The Beautiful Ones

Sappho, Charles Mengin (detail)

Baronial society and culture is significantly concerned with the management and cultivation of social alliances. Peers of social standing are generally grouped into rough 'generations', inside which rivals, movements, cliques, and gangs vie for renown, prominence, excellence, and stature. Baronials who were in rival gangs, associations, kill squads, or student groups as teenagers often use these institutions to structure their later dealings in politics, business, artistic and poetic endeavour, adventuring, etc. 

The cultivation of rivalries (which can be friendly, murderous, and anything in between), and the importance of maintaining close-knit communities of non-familial peers, has its cultural roots in the White City, but the Baronial form has unique traits. Chief among these is the concept of the group known as the Beautiful Ones, the Gorgeous Ones, or the Beloved.

Every adult Baronial of social standing will have their Beautiful Ones. They are a sub-group of peers within existing cliques and worthies, never close family, who undertake mutual vows of loyalty and kinship that can be public (and often are in the case of important politicians or mercenary captains) but are much more often private. The Beautiful Ones are always specific to individuals, not to broader cliques, and instructing someone who should or should not be a part of this group is considered in the worst possible taste. Beautiful Ones are trusted implicitly (and others will assume this trust implicitly, in the same way that we might ask someone for their next of kin) and, if they have proof of their vows, can argue for legal inheritance rights as close family might. 

More importantly, the Beautiful Ones represent the cultural limits of Baronial pragmatism. In most areas of life - generally including both family and marriage - a 'proper' Baronial should try to act reasonably and dispassionately where possible (this is an oversimplification, but Baronial pragmatism makes a virtue of always knowing what is prudent in a given situation, and keeping control of yourself at all times so that this stays clear to you). The opposite is true of the Beautiful Ones, on whom excessive displays of attention and affection are lavished, generally in private, although again there are exceptions. 

Betrayal by one of your Beautiful Ones is one of the worst kinds of heartbreak and misery. It is seen as deeply shameful as well as painful; evidence of both poor judgement and stupidity. Many crimes of passion in the Barony are justified as the reasonable, temporary insanity that results from betrayals of this kind.