[Banestorm] Why is the Cardien Council of Lords full of barons and vicounts?

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by malloyd

That's too many. By a factor of 10 or more. More than 1% of the population being titled or members of their immediate family? No way.
Admittedly the most familiar aristocracy to most of us, England, is unusually small and restricts it's titles a lot, but even a broad caste is not likely to exceed 5% of the population, and only a few percent of those will have an actual title. With a few million people, you might have a few thousand titles, assuming the system is fairly generous about diffusing them among multiple kinsmen, but you are going to need more than a hundred subordinates to rate the title "baron".

True, but he is at least right that the large number of barons is odd, and even having two viscounts on the council is unexpected (if they're rich enough to be on the council, they're rich enough to bribe their way into higher titles - as Gold & Appel Inc says, money talks, but in that sort of culture, it should be saying 'give me a better title').

Let's say that there are about two or three dukes in Cardiel, apparently no marquesses or equivalent (does the title exist on Yrth? I'm not seeing it in GURPS Banestorm, though I could have missed it), about a dozen or so counts, a few dozen to a hundred viscounts, around five hundred to a thousand barons, and a larger number of knights and other wealthy gentry and commons. That still means that most of the lords on the Cardien Council should be counts, not barons.