The Reign of Queen Lillian, which was won by bloody conflict, has brought about a new Renaissance that may very well change the world forever. The changes have been many, and have affected all aspects of life. One of those is the role of social class differentiation in the Old World.

From a historical perspective, where bloodlines dictated placing of the higher class, and trades were usually handed down through family lines, our new, modern methods of social class creation would seem strange and illogical.

Queen Lillian has made an attempt to do away with much of the inequality present in the old system, while at the same time preserving the personalities and color of class distinctions. It has not been an easy task.

The highest class distinction, that of royalty, is composed almost entirely of regents appointed by Queen Lillian. Many of these regents come from common stock, and were appointed for the virtues of their leadership qualities and personalities. While such appointments, in any other province, would engender disrespect from the royalty of fellow provinces (what king wants to speak to a former peasant as an equal?), Queen Lillian has earned enough respect, and perhaps fear, from the other provinces to make her decisions worthy of their accord.

The next class (and we are descending in terms of social and gold-wielding power) is the nobles. The nobles consist of two main types of people – the first are former landholders from the Goddard times who can trace their heritage to the royal Goddard line. They were stripped of their lands by Queen Lillian, and no longer get tax-monies as they did under Goddard. But they retain their titles, and those who gained their gold from legitimate business practice have kept those businesses as their own. The second group is composed of rich merchants and new landowners, who have the title of nobility, but have no blood ties to any royal line.

There is, then, no official designation of ‘nobility’ assigned by the Queen, and thus, in effect, it is a fluid social class, like all others save that of royalty, and there are those within the class which will discredit the standing of others within that class. The major dividing line within the nobles seems to be the presence or lack of formerly royal bloodlines.

The merchant class consists of business owners. Usually wealthy, but not always, this class is defined primarily by the ownership of any sort of investment, from a spot on a ship, to an inn, to a jewelry shoppe, to a bakery.

The artisan class is made up of those with well-defined skills which they trade for gold. Bards and courtiers, jewelers and potters, glass blowers and shipwrights would all fall under this name.

The peasant class, which consists largely of native Northerners, has enjoyed a heightened sense of esteem since the arrival of Queen Lillian. Honored for their contribution to our lives (this being food), they are held in high regard by nobles and royalty alike. Queen Lillian utilizes magic and gold to compensate peasants for the losses of bad harvests, and visible celebrations and peasants’ markets have made these people well loved.

Then there are the ubiquitous commoners – those who have no special skills to trade, but who provide much of the labor necessary for running a city. Restaurant servers, laborers, lamplighters, and shoppe-workers are usually of the common class, which has taken a low turn in the eyes of nobles, primarily because of the commoners’ reputation for being irresponsible and prone to do little besides working and partying. While many commoners are, in truth, well-educated and earnest citizens, the overall reputation has sullied their class in the eyes of those above them.

Lastly are the lower class peoples, those who dwell outside the bounds of civilization. Bandits and twylahs, thieves and pirates, or those who have no work and beg off the affluence of others. Though the dream of any king or queen would be to have no lower class, it seems inevitable that they exist, pushed to radical means by those more skilled or talented than themselves.

Though these classes may seem defined, they truly are fluid. In other words, Queen Lillian has stripped the institution of class distinction of its rigid, defined walls. The individual, by virtue of his or her aspirations or talents, can rise or fall through the classes largely at will. Discipline or lack thereof has much to do with a person’s standing.

Lastly, it should be pointed out that class distinctions exist more for some people than for others. Nobles, for instance, seem more readily to classify people into rank, while commoners will not typically define someone by class so much as by personality or other traits.

Like all else of Lillian’s Renaissance, this grand social experiment will have much to do in the proving. It remains to be seen, as time passes, how the social classes will hold up. Some predict further stratification, while others insist that the fluidity will translate, eventually, into a melding of the classes into an indistinct mass.

It is an experiment worth watching.