Rayos way of life

The Kingdom of Rayos resides in the Western part of Nayleera, the ruling family is house Rayos, who have been the ruling family since the beginning of time in Nayleera. The House is the largest in the kingdom, and holds the most power as they are all royal blood.

When the ancestors of the Kingdom of Rayos first came to Nayleera, they were led by a man named Micah Rayos and his wife Ysmay Rayos brought the people as well as their four sons with them. From the four sons the four main houses were born, years since then the name Rayos has only stayed with the decedents of the first son, the three younger sons gave way for House Cassadine, House Salvatore, and House Disraeli. These four houses are highly influential within the court, and if by chance the House of Rayos would ever fail to produce an heir, the chain of inheritance would fall to Cassadine, Salvatore and lastly Disraeli.

[img*]Salva crest[/*img]

After these four high houses as they are referred to, are the lower houses. Lords and Ladies that have been given nobility over the decades by the ruling family. These houses while influential have very little right to ruling unless they marry into one of the High Houses.



Within the Court there are also members that are not nobility. Servants and Knights being the top most common members.




RANKS

King/Queen: KING (OPEN) Rayos AND QUEEN (OPEN) Rayos. The king has a ceremonial fucking huge sword, like five feet long. This is a statement of wealth, power and prestige and is very finely made, light and strong - he can actually fight with it if he needs to. It's single-edged and tapers down to a point so it can theoretically be stabbed with but let's get real, what the fuck are you doing with a gigantic sharp edge besides cutting bitches' limbs off.

Royal family of any number of however many the fuck babies that the king feels like popping out. They're armed with whatever they can badger daddy to arm them with. Probably expensive weapons with lots of weapons-grade steel.

Perhaps a brother somewhere.Probably uses a long-ass sword in traditional royal style. Pretty much as rich and powerful as the king but of course actually going against the king is treason.

High Lords/Ladies
Three ancestral distant 'cousins' of the king, born from four lesser sons of a much older king, who each have more of a claim to the throne than any lesser nobility due to hereditary (claimed) descent from the king but their ancestry is very old and they're no longer strictly 'royal', just very influential. They each have an ancestral house weapon or five.

Lords/Ladies
However the fuck many noble families that the King felt like giving land and a title, lesser nobles that are granted a very distant claim to the throne by 'divine providence' but really it's just the king handing out land to whoever will serve his purpose. They can arm themselves with whatever but polearms are fashionable because they're long like 'royal' weapons but less expensive with a wooden shaft.

Knights
Crown-Sired, people made knights by the king himself who are granted influence and a position of power but do not own any grand tracts of land. Can choose to take up a position in the army or act on behalf of the church, either way they are extremely respected by the general people and are, in theory, selfless protectors of the realm. The king's guard is a specially chosen group of these and they all use long-bladed halberds with a right-angle fan of spikes from the top to the back of the blade. Anyone besides that uses a real sword - the 'knightly sword'. One-handed, after the fashion of a saber or kriegsmesser. This is the mark of true, martially accomplished nobility, and you do not lightly fuck with someone carrying one. Obviously, there's a booming market for such swords, but each one is forged for a specific knight and they're all accounted for, and carrying one places the knight it belongs to within his crown-given right to kill the carrier. This creates a bit of a loophole, in which a particularly dickish knight can give his sword to a mouthy townsperson and then take it back and cut their fucking head off on the spot. The knights serve as lawkeepers, while the men of the church make the law on behalf of the king.

Sword-Sired, knights made knights by Crown-Sired who act on behalf of the king. Cannot hold a position of power, but they are given as much trust as the people place in their sire to choose good candidates i.e. a famously shitty Crown-Sired's Sword-Sired wouldn't be trusted with anything much, but a great and powerful Crown-Sired who always trains his men well will be handing off a great amount of prestige and responsibility to any Sword-Sired he makes. Basically the king's police force, and the most trusted ones can act as impromptu 'captain of the guards' in towns where they're needed, as well as judges.

Townfolk have no place in the proceedings, this is a monarchy. However, particularly wealthy citizens may be given 'honorary' meaningless titles to keep them buttered and there will be a certain number of civilian advisers and counselmen to the king who will present a voice of the people to the court. In practice, these people are as rich as the lesser nobility themselves and really the only difference is that they don't live in a fucking castle. There's a big-ass wage gap. Realistically, these people aren't going to arm themselves, but they'll have something if they're feeling dark and edgy.