I will use Ancient Rome (mostly Republican Rome vs. Imperial due to familiarity with it) whenever I don't have a great Coryani example:
deluge wrote:
What about the daughters and sons of Coryani nobility? Do they inherit the status? Does only the eldest inherit the status? Do the children of Patricians have to achieve their own status?
Do not think of Patrician families as standard feudal lords. Think of them as extended families, or better yet, as Mafia groups. In Rome, the eldest male (typically the father) is the head of a household and holds absolute power over those beneath them. These individual households could belong to various Tribes/Clans/Families, such as Gaius Julius Caeser being a member of the Julia Gens (his particular Patrician Clan). The Patriarch (and in Coryan, some cases Matriarch) of the family is typically an elder family member, but ultimately it is the person that the rest of the clan can accept as the head of the family.
That said, in high-status families (like the Tensin-Balin's) certain positions can be passed down within the family. For example, a sitting member of the senate may (and likely would) have their Senate seat pass to their child after their death. In Ancient (republican) Rome, membership in the Senate was determined by holding a magistrate position beforehand, but Coryan doesn't quite line up with that.
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A bit of a rules query - why do Noble Born (who can't be Coryani) qualify for the Legate Path? Legate sounds like a Coryani only thing.
The vaguaries of writing? The way Legate is written in the Codex of Heroes makes it sound more like a generic governor, magistrate, or official than the literal latin word Legatus. As such, the FUCNTIONAL meaning of the word in Arcanis Rules applies to any nationstate with a bureaucracy and officials, be it a Provincial Governor, a City Prefect, a Mandarin of the Khitani Empire, or even an official in King Osric's Court.
In real life, the Legate was the appointed military governor of an Imperial Province of the Roman Empire who was named by the Emperor (as opposed to an elected official elected by the Senate in Senatorial Provinces), as well as being the functional equivalent of a General of a Legion.
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What does Noble's Outfit mean for a Coryani? Are the marks of status on a toga other than the green trim of the Patricians?
In Rome, the very act of wearing a Toga showed you were of 'noble' birth (a trait stolen from the Etruscans, btw). In Coryan, the Toga is a more common garment marking you as a citizen of the Empire, with the different colours differentiating you from a Plebeian (commoner), a Patrician (green trim), or a Patrician Imperialis (gold trim). Any val patrician is automatically a Patrician Imperialis (because they are blessed by the Gods), but not all val are patricians. In the original Codex Arcanis, it was stated that several (human) patricians would often marry val commoners to 'advance' themselves up the social ladder of the Empire by injecting some val genes into their lines, making at least their progeny Patrician Imperialis.