Okay this was from another thread:
quote:
Originally posted by Tamren:
<STRONG>Well thats the thing, we appoint nobles by hand now so the term "noble" is misleading. The only true nobility is the king and such.By appointing a dwarf to be your bookeeper or whatever, you are implying that they have a job that can not be performed by a regular dwarf.
Therefore, the bookeeper and the "doctor" is a noble, or whatever other term we find to describe thier higher status and responsibilities.</STRONG>
But, the thing about Nobility is that at one point of time they were elected (a one time thing); they just never step down. A more realistic system would be if you had a leader of your fortress who starts out as a normal dwarf. I think it would be this leader, who would eventually become king of the Fortress. Perhaps he is just a peasant, and you have nobility come in, but he retains the power of the colony, and eventually one of the Nobels will 'lower' himself and marry off a daughter to him, bringing him into the nobility. I just can see problems arising when 200 dwarves have someone they consider to be their leader, and then nobel comes along and decides he is king of the fortress.