/CLASS AND POWER
Power may come from:
Title.
Wealth.
Land.
Law.
Education.
Military command.
Faction influence.
Reputation.
Family connection.
Religious authority.
Information.
Magical access.
Control of labor.
Control of food or transport.
Access to the sovereign.
Different classes possess different forms of power.
@The Crown I may issue commands, appoint officials, conduct diplomacy, and represent the Union.
@The Crown II may influence succession, cadet branches, legitimacy, territorial authority, and former royal power.
@The Dynasty may shape marriage, inheritance, royal continuity, and political alliances.
@The Gentry may control land, offices, courts, estates, local reputation, and access to authority.
@The Mercantiles may control credit, trade, shipping, storage, supply, debt, contracts, and investment.
@The Professional Class may control education, medicine, law, certification, records, architecture, magical licensing, and administrative procedure.
@The Artisan Class may control valuable techniques, workshops, production, repair, and access to essential goods.
@The Martial Class may control organized force, security, detention, patrol, military protection, and enforcement.
@The Labor Class may possess collective power through work stoppage, organization, local knowledge, essential services, and control of daily operations.
@The Rural Poor may possess community networks, food production, village solidarity, land knowledge, and the ability to resist estate demands.
@The Dispossessed may build mutual-aid networks, refuges, information routes, public sympathy, and resistance outside formal institutions.
@The Shadow Caste I may control theft, smuggling, violence, illegal transport, contraband, and criminal territory.
@The Shadow Caste II may control information, forged documents, hidden identities, illicit markets, performance, reputation, and covert access.
No one class controls every form of power.
Formal authority may fail when it lacks labor, money, information, public support, or practical enforcement.
/CLASS AND MAGIC
All full classes are mechanically capable of spellcasting because of Valeune’s game structure.
This does not mean every person is a trained caster.
It does not mean every class receives equal access to every spell.
Spell access depends on:
The character’s exact full class.
Character level.
The approved class spell list.
Established magical school access.
Training.
Teachers.
Materials.
Literacy where necessary.
Legal permission.
Institutional access.
Opportunity.
A royal title does not grant unlimited magic.
A poor character is not naturally less magical.
A criminal character does not automatically use Hollow magic.
A Priest does not automatically possess Heart magic.
A Physician does not automatically know every healing spell.
A person’s @RACE does not determine their full class or magical school.
Magic may reinforce class inequality when wealthy people can afford teachers, licenses, safe practice, materials, and private protection.
Magic does not erase the class system merely because potential exists across society.
/CLASS MOBILITY
Movement between classes is possible, but it is difficult and consequential.
A person may rise through:
Marriage.
Inheritance.
Adoption.
Military promotion.
Education.
Patronage.
Accumulated wealth.
Faction support.
Purchase of land.
Royal appointment.
Professional recognition.
Workshop ownership.
Emancipation.
Public achievement.
A person may fall through:
Debt.
Disgrace.
Criminal conviction.
Exile.
Loss of property.
Political defeat.
Loss of title.
Disability without support.
Family rejection.
War.
Natural disaster.
Failed trade.
Destroyed records.
Faction retaliation.
Class movement must have a believable cause.
A character does not become Gentry because they attended one court celebration.
A Street Vendor does not become a Merchant Proprietor because they sold one valuable object.
A Soldier does not become a General because they won one duel.
A royal person does not become socially ordinary the moment they lose access to the palace.
Class change affects relationships, housing, income, law, reputation, education, clothing, marriage prospects, and self-understanding.
A promoted character may gain authority while losing trust among former peers.
A merchant who purchases land may remain socially rejected by old Gentry families.
A criminal who becomes respectable may remain vulnerable to exposure or retaliation.
A freed person may gain lawful liberty without gaining property, education, documents, or public trust.
/CLASS AND FACTION
Class and faction are separate systems.
A person may belong to an established @FACTION without changing full class.
A Merchant Proprietor may belong to @The Gilded Compact.
A Caravan Master may belong to @The Saltroad Consortium.
A maritime trader may work with @The Tidebound Exchange.
A contract specialist may belong to @The Brass Ledger.
A worker or market advocate may join @The Common Scale.
A freed person or legal advocate may work with @The Broken Yoke.
A Smuggler may belong to @The Salt Knives.
A Forger may belong to @The False Seal.
Faction membership creates obligations, allies, enemies, protection, resources, and reputation.
It does not replace class.
A faction may contain people from several classes performing different roles.
/SOCIAL EXPECTATIONS
Class shapes expected behavior.
Royal people are expected to represent the Crown and protect dynastic reputation.
Dynastic people are expected to preserve family alliances, succession, and political continuity.
Gentry families are expected to maintain property, education, respectability, and public standing.
Mercantile characters are expected to understand contracts, reputation, supply, credit, and negotiation.
Professionals are expected to possess verified knowledge and obey recognized standards.
Artisans are judged by training, workmanship, reliability, and control of materials.
Martial characters are judged by discipline, service, command, and courage.
Laborers are expected to obey employers, complete difficult work, and remain socially unobtrusive even when those expectations become exploitative.
The Rural Poor are expected to produce food, pay rent, endure bad seasons, and remain tied to land controlled by others.
The Dispossessed may be treated as suspicious before committing any crime.
Members of the Shadow Castes may be assumed dishonest or dangerous even when performing legal acts.
These expectations influence treatment.
They do not determine how every individual behaves.
/UNEQUAL TREATMENT
Valeune is not an equal society.
The same action may produce different consequences depending on the class of the person involved.
A noble may describe violence as a dispute of honor.
A Laborer may be arrested for the same conduct.
A wealthy merchant may survive debt through negotiation, refinancing, or political protection.
A Tenant Farmer may lose their home.
A royal scandal may be concealed by household officials.
A poor person’s private suffering may become public entertainment.
A Professional’s testimony may be trusted over direct experience.
A criminal accusation may destroy a dispossessed person before evidence is examined.
Law exists.
Courts function.
Contracts matter.
Officials perform real work.
However, enforcement is shaped by money, influence, faction protection, race, region, reputation, documents, and access to representation.
Do not portray the legal system as perfectly fair.
Do not portray it as entirely meaningless.
/CLASS AND RELATIONSHIPS
Marriage, romance, adoption, patronage, employment, friendship, and found family can connect people across classes.
These relationships do not automatically erase unequal power.
A noble may love a servant while still controlling their wages, housing, and reputation.
A merchant may marry into the Gentry without being fully accepted.
A royal may form a genuine friendship with a guard while retaining the power to affect the guard’s career.
A Professional may provide care to a poor patient while possessing authority over private medical information.
A criminal leader may protect a neighborhood while also controlling it through fear.
Relationships across class should acknowledge affection, loyalty, dependency, coercion, opportunity, and social consequence where relevant.
/CLASS CONFLICT
Class conflict should arise from practical interests rather than automatic moral alignment.
Common causes include:
Wages.
Taxation.
Land.
Debt.
Contracts.
Inheritance.
Military service.
Food.
Housing.
Access to medicine.
Political representation.
Labor safety.
Guild restrictions.
Criminalization.
Property ownership.
Unequal law.
Different elite groups may oppose one another.
Workers may disagree over tactics.
Poor communities may exclude outsiders.
Reformers may create unintended harm.
A person may defend a system that disadvantages them because it also provides identity, safety, work, faith, family stability, or hope of advancement.
Do not reduce every conflict to rich villains against innocent poor people.
Do not erase exploitation merely because a powerful character is personally kind.
/GENERATION RULES
Use only established full classes and subclasses.
Link only to a full @CLASS, never to a subclass.
Do not infer class from @RACE.
Do not infer morality from class.
Do not change class casually.
Keep wealth, title, occupation, faction, legal status, and personal reputation distinct.
Allow class to affect speech, clothing, housing, education, law, work, travel, relationships, and consequence.
Keep ordinary labor visible.
When uncertain, choose the nearest established class rather than inventing another.
Do not make every important character royal, noble, in
dependently wealthy, professionally educated, magically exceptional, or secretly connected to the Crown.
/FINAL RULE
Valeune’s class system is one of the primary structures through which power and inequality operate.
It shapes who owns, who commands, who works, who receives education, who gains protection, who is believed, who is punished, and who is expected to remain unseen.