they continue to have obligations to their family and communities, though on a larger scale as correlated with their wealth and influence.

The upper grouping of social statuses includes nobility, coronates, and royalty. As stated previously, the upper grouping of social statues is defined primarily by the responsibility of governance above all else. This means above the responsibilities of families, friendship, or other work; and members of this upper grouping are expected to, if necessary, sacrifice these things in order to uphold their primary responsibilities. What these are varies from status to status, but each supports the other.

Nobility are defined by a specific responsibility that is given to their family. What these are vary widely from location to location: in Mandel, a noble family’s duty might be to the prisons and ensuring that they are protected and kept correctly; whereas in Oldmin, a noble family’s duty might be to record the history of the region as accurately as possible and maintain records from decades and centuries past. Nobility may answer either to coronates or royalty, depending on where they are situated; and nobility is restricted to the portion of the family actively practicing and working on behalf of the family’s responsibility. People who are born into nobility but do not tend to its responsibility lose their noble status as well as the names that come with them, and come to rest somewhere in the lower statuses; their family history means very little without actively practicing its duty. Similarly, when a noble looks to marry, their primary concern above all else is someone who can carry out the family’s responsibility well: this person can come from any social status, and so long as they have that duty in their hearts, their family history does not matter.

Coronates are regional rulers; they have a responsibility to maintain a city and the surrounding area outside of it. They deal with most of the day-to-day running of a region; this includes peacekeeping and ensuring that justice is practiced and carried out, that local infrastructure is maintained, that resources are steady enough to support the population, and that local threats are dealt with. Coronates answer to royalty, and may ask for their assistance in dealing with problems that go beyond a single region or pose sufficient threat to the nation as a whole. They otherwise work very similarly to nobles so far as family is concerned; the difference is that their responsibility is to a city, not a task.

Royalty are rulers of entire nations. This would be the entirety of Oldmin, of Falnin, etc. They oversee coordination of the nation as a whole: whether that is balancing the needs of various cities, handling problems between them, or dealing with diplomacy with other nations. They set the direction of the nation as a whole, and coordinate its resources accordingly; and they are responsible for handling threats that affect the entire nation, whether it comes in the form of an invading army or a famine or vast plague. They, too, share the same family characteristics as nobility and coronates: those who are not attending to the family responsibility lose their status and their name, and anyone with the duty in their hearts may marry in. Royalty comes with some additional details: while the “ownership” of the position tends to go to one Queen or King, it is the responsibility of the other immediate family members to help support the primary ruler however they can. This often involves serving as advisors, and training thoroughly in a particular knowledge set so that they can advise the ruler accordingly: be it training in the nation’s history to help them understand the consequences of past decisions, training in trade and economics in order to assist with market issues, or the like.

When a family tends to and keeps a responsibility for many generations, this can sometimes manifest as magical traits that pass from generation to generation. This is not constrained only to the upper social statuses: a family who has passed the same farm down for generations and taken care of it may develop abilities or traits that are tied to their farm and allow them to continue to take care of it. This, too, fades from a family or branch of a family if they shirk their responsibility or simply do not tend to it; and while those marrying into a family will not pick it up themselves, their children very well may.

Tennant is the odd one out so far as social status is concerned: people are not born tennants. Tennants are defined not by keeping a responsibility, but rejecting it. They are those who have not merely shirked or passed on their responsibilities but actively violated them in some way – whether that is murdering a family member, bleeding a community’s resources dry, or betraying the crown. Tennants are looked-down on by the rest of society; and climbing out of tennanthood generally means performing some sort of atonement for the responsibility they violated. This may be an alcoholic who tore their family apart working to become sober; this may be an arsonist serving the city as a builder for a period of time determined by a judge; and so on.

Tennancy is distinct from simply losing social status due to the active and inverting nature of it. A craftsman who does not keep their craft will generally simply lose their status as a craftsman but continue life as a freeholder; but they might become a tennant if they knowingly sabotaged the goods they were making for others, were caught and convicted for it, and sentenced to a year in jail. The same is true for any other social status.

Overall, compared to a feudal system, Falnorian’s social system has vastly greater mobility; one can rise in social status by taking on the responsibilities characteristic of the next one and tending to them well, and one falls in social status by failing to do so or doing so poorly. It is not uncommon for someone to change social status several times over the course of their life. And, again, while wealth and education may assist in social mobility, the social statuses themselves are not defined by them but instead by their responsibilities, whatever those may be.

*Note that this is written to cover what has historically been the case for Falnorian and in older eras, not necessarily what is right now in the aftermath of the Fall.