Nibenese Nobility

Nibenay’s noble class is renowned for its decadence and indolence. Long ago, the city-state’s nobles were a warlord caste awarded fiefs in surrounding lands for their service in Nibenay’s wars. Over the centuries, the Shadow King’s templars consolidated military power in the army, reducing the nobles to the role of wealthy landlords who collect the rents and harvests of their tenant farmers. Much of the land for miles around the city walls, including the Plain of Smoking Waters, is divided into a patchwork quilt of noble holdings; Nibenese citizens buy their water from one noble or another. In comparison to Nibenay’s templar bureaucracy, the nobles are weak, corrupt, and disorganized, but they are exceedingly rich, and their cultural conservatism is a major contributing factor to the city’s arrogant, self-indulgent ways.