Earl

Archivist's Excerpt from: Alone in the Cold: The Story of Orphan Towne, its Strange History, & its Stranger Occupants, CVI 42.4

The ultimate breakdown of the Peerage system of Orphan Heights comes down to the following:

A Marquess overseeing the whole affair of the colony

Four Earls for the Quarters

Various Viscounts to oversee the Districts

A smattering of Barons as land-lords over estates

And then there's everybody else. The peerage titles are generally dynastic and pass from father to eldest son, but can be bequeathed elsewhere on special appointment and approval from Orphan's Parliament.

Entry 9: Rule of the Finest Town

It is known that, upon settlement of Orphan Heights and during its early phases of construction, the settlers enacted their chartered form of peerage rule. Nobody liked this, especially the Barons, who insisted that, since Marquess was the highest noble rank among the settlers, and absent a proper Duke, the whole system was rubbish. The Marquess promptly disagreed. Democracy erupted.

Unsurprisingly, this led to bitter infighting and both escalated and concluded with the Hour & Quarter War, in which one man was winged across the ear, and the skirmish subsequently ended with drink. A rudimentary republic followed. It was based on both Plato’s Laws and Republic, and so the smartypants among the settlers insisted they be elected the much-ballyhooed Philosopher Kings. For the commoners, this smelled too much like a monarchy, and for the nobles, this didn’t smell enough like a monarchy.

And nobody liked the smartypants anyway.