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To be a Baneblooded aristocrat in Tierra is to be in possession of great privilege. With few exceptions, only Baneblooded men may purchase officers' commissions within the King's Army, or aspire to command ships of the King's Navy. Only Banebloods may be considered for appointment within the higher ranks of the Royal Intendancy and other institutions of the civil service. Only Banebloods may become full members of the Knightly Orders, as well as a myriad of other exclusive organisations and clubs. Banebloods are exempt from the land taxes which prevent all others from holding and leasing out landed estates for meaningful profit. They are also exempt from low justice, being subject only to criminal conviction through a Cortes vote. In exchange for such immense advantages, they must also take on certain obligations: they are barred from partaking in the trades, and they are obliged to adhere to unspoken but stringent codes of behaviour, ones which are violated at peril to the offender's reputation, fortune, and life.
However, despite these common factors, not all Banebloods are equal. Tierran society is a highly stratified affair, and the aristocracy is no exception to that rule. The vast majority of the Baneblooded classes are made up of the households of the untitled, or Low Nobility. Whilst often in possession of considerable fortunes and properties, as well as no small amount of social influence, they lack any true politickal power. Their lands and wealth have little more legal protection than those of the Baneless, and although they may purchase a Baronetcy from the Crown at considerable expense, such a distinction serves little meaningful purpose and does not elevate them to the echelons of real power.
For that, one must look to the High, or Cortes Nobility. These are the six hundred or so noble houses in possession of a title, and thus a seat in the Tierran Cortes, or parliament. This too is a class subject to great stratification, from the houses of the immensely wealthy and powerful Dukes, down the order of power, wealth, and seniority to Marquesses, Earls, Viscounts, and finally Barons, whose estates may consist of little more than a hard-scrabble village or two, a decaying country house, and an immense family debt, accumulated over the course of generations in an attempt to keep up appearances.
However, despite this great disparity, all members of the Cortes Nobility possess certain powers and privileges in common.
The first of these is, of course, the right to maintain a seat on the Cortes, to be held by the head of that house. These individuals are known collectively as the Lords of the Cortes.
In official terms, every Lord of the Cortes is equal to any other within the Cortes Chamber. Each vote possesses no greater weight than any other, and thus in theory, a Baron with an income of nine hundred crown a year holds the same power within the Chamber as a Duke who brings in a hundred and fifty thousand.
Of course, in reality, things are rather different. Those Lords of the Cortes possessed of great wealth or influence have ways of making others vote as they do—which means one vote with enough money or patronage behind it could easily rally dozens. As a result, the opinions of those Lords of the Cortes unable to amass such power are considered with less weight than those who can. Thus, when the Cortes opens, a great many lords entitled to sit within it choose instead to remain on their estates, either out of a refusal to play the influence games required to become a major power, or out of the simple understanding that the potential rewards of Cortes politics are not worth the expense of maintaining a townhouse and establishment in the capital. As a result, only perhaps one out of five Cortes seats are filled in any given session, though particularly contested votes are more likely to attract higher attendance.
This hardly means that the Cortes Nobility do not enjoy the exercise of their powers, however. The other privileges which Lords of the Cortes possess are ones which they may employ from the comfort of their country estates: the right to dispense justice and mete punishment to those who reside in their lands, the right to raise a private army—or Houseguard—to defend their estates, and the right to entail property to a title so that it cannot be confiscated, save in the direst extremity.
The last of these rights is of particular significance, for it means that much of Tierra's best and most populated land is tied up in noble titles. Under normal circumstances, such titles—and thus, the property entailed to them—are passed from father to eldest son, but when a noble house possesses no male heirs, matters quickly grow complicated. Under Tierran inheritance law, control over a title whose holder has died without male heirs reverts to the overlord from which the title was issued from, be it an Earl, a Marquess, a Duke, or the King himself. Though a female heir may inherit the title itself, she has no control over the substance of its powers or entailed property. She only retains the right to marry, and thus place her inheritance under the control of another—and even then such matters remain difficult, for the titles of two noble houses may only be combined with the approval of a Cortes vote, a measure to prevent a single family from amassing too much power.
Given the undesirability of such an eventuality, it is perhaps then no surprise that many noble houses spend great quantities of time, influence, and money to secure advantageous wedding matches for their children, both for the sake of social and politickal advancement, and to retain estates and patrimonies which may have been passed down for generations, if not centuries.