Background Lens Revisited: Aristocracy

Maradonian Lady,
Art by Kriz Villacis
Owned by Daniel Dover

For September, my Patrons voted to revisit the Aristocratic Background Lens.  This turned out to be fairly labor intensive (I had hoped to do one background and one template in the month; I was unable to do a template).  This makes sense, though, because aristocrats tend to be deeply tied to the setting, and they've also been one of the more popular elements of Psi-Wars.

For most people following Psi-Wars, "aristocrat" is likely synonymous with "Maradonian Noble." After all, they're the core of the Alliance, which is one of the core factions of the setting.  But what I want to do with the aristocrats is break them out in to several possible options, to offer some additional nuance. This will give you some insight into the politics of the galaxy, as well as some ideas for how you could make some new, unique lineages of nobles.  I've already posted the setting elements of two of these: the Ranathim Mithanna and the Shinjurai royal family, but the point of today's post is to give you the tools for any aristocrat: Asrathi high-born, Westerly tribal royalty, Pelian nobility, or Lithian potentates and warlords.  The Galaxy is huge, so all the worked examples should be seen as drops in the bucket compared to the possible variety found within the Galaxy at large.

You can check out the Generic Aristocrat background lens on the wiki.  Over the course of the week, I'll try to release the other, more specific lenses to the wiki as well.