How should peoples interact with a Noble?

[Angelman]

It is impossible to give a general answer that is true for all circumstances. But generally speaking, any noble will be respected (feared even) where ever he may go. However, he will not have any actual power anywhere other than, 1) his own fief, b) a region/place he has been assigned to oversee, c) his patron’s fief [the last one being indirectly, his power stemming from the fact that he can be assumed to receive the support for his decisions from his patron, the lord of the land).
Now then, IF the noble is in a place where he wields actual power/jurisdiction, anyone working there, be they Avestite policemen or freeman bartender, is a subject to him and he can do with them as he pleases as long as it is legal and (usually) within common sense. Outside of his jurisdiction he can’t do much at all legally, although he can of course try to bully the locals to do as he pleases. Anyone can apprehend obvious criminals (i.e. citizens’ arrest etc.), but the Decados noble cannot arrest the bartender without good reason if on another person’s territory (unlawful arrests = kidnapping).
Why is there an Avestite policeman on the starport? Who game him authority to work as a crime fighter? If the Avestite is a vigilante with no real jurisdiction at the starport, then he’s actually a criminal and can be arrested. If the Avestite is a proper policeman appointed by our noble character to work on his land, then the noble character can arrest him if the Avestite breaks the rules or oversteps his boundaries in some way – or, if the noble is strong enough he can get away with arresting the priest for more or less no reason. “It is my land and here I am the law!” If the Avestite is a proper policeman appointed by another nobleman with higher authority/jurisdiction in the spaceport than the Decados character noble, then the noble can’t do a thing (legally) unless he can somehow prove that the local lord is impotent or a guilty party (which in most cases would include convincing the local lord’s own patron that he’s a crock).
As for the Decados starship captain, I didn’t understand the situation and I’m unable to answer. But generally speaking, the noble can’t demand anything of another noble unless he is, a) that nobleman’s patron, or b) our noble’s patron is also a patron of the other nobleman (or even more complicated relations), in which case our player character noble should be able to place any demands on the other noble which it is likely the patron would agree with.

A good reminder is that everyone belongs to a chain of command, and there is no such thing as universal power. A nobleman on a Bishop’s land won’t have any jurisdiction at all, for instance. And a Baron cannot boss around all nobles of lower rank than himself belonging to his House, he can only boss around those lesser nobles who “belongs” to him in the chain of command.

Did this rant help any? All of the above are very general statements, and there are loads of exceptions.

[Angelman]

As for military ranks, have a look at Legions of the Empire p.111. Commoners can obtain non-commissioned ranks, but all officers (lieutenants, captains, and admirals) on noble warships will be nobles.

There is also a common confusion about the word "captain" as it is also used to signify the leader of private and commercial ships (i.e. the person onboard a ship who decides where it goes, which will often not be the pilot - he's just the chauffeur).

For Church and Guild ships, things might be very different.


As a general advise, to figure out how much power a local character holds, figure out who's the ruler of the land and consider the power of our character's patron(s).

[Danos]

In my own campaigns, space navy ships are usually tied to fiefs that provide the base crew and operating funds, at least in theory. In a well run navy, this will be true, but in most navies, the noble in command of the ship will have to supplement his operating funds somehow.

I like to tie ships to the big apartment blocks on Delphi, Cadiz, and so forth. That gives the noble a couple of thousand families to recruit grunts from, and the rents from those families to run the ship. At least in theory. This is why the Li Halan preserve Lyonesse, this is why Delphi has a strong navy, and it explains the strength to Salandra - Cadiz has a lot of those second republic apartment blocks, and thus is the home base for a lot of the mid-size Decados ships.

This isn't canon, just a way I like to run things. I gave one noble a fief, and then he found out he was expected to crew a frigate because it was tied to the fief. He didn't have to captain the frigate himself, but one of the obligations of his fief was to maintain that frigate. He didn't understand why his fief with two fishing fleets and three canneries and a wet naval shipyard only gave him such a small income. And then the Reeve got to the part of the balance sheet where she started talking about his frigate...

[Angelman]

[Calvin]

The captain of the craft will be a noble. The usual noble courtesy applies. The captain in this situation is under the authority of his lord as a part of his feudal duty (patrol, pirate control or whatnot) and will be expected to perform that duty foremost. If we go with my model, a mere baron won't be in place to command squads of spacecraft belonging to the duke or count controlling them. For a full answer, we'd need to know the position of your PC in the House. Does he have any special authority to request aid? Is this noble a part of his family line?

Most Avestites don't have police powers, they run soup kitchens and preach in street corners. Sometimes they get deputised by Church organisations with actual police powers. What gives this avestite police powers? Is he (and most likely a whole gang of his fellows) doing a vigilante round? Is he deputised by the local Church or even the Inquisition? If he is a Church deputy, he is more likely to be looking for crimes against canon law. The Church sometimes checks new arrivals in space or around the spaceports for heretical contraband.

Freemen workers are supposed to pay him respect, like anyone with noble rank. Unless he is doing something obviously hostile to their lord (breaking into the starport, trying to order workers around without clearance, drawing a sword and stabbing random people on the street) he should have some leeway.

Why would you throw veggies at a vorox? It is a huge, six-armed alien beast. :s I doubt the Avestites would bother with a full procedure on this one. They might take the worker away for a sound beating in an alley or a night in their precinct-chapel. Yes, the Avestites aren't henchmen for the noble lords to command. They are probably outside the local lords influence. These are people who have no problems torching a noble if he defies scripture. Is your noble PC a known troublemaker or heretic? Their reaction might be anything from professional courtesy to using this as an excuse to pressure him.

I believe military spacecraft are above the resources of individual baronial fiefs. I have proposed the division of regions before, with country nobility tied to centres of industry influencing the regions around them. In this system, nobles would provide tithes in form of manpower, money and resources which would eventually be used to form squads of spacecraft under the authority of a regional noble. These squads are then called upon to defend the system and form task forces at the behest of the system lord, which in turn has a feudal duty to provide craft for the House fleet as needed. There is no standing House spacefleet besides the craft under the personal control of the House central court. That doesn't mean a little baron could afford the complex support structures, training and maintenance a spacecraft requires. When you influence a large region or a continent, you might start thinking about holding a spacecraft.

[Danos]

Calvin, I disagree with your take on spaceships in the fleet, but I agree with the rest. I think we just read the material in Legions of the Empire differently. I certainly agree that a baron could not afford to have a ship built, but the costs of maintenance are fairly low. Salaries for gunners, marines, and crew are quite low, only a few firebirds per month each. The guilders cost more, but a wealthy fief could certainly afford to pay for a guild pilot, co-pilot, and an engineer. All the other positions could be filled by freemen or serfs from a lords estate. I think the House builds ships, then assigns them noble captains who are expected to pay maintenance from their fief income. The crews are very poorly trained unless the captain spends extra on training and ordinance. That's my take on it, anyway.

[jhwisner]

It depends on why they're there and under whose authority. If they're just local low-ranking avestites then that would be up to the local lord; a particularly zealous follower of the church may enthusiastically involve Avestites in policing activities and give them wide-sweeping authority within his/her lands. Alternatively, an unusual crisis (a rash of incedents associated with psychic covens, antinomists, etc.) could prompt a local lord to grant a specific cadre of Avestites special authority to help with ending the problem (a great excuse to invent such problems if one were a less than honest Avestite.)

The inquisition gives itself rather broad authority but it isn't going to have its troops just stationed all over the place without reason. More often thy descend when rumors (sometimes true sometimes not) of significant heresies justify their presence. If the local authority (noble house, guild, etc.) cooperates then they basically have police-like powers but will be focusing on some specific activity or group so won't be standing guard and going on beat-cop patrols around town. If the local authority is uncooperative then their presence is going to be more like an invasion - though usually short.

Most of the inqusitions operations outside their own territory I remember reading about involve strikes on illegal labs or cults. The rest are privateer-like interdiction; they stop your shop and demand to search it. Where and when they have the authority to do so is not so much the issue; it's whether the local authority has the will or the means to stop them. Because of that it seems like the Inquisition operate much like pirates or privateers of old did - they operate when and where there isn't anybody around to tell them they don't have the authority. They come in force and burn the unclean quickly and then leave before any lord has time to complain that they're doing anything more than rooting out a few heretics. If they stayed any longer than that, an entire house or guild might rally to prevent what would look like the church stealing their land. This would explain why guild strong-holds like Leagueheim can get away with as much as they do - as long as they don't go too far.

[Calvin]

The workers and your PC should know that if this is brought to any kind of official attention, his word will count more than theirs. They won't start a bar fight with him if they have any kind of common sense. Fun thing with ranks. An IRL wet navy captain is at the same level as a land army colonel. Not that I like using naval ranks unmodified... There are lots of functions in space not covered by naval ranks.

How to treat the Avestites is an interesting question. In the unmodified form, you have Pilgrims. They are basically just Avestites who have decided to set up shop somewhere outside Pyre and work among the populace. Avestites as such have no more police powers than your average country priest, perhaps even less so. The nobility of the Avestite Temple is in their unwilligness to compromise. There can be no separation, we are all equal under the Pancreator. Where the Orthodoxy has more political wisdom, the Avestites act out of conviction. Pilgrims are tough, resourceful individuals. Inquisitorial deputies are gathered and deployed in concentrated numbers on specific sites. Inquisitorial strike forces land in an assault shuttle and overwhelm what they are there to investigate. Your friendly local Avestites doing a neighbourhood watch can still be a nuisance. They are churchmen, and as such they are a part of one of the truly interstellar interstellar hierarchal organisations.

I believe this Avestite bloke is a customs vigilante... Lots of goods, possibly proscribed, flow through the spaceport. There are Church vessels that sometimes go around claiming a right to inspect for proscribed goods. I don't know if this is a widely recognised right, or if it's just something they do whenever they can get away with it. I don't see the poor Church customs Avestites trying to stop Imperial Navy patrols soon.

[Angelman]